Jump to content

sirspens

Established Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    149

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by sirspens

  1. sirspens
    Day 0 of my 10 day vacation in which I will be working on my guitar project. For the last three weeks I have been working 14 hour days finishing a project at work. So, now... I guess I have a different project. But this should be fun. Over the last couple weeks I have worked on the template some more. Once I got the exterior finished, I immediately dropped it and it fell on the corner. So, I made a new template from the template.... This time using the jig saw. Routing it out, the corner transferred pretty well, despite the damage. I'll need to round it out a bit by hand, but it worked pretty well. Here is the template made from the template.... This evening I began working on the interior hollow body portion of the template. Since the interior isn't as precious as the exterior, I used the jig saw to cut it out, but drilled several pilot holes so I could have areas of refuge along the way around. Of course, jig saws do dirty work. This is what it looked like.... I left enough room that I can still clean it up, but that was me being extremely careful, and still an ugly cut from the jig saw.
  2. sirspens
    Yeah. I just got a cheap scroll saw for free off Craigslist. I am going to get some blades for it and see if I can get a lot more cut off with that. I have a cheap jig saw, but I seriously do not trust it. I have seen it be off by like 20-degrees before.
  3. sirspens
    MDF is a bitch. I had to cut two 2-inch holes in it today. After an 80 hour work week, I got a few hours in the garage today. I got my router base mounted to my router table insert. Miracle of miracles the first time and everything lined up perfectly, even the key to raise and lower it. Lots of being very careful there. Here it is mounted to the table insert: Here it is at the router table. It just flips upside down and sits in that hole all nice and snug. I haven't tested it because the screws it came with were rather short and I want to see if I can find some longer bolts to make sure it is nice and secure. Once I get that going, I can use a temporary fence to do the routing on my permanent fence and get that put together. I also made a spindle sander jig with my drill press. That tube at the back is a vacuum hose extender that is holding the press in a slightly down position. I then did some testing on a scrap piece of MDF to see how easy it would be to sand out along an outline. I only did about an inch of the outline I drew and it took forever. But I was able to create a smooth approximation of the curve with a vertical edge. It is going to take a long time to sand out my template. The real problem arose with the paper the outline is drawn on not sanding at the same rate as the MDF, so it had a tendency to hang over, which made it hard to see the line. I am going to have to keep a razor blade by my side to smooth the paper up as I sand so that I can better follow the outline. That's all for now. Two more intense weeks of work, then I am going to take a stay-cation and get some serious work done on this guitar.
  4. sirspens
    Welcome! I'm in Austin, too. Beautiful work.
  5. sirspens
    Good point. That is the purpose of a piezo pickup, but from what I understand they tend me be a bit "clinky" sounding. I can test this easily, though. I am going to buy a fairly cheap but highly rated piezo pickup and attach it to the back of my cheap test guitar. I'm going with this one, It has three contact points. That way I can get a good distribution of sound across the body. I'll get back to you on this.
  6. sirspens
    First starters, let's not talk about tone woods. Woods resonate when you strap strings to them, and that is good enough for this topic. Guitar pick-ups are electromagnetic devices to detect string osculation and turn this into an electrical signal. That's all well and good.. And works quite well. But solid body guitars resonate. And some quite nicely. In fact, often times when I am just having a quiet strum with my Stratocaster I will put my ear to the body and listen to the sound coming through the wood. This is even useful if I can't quite get a string in tune by "ear", because it is a much smoother sound. So here is my questions: It wouldn't exactly be a pick-up in the classic sense, but is there any kind of "pick-up" that specifically aims to capture this guitar body resonance? I have tried to do research on this on my own, but I guess I don't even have the vocabulary to start a search, because I keep ending up at dead ends.
  7. sirspens
    I'm no expert on this, and I know nothing about active pickups, but... You can control the pickups with push-pull knobs, but if you have a situation where both pickups are turned off, I'm not sure what that would do. You might get a pop as they go off, etc.
  8. sirspens
    If you want to keep the look of the classic three-way selector switch, but have more options, there are such switches: http://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_Electronics/Components_and_Parts/Switches/Free-Way_Pickup_Switch.html
  9. sirspens
    @kavar57, Seymour Duncan has some pretty good blog posts on wiring, starting with the basics of how it works, up through interesting wiring concepts: http://www.seymourduncan.com/?post_type=post&s=GUITAR+WIRING Scroll down to the bottom for the earliest blogs on simple wiring schemes. Other than that, it looks like you are doing a "Les Paul" type wiring. Google image search returns a lot of different options for wiring that kind of set-up.
