Mike.Mara

Looking very nice indeed! Can't wait for more pics...

15 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Sure will! I've been proofing some of the techniques before I demonstrate them, so as you can understand that takes double the time and investment. No wonder I'm not at coffee grinder level yet!

Lol. Well I'm sure it will pay off in the end! Looking forward to watching them .

7 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

No audio interface I'm afraid....the best purchase I can find would be a Line6 Helix LT. I need a lot of high-quality tones for demo'ing instrument adequately, and it ticks all of the boxes. You're right about most people not being able to tell the difference, however once they SEE the setup or you tell them, of course they can tell the difference and yeah, they'll tell you alright. Anyway.

It's about time I got to work on my own Teles. If only those magnets would appear so I didn't keep dropping the GoPro on the bench....

Whatever works! If something sounds good, it sounds good. Doesn't matter how it gets there. I like tube amps, but if there's something modelled or SS that sounds good, I'll use it.

Does that mean there will be videos soon? .

2 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

True, and shellac is food safe if you want to re-use it! My shellac would end up smelling of pepper and juniper from my favourite salmon seasoning. 

£15 is £15. I have so many things I need to buy as a matter of priority, especially some kind of modelling amp since I now have absolutely zero playing and recording gear after my last one died. It's so rare that I need to mix up shellac that I think I can live without the luxury of a grinder for a little longer!

I've never tried the Liberon stuff, however I've been curious about their "button polish" which seems to be garnet shellac with black pigment. At least, a good equivalent mix one can make from garnet flake.

If you can get it "fresh" I'd say give it a go. It goes a long way, so long I ended up throwing most of it out after using it on many products. I have some of their "black polish" and for some reason that seems to have lasted a lot longer than regular shellac for whatever reason.

Lol, seasoned shellac... Maybe use any left over as a crunchy glaze haha.

The Peavey Vypyr isn't a terrible sounding modelling amp. Although if you have access to an audio interface, I'd suggest BIAS Amp/FX into a KEMO M032N to a cab. It's what I'm currently using since I'm too cheap to get another 6505... Well, I say cheap, I mean poor. . It's a very reasonable alternative to tube amps and I doubt most people could tell the difference. BIAS is a bit lacking on the gain though, as a previous 5150 owner, you'll know the shear amount of gain available even on 3 on the preamp... With BIAS you'll need it on 7 to get the same amount. Of course it does require you be near a computer/laptop.

3 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Especially not here....products can sit on shelves for long periods of time, and shellac has a very limited window for efficacy. I threw away a small batch I mixed up in June 2016, which goes to show just how important marking these up is!

I've been in the market for a small coffee grinder to dust my shellac for a while now....

Pestle and mortar? On the other hand, there are plenty of coffee grinders on Ebay here for under £15. Hmmm... I may have to get one.

Yeah, I've had pre bottled stuff from Liberon, although it works, it stays tacky much longer than it should. Probably because it's been sitting around for the best part of a year before I buy it, then sits here for months. Still works, but not as it should.

6 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Marc tests both waxed and dewaxed. I suspect that dewaxed isn't as wax-free as a good super-blonde shellac from flake. That might be the reason. The comments section contains a lot of useful information to feed through your critical thinking processes. The most important points are the differences between off-the-shelf tinned shellac (both waxed and dewaxed) and the different flake shellacs. For my own part, I prefer very dilute shellac for light stopping up of grain. Less than the 2lb Marc uses here.

Well, I certainly agree that canned stuff isn't the way to go unless you're just going with shellac. It usually has additives to stop it from going bad in the can so they can keep it on the shelf longer. That may be one of the causes.

Maybe it's impatience on the part of most people so they buy a can rather than wait for it to dissolve in alcohol. I know that I've been impatient with a lot of finishes in the past and they've either turned out so-so or terrible. You spend more time trying to fix your rushing than it would have taken to do it right in the first place . (I know this all too well.)

1 hour ago, Prostheta said:

Well that's it. Neither have I other than people mentioning incompatibility and then demonstrating....none.

Spraying a guitar with 2K isn't too bad. Just don't sit with it whilst it dries! Splash n' go.

The colour I chose was on a Nissan X-Trail I saw in the supermarket car park. The metal flakes in there are a nice mix and just work really well. The other choice was a golden-y white that I'd seen on a Subaru chip in the local PPG distro.

Do you think maybe they just washed on the shellac and then before it had dried properly shoved a coat of poly on?

