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Worst Build Day Ever!!

W

Worshiper

Aug 13, 2004
846
0
39
New York
#1
I was off from work today and I decided to do a little work on a guitar build I'm working on for a friend.

So I walk downstairs only to find the guitar body warped, with the back bowed...significantly too...about 1/8th of an inch in the middle.

I said a few choice words that I'mnot proud of in my frustration, but then I relaxed and figured a way to compensate for it...I was just going to round over the top so that both the top and back were bowed. Kinda' like a gibson. I also had to resand the sides to make them perpendicular to the table/floor/ whatever the body is lyingn on...

SO I start sanding the sides with my ryobi oscilating sander and 10 minutes into it, is gives off this really bad smell and then lets off this huge cloud of black smoke...I blew the motor. Warrenty is up.

I'm really angry at this because now I gotta buy a new one and I was saving up for a table saw. :(

More choice words...

Decide to work on the neck so that i feel like the day is not a total waste. I set up the ol' dremmel to route the truss rod channel...it jumps on me...

Came upstairs and took a shower...talkbass...

(:( :rollno: :crying: :bawl: ) = My progression for today...
 
#2
Dremel's are not even close to be powerful enough to cut truss routs. You'll be there for hours if you succeed.

I'm sorry to break it to you like that but that body is now firewood. It obviously wasn't seasoned enough and compensating by doing a carve on the other side won't work because that body might very well move some more in different directions later on.

Yeah, I'd be peed too after a day like that.
 
#6
Worshiper said:
Decide to work on the neck so that i feel like the day is not a total waste. I set up the ol' dremmel to route the truss rod channel...it jumps on me...
Click to expand...

No, no, no.. a Dremel is not up to task for something like this! They are good for inlay routing, and that's about it. They are hardly good for that too. Not very accurate machines. And I have a really good older Dremel. The newer ones have the bearings too close together.

Get a regular router or a laminate trimmer. If you are on a budget, and who isn't, look up Homier.com.

This laminate trimmer is $9.99! Works fine too.
 
#13
iamlowsound said:
Also ryobi is garbage.

lowsound
Click to expand...

Au contrere mon Ami......I have to differ with this statement. I have a Ryobi RE-600 router I have had for 14 years, and still works perfectly. I also have a 8 hole disc R/O sander that is 12 years old, and also works wonderfully. I have a Corner cat that is about 4 yrs old, and is just as good as new. I also have bosch, mikita, Porter cable, hitachi and Milwaukee hand power tools, that treat me just as well as my ryobi stuff.

I think you have to know the limitations of the tools you use. No R/O sander is going to take hard sanding for long. most times when motors go, it's because of the sander being used under too much pressure for too great a time. A lot of people do not understand that you don't need to put much pressure on a sander, but to let the orbits do the work, with the paper making the cut. this is how motors blow.

I learned this from my own experience with a Milwaukee r/o sander. it was an expensive lesson for me 20 yrs ago.
 
#15
Sorry to hear about your bad day.

The luthier I am studying with had a 95% complete LP style bass fall from the painting aparatus to the crete beneath. Spliting the neck long-ways and rendering it trash. The body only had some dings in it, so we decided to try and take off the old neck while salvaging the intricate fingerboard. It took us 4 hours of heavy steaming in 105+ heat to finally get the neck removed and at the very end of the ordeal, the table we were working on gives way and the fingerboard lands beneath the body and snaps! Also the steamer tube comes off and we get sprayed.

Ouch.
 
#16
DavidRavenMoon said:
Bosch stuff is wonderful. We have some Bosch, Porter-Cable, Mikita routers, and I have an old Sears router that still works fine after 20 years.
Click to expand...

Tools were definately made better years ago. I have a Porter Cable 7350 American Classic I bought in 1985. Absolutely love it for template bushing work, my Bosch 1613EVS and my Ryobi RE600 are my workhorses, I use them for everything.
 
#20
Worshiper said:
ok...so do they even make any affordable and good oscillating sanders anymore...I can't find one...any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Grizzly perhaps? I have one of their table saws, which I quite like.

At the very least, check out www.grizzly.com and at request a catalog. Their president is apparently a luthier on the side himself, and there's a lot of guitar/bass related suff in there.
The website kind of sucks in that you usually have to use the search function to find certain items. If you don't know they carry it, you may not find it navigating normally. The catalog is the size of an average town's phone book.

It's the only place I can think of where you can buy a 20 hp industrial band saw, a meat grinder, and a guitar amp (Grizzly brand, in the same distinctive green as their power tools).
 

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