Lol rock 
sharp eyes, which is why your builds are always jaw dropping 
This thing is going to be amazing
sharp eyes, which is why your builds are always jaw dropping This thing is going to be amazing
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The Hossenfeffer III Build
- Thread starter Gilmourisgod
- Start date
Ha! Eagle eyes! My eyes work the same way, any error in a circle or ellipse is immediately obvious. One downside of hand-filing this a little was that I slipped and "notched" the back edge of that left circle and then over-carved the left side trying to fix it. The front is perfectly symetrical, so at this point maybe I just leave the front alone and re-carve the right side rear a hair bigger to match. This will mean the circular cutouts "flare" a little front to back, but thats less noticeable than one being bigger. Sigh......
I wouldn't bother. It's ruined.
You should send it to me and just make another.
You should send it to me and just make another.
Wherein, my essential stupidity is revealed:
I have these wonderful Stewmac Binding Cutters, with a variable center bearing depending on binding thickness, but ALL of them bigger than the little Heart Omega cutouts in the headstock, which somehow didn't occur to me until I was all set to route the binding ledge on the headstock. D'oh!
I could use some advice here! The binding is .040" (about 1/16") thick. I can use the binding cutter to do the rest of the headstock, leaving only the nightmarishly tight 5/8" cutout diameters to do by one of three methods:
1. Temporarily glue a 5/8" dia. dowel into the 5/8" cutouts to allow me to center an 11/16" forstner on the dowel, thus cutting a 1/16" shelf on the inside edge of each radius. I don't own an 11/16" forstner, but unless it's razor sharp, I think the changes of chipping out my cocobolo cap are pretty high.
2. Try gradually carving out the radius shelves with an Xacto, chisels, files, etc. My skills at carving a perfect circle not great, so I think chance of abject failure or horror is high.
3. Use the same 1/16" Dremel downcut spiral bit used to cut the oval inlays, and nibble my way up to a 1/16" binding shelf through sheer mind-bending concentration, fear, and sweat. It occurs to me this can't be any harder than it was to cut the smaller oval inlays, but I can't just fill any gaps or eff-ups with black goo like I did on the fingerboard.
Momentarily stumped, I bravely fled and worked on the body instead, and also had some... issues.
You may recall I had made this Bondo/MDF template a couple months ago for the Warwick string anchor, and it was a perfect interference fit. I used it yesterday and found it left about 1/32"' clearance all around the tailpiece! I can only surmise that the bondo shrank by that increment over the past two months, and I stupidly didn't check it before routing the slot. Had I done so, I could have lined the template with a couple layers of tape to reduce the slop. Lesson Learned: Bondo Shrinks, a LOT. Sigh. Looks ok, but not the perfection to which I aspire............
Hogged out the cavities for the bridge and pups as well. It's hard to nail down the exact radius on the corners for the bridge and pups, factoring in some clearance for height adjustment, but it's tighter than my 3/8" diameter (3/16" radius) template bit. I have a 1/4" downcut spiral bit I could use to just kiss those corners, though that would have the bit shaft riding the template to do it. I've tried that before and burned the wood a little. Maybe it doesn't matter inside the holes. How do other people do this? I've tried drilling corners with a bradpoint bit, but it never seems to work that well. Amana Tool makes a 1/4" diameter mini-template bit, but it's $32 for something I might use once or twice.
I have these wonderful Stewmac Binding Cutters, with a variable center bearing depending on binding thickness, but ALL of them bigger than the little Heart Omega cutouts in the headstock, which somehow didn't occur to me until I was all set to route the binding ledge on the headstock. D'oh!
I could use some advice here! The binding is .040" (about 1/16") thick. I can use the binding cutter to do the rest of the headstock, leaving only the nightmarishly tight 5/8" cutout diameters to do by one of three methods:
1. Temporarily glue a 5/8" dia. dowel into the 5/8" cutouts to allow me to center an 11/16" forstner on the dowel, thus cutting a 1/16" shelf on the inside edge of each radius. I don't own an 11/16" forstner, but unless it's razor sharp, I think the changes of chipping out my cocobolo cap are pretty high.
2. Try gradually carving out the radius shelves with an Xacto, chisels, files, etc. My skills at carving a perfect circle not great, so I think chance of abject failure or horror is high.
3. Use the same 1/16" Dremel downcut spiral bit used to cut the oval inlays, and nibble my way up to a 1/16" binding shelf through sheer mind-bending concentration, fear, and sweat. It occurs to me this can't be any harder than it was to cut the smaller oval inlays, but I can't just fill any gaps or eff-ups with black goo like I did on the fingerboard.
Momentarily stumped, I bravely fled and worked on the body instead, and also had some... issues.
You may recall I had made this Bondo/MDF template a couple months ago for the Warwick string anchor, and it was a perfect interference fit. I used it yesterday and found it left about 1/32"' clearance all around the tailpiece! I can only surmise that the bondo shrank by that increment over the past two months, and I stupidly didn't check it before routing the slot. Had I done so, I could have lined the template with a couple layers of tape to reduce the slop. Lesson Learned: Bondo Shrinks, a LOT. Sigh. Looks ok, but not the perfection to which I aspire............
