Bob's Your Uncle: A Rick-O-Rocker Mash-up Thing

[sirspens]

5 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Just make sure that the wood is thoroughly acclimatised; wide boards like that have large amount of concentric growth rings which could induce cupping if it's still drying. Just the nature of the beast I guess.

Good advice. How do I do that? Got an good article?

[sirspens]

This is what I did today:

I know it doesn't look like much, but that piece of wood was like, almost twice as thick as it is now. It took a good amount of time to get it that way, too. And I made a lot of dust along the way.

Here's the thing. I don't have much experience here, but the thicknessing wasn't exactly smooth work:

Now, that was my first pass, and the second pass was smoother. But, still basically the same thing. And it took a lot of sanding to get it down to something even reasonably smooth. 

I don't have a lot of woodworking experience, but as I sand it down, the individual ripples get smoothed out, but the wood itself doesn't seem to be getting any smoother. In fact, it seems like the ripply nature of the wood is getting more pronounced. And I am using a 10" long sanding block, so as to keep the sanding as smooth and level as possible.

For now, I am using the slightly rippled side as the "back" of the neck, since most of it will get turned into a curve anyway.

Tomorrow, I will cut the neck down to shape and get both sides smoothed out as much as possible.

I will probably then get started on the body.

[ScottR]

What kind of wood are you sanding? What is your sanding block made of? And what grit sandpaper are you starting with?

SR

[sirspens]

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

What kind of wood are you sanding? What is your sanding block made of? And what grit sandpaper are you starting with?

 

It is a maple neck. The sanding block is a plastic and rubber gadget from Home Depot (too soft?). And I started with 220, because I didn't want to lose too much thickness while going for levelness.

[ScottR]

It may indeed be too soft. Try a hard one for a bit and see if that solves it. Are the ripples you describe from the machining you've done to level it or from the grain? I'm guessing the machine marks because usually the only time you get this in maple is when it is highly figured. Otherwise it typically sands very smooth and flat.

SR

[sirspens]

3 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Are the ripples you describe from the machining you've done to level it

Exactly. I used a router thicknessing jig.

I'll strap some sand paper on to a piece of nice scrap lumber I have laying around and see if it improves.

Thank you very much!

Edited February 1, 2016 by sirspens

[Prostheta]

You should see the kind of crap my green Bosch POF1200AE leaves....

[sirspens]

This is, admittedly, a bit rough...

... but, it's also not my neck.

This is my experiment on a piece of scrap.

I wasted hours yesterday attempting to hand file a test neck. It did not go well. So, today I worked up the nerve to pull out the ole angle grinder and give it a try. In less than 30 minutes, including some sanding time, I had this.

It's not pretty, I'll admit that. But it is also my very every first attempt to shape something out of wood by hand. And it is clearly a guitar neck.

I used this approach:

And I learned some things. Next time...

1) I need a better set-up, with better access to both sides of the neck at the same time.

2) I need better lighting. Although, the side with more light was actually the harder side to sculpt, because there weren't as many shadows to see the curves.

3) I need better controls. Like actually sketching out what I am going to do and maybe one of those neck radius template things. I can make one of those.

It gave me my first idea of what the neck will actually look like, though. And what it is like to shape something by "hand" (slash angle grinder). I got it a smidge too thin. Like, 0.05" thinner than I meant to take it.

After thicknessing the neck the other day, my girlfriend's allergies went crazy. So... I can't do that again. I found a guy here in town with a 15" planer who is going to thickness the body down for me. I head over there in about an hour. I hope he doesn't charge me out the a$$ for it, but after calling around to just about every wood shop in Austin, TX, he was the only one willing to help.

[Prostheta]

Put the angle grinder down ;-)

I saw a video a week or so back where the guy at crimson guitars carved a neck using an angle grinder. It's never a good idea, and there are plenty of safer and more reliable ways of removing the raw stock.

There are tons of ways of working in a neck profile. My personal method is to rough in a profile behind the 1st fret and in front of the heel. I can then "join the dots" using a spokeshave, and then true everything up with a rasp. Shaping the heel and volute can be done before or after, depending on whether there is a reason to re-order the work flow.

