mistermikev

43 minutes ago, ScottR said:

The dark areas will be fine. The highlight areas may take a little less, which creates more contrast.

Test on scrap.

SR

will try and I believe you... just I've read a number of places that going past 400 grit on wood will burnish the surface.  that said... bring to 220, dye, sand to 800, then clear is typically what I do.  

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

.....sand it some more....

SR

perhaps if I brought it up to 800 or 1500 grit... but I suspect that is going to make it not take dye well, no?

52 minutes ago, ScottR said:

I may be alone in this, but for me, sanding is kind of magical. The wood comes to life right under your fingertips.

SR

not sure if I'm dissagreeing... but afa the figure... right off the planer it looks amazing, then I sand it and it dissapears.  that said... the piece itself... sanding it softens it, and makes it your own... so in that regard - def the most satisfying part.  take all these sharp corners and soften them to your exact taste... sort of like signing the painting.

above... in this piece - what I see as a sig is the contrast between the very soft features of the body, but the attention to detail in the edges of the f hole being sharp yet softened just a bit.  the detail of that horn... transitions... where soft meets sharp right at the edge of the horn.  it's my fav detail for sure.  

wow, master class in finishing right there.  I have only done one black dye finish and compared to all the others I've done it was def the hardest to bring to a place that I liked.  Lots of little things I will take away from this and seeing the piece evolve as you went - very informative, an excellent resource and I thank you for learning me something (again).  bravo.  

final finish is a 10.

8 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

@mistermikev although the binding really looks nice against the natural, the sides have to be restained. With the neck glued sanding all the colour off and redoing the binding is no longer an option.

@Drak this project has been a test bench from the very start. Although my previous build was sort of a challenge with the both sides carved hollow top, with this one I've experimented and challenged myself much more. Routing a binding cavity is a no-brainer, routing my first ever binding channels on a radiused top with a handheld router on wood that's so soft that the bearing digs into the sides... Same goes with the staining, I had never used them before and although I did some testing on scrap pieces on offcuts of the very same blank I had actually not visualized what I was after. In hindsight I should have made test pieces including the binding, then again I had to replace the original rosewood so this project has really been brewing all along the process.

What's nice about this - and this is why I have been so careless - is that the body has cost me absolutely nothing. That is, unless you count the hours and gas used for cutting the blanks of the stump! The few drops of dye, a couple of rattle cans of lacquer, 1.80€/hour for the workshop etc. aren't worth counting as every hobby has its price. Knowing that I'm not ruining a 200€ triple A Paulownia one piece super light body is tranquilizing. If I end up ruining this I can simply cut the neck off and remake a body. There's a couple of usable pieces of that very same stump left...

right on.

well, take a step back... hold up your thumb... eye it up and dive back in there.  that binding looks real nice against the nat top. 

some sweet looking olive there.

17 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

IMO we've so far just tried to understand how each one of us understands the terms used. For my part I don't know the meaning of Decay or Release, Attack and Sustain being more understandable, and the only effect I own is a delay...

"Bloom" sounds nice and flowery, is there a simple explanation how it sounds?

simply put it's just any changes that happen to the sound as it fades out.  

edit, on second thought perhaps crusader's descrip is better!!

18 minutes ago, curtisa said:

This wasn't meant to turn into a hotly contested argument, and I'm sorry if it's ended up that way.

Sustain vs bloom: I'm perhaps using the technically-incorrect version of 'sustain' (I'm thinking of an old 70s analogue synthesiser and its Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release envelope), and probably lumping the 'DSR' bit of the 'ADSR' in together as one complete thing. Maybe that's right or wrong in this scenario, I dunno? 'Bloom' I would have interpreted as the way the harmonic content evolves as the note decays (or DSR's? ), which again could be an interesting angle to explore with the recordings obtained thus far. But maybe my understanding of the word is different to somebody else's and leaves things open to confusion?

afai go... same here.  If I ever come off as more than just "considering out loud"... that's not how I meant it.

afa bloom, i agree.  there are a lot of things that could go into that (freq resp, level, attack, etc...) but was just narrowing to level as that would seem like the easiest to measure.  all of this is just really interesting - pondering conclusions not drawing them.

13 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

I can fully understand @mistermikev's logic as my thoughts have trotted similar paths. Half a second can be a long time, in music played at 120 bpm that'd be one full measure!

That said, sustain isn't everything. If you play staccato notes, the attack is more important. There's more than one single reason why guitarists use several guitars in different pieces of music. This testing process has shed some light to the eternal questions of guitar building mythology, at least insofar as giving confidence in trying new methods and materials as @Gogzs said.

for the record I totally agree that sustain is almost inconsequential. 

also, we aren't considering an important metric here which is "bloom".  folks often conflate sustain with sustained-level.  ie comparing a note that sustains 16 seconds but the apparent gain drops to 20% immediately vs a note that maintains 80% of it's initial gain over 12 seconds.  

