What's On Your Workbench?

[Lo-E]

Every tool junkie has a pile (or drawer or shelf) of tools categorized as “will be very useful at some point - hold off on cleaning this up until then.”

The bandsaw table is a chunk of melamine which is slated to receive mitered oak edging. I used the table saw to cut rabbets in the edging for the top to sit in and a couple of the rabbets needed a little bit of cleaning up. As surprising as this might sound, a really good tool for cleaning up rabbets is a rabbet plane!

I went off to the shelf of “really useful later” tools and set to work on the two rabbet planes. The #92 was easy; wipe the dust off and sharpen:

The #10 1/2 was a lot more work. It was in pretty rough shape and needed its sole flattened and a lot of rust removed before honing and setting it up:

Once both were cleaned up they made short work of the job at hand. Much shorter than it took to rejuvenate that #10 1/2!

There was a bit of a learning curve to setting up the bigger plane but I got the hang of it.

Now that they’re both up and running I’m sure I’ll find plenty of other uses for each of them.

 

[Flamingo21]

Today, my Spool Clamp Stand was in need of a dusting.

While on the subject of Stands, I created a Cable Tie Stand.

It's open on the bottom, so you do have to be careful when picking it up.

 

[Lo-E]

I created a Cable Tie Stand.

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I keep meaning to do this for fret wire.

 

[Gervais Cote]

What was on my workbench :

Just installed a Fender MIM jazz neck made of roasted maple on my screaming and singing Squire Affinity jazz bass. Strings are Dunlop Marcus Miller stainless steel super bright rounds.

This little baby is now punchier than before !

And this C shaped jazz neck is a real pleasure to play. Light and rigid, resonant and the back of the neck is satin finish allowing for fast and easy left hand movements.

The neck is almost perfectly straight, only 0.003" height difference on the truss rod bow, the G string being just a bit higher than the E string. Really doesn’t bother me at all.

Very satisfied with the results !





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[llmk]

I still have a few more tests to do, but I think I am very close to the final product. I need to mount them in a real neck now to see how that goes.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

I still have a few more tests to do, but I think I am very close to the final product. I need to mount them in a real neck now to see how that goes.

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They're looking good! As I mentioned on the other thread, you could turn this into a small tabletop side business, if you choose. You've got the tooling, formula and process worked. Start making up batches and selling them. Tiny little parts in an envelope, in exchange for money online. You could sell little bags of them directly on TB's Classifieds, on Reverb, or on Ebay or Amazon. You could even offer them to guitar parts suppliers like Stew-Mac. They might be interested. They would order a few hundred at a time.

There is definitely a market for them, and there isn't anything like this out there now, that I'm aware of. There's only Lumilay, which costs $30 for a 2 1/2" rod. Pre-cast luminescent dots, like you are making, would be a good product.

 

[JIO]

They're looking good! As I mentioned on the other thread, you could turn this into a small tabletop side business, if you choose. You've got the tooling, formula and process worked. Start making up batches and selling them. Tiny little parts in an envelope, in exchange for money online. You could sell little bags of them directly on TB's Classifieds, on Reverb, or on Ebay or Amazon. You could even offer them to guitar parts suppliers like Stew-Mac. They might be interested. They would order a few hundred at a time.

There is definitely a market for them, and there isn't anything like this out there now, that I'm aware of. There's only Lumilay, which costs $30 for a 2 1/2" rod. Pre-cast luminescent dots, like you are making, would be a good product.

I've yet to use them - but I'm interested in buying some.

 

[llmk]

They're looking good! As I mentioned on the other thread, you could turn this into a small tabletop side business, if you choose. You've got the tooling, formula and process worked. Start making up batches and selling them. Tiny little parts in an envelope, in exchange for money online. You could sell little bags of them directly on TB's Classifieds, on Reverb, or on Ebay or Amazon. You could even offer them to guitar parts suppliers like Stew-Mac. They might be interested. They would order a few hundred at a time.

There is definitely a market for them, and there isn't anything like this out there now, that I'm aware of. There's only Lumilay, which costs $30 for a 2 1/2" rod. Pre-cast luminescent dots, like you are making, would be a good product.

I've yet to use them - but I'm interested in buying some.

To be honest, I am thinking about it. I actually enjoy making them and I like the idea of making it a small business. But it's still a little bit early. If I am to start selling them, I want to make sure I can offer consistent high-quality products first.
As a quick update (I'll go into more details in the main thread) I've found the limit of how much powder I can use before the UV resin stops curing properly but, more importantly, I've managed to find 2 parts art resin in Romania which is food safe, BPA and VOC free and with that I think I can improve them a bit, I will know more next week once I made a few batches to test and compare.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

To be honest, I am thinking about it. I actually enjoy making them and I like the idea of making it a small business. But it's still a little bit early. If I am to start selling them, I want to make sure I can offer consistent high-quality first.
As a quick update (I'll go into more details in the main thread) I've found the limit of how much powder I can use before the UV resin stops curing properly but, more importantly, I've managed to find 2 part art resin in Romania which is food safe, BPA and VOC free and with that I think I can improve them a bit, I will know more next week once I made a few batches to test and compare.

