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Machine Shop Practice: Making Custom Metal Hardware For Basses
- Thread starter Bruce Johnson
- Start date
Okay, here are the main basic power tools and machines that I use constantly when making metal parts for basses:
Drill press(es):
You really need a drill press for drilling holes in metal. Not just to hold the drill perpendicular to the surface, but to apply downforce. When drilling metal, you need to apply much more force, pushing on the drill bit, than you do for wood. Sure, you can drill holes in aluminum or steel with a handheld electric drill, but it's a struggle.
If you've seen some of my other threads, you know that I have an enormous number of drill presses here in my shop. Because I'm a hopeless machinery junkie. All sizes and ages and special types. In my main machine shop I have a cluster of 8 drill presses that I use all the time, pretty much every day. They are set up for all different jobs. As I go through these parts projects, you'll see how I use them all, jumping from one to the next to the next, doing all the different operations without having to reset any of them.
There's the main cluster of 6 small and medium size drill presses that I use most of the time. Further down, I plan to write a detailed post about the techniques of drilling holes in metal. In that, I'll describe the functions that each of these drill presses do. But having all these nice strong drill presses is a luxury.
You can get by just fine with one single drill press. I did for many years. You just have to change the bits and cutters more often. Metal hardware for basses is almost all small holes in aluminum or brass. Mostly 1/4" or less. A small benchtop drill press will do that. It doesn't have to be heavy duty, or high precision, or expensive.
Bigger drill presses can take larger parts, have more horsepower and can run at high torque lower speed. You need them for bigger holes in tougher metals.
Here's a poor little orphan drill press that wandered in here two weeks ago. A tenant moved his shop out of our building and didn't need it any more, so he gave it to me. I'm a homeless machine shelter.
It's one of the small benchtop drill presses made in Taiwan or China, arriving here by the container load. You can buy them new for under $100. I often see them for sale around here on CraigsList for under $50. I'm going to keep it, and add it into my collection. Find it a bench spot and set it up for some particular job.
Most Luthiers I know have at least one of these little drill presses around, and they will do most drilling jobs on a bass. They are accurate enough and they have enough power to drill 1/4" holes in aluminum. Just don't try to drill a 1/2" hole in stainless with it.
The larger floor-standing versions of these import drill presses are also nice to have. They can be bought for $200 new and $100 used. I bought one of them new in 1982, my first drill press! Up until the mid-'90's it was my only drill press. I still have it, and it runs fine. I've never done any repairs on it. Almost 40 years of service, still going strong. I have it over in Unit 2 these days; Jeremy uses it daily.
That's enough about drill presses for now. The whistle is blowing and I need to get back to the machine shop. I'm turning up a batch of stainless parts in my big LeBlond lathe.
Drill press(es):
You really need a drill press for drilling holes in metal. Not just to hold the drill perpendicular to the surface, but to apply downforce. When drilling metal, you need to apply much more force, pushing on the drill bit, than you do for wood. Sure, you can drill holes in aluminum or steel with a handheld electric drill, but it's a struggle.
If you've seen some of my other threads, you know that I have an enormous number of drill presses here in my shop. Because I'm a hopeless machinery junkie. All sizes and ages and special types. In my main machine shop I have a cluster of 8 drill presses that I use all the time, pretty much every day. They are set up for all different jobs. As I go through these parts projects, you'll see how I use them all, jumping from one to the next to the next, doing all the different operations without having to reset any of them.
There's the main cluster of 6 small and medium size drill presses that I use most of the time. Further down, I plan to write a detailed post about the techniques of drilling holes in metal. In that, I'll describe the functions that each of these drill presses do. But having all these nice strong drill presses is a luxury.
You can get by just fine with one single drill press. I did for many years. You just have to change the bits and cutters more often. Metal hardware for basses is almost all small holes in aluminum or brass. Mostly 1/4" or less. A small benchtop drill press will do that. It doesn't have to be heavy duty, or high precision, or expensive.
Bigger drill presses can take larger parts, have more horsepower and can run at high torque lower speed. You need them for bigger holes in tougher metals.
Here's a poor little orphan drill press that wandered in here two weeks ago. A tenant moved his shop out of our building and didn't need it any more, so he gave it to me. I'm a homeless machine shelter.
