I once spent well over an hour taking apart and fixing a pull chain speed switch for my ceiling fan when it dawned on me I could probably just buy a new one. Yup, $4 at Home Depot. Oh well, at least I got a sense of accomplishment!
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Inside The Secret Underground Laboratory
- Thread starter Bruce Johnson
- Start date
I have to tell you, Bruce, this thread alone is worth the price of admission to this forum! Thank you so much! Your love for old tools and keeping them going is an inspiration, though various considerations limit me to a few chisels, planes (a 1910 Stanley #7 is my jointer), and a Miller Falls swing brace, seeing these guys getting daily use is an inspiration. As is the rest of your shop. Still, you make do with what you have and get along making stuff. Keep safe!
.. mark.
.. mark.
Some more random news of things going on here in the Lab.....Very busy times....and much of it conflicting with getting Scroll Basses built! But, through it all, I am actually finishing up a batch of three new walnut AMB-2's. Plus, rebuilding a couple of vintage Ampegs, and making necks and hardware for my other Luthier clients.
Here's a machining job that I completed last week. It's an aluminum and maple die set for press-forming some thin stainless steel pans. A local company hired me to do this.
That's 2" thick 6061 aluminum bar stock, pinned together in four pieces. The milled recess is 1" radius. A 2" diameter ball end mill is real expensive, so I used a 1" radius woodworking router bit to do the final passes, after hogging away most of the material with a regular 1" end mill. It worked pretty well. Router bits can be used in a milling machine to cut aluminum, for light passes. The cutting geometry isn't ideal, but it gave me a fairly smooth surface finish without much chattering.
The whole job took about 15 hours of milling machine time. I filled up several boxes of aluminum shavings. A good chance to get some quality time on the most recent addition to my machine shop:
This is a Kondia milling machine, made in Spain in the 1980's. A big strong turret mill style machine, a little bigger than a typical Bridgeport. It weighs about 3400 lbs. It's got some wear and rust, but it's fully functional and capable of hogging off a lot of metal. It has about 10" of Y-axis travel, which is really handy for squaring up blocks and plates. The X-axis travel is 20".
The Kondia belongs to Thomas, one of the other tenants here. He's an expert welder and fabricator, and has a cool small shop built into a 40 foot trailer that's parked right outside. A handy guy to have around. He's been getting more into machine shop work, and acquiring a few more machines. He was able to buy this Kondia from a client of his for $100. The guy was clearing out a shop and needed to get rid of it. It's too big and heavy to go into his trailer shop. We dragged it down into the Lab and had it parked in a side area for a year or so. Then that area got rented, and it had to get moved.
So, Thomas and I made a deal to keep it in my shop. I get to use it whenever I want, and he gets to use it occasionally! Last summer, I rearranged my machine shop and figured out how to squeeze it in here.
Here are some shots of me moving it in. I had to move all kinds of things out of the way to make a wide enough aisle to roll it back through there. It was a squeeze. Physically moving it was pretty easy. Like all of my heavy machines, I jacked it up and mounted it on a pair of 4x8 timbers. Then the trusty pallet jack goes right underneath it, and makes it real simple to move around. If you have big machines, you gotta have a pallet jack.
When Thomas got the Kondia, the spindle was locked up solid and wouldn't turn. That's one of the reasons why he got it for so cheap. But, when we started playing around with it, it turned out that the high range/low range transmission in the head was jammed into both gears at once. We unjammed it, and it's been fine. We've been slowly working on it, cleaning it up and fixing little things. We added a cheap imported 3-axis digital readout system (about $300) to it. So far, it seems to be working well, and is pretty accurate.
So, the big Kondia mill is up and running and in service. This press die job was a good exercise for it, to test its capabilities, and get me familiar and comfortable running it. I go through this with any machine I acquire. I'm liking the Kondia so far. It's good to have a big strong milling machine. I gives me additional capabilities. That's what having a shop full of machines is about.
Here's a machining job that I completed last week. It's an aluminum and maple die set for press-forming some thin stainless steel pans. A local company hired me to do this.
That's 2" thick 6061 aluminum bar stock, pinned together in four pieces. The milled recess is 1" radius. A 2" diameter ball end mill is real expensive, so I used a 1" radius woodworking router bit to do the final passes, after hogging away most of the material with a regular 1" end mill. It worked pretty well. Router bits can be used in a milling machine to cut aluminum, for light passes. The cutting geometry isn't ideal, but it gave me a fairly smooth surface finish without much chattering.