  10. sirspens
    Holy crap. I just did a search for Bosch jigsaws. That is pricey. I mean, for a good piece of equipment, sure, but it still isn't going to cut true. I think I'll save that money and keep my eye open for a good used bandsaw. I have a craigslist alert set up to let me know when they show up around here. My main problem is that they have all been fairly short in the cutting heights. From what I understand, you want one with a good 9" clear so that you can bookmatch, right? I've never attempted to cut a piece of wood in such a way, so I literally have no clue. @Prostheta, my bit was fine when I was done. Cool to the touch with no discoloration. I didn't slow down, but I wasn't burning through it, either. That is really my biggest challenge. In Architecture school I was HORRIBLE at model building. I just didn't have the patience for it. I am more patient and interested in good craftsmanship these days, but I still have to remind myself to slow down, do it once and do it right. Or, better, do a couple test runs on a scrap, then do it right.
  11. sirspens
    There were a couple occasions when I had to back the bit out because it was spinning in place, but surprisingly few. Overall, from the time I drilled the first hole until I was done drilling holes was only about 10 minutes. That is longer than it would take on a band saw, obviously, for less precise work, but not too bad for my first build with my limited set of tools.
  12. sirspens
    Yeah. I had never heard of a torsion box before. I was just using standard balloon framing techniques, 2x construction. That is my Architecture background showing. I am going to have to get more educated about fine wood working techniques. The table is now glued. It is very flat and very stiff. It isn't going anywhere, I don't think. Not any time soon. And if it does warp after a year or so, I spent all of $50 on supplies for it, and two evenings of work, so I think it will have done it's job well. At that point I can take my new knowledge and do a better job. I did get a bit of glue in one of the tracks, but I am going to be able to file it out. Just as soon as I can find my files.
  13. sirspens
    Today I started work on my template. I got my plans printed at the local reprographics shop, some 1/2" MDF and some spray adhesive. I decided that rolling up the sheet then unrolling it would be the easiest way to get the print onto the board flat, I also used a paint roller to help press the sheet down evenly. It worked out extremely well. Even though I did feel every hair on my arms stand up as I sprayed the adhesive. Gross stuff. I don't have a band saw, and I have found my jig-saw to be a bit wonky in its ability to provide a solid vertical cut. I then tried to use my drill and a forstner bit, but the pressure required was a bit much and was going to be exhausting. My drill press isn't a great piece of machinery, and it has a tiny table, so I used a scrap piece of MDF to create a larger table for it. After the first drill I realized it was going to take forever because of how much dust was created, to the point that I couldn't see the drawing. I took my shop vac and tied the hose REALLY close to the bit, which sucked up about 95% of the dust. No picture of that, because it was off to the races with that working. I had a few close calls, but overall it worked pretty well. Then I used my jig saw just to cut through the gaps between holes. Now I have a spiky template. Later this week I get a set of spindle bits in the mail to use my drill press as a spindle sander, which I will use to finish off the template. Hopefully I can manage not to screw that up. So..... body template started. At least, the template for my template. I should also have the router table finished this weekend, as well, after getting in the under-table mount.
  14. sirspens
    It looks fantastic, if a bit metal for my tastes. How did you cut out the body shape with the tools you have? Did you shape the V in the butt with a file?
  15. sirspens
    Got some work done on the fence for my router table. I am going to have to wait on the mount and then use a temporary fence to rout out the slides for this fence. But, everything is cut out and ready to go together.
  16. sirspens
    Yep, just 200 miles down the road in Austin. I have also been exploring the local specialty wood suppliers in Austin. Just in my neighborhood (I live across from an industrial district, turns out) there are 5 specialty lumber yards and three cabinet makers (the latter being irrelevant but surprising)! However, as somebody who doesn't yet have a planer and no way to deal with rough cut lumber, a finish cut piece to almost the exact size needed for a fret board is exciting.
  17. sirspens
    Interesting. I have never heard of a Torsion box before. This thing is super heavy. Next time I build something like this I am going to take the torsion box idea into my design.
  18. sirspens
    Okay... Hit the wrong button, and I guess you have like 30 seconds to edit a post. After jig-sawing out the mounting holes, before cleaning up the edges with a router. With the second layer of MDF of and the slots routed out. You can see the bolts in the sliding slots. Here it is with the router mounting lid take out. It fits so tight it is hard to get in and out. It sits on a 1" lip on each side. Gluing the two layers of MDF together. I still need to clean up the edges, Put some edge trim on it to protect the MDF and build the fence, which I am going to base on this: I don't get my under table mount for my router until Wednesday. At some point I'm also going to have to build a stand for it, but I have two tables that are the same height, so right now I can just span the router table between those two tables.
