tele for a cop...

[Gogzs]

2 hours ago, mistermikev said:

well thank you Gogz.  Some folks get cnc and think "now I'll be able to build my guitars in minutes flat" - for me it was "this is going to open so many doors".  I imagine somewhere there is someone who could cut letters this small by hand... I would not want to be that guy!  Then again I bet that guy could do some amazing s#1T!

Nah, I'd still do a lot by hand, I don't fool myself in that regard. But I've seen some amazing stuff by @curtisa @MiKro and now you, that while technically is possible by hand, would take some nerves and masochism to get done. And for those tasks I'd love to have one, I wouldn't even need a big one. As someone here said, it's just a tool in the shed you get to use. 

[mistermikev]

11 minutes ago, Gogzs said:

Nah, I'd still do a lot by hand, I don't fool myself in that regard. But I've seen some amazing stuff by @curtisa @MiKro and now you, that while technically is possible by hand, would take some nerves and masochism to get done. And for those tasks I'd love to have one, I wouldn't even need a big one. As someone here said, it's just a tool in the shed you get to use. 

careful - that's how it all starts!!  when I was looking at getting this machine I just wanted something that could do body templates and save me from working with mdf... but then once I had it I was like "might as well use it!" 

honestly there's a lot of stuff I'll end up doing by hand anyway.  assembly, sanding, test fitting.  if you are building strat copies maybe not but a thinline for instance - have to think a lot about how to glue that top on and then route it to size... lot of manual steps involved under the best circumstances.

It's an interesting perspective to have done something by hand and then work it out on cnc.  my logo for instance... was pretty easy to cut out via jeweler's saw - maybe 1/2hr.  doing via cnc probably took two or three times longer to work out speeds/feeds and hold down methods and optimal depth... lot of work... but if I want to do another one I spose it's mostly figured out at this point.  

[ScottR]

16 hours ago, mistermikev said:

. I've spent a rediculous amount of time getting this tiny little part done...

This from a guy that has said, "I'd never do that by hand, it takes too long" or words to that effect more than once or twice.

That is a very impressive display of making tiny stuff. Just thinking about doing that.....by any method- makes my eyes vibrate. I'd get frustrated just trying to pick the tiny letters up and (attempting) to place them in their cavities..

Very cool build Mike!

SR

[mistermikev]

28 minutes ago, ScottR said:

This from a guy that has said, "I'd never do that by hand, it takes too long" or words to that effect more than once or twice.

That is a very impressive display of making tiny stuff. Just thinking about doing that.....by any method- makes my eyes vibrate. I'd get frustrated just trying to pick the tiny letters up and (attempting) to place them in their cavities..

Very cool build Mike!

SR

thanks for the reply!!

so true... i HAVE said that.  well the idea here was to test some inlays (an my ideas on how much clearance the pockets would need) on things that were expendable... so in that respect mission accomplished.  Def took a LOT longer than I had anticipated. 

you are spot on about the picking them up.... at first I was using my giant sausage fingers and pretending I was the giant from princess bride... but then I figured out to use a tweezers and started breaking things much less!  was a serious exercise in patience!  The letters don't just drop into the holes... and at first I thought I needed to massage the holes (no jokes please) but as it turns out I needed to learn to wiggle them around and eventually they'd work into place.  good times!

Now I have the confidence that I can cut my headstock inlay pockets and they will be the right size so... moving towards making my neck this weekend.

[Charlie H 72]

12 hours ago, mistermikev said:

the other switch I got (gold) is switchcraft, and this one is allparts, but was dissapointed that it came with a std nut (is it odd that we both don't like std nuts on toggle switches?).  you reminded me of it when you asked about the toggle (I really just slapped them together to see the fit and snapped a photo).   went digging through my misc nuts bag... and found one, so I guess we can call that an assist.  thanks for that!

Of course! Glad you found the right bit of hardware. It seems like nothing is going to be standard on this build, so now you’re in the realm of nuts, washers, screws, and all of those little details looking for special attention-I am sure it will be a beautiful and unique instrument!

