mistermikev

this is a topic very dear to my heart... sorry i didn't see it sooner. I've had so many dif soldering irons over the years... but then I bought a hakko fx-888D and I've had that for probably 7 or 8 years now... It has been absolutely fantastic. gets up to temp in maybe 15 seconds. you can see the temp on the led read0ut. preset temps set in... so switching between 450 and 550 for instance, is as easy as hitting the up button one time. the tips are very available and I've had the same tip on there for probably 2 years. it was a tip I put on to do smd components, very fine tip, just haven't bothered changing it as it works for everything I do. I keep closing a drawer and catching the cord for the pencil... which is replaceable... but it just keeps working. for me... doing a pot is easy peasy. turn the temp to 550, clean/scratch up the pot where I want to solder, touch the tip to the pot for maybe 5 seconds and then touch the solder to the area to be soldered. have done that on everything from alpha to cts to bourns... no problem. afa best solder... bought a big spindle of kester .031" solder about 2 years ago and I'm not even 1/4 way through. I solder fx pedals, guitar setups, and other odds/ends. it's the best I've found. all that said... I bought a cheap iron to keep in my garage. off amazon... primarily use it to back out dents in wood... but I used it to solder up my speaker cabs when I built them and it worked great. was $25. temp controlled (dial) iron. the issue with these cheap irons is the tips do not last and you can't buy replacement tips (that work well) anywhere so when the tip(s) wear(s) out you are buying a new iron. https://www.amazon.com/Hakko-FX888D-23BY-Digital-Soldering-Station/dp/B00ANZRT4M/ref=sr_1_2?crid=M4XNQ75N1HKT&keywords=hakko+fx-888d&qid=1658237325&s=industrial&sprefix=hakko+fx-888d%2Cindustrial%2C120&sr=1-2 https://www.amazon.com/Kester-24-6337-8800-Activated-Solder-No-Clean/dp/B00068IJOU/ref=pd_lpo_1?pd_rd_i=B00068IJOU&psc=1

yes, as mentioned the carve came out really nice... esp how there are tasteful reveals of the lighter wood. nice job.

thank you sir, and thanks to the forum. very much appreciate it. also... I would like to tell tales of triumphant times eating tacos. my life is not nearly as glamorous as that sounds lol.

ok, well then either I'm not dark... or I'm dark but in good company... I can live w that!

a boss once said to me: "email is like throwing a turd over the fence... it's one way to send a message" hehe. Part of my trying to improve myself... remember to be thankful for other's taking the time... and sometimes it probably just seems like I'm throwing a turd... but I'm really doing it with the best of intentions!

btw... sometimes I wonder if my responses sound like I'm poo pooing ideas w/o giving fair thought to them... i tend to get lost in my own thinking when I respond and perhaps forget to be polite and thankful for all the input I get. here is me correcting for that: I do appreciate it!!

well... no two pieces of even the sm variety are the sm density but... this is in one case: oak, ebony and maple and in the other purpleheart, ebony and maple. there will no doubt be some dif in the density between the three... enough to make a big dif - prob not... but enough to make some dif: probably.

no, perhaps I did. thought you were saying to try it on the neck I'm building, got it... try it on a scrap piece. perhaps I'll do an experiment when I get my first fretboard done but... it's hard to say if you'd really hear anything since I imagine the effect would be really subtle. thanks for the suggestion.

well unfortunately... i won't be able to do that till it's too late to back out! I can't imagine I'd feel anything at first... as it will have been freshly sanded down... and I will have fret lines running through the inlay where in theory I'd fret... but that slide up to that note... i can't help but feel there might be some effect there.

comring right along... nice work as always. what does it say about me... that from that angle it looks like a nuclear mushroom cloud? wait don't answer that. off to see the therapist lol!

that is certainly a possibility. further on a fretless I 'spose I run the risk of potential movement of the inlay vs the wood... esp given the wood is going to be flexing. that said... my plan was to have fret slots filled with veneer. and in theory one could have the sm issue there. my original fretless had some sort of plastic fret marker. never did have any issue with that so perhaps I'll be ok. always a gamble. I like the inlay enough that I really want to use it. going to do my prototype with frets so at the least I will use it there... and perhaps somewhere along the way I'll gain the clarity of whether or not to use it on the final-fretless version.

so... working on an inlay... what a pita, I'll spare you the details. Anywho... having second thoughts about using it. My concern is that on a fretless... that it is at least possible there would be some change in the sound as one frets a note over the inlay - due to the change in wood. The only fretless I've owned had fret markers... but no inlays. never noticed anything there. I've heard other bass players complain, mostly about inlay material other than wood, so I have to admit I have some trepidation. I believe there must be SOME truth to anything and everything. Is it going to be truth enough to bother me? I dunno. Is it worth risking given the neck will be glued in? I dunno. this, btw, is a sturgeon. in the song "fish on": "Dad caught a hundred pound sturgeon On twenty-pound test"

if I may... personally I think using a bit that big is insane. I have had to use big bits before for solid surface. attaching a sink to a counter-top you have to do a big fat roundover to transition to the sink bowl... with a 3.5hp router and that giant bit... well it was not something I looked fwd to. a big plexi glass base helps... as any sort of tilt could spell disaster. a big 3.5hp router helps too because it's heavy and much less likely to get choked. Personally, if I had to do what you are doing with a neck... I would think a planer jig would be the way to go (I know... it does everything!). you could set the gradient into the planer rails, the router could be locked into the sled to give more stability by only allowing movement along the neck. You could lock the neck into the jig at the heel/headstock using scrap pieces and lag bolts through the bed. I'd def be taking no more than 1/16 off on a pass. imo that's about as safe as it could get. I've seen guys setup a carrier board for the neck, and use one of those bits in an overhead pin router... folks do it but looks insane to me. Have also seen folks do similar on a router table... again, not something I'd volunteer for. it seems to me that with a planer jig you could at least have some insurance of the limited direction the router could go in if things go wrong. I hate to be the voice of "nervous nancy", and only you know what you can do... just thought I'd mention and hope there is something useful in my comments.

"was just telling him that so he makes it better" hehe thanks!

sharp.

Fully intended to be cutting a fretboard today... set up my software to auto tile the fretboard... and it would not do what I want. My plan is to try to cut as many frets on the first pass as possible to keep the majority of fretboard accurate as possibe... so I would cut 23" before moving. unfortunately the software then expects a 23" move. so... what do we do then? well we do it the hard way (yay)! Setup all that tiling via splitting operations manually and making individual cam procedures for each "partial cut". Took me quite a while but ready to go on that now and I realize... I need to cut my inlay stock and have it ready to inlay b4 I cut frets... so need to work on that next. In the meantime... I got my neck stock milled down pretty good, so thought I'd share that. io9jjk

not sayin' I don't ALSO do THAT! lol. nice to see you around komodo!

have a similar fav saying: if you keep your mouth closed folks might suspect your a fool... but if you open it they'll have proof.

not sure what you mean... trying 2 piece it together... perhaps some comedy wood work to glue these ideas together. ok, I'll stop now.

well it's never as bad as it seams! (lil joke there lol).

you mean this join right here? it's hidden pretty well honestly. (did I win?)

I'm glad you caught that! yes, indeed.

well, afa tonewood... it would seem to me to meet the starndards: is pretty, is a hardwood, janka hardness of 1860... perhaps a bit heavy/dense but that wouldn't dissuade me. seems like a fine wood to use. oh, and it's pretty!

"I love it when a plan comes together".

looks rather exotic to me (jarrah). enjoy seeing the work to build the bridge.