Inside The Secret Underground Laboratory

[dwizum]

Hi Teacher;

Pin routers have been around for a long time. I'm not sure when they first appeared, probably in the late 1800's, but they became the mainstay for woodworking in factories from the 1920's up through the 1990's, when CNC routers started replacing them. In those days, the pin router was the fastest way to make 2-D shaped wooden parts, with repetitive accuracy. Fender's factory had a hundred of them in the '60's. Up until recently, most of the operations shaping a guitar body or neck were done on a pin router.

A pin router is a 2-D pattern follower. The basic design is a large rigid C-frame and a flat table. On the upper side of the C-frame is the spindle, which holds the router bit and spins at 10,000 to 20,000 rpm. Think of it as a hand router mounted on the end of big sturdy arm. On the bigger machines, like this one, the spindle is driven by a belt drive, and the motor is mounted back in the frame somewhere. A belt drive that can transmit 7 1/2 hp to a spindle going 20,000 rpm is a scary thing! The belt itself is called a Panther Belt; it's about 2" wide and 1/16" thick, and costs $195. We've blown two of them over the years.

Inside the big green housing is a steel frame that holds the whole spindle assembly and bearings, the motor and the belt drive. That whole assembly weighs several hundred pounds, and it raises up and down about 3" by two synchronized pneumatic cylinders. With a foot pedal on the floor, you can make the the spindle raise up and down fairly quickly. At the down position, it's stopped against a rotating turret of adjustable stops. Working the pedal looks like it's just moving the spindle, but actually, the whole subframe inside is moving up and down.

That's the upper half of the machine. The lower half is a big flat cast iron table with a steel pin in the middle of it. The pin is accurately and rigidly in alignment with the router bit right above it. The pins are interchangeable, and normally, you use a pin that's the same diameter as the router bit that you are using for the job. There's a small lever under the front edge of the table which retracts the pin down below the table top surface, or pops it back up. The entire table is mounted on an elevating knee, like a milling machine. That's the big crank that you see under the front of the table. It raises and lowers the table precisely over a couple inch range, and locks. That's used for the fine adjustment of the cutting depth.

So, how does the whole machine work? Suppose you want to rout the control cavity in a bass body. Or, a hundred identical bass bodies stacked up on that pallet. You build a fixture, a big flat wooden thing that slides around on the table surface. On the top side of the fixture are cleats and lever clamps to lock the body down in an accurate position. On the underside of the fixture is a slab of 3/4" MDF with an actual size cutout of the control cavity shape. That template is accurately lined up with the clamps and cleats above, to get the control cavity in the right position on the body. The pin fits up inside that cutout on the underside of the fixture. As the router bit is cutting, you manually slide the whole fixture around on the table. The pin inside the cutout sets the limits of movement and creates the shape of the control cavity.

As the worker in the Fender factory, you start with the spindle raised up and the pin retracted down. Grab a body blank from the stack, set it into the top of the fixture, and lock it down with the clamps. Slide the fixture over underneath the spindle, and flip the lever to raise the pin up into the cavity on the underside of the fixture. Click the turret stop to the first depth position, and hit the switch to fire up the spindle. It whines up like an aircraft engine.

Hold securely onto the fixture, take a deep breath, and tap the foot pedal. The spindle drops down and the router bit ploughs down into the wood to the depth set by the turret stop. Do Not let go of the fixture! Slide the fixture around by hand, carving out the cavity, feeling the perimeter of it by the pin riding around the perimeter of the cutout on the underside. Streams of wood chips arcing up and away. When it's all cut away, release the foot pedal and the spindle raises up. That's the first pass. Click the turret stop to the second position and tap the pedal again. Go around again at the second depth. Repeat until you finish the last pass, at the final depth set by the turret stop. Release the pedal, the spindle goes up, flip the lever to drop the pin, slide the fixture off to the side. Unlock the body, set it on the stack, grab the next one.

That's what a pin router is for: Fast repetitive woodcutting in a production environment. If the fixture is made well, and the operator has decent training, parts cut on a pin router can be just as accurate as on a CNC machine. And almost as fast. Of course, a human operator has to run a pin router. The human is doing what the computer does on the CNC router; hitting the buttons and steering it around.