[mistermikev]

4 minutes ago, Charlie H 72 said:

Of course! Glad you found the right bit of hardware. It seems like nothing is going to be standard on this build, so now you’re in the realm of nuts, washers, screws, and all of those little details looking for special attention-I am sure it will be a beautiful and unique instrument!

well thank you - admittedly - put that nut on there and took the washer off and quite a dif - good call.  want to be my personal guitar stylist?  hehe

[mistermikev]

so... trials and tribulations of a sawdust jockey...

I'm at the point where I'm ready to start cutting a neck... but am aware that once I start that i'll want to do my headstock inlay so that I don't have to mount/re-mount the piece... so in order to do that... I have to have my headstock overlay ready.  have several pieces thicknessed to about 1/16".  

started to use water/heat and it quickly became apparent that wasn't going to work this time, as these are bookmatched.  Realized this as my bookmatch started coming apart.  so... here's a problem... here's a solution...

I decided what i'd do is cut my overlay thinner... and I milled a couple pieces down to somewhere between 1/32nd and 1/16th thick.  still too thick to make the radius w/o some help...

so then I thought i'd build a form... something to get me pressure in the right places.  I built a mirrow of my headstock transition radius out of one piece of wood - but 1/16th bigger to compensate for the piece of wood.  then I built a piece that would act as my actual radius transition.  placed the wood between them... and used vinegar to soften the wood.  

so far working pretty good. in less than 2hrs I've got it bent to the form and no signs of the bookmatch splitting.

not quite out of the woods yet... I'm not entirely sure my bookmatch is still on center... as I used the edge to line up my piece... but am now wondering if that edge was off a bit as we seem to have an uneven amount of hang-off on the radius side.  can always rebend it now that I know this works.

really hoping the small amount of vinegar I brushed on doesn't discolor the wood too... but so far it seems ok.

[mistermikev]

well did a test run... had some issues due to my bending the laws of the software I'm using.  has a number of 'training wheels' setup to prevent you from cutting too deep or making things beyond your stock dimensions... and this did not suit my plans of not doubling my work as I tried to do two necks in one project.  they have several things in common and wanted to keep them together at least until I worked out the bugs... so had to separate them.  got that done and started another test.  flat spot is due to initial test... but all in all not bad.  profile looks good and didn't break through the truss cavity or anything.  

the headstock transition also went a bit off as the first pass was screwy... but the lowest part of it is my intended run and I can see it will work fine.  might touch that up a bit and bring it another 1/2 inch towards the headstock... we'll see.

 

my engraving went quite wrong.. can't even read it... was using a 20deg engrave tip... my guess is the detail is just too fine.  will have to redo that.

[mistermikev]

ok, so finally making progress again... whew... 

not sure I mentioned it here... but my cnc controller started acting a fool.  z axis was randomly dropping down or up.  ended up burning some stuff and that was a little scary.  I have a fire extinguisher right next to the cnc so not too worried but never something you want to see.  inlay bit dropped down so deap it was beyond cutter length.  fun times. 

so at that point I figured I could spend a month trouble shooting it... but thought it might be time to just upgrade.  Ended up buying a gecko g540 and ess from "Automation Technologies".  Shout out to those guys cause the customized it to run my vfd from the controller and we had some ups and downs but they were extremely helpful... can't recommend them enough.  

upgraded my steppers to 372oz, upgraded my spindle to 2.2Kw.  now my machine runs amazing.  responds to more than one direction at a time while jogging... will always jog whether in jog mode or not, rapids are scary fast, super happy.

so about two weeks ago had it all working, did some test jobs... went thru the tuning routines with mach3... and resumed work.  

here's some shots of the back of the neck - axis profile. 

very non-intrusive vallute...

matching overlay for the headstock presented some interesting problems for bending (do not get water on a bookmatch join!)o

turquoise surrounded by brass for inlays... looking pretty solid if I do say so...

fretboard is a compound radius from 9.5" to 16".  fret slots need some manual finishing as I cut this w my old controller and it would not effectively hold the radius.  I'm going to try again with the new machine asap.

don't know how well it comes across... but fretboard is bookmatched with sm wood as the headstock... that's right BOOKMATCHED fretboard gonna look pretty smart against matching bookmatched top.  one big bookmatch festival!

here you can see the bookmatch pretty good but hard to capture on account of how white this wood is...

and ran the first 'test' body today.  ran for 4hrs as this is all a finish/rough 3d pass.  not sure how well it comes across... but this thinline cavity is arc'd just like the top will be arc'd on top of it.

you can see looking at the orig hight of material at the edges... we've got about 7/8" of drop off from center.  it's a double compound curve... at center was 10" and it transistions to 16" (at back) and then 7" transistions to 14" at front.  

where are my manors... also shout out to mikro who is always guiding me regarding cnc stuff and was very helpful in my decision making process when I was considering what controller to buy - can't thank you enough!

