What's On Your Workbench?

[TerribleTim68]

Those pickup covers...

 

[dwizum]

This birdseye doesn't have a ton of eyes but it is absolutely alive with shimmery figure. The ash has a little curl too. They look really nice.

 

[HardNHeavy]

This is finally "OFF my workbench"

Finished this parts bass yesterday after months of it sitting as a pile of parts..The original sunburst slab was purchased here from a TB member. Added 63' CS pickups and a MIM bridge pup i had laying around. The neck is a stained mightymite maple with some custom inlays. Standard Bourns pots and big ole dropcap. The tone pot is 500k. I had a standard 250k, but wired it wrong from the output jack and thought i had fried it.. So i threw on the 500k which gives me way too much treble than i'll ever need. ( i may go back to the 250k) Also added some Schaller tuners. Finished in champagne pearl using rattle-can dupli-color auto paint. the finish is by no means perfect as i knew it wouldn't be, but it came out decent imo. I only wished i clearcoated in Nitro instead of acrylic as it took forever to dry.

Weighs in at barely 9lbs, and plays beautifully with a bright P bass tone and new RS 66's strung.

 

[TerribleTim68]

I’ve enjoyed turning bowls and other pieces for 45 years, but I’ve never made a knob. Both of us have a horizon to expand .

@TerribleTim68 started a thread about it. It should still be floating around the LC if you search. I posted a few pics although I think I’ve changed a few methods since. With that experience I’m sure you’d come up with some good ideas.

Okay, I finally found that thread! Took me a while because it ended up being moved to the "Off Topic" forum, which makes total sense looking back on it.

Anyways, here's the link to a thread I started to show off stuff we make that isn't bass building related -
Who Builds Other Stuff???
I bookmarked it so that I can post my turning stuff over there, since it really doesn't belong here.

 

[Gary Sutter]

I ordered some parts plus luthier supplies yesterday from Stew-Mac, D,Addario, G.Man.Music aka WiGuitars + Went By Maxwell's House of Music..
And I thought the Parker Fly I am working on was trashed..
Mark there has this on his wall.. Totally Trashed..

The neck is salvageable maybe?? One strap button & screw + the nut..
Wall Art that Poor Parker NightFly..

 

[TerribleTim68]

Okay, I managed to make it out to the Woodshop for the weekend. Mostly we needed to recover our RV from that last episode with the blown tire and all that. But, when in Rome!

First order of business was replacing that feed belt on the big Supermax drum sander!

She's a little crusty from sitting un-used for almost 20 years, but if you flip the power switch, she still works -

So, after removing the feed table and sliding the new feed belt over it, then remounting the table to the chassis, she looked a lot better -

Man, that new feed belt sure is pretty!
Then I gave it a good workout -

I will say this, that is such an awesome machine and a super handy tool to have access to! That being said, without dust collection, holy cow man! Next time, I'm at least bringing a shop vac and an adapter, that was horrible! But God I love this machine! She's back in action!

 

[Manton Customs]

Not a bass, but a bit interesting so worth a pic ….it’s one of these again.

 

[JIO]

Not a bass, but a bit interesting so worth a pic ….it’s one of these again.

View attachment 4427003

I saw one in person once - pretty crazy.

 

[TerribleTim68]

#SquiglyFrets!!!!

 

[ctmullins]

So you can be evenly out of tune all up and down the fretboard....

 

[dwizum]

This one should be subtitled "in which dwizum steps into the 21st century"

 

[Jon Clegg]

What size?

 

[JIO]

This one should be subtitled "in which dwizum steps into the 21st century"

View attachment 4433820

It's pretty - so that will CNC cut a guitar body?

 

[dwizum]

It's pretty - so that will CNC cut a guitar body?

Oh yeah totally, and two on Sundays!

 

[dwizum]

What size?

It's the 3018 prover model from Sainsmart. So, cutting area of 30 cm x 18 cm. It's tiny!

https://www.sainsmart.com/products/sainsmart-genmitsu-cnc-router-3018-prover-kit

I've made about a dozen cuts and it has validated my two main expectations:

1) It's under powered. It struggles and bogs waaay down pushing a 1/16" end mill in dense wood at 2 mm depth of cut even with painfully slow feed rates. Half a mm depth of cut is OK but you're still moving slow just to keep it from bogging down.

2) It's hilariously flexible, especially in the X axis, which is basically two 8mm rails with linear bushings. You can put a finger on the spindle and push backwards and easily deflect it by a couple mm without much effort. This shows in the cuts if you get too aggressive. When I pushed it faster at deeper DOCs it would sometimes wander by a mm or more off the intended line. The Z axis is short enough that it's plenty stiff, and the Y axis is a much better design even though it's still just two 8mm rails, since they're spread out much further and braced better. So it's really just the X axis that seems problematic.

All that said, considering it was under $300, I can't complain. I have parts on the way to replace the spindle with a more powerful unit. The stock spindle is "rated 60w max 120w" according to the spec sheet. The replacement is rated at 500w. I also ordered some aluminum bar stock and a 12mm linear rail with bearing blocks to beef up the X axis. I'll probably be in for less than $500 in total.

My long term goal is to use this for small parts in wood and plastic - pickup flatwork, pickup rings, knobs, pickup cases, bridge parts, control plates, engraving logos, things like that. And then at some point, use this to cut parts to make a bigger and stiffer CNC router so I can actually do fancy things like cut a whole neck or body. But it's really cutting the small parts and hardware that's more interesting to me.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Is it stiff enough to cut template material like 3/8" MDF? I find really accurate template making pretty difficult, and the laser cut ones are pretty expensive.

 

[dwizum]

Yeah, mdf is no problem. ABS is ok, HDPE cuts pretty well, so lots of template cutting potential! Only real issue there is the small size.

 

[Jeff Siddall]

This one should be subtitled "in which dwizum steps into the 21st century"

View attachment 4433820

I started out with one of these and came to the same conclusion you did: The "X" axis (the one on the gantry) is about as stiff as a wet noodle. I didn't even find the spindle under-powered since it chattered so badly in hardwood that it tried to tear itself apart.

I am in the process of replacing most of it with better stuff so I can cut things as large as fretboards and body cavities. I now have the parts, just need time!

 

[dwizum]

My plan is to put aluminum plate across the back of the two 20mm extrusions behind the X-axis rails to make a sort of c beam. The SBR12 rail I have on the way will nestle in the C, bolted to the face of the plate, basically between the two extrusions. Then the bearing block for that rail will get bolted to the back of the carriage that rides on the existing X axis rails. If that's not beefy enough I'll find a way to add a 4th rail.

 

[dwizum]

I abandoned the extra rail plan, the triangle shape that resulted from the three rails wasn't really any stiffer - the two existing rails could still bend, they just "pivoted" around the much stiffer new rail.

I did get the more powerful spindle in place, and I upgraded the Z axis to an all aluminum unit (from the same manufacturer). I also tapped the floating nuts for the lead screws and put setscrews in them so I could adjust the tension vs just relying on the springs. It's still definitely on the "it's a toy" end of the CNC spectrum, but it's worlds better than it was before these changes.

I need to clean up some ragged edges, but here's the results to prove it - after a couple more test cuts, I've been able to make actual parts that will get used in actual instruments:

This is not a cheap nor simple way to make parts like this, but I have to say, it is extremely satisfying to essentially push a button and have a usable part a couple minutes later, with more precision and accuracy than I could ever need.