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sirspens

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Everything posted by sirspens

  1. sirspens
    I'm liking that slim flat neck! I have been wanting to play a guitar with that slim a neck to see how I like it.
  2. sirspens
    This evening I got a chance to get over to the hackerspace and use the band saw to cut out my guitar body. There was a rather hulking blade on the saw, so I couldn't make as tight of turns as I would have liked. I looked around for an oscillating spindle sander that I saw the other day so that I could clean up the cut and bring it in closer to the outline. Couldn't find it. I don't know what this machine is called, but it's a beast and did a great job. I just couldn't get into the corners. I am going to have to go back tomorrow with a small 1/2" diameter spindle sander and finish the clean up. After laying my template over it (which I didn't have with me at the time) there were some places were I am not as close as I would like to me, so I'll take care of that tomorrow too. What we are looking at above is the inside. I am going to use the Rickenbacker construction style and put a back on it, so this will be the top.... I also took the chance to lay it onto a machined flat cast iron surface of the table saw to make sure it hasn't warped. If there is any warping to this, it is absolutely minimal. Also, I love getting ahead of myself, so before I have even figured out how to make a neck, here is a sneak peak at my next guitar design... My girlfriend is at a convention this weekend, so I am going to spend a lot of time at the hackerspace. I will also have my tools for working on necks by then. So... that will be this weekend. Neck practice. Neck practice. Neck practice. Destroying some wood is going to feel soooo good after this week at work.
  3. sirspens
    Without a band saw, there isn't a lot of progress I can make right now, but I decided I could start hollowing out my body. I started with a forstner bit, taking out as much mass as I could. It took a couple of hours, but I got a lot of wood taken away so that I could get to routing. The routing went okay. Not great, not horrible. As you can see below, there were a few spots were my plunge base wasn't wide enough to span the entire width, and I slipped and went a bit too deep. The router also took some big chucks out of the side as you can see there. Luckily this is the interior so it doesn't matter that much. I think this is due mainly to having too much material left over after removal with the fostner bits. At least, I hope that is the reason. I went in the right direction and as slow as I could go. If it happens on the exterior, I guess I have to start over on the body. But... I'm hoping that is the reason. That deeper area over there is where the controls go. I took it down to just under 1/4" in that area for the thread lengths. At some point, my plunge base got a bit off and ate into my new shiny acrylic template... I don't know how I feel about the day. I worked slowly and carefully, and got some work done, but it isn't exactly pretty. Thankfully, it isn't work meant for viewing, either. Worst case scenario, I have to start over. I have another thicknessed slab of mahogany ready to go, but I was hoping to save it for another guitar. It's all learning, though.
  4. sirspens
    Thanks, @Andyjr1515! I have spent a good deal of the last week reading about neck work. The problem I am having is figuring out an attack. EVERYBODY recommends different tools. And I'm not rich enough to go buy every single one of them and see which one works the best for me. I own a Shinto Saw Rasp. That's about it. I have been planning on buying a spokeshave (or a pull knife, but a spokeshave seems a cheaper way to accomplish essentially the same thing). Beyond that, I am confused as to what tools to get, because of the plethora of opinion and my lack of experience with woodworking. I'm excited to learn, but I need to pick a direction to take. A Dragon Rasp? A Razor File? Flat? Curved? Small? Large? Something completely different? This evening I am drafting up a neck curve template to print out on the laser cutter, that way I can at least have a goal to achieve.
  5. sirspens
    That is precisely what I want to do, in fact. Fantastic work.
  6. sirspens
    It didn't appear to make more than one pass, but it did go back and forth a bit, so maybe that is what it was doing. And, yes, it does account for the material thickness, so it is also possible that the optimal focal point could be made to be the middle of the material, giving a more even cut. I'll have to do some reading on it.
  7. sirspens
    Do you have a reference (article, video, etc.) on how to accomplish this finish? It is very similar to what I am wanting to achieve for my current project. And I am working with African Mahogany as well. And beautiful guitar, by the way.
  8. sirspens
    I was worried about this, too. But even with 3/8" acrylic, (9mm) the edge has no discernible angle to it. Yeah. The space is pretty great, and filled with people doing interesting things. It is just going to take me some time to get officially trained on everything so that I have full access to all the tools.
