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Four string diatonic dulcimer


henrim

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24 minutes ago, henrim said:

Shellacked

I've been wondering what kind of a finish that is. But is it really shellac? At least our doors have a very thick layer on them and on some doors it's heavily checkered. Even if there's a different type of finish over shellac, it shouldn't cause that as shellac is known to be very compatible with other finishes. When I was a kid on 3rd in the kansakoulu we used some thick stuff which took quite a while to dry. I guess that must have been some oil based varnish, something like I suppose Le Tonkinois might be.

Or it might be good old nitro, it was quite commonly used at least on furniture.

It's relatively easy to test: If it dilutes to alcohol, it's shellac. If not, it's nitrocellulose.

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I believe they used different finishes at the time. What ever was available. Nitrocellulose had already mostly replaced shellac in furniture finishing. But these doors have shellac finish. At least the one I repaired a few years ago had (and still has). I was not expecting it to be shellacked but it was. 

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Actually 😅 I never really thought about it but this room has different kind of doors than the rest of the building. That door in the previous picture quite likely doesn’t have shellac on it. All the other  doors indoors are like in the attached  picture. Live and learn. 

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I put strings on it and wow, that is a funny little instrument. Anyway decided to shave the neck a bit more. It actually felt pretty good but I didn’t like the looks 😂

Anyway the thing that struck me while shaving the neck was that I have thousands of euros invested in tools but the tool I like to use the most is a thin piece of sheet metal 😂 Gotta love a decently sharpened scraper!

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I was going to hook up a bobbin to my mini lathe and try winding a pickup. But then I suddenly remembered I have an extra servo motor and controller. I got that motor for my old industrial sewing machine few years ago when its old AC motor started to show severe clutch problems. It was a nice upgrade but I retired the machine when I got a new sewing machine. This motor was still bolted under the table and I didn’t remember its existence until yesterday. Now that is going to make a nice winder. With a foot controlled speed adjustment!

Like I needed an other side project. But can’t pass it now.

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4 hours ago, ScottR said:

I love this pic. Hiding in plain sight. It reminds me of the scene with ET hiding in the closet full of dolls.

SR

Cheers 😁 

Now this extra terrestrial thing has to wait some time to be painted. With the current electricity prices I won’t heat the paint booth until I have some other things to paint at the same time. 

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  • 2 months later...

Sprayed the color on yesterday evening and I kinda hoped it would be done in one go (or two actually, wet on wet with 10 min evaporation in between). But now that I sanded it with 1200 grit I almost got through to primer layer on couple spots in the edges. Need to spray one more coat. 

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Things I generally would like to avoid. Chiseling after finishing. Yes, I realized I had forgotten to make slots for pickup ears. I chose to chisel instead of doing more harm in drill press or mill. Obviously it would have been easier to do the slots when I milled the cavities, but for some reason I didn’t and then forgot them all together.

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9 hours ago, henrim said:

I chose to chisel instead of doing more harm in drill press or mill.

For such a shallow groove a sharp chisel is most likely the best tool. Drill bits don't work well at edges like that, no matter how well you can clamp the body, I'm not familiar with milling but for what I've seen on videos it would have been both accurate and delicate, but clamping a finished body securely without leaving marks sounds like an effort.

That said, I've seen a professional builder do all drilling after finishing and when I asked if it wouldn't have been safer to do beforehand he said that with sharp drill bits and a steady hand it saves time as the holes don't require cleaning after painting, and that relatively fresh paint is soft enough not to chip that easily. Also, the paint looked quite forgiving.

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5 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

clamping a finished body securely without leaving marks sounds like an effort.

That's the thing. Otherwise I'm not too scared to do drilling on a finished body. Also, quite likely I would have spent more time on aligning the piece to the milling machine than I spent chiseling.

24 minutes ago, ghostdive said:

you could cut a filler piece of wood for the cavity so that the bit doesn't wander. 

Yes, that's a good way to do half holes on edges. 

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