[Bizman62]

Looks like you're going to become a guitar manufacturer!

[mistermikev]

2 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Looks like you're going to become a guitar manufacturer!

well aren't we all?  i mean, if you mfg a guitar you are a guitar mfg right?  

[ScottR]

13 hours ago, mistermikev said:

turquoise surrounded by brass for inlays... looking pretty solid if I do say so...

I'll say!

Wow.

That pretty much covers it.....

SR

[mistermikev]

25 minutes ago, ScottR said:

I'll say!

Wow.

That pretty much covers it.....

SR

thank you sir - always a kind word and never lost on me.  say... isn't it about time for another build from you??? hmmmm? 

[Bizman62]

5 hours ago, mistermikev said:

i mean, if you mfg a guitar you are a guitar mfg right? 

By that logic they used to sell OEM versions of Windows to anyone who could assemble a pc. The OEM price was a quarter of the Retail version, then again rumour says that the big manufacturers paid less than a quarter of the OEM price. So although selling OEM versions to anyone wasn't exactly according to the agreement, Microsoft didn't really care as their main income was from mass licenses.

[mistermikev]

1 minute ago, Bizman62 said:

By that logic they used to sell OEM versions of Windows to anyone who could assemble a pc. The OEM price was a quarter of the Retail version, then again rumour says that the big manufacturers paid less than a quarter of the OEM price. So although selling OEM versions to anyone wasn't exactly according to the agreement, Microsoft didn't really care as their main income was from mass licenses.

big dif between "didn't care" and "wasn't profitable for them".  microsoft is absolutely notorious for going after people for licensing.  tis why we spent some 30g to get legit server os and mssql licensing for our servers.  not saying they'd bother... but if you get in their sites you will rue the day!  

anywho... I'm pretty sure we'd all love to be full time builders... I would anyway.  just all the things that go along with that that I have no interest in - i.e. building multiple copies of the sm thing, having to consider profit margins instead of just building from the heart.  all of that's for the birds.  

[Bizman62]

7 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

I'm pretty sure we'd all love to be full time builders... I would anyway.

Hmmm... Being a full time builder might be nice as long as you don't have to make the ends meet. Guitar builders who actually make a living on it are as real as Santa Claus, Batman or a clever engineer.

[mistermikev]

3 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Hmmm... Being a full time builder might be nice as long as you don't have to make the ends meet. Guitar builders who actually make a living on it are as real as Santa Claus, Batman or a clever engineer.

well I'd agree except the clever engineer part... all of them seem pretty clever to me!!  This weekend even met some train engineers... seems like quite the life unless you have to live it.

for me - just wanna "do what I want and I wanna get paid" (tom waitts).

[Bizman62]

Oh, the word "engineer" seems to be used differently in dif countries. But you got the idea

 

 

[mistermikev]

13 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Oh, the word "engineer" seems to be used differently in dif countries. But you got the idea

 

 

i dunno, there's a lot of dif types of engineers... software, chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical.. train engineers, domestic engineers (my personal favorite engineers).

[Bizman62]

My dad is an 'agricultural engineer' trained in Bavaria, Germany. There's no such word in the Finnish language. Our engineers deal with technology and construction, including infrastructure and electronics among a dozen or more subcategories which all are related to some sort of technology. Another thing is that they don't actually do things like driving a train, they either plan or design things or check that things get done as planned. They're bosses, in one word.

[mistermikev]

Just now, Bizman62 said:

My dad is an 'agricultural engineer' trained in Bavaria, Germany. There's no such word in the Finnish language. Our engineers deal with technology and construction, including infrastructure and electronics among a dozen or more subcategories which all are related to some sort of technology. Another thing is that they don't actually do things like driving a train, they either plan or design things or check that things get done as planned. They're bosses, in one word.