Cool. I might be interested in some as well.

 

[Slidlow]

Keep us updated. Maybe keep a list of us who have expressed interest? As well as dots I would be interested in some different shapes.

 

[bassdude51]

Unless if something needs fixed, repaired or tweaked, my workbench is bare (except for tools and etc). Built/assembled waaaaay tooooo many basses over the years. I'm now 72. I've stopped. Enough is enough.

 

[mapleglo]

Unless if something needs fixed, repaired or tweaked, my workbench is bare (except for tools and etc). Built/assembled waaaaay tooooo many basses over the years. I'm now 72. I've stopped. Enough is enough.

Yeah, I'm approaching that milestone (if not there already) myself. Not quite in my 70's, but close enough.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

To be honest, I am thinking about it. I actually enjoy making them and I like the idea of making it a small business. But it's still a little bit early. If I am to start selling them, I want to make sure I can offer consistent high-quality products first.
As a quick update (I'll go into more details in the main thread) I've found the limit of how much powder I can use before the UV resin stops curing properly but, more importantly, I've managed to find 2 parts art resin in Romania which is food safe, BPA and VOC free and with that I think I can improve them a bit, I will know more next week once I made a few batches to test and compare.

Like Slidlow suggested, you also could expand this into glow-in-the-dark surface dots and inlay shapes. Larger diameter discs, maybe 3mm thick. And pre-cast shapes like squares, diamonds, stars, whatever you like. All made by the same basic process. Hand cut a set of masters from 3mm plastic sheet, glue them down to a wood block, make a silicone mold. Mix up your secret formula of resin and powder and pour them. Send them off in an envelope and receive money.

To make larger quantities, make more molds from the same master. Line up 10 molds in a row and pour them all in one batch.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

These days I build basses assuming I'm actually going to play them, but who am I kidding, I like building them way more than playing them. I hope I can make enough before I croak that I can afford to give a few away to somebody who will show me what is possible for a great player with my bass in his/her hands.

 

[llmk]

Keep us updated. Maybe keep a list of us who have expressed interest? As well as dots I would be interested in some different shapes.

I will update my progress for sure. Also, the list is a good idea.

Like Slidlow suggested, you also could expand this into glow-in-the-dark surface dots and inlay shapes. Larger diameter discs, maybe 3mm thick. And pre-cast shapes like squares, diamonds, stars, whatever you like. All made by the same basic process. Hand cut a set of masters from 3mm plastic sheet, glue them down to a wood block, make a silicone mold. Mix up your secret formula of resin and powder and pour them. Send them off in an envelope and receive money.

To make larger quantities, make more molds from the same master. Line up 10 molds in a row and pour them all in one batch.

My second mold is curing right now. I should have enough silicone left to make a couple more. About the other shapes and even items, it is clearly a good idea but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Right now I am focused on starting to work with the new resin and see how that goes. Nonetheless, I made a pick mold with the leftover silicone I had mixed just to see if something interesting could come out of that.

 

[MPU]

Two aluminium pickup rings for five string p-bass pickups. I used scroll saw for raw cutting and laser cut templates with Proxxon mini router to make the final shape. Final sanding and polishing next.

 

[MPU]

Same pickup rings polished. Not quite like chrome but close enough.

 

[Bass Ape]

First time workbench poster. Mostly because I forget to document what I’m doing. I have a WAL-Ray mod I’m in the middle of and I’ve just received the black Hipshot USA Ultralights, new string retainer and black bridge assembly pieces.

I’m at the point I’ve been procrastinating for a week. It’s time to strip the chrome off of the bridge.

I’m using muriatic acid to do the stripping. This stuff is nasty, gloves, eye protection and a respirator are necessary. Currently the bridge and plate are in a bath. One I remove them and they dry. I’ll be spraying them with a primer and black enamel.

 

[StereoPlayer]

First time workbench poster. Mostly because I forget to document what I’m doing. I have a WAL-Ray mod I’m in the middle of and I’ve just received the black Hipshot USA Ultralights, new string retainer and black bridge assembly pieces.

I’m at the point I’ve been procrastinating for a week. It’s time to strip the chrome off of the bridge.

I’m using muriatic acid to do the stripping. This stuff is nasty, gloves, eye protection and a respirator are necessary. Currently the bridge and plate are in a bath. One I remove them and they dry. I’ll be spraying them with a primer and black enamel.
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Nasty stuff.

 

[rojo412]

Snagged a project from @timendous last week, a Squier Cabronita Baritone Tele.
It was "gracefully handled" by the shipper at some point:

So I decided to go a little nutty with it in a traditional way (if you want to call it that) and changed it to this:

It was more than just slapping it together, as I routed off the top portion, shielded that cavity and the pickup cavities, then built a new wiring harness setup. But it was pretty easy, it looks worlds better, and now I have a working baritone to mess with for a while.