The whole job took about 15 hours of milling machine time. I filled up several boxes of aluminum shavings. A good chance to get some quality time on the most recent addition to my machine shop:
This is a Kondia milling machine, made in Spain in the 1980's. A big strong turret mill style machine, a little bigger than a typical Bridgeport. It weighs about 3400 lbs. It's got some wear and rust, but it's fully functional and capable of hogging off a lot of metal. It has about 10" of Y-axis travel, which is really handy for squaring up blocks and plates. The X-axis travel is 20".
The Kondia belongs to Thomas, one of the other tenants here. He's an expert welder and fabricator, and has a cool small shop built into a 40 foot trailer that's parked right outside. A handy guy to have around. He's been getting more into machine shop work, and acquiring a few more machines. He was able to buy this Kondia from a client of his for $100. The guy was clearing out a shop and needed to get rid of it. It's too big and heavy to go into his trailer shop. We dragged it down into the Lab and had it parked in a side area for a year or so. Then that area got rented, and it had to get moved.
So, Thomas and I made a deal to keep it in my shop. I get to use it whenever I want, and he gets to use it occasionally! Last summer, I rearranged my machine shop and figured out how to squeeze it in here.
Here are some shots of me moving it in. I had to move all kinds of things out of the way to make a wide enough aisle to roll it back through there. It was a squeeze. Physically moving it was pretty easy. Like all of my heavy machines, I jacked it up and mounted it on a pair of 4x8 timbers. Then the trusty pallet jack goes right underneath it, and makes it real simple to move around. If you have big machines, you gotta have a pallet jack.
When Thomas got the Kondia, the spindle was locked up solid and wouldn't turn. That's one of the reasons why he got it for so cheap. But, when we started playing around with it, it turned out that the high range/low range transmission in the head was jammed into both gears at once. We unjammed it, and it's been fine. We've been slowly working on it, cleaning it up and fixing little things. We added a cheap imported 3-axis digital readout system (about $300) to it. So far, it seems to be working well, and is pretty accurate.
So, the big Kondia mill is up and running and in service. This press die job was a good exercise for it, to test its capabilities, and get me familiar and comfortable running it. I go through this with any machine I acquire. I'm liking the Kondia so far. It's good to have a big strong milling machine. I gives me additional capabilities. That's what having a shop full of machines is about.
And speaking of disruptions, we just completed another big film shoot. Lots of people and confusion for a few days. This was Paramount Studios again, part of another episode of the TV series Shooter, the continuing adventures of Bob Lee Swagger, ex-Marine Sniper. I believe these episodes will be on the air this summer. This was a major sequence involving our heroes fighting their way out a big underground bunker controlled by the bad guys.
They set up last Thursday, and built a whole bunch of sets and walls down at the far end of the basement. They made up some neat looking underground compartments with fake walls that look like heavy concrete. Cool old time style doors that imitated some of our actual old time doors. We had them leave some of the walls and doors in place. They strung cables up and down the halls, parked generators and trailers outside, etc. We had 2-3 security guards parked outside the building 24 hours over the Easter weekend. Good for Security; but not so good for keeping the Lab Secret.
The shoot days were this past Monday and Tuesday. About 40 trucks and 100 people. Complex chase and fight scenes involving collapsing ceilings, breaking down block walls, and gunfights with actors dressed in SWAT gear firing AR-15's (fairly quiet blanks). In the halls and chambers right down from my shop. I kid you not. It does get exciting down here sometimes. I functioned as the Site Manager and sort-of supervised to protect our shops from the carnage.
In general, we're not supposed to take pictures of them in operation, but here are two quick shots I took during the filming, right outside the entrance to my shop. There were literally about 100 people in here, with equipment, all throughout the basement.
Wednesday was cleanup day. Crews came in and hauled away all the equipment and props, repaired the damage, and swept out the entire basement. It took them 12 hours. Now they are gone, and all is quiet again. We don't have any more shoots on the schedule right now. I think the Shooter series is done here, at least for this season. They are saying that the remaining episodes for this year don't have any more underground bunker scenes. Overall, they are happy. It was efficient and cost effective for them to do the filming here in our building and around Fillmore. Chances are good that they'll be back eventually for some other series.
Here are a couple of cool pictures of our real tunnel, that goes across under the street. They filmed part of a chase sequence in there, so they had their crew sweep it all out and light it up. A rare chance to get a better look at it. The entrance is in the back of one of the vacant shop bays across the hall from me, down about 40 feet.
