mistermikev

right on. I've used ammonium persulphate b4... had a few issues with it... A) you have to get yer mixture right B ) seemed to create more waste in the sense that I generally had more liquid to dispose of at the end of everything... but admittedly I only used it a few times. afa pnp blu - yeah, at best i get the boards 90% perfect. afa chinese pcb - certainly makes for nice stuff. the 'old school' way of doing it is for me a better option. I don't have to wait, and since almost everything I do is a one off... hard to justify the work for pro pcb mfg. also, I freq etch pedal enclosures and other things... so it's a valuable skill to hone. I plan to etch some pickup covers at some point. also, this etchant works great for relic'ing parts. win win all around for me.

Recently did an etch of some pcbs for a few things I'm going to build... figured it might be nice to take pics along the way and make a short tutorial. Not groundbreaking, there are other tutorials, but this one is how I do it. I like to do several boards at once... because it's better to spread the work/cleanup over several boards. I usually do a little layout in photoshop with a gray area showing me the size of my actual copper clad board. This way I can rotate and move them to get a decent compact layout and maximize my copper board. I print it out on some plain paper... then I take masking tape and tape press n peal blue to the paper, and run it thru my laser printer. next I cut close to the edge - usually leaving about an 1/8"... and I leave little tabs at the edges to make it easier to handle w/o touching the printed area. I then take my copper board and wet sand it from 800- 1500. then wash it off with whater, then hit it with 2ooo grit dry, then whipe it down with acetone. at this point... it's important to NOT touch the copper side as the oils in your hand will actually prevent the etch in the areas you touch (you'll see some of that later!). then to the iron... early on I struggled a LOT to get a good transfer. I've used everything from magazine paper to the leftover sheets from sticky postage labels... to anything in between. pnp blue works consistently best for me. I set my iron to a low temp (between 3 and 4 on my iron). initially I use a blank piece of paper between the iron and the pnpblue just until the transfer paper gets hot enough to stick to the copper. then I go direct on the pnp blue with the iron and I watch the dark in pattern emerge... (did you see my toe?) anywho, once you get a nice clear pattern on the whole sheet yer done: I let it cool for about an hour and gently peal it back... usually there are some spots where I either got it too hot and got 'crackle' or otherwise lifted some ink when I removed the transfer... so I go back and edit my board with a etch pen: put it in a nice thick ziplock bag, then inside two grocerty store bags... then in a plastic tray. Really don't want the etchant getting on anything else. There are different etchants you can use... but I like ferric chloride. I keep some baking soda handy so that once the etch is complete I can neutralize the acid with backing soda. pour in the etchant... I check back about 1x an hour to move it around to ensure the whole board gets etched. about 3hrs total to etch with the stuff I use. and voilla... all the hard work is done! Now I just have to drill holes, use thinner to clean off the ink, sand it up to a nice shine, and wire it up. You can see a few spots where it didn't get etched - drats (bottom right)! So I just take an exacto and cut a channel into the fiberglass. hope someone finds this useful... and hey - you did get to see a few shots of my big toe so... totally worth it.

that guy is a maniac... and that oak... wowsa. EDIT: I was wondering where this post went! wrong tab! must have come off kinda funny, meant to reply to bizman post regarding gentleman who does an entire build with hand tools. doh. anywho.

looking fwd to it.

def posts picks and show us how it turns out. cheers

well clearly size doesn't matter as evidenced by what you build. Also... bet it's easy to clean all your tools off it to use to work again! looks solid as a rock. thanks for sharing.

thanks biz. not contradicting your wisdom at all (IOW Bizman's advice is solid) when I say the following: I've found that even the cheap black and decker jigsaw you can buy at walmart + a good quality WOOD blade... preferably an aggressive one - will mitigate all issues with blade bend. that is not to say it doesn't happen... but IME with the jigsaw setup to take big bites and tight turns... you can do a body to 1/8" to 3/167" of the mark. now... at that point you have to take off the remaining material which I've found to be pretty easy with a router. the keyhole saw can and will get closer than that... and make for less work afa getting to the line... but it's more manual, and if you have a good router and do multiple passes you can make short work of that 1/8=3/16.

as I have been given this exact advice when i first start (not sure who to thank for that so THANKS EVERYONE!): if you have a jig saw? if not, you can get one for pretty cheap. if you have a hand drill? you are all set. mark out your template with a pencil - one the wood in question. drill holes every 1-2" apart with the edge of the drill be sitting fairly close to the line. use a drill bit big enough to fit your jigsaw bit in. then follow the holes with your jigsaw.

what a fun build. you did a good job of making it tele-ish despite mario appendages. love the tongue going down the fretboard. I know this was just 'sposed to be a kids guitar... but imo the idea is great and would have been cool to do the tongue in inlay, and the characters in different types of wood. perhaps a matching adult guitar someday? anywho, thanks for sharing.

