Winter Build Off 2022 - The Crook

[Gilmourisgod]

Ah geeze, my Grandpap had a Shop Smith, like all Popular Mechanics readers of the 50's. He knew I coveted that thing too. I inherited some of his tools, but that one got sold off in The Great Climactic Yardsale after he died, that i missed, being away at college at the time. My Dad sold all kinds of good $h*t, but inexplicably kept the Worlds Worst Tablesaw. Unusable. Dangerous. A complete POS. I think my brother has it in a box someplace, but would never actually use the damn thing.

 

[Gary_M]

Well..... I did watch about 10 different YT videos about tuning up up a bandsaw. Edgy, scintillating drama, im here to tell you. Who's Right! Is it the Snodgrass Method, or the Old School Duginske approach? Should i spend $400 on a complete set of Carter saw blade guides for my ancient Sears 12" Bandsaw ( street value about $250)? No wait! Urethane tire upgrades! The hell with Netflx, I got Nerdflux. This Is Quarentine.

The best bandsaw setup tip that I ever got was to center the bottom of the gullet at the peak of the tire. It helps immensely with tracking and you won't fight it so much.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Heh. I just realized while watching the Snodgrass tutorial that blade tracking is ADJUSTABLE by turning the screw in the middle of the top wheel. The Depth of my cluelessness revealed, am I Mortified.

 

[Beej]

I did some scraping back of the carved areas around the top and sanded up the edges to 220, but there's nothing really to see yet.

I also planed down the face of the headstock using a thrown together router planing setup.

headstock planing

• Beej
• Jan 25, 2022
• winter build off 2022

planing

And I trimmed the face plate and extra bit and glued them up with cold cure epoxy. I brought the epoxy in the house to look something up last night, and when I took it out to use it today, it was really, really viscous. Lesson learned, not only can it cure in the cold, but it's overall altogether happier in the cold. Here's an obligatory clamp shot.

headstock cap

• Beej
• Jan 25, 2022
• winter build off 2022

glue up

Here you can see the "extra bit" added on top of the faceplate to bring the height in that area up to the nut height. I'll smooth that on the oscillating sander into a rounded transition up to the nut like a... ~sigh~ ...fender.

headstock cap

• Beej
• Jan 25, 2022
• winter build off 2022

glue up

 

[dwizum]

Heh. I just realized while watching the Snodgrass tutorial that blade tracking is ADJUSTABLE by turning the screw in the middle of the top wheel. The Depth of my cluelessness revealed, am I Mortified.

Blade tracking is really the key to getting consistent straight cuts. Seems like a lot of people focus on the blade guides as if getting those perfect will make the saw perfect, but guides are like guardrails on the side of the highway - you shouldn't be bouncing off those if you're trying to go in a straight line. Blade tracking is the thing keeps you straight when you're trying to go straight. Guides are just there for curves or other times when you're way out of bounds.

 

[RichterScale]

guides are like guardrails on the side of the highway - you shouldn't be bouncing off those if you're trying to go in a straight line.

oops

 

[Flamingo21]

guides are like guardrails on the side of the highway - you shouldn't be bouncing off those if you're trying to go in a straight line.

Who said I was trying to go in a straight line?

 

[Lonnybass]

I finished off the control cover by mounting it to the dummy positive template with double sided tape (too cold out for the "trick" to work reliably) and then routing around it with pattern bit.

control cover

• Beej
• Jan 21, 2022
• winter build off 2022

control cover

This let me start the radius on the top of the body. After it was mostly routed in, I mounted the negative template to the body with clamps.

control cover & radius routing

• Beej
• Jan 21, 2022
• winter build off 2022

control cover & radius routing

And then routed it down to 5mm at it's deepest point. The control cover is 6mm thick at it's thinnest point, so this leaves it a bit proud in the deepest area and can be routed flush with the top.

control cover & radius routing

• Beej
• Jan 21, 2022
• winter build off 2022

control cover & radius routing

Then I stuck the cover on with a couple of drops of CA glue. It's a little proud here, but at inconsistent depths due to the radius top.

control cover & radius routing

• Beej
• Jan 21, 2022
• winter build off 2022

control cover & radius routing

Then I went over the whole thing with the radius routing fixture and made it flush with the top.

control cover & radius routing

• Beej
• Jan 21, 2022
• winter build off 2022

control cover & radius routing

control cover & radius routing

• Beej
• Jan 21, 2022
• winter build off 2022

control cover & radius routing

After that I ramped up the neck area of the body to raise it up a little and did a little more radius routing. You can see in the pics above that the radius does not uniformly go from the tail to the neck. Lifting the neck area made this more consistent. However it appears I didn't take a pic.

Last note, there is a hole in the back of the body that I pushed a long hex key through to pop the cover off. That hole will be routed out when I mount the strat jack on the back.

