soapbarstrat

Not too long ago, member ' zyonsdream ' had a stewmac spacing ruler up for sale in the classifieds section. I don't know if he ever sold it or not.

Not only that, but it's great for drilling an existing hole bigger and being right on center, and on variations on that, you can get your bigger holes for the ferrules, and also the ferrule lip. I like that method a lot, when I've got an existing hole, then want to open part of it up with a forstner bit.

I wouldn't give up on it. If you google 'Tradesman benchtop jointer', you can see there are people on woodworking forums who are willing to help out.

As always, veryuneven making a false interpretation, but I'll clear it up for ya : I was referring to all the German tools over the years that stopped being made, apparently because the sales were not huge (they didn't dominate the market). That vise being one, and others like the Blitz saw and whatever German company made those superior clear red handle end nippers (which LMI used to see as fret cutters-- and now when you go into some German tool shops (yes, I'm a part-time resident of Germany) you get these cheap knock-off copies of those red handled tools that are absolute crap, but you buy them because they appear to be those good ones. I always get a kick out of you claiming I do inferior work and give bad advice, and perhaps someday you can rack your brain and try to come up with a true example.

Come on now ! No need for the fancy lines and all that ! I do that now and then. I did it a while back in a thread about a drum sander. I misread and thought they meant a little drum for on a drill press and then wrote how I made one. But the thread was actually started about a big thickness type sander. But, when I do that, I usually just leave my incorrect post. Helps give some of the smart-asses a false sense of superiority ("Oh my, he's sooo incompetent , I never do stuff like that " ) LOL !

When I bought one in 2007, I paid $13.68 for shipping. Quality wise, I always thought these things shouldn't cost more than $40.00 , after actually having one myself. Cast Iron equivalent to a four year old baking a cake for the first time . LOL ! (made in China) Pure speculation, but it's like they went out and bought one off the shelf, and used that as the 'master' to make copies from, which then leave even more to be desired with what they pop out of their factory. I think 'Ulmia' is the name of the original version made in Germany. Of course the German's stopped making them, because they couldn't rule the world with their efforts.

Of course. What haven't I modified ? You are 100 % correct on the Klein nibbler. That's what Stewmac's is, and I bought 2 kleins and modded one for large fret wire and another for smaller fret-wire. GuitarFrenzy once peeled the shrink wrap off his StewMac bought nibbler and exposed the yellow handles AND the klein name stamped into the metal. In another thread not long ago, I told how you can by the replacement cutter piece for that Nibbler (for around $10) , after Wes said his was getting worn from SS wire. I also had at least one good close-up pic of Stewmacs in one of their old catalogs, so I knew just what kind of notch they ground into it. The tang file jig from LMI is probably a better method to go with.

What a half-assed story !

You know that's not *my* theory, right ? If there weren't other things that don't add up, I'd think this would be a valid theory : They had a crap-load of all maple necks, but realized they could convert them to rose boards, by sanding 'em down until the fret slots disappeared, then gluing on a rose veneer. (and that *would be* my own theory, but the "timeline" wouldn't quite make sense, so forget it, I guess)

A tool that scares the crap out of me pretty much every time I use it, is a Dremel with a toothed saw blade bit on it. I try not to mess around with it too long, 'cause I think maybe any minute, the Devil is going to peek around the corner and think " AH HA, what do we have here ? "

Yeah, when something only happens every 5 years, it's just not worth creating a safety feature for it. Unlike a running table saw blade which we always touch with our hand every few months.

I used to think the veneer boards was Fender cutting costs, but now I don't really think that. I don't know what to believe as to why they did it that way. I've heard they actually were doing flat bottom slab boards in the very late 50's, then started doing a "thick veneer" rose board, then the veneer got thinner, and one story says they thought the slab was altering the sound too much and same with the thick veneer, and the thin veneer was the right compromise. As with a lot of old Fender stories, you can just as well throw all that out the window as well as believe it to be true.

How about a drill press that shuts off the second the damn chuck starts to fall out ! Oh yeah, probably only needed on the cheap imports, then hard telling what the "safety feature" would really end up doing. Anyone know of anybody getting their hand cut by a table-saw blade when using adequate sized push sticks ?

I appreciate the review as well. (and I know Woodenspoke has 1 billion dollars worth of tools. LOL !) Always good to see ahead of time what little tweaks one will have to do when they buy a tool. I'm still using a stock Dremel router base with a replacement "floor" which is a 4" x 4" square of clear lexan with about a 3/4" hole in the middle for the bit area. Most of the time I use it like a mini router table clamped upside-down in a vise. And I must be the laziest guy in the world, 'cause I've had the giant thread tap and drill bit to make threads for the Dremel nose (like for making a home-made router base, etc) for years and never make anything with it.

A complete glass neck or just a glass fret-board ? 'cause cutting 3/16" or 1/4" glass for a glass fret-board is not that big of a deal. If you like the sound of frets, maybe just make the fret-board chuck full of frets (one right next to each other, from one end to the other)

I mainly focus on the blue sparks that are constantly flying out of my jigsaw.

