What's On Your Workbench?

[TerribleTim68]

All good points that I don't disagree with. However, it is obvious that StewMac did not design their fret slotting miter box and associated templates to slot with the fretboard glued to the neck. It simply would not fit in there or attach to the template correctly.

 

[Ralph Manak]

If you radius and trim the top surface of the fingerboard before gluing it on the neck, will it still be flat and true after you glue it on? And after the neck gets loaded up by the truss rod and string tension?

I like to glue the fingerboard blank onto the neck first. Then load the neck up, partially tightening the truss rod. Holding it like that, I trim the fingerboard to final thickness and radius, straight and true. Then, cut the slots and put in the frets. When it's finished and strung up, it will still be straight and true, and the truss rod will be correctly loaded to make the neck stable, with a good range of relief adjustment.

The point is to get the neck real close to its final loaded condition before truing up the fingerboard surface.

Thank you. This is good practice from a woodworker's perspective as well as a luthier's perspective. The range of methods will yield a range of tolerances, and, as Bruce points out frequently, a range of long-term consequences.

 

[TerribleTim68]

In other news, I added a small tool storage cabinet to the French Cleat wall, next to that clamp rack -

Just some construction grade plywood that I got for free on OfferUp, sized to fit the space I had available. I have an extra open slot in case I buy one more tool. I thought about putting a door on it, but then I'd need to buy hinges and all that. I mounted a couple chargers on the side of it and now I can keep all my batteries, drill bits and driver bits in there next to the tool they go with. Oh, and I put my pocket hole stuff on top, because it's less used so I can kind of store it up there out of the way.

 

[Max Bogosity]

Made a little rack for turning tools so they aren’t just rattling around loose on the lathe bench.


One of these days I’ll say “now I am finally organized and can move on to fun stuff” and then promptly drop dead.

 

[BishopJP]

All good points that I don't disagree with. However, it is obvious that StewMac did not design their fret slotting miter box and associated templates to slot with the fretboard glued to the neck. It simply would not fit in there or attach to the template correctly.

I use the StewMac slotting template with a home-made miter box to cut the fret slots, mostly to get an accurate location. After I radius the fret board and glue it to the neck blank, I use the fret saw with a depth stop, to deepen the slots and to match the radius.
Most of the time this works and I dont mess up the slots...

 

[Gary_M]

I use the StewMac slotting template with a home-made miter box to cut the fret slots, mostly to get an accurate location. After I radius the fret board and glue it to the neck blank, I use the fret saw with a depth stop, to deepen the slots and to match the radius.
Most of the time this works and I dont mess up the slots...

Yep, I use a similar procedure, but using a sled and table saw. I purposely cut my slots shallow and finalize the depth with a fret saw just prior to fretting. As you mentioned, the slots follow the radius and you can get the perfect depth.

 

[BishopJP]

Yep, I use a similar procedure, but using a sled and table saw. I purposely cut my slots shallow and finalize the depth with a fret saw just prior to fretting. As you mentioned, the slots follow the radius and you can get the perfect depth.

This has come back to bite me a couple times, though! I sometimes taper the fretboard thickness (thinner towards the nut) and have almost completely removed the last couple fret slots!

 

[Bruce Johnson]

All good points that I don't disagree with. However, it is obvious that StewMac did not design their fret slotting miter box and associated templates to slot with the fretboard glued to the neck. It simply would not fit in there or attach to the template correctly.

Remember that the large majority of Stew-Mac's customers repair and build acoustic guitars. In that world, they usually glue their fingerboards on after attaching the neck to the body.

It's not too difficult to modify one of the miter-box style slotting rigs to fit over complete necks. Some basic fixture-building.

 

[Flamingo21]

Trying out my new drill press for the first time.....

..... drilling up to a 9mm width, 30mm deep.....

..... and now I have storage for my 8mm router bits.

 

[TerribleTim68]

Okay, planter boxes are done. This was the last one -

And...set in place in the greenhouse -


Buying soil a little at a time, so I've only got the first two filled at this point (and box #2 isn't totally filled, it'll need topped off) so now I wait for next payday before this one gets filled. Enough planter boxes, time to get back to real projects!
My work space is a total mess, my dust collector was so full it wouldn't suck up any more dust. So now I gotta get that emptied out and then clean up the mess I made while working with no dust collector.

 

[Max Bogosity]

I milled a couple of the shorter barn beams that I mentioned earlier. One is too badly rotted, but the other should be usable.

This is roughly 5” square by 3’ long, so potentially a workbench leg. Smells like pine. It includes the pith and is very badly cracked, but after sitting for decades it’s as stable as it will ever be.

Look at the end grain - almost 40 rings per inch. You won’t find that at the box store.

 

[Max Bogosity]

Also I’m a big dummy and forgot to run the metal detector over one of the two beams. Guess which one had a nail in it.

(Edit: Nail, not mail. Neither had mail.)

 

[Paul_Gaita]

Remember that the large majority of Stew-Mac's customers repair and build acoustic guitars. In that world, they usually glue their fingerboards on after attaching the neck to the body.

It's not too difficult to modify one of the miter-box style slotting rigs to fit over complete necks. Some basic fixture-building.

I think I’m going to try freehand cutting the slots on the next build. The template can be used to mark the fret positions along the center line of the fingerboard once it’s glued on and has a radius. Then using masking tape as a “depth stop” on the fret saw the slots can be cut to the appropriate depth while following the radius. I figure as long as the fret lines are scored it shouldn’t be to difficult too keep the cuts nice and straight. In my mind, if this is only going to add stability and longevity of the instrument it’s worth a shot.

 

[Lo-E]

Then using masking tape as a “depth stop” on the fret saw the slots can be cut to the appropriate depth while following the radius.

