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First Build - "Lucifer"
- Thread starter TerribleTim68
- Start date
Rôckhewer
Commercial User
- Feb 28, 2015
- 2,922
- 9,028
- Disclosures
- Owner/Builder- RockHewer Custom Guitars LLC
I highly recommend it.... lasers are fun.
Naw man... that stands for #13, built in '18.
The double naught prefix allows for 9999 units to be created before I have to change the format.
.... yeah right.
@ctmullins can pump out a bass every couple weeks. I'm guessing he'd need 5 digits to get him through a decade.The double naught prefix allows for 9999 units to be created before I have to change the format.
.... yeah right.
(I didn't really figure it out cuz,..math)
- Apr 18, 2008
- 16,006
- 1
- 31,701
- Disclosures
- I'm highly opinionated and extremely self-assured
Heh. But my average over all of my meager production is still about 1.25 year per bass....
That came out effin awesome!
Is it wenge or black limba?
Have you worked wenge on the lathe?
What's it like turning it?
Working on Bass #0000000004 right now. Might take me a while to run out of zeros. My average is now approximately 1 bass per 2.5 years! The Slackiest of Slackers.
Yeah, I'm gonna need you to go ahead and start coming in on Saturdays.
Never buy electronics from a luthiery supply, try Mouser or Digikey.
Link Removed
Link Removed
First 2 I found. Aussie distributor site came up for me 'cause cookies, but US prices will be about 75%. Just put the part #s into the US site. However, as a special favour, I'm willing to ship them from A9X Luthiery Supply for a mere $US65.00ea plus shipping.
Yup, wenge and purpleheart. I've done quite a bit of wenge on the lathe. It's nice on the one hand because it's so freakin hard that it turns rather well. But on the other hand, it'll dull a good gouge pretty quick too so you spend a lot of time sharpening. It's hard....like really hard.
That one may end up being the volume knob and then I may turn three others that all match for the pre-amp. We'll see.
You Lathe People make me feel Worthless and Weak. Impressive Knobage. I inherited most of the pieces of my Grandpap's wood lathe, missing crucial pieces like the Motor and some gear widgets.
I saw The Lathe People at the Cheltenham folk Festival a few years ago. Actually I think Impressive Knobbage were the support band.
I got my first lathe from my wife's grandpa. He passed away a while back and it had already sat in storage for a long time, so by the time it came to me it had been in storage for over 10 years. The in-laws said "Hey, didn't you say you wanted to try this? Why don't you take this stuff home." So I got a lathe, the turning tools and his ShopSmith all for free. I consider myself beyond lucky that they allowed me to take it all. The ShopSmith became my go-to bandsaw, table saw, drill press, 12" disk sander and also makes a good work bench and lathe. So yeah, beyond lucky to have been basically handed all of those tools. Since then I've added a Jet 1015 lathe that I got for $200, it's smaller, what you'd call a "midi lathe" and I use it for the bulk of my projects. It'll handle anything up to about 8.5" diameter without much struggle. I've recently took possession of a Grizzly G1495 for free (yup, free. it was headed to the dump and my friend said "hold on...I know a guy" ), which is larger than the Jet with an advertised "swing" of 14" and 17" over the "gap". But I haven't actually used it yet. Sometimes you just get lucky. What I've learned is, more often than you'd think, if you just start making it known that you are looking for a lathe, one will find its way to you. There's lots of them out there just sitting there rusting away because people ended up with them after a relative passed away and they have no clue what to do with it. Everything I've learned is all self taught from watching YouTube videos and just sticking tools to spinning wood. It's just how I work I guess, just start doing it. I've gotten better as I go along, but I still consider myself a rookie. Altho this thing came out pretty cool -
That's my July challenge project, the video goes live Friday morning.
I used a tealight holder that I got from the Lobby of Hobbies, inverted, for the glass element and then put a battery operated tea light in it. My wife loves it and it has found a new home in our entry way on top of the coat/key rack top shelf.
I'll send you a dozen 8' x 16" cottonwood logs and you can make me a dozen of those,... just scaled up a bit.
Unless you just want to source local lumber. Then you only gotta pay for shipping one way.
- Apr 18, 2008
- 16,006
- 1
- 31,701
- Disclosures
- I'm highly opinionated and extremely self-assured
Hahaha, yeah me too!This is the crucial bit. Glad you got that angle covered!!
It's funny, I make these things, and I record the videos when I make them, then those videos get uploaded to YouTube and I only release one a week, on Friday. The video project might have been finished as much as two months ago (at least that was the case back in the quarantine days). But every Friday she comes home from work and goes "Are we gonna watch your video?" In my mind I'm thinking "You already saw the thing I made, it's been sitting over there for two months now", but she wants to see it.
More progress tonight, started working on the rear cavity. Much the same as before, convert the ShopSmith to a drill press, remove waste with forstner bit, convert ShopSmith back to workbench, grab router and start working down into this thing. I like using the ShopSmith as a workbench because I can set it higher up, around 38-40", that way it's easier for the router to throw the shavings directly into your face rather than having to bend down or force the router to work to send them up at an angle. 