  19. sirspens
    Over the holiday I started by building a router table. I don't have a lot of tools, pretty much just a router, circular saw, miter saw, jig saw and a drill, so it isn't the best thing ever, but I have designed it to be ugradable over time. I also don't have a enough money to buy a big enough nice router table, and didn't want to blow $200+ on a crap router table. So I designed a two-layer 3/4" MDF table with 2x framing. It has tracks with 1/4" slots cut in the top layer and 1/2" slots cut in the bottom layer so that bolts can be slid through. The Router will be mounted through a framed hole with 3/4" MDF "lid" (which fits super tight, so I don't even have to worry about fixing it down yet). Here are the plans: Cutting out the router hole. I included a second hole because I want to one day mount an oscillating spindle sander over there. Most of the affordable ones I have found have tiny tables, so this way I could have a spindle sander with a big enough table for a guitar body to sit on. Under table bracing so the MDF doesn't warp over time (will probably have to be shimmed a bit). After jig-sawing out the mounting holes, before cleaning up the edges with a router.
  20. sirspens
    I found a good source for fretboards, I think. There is a Woodcraft just down the street from my house, and they sell 4"x24"x3/8" planks of just about every species you can think of. Pretty good pricing, too, about $12 to $18 for the more exotics That was the first time I have been to Woodcraft. I had always avoided the place, because I figured it had exorbitant prices, but it is actually better priced than a typical hardware store, for better materials and tools.
  21. sirspens
    Good to know. I'll use it for practice then.
  22. sirspens
    Musically, I am most interested in twee (indie pop) and shoegaze. For the latter, I thought it might be interesting to get more of the resonance of the guitar to blend in with the string sound that the pick-ups provide. I ready a while back that the Velvet Underground used to put microphones into semi-hollows and mix the signals together. This is part of where the idea comes from. Maybe the piezo transducer is the wrong way to go. It might be better to put a small microphone in the chambered body.
  23. sirspens
    I've been thinking about this. Another reason I was heading in this direction is because I do not own a joiner or thickness plainer. But, I have seen demonstrations around here of jigs to use a router to thickness. I also just found a video on using a router table for joining. I have a table worthy router, the Bosch 1617, but I don't have a router table. So I am going to need to build or buy one. Any recommendations on size of the table? I'm thinking it needs to be at least 24"x30" or so. I have not looked at construction methods for semi-hollow bodies that aren't the Dano style or an archtop style. Does Rickenbacker chamber out a solid body then put a veneer on the front or back? That might be the way to go. I'll do some research on this.
  24. sirspens
    As with many others, I have been lurking around these boards for a while, but have never posted. I have been trying to learn while planning my first guitar build. I am planning a Danelectro style build for my first go, since it is a fairly cheap approach and I don't want to sacrifice a lot of expensive lumber to my amauturity. The design is a somewhat retro semi-hollow body inspired by both Danelectro and Rickenbacker. There it is as both a single and double pick-up design. My approach here is to make a fairly versatile sounding guitar, that centers more around jangle than dark. Because of this I have a bit of a weird idea for the "single pick-up" design. That is to use a Seymour Duncan P-Rails for the bridge, then to wire it for a second pick-up, using an acoustic soundboard transducer as the "second pick-up", with the ability to blend the two with a 3-way switch. The P-Rail would be controlled through push-pull volume/tone knobs. What I am not sure of is the difference in volume output between an electric guitar pick-up and the acoustic transducer and if the difference would make this idea a non-starter. Here are my template designs for the body. Option 1 was my first approach, Option 2 is if I want to get crazy with this acoustic transducer idea. Here are my drawings for the neck: Specifications: Body: Plywood core with either MDF or finish plywood veneer Neck: Maple, bolt-on, 25.5" Scale Fretboard: 21 frets. Poplar. I got some from my neighborhood finish lumber place. Would that work? Bridge: Simple Hard-tail, similar to a Dano bridge. Other Hardware & Electronics: I recently stumbled upon the estate sale of a dabbler in the guitar arts (sad to think about), but I now have boxes of hardware and pots, etc., along with a several of the tools that were already on my wishlist. Like I said, I have never built a guitar before. I have been reading and watching videos for a few months now, working on the design, and collecting some tools. I would appreciate any comments if you see anything that stands out to you. I am still getting my garage organized and plan on taking a "stay-cation" at the end of January to really take a good crack at the neck. Until then I will be practicing on some sacrificial wood.
×
×
  • Create New...