"high performance" = paying 150% more for .0001% improvement.  Not saying I think that's wrong or right... it just IS!

7 hours ago, curtisa said:

I think unless that's actually tested that's jumping to conclusions based on an apparent small difference in the raw timing of the decays of one note and entirely dependent on whatever you run the signal through. I'm sure I could make some of those earlier 8 second tas oak sustain tests go all the way past the 20 second mark if used enough gain and compression, but that doesn't mean a guitar built from that plank has naturally good sustain because of the material itself. Nor would it mean that 15.5 seconds of sustain compared to 16 seconds (<4% difference) would translate to a sustain that somehow magnifies into a bigger difference. For all we know if you ran both string samples through the same gainy/compressed signal path the <4% difference would still remain as a <4% difference, just stretched over 30 seconds instead of 16, or even just an absolute difference of 0.5 seconds over 30..

yes, lets insert some math... if we assume just out of my butt my numbers were accurate and give me latitude in that respect... I went from 16ms to 30ms in my pseudo testing with and without gain.  that ratio would be applied to a bigger base so 16x = 30 x 16.5 iow x = 30.9375.  so basically that 1/2 second would become 1 second additional when gain is added (in theory).  again, not a huge difference but still 2x the original difference. 

Is it life changing no.  does anyone ever hold a note for 31 seconds no.  could your difference be totally chalked up to variations in air pressure not accounted for in your testing... sure.  could it be alpha particles... absolutely.  data pixies - perhaps. 

if we consider it an actual "proven difference" would marketing teams drool over it and legitimately mark it up as "our guitar has more sustain than theirs because we make it with tas oak" - without a doubt.  

1 hour ago, S-Doggy said:

Good stuff, thanks. I did use Spray Max 2k over the flake to seal it and it is now really solid...which is good as I have a very secure flake surface. It's all silver (silver base and silver flake) so color loss to some gentle wet sanding will be low risk. What I need is simple very thick applications of clear gloss that I can re-apply many times. The mohair roller vs a brush is a cool thought. Maybe I'll brush first just to fill indentations from flake to flake then...use the mohair roller to get a smoother but thick application,. What I'm struggling with is what gloss product to use.  Stew Mac makes a water based liquid clear gloss in a can/tub that I could roll on...any thoughts on that?  Thanks guys I really appreciate the thinking!!!

 

BTW no paint room or large air vac in my small workshop...alas.

if I had to do again... I would consider using clear grain filler.  it sands much easier and in theory you could just lather it on and then sand it smooth.  I'm not 100% sure this wouldn't leave a visible distinction between the filler and clear coats... but it'd be worth a try.

here's what I know about sparkle... I did a sparkle green finish a few years back - all from rattle cans.  I painted the body green, then put it in a plastic tub.  I dusted it with gloss poly and used a metal shaker to shake out metal flake onto the wet gloss.  the metal flake I used was actually green, and it was pretty decent sized flake (too big for most spray guns).  it took about 7 million cans of clear to cover it.  I found early on that you need to put the gloss on VERY thick... thick enough to bury the metal flake and not burn through when wet sanding.  if you do... you'll sand the green off the metal flake and end up with little silver spots.  I learned this the hard way... because when you clear and you think you have enough - you don't.  your finish is going to be VERY lumpy due to the metal flakes stacked on top of each other.  when I finished it... was about the thickest finish I've ever done and wet sanding it nearly destroyed my elbows!  still hurts thinking about it... that said... it turned out beautiful.  I might have some pics at home - would have to look but either way a quick google search will show lots of tutorials on how to do it this way.

39 minutes ago, curtisa said:

The distinction should be made however that adding amps and effects can artificially inflate the sustain of the string. That's all signal processing, not the inherent character of the instrument.

Using a zoom lens doesn't make the subject in a photo bigger

well of course... it is all signal processing... but I don't know of anyone who plays or records their guitar without some processing.  the point I'm making is that that half of a second - in a real context which undoubtedly is going to have amp gain, mic/pre gain, a compressor, etc... is going to be a much more obvious difference.  In that sense we are zooming in on the difference.

28 minutes ago, Drak said:

With your capabilities becoming seemingly well in-hand now...

I can't wait to see you drop the typical body styles and really push the envelope hard with your own custom designs.

Blow that shit up!

Nicely done Mike, nicely done.

well thank you sir, thank you very much.  

now that you mention it... there's something I sort of want to do that would def push the envelope a bit further without making my own body shape...

to make the radius on top/bottom any more severe... I would need thicker stock.  Currently using 8/4 base and 1/4 top... but have been thinking that somewhere down the line I'll do a strat and make a body blank using 5 degree (or so) edge cuts on the two sides to end up with a v join of 8/4 stock... maybe take the radius as far as it can go.  

that said - my next build is going to be getting back to my 'fish on' bass and then my 'probasis' and after that I see a les paul in my future... but yes... doing my own shape is def on the list somewhere!  so much I want to do and so little time!!

thank you again for the encouragement!!

wow, really coming along nicely.  some lovely wood there and lots of solid woodworking going into it.  bravo.