Thicknessing a body will take less than a minute, whether it's a planer or a drum sander. The only issue is whether you have a good reference face. Ideally the body needs to be flat on one side or the other to begin with, otherwise the feed rollers can deform the workpiece as it goes through, only to have it pop back up into the opposite shape at the other end. I think if you've rough planed it already, you'll be good. It's for gorillas like me who decide to throw stuff through the planer at 7mm (just over 1/4") of cut per pass. Some people just like to watch the chips fly through the tubes. 

Strike up a relationship with the guy; unless he sets up machinery for specific tasks and needs to reset for small jobs like this (I've made plenty of planer thicknesser jigs for doing weird cuts) he should be amenable to what you're doing. A lot of woodworkers take an interest too. I can't see why so many people would say no....unless they're busy raking in big paying jobs or have constant workflow that small jobs just don't jig into.

[sirspens]

2 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Put the angle grinder down ;-)

 

But it worked!

The guy only charged me $25, and we had a really good conversation. Interesting retired engineer who enjoys wood working and has a nice added-onto-garage shop.

Between the wood and milling, that's less than $90 for two body blanks.

Tomorrow.... cutting some body. Probably.

[sirspens]

I broke the blade on my band saw. And it is a special order. So.... this might slow me down. What am I going to do with my guitar-ication?

But, this evening I joined a hackerspace here in Austin. They have almost every woodworking power tool that I could need, except a 15"+ thicknessing planer. So, I don't have to worry about expensive power tools now. Just the hopefully less expensive things like files and rasps and such.

They have a band saw with 13" cut height, 6" jointer, 13" planer, 15" drill press, oscillating spindle sander, belt sander, disk sander, SawStop table saw, a CNC machine, laser cutters for cutting templates from CAD files, even an electronics shop for soldering. And, to top it all off, it is a 5 minute walk from my house, and just down the street from the lumber yard I have been using. Pretty sweet deal, I think.

It will take me a couple weeks to get my orientation and safety classes done so that I can start using everything, but once I get that done, I should be back up and going at a good speed, again.

Until then, I might be able to get the interior of my semi-hollow body drilled and routed out. I have some interesting ideas on that.

[Prostheta]

Good call in the Makerspace. Once you have your safety classes done, you'll find that you can get most of what you need to achieve in the workshops. If you're that way inclined, I would heartily recommend the laser and/or CNC class also. You get more than what you pay for in return for access to those. You can do virtually all of your template stuff there if you're a bit of a CAD monkey like myself.

I was researching the ground for opening one here in Finland, however the vertical requirement of large capital (and not having it myself) would mean that I'd have zero idea protection and would easily get sidelined when the people with money make decisions for you, eventually just taking the idea off your hands and kicking you off the train. As I totally expected, there was a conference this year in Helsinki about Maker culture and introducing it here. I couldn't make, and in hindsight perhaps I should have done. Maybe guitar-making is not as inventive or innovative as how Makerspaces tend to be aligned, however the sense of community and pooling common sources is.

Partly that was why I decided to go all-in with ProjectGuitar.com for the long term. In the long term I'd like to establish a open-door community workshop (more or less a guitar Makerspace), support contributing writers worldwide who are open to sharing their work and developing their own workshops, etc. The big dream is picking up an old wooden building in the Finnish lakeland countryside to run a residential summer guitar maker's retreat, and a community day workshop through the rest of the year.

Makerspaces are a fantastic place for people to pool their ideas and exchange knowledge. "Nobody is more capable than all of us", right?

Shame about there not being a wide thickness planer. I guess your new ex-engineer buddy has better capacity than that?

[sirspens]

6 hours ago, Prostheta said:

You can do virtually all of your template stuff there if you're a bit of a CAD monkey like myself.

I'm an Architect and have been using CAD since I was 14 and 3D modeling software for over a 15 years. I'm already dreaming of ways to bring the laser cutters, mills and CNC machine to life. Custom knobs, precise templates, custom pickguards... a necks out of one piece of wood, without scarf joints, or even an entire guitar out of (mostly) one piece of wood....