Hogged out the cavities for the bridge and pups as well. It's hard to nail down the exact radius on the corners for the bridge and pups, factoring in some clearance for height adjustment, but it's tighter than my 3/8" diameter (3/16" radius) template bit. I have a 1/4" downcut spiral bit I could use to just kiss those corners, though that would have the bit shaft riding the template to do it. I've tried that before and burned the wood a little. Maybe it doesn't matter inside the holes. How do other people do this? I've tried drilling corners with a bradpoint bit, but it never seems to work that well. Amana Tool makes a 1/4" diameter mini-template bit, but it's $32 for something I might use once or twice.
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/\/\e?
I'd go slow by hand with razor sharp carving chisels.
But, I'm also askeered to do bindings at all. You are a braver man than I.
Uhm wow, no advice here, but the tailpiece cutout looks perfect. Dremel makes 1/8 bits that might work well for tight corners. So nice to see this coming together.
If it were me (which is no help), I would have to get in the zone, hyper focus, probably by one of those magnified dentist lights, lock myself in a room, blast some Tool and go at it with tiny, sharp hand tools.
You could make a template of a circle by whatever Elvish fraction you want bigger than the omega thingy and then just use a bearing guided cutter set at the appropriate depth to cut your rebate.
Winner winner, Chicken Dinner. Why didn't I think of that? I just suck it up and buy an 11/16" forstner, cut two holes in some MDF with the same centers as the two Omega holes, route it with my 3/8" template bit, and Bob's My Uncle! Thanks!
I think @Flying B has it, but I also think it may be possible to find the right bearing size on a top bearing bit that would give you a 0.04 overhang. My "binding bit" is the result of using a 1/4" bearing on a 3/8" diameter bit, which gives me 0.125/2= 0.0625, which overall tends to work pretty well for 0.060" width binding.
Before I purchased the StewMac binding router bit, I made my own out of two different cheap router bits from Home Depot. Sorry I don't remember the sizes of the two bits. But here's an image I found on one of my old guitar builds.
Unfortunately for you, I sent the bit to a fellow guitar builder in Australia!
An easier way to be sure you get the correct size bit and bearing is to shop at Tools Today, they sell bearings in specific sizes, so that would be the quickest and easiest way to make your own bit.
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Unfortunately for you, I sent the bit to a fellow guitar builder in Australia!
An easier way to be sure you get the correct size bit and bearing is to shop at Tools Today, they sell bearings in specific sizes, so that would be the quickest and easiest way to make your own bit.
Search
Dunno if this helps but I just got this bit. About $45 off of Amazon. I’ve only had a chance to try it once so I haven’t wanted to mention it yet but…. 15mm is just under 5/8” and the 1mm rabbit leaves a little to scrape off on 0.040” binding and the 1.5mm should do the same with 0.060” binding. I’ve only tried the 1mm so far though.
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I did a little math, looks like my best bet is an 18mm (23/32") forstner bit to cut a new MDF template, then I can just run a standard template bit around it and cut the binding ledge. If it goes right, the only part Ill have to hand cut is the little tips on the Omega, I think I can pull that off. I.went ahead and ordered one, we'll see how it goes, it was only $8.50
Anybody familiar with my builds will also be familiar with the the occasional long "hiatus" I tend to take over summer. Summer rolled into a major house renovation by the Renovator In Chief, Gilmour, so here we are 4 months later.....
I had stupidly neglected to realize that my wonderful Stewmac binding slot cutter would not fit In the little nightmarish "heart omega" cutout I insisted on inflicting upon myself at the headstock. I ended up finding the closest Forstner bit I could (18mm dia.) to the offset required for the binding channel (.040") and made a new template to guide the forstner. It didn't work perfectly (nothing ever does on my builds), the forstner channel is a little deeper (more like .060"), so Ill have to do some filing and sanding on the Omega cutout to clean it up, but the rest of the binding shelf came out clean. I went ahead and drilled the tuner holes with my spiffy new 9/16" forstner because the holes make convenient locations to add zip ties while binding the headstock. Binding this is going to be... interesting. The F-Hole came out pretty good, but I have some murderously tight radii to work around here. We'll see...
Got the pickups routed out too, came out clean. I may have to deepen these a bit, not sure yet.
Believe it or not, that's what constitutes an entire afternoon of work for me, damn am I rusty! Now that all the boating and painting is done till spring, I hope to pound away on this, my goal is to finish this winter.
I had stupidly neglected to realize that my wonderful Stewmac binding slot cutter would not fit In the little nightmarish "heart omega" cutout I insisted on inflicting upon myself at the headstock. I ended up finding the closest Forstner bit I could (18mm dia.) to the offset required for the binding channel (.040") and made a new template to guide the forstner. It didn't work perfectly (nothing ever does on my builds), the forstner channel is a little deeper (more like .060"), so Ill have to do some filing and sanding on the Omega cutout to clean it up, but the rest of the binding shelf came out clean. I went ahead and drilled the tuner holes with my spiffy new 9/16" forstner because the holes make convenient locations to add zip ties while binding the headstock. Binding this is going to be... interesting. The F-Hole came out pretty good, but I have some murderously tight radii to work around here. We'll see...
Got the pickups routed out too, came out clean. I may have to deepen these a bit, not sure yet.
Believe it or not, that's what constitutes an entire afternoon of work for me, damn am I rusty! Now that all the boating and painting is done till spring, I hope to pound away on this, my goal is to finish this winter.
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- Apr 18, 2008
- 16,011
- 1
- 31,719
- Disclosures
- I'm highly opinionated and extremely self-assured
I like this more every time I see it!
+20 bonus points for the use of the word “murderously”.
+20 bonus points for the use of the word “murderously”.
