Double Sevens

[lbridenstine]

Well, I put a new blade on the bandsaw and made some cuts today. I re-sawed the limba, but I need to level everything before I glue anything together, so I guess this stuff will wait until next weekend.

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I decided to switch out which pieces of black limba to use for the myrtle guitar. I thought the pair I had chosen had too much going on to be the back of this one, so I think I'll use them for a solid black limba body instead. I have enough limba for 4 bodies total, so I was able to just pick out different pieces.



Does anyone have suggestions for the best/easiest way to plane a twisted board? The spalted tamarind is twisted and I have room to plane it down flat and still get the 2 re-sawn pieces I need out of it, but I don't have a planer.

My initial thought is to put it on another board and prop the corners to keep it from wobbling and just make one side flat with the router sled, then let the flat side ride against the bandsaw fence while I re-saw my pieces for the top. If anyone has easier ideas, feel free to share.

Safe-T-Planer? I have one of those now. I still haven't tried it, but plan to on these builds. No idea if I should try it on spalted tamarind...

 

[fataltragedy]

Does anyone have suggestions for the best/easiest way to plane a twisted board?

I use a router sled to mill boards flat, not saying its the best way but in the absence of a planer/jointer it works pretty good once you keep your router bit sharp and dont take too much off at a time.

Safe-T-Planer?

I tried a safe-T planer in my drill press a few times before and wasn't a fan, found it a bit on the dangerous side, plus drill presses aren't really designed for the side-on force, I was afraid I would do damage if i kept using it this way.

 

[MrArose13]

looks good to me already Lisa. As far as your planer dilemma... I'd say your on the right track for making use of the tools you've got.

 

[scottyd]

Lisa, how long have you had the wood?

 

[scottyd]

The warped wood particularly.

 

[lbridenstine]

I use a router sled to mill boards flat, not saying its the best way but in the absence of a planer/jointer it works pretty good once you keep your router bit sharp and dont take too much off at a time.


I tried a safe-T planer in my drill press a few times before and wasn't a fan, found it a bit on the dangerous side, plus drill presses aren't really designed for the side-on force, I was afraid I would do damage if i kept using it this way.

looks good to me already Lisa. As far as your planer dilemma... I'd say your on the right track for making use of the tools you've got.

Yeah, I think the router sled option is what I'll do. I have some packets of Sugru (moldable rubber/adhesive) and I think I'm going to mold some corners to stick down to a board and hold the wood in place while I go over it with the router. If that works good, I might do the same thing when I level the neck laminates.

Lisa, how long have you had the wood?

The warped wood particularly.

I'm not sure, a year or less. It was twisted when I got it. I wasn't planning on using it for a guitar, but ya know how that goes when wood looks nice.

 

[lbridenstine]

This is the second round of the dye test. First round, I just did black and sanded back from the top corner. Second I did amber over the whole thing and black from the bottom and repeat amber from the top corner and black from the bottom corner until I got this mess.

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Then I sanded by hand from the top corner, sanding the most there and a little everywhere else. Covered it all with amber again, black from the bottom corner, wetted the amber rag with water to try to blend, more black, more amber, then ended up using a dry rag for the blend.

It's hard for me to judge from this size of a test piece because the actual guitar will be more like 50/50 black/amber and I'll have more room to blend.

I definitely should have sanded the myrtle before the first round of dye, but I didn't.

I think a mix between the last two rounds would be better than each result, but I think I just need more room to make the blend and still have amber at one end.

I'll let that dry and see how tung oil looks on it and probably try again on the other side of the scrap. I'd like to try spraying to see if it's smoother.

 

[lbridenstine]

I put a coat of tung oil on this. I definitely want it to have a longer fade transition on the guitar.

I'll see how the tung oil holds up on there after a while. I'm pretty sure it's not real oil though anyway.

I made my Sugru corners, I think they turned out pretty good.

Sugru is an adhesive and it can hold wood together or to other objects, so I put wax paper on each side to make sure I can remove it.

They turned out like this after they dried.

So, I have 2 corner holders that hold up the two high corners enough to where the two low corners rest on the table/board/whatever and the high corners can't wobble.

I'm going to double-stick-tape them down to the base of the router sled and probably put a little tape inside to hold the tamarind to the corners too.