The key part of the speed is horsepower. This pin router has 2-4 times the horsepower of a hand-held router. It's capable of routing that control cavity in maybe 3 depth passes, instead of 6 or 8 that you'd need with a handheld router.

When I get this machine up and running in a few weeks, I'm going to start a new thread just about pin routers. We'll get into more details about how they run, building fixtures, etc.

Just want to say thanks for posting that. You have a great narrative writing style that's educational and easy to follow and I'm learning a lot in your various threads.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Well, the long cold winter is about over, at last. Apparently, February was the coldest in 60 years for this area. My shop got down to 54 over last weekend, which was definitely uncomfortable to work in. Yeah, yeah, I know, that's nothing compared to the rest of the country. But we've got no real heating system here, and this basement is well insulated by many tons of concrete. So once it gets cold-soaked, it's tough to bring it back up. Through careful opening of doors and windows during the day, we finally got it above 60 yesterday. Those couple of degrees make a big difference. 60 is reasonable to work in. But, doing precision work and running my machines below 58, all bundled up, is painful. I got very little shop work done in the last few weeks. But this week I'm back into it. I got truss rods installed in a couple of necks for Touch Singleton, and did some machining jobs on Scroll Bass parts. A few minutes ago, I finished a quick electrical repair on our old freight elevator, in preparation for an official inspection in the morning.

Well, Mike's shop is all cleaned out. That was quite a job, actually. I collected and boxed up several hundred pounds of sawdust. That was an eye-opener in terms of how much sawdust had packed up in the back corners and under benches, in just three years that he was in there. I wasn't being strict enough with him in keeping it cleaned up. Mike did a lot of sanding with a Dynabrade disk sander, in addition to all the pin routing. The sander was the big culprit, all the fine dust floating everywhere. He had a big dust collector and a Grizzly sanding bench, but the shop was still packed with fine dust, floor to ceiling. From now on, I'm being much stricter with everyone, including myself, about keeping our shops cleaner.

We had a nice memorial celebration event for Mike a week ago Sunday at the Veteran's Club in Newhall. About 150 people showed up, mostly guitar player friends and customers. Many of them brought their Lipe guitars and showed them around. A few of us old grey-haired Luthiers. Lots of old friends. I had a chance to sit and chat with Pat Wilkins for a while. There was a slide show of Mike doing things through the years. A few of us went up and talked to the crowd about working with him. Then, the legendary Mother Blues Band took the stage and played a show. They are one of those hometown bands that's been together for 40 years, and had maybe 50 members rotate in and out. Most of the big LA area blues players were in the band at one time or another. Mike was a long time lead guitarist and singer. So, it was very appropriate for them to all get together for a big show at his memorial. I was only able to stay for the beginning of it, but I hope someone recorded the whole show. A sad occasion, but a nice time.

But it's almost spring time, and we have some more fun things happening here in the Secret Underground Lab! We already have a new tenant who has just moved into Bay 19, Mike's old shop. Leo's thing is.....restoring old 1980's era arcade games!

Leo is in the Navy, stationed at nearby Port Hueneme, lives here in Fillmore. He's going to be retiring in about two years, and is building up a business for himself. He loves these old arcade games, and has been buying/repairing/selling them for a long time out of his garage. In December he opened Leo's Arcade on Central Ave in downtown Fillmore, two blocks from here. His wife and kids mostly run it. A simple old-time Arcade, no food or alcohol, filled with '80's and '90's era machines. And it's doing fairly well so far, nearly packed on weekends. His plan is to operate this Arcade, and build up a fleet of these machines, renting them out to stores, restaurants, other Arcades. That's his dream.

So, the shop here in our building will be the repair shop. Leo will be in here some evenings and weekends restoring and repairing these old classic machines. I'm sure I'll be helping him make a few parts now and then. And he's been talking with Scott, our resident computer systems and beer brewing expert, who used to professionally write game software. They are thinking about parking some of Leo's finest games down the hall in Scott's Beer Brewing Lab and Pool Room. A private Arcade Gamer Club for serious fans. With home-brewed beer involved.

There's going to be some serious beeping and booping going on around here. Another direction of historical, technical fun that fits in well with the overall theme of the Lab.

And, a few other new tenants joining us in March. A guy who sews custom outdoor backpacks and similar goods. And another Luthier, who I'll announce when he gets moved in.