The inside of the tunnel is about 4' square, all concrete. It's blocked off about halfway down, under the middle of the street. You can see the old 1940's double stack conveyor system on the right side, mostly still there. The empty orange crates traveled back and forth on the conveyors. In the building across the street, they cleaned and repaired the crates. If we ever decide to pull out the remains of the conveyor, I've claimed all the old bearings and driveline parts; 1940's machinery.
Anyway, back to the normal everyday excitement of building basses! Where the explosions and gunfire are kept to a minimum. Usually.
They set up last Thursday, and built a whole bunch of sets and walls down at the far end of the basement. They made up some neat looking underground compartments with fake walls that look like heavy concrete. Cool old time style doors that imitated some of our actual old time doors. We had them leave some of the walls and doors in place. They strung cables up and down the halls, parked generators and trailers outside, etc. We had 2-3 security guards parked outside the building 24 hours over the Easter weekend. Good for Security; but not so good for keeping the Lab Secret.
The shoot days were this past Monday and Tuesday. About 40 trucks and 100 people. Complex chase and fight scenes involving collapsing ceilings, breaking down block walls, and gunfights with actors dressed in SWAT gear firing AR-15's (fairly quiet blanks). In the halls and chambers right down from my shop. I kid you not. It does get exciting down here sometimes. I functioned as the Site Manager and sort-of supervised to protect our shops from the carnage.
In general, we're not supposed to take pictures of them in operation, but here are two quick shots I took during the filming, right outside the entrance to my shop. There were literally about 100 people in here, with equipment, all throughout the basement.
Wednesday was cleanup day. Crews came in and hauled away all the equipment and props, repaired the damage, and swept out the entire basement. It took them 12 hours. Now they are gone, and all is quiet again. We don't have any more shoots on the schedule right now. I think the Shooter series is done here, at least for this season. They are saying that the remaining episodes for this year don't have any more underground bunker scenes. Overall, they are happy. It was efficient and cost effective for them to do the filming here in our building and around Fillmore. Chances are good that they'll be back eventually for some other series.
Here are a couple of cool pictures of our real tunnel, that goes across under the street. They filmed part of a chase sequence in there, so they had their crew sweep it all out and light it up. A rare chance to get a better look at it. The entrance is in the back of one of the vacant shop bays across the hall from me, down about 40 feet.
The inside of the tunnel is about 4' square, all concrete. It's blocked off about halfway down, under the middle of the street. You can see the old 1940's double stack conveyor system on the right side, mostly still there. The empty orange crates traveled back and forth on the conveyors. In the building across the street, they cleaned and repaired the crates. If we ever decide to pull out the remains of the conveyor, I've claimed all the old bearings and driveline parts; 1940's machinery.
Anyway, back to the normal everyday excitement of building basses! Where the explosions and gunfire are kept to a minimum. Usually.
That's one of the reasons why I have it. Its presence helps to keep the peace.
This week's big distraction is SteamFest! A great big gathering in Fillmore for train enthusiasts. The Fillmore & Western Railroad (located three blocks away) has all three of their old steam locomotives up and running. All kinds of rides, dinner trains and fun stuff happening Saturday and Sunday. They will be chugging back and forth by my windows all weekend.
And we're part of it too. Upstairs at the other end of the building is our event area. A local model railroad club came in Friday morning and spent the day setting up their big portable O-gauge layout. It's 20' x 40'. I spent part of the week prepping the space, running power, wiring in a decent PA system, etc.
Saturday and Sunday, there will be regular shuttles of one of the real steam locomotives pulling a couple of cabooses, bringing folks over to see the model train layout and other cool stuff in our building. The Secret Underground Lab downstairs will be locked and secured. Chip The Ferocious will be on duty. I'll be upstairs with a small booth of instrument stuff, and helping to take tickets and watch over everything. Banjozilla is on duty guarding the front hallway at the entrance. It's going to be a busy weekend, not very productive on Scroll Basses.
We have so much cool old stuff in this building. Here's our old popcorn wagon. Behind it is a mint condition control panel from a 1950's power station. And many other funky vehicles. You can see a few of Ray's collection of neon signs. He has several hundred of them over in the next room.
