Prostheta

Thanks for the info erik. I've been looking at extraction/collection because I hate sweeping and vacuuming. I'm not 100% sure whether my table saw has facility for collection, but given that it throws dust a million miles an hour in all directions I think I'd be better off investing in a deep sea diving suit for that one. Dust collection is high on the list of priorities given that most (all?) woods are sensitisers and rattle your lungs up a treat after a while. I'm fully loving that oscillating belt/bobbin sander....I'm going to see if anyone can supply those in the UK....thanks man!! guitarchump: I think the way to go with thicknessers is to classify them for their usage. Planer thicknessers are what I'd call "coarse" in that you're not looking for achieving the cosmetic look, more of a "predictable workable state" closer to your spec, from which you're ready to work towards the finished look. Sander thicknessers seem to be more "fine" in that you could pop a body through and you'd be happy to leave the result you get as say, the back of your guitar. I wouldn't trust the high speed knifing machines within a couple of mm of the finished thickness just in case fate strikes! Cheapest "known" brand A bit on the pricey side considering planer thicknessers rattle in at 1/2 or 2/3 of the price. If it would obviate the need for a planer thicknesser then this would be super awesome. The maximum sanding capability is 25cm (9-15/16") on single pass, and double that if you reverse the piece. So it's entirely possible to do an entire glued up 2/3 piece body on this baby. Best I've found for guitar work! This would rock severely, but I'd consider this commercial, or a lottery win toy! Heh - I can only imagine the look of horror and fascination on my good friendly guitar tech's face when I run a blank through this. He already thinks I'm crazy considering the things I've achieved through "just getting down and doing it". Ah ah ah ah! I'll look at my budget on this one. I don't think I could trust the capability and "coarseness" of planer thicknessers to say, planing wood down to <5mm for neck laminates. How do people usually manufacture these, and what tooling is used? The two sources of wood I'm looking at right now are David Dyke's and North Heigham sawmills. I guess David Dyke would sell wood close to spec which would require minimal planer thicknessing, although I like the idea of going to a sawmill and picking up fair to decent instrument grade wood in large quantities with a trolley. Being well out of ideal spec, sawmill wood will need plenty of cutting and planing, but is a sander thicknesser a sufficient tool for this? The Tim Allen-ness of a sander thicknesser is playing on my mind now though. Goddamnit!! Apologies for the length and possible contradictory posts. I tend to thoughtstream a lot because I believe projects are 90% planning and 1% work and 9% beer. Mathematically this works well in time saved, unless you double the beer ratio and introduce a 40% error factor and double the work. This becomes 18% beer, 2% work, 40% mistakes and 40% planning. That said, the beer reduces the efficacy of planning by 50%. The fine line is there! To sum up (for those who would best skip to the ends of my posts of course): - Will a sander thicknesser obviate the need for a planer thicknesser, given that I may be using rougher spec wood? - Can planer thicknessers be trusted to finish wood thin enough for neck laminates in purpleheart/ebony/bloodwood/maple? (~4mm or ~5/32") - Would I be best buying my wood from a luthier supply like David Dyke or buying rougher bulk from a sawmill that deals with instrument grade? - Will having too much heavy grade machinery devalue the tangible pride and mojo in the resulting instrument? - What are next weeks lottery numbers? Whoever answers this for me can have that big-ass industrial sander as a gift.

Thanks dude - I can see my English sarcasm went a little astray (over there --->.) on the fret press thing ;-) I think I can live without the safety net once the bobbin sander is here! Ben: I better think about the signature then in that case! Goddamnit. At least I'm not selling anything *bwah*.

To a degree I guess. Electrons flow on the outside of a conductor, so a heavier multistrand might be cool but you won't see the results. The internal electronics of a guitar don't carry high voltages or high currents to warrant an upgrade in gauge. It's like considering that you're talking the equivalent of a small car driving down an empty four lane motorway at *low* speeds, there's no point in looking at more lanes if you get my meaning. If anything - better screened cable might reduce your noise but heavier gauge will just be a bigger pain to work with. Oh sorry, I meant "no". Dude! I have a full *one* more post than you!! Woo me!!

Dude - my wife is Finnish, and speaks Swedish, German and to a degree most other Scandinavian languages. If you require proofing on your site, please PM me (us).