The big model railroad club thing is on hold right now, for complicated reasons. May not happen for a while. I hope we can get it worked out.

I'm now taking a bigger role in managing all the tenants in the basement. The Secret Underground Lab is growing and evolving.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

That's very cool. Those are the games I remember from being a kid.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

More new tenants and staff changes here in the Lab!

Two of our Luthiers have moved out; Raul Ruelas and Alex Turcious.

Raul is taking a break from Luthier work, with a 2nd child due in a few weeks. He's holding down a day job and doing all the housework and caring for the family. No time to play around with guitars right now. But he plans to get back into it in a year or so.

Alex was our young apprentice here, getting started doing repairs. He was sharing a small shop space with Raul. But Alex has backed out for now, dealing with problems with his family's business, and finding a good day job for himself. He also plans to get back into it when he gets the big things straightened out.

A new Luthier has moved into the shop that Raul and Alex were sharing: Randy Robinson. Randy has been doing general guitar repair work professionally for about 15 years under the name of RWR Guitars in North Hollywood, CA. A nice guy, and is very good with repairs and setup of any stringed instruments. A good addition to our staff of Luthiers.

Randy has two kids in school, and he's been sending them to a school in Santa Clarita, about 22 miles from Fillmore. They've been going by bus, which is surprisingly expensive from North Hollywood. Randy visited here, and bought one of Mike's machines. He loved the whole idea of the Lab, and was amazed at how inexpensive a shop space was here. So now he's driving the kids to school, then coming over here to work in the shop during the day, then driving the kids home. It's cheaper than the bus fare! So, he's got a remote shop here and he's pulling in jobs from the rest of us and the Ventura county area. There's a lot of guitar repair work around here, and not many repair guys.

We also found another local apprentice, Gabe Manzano. He's 21, lives a few blocks away, and wants to learn to be a Luthier. He's going to be doing some part time work for several of us.

And, you'll be happy to know that we've hired a new Chief Of Security to replace our old buddy Chip. Keith and Kiera were going to wait a little while before getting another dog....but then they visited Doberman Rescue here in Fillmore. And, they immediately locked onto this guy:

His name is Jet, a Red Doberman, about 4 years old. He's a little smaller than most Dobermans, but appears to be a purebred. He's very gentle and quiet and well behaved, kind of shy. He'd been found abandoned, but has obviously grown up as a loved pet. Cautiously meets strangers, and is warily affectionate. Fully housebroken and non-destructive. Very smart and alert. Not a single bark or aggressive move out of him so far. After he settles in, we'll teach him some basic Security skills. He'll be here almost every day, in Keith's shop.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Another year has gone by, and it's April again. It's time for....Railfest! The big event in Fillmore all about trains. It's going on all this weekend, an even bigger show than last year. The Fillmore & Western Railroad, right down the tracks from us, is going to have 5 old steam engines up and running. They'll be chugging back and forth outside the Lab all weekend giving rides up and down the valley. Other train-related events happening around the city.

Our building is again participating. Last year we had one big model railroad club set up in our main floor event area, with various vintage cars and things. A general open house of the main floor of our building (but not the Secret Underground Lab). From the railroad down the street, they have an engine hooked to two cabooses. The guests pile into the cabooses for the short ride down to our building to see all our cool stuff. Then they ride in a hay wagon pulled by a vintage tractor, back to the station.

This year, we've got two big model railroad clubs setting up their layouts. They are taking up most of the floor space, so there won't be as many of the vehicle displays as before. Ray's giant Americana museum will be open to see. It's expanded since last year. Our new tenant Leo will have a display of vintage arcade games, all opened up to see the guts inside. And I'll be there with my booth about the Secret Underground Luthiers.

Friday was setup day. I spent the whole day running around, helping the two model railroad clubs get their displays moved in and set up, and everything else. This morning we even had KTLA 5 TV here filming the setup, for a promo clip on the news. I was on TV for about 30 seconds, talking about us Luthiers and holding one of my Scroll Basses! WooHoo.

Starting the setup. This is the O-gauge layout, the larger size trains. Same group as last year. Their layout has only a small amount of scenery, but the trains run all around the perimeter of the tables. Right in front of the noses of the eager kids.