The Murphy Auto Museum, which is nearby in Oxnard, brought up three of its classic cars to display. My favorite is the gold '67 Charger. And there's a beautiful '71 Mustang and a '62 Cadillac. The '56 Chevy belongs to one of our local neighbors, who stores it here. And a couple of beautiful Airstreams, restored by Steve, down at the other end of the building.
It's never boring here.
And we're part of it too. Upstairs at the other end of the building is our event area. A local model railroad club came in Friday morning and spent the day setting up their big portable O-gauge layout. It's 20' x 40'. I spent part of the week prepping the space, running power, wiring in a decent PA system, etc.
Saturday and Sunday, there will be regular shuttles of one of the real steam locomotives pulling a couple of cabooses, bringing folks over to see the model train layout and other cool stuff in our building. The Secret Underground Lab downstairs will be locked and secured. Chip The Ferocious will be on duty. I'll be upstairs with a small booth of instrument stuff, and helping to take tickets and watch over everything. Banjozilla is on duty guarding the front hallway at the entrance. It's going to be a busy weekend, not very productive on Scroll Basses.
We have so much cool old stuff in this building. Here's our old popcorn wagon. Behind it is a mint condition control panel from a 1950's power station. And many other funky vehicles. You can see a few of Ray's collection of neon signs. He has several hundred of them over in the next room.
The Murphy Auto Museum, which is nearby in Oxnard, brought up three of its classic cars to display. My favorite is the gold '67 Charger. And there's a beautiful '71 Mustang and a '62 Cadillac. The '56 Chevy belongs to one of our local neighbors, who stores it here. And a couple of beautiful Airstreams, restored by Steve, down at the other end of the building.
It's never boring here.
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Trains are in the family here. My great-grandfather was an engineer on the New Haven at the point when the line into Manhattan switched over from steam to electric. He started with the company in 1900, became a fireman in 1902, and an engineer in 1907, retiring in the mid-50s.
I spent today at our local trolley museum, where I'm one of the volunteer trolley operators.
I spent today at our local trolley museum, where I'm one of the volunteer trolley operators.
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SteamFest is over! A long, tiring weekend. I spent all day Saturday and Sunday manning my little booth, and running around checking on everything. Here's my setup, a simple display of Scroll Bass bodies, necks and parts in various stages of construction, plus two finished AMB-2's in the rack. I also ran the PA system, keeping train music running and making announcements.
I talked to probably 200 people at length. My main point wasn't to sell basses, but to explain who we Luthiers are and what we are doing here in this building. The important thing was that I met lots of our neighbors, people who live right nearby here in Fillmore. They had no idea what was going on in this building, and were amazed when they saw what we do. We also had members of the local media and the City Council and Planning Commission. This is all important groundwork in establishing our value to the city. We're still fighting a battle with the city Building & Code Department, which will be decided by the Planning Commission and City Council.
I wasn't able to get over to the main part of SteamFest, over at the railroad, but reports are that it was a big hit. Big crowds, all the train rides sold out. The steam engines were chugging by our building all weekend. They used one of the diesels pulling two cabooses to shuttle people back and forth from the train station to our building, every half hour.
I haven't heard the final tally, but I'm guessing that we had 400-500 people each day. Typically 10-50 at a time. No problems managing the crowds. Lots of little kids coming to see the model trains.
The model train setup itself wasn't particularly interesting in the scenic buildup, but it worked very well for this event. The big O-gauge trains running around flat on the edge of the tabletops, just inches from the kid's noses, were mesmerizing. Half the fun, from my viewpoint, was watching the kids. Amazingly, only one major derailment due to an errant little finger. No injuries and service was restored in a few minutes.
Anyway, it's over. I assume we'll be doing the same thing next year, around the same time. The model railroad club pulled it all down and packed it up last night. We tore down and cleaned up. I got a fun bonus. We had to shuffle the Murphy Museum cars around, and Steve let me drive the '67 Charger! Ah man, that brought back happy memories....I used to own a pair of '66 Coronets that were my street machines. Back in my Car Freak days.
It's Monday morning. Back to building basses.
I talked to probably 200 people at length. My main point wasn't to sell basses, but to explain who we Luthiers are and what we are doing here in this building. The important thing was that I met lots of our neighbors, people who live right nearby here in Fillmore. They had no idea what was going on in this building, and were amazed when they saw what we do. We also had members of the local media and the City Council and Planning Commission. This is all important groundwork in establishing our value to the city. We're still fighting a battle with the city Building & Code Department, which will be decided by the Planning Commission and City Council.