Truth is, I am far better at designing and modeling a project than actually making one. I am working on my handworking skills, and intend to continue that effort. But where the ole hands fail me, I can now use technology to advance me.

And, yeah, the only two things they don't have -- a router table and a 15"+ planer -- I have access to elsewhere. I built a nice router table, and my new engineer friend can help with the planing.

I also got an email the other day from a guy here in Austin wanting to start a guitar working co-op. Which is a good idea. But my current thought is.... in the Hackerspace, there are sub-cultures of people doing different things. Maybe it is time for there to be an instrument builders' sub-culture, and we can work together there, share knowledge, and even collectively invest in the few tools they don't currently have. No reason to start from scratch, just build onto a scaffolding that is most of the way there and happy to have you. Besides, the great thing about makerspaces is the "rising tide floats all boats" mentality of sharing ideas. We might be able to be influenced by people with other pursuits to do even more interesting things.

[Prostheta]

Ah, well that explains a lot of things. Especially your organised layout and marking up. It goes a long way in this game, so you've got good tools in your belt already. Like a lot of CNC homebrewers say, "the first thing you make with a CNC machine is another CNC machine". The equipment available to you through your new sources should easily help you set up a bunch of independent tools of your own, such as a more accurate thickness routing sled, scarfing jigs, various routing templates, etc. It just multiplies from there....

I wouldn't worry too much about being better at modelling and planning than executing. If you can rattle out problems or pre-empt logistical difficulties in the design and development stage, you don't have to worry too much about fixing things in the mix during implementation. Having more experience of the building stage helps feed back into the analysis/development/design stages (hey, this reminds me of my SSADM classes at uni....) which helps you build a better mousetrap.

The guitar co-op thing sounds like a good idea. We have a lot of members in the TX region so this could be something we could pool our energies into. @ScottR?

[ScottR]

Sure. I think it's cool that it even exists.

SR

[Prostheta]

Well, this is something ProjectGuitar.com needs to be more involved in going forward; after all, this is a worldwide guitar makers co-op. Being able to provide and share resources is something all local co-ops can benefit from. In that respect, maybe we need to be reaching out to small schools and enthusiast co-ops to forge links.

[sirspens]

Yesterday I used the jointer and planer at the hackerspace to thickness and prepare another neck blank and my fretboard.

Today I used the laser cutter to create acrylic templates -- very precise templates -- for my guitar. This was not exactly straight forward. The laser cutting process has a bit of material loss, so I had to run several small tests to measure what that material lost then crunch the numbers and redraft all of my plans to account for this. This becomes really important if you want to be able to use your template to cut out the neck pocket.

First thing I ran a test to make sure my calculations and settings were correct. The first attempt I had the power turned up too high on the laser and had too much material loss. Second attempt nailed it. The neck test fits very snugly into the body test.

Then it was off to the races, letting the laser do its work.

Here is the body top and neck coming off the laser bed.

And here is the final result, or most of it, the templates with their materials.

Also, I caught the acrylic on fire a couple of times!

Now I just have to find the guy who owns the band saw to get his permission and training to use it so that I can get moving again. You can see a cut there on the mahogany where my hack saw died. The one at the hackerspace is 8 times more powerful, and much larger.

Also, I'm glad to have the clear templates. It allowed me to see that if I had cut my neck with the outline I had previously, I would have been slightly off true with my truss rod.

[Prostheta]

Fantastic! The problem with lasers for cutting acrylic is the lens that you employ. The focal range of the beam is generally pretty short and widens out in thicker materials. Anything thicker than around 1/4" or 6mm tends to show less of a straight edge. It's no big deal though. I think laser cut templates the same thickness as a router bearing is perfect for making a master. It can then be transferred to thicker auxiliary material on a router table, however that can end up being a little wasteful if you're only making a one off.

I bet you're in hog heaven at that Makerspace....I know I would be....! The stuff I could do with access to equipment like that.....

[sirspens]

2 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Fantastic! The problem with lasers for cutting acrylic is the lens that you employ. The focal range of the beam is generally pretty short and widens out in thicker materials. Anything thicker than around 1/4" or 6mm tends to show less of a straight edge.