I'm still not too keen on the idea... I might ask at the college if they have a room suitable to spray stuff in. I mean they do auto repair and painting and decorating, so maybe.

Auto colours are a great idea to look at for finishes, you can pretty much just walk into an auto paint store and tell them the car and get that colour.

Speaking of paint, if I were to paint this guitar black, can you recommend any type of paint? I know that most acrylics never truly dry and I don't want to have to re-finish this one too.

8 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

A few people have complained about compatibility with poly over shellac in woodworking forums. The Wood Whisperer on YouTube did testes which showed no apparent issues. It's difficult to tell, however I've never seen specific cases of problems.

2K isn't bad, but definitely not one to make a habit of using without protective gear. I couldn't recommend not using full eye, skin and respiratory though. It'd be irresponsible since any level of exposure is always "not good"! I think it's great as an easy finish though. Once we construct the booth at work, I want to use it more.

http://www.projectguitar.com/gallery/album/73-lumi-custom-1951-5-p-bass/

 

Never heard of compatibility issues with shellac and poly so I'll have to ring the manufacturer and ask their opinion just in case!

I love the idea of 2K, but anything that recommends you dress like you're about to clean a crime scene I try to avoid lol. And unfortunately I'm not safely set-up for spraying anything flammable or hazardous. If I could afford to I'd outsource the finishing and go with a 2K or something along those lines. But for now at least I'm either french polish or water-based. At least with those it's just respirator, goggles and throw away coveralls if you're being over-cautious. (Respirator and goggles excluded of course.)

That's a pretty damn nice bass by the way! Love the sparkle.

3 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

It's what I'd do, whether it's right or wrong. Shellac is a nice simple base for (almost) anything, so to me it feels like covering your bases. If you don't have any shellac on hand, it might be simpler to go ahead with the schedule you had in mind. Shellac's pretty cheap and simple to use, so hell, why not. I've always found it great to work off for a number of things. The build I was referring to is the '51 P-Bass. The primer and 2K laid on really nicely. Probably just as well as they would have done otherwise, perhaps. It's difficult to say without A/Bing them.

I always have shellac on hand... I love the stuff for popping the grain in wood. Makes everything look beautiful.

I'll probably be using an acrylic urethane for this build so I'd imagine no problems with compatibility. I'll of course do a test piece though. .

2K scares the hell out of me, wish I could bring myself to use it though. Got a link for the P-Bass?

15 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

I would just give it a light wash of 1-1/2lb cut shellac. Something light to stop up the wood. Whilst finish will not sink into fine-grained closed pore wood, it'll certainly drink it up. I did this on an Alder body, which is similar to Poplar in a fair few ways. It saved me a lot of work priming and painting.

A wealth of knowledge as always! Cheers!

As a side-note... How would you guys go about finishing poplar? It's extremely fine and close grained, so is a filler still a good idea, or is just a sanding sealer enough?

Progress! Well, some at least...

Turns out my less-than-organised workshop has finally bitten me in the ass. I lost my bottom guided bearing bit, so the body is only half-routed.

Ohh well, I'll just have to wait for another to arrive, and then clean and organise.

Anyways, on to the progress.

Template CNC'd, came out just about perfect! And choosing to engrave a centre line this time was the right choice, no faffing around with calipers and a steel rule for an hour trying to line everything up.

Body outline on the blank.

Rough-cut on the bandsaw: That little dimple? near the neck pocket was a pain to get into with a 1/2" blade.

And finally, the top routed to size!

Almost got a bit of tear-out near the bottom hip... There's a slight mark where I can see that it wanted to, but fortunately the wood gods were smiling down upon me today and with a tiny bit of sanding it's all going to be OK. Phew! .

Poplar is unlike any other wood I've worked, it has a strange way of being extremely smooth in one direction and rough in the other. I'll have to take that into account when sanding to avoid tearing the grain up.

Surprisingly heavy too at around 4-5Lbs. Much heavier than I was expecting.

Well... Here is where it ended:

Due to the lack of the aforementioned bottom guided bit. Or is that a top guided bit when it's in a router table?

Anyway, I'm struggling with the decision of whether or not to round over the body... Thoughts?

Also, I'm not too sure if I still want the transparent finish on this one as the back really isn't the prettiest and has a few imperfections, but not enough to be a feature. I'm thinking maybe straight black with a purple pearl... But I don't know if that will make it look cheap?

Well, there it is for today.

