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Practice build: 5-string multi-scale, HD woods

Ol'Bass'ead said:
Well, Ill be 1000 then. Great job so far! Cant wait to see it finished. Oh, and CA acts a lot like clear, so a lot of times it disappears if you do just clear.

Yeah, that's the way I expected it to act. Unfortunately, I've got dark patches around the repairs, where the shellac didn't darken the wood as muck as the CA did. Any ideas?
 
Well, it certainly appears to be not wetting the wood as much as the CA, anyway. I don't know about comparison with the oil.

So, I figure I should do a decent sanding of the areas to remove the shellac, and then do the oil. Any thoughts on whether the oil might be thinned to aid penetration?
 
Over the weekend I picked up a very important tool through craigslist.

Unfortunately I underestimated the requirements, and it is already in use to past design capacity!
998e482a.jpg


The idea was lower compartment at cellar/aging temperature, top generally empty and to be kept at serving temp as needed. Oh well. There are worse problems to have. :)
 
Do I see a bottle of Golden Monkey down on the bottom shelf? Looks like there might be another Golden Monkey up near the top. Nice Trippel, as long as you won't be doing anything that's too strenuous, or that requires a high level of precision after drinking it!

Doug


Over the weekend I picked up a very important tool through craigslist.

Unfortunately I underestimated the requirements, and it is already in use to past design capacity!
998e482a.jpg


The idea was lower compartment at cellar/aging temperature, top generally empty and to be kept at serving temp as needed. Oh well. There are worse problems to have. :)
 
Okay, I know everyone is getting rather down about this build 'nearing' completion...

:eek: .... :( .....:crying:.........:bawl:........:scowl:.......:bawl:......:rollno:......:bawl:

.... we can all look forward to a 'real' build after this that will take just as long, if not longer, with even more attention to detail, and even more beer-mini-threads!

:hmm:.....:)......:p.......:D........:hyper:

Great work, pj. This thread has gotten me through many a long and tedious high school lecture ;)

I tip my hat to you!

:bassist:
 
Over the weekend I picked up a very important tool through craigslist.

Unfortunately I underestimated the requirements, and it is already in use to past design capacity!
998e482a.jpg


The idea was lower compartment at cellar/aging temperature, top generally empty and to be kept at serving temp as needed. Oh well. There are worse problems to have. :)

Beer, yeah yeah yeah. Lets see more pictures of that floor!

lowsound
 
Beer, yeah yeah yeah. Lets see more pictures of that floor!

lowsound

I would guess that there aren't many places where wooden floor is appreciated as much as on luthier's corner! :) That's one nice floor too, might I add. :)

Lol, I thought I was the only one who goes into old pubs and admires the floor (and of course a pint), sounds like you guys would be doing the same! :)
 
Lol, I thought I was the only one who goes into old pubs and admires the floor (and of course a pint), sounds like you guys would be doing the same! :)

Man, I just had a doppelganger moment. Between the brew, parquet floor, engineering, and bass building I'd swear this is my thread from a parallel universe. :confused:

I would guess that there aren't many places where wooden floor is appreciated as much as on luthier's corner! :) That's one nice floor too, might I add. :)
Gym floors can be distacting, too!



I guess Florida is kind of in a parallel universe, isn't it? :D

;)
 
First, tried some boring on some scrap, an old walnut table leg.
63cf605b.jpg

Unlike with the old drill press setup, this time there was good enough concentricity between the cuts. Not dead perfect, but good to go, maybe .010" off.


So, I got out the neck cutoff I had saved,
49afe1ec.jpg

(that's a test fret kerf there)

cut the edges to get parallel to the grain lines,
4af2c0e8.jpg


planned the positions and cut the kerfs,
dcbf91c9.jpg

(details on all this are in the section where I did the neck position markers)

sanded the saved leftover inlay pieces to thickness to fit the kerfs, and glued them in.
a5acbb6e.jpg




There are ten possible knobs there, to be reasonably assured of getting at least five good ones. Like with the saddles, where I started with twelve, tried some experiments on them and made a few mistakes, and have eight or so that are usable.
 
I didn't scroll down to your reply .... you beat me to it with that observation. I love that beer .... but only in moderation, and under certain circumstances. At other times, a couple of Hop Devils or even the occasional Prima Pils will do just fine.

Doug

I'm enjoying 2 Golden Monkies tonight at home tonight - in moderation and under certain circumstances as you can see ;) Gotta love em.

On topic: PJ, I like the strategy for getting the position marker for the knobs in through the kerf and drilling them out near the edge. I never thought about how wooden knobs like that would be produced.

This is why this thread delivers - it really breaks down all of the ideas and methods for people who are complete novices at woodwork (like me).

And, ya know... beer.
 
Yeah, there is some gorgeous quilted, flame, and spalted maple in the gym floor at my kids school. We go there for meetings and the wife is always; "What are you looking at down there?"

My dad has an amazing piece of quilted birdseye maple in his floor that is the perfect length and width for a neck. I want to rip it out every time I am over there.

lowsound
 
Quick post, more pics than words.


Not shown: removed overhanging inlay pieces with flush cut saw, cleaned up the edges with a chisel and then sandpaper on a flat surface. Then, marked and drilled indexing holes for the jig.

Next built the jig for drilling. It is basically a base with an indexing pin, a fence, and a marked point to line up the drill. This is it from the back side. You can see the white indexing pin from this view.
5fc8ea01.jpg


The work piece was thicker than the height of the final knobs, so a pass was done with the saf-t-planer on the bottom side,
b25bc3e6.jpg


then flip it over,
d373a4ed.jpg


and take a pass on the top side, so that the padauk thickness will match the thickness of the fingerboard exactly.
a545bc04.jpg




The first drill of each cycle is a 5/8" forstner,
fcabedf6.jpg


followed by a 1/4" for the pot shaft.
0abbd8cb.jpg

There you can see the tool I used to check the depth of the forstner counterbore. The tape on the drill bit is for depth on the pot shaft hole, but it also worked out to be a case of drill until you see "blood" (padauk). The bit has has the brad point ground down to just a bit longer than the cutting rim.

Next is the tenon cutter. Here it is lifting out a knob that was just cut.
8e2da905.jpg


The tenon cutter was running very hot, and even stalled out the motor on the the first few cuts. The first knob broke off short of full depth, and was ruined.
2988f6b4.jpg


After the fifth knob, I took off the cutter and examined it. I then got out the files and changed the geometry on the cutting teeth. After that it ran much cooler and did not bog down. Also the first knobs had purplish burnt padauk bits embedded in the maple. The second five came out clean.

Here are the nine drilled-out pieces.
0e61b53a.jpg


After that I did the dome shaping, just as on the string anchors. The difference this time was that the knobs were pressed onto a steel dowel pin that was in the chuck.

The first four knobs, with dome and smoothed.
c0419144.jpg




Next will be putting the tapholes in the sides.
 

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