On 5/23/2021 at 1:09 AM, curtisa said:

I wouldn't go quite that far. The difference in the low-Es is only half a second over 16. That's not a lot really. 0.6sec difference in the high-Es looks more significant, but it also may fall into the 'easily missed' category in a real life situation.

going to have to catch up on this thread but certainly taking it to some interesting heights. 

.6 sec isn't huge... but add a little amp drive/compression and that will expand exponentially.  reminded me of some testing I did a while back -I was interested in making a sampled instrument of guitar- was running through my tube setup and finding the low e would sustain for 30 seconds... reduced the gain to unity and was surprised that it brought it down to 16secs.  this was of course in a room being influenced by speakers but just pointing out the obvious i guess... that .6 seconds might be a bigger difference in the right context.

1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

It's like climbing up a very steep hill.  Feels like such hard work and you don't feel like you are getting anywhere at all.  Then after 30 minutes, you turn round and realise just how much higher you are now.  

Trust me, you are positively jogging up that hill...

 

thank you, I really needed that!  I know I will turn a corner here and start to have something worth looking at... just has been such a long road compared to how I thought it would go.  With the cnc issues, the minutia of the revisiting the design work... and then everything seems to take longer in reality than in my head (duh, why didn't I see that coming!).

5 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

There's some impressive stuff going on here @mistermikev.  I've been a bit distracted the past few months and in that time you seem to have advanced in leaps and bounds.

Love the machined ribbing on that top!

 

well thank you so much!!  feels like I'm running in slow motion but I'm getting there.  thanks again for the reply.

worked my arse off last weekend to re-design my design... and worked very hard this weekend to try to get a completed body.  cnc was running solid from 8:30am yesterday to 8pm, and 8am today till now (6pm). 

I wanted to do another test run b4 moving on to the wood kevin chose... and make any minor tweaks along the way... turning out pretty solid.

so here's my process... cut the f holes and shape of the top, flip, 

cut f hole/toggle/ctrl relief and some bending relief in the back.  modified my process to switch to a ball nose bit for the bending relief as this should make it less likely to crack... and since it will also make it less likely to bend... I put in more lines:

so then rough cutting my body - 4.5hrs!

another two and a half hours to finish cut the top side...

added a middle pickup here because I felt like I wanted more support in the middle there and... who knows - maybe I add a middle pickup somewhere down the line!  actually "my guy" - oat soda pickups... made some special pickups for me to put in my 'prototype run' ie 'one-for-me'... and in the process he wound an extra one because he's super cool.  these are split singles ie two coils each with 3 poles for each coil... I'll already have so many options so haven't decided if I'll use the extra one or save it for another build.

also... put some stickers on my cnc!!

here you can get a reference for the overall thickness of the build... 1 7/8" body blank + 1/4" top should put us at 2.125" overall thickness, while the average thickness will be in the 1.325" neighborhood.

another 3hrs to rough cut the back side...

and 1.5hrs for the finish pass...

then probably a couple hours additional between all the cavities and magnet holes and such...

if you don't look at the endgrain... pretty solid top match:

yes... beat that dead horse mike v... love the back side of that.  really is a nice job.  not to overshadow your top or anything... but the backside is a real standout.  

very nice.  very colorful.  

1 hour ago, Charlie H 72 said:

Ah interesting.. the more I put this together the more I am beginning to realize that this person miscalibrated the machine. Dims were correct before he did it, and he was calibrating to his piece, not to a ruler on the board. So there must have been something off in his file. I’ll have to talk to him. Good point about the bit too, though I was using the same one the whole time, I should triple check that it is 1/4”. I’ll get some shop time on Tuesday and I will report back. Thanks a bunch for the tips. 

idk if it's like mach3... but in mach3 you have an xml profile and If someone else was using the machine and potentially messing with the calib I would make a copy of the config file, name it something new... and load up with my that (own private config file) from there on out.  just a thought.

nat top looks great. def stay with that.  

4 minutes ago, Charlie H 72 said:

It’s still unclear if it was calibrated right across the board. The people that use the CNC at this shop run different programs. Could calibrating it correctly for one software throw off calibration on another?  And if so I will need to check calibration each time I run the machine because there is no way to know who has used it. I’ll check out the ball screws too. I’m wondering if it’s better to just go old school at this point though. I don’t imagine I will be using a CNC all that often in my near future, so this time may be better spent actually putting into this instrument. I’ll give it one more shot and see where it goes. 

i can't speak to how other programs work but I would guess they are similar.  in mach3 when you calibrate it saves that in an xml settings file and loads it as a profile every time you start... so for me... as long as I start the sm profile... it will load the settings I had last changed with it.  I would highly doubt this would have any impact on other systems.... that said - also... you have to remember to hit save after you've calibrated in mach3 or those changes are lost.