I wasn't able to get over to the main part of SteamFest, over at the railroad, but reports are that it was a big hit. Big crowds, all the train rides sold out. The steam engines were chugging by our building all weekend. They used one of the diesels pulling two cabooses to shuttle people back and forth from the train station to our building, every half hour.
I haven't heard the final tally, but I'm guessing that we had 400-500 people each day. Typically 10-50 at a time. No problems managing the crowds. Lots of little kids coming to see the model trains.
The model train setup itself wasn't particularly interesting in the scenic buildup, but it worked very well for this event. The big O-gauge trains running around flat on the edge of the tabletops, just inches from the kid's noses, were mesmerizing. Half the fun, from my viewpoint, was watching the kids. Amazingly, only one major derailment due to an errant little finger. No injuries and service was restored in a few minutes.
Anyway, it's over. I assume we'll be doing the same thing next year, around the same time. The model railroad club pulled it all down and packed it up last night. We tore down and cleaned up. I got a fun bonus. We had to shuffle the Murphy Museum cars around, and Steve let me drive the '67 Charger! Ah man, that brought back happy memories....I used to own a pair of '66 Coronets that were my street machines. Back in my Car Freak days.
It's Monday morning. Back to building basses.
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One sad casualty of the weekend: I broke the Philco! If you haven't been following along over on the Love Of Ampegs thread, I have this cool old Philco cabinet radio from 1938, which I found at a junk store here in Fillmore. It's become kind of a mascot here. I've been using it as a prop, photographing all of my basses in front of it. It just looks so cool, and sets the style and character that I want my basses to have. Every one of my basses gets an official Philco portrait before heading out. Here's an example:
A week and a half ago, I finally moved forward with my plans to modify the old Philco into a functional bass amp. I took out its original 10" speaker and made up a thick plywood adapter plate that attaches right to the original speaker panel. I didn't want to harm the original battered gold grill cloth. I mounted a GK 15" speaker in there. It's not an ideal speaker installation, I know, but it works. And I wanted to minimize modifications to the Philco.
Then I got a small 50 watt solid state auto-stereo amp and a sealed 12v battery. I built a plywood assembly that holds them down in the bottom of the cabinet, and can be lifted right out.
And there it is! The Philco is alive as a battery powered small bass amp. I wasn't expecting much from that little amp, but it actually works fairly well. It has a 1/4" input jack marked Mic, which I plugged my bass right in to. As long as I keep the Bass control fairly centered, it doesn't distort, and has a modest amount of power.
I also have one of those small 200W GK amp heads coming, which I plan to use to power the Philco here in my shop. It will be one of my general purpose instrument testing amps. In addition to its duties as the photo prop.
I tested it out a week ago Saturday. My bluegrass buddies came up to Fillmore and we went over to the park near the railroad station, under the trees. I parked the old Philco there, and played through it for two hours with no problems. It didn't even begin to run the battery down. It looked completely appropriate for a bunch of old geezers playing music in a park. I had Banjozilla there too, as a backup. We had a great time, and plan to do that fairly often.
Anyway, disaster struck this weekend. My own stupid fault. We were rushing around placing all kinds of Cool Old Things around the building for the SteamFest event. We decided that the Philco would look cool up in the front entranceway. I had it on a hand truck, wheeling it around the outside of the building across the parking lot. I was in too much of a hurry and I slipped. The poor old Philco went off the front of the hand truck, and went face down on the concrete with a sickening crunch. Argh. The radio chassis popped out of its mounting and broke the front wood panel, pushing it out partway. Fortunately, it didn't break the glass dial. Aw, man. I felt so bad. Here are the after-accident pictures.
Oh well. It's fixable. I'll have to gently fit and glue it back together. The old Philco will be back.
A week and a half ago, I finally moved forward with my plans to modify the old Philco into a functional bass amp. I took out its original 10" speaker and made up a thick plywood adapter plate that attaches right to the original speaker panel. I didn't want to harm the original battered gold grill cloth. I mounted a GK 15" speaker in there. It's not an ideal speaker installation, I know, but it works. And I wanted to minimize modifications to the Philco.
Then I got a small 50 watt solid state auto-stereo amp and a sealed 12v battery. I built a plywood assembly that holds them down in the bottom of the cabinet, and can be lifted right out.
And there it is! The Philco is alive as a battery powered small bass amp. I wasn't expecting much from that little amp, but it actually works fairly well. It has a 1/4" input jack marked Mic, which I plugged my bass right in to. As long as I keep the Bass control fairly centered, it doesn't distort, and has a modest amount of power.