They used to say cyanide was in the final product, then there was a StewMac article where a guy from the CA company said cyanide is used in the making of it, but isn't there in the bottles you buy. Yes, it's certainly an irritant for the eyes and nose. I suppose when they used to use CA to mend wounds in battle (which apparently is what it was invented for) they might have had a version that was made more specifically for medical use and maybe less irritating. I was using a respirator, but no goggles ! (got the hell out of there as soon as I could, which was probably under a minute) It might be extravagant for using it as a finish, but with me, I find if I buy a bottle of medium CA, and don't use that bottle up within a few weeks, I'm left with a bottle partly full of rock hard CA. So, if using 1/2 or 3/4 of that bottle to finish something can keep it from being wasted later anyway, I guess it's not THAT expensive of a finish. Well, that is if you had to buy that bottle of CA for other uses anyway, like I often do.

Funniest finishing experiment I ever did, was wiping down a scrap fret-board with CA accelerator, letting it dry a few minutes (to weaken it's strength a little), then *spraying* water-thin CA on that board with an airbrush. You should have seen that son of a bitch smoke ! LOL Gun quickly got a spray through with acetone, then a break-down, with all affected parts thrown into a acetone jar. But talk about a hard finish done fast. Only thing is there are unpredictable problems with white clouding when CA finishing. More problems, the thicker it is. And with accelerator, you increase the chance of clouding.

Garolite is supposed to be a kick-ass material for making routing templates with. Holds up better than ply or plexi, and probably needed more in a prodution type situation.

Just went in my paint room and popped a piece of minwax gloss poly off the floor which has been there for a few months. This was from a rattle can (damn thing started leaking right under the spray button, so I got all these drips on the floor from that). This little sample is a little more flexible than I'd like. I like my hard finishes to be more on the brittle side for better tone, but I'm probably far from being in the majority on that issue. I wanted to buy it in the regular can and run through a gun, but could never find any trustworthy advice on what exactly to thin it with. I still think my favorite finish is probably medium super-glue thinly wiped on and then sanded to a satin finish, but I've only done a small sample of that, but it is sure a great feeling hard thin finish to me.

Yeah, thanks John. About time I hear of a new method for dealing with this sort of thing. I did a search and also found this, where it shows a clear drawing of how the end of the pin is filed : http://jimnevins.net/woodworking/Fine%20Wo...s/110144018.PDF (need to scroll down a bit. There's a bunch of other tips on other stuff on the same page)

Yeah, that one inch is pretty extreme. If the saw is that bad, maybe drill a crapload of holes all around with a drill press. Give that saw blade some "guidance". I have a real jem of a jigsaw that needs help like that. 1950's or '60's Craftsman deal. Real special saw this one is. Apparently it must have some special circuitry in it that makes it behave as if someone really stoned is using it. I know what I need to do. I need to contact the Smithsonian and see if they're interested in such a special saw. I'll email them now.

Really ? Do you have a can of the stuff where there's some "dried" oil on the top of the can ? If so, how hard is that "dried oil" ? . I have used Watco and General finishes danish oil and noticed the stuff on the top of the can is like hard rubber at best after it has dried. Because of that, I stopped favoring it for guitar finishing. I look at it like this now : If the damn stuff is going to dry like rubber, I don't want it soaking into the wood. I'd rather have a wax finish which also might be along the lines of hard rubber when "dry", but doesn't soak in nearly as much. Oh yeah, have you ever sanded a fret-board that had been generously finished in an oil finish ? It's like the wood has been creepified.

Yeah, I think you just got screwed with that bad epoxy. I have bought my share of bad epoxy in the past. I just loved it when I took it back for a refund and the clown clerk comes off with " you probably just didn't mix it right ". Doesn't PRS glue tops on with epoxy ?

Most of the time the heating method is a waste of time. But to even do that method properly, you need to have a surface thermometer or two laying on the neck to keep from damaging the neck, because the amount of heat you will need will be right on the border of causing damage to the neck. Plus, the neck would need to be held in a back-bow while doing it, because you need to over bend a little in the direction you're trying to get the neck to go into, because it's going to still want to spring back to how it had been, so you hope that by over-doing it, it will end up close to where you want it. *And* usually the heat method is chosen because a neck doesn't have an adjustable truss-rod or is valuable enough that you want to try to avoid removing fret-board wood as much as possible. You should measure that dip with an SE and gauges. If it's not extreme, it can be leveled out. If you do level the board, maybe try a Martin repair department trick, where you have support under the headstock and about 12 pounds of weight on the body to simulate string tension (I don't know how they came up with 12 pounds, but I just take their word for it, since I never experimented with how much downward weight one would place on a body to simulate string tension) You probably already did this, but, if you can take the t-rod adjusting nut off, do that, clean threads with a pipe cleaner, and a little thick lube on the threads and the bearing face of the nut. Put the nut back on, but leave it loose. Clamp or pull neck into a generous backbow, hold it there and tighten the t-rod nut as much as possible (yes, a chance you'll bust the rod, just quit when it feels like any more turning and something is going to bust)