SONAR in conjunction with a Yamaha 01x mLAN desk, although this is in storage at the moment.

Difficult unless you can find something that will promote any bad intercoat adhesion and cause seperation. Perhaps a very ginger (sorry ginger people) approach with a heat gun to seperate the layers? Chemical strippers are the paint equivalent of the acid that the facehugger in "Alien" pees out of it's knuckle, and eats through several decks.

I agree totally. I don't want to overspend on the tooling as it tends to be cool to have that fret-dressing-spoon-monkey-lacquer-handkerchief™ thing, but half the time these things never serve their purpose and get sidelined. Effort and thought vs. overtooling I reckon. I get the impression I'll spend a helload on new router bits when they start to tear out, yeah? I guess I'll have to bite the bullet on that one. Two routers are better than one I guess. I have a particularly anaemic scroll saw which I've decided to keep purely for shaping covers and inlays. Not enough power or tension in the blade to saw anything thicker than those! The bandsaw is definitely on the buy-list. I'm dead set on the drill press also. Too many opportunities to screw things up else! That and the fret press caul from Stewmac looks like a good investment in combination with a drill press! How DO you press frets in when the caul is spinning between 200 to 2500rpm, I don't know! I presume you select a LOW speed eh? The Robosander attachment from Stewmac also looks a total investment, although I think the bobbin sander might make this redundant. Worth it's weight in gold IMO. Unless you really wanted to trade it's weight in for gold just to buy more sanders! This is the scary bit however. I've never been one for the patience to hunt for *that* tool. Maybe I should consider a tidier, more organised setup before installing the clutter! Oh, I forgot to adjust my signature somewhat....ah, that's better! I was wondering where to get a huge radius roundover bit similar to the one David Myka uses to rough out neck radii. It has to be a 1/2" shank purely on the basis that my router is 1/4" of course. Life is like that.

Thanks again Ben. My workshop is a single garage (although "single garage" to most non-UK people means 100sq yd with lighting, power and air con!! heh) with a solid wooden fire door sat on two sawhorses. Good bench. I'd kit the place out further, but making guitars is a short term project for me until I work the place into a small home studio. Either that or we move into a house with both :-) I suppose I could burn as much as is burnable on hundreds of specific tools, but I'd rather get the few tools that teach you what you're doing, and buy good ones at that. I couldn't say I created anything if I CNCed it for instance (despite working CAD as a dayjob!). Everyone hold you spokeshaves in the air and cheer!! It's like the thicknesser for example. I could buy a combination planer/thicknesser (at higher cost of course) which would allow me to plane the glue edges of bodies as well as thickness, but hell! I can set up a router to do that at the cost of a few screws, a chunk of wood and a couple of router bits! So, to expand on the "what was your starter shop tool setup" question - what was your best made purchase? I've got to say, it was the binding cutter and roundover bits :-)

The table saw isn't anything spectacular (apart from it was free I guess) but it went through 2" African mahogany really well. Not exactly a precision instrument of course! When it comes to rough cutting lumber, it's pretty spot on. It's a bit disturbing to see a 3mm wide kerf appearing as you cut though. You start seeing money fly past your face at that point. Would I be right in thinking that a bandsaw would pretty much obviate the usefulness of a table saw? Hell, all it does is cut things in half really! edit: This looks like a good deal on a free-standing bandsaw to me....

Thanks Ben. I've been getting myself up to speed on a cheap piece of mahogany I bought in Market Harborough. I thought of trying a piece of general scrap, but I wanted to gauge tearout and workability on "real" woods when routing. I think a good rasp would be an investment for sure, but the bobbin sander seems an oft-undermentioned tool which I think would be an awesome bit of kit. People's comments on using angle grinders for carving are so totally true. Despite me using a stone cutting wheel (yes, I need a flap disc!) I've made a really spot on tummy cut in the LP doublecut body I made in the mahogany. I think my first "real" project would be a copy of my old ESP Mirage. I miss that baby. Not a difficult project either apart from the top carve - have-angle-grinder, will-achieve etc! What was everyone else's "starter shop"?

