joshatatlasstands Posted June 27, 2011 Report Share Posted June 27, 2011 Hi everyone, I'm Josh Childers from East TN USA. I build custom handmade hardwood guitar amplifier stands. I have a wood shop (Atlas Stands) and I spend most of my time working there with Walnut, Ash, Cherry and sometimes Maple. Lately I have been hunting hand planes to round out my collection. I still need a block plane and a jack plane, but I'm not so bad off for them that I cannot wait for a decent find. I have to say I don't know why it took me so long to get around to hand planing my work. It's so much quieter and peaceful, aand I'm finding it yields a far better finish. I'm excited about hand planing if you cannot tell:) I have a college degree in the recording industry from MTSU, I graduated in 2004, and I'm pretty knowledgeable about the physics of sound and the electronics involved in guitar amplification. I have not built my own guitar yet, but maybe one day. I have a slab of walnut waiting for me in the corner of my wood shop, gonna make a tele out of it as soon as time permits. I really must concentrate on the stands before I can build the tele. I play several guitars, my favorite is my Sheri 2, 1998 MIK with a bigsby trem. 1990 tele thinline semi hollow reissue. Blonde Ash 1988 SG Epi candy apple Red Alvarez Acoustic Takamine acoustic/elec Dean Sweetwood SWDR I ride motorcycles a lot and do the family thing on the weekends. I live in motorcycle heaven, mountainous roads and curves galore. If ever there was a great place to ride motorcycles it's the Great Smoky Mountains! Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself, I hope there is room in the forum for me to share a few amp stand builds. Hope to get to know some of you soon! It's great to be here, a friend of mine said he used to come here a lot and suggested I check the place out. I am very impressed. Please let me know if there is room here for an amplifier stand builder among all professional and amazing guitar builders, the hardwood custom amp stands are sorta new to the music scene and I am looking for a good place to learn, progress, share and correspond with like minded folks. Thanks for reading my 1st post everyone Quote Link to comment
westhemann Posted June 27, 2011 Report Share Posted June 27, 2011 Welcome.you are welcome to build anything here,we just want to see the pictures. Quote Link to comment
ihocky2 Posted June 27, 2011 Report Share Posted June 27, 2011 Welcome to the forum and welcome to the world of hand planes. I am a huge advocate of hand tools when the work suits it. Cleaner, quieter, safer, and at least for me I feel I get a better sense for the wood and a closer attachment to my projects. I still use the thickness planer and table saw and router, but glue joints and clean up work and small pieces get the hand treatment every time. Quote Link to comment
joshatatlasstands Posted June 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2011 (edited) Welcome to the forum and welcome to the world of hand planes. I am a huge advocate of hand tools when the work suits it. Cleaner, quieter, safer, and at least for me I feel I get a better sense for the wood and a closer attachment to my projects. I still use the thickness planer and table saw and router, but glue joints and clean up work and small pieces get the hand treatment every time. That's spot on what I'm experiencing too. With two daughters running around the house it's less sawdust for them to get into, and it's a lot easier to keep working when they are taking mid-day naps. Everything about the hand planing seems so much nicer. I can even have a conversation while I work now. Here is a picture of a couple of my past builds, none of these are hand planed though. The one on the top right is a baffled reflex build that is ported up front, sounded awesome. The top left is a single rack space stand with a cooling fan that is height adjustable, it also has a cap to protect the rack unit when closed. The two in the middle and the bottom left are what I am calling a "studio" design, bare bones, small and easiest to gig with. The image on the bottom right has a few designs, the closest stand in the picture is a 2 rack space design that resembles the baffled reflex design above it. Each build is a lot of fun, just hoping that people enjoy them. I'm hoping that one day I can get good enough to build a sunburst amp stand, or do some really cool inlays to resemble a guitar neck. I've already put f-holes in some of the legs/panels. Using butt joints right now, but I've done some dovetails and laps too. I'm editing a couple times this morning to add pics as I get them put together in photoscape, which is really cool free photo software if you are interested in compiling pictures like this, saves some space when desired. Swart Build, the first studio design, again, not hand planed Woodshop: random stuff. that is my marsian mascot, Atlas, on the drill press cover My next hurdle with hand planing is to figure out if I can plane both surfaces of the boards before I rip the panels to width, without scratching the wood on the table saw bed/fence. Maybe I could put some blue painter's tape on the saw bed? I'm curious what everyone else does. Do you plane before ripping or rip first and then plane, Its the edges of the surfaces that I worry will be out of square and mess up the joints. My design uses a butt joint (usually) that butts up again a large surface of another panel, so the surface must be exact. I'm thinking it would be easier to get it exact if I rip widths after I plane the large surfaces is this common? Edited June 28, 2011 by joshatatlasstands Quote Link to comment
