What's On Your Workbench?

[Flamingo21]

Another of my firstborn's projects. It always goes like this: she comes up with it, we go to my workshop, and she does most of the work. I make suggestions on what works, what doesn't, and what to watch for.

I'm not sure what this thing is called in English. (I'm not even sure what it's called in my own language.) It is a kind of loom, for weaving things up to about 25 cm wide, like shawls. She found it damaged and unusable, now it's ready for testing.

I'm a proud father.

 

[eddododo]

Have been making some pickups and trying things out.. I particularly liked this idea visually, and it sounds pretty good so far; I had to run out the house, but I want to set it up and compare it to my genuine Pbass

I made the big pole pieces out of steel rod, 3-D printed the flat work.. these har neodymium magnets- i wound the coil as tight and regular/dense as possible to try to darken the attack/brightness, but made the coils taller than typical to, well, not make it so dark

I think they sounded good in my brief inspection, but I’ll have to give them a go for a week and do the comparison to strip off the confirmation bias and maker’s high

 

[Lo-E]

Conventional wisdom would suggest that it will be more sensitive to dynamics than a standard P. I’ll be interested to learn whether conventional wisdom holds up here.

Sure looks cool!

 

[Gervais Cote]

Just got this out of the press. Looks flawless without any cracks so it’s a good start :

 

[Gervais Cote]

 

[Videojunkie]

Another of my firstborn's projects. It always goes like this: she comes up with it, we go to my workshop, and she does most of the work. I make suggestions on what works, what doesn't, and what to watch for.


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I'm not sure what this thing is called in English. (I'm not even sure what it's called in my own language.) It is a kind of loom, for weaving things up to about 25 cm wide, like shawls. She found it damaged and unusable, now it's ready for testing.

I'm a proud father.

It's an Inkle Loom. Used for making woven trim, belts, etc. Very popular past-time in medieval reenactment groups.

 

[Flamingo21]

It's an Inkle Loom. Used for making woven trim, belts, etc. Very popular past-time in medieval reenactment groups.

She actually is in a medieval reenactment group! So now I'm guessing she'll use it there.

She probably told me this at one point, but it's not always easy to catch everything someone tells you about their specific hobby if that isn't also your hobby.
Either that, or I'm a lousy listener.

 

[Bonkersville]

I had these cut on a laser sometime last fall. I wanted a solid table insert for my old Elu. Or actually someone elses old. Bought it a few years ago but never used it. At 2 kW or 2,7 hp I think it has all the routing power I'll ever need.

Anyways I found the plates yesterday and had a little spare time. Not much to do except to countersunk the screws and smooth the edges a bit with some sandpaper. The laser cut quality was not the best I have seen, but here it'll do just fine.

With all the parts ready it was assembly time. The plate is 6mm aluminum, maybe 6000-series. Doesn't mean much here. The washers are 6 and 4 mm.

The lower 4 mm washer is just a spacer. The upper I plan to order a couple of more to have closer fits for different size bits. This one should have enough clearance for 3/4 or 19ish mm cutters.

I adjusted the fit with some blue tape. It took a surprising amount of layers and was still a little thin after tightening the screws. But it's easy to add more.

Anyways here's the final assembly. I was pleased that the holes fit. They were a bit tricky to measure. I doubt the plate will come off often. The thing is just too heavy for most routing jobs I have. And I plan to make a router planing setup for bigger stuff using the same assembly as a core for the sled.

It barely fits the Makita box I have for it. But it fits.

The next thing to do is to convince the collet to open. As I said I never used it. It came with the bit it has on. I have tested it but I haven't changed bits yet. Hopefully some WD40 and a bit of elbow grease will do the trick.

 

[Lo-E]

If you use WD-40 or penetrating oil, make sure to clean all the parts completely with alcohol afterwards.
Residual oil in a router collet can turn a bit into a projectile pretty quickly!

If you have additional inserts made with different size holes, you might want to get some blank ones as well in case you need to make a custom size.

 

[Bonkersville]

If you use WD-40 or penetrating oil, make sure to clean all the parts completely with alcohol afterwards.
Residual oil in a router collet can turn a bit into a projectile pretty quickly!

