Recent content by Steve Sawyer

That's interesting. Would love to see some details on that. Scale length, type of strings used, pickup choice, etc. etc. I like the 2x4 construction! A friend of mine built a beautiful Telecaster out of knotty 2x4s, and it sounds as great as it looks!

Use this stuff. I just bought a sheet of this to replace the disintegrating foam in a case for a Chapman Stick. It's much stiffer than upholstery foam, so it provides some structural support. It's also really easy to cut with a utility knife blade. Foam rubber requires special tools to cut it...

Start with the thin stuff to allow it to wick into the crack, follow with some medium and immediately clamp. Cross fingers.

Yeah. The guiding principle is "you can never have too many clamps". A novice once asked how many is "enough". I replied that if you turn to grab one, and you have one to grab - you have enough! :)

They're so tiny that you usually don't need to pull them out. Actually I've never tried. I think you'd do a lot of damage to the surface trying to remove them. 23ga is about 0.023". That's the size of a sewing needle. If visible at all, it's just a tiny metallic dot. The pinner will often set...

Look into buying or borrowing a 23ga pinner. I'd be lost without mine. They can be driven by a small pancake compressor. The pins are so small they're usually not noticeable. I've used them to keep scarf joints (for joining angled headstocks to necks) from sliding under clamp pressure. I...

Not sure what the limitations of the tape is, but two things I've found work well on irregularly shaped objects - that stretchy wrapping film, and bicycle inner tubes. The inner tubes can be cut into strips of varying widths, depending on how much "oomph" you need. The nice thing about the...

Yup. Identified the model on their website. Thanks!

Cool. Thanks!!

I've been trying to identify the EUB that Tony has here. Anyone recognize it?

A suggestion. @DoubleMIDI's point is good wrt hide glue. However, I've found hide glue to be a PITA to work with, not least of which is it's maddening tendency to start to gel as soon as it hits the cold wood. Not that this can't be overcome (as @DoubleMIDI explains), but it seems that using...

Yes. I was just looking at the drawings (for the 3/4 size) and noticed the radius at the root of the FB as 3" so close to what Bruce was mentioning above. Doesn't seem to be a radius on the plans for the FB at the nut end tho...

That's interesting. Not a fan of the little hatbox "body", but I'm sure there's no reason that couldn't be modified. In looking at these, I'm noticing one big variation. That instrument and others I've seen are specifically designed only for playing pizz, not bowed. If that is my intention, is...

Thanks. My goal is twofold - the fun of researching and building, and the playing. As to the first, the "hard way" is also the most fun. In building furniture, there was always that point in a project when I wondered why I started it, and just wanted it to be done. With guitars, I never hit that...

Thanks, Bruce - that looks like a lot of good stuff to dig into.