I also have one of those small 200W GK amp heads coming, which I plan to use to power the Philco here in my shop. It will be one of my general purpose instrument testing amps. In addition to its duties as the photo prop.
I tested it out a week ago Saturday. My bluegrass buddies came up to Fillmore and we went over to the park near the railroad station, under the trees. I parked the old Philco there, and played through it for two hours with no problems. It didn't even begin to run the battery down. It looked completely appropriate for a bunch of old geezers playing music in a park. I had Banjozilla there too, as a backup. We had a great time, and plan to do that fairly often.
Anyway, disaster struck this weekend. My own stupid fault. We were rushing around placing all kinds of Cool Old Things around the building for the SteamFest event. We decided that the Philco would look cool up in the front entranceway. I had it on a hand truck, wheeling it around the outside of the building across the parking lot. I was in too much of a hurry and I slipped. The poor old Philco went off the front of the hand truck, and went face down on the concrete with a sickening crunch. Argh. The radio chassis popped out of its mounting and broke the front wood panel, pushing it out partway. Fortunately, it didn't break the glass dial. Aw, man. I felt so bad. Here are the after-accident pictures.
Oh well. It's fixable. I'll have to gently fit and glue it back together. The old Philco will be back.
I can theorize, on good authority, that you can fix virtually anything, and that old Philco is too cool NOT to fix.
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How much for the road worn Philco? 
Things like that hurt. My wife bought an antique rolltop desk and our cats used it as a scratch post. Ouch!!!
Things like that hurt. My wife bought an antique rolltop desk and our cats used it as a scratch post. Ouch!!!
Yeah, I'll fix it and make it right. It just bothers me to have damaged something that's well made and has been around a long time. It was built in 1938, 16 years before I was built! And I'm the one who broke it. I feel guilty and stupid. But I'll get over it. I'll turn the Philco into the coolest bass test amp around!
No, I hadn't seen that channel before. Very cool stuff! I'm not really into amps that much personally, but I can appreciate the history and technology and craftsmanship that goes into them.
There's a guy in Van Nuys, not far from me, who is a historian and repair expert on these old Philco radios. I got lots of information about mine from his web site. He makes up replacement knobs and other parts. I want to eventually send the chassis to him to re-tube and tune up. It would be nice to have the real radio working too, switched into the speaker. This model has shortwave band, in addition to AM band.
Since the dreadful accident, I've also had some other thoughts about what to do with the Philco. I'm thinking that I shouldn't use it as my battery powered amp to haul over to the park. It's kind of big and clumsy, and there's too much chance of more damage. I may fit it with the little GK head inside, and keep it here in the lab as a test amp and photo prop.
I should make up some other cool smaller rig as the battery powered field amp. I had the idea last night of building the battery amp into one of the old Sunkist Orange crates that we have around here. That might work. Easy to move around, and I could sit on it while I play out under the trees. Hmmmm.
It's been a busy hot summer. Fortunately, it's been staying relatively cool down here in the Secret Underground Lab. We had a couple of days where the outside temp went over 110 here in Fillmore. Down here in the Lab, it was around 80. A little warmer than I like, but certainly reasonable to work in. Neighbors of mine in above-ground shops were sweltering. They all kept visiting and hanging around.
This weekend's machinery upgrade project was.....a sandblasting cabinet!
Way back in the early 1990's, I built a decent sandblasting cabinet from scratch, out of wood and metal. I made it big enough that I could fit instrument bodies inside. Back in those days, Mike Lipe and I did some projects experimenting with sandblasting alder and ash bodies for that weathered look. Cool, but not something that we turned into a production process. I also used the sandblaster occasionally for cleaning up machine parts.
Over the years, I ended up moving the cabinet outside under a tarp, at my old shop in Burbank. Through neglect, water and sun started destroying it. I hauled it up here with me to Fillmore. But it was in bad shape, and I was debating whether to just trash it. Then we had a couple of uses for it recently. It still basically worked, although it leaked sand badly and made a mess.
I started thinking about all the satin aluminum hardware I'm making up these days. All the bridges, tailpieces, neck plates, headstock plates, etc. that I use on my walnut series basses are aluminum. Right now I give them a "brush finish", sanding them to about 400 grit with coarse Scotchbrite. It's pretty simple to do and looks real nice on a satin-finish woody bass. But I got to wondering about trying sandblasting to put an even satin finish on the aluminum. If not actual sand, then maybe some other abrasive media like walnut shells or silicone beads or baking soda. I want to experiment with this.