"they don't really 'DO' things" - I bet there's a lot of engineers who would argue against that, in fact... I bet most of them think they do everything. 

in the software dev field you need to not only know how to do your job... but know how to do the job you are developing for.  for example... if say, you were servicing the print/mail industry... you gotta know an awful lot about print and mail, postal reg, etc.  have to learn about inserters and how they interface.  "gross".

i think the higher you go the more peoples jobs you have to understand how to do... seems a long way from doing nothing but "ok"!

[ScottR]

3 hours ago, mistermikev said:

thank you sir - always a kind word and never lost on me.  say... isn't it about time for another build from you??? hmmmm? 

Yes, I've been building one in my head for months now. I've got this stubborn little oaken prairie gnome that keeps getting in my way. Her time is coming soon....

SR

[Bizman62]

By doing I meant physical work, actually building something rather than designing it. That's what I mean. I'm not saying planning and designing is not 'doing" but it requires different skills than hammering or driving or whatever. An engineer knows what type of concrete has to be used, he can calculate the amount needed for a certain strength. But he may not know what it's like to throw the cement and sand and water into a blender, sack by sack, day after day. The Finnish engineers are Bachelors or Masters of Science (Technology). While the term basically means the same in both our languages, our version isn't as wide. We have other names for many of your engineers.

Your railroad engineers actually drive a train, our train drivers aren't engineers. My dad as an agricultural engineer could have been a farmer, actually he was offered a job as a farm manager (?) or steward (?) in Sweden but as I had just started at school my parents decided not to.

The 'Clever engineer' thing is from an old joke: A dumb engineer, a clever engineer, Superman and Santa are present when a ball bounces in. Who catches it? -The dumb engineer, since the other three are mythical creatures. Or: Who's cleverer than a B.Sc. (Tech)? A M.Sc. (Tech), of course. And who is cleverer than a M.Sc. (Tech)? -A German Shepherd.

[mistermikev]

18 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Yes, I've been building one in my head for months now. I've got this stubborn little oaken prairie gnome that keeps getting in my way. Her time is coming soon....

SR

I thought that might be the case... but didn't want to chance her wrath by mentioning her!!  perhaps you should just do what I do... tell her "you know, you haven't bought yourself a new pair of shoes for a while, huh?"  that ought to free up some 'you' time!!

[mistermikev]

10 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

By doing I meant physical work, actually building something rather than designing it. That's what I mean. I'm not saying planning and designing is not 'doing" but it requires different skills than hammering or driving or whatever. An engineer knows what type of concrete has to be used, he can calculate the amount needed for a certain strength. But he may not know what it's like to throw the cement and sand and water into a blender, sack by sack, day after day. The Finnish engineers are Bachelors or Masters of Science (Technology). While the term basically means the same in both our languages, our version isn't as wide. We have other names for many of your engineers.

Your railroad engineers actually drive a train, our train drivers aren't engineers. My dad as an agricultural engineer could have been a farmer, actually he was offered a job as a farm manager (?) or steward (?) in Sweden but as I had just started at school my parents decided not to.

sorry, I may have taken some offence to that when I probably shouldn't have.  then again "actually building" - you sun of a motha... designing a project plan IS ACTUALLY building something (hehe)!  well... software engineer generally means you have a bs in cs here and that you've taken a position as a soft eng... similar with chem/mech/elec... but back in the day you could actually learn enough to do those types of jobs w/o ever going to school.  my best friends dad is a great example of that.  worked his way from low level work up to mech engineer.  really smart guy too... knew a LOT about a LOT... but now a days... even if you knew that much... you'd never get in the door. 

anywho it's the difference between the position and the title.  I like to kid myself sometimes that I'm a scientist... (I do have a bachelors of science despite how dumb I might seem!) but I know I'm just a code monkey.  (also code monkey IS my official title)

railroad engineers are engineers because the title is engineer.  they do have to have a lot of mechanical skills as they are the one's who inspect the train and rails... but yeah, not the sm as mech eng.