It's one of the small benchtop drill presses made in Taiwan or China, arriving here by the container load. You can buy them new for under $100. I often see them for sale around here on CraigsList for under $50. I'm going to keep it, and add it into my collection. Find it a bench spot and set it up for some particular job.
Most Luthiers I know have at least one of these little drill presses around, and they will do most drilling jobs on a bass. They are accurate enough and they have enough power to drill 1/4" holes in aluminum. Just don't try to drill a 1/2" hole in stainless with it.
The larger floor-standing versions of these import drill presses are also nice to have. They can be bought for $200 new and $100 used. I bought one of them new in 1982, my first drill press! Up until the mid-'90's it was my only drill press. I still have it, and it runs fine. I've never done any repairs on it. Almost 40 years of service, still going strong. I have it over in Unit 2 these days; Jeremy uses it daily.
That's enough about drill presses for now. The whistle is blowing and I need to get back to the machine shop. I'm turning up a batch of stainless parts in my big LeBlond lathe.
Ha! I have one of those little green bench top drill presses. I think mine is Central Machinery, but I’ve seen identical ones with different color paint and name badge. The limited depth and height capacity make it not much use for woodwork, but I keep it out in the garage for odd jobs. I’m still rocking the old Craftsman bench top for bass builds, circa 1947, but the runout and slop on the quill is getting pretty bad, and the return spring doesn’t work anymore. My mother in law is downsizing her deceased husbands tools, including a full size Delta floor model drill press. I don’t want to give her less than fair market value, what are these worth in good condition?
Okay, Bandsaws:
A bandsaw is a very useful machine to have for metalworking, like we do on basses. Using a bandsaw is the quickest way to saw out rough shapely contours on plates and relatively thin bars and blocks. A standard 14" woodworking bandsaw will saw aluminum plate up to 1/2" thick with no problem. Brass to 3/8" thick. A normal 14" bandsaw will usually have a 3/4 HP motor. Those plate thicknesses are about where a 3/4 HP saw will start to bog down, running out of power. Smaller bandsaws with smaller motors can cut aluminum and brass, but not as thick.
Standard woodworking blades work fine for cutting aluminum and brass on a bandsaw. They make special bandsaw blades for aluminum, but they aren't really necessary.
Here's my aluminum/brass bandsaw:
It's a low-priced import Enco 14" woodworking bandsaw that I bought new around 1990. I use it almost daily, as you can see from the mess of scraps on the table. It's been a trooper.
This bandsaw is dedicated to cutting only aluminum, brass and pickguard material. There's a reason for that. As soon as you cut aluminum on a bandsaw, the whole insides of the saw gets coated with aluminum dust. Sparkly particles everywhere, including embedded in the rubber tires. If you then use the saw to cut your beautiful flame maple neck blank, it will become Metalflake Flame Maple. Which is probably is an exotic tonewood.
So, if you want to use your only bandsaw to cut a few aluminum parts, you need to allow time to thoroughly clean out the saw afterward.
You may have noticed that I didn't mention Steel and Stainless above. Do Not try to cut steel or stainless on your regular woodworking-type bandsaw! You'll get a shower of sparks and destroy the blade in a few seconds. Don't do it. Don't even think about doing it. The blade speed of a woodworking bandsaw is 10 Times the speed needed for steel. Really.
To bandsaw steel and stainless, you need a special bandsaw with an internal gear transmission to shift it down into the Low-Low range. If you are used to normal bandsaws, it's amazing to see how slowly the blade moves on a steel-cutting bandsaw. You can almost count the teeth going by. But that's what it takes to cut steel, stainless steel, and also titanium.
I have a dedicated Steel/Stainless bandsaw, a 14" Grizzly special model that has the extra geared transmission. I couldn't find a picture of it at the moment. I don't use it very often, but it does the job when I need it. I've cut 1/2" thick stainless plate with it.
This is a good reason why you may not want to mess around with custom stainless hardware for your basses. Sawing, drilling and shaping stainless requires more special machines that have more horsepower, slower speeds, frame strength, and definitely higher cost.
