Jump to content

erikbojerik

Veteran Member
  • Posts

    3,869
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by erikbojerik

  1. Beware of thinning the neck pocket - pine is not very high on the list for either strength or long-term stability.
  2. You'd better get your hands on the original wiring diagram....the guy could have brought it in for you to buff out some scratches, knowing all along that his electronics don't work. Then he gets the axe back and says "HEY! You screwed up my electronics!!!"
  3. These birdseye Bocote boards are headed out to Federico in Italy - I am fairly sure he is NOT planning on throwing these on a Corvus.... This is some of the coolest Bocote I've ever worked with - I picked up these and some pretty wild-grained planks that I resawed for drop tops from West Penn Hardwoods on a recent jaunt to upstate NY.
  4. Only Honduran (bigleaf) mahogany (also called "Genuine" mahogany) and Caribbean mahogany are currently on the CITES list; that is probably why you won't find them locally (or they will be very expensive). African mahogany and Sapele are fair game for shipping internationally, you might want to think about those if you strike out with Honduran. Limba (also called Korina) is one that has a similar tone to mahogany. But it looks very different.
  5. Levelling is fast - long flat block along the string paths, or a radiused block if you prefer. Crowning is what takes the time - not so much of an issue if you don't mind flat fret tops (see LP Custom...). IMO this really needs to be a hand job, if you go too far with a power tool (like a Dremel) you run the risk of messing up the results of your levelling. Polishing can also be fairly quick - 500-1000-2000-4000 Abralon pads (dry) on a random orbital sander for me. If I really want them to glow, I'll buff them individually with a Dremel buffing wheel (takes maybe an additional 15 minutes).
  6. Simple answer - yes, you're correct. Although personal injury can be a mitigating factor - a guy I built a bass for test-drove it in an unfinished state, and got a nasty splinter from the edge of the wenge fretboard! Spanish cedar is sometimes used for necks in nylon-stringed instruments, especially flamenco guitars. But not steel-string. Cedar is way too soft for a fretboard unless acrylicized a'la Larry Davis.
  7. Great! I love black limba. I would rethink the Tru Oil idea - try it on scrap for sure to see if it floats your boat. When I tried this I was not impressed with the result, it had a tendency to darken the lighter colors a little - muted the overall contrast. I went with a regular old clear coat.
  8. Pretty nice! That's a good idea for the inlay. But I am partial to Mexican cocobolo...
  9. Even if you round it to follow the end of the neck heel, it will be fine.
  10. Peterson now has a $10 version of their great strobe tuner for iPhone and iPod Touch (the latter requires an external mic). http://www.petersontuners.com/index.cfm?category=150 http://www.petersontuners.com/index.cfm?ca...w&itemID=39 It works great!
  11. Yes but it also needs to sit up rather high above the table.
  12. OK - after a trip to NY and post-travel cramming at work, finally a day off to test the 12" bit. The bit's shaft had a bit of a hard time getting into the 1/2" collect of the router in my router table - I had to use a rubber hammer to get it in - admittedly it is the tightest of the three 1/2" router collets I have, and the bit fits into the other two collets no problem, but I have not had this issue arise before. The shaft on this bit is 0.505" while all the other shafts on my 1/2" bits are 0.485 to 0.490 - so that is something to pay attention to when machining the next batch of bits. I used it to mill a bocote fretboard - it cut like a champ, nice smooth cut. Like my other bits, it left a small flat spot down the center ~1cm wide and this gets knocked down by sanding. The radius on the cut board, before sanding down the flat spot, is very close to 12" as the photos show. 10" radius gauge 12" radius gauge showing the high flat spot 14" radius gauge Here is the result after ~5 minutes with a 12" radius sanding block. So it is working quite nicely - just make the shaft at 0.485" and it will be perfect!
  13. Great work as always Doug! Is that a CO2 laser or one of these FIBER lasers? I had a friend try cutting something once out of 0.05" ebony a long time ago, and it failed miserably - maybe the laser was too weak. Is the zombie MOP, or acrylic, or something else?
  14. Looking good - I really like the body shape - but definitely smooth out the carve. It's your guitar, but I personally hate the "flattop plateau" look - it just looks like a bit of unfinished business IMO. You can still keep it flat where the bridge will go but smooth over and blend in the edges of the "plateau".
  15. If you don't have it already, you need a fret slotting hand saw that will make a slot narrow enough to accept the fretwire. That is required. You can use it with a paper template and mark the board with a razor blade. StewMac also sells a fret slotting box with a pin in it that registers to the template - that is not required, but makes the template much more easy to use. If you don't use this, then the template has almost no value, it is designed to work with the slotting box. I suppose you've already thought of this, but - if you buy a pre-slotted board it will be cheaper than the cost of the saw, template and slotting box. You only need the slotting tools if you're planning to slot more than a few boards.