joshatatlasstands Posted June 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2011 I made some edits adding pics this AM. I gotta learn how to take a decent picture so I can better document my builds. I stand on , I mean, I stand behind my woodwork Thanks again for the welcome. Josh Quote Link to comment
joshatatlasstands Posted June 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2011 (edited) Hardwood panel amp stands make guitar amplifiers, and guitars, sound great. The difference the hardwood makes is quite noticeable. I'm having some recent issues with tear out in White Ash today while doing the new hand planing. Next time I cut down the wood stock I'll cut it so the wood grain doesn't change direction so much... Big change in process... Edited June 28, 2011 by joshatatlasstands Quote Link to comment
supplebanana Posted June 28, 2011 Report Share Posted June 28, 2011 I made some edits adding pics this AM. I gotta learn how to take a decent picture so I can better document my builds. I stand on , I mean, I stand behind my woodwork Thanks again for the welcome. Josh Now don't try this at home children - Josh is a professional & has practised for many hours to perfect his technique. All I can say about this shot is that even if your build can stand up to the pressure, one slip & its gonna be mighty painful - in the pocket too!! coz we wouldn't want that amp to land on those guitars now, would we? either way looks like mighty fine work! Quote Link to comment
joshatatlasstands Posted June 29, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 Thanks supplebanana, it was somewhat of a challenge to get up there with the rocket before the timer on the camera ended. maybe not hours, but long enough to learn a few techniques. like pic up the amp AFTER you are on the stand Someone asked me how strong the stands are because the own a 68 pound amp, thus the trapeze picture act was born. When I can find a large plastic barrel I'm going to sacrifice and weigh test one of the studio stands by putting the barrel on it and filling the barrel with water. Then I'll take note of how many gallons it takes to collapse a stand if it actually does collapse, then I'll do the math. I'll have a real number regarding weight capacity then. As it stands now I've had well over 200 pounds on them before and they held up just fine. I'm learning a lot about woodworking by hand lately, Had a bit of a tough day with the Swamp Ash yesterday, I couldn't seem to control the tear out and today I'm going to have to start over with the build. Frustrating but still pretty cool to learn again after all these years of orbital sanding. I think building these amp stands will be a good introduction to some of the skills used in building solid body guitars, there are some similarities in the tooling processes and assembly. The amp stand finishing process is not at difficult for sure, no nitro and all, IMO amp stands need to be able to take a bit of abuse that would damage a decent guitar finish. I can see my first guitar build in my mind's eye and one day I'll build it. It will look similar to this one: Quote Link to comment
joshatatlasstands Posted June 29, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 On my first project guitar I want to use some walnut that I've been holding onto for a while with a root beer color finish, I'm not sure what wood is shown there in the picture above, but I really like the darker colors. I'll also want a Bigsby with a roller bridge on it, which will change the look too. Looking forward to when I can build it. Is it recommended to use a solid block of walnut, or is it better to glue two pieces together, somewhere I think I read that a glued body actually helps the strength and sound of a guitar. I think they said the glue made the guitar resonate differently. Anyone have an opinion I can go on? Thanks! Quote Link to comment
orgmorg Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 Depends on the glue. Epoxy will give a more sterile sound than hide glue, which really gives you that warm, pastoral tone. Never use Titebond 4, nothing will ruin the tone of a guitar like Titebond 4. Just kidding, of course. It makes no difference. At least less of a difference than the different pieces of wood you would be using in each case. My opinion anyway. There are many others. Stock up on salt. The advantages of 1 piece construction is the look and the simplicity. Advantages of gluing up is that you can use smaller, easier to find pieces, and glue them up in a way that will avoid the cupping that a 1 piece blank will undergo with changes in moisture content (which we try to avoid anyway) Nice Stands! Quote Link to comment
dpm99 Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 Depends on the glue. Epoxy will give a more sterile sound than hide glue, which really gives you that warm, pastoral tone. Never use Titebond 4, nothing will ruin the tone of a guitar like Titebond 4. Just kidding, of course. It makes no difference. At least less of a difference than the different pieces of wood you would be using in each case. My opinion anyway. There are many others. Stock up on salt. The advantages of 1 piece construction is the look and the simplicity. Advantages of gluing up is that you can use smaller, easier to find pieces, and glue them up in a way that will avoid the cupping that a 1 piece blank will undergo with changes in moisture content (which we try to avoid anyway) Nice Stands! +1 Then again, maybe you shouldn't be listening to orgmorg. He'll build a guitar out of anything. Quote Link to comment
