Quarter

I like and use 22ga stranded cloth wire on my steels, it looks cool, makes for a clean looking join, is handy and not much extra coin in the scheme of things.

As I recall, you can mix a bit of red to the blue to correct for the greenish tint the yellow / amber tone of maple adds.

Or I could have remembered that all wrong too, test on some scrap and see how it goes.

A counter bore bit works best for countersinking. A drill press is highly recommended.

For drilling the body, I first drill the 2 outer holes from the top through to the back first. Go slow and keep the bit clean on the 2 through holes.

The remaining middle holes I only drill about 3/4 of the way through.

Flip the body and layout the remaining holes on the back using the 2 outer holes as reference.

I've yet to see one of the modern bench top planers that was worth owning, though I have not seen them all.

Keep your eyes on Craigs List, there are usually some nice smaller older units in great shape for not a lot of coin.

Or wrap a sting around and measure that.

... My home depot has tru-oil and I have used it as well. You can build tru-oil up to a mirror finish if you want but in my experience it never really cures, it's always a little soft and plasticky. It's a polymerized finish so the plastic feel makes sense I guess. For a satin finish, you can cut tru-oil with 50% naptha and it dries faster and cures faster. I'd use truoil again, but i'd never take the time to do a mirror finish on a guitar with it.. it would scratch every time you touch it and just be disappointing.

I've never seen Tru Oil at a Home Depot, are you talking about the Birchwood Casey product?

Also I've never thought it felt plasticy or was super soft and I've used a bunch of it.

On the naptha, in my correspondence with Birchwood Casey they only recommended thinning with mineral spirits.

Cocobolo takes a long time to air dry.

Saw an interesting post a while back over at the MIMF forums on a low tech moisture meter, the inside of your wrist.

If the wood feels cooler to the touch than a known dry sample next to it, then its not ready.

As simple as it sounds, it does work and can be a handy tip for when you are checking out stock at your local hardwood dealer and don't have a meter in hand.

I saw that the other night, amazing stuff. Also good to know its a quality unit.

A quick Google shows they start around $1600, still less than re attaching fingers.

Most likely polyester

+1 on steel wool.. It caused me a nightmare. You can't see all the little particles and blowing with the air compressor doesn't get rid of them.

Wrapping the wool around a refrigerator magnet makes a huge difference.

What's the conventional (or unconventional) wisdom on where to place the pickup on lap steels?

I treat placement just like you would for a normal guitar because, well after all, its a guitar first, just played lap style.

Thats going to finish out sweet. Good to know that lacewood takes a dye well, I could see that in a black and ruby red.

Yea, lots of National New Yorker influence in that one, a timeless classic for sure. Here is one that has a little New Yorker and some National Dynamic boat tail mixed in.

Is your bridge really as simple as it looks. Its a very neat solution

Thanks, it is a fairly simple setup, a stainless rod over maple plate. The string through holes on the bridge have short sections of brass tubing that protrude through the bridge plate into the body a bit to both add both a little forward shear strength and also double as locater pins for setting the brigde.

That turned out nice and I'll bet it sounds great! I dig the deco styles for steels, lots of rich history there.

Here is a deco themed 8 string I recently finished for a customer down under.

Will the thing explode or something if it rusts enough?

Highly unlikely to fail catastrophically, more likely to just start leaking first.

You can sand most of it off, but without getting very aggressive, you will still have some color in the curl of the grain.

The good news is that because it is an amber color it may end up blending well and looking great.

Pre ban ivory is legal, but the sticky point can be documentation.

If you want / need a good and free open source Photoshop alternative, check out Gimp http://www.gimp.org/

Minor differences, but I like the far right one best.

Glue a filler block in leaving about a 1/4"+ open on the bottom for the wiring to pass through or use a Gibson style metal bracket to span the void and use machine screws.

For removing the ferrels, a long thin punch, drill bit, small bolt, etc can be used.

If a couple moderate whacks don't get them moving, heat them up with a soldering iron to soften any glue or finish binding them.

As far as using a Tru Oil finish, I'd say give it a coat or two and see if you like it. If not, its easy to sand down and go solid color if you want.

Ouch ... yea, self feed bits are brutally aggressive. You ought to see what a 4 5/8" Milwaukee bit in a Hole Hawg can do to a 2 x 12

For hogging out, I have a cheep set of Harbor Freight bits and use a needle file for sharpening.

For the precision work, I have a set of Freud's and if you treat them nice, its a long time between sharpening.

Is it just really thick tru-oil for the first layer or is there some hidden mojo in there?

No, it is very different than Tru Oil, more like some kind of quick drying funky airplane glue smelling clear liquid.

I love Tru Oil, but their sealer / filler ... not so much. It sucks as a filler and as a sealer, if you need one, shellac would be a better choice.

Very cool, original and well executed