Hi all! I'm new to the board as a member, but I've been doing my research and reading like a good boy Basically, I have floorspace in a converted garage which I'm making use of as a guitar shop. My current tooling short of the obvious hand power drills, screwdrivers etc. are: - Bosch router (1/4" shank) - 10" table saw - Sheet sander - Dremel - Angle grinder - Spokeshave I'm considering the following tools to complement these: - Reciprocating bobbin sander - Thicknesser, possibly a combination with planer - Bandsaw I've decided to take the full hands on approach and build necks. I couldn't say "yeah, I made that" if I used a Stewmac thru neck eh? Forgive the links here, but these are the tools I'm considering. I'm not wanting to spend *too* much money on the tooling but I don't want to waste money on tools that won't give me the results I expect of course. BOBBIN SANDER Great! 14-1/2" x 10-1/2" (37cm x 27cm) platen which makes me happy. I presume that having at least half of the guitar body on the platen at any one time should make for some kickass perpendicular sanded edges eh? The vertical travel and usable height is more than enough for say, 2" (5cm) thick bodies. DeWalt DW734 thicknesser Maximum width capacity 12-1/2" (~31.5cm) which in my mind is too small for thicknessing 1-piece body blanks, or 2/3 piece made blanks. I measured one of my EXPs, and they pop in about 19" (~48cm) which is wayloads. That said, good quality equipment or so I'm lead to believe. The alternative would be a cheaper model such as: Clarke CPT250 thicknesser Cheaper (trans. affordable) tool, with a width capacity of 10" (25cm). I perceive my working process on say, a 2-piece body to be: 1 - get wood (heh) 2 - roughly cut body blank pieces to size left and right 3 - quick couple of runs through the thicknesser to bring the most out-of-line side into line with the "best" side 4 - hand sand newly planed face level checking with straightedge 5 - re-thickness boards with levelled edge downfacing 6 - plane glue edge using router table to create 1" straightedge a few mm into sideface, flip over and use flush trim router to complete entire sideface 7 - use bobbin sander with HomeMadeStraightEdgeGuide™ to finish glue edge 8 - glue, clamp etc. The neck is where it gets interesting. I intend on making a couple of basses (prob. more if I get into it) but to strengthen the necks with a couple of carbon rods (no-brainer router work, yawn) and with differing wood laminates. I love Jeff Miller's PRS/Variax project in that the neck has two lovely bloodwood stripes. Now, given that say I can't acquire the wood for those stripes ready cut - can thicknessers handle wood that thin and achieve good results? As a rough calc in my head, each piece of bloodwood would have to be circa 31-1/2" x 3/16" x 2-3/8" (800mm x 5mm x 60mm). How would it be best to achieve this short of paying someone else to do it? The table saw I have isn't delicate enough to reliably leave a 1cm thick piece of wood, and it sounds awesomely wasteful if I leave it thicker, and let the thicknesser take away the rest. I presume a bandsaw would come in nicely here.... At this point it may be worth taking a breather from my constant train of thought here also Back to the show. I like David Myka's idea for rough shaping neck contours. It makes the process less mystifying and more manageable for the beginner. It does however point out that a 1/4" shank router doesn't get all the awesome toys 1/2" shank routers get. For shame! Would I be best investing in a second 1/2" router? Bit of a bite here considering I already have one. Would I get the mileage out of it? Clamps! There are SO many clamps available, but what would make a good usable selection? From the photos I've seen of luthiers laminating maple to bodies, etc. it seems everyone has a million of them. Shame I can't (well, "don't want to have to") afford a million, so what would be the best quantity and number of clamps to invest in? The tasks I perceive to be using them for are for laminate necks and laminate tops - these seem to bring out the biggest clamp monster in luthiers! THIS STORE have pretty good prices and are local to me, so price stands against shipping otherwise I'd love a million clamps from Stewmac! Oh yes -> On the topic of Stewmac - I've looked at the fretting tools and supplies, but baulked at the prices as I have to consider shipping and import on this deal. I've read arguments for and against hand-hammering frets versus fret presses. I am tempted by the Stewmac fret press caul as it's not too much of a hit and looks like a confident tool. Any comments? I think I'll leave it here else I'll spend the rest of the afternoon talking and not achieving anything "in the real world" Must try and get my arse down to Norwich and go shopping for wood. PS. Any UK members from around the Lincolnshire area?