Cutoff Bandsaws:
If you start making batches of custom metal parts, a cutoff bandsaw is a big timesaver. A Cutoff bandsaw is a specialty bandsaw that pivots down to horizontal, sawing chunks of metal from bar stock. They generally come in two sizes, Small and Large. I have one of each, and I use them both. The Small one every day; the large one maybe once a month.
Here's the Small one, in the foreground. I bought it new in 1982 for about $175. Made in Taiwan. It's been a workhorse all these years. Almost every metal part I make starts out as a slug sawn from bar stock, on this saw. It's theoretically capable of sawing 4" diameter round stock, but it doesn't really have the poop for that. I use it for 1" and smaller solid stock, although it will cut larger thin wall tubing.
If you are getting into some serious bass metalworking, I recommend that you get one of these small cutoff saws. New, today, they are $370 at Harbor Freight. I've seen used ones around here on CraigsList for $100-$150.
Here's the Big one. The same design machine, scaled up 3X. About 4' long, 1 1/2 HP. It will actually saw through 4" diameter round steel. I've done it. I generally use the Big saw for larger size aluminum bar stock, over an inch. You'll see me use it cutting the blanks for those bridges.
Both of these cutoff bandsaws will saw both aluminum/brass and steel/stainless. They have three speeds; I have both of them set on their medium speeds. That speed is somewhat slow for aluminum, but not too fast for stainless, if I'm gentle with the feed rate. A little while ago, I was sawing some 1/2" dia stainless round stock on the Small saw. Making up some spoke wheel truss rod parts.
A bandsaw is a very useful machine to have for metalworking, like we do on basses. Using a bandsaw is the quickest way to saw out rough shapely contours on plates and relatively thin bars and blocks. A standard 14" woodworking bandsaw will saw aluminum plate up to 1/2" thick with no problem. Brass to 3/8" thick. A normal 14" bandsaw will usually have a 3/4 HP motor. Those plate thicknesses are about where a 3/4 HP saw will start to bog down, running out of power. Smaller bandsaws with smaller motors can cut aluminum and brass, but not as thick.
Standard woodworking blades work fine for cutting aluminum and brass on a bandsaw. They make special bandsaw blades for aluminum, but they aren't really necessary.
Here's my aluminum/brass bandsaw:
It's a low-priced import Enco 14" woodworking bandsaw that I bought new around 1990. I use it almost daily, as you can see from the mess of scraps on the table. It's been a trooper.
This bandsaw is dedicated to cutting only aluminum, brass and pickguard material. There's a reason for that. As soon as you cut aluminum on a bandsaw, the whole insides of the saw gets coated with aluminum dust. Sparkly particles everywhere, including embedded in the rubber tires. If you then use the saw to cut your beautiful flame maple neck blank, it will become Metalflake Flame Maple. Which is probably is an exotic tonewood.
So, if you want to use your only bandsaw to cut a few aluminum parts, you need to allow time to thoroughly clean out the saw afterward.
You may have noticed that I didn't mention Steel and Stainless above. Do Not try to cut steel or stainless on your regular woodworking-type bandsaw! You'll get a shower of sparks and destroy the blade in a few seconds. Don't do it. Don't even think about doing it. The blade speed of a woodworking bandsaw is 10 Times the speed needed for steel. Really.
To bandsaw steel and stainless, you need a special bandsaw with an internal gear transmission to shift it down into the Low-Low range. If you are used to normal bandsaws, it's amazing to see how slowly the blade moves on a steel-cutting bandsaw. You can almost count the teeth going by. But that's what it takes to cut steel, stainless steel, and also titanium.
I have a dedicated Steel/Stainless bandsaw, a 14" Grizzly special model that has the extra geared transmission. I couldn't find a picture of it at the moment. I don't use it very often, but it does the job when I need it. I've cut 1/2" thick stainless plate with it.
This is a good reason why you may not want to mess around with custom stainless hardware for your basses. Sawing, drilling and shaping stainless requires more special machines that have more horsepower, slower speeds, frame strength, and definitely higher cost.
Cutoff Bandsaws:
If you start making batches of custom metal parts, a cutoff bandsaw is a big timesaver. A Cutoff bandsaw is a specialty bandsaw that pivots down to horizontal, sawing chunks of metal from bar stock. They generally come in two sizes, Small and Large. I have one of each, and I use them both. The Small one every day; the large one maybe once a month.