My dust collector adapter showed up today. It's a great fit, really snug, good seal. But for whatever reason, none of the shavings actually go into the dust port, they just fly out the sides.....at your face.
Anyways, here's a pic of where I called it a night -
The bulk of it is hogged out, my template worked rather well. I still need to make that final step down to remove the little nubbins from the forstner bit. But I also need to start really measuring the final depth while doing that, and it was getting late, so I stopped there. Right now I think my cavity is about 15/16" deep, I still need to step it down another 1/4" to 5/16"-ish, which should be about what is needed to remove the nubbins from the forstner!
Oh, I also ran the router back over the pickup cavities to clean up the nubbins there too, but I guess I forgot to take a pic of that. But imagine them with a smooth bottom and you're good to go.
Here's a shot of my lip template sitting on it. But I'm not gonna route that until I make my cover so I know exactly how deep that lip needs to be. more news on the cover later, for now I'm holding that one a secret. One of you may know, but the rest have to wait.
More to come another day! Progress is progress! I'm really feeling good here. Every step at this point makes it look more like a real bass guitar.
My dust collector adapter showed up today. It's a great fit, really snug, good seal. But for whatever reason, none of the shavings actually go into the dust port, they just fly out the sides.....at your face.
Anyways, here's a pic of where I called it a night -
The bulk of it is hogged out, my template worked rather well. I still need to make that final step down to remove the little nubbins from the forstner bit. But I also need to start really measuring the final depth while doing that, and it was getting late, so I stopped there. Right now I think my cavity is about 15/16" deep, I still need to step it down another 1/4" to 5/16"-ish, which should be about what is needed to remove the nubbins from the forstner!
Oh, I also ran the router back over the pickup cavities to clean up the nubbins there too, but I guess I forgot to take a pic of that. But imagine them with a smooth bottom and you're good to go.
Here's a shot of my lip template sitting on it. But I'm not gonna route that until I make my cover so I know exactly how deep that lip needs to be. more news on the cover later, for now I'm holding that one a secret. One of you may know, but the rest have to wait.
More to come another day! Progress is progress! I'm really feeling good here. Every step at this point makes it look more like a real bass guitar.
More progress tonight, started working on the rear cavity. Much the same as before, convert the ShopSmith to a drill press, remove waste with forstner bit, convert ShopSmith back to workbench, grab router and start working down into this thing. I like using the ShopSmith as a workbench because I can set it higher up, around 38-40", that way it's easier for the router to throw the shavings directly into your face rather than having to bend down or force the router to work to send them up at an angle.
My dust collector adapter showed up today. It's a great fit, really snug, good seal. But for whatever reason, none of the shavings actually go into the dust port, they just fly out the sides.....at your face.
Anyways, here's a pic of where I called it a night -
View attachment 4342312
The bulk of it is hogged out, my template worked rather well. I still need to make that final step down to remove the little nubbins from the forstner bit. But I also need to start really measuring the final depth while doing that, and it was getting late, so I stopped there. Right now I think my cavity is about 15/16" deep, I still need to step it down another 1/4" to 5/16"-ish, which should be about what is needed to remove the nubbins from the forstner!
Oh, I also ran the router back over the pickup cavities to clean up the nubbins there too, but I guess I forgot to take a pic of that. But imagine them with a smooth bottom and you're good to go.
Here's a shot of my lip template sitting on it. But I'm not gonna route that until I make my cover so I know exactly how deep that lip needs to be. more news on the cover later, for now I'm holding that one a secret. One of you may know, but the rest have to wait.
View attachment 4342311
More to come another day! Progress is progress! I'm really feeling good here. Every step at this point makes it look more like a real bass guitar.
Very nicely done!!
It's not surprising that the dust port on the router did so little, at some point I considered it but just let it go. Sorry it didn't work. Nothing more frustrating than to buy a tool and have it not work!
But finally the semi-strange mystery has been solved... I've been watching a bunch of YouTube and watched this guy with a bunch of lathes give a tour of his shop, he mentioned building guitars and I couldn't remember which forum member it was... now I know!!
I subscribed a while ago and your videos just started appearing in my feed! The Christmas ornaments are very cool, how long do they take to make?
Hahaha, that silly long haired guy, I've watched him too!
The Christmas ornaments have gotten to where they take me about an hour to make each one. The first one took about two hours, but I've gotten it down a bit better now. Those dang finials are what soak up the most time, often because I just kind of freestyle it so there's a bit of "where am I going with this one?" happening.
The woodworking channel is "Bad Apple Woodwerx" - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7GG_aSEX_Xw3bnv_wApGYg
I also have a separate channel for my guitar stuff, called "Bad Apple Guitarwerx" (I'm seeing a trend) - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPp6HwC74mUjtN2dXEsyG3g
That being said, there are no videos of Lucifer up because honestly I wanted to figure out how to do this before I run it out on YouTube. But I will be filming the next build for the channel, that I can promise.
And, if you want to see an idiot run over a lot of stuff, there's a channel for my racing adventures over here - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrDgSbf_fglf-c_OWobcW0g