"now there's something meatier". I'll just tell the witch... "I'm not finish eating gingerbread... you'll want to eat him first"! haha hardy har!

details... i do not see any trees in this forest at all!

I did this to me! so... combinations I count 7: RRR, RRY, RRW, RYW, RYY, YYY, YYW

well... it would depend... are all red balloons distinct from each other? does order matter (as you asked). if so you have 12 choices for position 1... 11 choices for 2... have traumatic flashbacks... must.... stop.... trying.... to.... answer.... canada? they got math up there?

I would answer "true" because either I've stopped cheating on my wife or I haven't... doh! "do you want to go to the movies or not" answer is always "true". so if you have 7 red balloons, 4 blue balloons, and 1 white balloon... how many distinct 3 balloon combinations...

making me want to try yew someday. no fancy quilt/flame/burl... but stunning none the less. just has a fire quality to it. nice work as always.

well, I think you could refinish that in a condo... assuming zip strip or other would work on it. It'd be a lot of work tho... without a sander. looks like that finish it pretty thick too. you might just take it to a furniture stripper and have them strip it... been a while since I've been to one but it wasn't that expensive to do a table years ago. that said... I don't know how delicately they treat the wood and if it's set neck... might not be the best idea. I would start with the frets because you don't want to risk finish flaws due to fretwork. any body work you are going to do... you want to do next. you could try to just wet sand it and do some spot filling. lord knows an ibanez finish has plenty of thickness to work with. afa electronics... break it into simple systems. for instance, if you find a drawing with 1v, 1t, 3-way... start there... before you wire the pickups into it... you wire the pickup to the live/ground to the phase switch, then from there to wherever they go on the drawing (3-way). then wire both pickups series link (the two wires that get twisted together) to the ctr lug on the other dpdt / split switch. one of the outter lugs to ground. voilla. hope that helps.

also you are in a jail cell with two guards. one always tells the truth, one always lies. there are two doors. one is your freedom and one certain death. what one question could you ask to guarantee you your freedom?

sacrificial board... that's a solid idea. thing that could work well. thanks for the tip.

right on. my concern with the stick would be twofold.. wouldn't be as secure, and wouldn't be as repeatable. would def work and quick and easy def has it's merit. multiple passes: this is the issue... on that first pass, with the planer setup high... the wheels might not grab until it gets almost all the way through. my concern is safety as the there will likely be no grab from the wheels until it gets half way there... and I do not like the idea of touching anything while it's in the planer. the main issue is a kickback could def break your hand. worse you get pulled in. I know there is some slop where the wheels actually drop down further than the blade... but how much. I guess the only way to know is to find out. have you done this?

also, thank you for the reply/support biz! also... you are very quick with yer drawing of such things - cudos!

yes, this is what I meant. I was thinking it might be a solid idea (if I was going this route) to use a piano hinge or door hinges at one end... then perhaps use t-nuts and bolts at the other end to be able to raise/lower it and a center piece that would be attached at the sides to allow the t-nuts to swivel. ie a center piece that is attached to the sides via bolts... with two t nuts say 3" in from the edge, then a 'u' shaped cut in the top board that the bolts could sit in... with a nut under that board to fasten the bolts to. one issue I see, is that the rollers aren't going to be able to grab on one side of the board(left on your pic), or I'll be taking off a LOT as it hits the high (right side) of the board. my auto planer is working great... but the one side needs to remove +-1/4".

preface: so... originally I was thinking i was going to do a 1 3/4 wide neck for a 4 string i'm going to build... did up my laminate blank... then changed my mind to 1 1/2 due to exploring my sr890 recently. so... right now the inner lams are both approx 11/16 each which would cause my accent veneers to run out before the headstock. probably would be fine... but I think I'm going to cut a v into the center pieces with a 1/8" bit, then cut them on the bandsaw... then how to resurface them? how do you cut a taper in the lams for a neck - specifically how to surface the lams? option 1: to make a jig for my auto planer. anyone have any such jigs? option2: is to setup my router planer to do a surface... but this leaves mild tool marks that'd have to be sanded out. that's fine when you are doing a fretboard because it's ltd real estate... in this case it's a 42" long x 2.5" thick blank... would like a better option. non-option2: I 'spose one might use a hand planer but I don't have one... so that options out.

hmm... well I don't recall. but I'm guessing it's super heavy duty and probably pretty. and it can talk??? that's a keeper.

for the record... I admire your spirit of minimal tools and find a solution in what you have. good on ya.

yes, please do. would love to see it.