Double-stick tape and a strip of either wood or plexiglass will give you a nice hard stop that will prevent you from cutting too deep and will give you a completely consistent depth. If you don’t feel like using double-stick you could also use little clamps to attach the guide fence to the blade.

 

[Max Bogosity]

If you’re using the common Pax fret saw, it has holes through the blade specifically for attaching a depth stop.

 

[TFM94]

It doesn't fit on my workbench, but I went on a "clamps and veneers haul" today and bought some walnut and black stained veneers. I got a sheet of 1mm black poplar veneer 50cmx300cm, so it's large enough to use it for body layers without piecing together. However, it's so awkward to handle and doesn't roll up into any compact form that I immediately had to cut it up into smaller pieces to store it. I ended up with three body pieces and five pieces for neck lamination.

One of the body pieces is goingt to be used for supersymmetry, the rest is for future projects. I have a birch neck blank that I want to cut into strips and laminate back together, it could look pretty good with the black veneers.

In other news, a local communal woodworking shop reopened after a 3-year hiatus, so I checked it out yesterday. It looks pretty good, there's a jointer, thicknesser, a big ol' tablesaw, bandsaw, router table, belt sander, drill press, etc. This will accelerate my build projects for sure. They only charge 8€/hour, which I think is quite affordable, especially compared to buying and maintaining all those tools yourself.

Besides the typical woodworking tools, I also spotted this:

It's a laser cutter/engraver. I'll have to learn how to use it, but it will definitely be fun to try it out. I'm envisioning fancy fretboard inlays and headstock logos.

 

[TerribleTim68]

That's a sweet laser! Looks similar to the one Tim Sway uses (YouTube guitar builder guy), and the one Katz-Moses uses (YouTube maker, woodworker). Looks like an awesome machine!

I've been sort of chatting with a local "maker space" through FB Messenger. I say "local" loosely because it's almost 30 miles away from my home, which at times can be an hour drive and is generally a solid 45 minutes one way. I had inquired about machines they had available and got a pretty short, abrupt reply, almost like I had offended them. Then about a month later I got a new reply from what was clearly someone else that started with an apology and then a rather lengthy listing of machines/tools and even some discussion where they had clearly looked at my FB to see what I was into building, because this person was aware that I build guitars, and then they mentioned a couple other members who build acoustics and ukes.
The person told me to come down and check it out, but I haven't made that happen yet because it just hasn't fit my schedule yet. Sadly, that is really the closest "maker space" I have to me that actually has "stuff" that I don't have at home.

In other news, what's on my workbench was... MY WORKBENCH!
I've been wanting to add a leg vise for a long time. Well, to be honest, I've been wanting to build a Roubo bench for a long time. But if I'm being totally honest, I don't have the space to do it. I'm currently using the little Harbor Freight 60" workbench. I picked it up on my local Marketplace for like $60, so it's working for now. But yeah, leg vise, that was my point here. I picked up an old petina'd vise screw for $35. After shipping I'm in it $50, so we'll work with that. I do like the "look" of it, so that's a plus. Anyways, some reclaimed 2x4s and a 2x6 and I now have a somewhat janky leg vise on my workbench -

It certainly looks the part, but I have some tuning to do on it. My DIY crisscross isn't working correctly and I'm not sure if it's just because it's too thin of material and possibly flexing or if it's not contacting correctly and I need to dial that in. I'm gonna run some experiments on it to try and isolate the issue. I've got some ideas and I think I know what the issue is, but we'll see. Hey man, I'm 100% wingin' it over here, so there's some problem solving that took place along the way as well as some problem solving left to do here. I'll get it sorted and then I'll be super happy. For now, it looks cool!

 

[dmarino]

On the bench today is template routing cavities on the 7-string guitar I'm building for a friend.
This is the first guitar I've tried to build. It's hard compared to a bass IMO, since everything seems so tiny in comparison. The tolerances are smaller, everything is smaller. It all just seems a little less forgiving.

I bought a master template from Potvin Guitars for the SD-7 pickups and made this template to use. Here, I am using that template to cut the one I'll actually use. The master I purchased is filed away in case I need to make more copies from it.

I drew up the cavity and cover templates myself

Routed out the cavity and cover recess. I guess the rear of the body wasn't quite flat enough, there is a little mahoghany left in the corner of the cavity. It's so thin I can actually peel it off, but I figured that was tempting fate, so it'll just get covered when I shield the cavity.

Then I hogged out and routed the two 7-string pickup cavities. I routed a wire channel from the neck pickup before I glued on the top, this worked out great. I'm glad to be done with the router, I always get a little nervous routing the cavities after having so much work into the build.

There's not a ton of woodworking left on this build. I'm looking forward to getting this one done and getting back to bass builds. I have a couple bass ideas in the pipeline that I'm excited for.

 

[polygon]

Cool HSS set. Vintage specs singles and alnico 8 medium output humbucker. I didnt have experience with pairing singles and humbucker. So I called local hairy metal guy. Answer was simple: I gave it. Make favorite humbucker and classic singles. It will be fine.

 

[Zooberwerx]

Next project headed to the bench....

Back story: this is an Epiphone P bass (MIK) which has been hanging in the garage for 15-20 years. Scale: just shy of 34" (strange!), 20 frets, string-thru-body only and strung w/ black tapewounds with silk crossing nut...perfect. It's covered in all sorts of debris including asbestos brake dust (j/k). Appears to be intact and just needs some TLC to return it to pointy-headed goodness. Disclaimer: this really doesn't belong in "Luthiers" or "Pro Bench" but meant to illustrate that even a schlub such as I can handle seemingly daunting tasks with 8th grade basic shop skills.