What rheostat did you get and how did you wire it all up? Or did you cover that in your build thread and I’m being dumb?
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What's On Your Workbench?
- Thread starter HaMMerHeD
- Start date
What rheostat did you get and how did you wire it all up? Or did you cover that in your build thread and I’m being dumb?
I didn't cover it there. I just got a normal off the shelf light dimmer rated for 600w. This is the one I used but Lowes and Home Depot both carry pretty much the same thing:
McMaster-Carr
I put it in a single gang box and just wired it into the supply cord for the heater. The pipe is stuck into a 2 x 4 with a hole drilled in it. I happened to have a hole saw that was a perfect fit on the pipe. The 2 x 4 and the box are both screwed to a plywood scrap.
I don't really have any good pics but I can take one tomorrow. It took all of 10 minutes to put together. When I first built it, I used a thermocouple to check the temperature of the pipe so I knew about which position on the dimmer was right for bending - but, honestly, you don't really need to do that, there's a pretty good range over which it works fine, and it's pretty easy to tell if it's too cold (wood isn't bending, or it pops back after you bend it) or too hot (wood scorches even if it's wet). If you dribble some water on the pipe it should pretty much leap back off and instantly evaporate with a quick sizzle, that's how I know it's warmed up enough to start bending.
McMaster-Carr
I put it in a single gang box and just wired it into the supply cord for the heater. The pipe is stuck into a 2 x 4 with a hole drilled in it. I happened to have a hole saw that was a perfect fit on the pipe. The 2 x 4 and the box are both screwed to a plywood scrap.
I don't really have any good pics but I can take one tomorrow. It took all of 10 minutes to put together. When I first built it, I used a thermocouple to check the temperature of the pipe so I knew about which position on the dimmer was right for bending - but, honestly, you don't really need to do that, there's a pretty good range over which it works fine, and it's pretty easy to tell if it's too cold (wood isn't bending, or it pops back after you bend it) or too hot (wood scorches even if it's wet). If you dribble some water on the pipe it should pretty much leap back off and instantly evaporate with a quick sizzle, that's how I know it's warmed up enough to start bending.
Thx slot...I hasn't put much thought to mountinting the strap...on my hagstrom it's under breath the horn facing down. Guess il attempt to do the same
I finally finished this one off. One step closer to working on my 5 string multi scale...
Not on my workbench anymore, a collage of vintage basses.
Now with sound clip. Bridge/Both/neck pickup.
I also made a truss rod cover tonight, more pics when the pickup rings arrive.
Maihinnousu - Lataa - MPU - Vmedley
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I hope I continue to enjoy building instruments for a very long time to come, seeing as how I just bought a hundred feet of fret wire.
I've been buying small lengths for each instrument at a cost of roughly $1.60-ish a foot. Buying 100 feet from LMI brought it down to about $1.10 a foot. Somehow, in my cloudy brain, that 30% savings justified buying enough to make two or three dozen instruments. I will probably be handing down the remnants of this roll to my grandchildren one day. Along with half a bottle of StewMac fretboard oil seeing as how that stuff seems to last an impossibly long time.
I hope I never stop liking Medium fret wire. Maybe I need to buy 100 feet of Jumbo too. Just in case.
I've been buying small lengths for each instrument at a cost of roughly $1.60-ish a foot. Buying 100 feet from LMI brought it down to about $1.10 a foot. Somehow, in my cloudy brain, that 30% savings justified buying enough to make two or three dozen instruments. I will probably be handing down the remnants of this roll to my grandchildren one day. Along with half a bottle of StewMac fretboard oil seeing as how that stuff seems to last an impossibly long time.
I hope I never stop liking Medium fret wire. Maybe I need to buy 100 feet of Jumbo too. Just in case.
Funny, I was just contemplating this myself. I don't build a lot of fretted instruments, so I think sticking with the higher priced, smaller lots make more sense for me.
If you end up doing a multi-scale 7 string, you'd burn through quite a bit of that
LMI sells either 4 feet or 100, but now that I've looked at Stewmac I see they sell in units of "1 lb" which looks like it's 40 - 60 feet depending on the wire, and it works out to be about the same $1.10 per foot discounted price as the 100 feet I bought at LMI. If I decide I want some Jumbo I might order from them instead. Now I kind of wish I'd ordered from them and gotten a pound in each size instead of this massive roll of medium, but it is what it is at this point.
I guess I've had a fretboard focus lately. Last week I set up a small miter saw as a dedicated fret slotting saw and I'm super happy with the result. I basically copied what @rudy4444 described in his thread here, but I built it such that I can use it with slotted mdf templates so I don't have to mark out and manually line up the slots on each board. Props to rudy4444 for finding that saw blade at mcmaster-carr, it works great and doesn't need stiffeners like the 4" blades some people use. And it's a much better value than the $160ish for a special purpose slotting saw from stewmac or LMI. The blade has a 1" arbor hole with a key slot, I got a cheap 1" to 5/8" adapter on Amazon and drilled a hole in the arbor on the saw so I could put a key in to keep the blade from spinning on the arbor (which it did without that modification).
Once I had it set up, I cut 4 fretboards in less time than it probably would have taken me to generate and print a template, much less put it on a board and cut it by hand. Besides the time savings I think the best part of this is not having to print out a fret template each time, I can just pop the board on one of the mdf templates I made and go to work.
I guess I've had a fretboard focus lately. Last week I set up a small miter saw as a dedicated fret slotting saw and I'm super happy with the result. I basically copied what @rudy4444 described in his thread here, but I built it such that I can use it with slotted mdf templates so I don't have to mark out and manually line up the slots on each board. Props to rudy4444 for finding that saw blade at mcmaster-carr, it works great and doesn't need stiffeners like the 4" blades some people use. And it's a much better value than the $160ish for a special purpose slotting saw from stewmac or LMI. The blade has a 1" arbor hole with a key slot, I got a cheap 1" to 5/8" adapter on Amazon and drilled a hole in the arbor on the saw so I could put a key in to keep the blade from spinning on the arbor (which it did without that modification).
Once I had it set up, I cut 4 fretboards in less time than it probably would have taken me to generate and print a template, much less put it on a board and cut it by hand. Besides the time savings I think the best part of this is not having to print out a fret template each time, I can just pop the board on one of the mdf templates I made and go to work.
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If you end up doing a multi-scale 7 string, you'd burn through quite a bit of that
When I was young and foolish I used to lust after the crazy 9 string basses Conklin makes. Maybe I need to make one of those just to use up this wire. And if I ever find myself needing a large flat surface to land a plane on, I'd be all set.
Or you could build up a couple of 41 fret monsters (this is a mockup, the neck is at Crystal Frets getting black onyx frets).
Holy crap that's brilliant!
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On an aircraft carrier, there are arresting wires - 4 if my memory serves me. So, if you're making a short scale 7 string multi scale fretless, and want to land a plane on it, you need enough wire for 4 frets.