Thanks for looking!

20 hours ago, curtisa said:

As long as you've identified them, it's a good start. Down here at least, 5mm and 10mm 'things' can generally be found that can substitute as spacers - aluminium flat bars and acrylic plastic sheets can be had in those sizes.

Aluminium flat bar is exactly what I was thinking so good to know I'm on the same track.

Looks fantastic! Your original did too though, so great job both times!

19 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Workholding is probably a more useful extension of my jig-making obsession.

Workholding is a very important safety factor with CNC. Nothing worse than scrambling for your E-stop when things are shaking loose because you thought, "that'll hold". Not to mention if something shifts the time and material wasted.

8 hours ago, curtisa said:

It does look big. You sure you want to make it big enough for the worst case, or just big enough to cover most reasonable situations

I will say that if you want to make it bolt-together firendly, also consider how each component can fit together without resorting to odd sized spacers and shims. The combined height of the rails/bearing blocks vs the X axis leadscrew mounting brackets are one example.

Yeah, I'm thinking maybe Mikro's first suggestion of 900mm may have been a more reasonable number... I was aiming for something that could handle anything up to through neck basses but the cost difference is huge and as one of you guys suggested, there are ways of doing that on a smaller machine without needing half your workshop for said machine. 

I have been scouring the internet specifically for parts where everything matches so we didn't run into that issue... It took a fair bit of time trying to find a motor mount that would work lol. So far, the only spacers that are needed are 5mm under the ballscrew nuts along the X and one 10mm spacer for the ballscrew nut mount under the bed. There is one more for the motor mount at the back end of the machine but I've yet to come up with a reasonable solution.

So far except for 4 aluminium (Or MDF/PLY) parts everything is off-the-shelf and bolt together. After all the kinks have been worked out and everyone is happy that it will work as planned, I'll get working on an MDF version.

Even if no one builds it (myself included) at least it's a fun venture into design and theory. And also a place to look for ideas into design what with Mikro's design, this design and yours if you fancy posting some pics?

9 minutes ago, MiKro said:

Center cross extrusions only need to be half height. only ends and sides need to be full height. Also  80/20 will cut to dimension if specified as well as drilled and tapped if need be., so that should not be a problem. As far as cutting AL, a good chop saw setup correctly with the correct blade will cut any of these. This is what I use on my 12" saw.      Non Ferrous Blade

mk

Good to know! Saves a bit on cost.

Yeah I have a sliding compound mitre saw capable of aluminium and steel .

Tool links are going to be very useful if anyone wants to build it after it's done. Feel free to link any other tools you think people will need and I'll archive them to go along with plans. Since you've built yours from scratch, you most definitely know the tools needed better than I do. I spend most of my time waiting on delivery of tools I didn't know I needed lol.

Well... This thing looks tiny with a body on...

Just an idea of course, feel free to shoot it down if needs be . All parts needing to be made are just drilling, and depending on your suppliers, cutting.

This one is done in extrusion because... Well it's just easier to line parts up on it. MDF can be planned around it.

27 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

I literally have zero advice on CNC. Just never had enough time or resources to be more hands-on with this field.

That doesn't mean you cant be of help, dimensions of use, budget ect. Or jigs... Jigs are always useful!

Was worth mentioning, I'm sure it'll turn out great anyways!

If nothing else it would make a great makers name inlay. Or set it up to engrave lettering too. Either way, great job!

That's some great work there! That panto-router worked out a treat .

When the pearl plastic is inlaid I actually quite like it, gives a misty ghost like effect... Very cool!

Speaking of which... That would look great on that ghost tele. 

1 minute ago, Prostheta said:

I feel like I'm late to the party. Because that's how I roll, I guess.

Lol, not that late... There's still plenty of time to butt in and give advice 

6 minutes ago, MiKro said:

I will. Today is cleanup day again. Time to get everything cleaned up and reorganized before the next step.

 

Good to hear! Hopefully everything runs smoothly from here on. 

1 minute ago, MiKro said:

Yes but without a good foundation the rest is junk. This thing is rock solid now.

Agreed, the more time you put in now the less problems and time later. Glad to hear it's all going well! Have to put up a video of it when it's alive again.

2 minutes ago, MiKro said:

Doing my long axis  X axis took me about 45 hours of work to get 4 rails aligned with 8 carriages. 2 are 15mm and 2 are 25mm sets.

Ouch! I mean I know it'll pay off in the end but damn that's a lot of time.