I was worried about this, too. But even with 3/8" acrylic, (9mm) the edge has no discernible angle to it.

Yeah. The space is pretty great, and filled with people doing interesting things. It is just going to take me some time to get officially trained on everything so that I have full access to all the tools.

[Prostheta]

ULS lasers are configured differently to Epilogs. It might have a beam collimator or whatever doohickery they have in place of differing focal length lenses which Epilog have. 9mm is pretty impressive. Does the software take several passes and does it compensate for stock thickness? Pretty impressive either way. The PLS lasers are sweet as.

[sirspens]

2 hours ago, Prostheta said:

ULS lasers are configured differently to Epilogs. It might have a beam collimator or whatever doohickery they have in place of differing focal length lenses which Epilog have. 9mm is pretty impressive. Does the software take several passes and does it compensate for stock thickness? Pretty impressive either way. The PLS lasers are sweet as.

It didn't appear to make more than one pass, but it did go back and forth a bit, so maybe that is what it was doing. And, yes, it does account for the material thickness, so it is also possible that the optimal focal point could be made to be the middle of the material, giving a more even cut.

I'll have to do some reading on it.

[Prostheta]

That's possible. I've never looked deeply into ULS' setup so I don't know how they differ from Epilog.

[Andyjr1515]

I just read this thread from the beginning.  Great stuff and congrats, @sirspens, on the speed you are clambering up the learning curve 

i will watch the progress with interest.  Ref neck carving, by the way, I'm broadly with @Prostheta on this.  I cut the plan and side shapes with a band saw, then rasp file the profile at the 1st and 12th frets, then carve in between with a spokeshave (a great and cheap tool), then finish off shaping with simple flat cabinet scrapers (even greater and even cheaper tool).  In fact, I do a lot of my carving with cabinet scrapers...they are guitar makers unsung heroes 

Keep up the good work!

 

[sirspens]

14 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I cut the plan and side shapes with a band saw, then rasp file the profile at the 1st and 12th frets, then carve in between with a spokeshave (a great and cheap tool), then finish off shaping with simple flat cabinet scrapers (even greater and even cheaper tool). 

Thanks, @Andyjr1515!

I have spent a good deal of the last week reading about neck work. The problem I am having is figuring out an attack. EVERYBODY recommends different tools. And I'm not rich enough to go buy every single one of them and see which one works the best for me.

I own a Shinto Saw Rasp. That's about it. I have been planning on buying a spokeshave (or a pull knife, but a spokeshave seems a cheaper way to accomplish essentially the same thing). Beyond that, I am confused as to what tools to get, because of the plethora of opinion and my lack of experience with woodworking. I'm excited to learn, but I need to pick a direction to take. A Dragon Rasp? A Razor File? Flat? Curved? Small? Large? Something completely different?

This evening I am drafting up a neck curve template to print out on the laser cutter, that way I can at least have a goal to achieve.

Edited February 8, 2016 by sirspens

[sirspens]

Without a band saw, there isn't a lot of progress I can make right now, but I decided I could start hollowing out my body. I started with a forstner bit, taking out as much mass as I could.

It took a couple of hours, but I got a lot of wood taken away so that I could get to routing.

The routing went okay. Not great, not horrible. As you can see below, there were a few spots were my plunge base wasn't wide enough to span the entire width, and I slipped and went a bit too deep. The router also took some big chucks out of the side as you can see there. Luckily this is the interior so it doesn't matter that much. I think this is due mainly to having too much material left over after removal with the fostner bits. At least, I hope that is the reason. I went in the right direction and as slow as I could go. If it happens on the exterior, I guess I have to start over on the body. But... I'm hoping that is the reason.

That deeper area over there is where the controls go. I took it down to just under 1/4" in that area for the thread lengths.

At some point, my plunge base got a bit off and ate into my new shiny acrylic template...

I don't know how I feel about the day. I worked slowly and carefully, and got some work done, but it isn't exactly pretty. Thankfully, it isn't work meant for viewing, either.

Worst case scenario, I have to start over. I have another thicknessed slab of mahogany ready to go, but I was hoping to save it for another guitar. It's all learning, though.