  9. sirspens
    Yesterday I used the jointer and planer at the hackerspace to thickness and prepare another neck blank and my fretboard. Today I used the laser cutter to create acrylic templates -- very precise templates -- for my guitar. This was not exactly straight forward. The laser cutting process has a bit of material loss, so I had to run several small tests to measure what that material lost then crunch the numbers and redraft all of my plans to account for this. This becomes really important if you want to be able to use your template to cut out the neck pocket. First thing I ran a test to make sure my calculations and settings were correct. The first attempt I had the power turned up too high on the laser and had too much material loss. Second attempt nailed it. The neck test fits very snugly into the body test. Then it was off to the races, letting the laser do its work. Here is the body top and neck coming off the laser bed. And here is the final result, or most of it, the templates with their materials. Also, I caught the acrylic on fire a couple of times! Now I just have to find the guy who owns the band saw to get his permission and training to use it so that I can get moving again. You can see a cut there on the mahogany where my hack saw died. The one at the hackerspace is 8 times more powerful, and much larger. Also, I'm glad to have the clear templates. It allowed me to see that if I had cut my neck with the outline I had previously, I would have been slightly off true with my truss rod.
  10. sirspens
    I'm an Architect and have been using CAD since I was 14 and 3D modeling software for over a 15 years. I'm already dreaming of ways to bring the laser cutters, mills and CNC machine to life. Custom knobs, precise templates, custom pickguards... a necks out of one piece of wood, without scarf joints, or even an entire guitar out of (mostly) one piece of wood.... Truth is, I am far better at designing and modeling a project than actually making one. I am working on my handworking skills, and intend to continue that effort. But where the ole hands fail me, I can now use technology to advance me. And, yeah, the only two things they don't have -- a router table and a 15"+ planer -- I have access to elsewhere. I built a nice router table, and my new engineer friend can help with the planing. I also got an email the other day from a guy here in Austin wanting to start a guitar working co-op. Which is a good idea. But my current thought is.... in the Hackerspace, there are sub-cultures of people doing different things. Maybe it is time for there to be an instrument builders' sub-culture, and we can work together there, share knowledge, and even collectively invest in the few tools they don't currently have. No reason to start from scratch, just build onto a scaffolding that is most of the way there and happy to have you. Besides, the great thing about makerspaces is the "rising tide floats all boats" mentality of sharing ideas. We might be able to be influenced by people with other pursuits to do even more interesting things.
  11. sirspens
    I broke the blade on my band saw. And it is a special order. So.... this might slow me down. What am I going to do with my guitar-ication? But, this evening I joined a hackerspace here in Austin. They have almost every woodworking power tool that I could need, except a 15"+ thicknessing planer. So, I don't have to worry about expensive power tools now. Just the hopefully less expensive things like files and rasps and such. They have a band saw with 13" cut height, 6" jointer, 13" planer, 15" drill press, oscillating spindle sander, belt sander, disk sander, SawStop table saw, a CNC machine, laser cutters for cutting templates from CAD files, even an electronics shop for soldering. And, to top it all off, it is a 5 minute walk from my house, and just down the street from the lumber yard I have been using. Pretty sweet deal, I think. It will take me a couple weeks to get my orientation and safety classes done so that I can start using everything, but once I get that done, I should be back up and going at a good speed, again. Until then, I might be able to get the interior of my semi-hollow body drilled and routed out. I have some interesting ideas on that.
  12. sirspens
    But it worked! The guy only charged me $25, and we had a really good conversation. Interesting retired engineer who enjoys wood working and has a nice added-onto-garage shop. Between the wood and milling, that's less than $90 for two body blanks. Tomorrow.... cutting some body. Probably.
