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On ‎2016‎-‎08‎-‎08 at 9:37 AM, Prostheta said:

I hate to change the subject, however your photography is excellent also. That's a very short DOF/large aperture. Sometime along the lines of f1.8 or so?

Thank you :)

I think most of them were taken with a 35mm f1.8, maybe one or two with a 50mm f1.4 (but probably not shot wide open). I find that both work really well for handheld shooting of progress pictures with whatever light is available. With the light varying between natural light and halogen spots, I could have paid better attention to the white balance.

On ‎2016‎-‎08‎-‎08 at 11:36 AM, Prostheta said:

Could you concoct a review of the tool Andy? That would be genuinely useful for many people in light of the product issues you've noted. That Lie-Nielsen router plane is just pure wrongness in the best of ways. I love it. I don't even know if I could bring myself to replace the knobs with Karelian Birch....although I probably would....!

The cherry knobs are great, although the birch would match the E.A. Berg chisels, and I'm quite partial to it after having owned an 80's SonorLite drum kit which I regret having sold:

sonlttombig.jpg

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41 minutes ago, aidlook said:

I think most of them were taken with a 35mm f1.8, maybe one or two with a 50mm f1.4 (but probably not shot wide open). I find that both work really well for handheld shooting of progress pictures with whatever light is available. With the light varying between natural light and halogen spots, I could have paid better attention to the white balance.

 

I've been developing more of an eye for these kinds of things over the last couple of years, especially with me working on the first ProjectGuitar.com YouTube season. I've been considering a 50mm f1.4 but the Canon is somewhat dated, and probably too slow for video work. The f1.8 should be fine, however the focal distance indicator on the f1.4 would be useful for focus pulls. I doubt I'd do much of that other than B-roll stuff though. Like you say, a 35mm f1.8 is a nice reasonable walk-around lens like a 50mm and fast enough for handheld work.

Lighting is where most of my focus is going though. Content is always far more important than presentation (up to a point) so the 24mm f2.8 and a 50mm f1.8 should be all that is needed once a consistent lighting scheme is settled on. I just constructed an 11,000lm LED light panel (12v 13A!) and I'll be making a second 2500lm fill light for the studio next. It's taken absolutely months to finance (ProjectGuitar.com's Patreon support has been instrumental) and get worked out, but the results are definitely going to be worth the effort.

Has your fight with white balance been the mixed colour temps of daylight and indoor lamps, or simply having the right balance dialled in for any particular scenario? I'm sure that a grey card would fix most ills in that respect.

Love the Karelian Birch shell! I've got a lot of it hanging around the shop which I'll slowly be turning into chisel handles, router accessories and the like. Perhaps even a carving mallet if I can turn a bit of brass in there.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/10/2016 at 0:38 PM, Prostheta said:

Has your fight with white balance been the mixed colour temps of daylight and indoor lamps, or simply having the right balance dialled in for any particular scenario? I'm sure that a grey card would fix most ills in that respect.

It's mostly been a lack of focus on dialling in the right balance setting. I'll start working in natural light, and transition to indoor lamps over a couple of hours, forgetting to change balance settings.

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Progress made, time for an update!

First time trying a fret job with blind fret slots:

Progress-83.jpg

Progress-84.jpg

Before I could finish fretting the board, there was a small mistake to fix... While shaping the headstock, I had a slip-up with the chisel and cut into the side of the fretboard at the first fret. I cut a matching shaving from some left-over rosewood binding and glued into place:Progress-85.jpg

Time to get started on the pickup cavity. The corners were drilled to achieve radii, and knife walls were established tangentially to the holes for chopping:Progress-90.jpg

The method I used for cutting the recess was:
1. Chop along knife wall
2.Cut towards wall at and angle, creating a bevel
3.Repeat 1&2 a few times, going down a couple of mm in total.
4.Remove material with router plane, going down gradually until bottom is flush.
5.Repeat 1-4 until depth is achieved.

Someone with more chisel experience (not trying this for the first time) would probably have a much faster method of removing material. However, the results were satisfying (holes could have been straighter).

Progress-86.jpg

Progress-89.jpg

Bridge holes have also been drilled. Final scheme for the guitar will be oiled wood, with black/brass hardware. First mockup shots:

Progress-87.jpg

Progress-88.jpg

 

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1 hour ago, aidlook said:

However, the results were satisfying

Which is one of the best things about doing what you are doing by hand. Very impressive pickup cavities. People with experience rarely turn out work as clean as yours. I'm shocked that it is your first attempt.

SR

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On ‎2016‎-‎08‎-‎26 at 9:53 PM, ScottR said:

Which is one of the best things about doing what you are doing by hand. Very impressive pickup cavities. People with experience rarely turn out work as clean as yours. I'm shocked that it is your first attempt.