westhemann Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 He'll build a guitar out of anything. Seriously...hide your milk pails and rain buckets...and fenceposts,nightstands...really just hide everything Quote Link to comment
orgmorg Posted June 30, 2011 Report Share Posted June 30, 2011 Yes, and seeing as Wes is here, you'll want to extend that caution to include the livestock. Quote Link to comment
joshatatlasstands Posted June 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2011 Yes, and seeing as Wes is here, you'll want to extend that caution to include the livestock. run away! run away! (monty python quote) LOL, If anyone is good enough to make a projects guitar out of livestock, I'll donate a chicken:) Quote Link to comment
Mender Posted June 30, 2011 Report Share Posted June 30, 2011 ...I'll donate a chicken I wonder what type of glue would be needed to stick a fretboard on its neck? Welcome to PG. I look forward to seeing some of your work in progress in the future Quote Link to comment
joshatatlasstands Posted June 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2011 ...I'll donate a chicken I wonder what type of glue would be needed to stick a fretboard on its neck? Welcome to PG. I look forward to seeing some of your work in progress in the future Thanks, cant wait to start a new build so I can doc the process. on a side note, why did the fretboard cross the road? Quote Link to comment
dpm99 Posted June 30, 2011 Report Share Posted June 30, 2011 on a side note, why did the fretboard cross the road? 5. Because your mom was over there. 4. To get to the other slide. 3. Somebody said it would improve the tone. 2. It was sitting in front of a Gibson factory. Narrow escape. 1. Because...it was stapled to the chicken. Of course. Quote Link to comment
westhemann Posted June 30, 2011 Report Share Posted June 30, 2011 If anyone is good enough to make a projects guitar out of livestock, I'll donate a chicken:) To be fair,I don't make guitars out of livestock,I just use them as inspiration for logos,because I am just not very creative Quote Link to comment
supplebanana Posted June 30, 2011 Report Share Posted June 30, 2011 Yes, and seeing as Wes is here, you'll want to extend that caution to include the livestock. run away! run away! (monty python quote) LOL, If anyone is good enough to make a projects guitar out of livestock, I'll donate a chicken:) there's a guy on ebay selling scratchplates made out of leather, there's also bone nuts, hide glue, buffalo horn for acoustic bridges, horse hair is used in brushes, guitar strings used to be made from cat-gut, so the livestock may just come in useful! as for the chicken - i'll take some of it's bones and my rabbits foot down to the crossroads & maybe I'll become a better player....... Quote Link to comment
ScottR Posted June 30, 2011 Report Share Posted June 30, 2011 Wow. this has got to be the longest and most entertaining "Hello my name is (insert name here)" post I think I've ever seen here. Yer settin' the bar pretty high Josh. I'm looking forward to some good reading from you. And yeah, post up some of your amp stand builds. I posted a bear build for cryin out loud. As long as it's good, or cool or at least entertaining, we'll join right in. SR Quote Link to comment
RestorationAD Posted July 1, 2011 Report Share Posted July 1, 2011 We are lenient about the content of build threads as long as they are cool and teach us some new tricks... No Corvus build threads. I draw the line there. Welcome to the forum. Looks like you know a thing or two about clamps and planes so I look forward to your input! Quote Link to comment
westhemann Posted July 1, 2011 Report Share Posted July 1, 2011 Corvus Why?Now why would you even bring that up?I had almost forgotten those monstrosities that were being bandied about like homemade fudge at a grandma convention... Quote Link to comment
RestorationAD Posted July 1, 2011 Report Share Posted July 1, 2011 Corvus Why?Now why would you even bring that up?I had almost forgotten those monstrosities that were being bandied about like homemade fudge at a grandma convention... Well now Wes... you did show off your recent excellent piece in this poor n00bs "Hello World" thread. I thought I would point out that we all love a good build as long as it is not a "CORVUS". Plus I was hoping to lure John in to defend said POSs. It has been pretty boring around here lately... Quote Link to comment
westhemann Posted July 1, 2011 Report Share Posted July 1, 2011 Plus I was hoping to lure John in to defend said POSs. No doubt it will be successful Quote Link to comment
joshatatlasstands Posted July 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 1, 2011 I had to do some research to see a Corvus, seeing as I am the n00b... personally I'll take the chicken, with or without the stapled neck. Elmer Fudd would say "shhhhh, be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting corvus" :D you all rock, thanks for the good humor. I got a picture of the latest stand in the owners house, looks good on his hardwood under the Blackstar, walnut, this is the lower end "studio" design I created originally for a Handmade Swart ST 5W amp. Quote Link to comment
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