The other club works in N-gauge. Smaller size trains, but in a fully detailed scenic layout. It makes an interesting contrast, two sides of model railroading. The O-gauge layout is focused on the trains themselves, in high up-close detail. The N-gauge layout is about the overall scene and story that the trains run around through.

Getting my little booth set up. I'll have a selection of partially completed components; necks, bodies, pickups, hardware, etc. My whole theme is about how we build all these things here. The mysterious craftsmen down in the basement.

By late afternoon, train layouts are assembled and the crews are busy fussing with the details and making test runs.

This will be going on Saturday and Sunday, approximately 9am to 4 pm. If any of you happen to be wandering aimlessly around Ventura County, stop on in and say hello. It's free, no admission charge. We're not officially doing tours of the basement and the Luthier shops. Keith and Jon will be down in their shops working away. I'll be busy upstairs managing the open house both days.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Man I love those giant railroad dioramas.

 

[dwizum]

That's really cool. My dad was in to O gauge trains, I had an N gauge diorama in my bedroom as a teen.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Railfest 2019 is over! Whew. A couple of long busy days, which I mostly spent standing and talking to people. It was a big success, more than 700 people through our building. And I talked to at least 500 of them, explaining what I do and what the building is all about. The whole Railfest was the biggest attendence yet. Rides on the steam trains were completely sold out. Downtown Fillmore was swarming with people. Nobody hurt, nothing significant broken. All good.

A bunch of people actually saw me on TV and knew who I was! I believe the video clip is on KTLA 5's web site. A nice woman who writes stories and shows for PBS sat and talked for a while. She says she wants to do a story/show about me. Okay, I guess. Our new Mayor stopped by and talked. I'm becoming famous (or infamous) around Fillmore.

I was so busy that I didn't get to shoot many pictures, but here are a couple in the quieter moments between the batches of people coming off the cabooses. The caboose delivery system worked well for us; 50-75 people every half hour.

The view from my booth.

Finally, Sunday evening the Railroadies tore it all down and loaded it all onto the trailers. They were gone in about 2 hours.

I carried all my stuff back downstairs, checked that everything was turned off, unplugged and locked. And took a big long nap. Doing the public relations thing is very exhausting to me.

I made a lot of new friends around the community, and spread the word about what we're doing with this building. That was our goal.

 

[Beej]

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[SLivinghouse]

A rising celebrity! I won't be long until Bruce has a three month marriage to a Kardashian. Congrats on the story Bruce.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

I'm back! If you didn't see my other post in the Love Of Ampegs thread, I've been battling prostate cancer. Through March and April, I went through the whole radiology treatment thing, consuming most of my time. But I'm finished, and the Doc says I'm all clear, and I'm good for a long bright future. Recovering a bit from the side effects (mostly fatigue), but this was my first week back working full time in the shop. It feels great. I've lost some weight, energy is coming back, and I'm going to resume pumping iron at the gym this week. And back to building Scroll Basses!

I'm finishing up sorting out the last of Mike Lipe's stuff. Most of the tools and machines are sold and given away. Just a few things left. Over 40+ years of being a Luthier, Mike accumulated an enormous collection of leftover "junk box" instrument parts. I spent some hours this week sorting through them all, dividing them up and putting them into neat labeled boxes. Leftover used tuners, bridge parts, springs, screws, electronics components, etc. Not good enough to go in a new customer instrument, but too good to throw away. Mostly guitar parts, not so many bass parts.

There's no point in trying to sell it all. What I've decided to do is keep it all here, reasonably organized into a library of junk parts. Available for friendly local Luthiers, hobbyists, and kids messing with guitars to pick through. No charge to find a few parts that you need for your project. You can contact me if you are interested. No, I'm not going to list what's here or take my time to pick through and find something for you!

This is the best thing I could think of to do with all of it. I'm not going to send it all to the landfill.

 

[Jon Clegg]

I'm back! If you didn't see my other post in the Love Of Ampegs thread, I've been battling prostate cancer. Through March and April, I went through the whole radiology treatment thing, consuming most of my time. But I'm finished, and the Doc says I'm all clear, and I'm good for a long bright future. Recovering a bit from the side effects (mostly fatigue), but this was my first week back working full time in the shop. It feels great. I've lost some weight, energy is coming back, and I'm going to resume pumping iron at the gym this week. And back to building Scroll Basses!