  13. sirspens
    This is, admittedly, a bit rough... ... but, it's also not my neck. This is my experiment on a piece of scrap. I wasted hours yesterday attempting to hand file a test neck. It did not go well. So, today I worked up the nerve to pull out the ole angle grinder and give it a try. In less than 30 minutes, including some sanding time, I had this. It's not pretty, I'll admit that. But it is also my very every first attempt to shape something out of wood by hand. And it is clearly a guitar neck. I used this approach: And I learned some things. Next time... 1) I need a better set-up, with better access to both sides of the neck at the same time. 2) I need better lighting. Although, the side with more light was actually the harder side to sculpt, because there weren't as many shadows to see the curves. 3) I need better controls. Like actually sketching out what I am going to do and maybe one of those neck radius template things. I can make one of those. It gave me my first idea of what the neck will actually look like, though. And what it is like to shape something by "hand" (slash angle grinder). I got it a smidge too thin. Like, 0.05" thinner than I meant to take it. After thicknessing the neck the other day, my girlfriend's allergies went crazy. So... I can't do that again. I found a guy here in town with a 15" planer who is going to thickness the body down for me. I head over there in about an hour. I hope he doesn't charge me out the a$$ for it, but after calling around to just about every wood shop in Austin, TX, he was the only one willing to help.
  14. sirspens
    Exactly. I used a router thicknessing jig. I'll strap some sand paper on to a piece of nice scrap lumber I have laying around and see if it improves. Thank you very much!
  15. sirspens
    It is a maple neck. The sanding block is a plastic and rubber gadget from Home Depot (too soft?). And I started with 220, because I didn't want to lose too much thickness while going for levelness.
  16. sirspens
    This is what I did today: I know it doesn't look like much, but that piece of wood was like, almost twice as thick as it is now. It took a good amount of time to get it that way, too. And I made a lot of dust along the way. Here's the thing. I don't have much experience here, but the thicknessing wasn't exactly smooth work: Now, that was my first pass, and the second pass was smoother. But, still basically the same thing. And it took a lot of sanding to get it down to something even reasonably smooth. I don't have a lot of woodworking experience, but as I sand it down, the individual ripples get smoothed out, but the wood itself doesn't seem to be getting any smoother. In fact, it seems like the ripply nature of the wood is getting more pronounced. And I am using a 10" long sanding block, so as to keep the sanding as smooth and level as possible. For now, I am using the slightly rippled side as the "back" of the neck, since most of it will get turned into a curve anyway. Tomorrow, I will cut the neck down to shape and get both sides smoothed out as much as possible. I will probably then get started on the body.
  17. sirspens
    Good advice. How do I do that? Got an good article?
  18. sirspens
    When I walked into "Fine Lumber & Plywood" (in Austin, TX, to through out a plug) I was thinking I would need to find something to join together, thinking that wider pieces would obviously cost much more than smaller dimensioned lumber. But,.... no. They said, "We charge by volume, no matter what it is." That wasn't even the widest board they had. The next smallest was just 1/4" too small. I bought 4', which is kind of a stupid dimension, but I was kind of thrown off at the moment. I think I can get three guitars out of it, if I am careful, and do a smaller one I am planning. Cost: $60. Now, Mahogany is special like that. It grows large enough that you get large pieces. Maple, Alder, Cherry.... almost anything else is going to be really rare in that dimension. But I was ecstatic to find something I could do a one-piece body out of for so cheap. The only problem is I am doing a thin-line, basically. So I am going to need to top it with somwthing, and this is so wide they couldn't split it for me, so I am either going to have to thickness a 2" piece of lumber down to 3/8", crying the entire time, or come up with a different plan for the top. (or, actaully, I am considering do the back. And using this single piece as the top.)
  19. sirspens
    Took it kind of easy today, but I got a lot done. I used both a band saw and scroll saw for the first time today. Even throwing the blade off the band saw, the scroll saw scared the shit out of me a lot more than the band saw. Which seems the opposite of how it should be. I started the day picking up a band saw and scroll saw for $60 off craigslist. The band saw (what I was actually after) is only a 10" Craftsman with a 5" cut height, but after picking up the plank of mahogany yesterday, I realized I would need some efficient way of cutting this material. I used the morning sanding out some of the rougher curves on my template. I then got the router table up and running for the first time and made some safety copies of the template, along with another copy that I can use for the interior routing. The band saw made quick work of the templates. And the scroll saw made the interior cutting on the interior routing template pretty easy. Tomorrow I will finish up the templates. I threw the blade off the band saw, but after getting three templates cut. I also pulled a template off a cheap double cutaway body I had laying around. I got the blade reinstalled without too much trouble. Here are the templates with the wood. I am almost done with the neck template, with just the straight lines to cut, which will be easy. I am using maple for the neck and mahogany for the body. I know mahogany is a considered a cheap wood, but that is a beautiful plank of wood, if I have any say in it. Tomorrow.... get this -- Tomorrow, I am going to actually cut wood. This shit gets real.
