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What's On Your Workbench?

#4,281
Slidlow said:
My brother picked up this older Yorkville BM200. I was looking for a beater to use instead of bringing out the hefty tube amps. Works perfect and only issue is a broken handle. Best of all he got it for $40 CDN.View attachment 4517814
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I got a BassMaster 100, super clean amp. I didn't like the series of amps they made after these blue shag ones, they seemed a bit cheaper, but I haven't tried the current Traynor line.

100 watts with a 15" speaker works surprisingly well in my basement, but it wasn't quite loud enough with a band. The 200 would probably have worked great.
 
#4,282
Lo-E said:
View attachment 4518365
Well, still miles to go before this is really ready for prime time but, after a fair amount of machining, wrenching, and some nail-biting my grandfather’s table saw has been returned to good working order.

Still to be done is to get the table squared up to the blade a little better, build it into a larger table with a connected catch table and mount a significantly better fence. I also plan to mount a router under the table so it can pull double duty. …and I seriously need to buy a couple of decent blades - the ones I have are awful.

My grandfather bought this little 8” Shopmaster saw (possibly used) in the 1950s. By the early 1970s he had given it to my father who built a lot of cool furniture with it over the next 20 years. By the time my father gave it to me it was completely worn out. The aluminum castings were so badly worn there was wobble in every moving part.

If I hadn’t been the 3rd generation owner I would never have bothered restoring it but…. here it is! Guess I gotta start building a table now.
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Quick question after seeing your pic, are link belts really as magical as they claim to be? Are the cheaper ones any good? The Lee Valley ones are a bit steep.
 
#4,283
Phil Mastro said:
Quick question after seeing your pic, are link belts really as magical as they claim to be? Are the cheaper ones any good? The Lee Valley ones are a bit steep.
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I don’t know about ’magical’ but they definitely reduce vibration. My only previous experience with them is with my old drill press and it helped reduce vibration there so I used it for the saw, too. Because I tightened up so many things on that saw it’s hard to say how much the belt is helping vs. other factors but the saw is running more smoothly now than it ever has in my lifetime so it certainly isn’t hurting.

I’ve only ever used the cheap link belts from Harbor Fright so I don’t really have a point of comparison but they seem to be well made as far as I can tell.
 
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#4,284
Phil Mastro said:
Quick question after seeing your pic, are link belts really as magical as they claim to be? Are the cheaper ones any good? The Lee Valley ones are a bit steep.
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I’ve got one of the Harbor Freight link belts (actually I had to buy 2 to make one long enough) on my band saw for a couple of years. It’s held up just fine. I can’t say if it runs “better” because the belt on the saw was shot when I got it so I only ran it that way long enough to test that it ran.
 
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#4,285
My kids were complaining that their toboggan didn't slide very well, so I spent a while this morning applying snowboard wax to the bottom. I don't know if that will really help or not, but my inner twelve-year-old says it was all worth it just to see the french translation on the wax box.
IMG_4587D.jpeg
 
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#4,289
Just finished a Wal mk3- inspired bass. My first take on thermo treated maple. I like it, the neck sounds very even across the fretboard. Mahogany body, dual eight coil pickups with dual Lusithand pre, Gotoh hardware and the quad Bruceism (chambered, block under the bridge, blocks for neck screws and truss rod). Missing MPU logo which I’m planning to cut with vinyl cutter.

8B4043BC-1B58-4BCD-AA75-546D459E8D72.jpeg
 
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#4,290
I did this little project for my guitarist in the last few days. It's a (possibly late 40s) Custom Kraft hollow-body guitar that he wanted electrified. I made the pg based on ones I'd seen on-line (original was missing) and installed the magnetic hum-bucker pu & V/T electronic harness. The bridge is a piezo, so I built a box around the tail-piece to house a battery-box, pot, jack and have room for a small pre-amp. (to be installed) Paul wired-up his own circuit-board. It makes changing strings a bit less direct, but it can be done removing the lid and battery box. It won't be used on a live gig, so a quick string change isn't critical.

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Very thin textured plastic super-glued together (other than the lid & battery-box)
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wood dowels for corner reinforcement and for the lid screws. Had to wrap 3 of them with metal mesh as no matter what I did they had a tendency to split. Plenty of space for the circuit-board and even a second pot if desired.
upload_2022-1-1_10-19-8.jpeg

Pretty solid and light-weight - battery case makes changing batteries a breeze.
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lid is L-shaped - at about 1" high, it still fits with a bit of space to spare in the HSC.
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parchment pearl -
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A bad case of finger-board dive! The old girl has had some not so good DIY repairs to the neck, and as much as I could repair it - the fingerboard could possibly be epoxied on instead on required hide-glue which can be heated off. So most likely Paul will stay away from that section of the fb.
upload_2022-1-1_10-41-42.jpeg

very cool "Deco"-esk hs...
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...and fb
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#4,296
Matt Liebenau said:
Good work. It looks great. I never would have thought of a box on the tailpiece. Is the pickup one of the DeArmond “Hershey bars” that it looks like or something else?
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:) Thanks! I can't recall now - possibly a Seymour Duncan. It has a rectangular flange/lip that I used industrial double-stick tape to connect it the the underside of the pg. I've seen ones where someone tapped for screw attachment. Paul instigated the concept and I implemented his "what if..." It's now part of the tail-piece and would have to be broken apart to remove. I though long and hard how it could be made to be removable... but all things considered it came down to more of an "Occam's razor" decision.
 
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#4,297
Flamingo21 said:
@JIO That guitar is very like the one I started my previous project with. Similar pickguard as well, mine was broken but I think I still have it somewhere.
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The very first guitar I interfaced with as an early teen was a similar abet battered acoustic in my aunts closet. The (set) neck was off the body and it didn't have all the strings. I found it snooping around her house (typical adolescent behavior) and asked if I could have it. She gave it to me and I glued the neck back on, strung it with the available strings and started attempting to play it. Never learned how to play a 6-string, but I recall there were 4 remaining strings on that acoustic...
 
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