This is a work of ART! Incredible precision my friend.

 

[Beej]

After gluing on the faceplate and transition piece, I sanded the radius transition up to the nut slot.

headstock

• Beej
• Jan 30, 2022
• winter build off 2022

headstock

Because I'm modifying an existing headstock, there isn't quite enough real estate to fit my usual headstock routing template in it's usual orientation. Instead, I lined up the flares of my template over the slightly modified flares of the headstock, then lined up the center of the template over the centerline of the headstock and traced the lines onto the headstock. From there I used the spindle sander to bring things into the line and smooth out the curves.

headstock

• Beej
• Jan 30, 2022
• winter build off 2022

headstock

headstock

• Beej
• Jan 30, 2022
• winter build off 2022

headstock

I also routed in the strat jack mounting hole in the back. The template gets screwed down to the body in the mounting holes.

jack template

• Beej
• Jan 30, 2022
• winter build off 2022

strat jack

The hole and where I'd traced over the jack so I could drill pilot holes to line up the template.

favourite jack location

• Beej
• Jan 30, 2022
• winter build off 2022

strat jack

The jack plate in place. It's positioned to line your cord up to go over the strap.

favourite jack location

• Beej
• Jan 30, 2022
• winter build off 2022

strat jack

I also steamed the body everywhere to minimize dents and help smooth things out when sanding. The body has now been sanded to 180, 220 and 280 with grain raising between. I've raised the grain one last time before sanding to 320 next.

 

[Flamingo21]

jack plate in place. It's positioned to line your cord up to go over the strap.

You think of absolutely everything, don't you?

 

[Beej]

You think of absolutely everything, don't you?

Pretty much everything I do is following in the footsteps of luthiers who came before me. If I have an original idea one day, I'll write it down.

What I'd really like to do is think of a way to make money at this.

 

[T_Bone_TL]

What I'd really like to do is think of a way to make money at this.

NFTs, this week, before they go out of fashion!

 

[RichterScale]

What I'd really like to do is think of a way to make money at this.

Start using tone wood.

 

[Beej]

Anyone interested in a one of one digital holographic image of the completed bass for $1.8 million? You won't actually own the copyright to the image and I can make and distribute more later with no legal ramifications to me, plus you will own what you and others think you own, but real-time money that gets transferred to me will have no legal recourse if things go sour in the future, or if I flood the "market" with more versions of the same image for mo' money.

Hmm... I better think up some better ad copy...

 

[Beej]

Start using tone wood.

I swear I bang on timbers to hear how they ring all the time.

 

[TerribleTim68]

...What I'd really like to do is think of a way to make money at this.

There's two ways to make a million at this -

1. Start with 2 million.
2. Get 100 thousand people to send you $10 for a book on how to make 1 million dollars in luthiery.

 

[Beej]

I spent some time on the spindle sander and brought the headstock thickness down on both the front and back. After that, I drilled pilot holes for the tuners and then forstnered in from the front and back. The front had larger 3/4" recesses added for the mounting washers as the headstock is still a little thicker than my usuals. After they were added, I used 1/2" from the front, (which is a touch wide for these metric tuner nuts) and 9/16" from the back. My drill press is at the back of the shed with a motorcycle and many boxes in front of it, so I freehanded all of those holes with the trusty dewalt cordless.

headstock

• Beej
• Feb 2, 2022
• winter build off 2022

headstock

I test fitted the tuners and tried a few angles.

headstock

• Beej
• Feb 2, 2022
• winter build off 2022

headstock

I also glued together a thin strip each of padauk and purpleheart and began the process of making them into a wood nut. They will each face the opposite wood for contrast.

headstock

• Beej
• Feb 2, 2022
• winter build off 2022

headstock

I only have a handful more tasks to complete before I can do an in-the-white assembly and see if there are any bugs to work out. I always do this with any one-off build or prototypes so that I don't spend a bunch of time doing fine finish prep or finishing and then find out the neck pocket needs work or something like that. To that end, I picked up some flats - the only five string set was Ernie Ball Slinky Flats and I've never tried them, so we'll see.

Speaking of in-the-white assembly, my new secret finish arrived so I have some test pieces going to see how well it fills the grain. If it's not fully filled, then I'm going to use an epoxy grain fill application before applying the finish since they are compatible. It's not revolutionary, but this one is new to me.

 

[RichterScale]

That p'dooky wood is really calling to me. Seeing a lot of it today.

 

[Beej]

That p'dooky wood is really calling to me. Seeing a lot of it today.

The colour is in the same tonal ranges of cherry and bubinga and would go well with them too. And it looks great against some roasted walnut I have too.

 

[Slidlow]

That p'dooky wood is really calling to me. Seeing a lot of it today.

Paduak! (subliminal Canadian content)