And they're re-usable since they aren't stuck to anything, so they might come in handy when it comes time to level the first side of the neck laminates too.




I'm going to shop for walnut next weekend. A local lumber place is having a "Lumber Rodeo" where lumber packs are 10-50% off and they have other things going on. I'm not sure what a "pack" consists of, but I'm hoping to just get 2-3 boards for now. Their normal prices are already less than what I have found other places. What do you guys usually pay for walnut?

 

[fataltragedy]

thats a great idea, must get myself some of that sugru!

 

[Deep Cat]

About $11 a board foot from Macbeath in San Francisco.

 

[lbridenstine]

thats a great idea, must get myself some of that sugru!

There is also moldable plastic instead of rubber, if you prefer. LMI sells it, called "Friendly Plastic". I haven't tried it yet, but for anything that doesn't need flexibility or adhesiveness, that might work better. It can be melted back down and re-shaped (unlike Sugru). I used the Sugru for this because I already had some and wanted to see how it would work. Got it at Lowes at the paint desk.

About $11 a board foot from Macbeath in San Francisco.

For 4/4"? That's probably close to what I've been paying, but this place has it for $6.25 for select and better for their regular, non-sale price. I'm curious if the walnut is at the high or low end of the discount at this sale I'm going to. I'm also wondering if it's rough cut and that's why it's priced so low, but the one picture I can find on their site of the lumber barn, it looks like it's all surfaced on all sides. It says everything in the barn is kiln dried and the barn is climate controlled too.

 

[Deep Cat]

There is also moldable plastic instead of rubber, if you prefer. LMI sells it, called "Friendly Plastic". I haven't tried it yet, but for anything that doesn't need flexibility or adhesiveness, that might work better. It can be melted back down and re-shaped (unlike Sugru). I used the Sugru for this because I already had some and wanted to see how it would work. Got it at Lowes at the paint desk.



For 4/4"? That's probably close to what I've been paying, but this place has it for $6.25 for select and better for their regular, non-sale price. I'm curious if the walnut is at the high or low end of the discount at this sale I'm going to. I'm also wondering if it's rough cut and that's why it's priced so low, but the one picture I can find on their site of the lumber barn, it looks like it's all surfaced on all sides. It says everything in the barn is kiln dried and the barn is climate controlled too.

Yup. 4/4. I don't remember exactly what I paid for a walnut board a while ago, but the board I got was rough on all sides. I pulled the price per BF from Macbeath's website.

There are a lot of reasons why a yard may want to go cheaper on certain species than the usual going rate, and not all of them are related to poor quality of stock.

If it looks good, it is good.

 

[mapleglo]

I love seeing ingenious ideas put to work. I love that Sugru. I wonder if you could use it to mold, say, pickup covers? Do you know if you can sand and paint it?

 

[fjadams]

Just saw this. Subbed because I always watch your builds. Just incredible work.

 

[fjadams]

Well, I put a new blade on the bandsaw and made some cuts today. I re-sawed the limba, but I need to level everything before I glue anything together, so I guess this stuff will wait until next weekend.

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I decided to switch out which pieces of black limba to use for the myrtle guitar. I thought the pair I had chosen had too much going on to be the back of this one, so I think I'll use them for a solid black limba body instead. I have enough limba for 4 bodies total, so I was able to just pick out different pieces.



Does anyone have suggestions for the best/easiest way to plane a twisted board? The spalted tamarind is twisted and I have room to plane it down flat and still get the 2 re-sawn pieces I need out of it, but I don't have a planer.

My initial thought is to put it on another board and prop the corners to keep it from wobbling and just make one side flat with the router sled, then let the flat side ride against the bandsaw fence while I re-saw my pieces for the top. If anyone has easier ideas, feel free to share.

Safe-T-Planer? I have one of those now. I still haven't tried it, but plan to on these builds. No idea if I should try it on spalted tamarind...

Are there any wood working shops in your area? That'd be the best way. Fortunately for me one of my golf buddies has an extremely well equipped woodshop to help me out with. And a 18" planer than any guitar body fits in perfectly.

 

[lbridenstine]

Yup. 4/4. I don't remember exactly what I paid for a walnut board a while ago, but the board I got was rough on all sides. I pulled the price per BF from Macbeath's website.

