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ddgman2001

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Posts posted by ddgman2001

  1. EMG doesn't make a 5-string J-style pickup. You'll have to go for the soapbar style EMG-40 size and have your bass routed.

    You might consider installing a pre-amp and keeping the old pickups intact.

    EMG makes a couple. Sadowsky is the gold standard of Jazz pre's.

  2. What is  your budget?  If you are looking for something a little more industrial, try Haas  CNC.  I use one at work ( I'm also starting to do some guitar work on the side)  I love this machine.  We've had it for almost 7 years now and have not had a lick of trouble.  We have a VF-3 which is big enough I could cut neck through guitars if I wanted to.  But Haas has many smaller machines as  well.  The control is very easy to use and learn.  With one day of training you could be programing and cutting parts.  The only thing is they cost alot more than a shop-bot.  It all depends what your want to do.

    One other advantage of a more industrial type of machine is a tool changer.  I was just rereading your original post, and it sounds like you want to do several different operations in you machine.  With a tool changer you could set up a fretboard, cut the fret slots change tools cut the inlays, change tool and cut the taper, and you only set the job up once.  If you were doing runs of say 10 fretboards you would have 30 maual tool changes.  With the tool changer you set up the job once and from there you put your board in the jig and hit the green button. :D

    Good points. For us the lease payments on a Haas would have put us out of business in no time. If you're company is grossing $400K+ per year, you should have no problem keeping up with the payments.

    Not to hijack the thread, but I've a quick question for jer7440. If you were building guitars on your Haas full time, how would you go about locating your fixtures on the table? Would you use something to index the fixtures and use a common home point, or would you re-set your home point with every fixture change?

  3. Hi Keith, we use a Shopbot. It's OK if you're really good at setting up machines. Their Forum is the best. Lots of help. Which is as important as the machine itself.

    Check out their site www.shopbottools.com and forum www.talkshopbot.com

    Look for posts from Gerald Dorrington. He's pretty much the smartest, most capable guy on the whole forum and he's not too far from you. He sent me a link to your website once. I love your guitars, I'm going to have to buy one sometime.

  4. yea I am in the process of building a new table so I can get the correct pins and everything set up nicely.  the table is not high enough so, have to figure out something... got any ideas?

    In order of budget.

    Two layers of mdf glued together. Sand out the bumps and warps with a fretboard leveler.

    Have a grid made out of heavy steel rectangular tube (like a tic tac toe board). Bolt an mdf top and shim flat and square.

    Check ebay for a 1" slab of aluminum tooling plate.

    funny that you mention the bump on the rigid, it depends on the seem of the paper,  I just bought a bunch of grizzlt 4x24 belts and they suck need to find some belts that are seemed better and should work like a charm, the grizzly belts suck, but the one that came with it works great.  I am sure the norton belts have a smaller seem.

    Maybe Klingspor. I think they have the taped seam. I use them on my edge sander, but they are still bumpy on they hard drum for fine work.

  5. Sculpy is interesting stuff. Although once baked it is quite brittle, it never gets really hard so would have to be cleared over. I don't know how much it shrinks, but even if it's a fraction of 1% that would make a tight fit impossible.

    I looked into it as an inlay material a while back and gave up.

  6. which fine woodworking?  the feb 2005?

    I don't have it in front of me right now, but I think it's issue 174. You may be able to find one at a smaller store that hasn't got the new issue yet.

    Essentially the author says two things that I found interesting.

    1. Make sure your tires are in really good shape because...

    2. You leave the fence parallel to the miter gauge slot and adjust the tracking to control blade drift.

    I tried it and it works great.

  7. Is this possible?

    Shoot a base coat. Let it skin over, and then sprinkle glitter over it. Shake off the excess. Spray with translucent color like Metalcast. Then start spraying clear to build enough thickness to level the finish.

    No, I've never tried this and I wouldn't expect it to produce a factory finish. But, maybe it wouldn't look so bad.

    I've heard of car guys doing that with success. I tried it on a bass and wound up having to strip it off.

  8. I'm itching for a bigger saw too. I used to own a 26" with a huge table and have not enjoyed my Delta/riser block since. We do 80-100 basses per year and I still can't justify the expense of a larger saw - we need a larger compressor etc more. We could double our production and still be using the 14".

    Just my opinion here, but if you're making solid body guitars and you don't have a pin router, I'd recommend saving for that before upgrading your saw.

  9. With an overhead pin router, you basically have the router bit hanging down and a small metal pin jutting up from the table (maybe 1/4") directly underneath the bit.  You put a template on the back of your piece and the pin follows the edge of the template underneath, while the bit cuts the piece from above.

    For f-holes, you make yourself an f-hole template out of plywood or plexiglass that you can mount the piece to firmly, then rout away.

    The problem for internal routs is lowering the bit into the work. Any radial armsaw I've seen uses a hand crank. That means you need to have the bit spinning, hold the work with one hand, then reach for the crank. That's an accident waiting to happen.

    Real pin routers have a foot feed that lets you hold on to the work piece with both hands. They're pretty safe all things considered.

  10. Try and visuallize how you would hold the work piece as you lower the bit. Unless it can be done easily with one hand or a foot. If you can't do this easily, you'll need a friend to help you for internal routs.

    Something like this strikes me as a good system for sheet stock like routing decorative edges by using a fence or routing dados with a straight bit.

    You might be able to profile rout a body, but a table router would be more solid. You could install an overhead pin system on that (or just buy the Lee Valley unit).

  11. Keep in mind that the capacity of a drill press is half of it's rating. i.e. the chuck to column distance on a 9" drill press is only 4.5" and 6" for a 12" press. Most of the critical holes on a body are located closer to the center. So in my experience you need at least a 16" press to cover everything.

  12. I was wondering if someone would be kind enough to tell me a few of the advantages and disadvantages of having a scalloped fretboard. I'm interested in doing this to a couple of my guitars basically because I like the look of a scalloped board, but I would like to know some pros and cons of it before I dig in and do something I might not like. :D

    Scalloping gives you a really nice intimate feel with the strings. You really feel like you have much more control over the strings. Bends are much easier since you can get a nice grip on the string and there is no FB friction to speak of.

    I don't find them to feel any faster, if anything maybe a little slower. As mentioned above, you need to use a light technique to keep chords or any note for that matter in tune. This is a technique you should follow anyway.

    You don't need much scalloping to get the results. 1/16" is a good place to start.

  13. Well, after much searching, i've found that mineral spirits is good ol' white spirit over here, after bemusing the people who work in B&Q!

    So...has anyone tried wet sanding with it instead of water to prevent the wood underneath swelling?

    I'm using plain old halfords car clear acrylic lacquer and I was wondering whether wet sanding with a solvent will dissolve the finish??? I'm probably being stupid!

    Also...i've also read about using 'naptha'... what's that translate as? Terpentine?Thinners? Meths?

    Yes. Just vent the fumes to avoid a fire, wear a respirator to avoid lung and nervous system damage and test on your particular finish to make sure it doesn't cloud or soften it.

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