SR

Thank you! The slower process makes it surprisingly easy to control the results. Once the layout is in place, and the knife walls are established, the chisel seats itself in the correct place. I did some tests for the neck pocket on a scrap piece, and the only time i had an issue was when trying to remove material faster.

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Time to get started on the nut, which will be made out of unbleached bone. 
Progress-91.jpgPencilling in the shape and rough slot depth using feeler gauges.

Progress-92.jpgRough shaping

Progress-93.jpg

Progress-95.jpgChecking rough shape against fretboard (fret ends just cut flush at the moment).

Progress-96.jpg

Starter slots cut, checking spacing against fretboard.

Progress-97.jpgSlots filed to fit Ernie Ball Super Slinkys. Final shaping and tuning of slots will be done later.

Also found some time to get started on the truss rod cover:

Progress-98.jpg

Ripped a thin piece of maple from the headstock cutoffs and sandwiched a spare piece of rosewood binding inbetween.

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I would bet that you have the quietest and calmest workshop in the world....so much so that I bet even your clamps are kept clean and oiled in case they creak and break the zen silence. :happy:

There's a lot of appreciation due for the photography also. Some weird colour aberration from the shot of the nut in the vise though....which lens gave you that piece of fun....?

The nut shot (ow) also shows a very very sharply scribed line across the frets. Last time I did that I shot a finishing brad through a pencil and planed it down with a block plane. Those look super sharp though. Better than I've been able to manage....perhaps a harder grade of graphite? Never tried harder than HB for scribing.....

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  • 4 months later...
On 9/5/2016 at 8:50 PM, Prostheta said:

I would bet that you have the quietest and calmest workshop in the world....so much so that I bet even your clamps are kept clean and oiled in case they creak and break the zen silence. :happy:

There's a lot of appreciation due for the photography also. Some weird colour aberration from the shot of the nut in the vise though....which lens gave you that piece of fun....?

The nut shot (ow) also shows a very very sharply scribed line across the frets. Last time I did that I shot a finishing brad through a pencil and planed it down with a block plane. Those look super sharp though. Better than I've been able to manage....perhaps a harder grade of graphite? Never tried harder than HB for scribing.....

Well, it hasn't been very quiet lately... I was supposed to finish this project before starting my next DIY project -kids. However, the day after my last post our twin girls were born a few months earlier than expected, so the project has been put on hold since then :-).

In the meantime we've managed to sell the apartment, and bought a house. This means that there will soon be a new workshop! Actually, I don't know if soon is the word, but the (much larger than before) dedicated space is there at least. We'll see when I'll have my hands free for long enough to finish this build.

 

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  • 1 year later...

Progress!

Well, not on the guitar, but on the new workshop. Here was the starting point, main issue being the lack of insulation.

IMG_0307.thumb.jpg.e147628a72a2a669600e7af63b44f944.jpg

 

Floor, walls, and ceiling insulated, time to get started on upgrading the workbench:

IMG_2882.thumb.jpg.fa0b3bc6897756808b6267dd8e3888a6.jpgIMG_3320.thumb.jpg.168111c12fe202d8fb5df08be2f3b749.jpgIMG_3878.thumb.jpg.0dd702cd2af9ae9204d8394962a024a3.jpg

Just some finishing left to do on the workbench, and I'll be able to get started on tool storage. It turns out that being too busy to do woodworking, does not mean being too busy to keep from buying more tools.

Once the tool storage is in place, I think it's  time to wrap up this guitar project. :)

Edited by aidlook
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8 hours ago, Prostheta said:

I love it. I think that style of bench with the extended skirts is going to be better for working pieces. Perhaps with a few holes drilled for dogs/clamps and you're good to go! Nice potentially vintage vise there?

The design is extremely rigid, essentially a large U-beam with the leg assemblies housed and wedged in the aprons. It’s built pretty much to spec from Paul Sellers’ YouTube series on building a workbench which luckily coincided with my paternity leave. Well spotted on the vintage vice, I refurbished an old Record 52 1/2:305F0D1D-74A0-42E7-982D-1076AD00551A.jpeg.7bef16783d145d22e4fd5396b65ccbe8.jpegC5258F2D-CD89-4206-B86B-570118AA00B1.thumb.jpeg.6b005d8807e728a70db453e5cf8425e0.jpeg

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  • 2 months later...
  • 6 months later...

Getting back to the guitar, some shavings have actually been removed again. Continuing the pursuit of noise and dust management, I've tried out yet another hand tool -the Veritas Cornering tool kit.

Worked really well for radiusing the edges consistently. Easy to use, as long as you're aware of the grain direction.

DSC_0433.jpg

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