  16. VERY nice! What are you using for the black accent line?
  17. Even with your printer set at 100% ALL printers throw the scale off a bit - but it is a systematic error, the same on all frets. You just need to measure the printed page and tweek your printer zoom accordingly.
  18. The nearest 1/32 will not be accurate enough - 1/64th is more than half the width of your slot, it might be OK but you can do better than that with the StewMac template. With Fret Find, print out your paper template using the very thinnest line your drawing program will allow - it should be no wider than your saw kerf (~0.023"). Then either cut to eliminate the line, or score your lines onto the board with a razor blade using a flexible metal machinists ruler as a straightedge, then cut it using a wood block as a fence.
  19. LOVE the finish and LOVE the black humbucker covers - and I'd love to know where to source those! It was worth the wait. That thing has "win" all over it.
  20. You want to convert these to fractional inches - it is not easy - and I'm not sure you want to do it, because to get the fret slots as accurate as possible, you would need so many graduations on your ruler that you could hardly see them all, let alone count them. Example - fractional inches on a ruler are in x/4 or x/8 or x/16 or x/32 or x/64 - so for 1.403" you would take the decimal part of it (.403) and multiply by 4-8-16-32-64 until you get a whole number: .403 * 4 = 1.612 so you get a fraction which is 1 & 1.612/4ths (nope) .403 * 8 = 3.224 (nope) .403 * 16 = 6.448 (nope) .403 * 32 = 12.896 (close, but is 1-13/32nds really close enough for fret work? nope) .403 * 64 = 25.792 (nope, and your ruler probably doesn't read 64ths anyway...) Fret Find will allow you to print these out on a paper template that you can use for slotting - Fret Find Even easier is to purchase a StewMac slotting template in 25" scale and use it!
  21. I don't know what other folks do, but when I use a purchased 1/4" template I will always use it to make a working template out of 1/2" or 3/4" MDF and save the original as a master. That way if I accidentally cut into the working template or damage it somehow, I don't bugger my only template. I can always make another one. Yeah that little edge problem is the reason I use 1/2" or thicker for working templates.
  22. Maybe because you already know the answer.....????
  23. Yeah, and they would all be like "Why the heck would you want to do that anyway?!?!"
  24. Sorry guys - I've been out of town, just back for a day, and out of town again tomorrow until next week. But I did receive the bit last week, and I put a micrometer on it this morning. Hopefully I'll have a chance to radius some wood this evening. The bit looks well made; the carbide is sharp and the edge is smooth. The brazing to attach the carbide to the steel shaft is quite a bit cleaner than my other bits which show some small gaps. The top bearing is a regular 1/2" bearing, the measured diameter is 0.512" which is standard spec for these bearings. Like my other bits, it can be removed and replaced if it ever wears out. The diameter of the cutter just under the bearing is 0.494" so a little smaller than the bearing. The depth of cut is a little over 2" so you can do a 4" wide board no problem. The diameter of the bit at the 2" cut depth is 0.79" - with the measured top diameter, this measurement should be 0.846" (0.494" + 2*0.176") for a 12" radius. So the bit is a little flatter than 12" - when I CAD it out, my measurements suggest a radius of 14.3" - but when I hold the cutting edge up to 12" and 14" radii printed from CAD, it looks like the radius is just fine at 12". So it could be that the bottoms of the cutters themselves are ever so slightly tilted out of parallel toward the center of the shaft. At the 2" cut depth, it doesn't take much to be off by a few hundredths and there is a big error magnification on the radius - in this example, if both of the cutters are off perpendicular by 0.028" that translates into a difference of 2.3" on the effective radius - an error magnification of almost 100. It is not an easy job - if you mill the radius on the carbide cutters before you attach them to the shaft, then you need a very accurate jig to weld them on straight and parallel to the shaft, and have both cutters the same distance from the center of the shaft (to within a few thousands of an inch). It is far more accurate to attach the cutters first, true them up, then mill the radius, bevel and sharpen. My original bits are a bit better than this (±0.3" on the radius) but even still, they do leave the usual tool marks on the board that require some touch-up with a radius block - and it would not take much at that point to knock the radius down from 14" to 12". I'll try to mill some wood this evening and evaluate the bit "in action".
  25. I do think that has been done - but I can't put my finger on who it was that's done it. By bending the spruce (or whatever) top, you will have to shape braces underneath accordingly, and it will certainly affect the response of the top to the strings. But like anything on an acoustic, I'm sure it can be tuned to get the most out of it soundwise. Lots of guys do what's called an "armrest bevel" - search Google images - basically a shaped bit of wood underneath the top, and against the sides, to knock down the edge where your forearm sits.
×
×
  • Create New...