If you have additional inserts made with different size holes, you might want to get some blank ones as well in case you need to make a custom size.

Yeah, this I know. Never had them flying. But wandering around, usually downwards. I bought a 12 mm collet for this. I believe the 8 and 12 will last me a long time. The good thing is this machine shares a lot of parts with the DeWalt sumtn numbr, so parts are available.

 

[Bonkersville]

It came off. And was dirty. There's rust and all kinds of grit. I used wd40 first, then some cleaning agent for machine parts. The loose parts will be washed with pine oil soap after they're clean enough, then some ipa or brake cleaner. The axle will just get the ipa after the wd 40.

Oh and I remembered the power rating wrong. It's 1,85 kW or about 2,5 hp. Still plenty strong for me I believe.

 

[Lo-E]

I finally got the refinishing, er…. finished on the ‘75 P.

I then went to start doing some fitting of parts and discovered that the body had a little surprise for me. Two surprises, in fact!

Well, I was lucky enough to have a plug cutter that fit over the screws handy and whipped up a couple of plugs in an Amazon dowel jig I impulse-bought last year. All in all, the issue was addressed in about an hour and once the plugs are cut flush I can move forward again.

 

[Lo-E]

Hey, it’s starting to look like a bass again!

Still loads to do, though:
Order a pickup and pots, shield the cavities, order and apply a decal, overspray the decal, dress and polish the frets, cut a nut, decide whether I’m going to use the chrome reissue tuners I have or order nickel Gotohs, install whichever tuners I choose, find a string retainer in my parts drawer, strings, setup….

No wonder everything always takes me forever.

 

[Bonkersville]

I got most of the dirt out. Some rust remains in the inside of the nut. I might need to replace it someday. But the old one will hopefully do for now.

The main use I have in mind for this is to run the somewhat scary 3/4" orange pattern bit. It doesn't weigh as much as the Elu does. But It's an impressive bit nonetheless. I know there are bigger ones, but I don't think I need one of those anytime soon. Hopefully this bit performs as well as it's heft implies.

I still need to insert the router into a table. Maybe the outfeed table of my tablesaw. Which is the white surface in most of these pictures. But then it would be on my assembly table. And my work bench...

A real shop would be nice. Maybe someday.

 

[TerribleTim68]

I hear those compression bits are the bee's knees.

 

[fatmarris]

Fixing up an acoustic for a friend! He kept breaking strings and I found there was a rough spot on the bridge saddle so I polished it and then cleaned his frets up a little bit and it was good to go

 

[TerribleTim68]

I have another massive pile of junk on my workbench.
It always becomes the "catch all" when any other space needs a good tidy. So now I have to find it under all the junk yet again.
But, I got myself a new(ish) car and that has kind of become my focus at the moment, so not a lot of bass building happening right now between the new ride and the start of race season, plus I started a new job last month so I've been focusing on making sure my new boss understands why he hired me.

 

[Lo-E]

…plus I started a new job last month so I've been focusing on making sure my new boss understands why he hired me.

Probably a good time to remember to wear pants.

I have another massive pile of junk on my workbench.

I caught myself in the act the other day: Having recently finished the refinishing of that P-bass I’ve been working on, I started to proceed with different work with all the finishing supplies still taking up more than half the workbench. Dumb*ss!

Stop. Breathe. Put things away. Clear the bench. Start the new work. But do I listen to my own advice? NO! I continue to work on a cluttered bench, taking three times longer to do everything. At least my learning curve is a straight line….

 

[BishopJP]

I have the same issue.

I usually have limited time; so if I only have an hour or so to get in the shop, do I spend the time cleaning up or doing work?

 

[Lo-E]

Foiled again….

I also did a little decal-ing. A friend of mine who runs a little guitar repair shop hooked me up with a headstock decal that’s period-appropriate and a neck plate with a 1975 serial number.

The decal was very old - he’d had it for years - and I’m not really sure how well it will adhere. I’ll give it a few days and, if it looks sketchy, I might scrape it off and order a fresh one. If it seems okay I’ll shoot some lacquer on it and see how it goes.

No pictures of the neck plate but…. It’s a neck plate.