Here's the Small one, in the foreground. I bought it new in 1982 for about $175. Made in Taiwan. It's been a workhorse all these years. Almost every metal part I make starts out as a slug sawn from bar stock, on this saw. It's theoretically capable of sawing 4" diameter round stock, but it doesn't really have the poop for that. I use it for 1" and smaller solid stock, although it will cut larger thin wall tubing.
If you are getting into some serious bass metalworking, I recommend that you get one of these small cutoff saws. New, today, they are $370 at Harbor Freight. I've seen used ones around here on CraigsList for $100-$150.
Here's the Big one. The same design machine, scaled up 3X. About 4' long, 1 1/2 HP. It will actually saw through 4" diameter round steel. I've done it. I generally use the Big saw for larger size aluminum bar stock, over an inch. You'll see me use it cutting the blanks for those bridges.
Both of these cutoff bandsaws will saw both aluminum/brass and steel/stainless. They have three speeds; I have both of them set on their medium speeds. That speed is somewhat slow for aluminum, but not too fast for stainless, if I'm gentle with the feed rate. A little while ago, I was sawing some 1/2" dia stainless round stock on the Small saw. Making up some spoke wheel truss rod parts.
"Full Sized Delta" - radial, or your basic 16.5-17" job?
For the basic 16.5-17 inch, A quick glance says $575-1000 on sleazebay; looking closer to (your) home with a touch less sleaze, $750 for one on WesternMass craigslist $240 for one out in central New York. $275 on Lawn Guy Land. $500 for one in New Hampster. I haven't tried to survey "and how long have those been sitting at that price" as I would if seriously shopping, but it takes the pulse of the "local" market (you might need to expand the search to a wider area) to some extent if you can find some that look similar to what your MIL's late departed had.
Radials are all over the map. $350 for one in New Hampster on CL. $100 for a rough one in CT, $1500 for a nicer model with a much more serious "metal working" table in New Hampster
Radial drills can do some handy tricks (but are less rigid than the basic ones, unless seriously overbuilt.)
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This Invalid Link Removed is probably a joke compared to the saws you are talking about, but I wonder if it could help me cut 3/8" aluminum bar. I now use a hacksaw. I don't mind the sawing, but the filing to get the cut sides true takes me forever. @Bruce Johnson what do you think?
I haven't seen or used one of those "mini-chop saws" in person, but it looks like it could be a handy machine for sawing off 3/8" aluminum bar stock. That's probably about the limit on size it can cut, by its horsepower.
I have a little Barker Horizontal Mill, which is set up to work as a small metal chop saw. Like that mini-chop saw, it saws off horizontal bar stock into precise slugs using a small thin circular Slotting Saw blade. It cuts slugs off accurately to length to +/-0.002", square and smooth. I use it almost daily for small slugs for round truss rod parts, etc.
The Barker is a small benchtop machine, made for heavy industrial use, machining small parts. It weighs 120 lbs. A new Barker costs about $2500 today. Mine is a very early one from the '50's, which I was lucky to find for $400 in 2004.
Here's a quick picture of it:
I'm not going to talk more about machines like this yet here, on this thread. This is beyond what most of you would be interested in for small Luthier shop work.
Again, let's not get too far into in-depth discussions about tools and machines here on this thread. I'm just basically introducing the ones that I use most often in making metal hardware for basses. So you know what they are when we are going over shop practice and procedures.
If you want to see more of my massive collection of woodworking and metalworking machinery, I show them off over on the long thread about my shop:
Inside The Secret Underground Laboratory
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Always love your in depth tutorials, @Bruce Johnson!
Reminds me of someone I've very fond of.
My dad, now 92, worked in metals, mostly brass & stainless steel. He custom made many items for the household as well for me & my sisters. His builds include: a set of lamps for the living room, custom stainless steel go-kart for me [yeah!], solid brass baby bed for my sisters 1st born, custom storm windows for the house, and much more.
When I bought a 1952 P bass over 35 years ago the original bakelite saddles had deteriorated so asked my dad to make some replacements, thinking he would produce steel rods like those found on the mid 50's P basses. Instead he made the 2 saddles plus 3 full bridge assemblies, in chrome plated sold brass.