There are a lot of reasons why a yard may want to go cheaper on certain species than the usual going rate, and not all of them are related to poor quality of stock.

If it looks good, it is good.

I've been told from someone who gets their walnut and maple there that they have really nice wood and the prices are great. I'm just hoping that it IS surfaced so I have less work to do. I guess it's not too big of a deal if it's not though. They only have domestic woods so it won't help me for a lot of what I want for future builds, but if all goes well, which I assume it will, I'll probably continue getting my walnut, maple, and cherry from them. I'm planning on making a bunch of furniture for when I buy a house and I'm planning on that being all walnut and maple, so their prices could really help me with that. Plus it's actually local to me.

I love seeing ingenious ideas put to work. I love that Sugru. I wonder if you could use it to mold, say, pickup covers? Do you know if you can sand and paint it?

Sugru is like flexible rubber after curing, so I'm not sure it would be the best for that. They have a youtube channel with a ton of videos on what you can do with it. Sugru - YouTube

Just saw this. Subbed because I always watch your builds. Just incredible work.

Thank you!

Are there any wood working shops in your area? That'd be the best way. Fortunately for me one of my golf buddies has an extremely well equipped woodshop to help me out with. And a 18" planer than any guitar body fits in perfectly.

I wish I had a friend with a nice planer (of had one myself)! I have no idea about wood working shops. Maybe? It's a pretty small piece of wood though, so it shouldn't take too long with the router sled.

At some point... when I have any room to put one... I'll get a planer, I'm sure. Right now, I'm working in my parents' garage and have 1 wall to have all of my stuff up against and need to fit 2 cars in there too, so I have absolutely no room for any more big tools until I move. :-/ I'm currently trying to think of somewhere I can move my benchtop lathe to because it's broken and taking up a lot of room on the workbench. I'm going to try to fix it eventually, so I don't want to get rid of it, just move it temporarily.

 

[lbridenstine]

Life has been busier than expected, so I haven't been able to work on these any more yet, but I did do my walnut shopping today. I picked up some cherry too.

A local hardwood place had a sale/event and they forklifted their pallets of wood out of the (climate controlled) barns and had 10-50% off of their prices.

This is just a section of what they had.

This is what I brought home.

The thicker piece of walnut will make a body, maybe two. I'll have to re-saw it.

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I really liked this piece of cherry (two pieces now):

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Walnut neck woods (minus the blemishes):

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I probably should have been more strategic about how I had him cut it for me, instead of just having them cut in half, but oh well.

Stickered:

Overall, a success. 4/4 walnut was $5.25/board foot, 10/4 walnut was $7/board foot, and 4/4 cherry was $3.50/board foot. Those are by far the best prices I've found so far.

They also had some really nice crotch walnut and spalted maple, so when I run out of guitar tops, I'll be sure to go get some of that. I have way too many tops to allow myself to buy any more right now.

Obviously not all of this wood is going in these guitars. I'm just going to be using like a 2" strip of walnut and the rest will go towards future builds.

 

[pnchad]

you'd be surprised how inexpensive a used planner can be. I got the first one for about $125 - 12" capacity Ryobi
DeWalt makes a nice little tabletop too. I always see these in pawn shops. They must be the least used tool and first to go when folks need cash.

That and a little 6" joiner really come in handy. I keep mine stashed so they don't waste room and drag them out on a cart when needed.

 

[wraub]

Ingenious solution with the Sugro. Very clever.

Hope it works!

 

[lbridenstine]

you'd be surprised how inexpensive a used planner can be. I got the first one for about $125 - 12" capacity Ryobi
DeWalt makes a nice little tabletop too. I always see these in pawn shops. They must be the least used tool and first to go when folks need cash.

That and a little 6" joiner really come in handy. I keep mine stashed so they don't waste room and drag them out on a cart when needed.

Price isn't the problem for me right now, I don't have any room at all for any more tools until I move out. I literally have one wall of the garage that is already full from a 14" bandsaw, drill press, and workbench. About half of the workbench is already taken up by a mini-lathe which I'd like to move somewhere else, but don't have anywhere to put it. My router sled is stored on the shelf under the workbench when not being used and I have to get out my dad's tablesaw to use as a table to sit it on when I want to use it.