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THe "What mistakes to avoid" thread


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oh and when letting the filler dry on a cold day, dont ever leave it outside! lucky i tested a piece of plywood and it split it a week!

and for the sanded filler, dont leave it on concrete! i did that at it filled the grain in on my pavement.

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Whenever I feel tiredness, or impatience creeping in, it's a good sign

to walk away and come back to the task when I'm concentrating properly.

Focus....focus.....focus :D

I learnt patience the hard way.(still with the occasional re-lapse)

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Make sure you use something that isn't too slippery for templates so when you've clamped the template to the wood to route with a template bit nothing slips. I almost lost my neck while routing the taper because I used a piece of cabinet wood that had a slippery coating on it. I threw that out and bought a nice piece of MDF for all future templates.

And, always bring your plunge router up before turning it off, there's a kick when you turn it on and off that can nick the sides of things.

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Make sure you use something that isn't too slippery for templates so when you've clamped the template to the wood to route with a template bit nothing slips. I almost lost my neck while routing the taper because I used a piece of cabinet wood that had a slippery coating on it. I threw that out and bought a nice piece of MDF for all future templates.

And, always bring your plunge router up before turning it off, there's a kick when you turn it on and off that can nick the sides of things.

Erm, slippy is pretty good. Don't do something stupid like only using clamps and expect a template to stay put. At the very least use double-stick tape, and then clamp, and if possible (if you have waste areas available) use a screw or two. Countersunk. Only time I'd ever 'only' use clamps in a jig would be toggle/hold-down clamps, which are screwed firmly in place, and can be tensioned plenty well.

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Counter-sink screws where the truss channel will be and use double stick tape. Works quite well!

Wouldn't work for me; I route the truss rod and CF rod channels when the neck is nice and square. Then again, I don't use a template to taper the neck at all, just cut roughly to size, glue on the accurately tapered fingerboard, and carve down to it.

On bodies, I pop a screw in where the pickup and/or neck cavities will be, mostly.

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I have just taken what feels like an age to get the three chunks of maple glued together for my first solid project. Trouble was that my jointer wouldn't get the edges absolutley square to the top/bottom.

I ended up using a 2" router bit with a straight edge to route the edges square. Five minutes to do all three pieces, and a great glue up.

I'll try to use this space to keep you informed of the other lessons I learn - mistakes I make

Denis

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1. LOOK at your soldering iron befour going to pick it up (unless you have a thing for burnt fingers)

2.Wear gloves or use a towel when handling guitar near end stages (not really a rule but some times you get oils on the body making blotches)

3. Go easy when using a bastard file (you end up with a blister right over your slap calas).

ohh and just a story my uncle told me which scared the crap out of me

this guy he knew was holding a router by its bit

went to go plug it in and it was still locked on so yeah i think you get the point

so unplug router when ever you have the urge to have 2 hands

Edited by tim_ado
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ive got another about the router. ALWAYS make sure the sitch is off before plugging it in. I did that today but luckily it was my new router that has a saftey thing that builds up the speed instead of all out right when you hit on. My old router probbably would have tipped of my bench and given me a nice new scar.

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If you think your hand is steady enough to route freehand, slap yourslef in the face and make a template

:D

anywho--- always let paint/varnish coats dry rock solid before you even think about moving it ( i say this cos when refinishing at school, the rule is, move it, or have it stolen) otherwise, expect fingerprints everywhere :D

amen

measure 15 times before you cut or drill

Edited by carousel182
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use you biggest bandsaw blade to cut plexi, and smooth the cut with the back of the blade (the side, but dont get the piece near the teeth.. viola!! a perfect cut piece of plexi. the heat from the friction will smooth the edge of the plexi.

Sounds like an excellent way to add wear and tear and melted plastic to a perfectly good bandsaw blade...

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use you biggest bandsaw blade to cut plexi, and smooth the cut with the back of the blade (the side, but dont get the piece near the teeth.. viola!! a perfect cut piece of plexi. the heat from the friction will smooth the edge of the plexi.

Sounds like an excellent way to add wear and tear and melted plastic to a perfectly good bandsaw blade...

you'd be surprised. the plastic mostly sticks to the piece you are cutting.

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  • 8 months later...
Try not to erase with a Pink Pearl eraser on your Zebrano body, gets in all the pores.. It's a mess. I got it all out with an exacto knife, so it's all good now.

ditto with ash!

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I already learned one lesson from experience.

I am making a semi-hollow, and I made this template for the chambers.

proguittemp2.jpg

Now, what's the point of a template? You push the router against it, and it cuts the wood to the shape of the template. But what do you think happens when you push against that thin strip of wood on the bass side? Yeah, it's so thin that it deforms.

Not to mention, where the heck is the router supposed to sit when routing around that edge? How is it supposed to reach the middle of the chambers?

What I should have done was, make two completely different templates for the outer body (thankfully, I still had my template for that) and the chambers. The chamber template should have been in a larger rectangle for support and room for the router. And I could have also considered having some extra wood on the bass side to hold the router when routing out that large chamber, and then a second template for getting rid of those extra bits of wood later. It was quite easy to route the smallest chamber, and to some degree the middle sized one, because there was plenty of support for the router (I solved part of the problem by putting wood outside of the template).

Finally, make sure the template is thick enough. For the outside of the body, it doesn't really matter, but for a chamber template, you need to make sure you have room for the router bit to fit inside without going too deep while the bearing rides against the template.

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  • 2 months later...

DONT try and radius ur fingerboard urself, get it done by a machine or buy a radiused sanding block

DONT sand too far into the fingerboard so that ur fret slots are useless, trying to deepen them with a coping saw just doesnt work as well as you would wish

I had to convert my neck into a fretless neck just because of those two mistakes, im still on my first build but im making my 2nd neck now

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