Not only did he make the bridges but also 2 control plates as well. All of these parts are still used to this today and couldn't be prouder to have his handy work as an important part of my arsenal.
My dad was like having my own Leo Fender at my disposal, and he always came thru. Still does.
Reminds me of someone I've very fond of.My dad, now 92, worked in metals, mostly brass & stainless steel. He custom made many items for the household as well for me & my sisters. His builds include: a set of lamps for the living room, custom stainless steel go-kart for me [yeah!], solid brass baby bed for my sisters 1st born, custom storm windows for the house, and much more.
When I bought a 1952 P bass over 35 years ago the original bakelite saddles had deteriorated so asked my dad to make some replacements, thinking he would produce steel rods like those found on the mid 50's P basses. Instead he made the 2 saddles plus 3 full bridge assemblies, in chrome plated sold brass.
Not only did he make the bridges but also 2 control plates as well. All of these parts are still used to this today and couldn't be prouder to have his handy work as an important part of my arsenal.
My dad was like having my own Leo Fender at my disposal, and he always came thru. Still does.
You might be on to something there. I was recently shopping for a small XY table for more accurate drilling in my drill press, and the cost is a significant fraction of that of a small drill/mill machine with the table included.
I used to work with a crotchety old fellow from Scotland who had a sign on his desk with a Benjamin Franklin quote that goes something like, "the bitter taste of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low cost is forgotten." It's often good advice, and even better if you imagine it being yelled at you by an exasperated Scotsman.I'd like to pause to add, I've got one of the cheapie Harbor Freight automatic center punches and it worked fine for about 6 uses and then it wouldn't "automatically" punch anymore. If I unscrew it, then screw it back together, it will work again. But I have to do that after every use or the automatic action does nothing.
Do yourself a favor, buy a good one here.
I aspire to be the Dad that hands down or fixes stuff his sons (I missed out on Daughters) will be using long after I’m gone. My grandfather was a gadget-man, retired doctor and former Physics professor, though in his case it was “what’s the minimum effort and material expenditure required to fix the problem”. None of his contraptions were pretty, but they all worked. Three out of four sons inherited the tool fetish gene, one of them has a fixation for old antique wrenches, go figure.
We have the Harbor Freight "cutoff" bandsaw at our race shop, because that is basically a metal fab shop, and it's been a solid workhorse. -
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The thing I love about it the most over the chop saw is that I can just put the piece in there and let it run while I go do something else. When I hear the "tink" of metal hitting the floor and the saw stop, I know it's done.
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The thing I love about it the most over the chop saw is that I can just put the piece in there and let it run while I go do something else. When I hear the "tink" of metal hitting the floor and the saw stop, I know it's done.
Hey Max;
In a post coming up on this thread, I'm going to go into deep detail about how to drill holes in metal accurately. Several different ways to get there. In my array of drill presses, I have one set up with one of those import XY vise tables. That drill press gets a lot of use. I'll show everyone how I use it effectively to drill batches of parts accurately and efficiently.
The only thing I could come up with:
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I know Bruce doesn't want to get into tools yet, but I gotta ask: is the little mini-metal lathe Harbor Freight sells a POS, or actually useful? I wouldn't know either way just looking at it. For $799, seems like you could find a good used tool for less.
Lets get back to "Metalflake Tonewood!"
It's easy to make your own! I remember the frustration of thoroughly (I thought) cleaning out my bandsaw after sawing some aluminum, and then seeing some glittery aluminum particles embedded in the saw line of some maple. That led directly to me buying the Enco bandsaw and dedicating it just to sawing aluminum and brass.
The plastic dust from sawing pickguard material is almost as bad. So I also cut pickguard stock only on the Enco. And rarely clean the saw.
VinylFlake Maple doesn't sound very good.
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I'm going to write a quick summary post about metal lathes, coming up soon. Quick answer: Yes, those little mini-lathes can be used to make small round parts like Fender-style bridge saddles and strap buttons. Not high precision or high powered, but they are useable. And they are compact and fairly cheap. Yes, in most industrial cities, you can find a decent "real" metal lathe in that price range or less.
Hang on, I've got a few more Overview Of Tools posts to go before we get into the real meat of this thread.
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