Decent sheet metal sandblasting cabinets are commonly available on CraigsList for around $200-$400, but I didn't want to spend that much. Then this red one showed up for $40. Used, a little worn, missing its legs and base. That's why it was so cheap. I saw it a few weeks back, and thought that I should probably grab it. Nobody took it, and this week he lowered the price to $20! How could I refuse that? I offered him $40 to drop it off here at my shop, and he did. A great deal. It's just the right size, and in good shape. It includes the gloves and gun and hoses.
So, here's my old cabinet, as I'm starting to take it all apart. It worked pretty well, back when I built it, but the weather destroyed it. I'm going to trash the old cabinet, and rework the wood base to fit the new one.
And here's the new one, as I got it. Well worth $40.
And there it is. I cut the base down, adjusted a few parts, and the new cabinet fits right on it.
I tested it out quickly, and it seems to work fine. It's a nice size to work with. I just need to rig up a light of some kind in the upper chamber, and maybe replace the glass window. Other than that, it's in service. A machine refurbished, a new capability added to the shop. That's a successful Sunday to me. Now, back to work on Scroll Basses!
This weekend's machinery upgrade project was.....a sandblasting cabinet!
Way back in the early 1990's, I built a decent sandblasting cabinet from scratch, out of wood and metal. I made it big enough that I could fit instrument bodies inside. Back in those days, Mike Lipe and I did some projects experimenting with sandblasting alder and ash bodies for that weathered look. Cool, but not something that we turned into a production process. I also used the sandblaster occasionally for cleaning up machine parts.
Over the years, I ended up moving the cabinet outside under a tarp, at my old shop in Burbank. Through neglect, water and sun started destroying it. I hauled it up here with me to Fillmore. But it was in bad shape, and I was debating whether to just trash it. Then we had a couple of uses for it recently. It still basically worked, although it leaked sand badly and made a mess.
I started thinking about all the satin aluminum hardware I'm making up these days. All the bridges, tailpieces, neck plates, headstock plates, etc. that I use on my walnut series basses are aluminum. Right now I give them a "brush finish", sanding them to about 400 grit with coarse Scotchbrite. It's pretty simple to do and looks real nice on a satin-finish woody bass. But I got to wondering about trying sandblasting to put an even satin finish on the aluminum. If not actual sand, then maybe some other abrasive media like walnut shells or silicone beads or baking soda. I want to experiment with this.
Decent sheet metal sandblasting cabinets are commonly available on CraigsList for around $200-$400, but I didn't want to spend that much. Then this red one showed up for $40. Used, a little worn, missing its legs and base. That's why it was so cheap. I saw it a few weeks back, and thought that I should probably grab it. Nobody took it, and this week he lowered the price to $20! How could I refuse that? I offered him $40 to drop it off here at my shop, and he did. A great deal. It's just the right size, and in good shape. It includes the gloves and gun and hoses.
So, here's my old cabinet, as I'm starting to take it all apart. It worked pretty well, back when I built it, but the weather destroyed it. I'm going to trash the old cabinet, and rework the wood base to fit the new one.
And here's the new one, as I got it. Well worth $40.
And there it is. I cut the base down, adjusted a few parts, and the new cabinet fits right on it.
I tested it out quickly, and it seems to work fine. It's a nice size to work with. I just need to rig up a light of some kind in the upper chamber, and maybe replace the glass window. Other than that, it's in service. A machine refurbished, a new capability added to the shop. That's a successful Sunday to me. Now, back to work on Scroll Basses!
Rôckhewer
Commercial User
- Feb 28, 2015
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I love having a nice blasting cabinet available.
After you replace the window...
I'm sure you know about tearoff glass protection sheeting. A relatively cheap way to not have to do that again...
This is just the first link I came across...
Extra-Large Cabinet Inner Lens Protectors
If you want *real* blasting power...
Back in my stoneworking days I used to "hot rod" blast cabinets by using an external pressurized media blaster (instead of just the siphon gun). It's more hassle because you don't have automatically recycled media... but at least the cabinet catches & deposits in a bucket.
And pressure feeding the media works so much better for quick, deep etching.
I have cut lettering in quite a few headstones with just the relatively cheap Harbor Freight unit... and 80g garnet.
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