I'm finishing up sorting out the last of Mike Lipe's stuff. Most of the tools and machines are sold and given away. Just a few things left. Over 40+ years of being a Luthier, Mike accumulated an enormous collection of leftover "junk box" instrument parts. I spent some hours this week sorting through them all, dividing them up and putting them into neat labeled boxes. Leftover used tuners, bridge parts, springs, screws, electronics components, etc. Not good enough to go in a new customer instrument, but too good to throw away. Mostly guitar parts, not so many bass parts.

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There's no point in trying to sell it all. What I've decided to do is keep it all here, reasonably organized into a library of junk parts. Available for friendly local Luthiers, hobbyists, and kids messing with guitars to pick through. No charge to find a few parts that you need for your project. You can contact me if you are interested. No, I'm not going to list what's here or take my time to pick through and find something for you!

This is the best thing I could think of to do with all of it. I'm not going to send it all to the landfill.

Glad to hear you've beaten it! As a friend of mine who went through the same thing said, "this getting old stuff ain't for wimps"

As for the guitar salvage yard, now I have another reason to get myself sent out to Pt
Mugu.

 

[dwizum]

Glad to see you back at it and glad you're doing well after treatment!

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Glad you’re back at it, Bruce. Extremely generous with the parts as well.

 

[postalflunkie]

Congrats on the clean bill of health!

 

[Teacher]

Huzzah!

 

[Stevorebob]

I'm back! If you didn't see my other post in the Love Of Ampegs thread, I've been battling prostate cancer. Through March and April, I went through the whole radiology treatment thing, consuming most of my time. But I'm finished, and the Doc says I'm all clear, and I'm good for a long bright future. Recovering a bit from the side effects (mostly fatigue), but this was my first week back working full time in the shop. It feels great. I've lost some weight, energy is coming back, and I'm going to resume pumping iron at the gym this week. And back to building Scroll Basses!

I'm finishing up sorting out the last of Mike Lipe's stuff. Most of the tools and machines are sold and given away. Just a few things left. Over 40+ years of being a Luthier, Mike accumulated an enormous collection of leftover "junk box" instrument parts. I spent some hours this week sorting through them all, dividing them up and putting them into neat labeled boxes. Leftover used tuners, bridge parts, springs, screws, electronics components, etc. Not good enough to go in a new customer instrument, but too good to throw away. Mostly guitar parts, not so many bass parts.

View attachment 3413823

View attachment 3413824

View attachment 3413825

There's no point in trying to sell it all. What I've decided to do is keep it all here, reasonably organized into a library of junk parts. Available for friendly local Luthiers, hobbyists, and kids messing with guitars to pick through. No charge to find a few parts that you need for your project. You can contact me if you are interested. No, I'm not going to list what's here or take my time to pick through and find something for you!

This is the best thing I could think of to do with all of it. I'm not going to send it all to the landfill.

Fabulous news on the health front, Bruce. Great to hear this.

 

[T_Bone_TL]

I'm back! If you didn't see my other post in the Love Of Ampegs thread, I've been battling prostate cancer.
...
There's no point in trying to sell it all. What I've decided to do is keep it all here, reasonably organized into a library of junk parts. Available for friendly local Luthiers, hobbyists, and kids messing with guitars to pick through. No charge to find a few parts that you need for your project.

Let your local music and physics teachers know about the trove so they can send kids with projects by. I've helped build some weird (and perfectly normal) stuff as physics projects and having actual tuners/bridges beats the snot out of weird kludges that some of those homemade instrument books come up with.

As for the PC, chopped mine (I got it young) out 7.5 years ago, pulling "non-detectables" on my yearly test.

Had a pretty good little cancer thread going in off-topic recently. Have you dealt with cancer? I apparently have reached an adequate remove that I talked about my experience a bit more than I have before in public.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

As for the guitar salvage yard, now I have another reason to get myself sent out to Pt
Mugu.

You're currently in the NAVY? Anti-Sub birds? I've got some history in the secret corners of Mugu.

 

[Jon Clegg]

I work on the simulator for the E-2D. They have a classroom out there and my employer supports them.