  20. sirspens
    Oh, also, I put the carriage bolts really low. Assuming I am only ever working on a neck or body piece in this jig, they are far too low to hit.
  21. sirspens
    Over the last few days I have been reading and watching videos more on building necks. I'm not too worried about the neck (well, I am, but within reason), but fretting and the nut has really started to worry me. I can come up with work-arounds for a lot of things, but cutting the right size slot in a fretboard, getting the fret wire cut and placed and filed, oh and the nut... these seem to be tasks that you actually require specialized tools to pull off. And that isn't the kind of stuff I just have laying around. I went and looked at what a neck from somebody like Warmoth would cost. Somewhere in the $250 to $300 range (for something pretty basic). Then I went and looked at all the tools I would need that I would have a hard time finding a work-around for, from StewMac. The cost comes out to around $340. So, if I am going to make more than one neck (and I am, even if I completely blow the first build, I will try again), then it makes sense to buy the tools. So... It looks like I am placing a big StewMac order....
  22. sirspens
    I understand that. That is why I was intending to use 1x between the carriage bolts and what I am cutting. In addition, I can slip some crap pieces into my slider jig to limit how far I can move the router, which would eliminate the risk of going beyond the limits I should stay within.
  23. sirspens
    Thanks @Prostheta! I ended up going with the MDF solution. The plywood supply at the local store didn't look great. Here's the jig: According to my caliper, I am within 0.5mm of level running up and down both sides. I think that is close enough. You will notice I have added carriage bolts on each side so that, with some 1x scrap, I can hold a body or neck rough-cut in place. Showing some scale: When it came to building the sliding jig, I decide to do it by hand, because I was tired of wearing hearing and eye protection, and throwing dust up into the air. And then vacuuming it up. So I pulled out my cheap plastic miter box, and it worked quite well. Here is is almost done. I also added bolt holes at the bottom so that it can bolt down into my router table to be held still. Here it is completed with the end pieces on the slider. I went with a design where you drag the router across the slider, instead of the slider moving in two dimensions. I hope I don't regret that, but it just seemed more stable to me. This evening I will begin work on my neck template so that I can begin work on the neck tomorrow. Oh, I also bought a beautiful piece of African Mahogany today. Way too much. I think I can get two guitars out of it. Pics on that later.
  24. sirspens
    It has been a while, but I tried this out. I placed 3 piezos on the back of my guitar, distributed across the body. The result was.... pretty eh... First, it wasn't very loud. Barely loud enough if you cranked the amp all the way up to get anything out of it. Second, it had a very clanky sound. Not very inspiring. It got me thinking, though. I wonder if you connected piezos to some kind of gel pack that was embedded in the guitar if it would give you a smoother sound. I don't know. I'm still thinking about this. There has to be an interesting way to pick up the actual resonance of a solid body.
  25. sirspens
    Tomorrow, on day 1 of my vacation, I will begin in earnest on the project. I will finish up my router table, create my neck template, and the big project will be building a thicknessing jig. I am going to build one similar to this, that can be used both for neck and body work: Here is my question... This rendering shows using MDF for the side elevations, which makes sense, but I don't have much wood working equipment, no table saw, which would make that harder to do, since I would have to cut those long lengths by hand, and I would need 3 levels of 3/4" just to get 2-1/4" (something higher than 1-3/4"). My other thought is to use some kind of 2x (2x3 finish piece, getting me 2-1/2") turned sideways, but in order for the thicknessing jig to actually provide a uniform thickness I would have to have a perfectly straight board on each side. And, I don't have a jointer. If I had this equipment, I wouldn't need to build work arounds. I guess I could use a hand planer and caliper to carefully ensure that my sides are perfectly level the entire length of the jig, but.... I was hoping you guys might be able to offer some advice. What is the best way to ensure that I have a perfectly level thicknessing jig without having a bunch of woodworking equipment in the first place?
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