What's On Your Workbench?

[Dadagoboi]

Brad point bit, cordless drill, and neck in a small machinist's vise works fine for me in ebony, maple, cocobola, or rosewood. 1/8" plastic rod and razor saw. The brad point bit is key IMO.

 

[rwkeating]

I set the neck in a vice with the neck wrapped in a cloth. It isn't clamped in tight, more like just sitting there. I mark the spots with an awl and then use a hand drill. I don't go in very far and haven't had any trouble yet. How deep where you going?

 

[Jonny5bass]

Brad point bit, cordless drill, and neck in a small machinist's vise works fine for me in ebony, maple, cocobola, or rosewood. 1/8" plastic rod and razor saw. The brad point bit is key IMO.

Where do you find an actual brad point bit that small? I spend some money on a brad point set but once they get that small they are just regular twist bits...

 

[Dadagoboi]

Where do you find an actual brad point bit that small? I spend some money on a brad point set but once they get that small they are just regular twist bits...

I bought a set around 10 years ago that had one. Luckily, although I've misplaced it a number of times, I haven't lost it yet...but if I do:

Google "1/8" brad point bit", a lot of suppliers come up:
www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=1/8%22+brad+point+bit

 

[HaMMerHeD]

They sell 1/8" brad point bits at Home Depot and Lowe's.

 

[Dean N]

I'm using 2 sizes of dots, 1/8 and 1/16. I have a brad point for the former, but not the latter. The bits I snapped off were both 1/16. I eyeballed depth, between 1/8 and 1/4 inch. I'm making slow progress (busy weekend). I dug out one of the tips:

You can see the 2 sizes on a couple of the rivets I've glued in place. I'm pretty confident that the repair will look really good - I drilled and filled holes in scrap and compared results between epoxy, CA glue, and Titebond all mixed with sawdust. The CA glue looks really good. I'll use that.

 

[pilotjones]

Steel rivets? You may want to pre-cut them pretty close to final length before gluing in, to save filing.

 

[Dean N]

Steel rivets?

PJ, no, they're nice soft aluminum. Steel would be a serious hassle to deal with like this! Haha. I did a test run of a couple. Wire cutter, flat file, sandpaper and they came out good.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

PJ, no, they're nice soft aluminum. Steel would be a serious hassle to deal with like this! Haha. I did a test run of a couple. Wire cutter, flat file, sandpaper and they came out good.

I use 1/16" and 1/8" aluminum rod for side-dot markers sometimes. The stuff is available cheaply at most hobby/model stores.

 

[Dean N]

Here's the result. I just need a bit more cleanup and I need to hit the neck with a bit more finish (sanded through a wee bit):

It looks a bit better in person. The very last dot seems to have deformed a bit when I inserted it. Not sure what happened, but overall, for a hack, I think I did a decent job.

 

[ctmullins]

Looks good, glad you got it sorted. Is that a fretless? I did something similar on a fretless of mine - 3mm dots at the "normal" positions and 2mm dots at the "in between" positions. I like it.

 

[JIO]

This is a Westone unlined fretless (22 frets) from the 80's - they did white and red side dots which is cool.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Win! The dots look great, and nobody but you will ever know about the mishap! I'm a total geek, love seeing the recoveries as much the pro masterpieces.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

This is a Westone unlined fretless (22 frets) from the 80's - they did white and red side dots which is cool.

Speaking of multi-colored side-dots, I saw these things in Michael's some time ago, and thought they'd make great side-dot position indicators.

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Just a bunch of plastic rods in various colors.

 

[Will_White]

Speaking of multi-colored side-dots, I saw these things in Michael's some time ago, and thought they'd make great side-dot position indicators.

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Just a bunch of plastic rods in various colors.

Well my wife's going to be happy with me, we're going to Michael's this weekend.

 

[JIO]

Speaking of multi-colored side-dots, I saw these things in Michael's some time ago, and thought they'd make great side-dot position indicators.

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Just a bunch of plastic rods in various colors.

Would probably work best if opaque/solid colours - if translucent/clear colours they might tend to disappear once slotted into small dark holes.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Would probably work best if opaque/solid colours - if translucent/clear colours they might tend to disappear once slotted into small dark holes.

Most of them are opaque. Some of them aren't.

 

[Dadagoboi]

Most of them are opaque. Some of them aren't.

what's the diameter?

 

[HaMMerHeD]

what's the diameter?

I didn't buy any when I was there, but they looked to be in the neighborhood of 2.5mm, so around 3/32" or 7/64" I think

 

[hushnel]

I've been playing around with pewter. I'm not sure it will pan out to any specific instrument application though I have a few thoughts, might be cool fret markers or headstock inlay, but it does add weight. I'm thinking of medallions as a head stock logo rather than the standard decal. Or like the old Silvertone metal logo. Utilising a router I could freehand a signature and pour pewter into the headstock. It would also work as a type of ballast embellishment for those project that are not perfectly balanced.

This was my first attempt at simple casting, I have made a bunch of knives over the years, this blade I got from Paul Poppins, who is known for his moccissins as well as knives. This was simply to get a feel for how the pewter flows and any difficulties in finishing. It all seems pretty straight forward and not too difficult. In this case it made the project a bit quicker in that the hole in the antler for the blade tang was large enough to pour the metal and adhere the steel to the horn, without pins or epoxy. The bolster and pommel were dammed with metallic tape.