fyb

I have a crappy Black and Decker plunge router and I'm noticing a more wobble than I'd like so it's time to upgrade. I did like the variable speed and soft start features though. In my search for a new router, it seems alot of people like the Porter Cable 9690LR ( link ) if you believe web reviews The plus side too is I can pick this up at Home Depot where I work (unfortunately!) How would something like this be for guitar building? Will the single speed be an issue? The biggest bit I'll probably ever be using in a 1/2" or 5/8" radius roundover, but I'd like to use 1/2" shank template bits too. Also, how jerky will it feel w/out soft start? Is that too big of a deal do you think?

I know that router stuff has been covered alot but I can't quite find all my answers with the search. I appreciate the help folks!

I searched and couldn't find what I needed so I thought I'd ask. Does anyone have the specs handy for a standard tele control route? Length, width and depth needed! Thanks folks!

Edit: I was just able to track 'em down! Thanks anyways!

This company sells heat blankets-click

That link is to a blanket that should be large enough to do an arm rest(you can get the blankets in many sizes, and you would want to confirm what would work best for you). That blanket would run $25. How much value would you find in having a tool that can do the job with good control, and less risk to your tops? People often look at the price of damaging one set of acoustic sides, as enough insentive to purchase a heating blanket. I use expensive sides so I bought two . There is truth in what they say though.

An iron has a rigid flat heating surface. It is not going to be large enough to heat the area without moving it around. You may be able to make it work, but it will not be as reliable or straight forward as a heating blanket. You really have to figure out what you think is best for your situation.

Peace,Rich

How would you go about using the blankets though? Do you try to bend the top before you glue it on? Or do you glue the flat area then heat the curved part at the contour? Should you moisten the top or the bottom of the piece you're trying to bend?

You would use a heat blanket the same way you would any other heat source. Persaonally, I would clamp the top down to the body, place a moist piece of craft paper(you can soak the craft paper or just spritz it with water, depending on how much water you choose to use) under the blanket, turn the blanket on and monitor the temp. As it aproaches bending temp (you should start to see the steam rising as it is getting closer), leaving the blanket in place I would place a semi-firm board (maybe 1/4" ply) over the blanket, then lightly lightly press on the top to see if it has become flexable. If the wood is 1/8" thick the weight of the blanket and ply will actually start to make the wood bend(it will become that flexable). If it is 1/4" it would be a good idea to cycle the blanket several times to bring the temp up throughout the thicker piece, when it is ready it will bend with little force applied. After you have the wood bent as needed, lightly clamp it in place (it is best to clamp from the inner part of the body and work your way to the outer edge (to get a good match of surfaces). Allow the wood/heat heat blanket and all to remain clamped(again lightly is fine) overnight. After it has cooled it will hold the new shape and you will be able to glue the top to the body as normal, if there is slight springback on the bent part you can go ahead and glue and clamp it (the springback should not require much clamping force to overrcome).

Peace,Rich

Thanks Rich I have all these I ideas I want to do with that walnut and a drop top strat is looking pretty tempting! How easy do you think the walnut will be to bend?

This company sells heat blankets-click

That link is to a blanket that should be large enough to do an arm rest(you can get the blankets in many sizes, and you would want to confirm what would work best for you). That blanket would run $25. How much value would you find in having a tool that can do the job with good control, and less risk to your tops? People often look at the price of damaging one set of acoustic sides, as enough insentive to purchase a heating blanket. I use expensive sides so I bought two . There is truth in what they say though.

An iron has a rigid flat heating surface. It is not going to be large enough to heat the area without moving it around. You may be able to make it work, but it will not be as reliable or straight forward as a heating blanket. You really have to figure out what you think is best for your situation.

Peace,Rich

How would you go about using the blankets though? Do you try to bend the top before you glue it on? Or do you glue the flat area then heat the curved part at the contour? Should you moisten the top or the bottom of the piece you're trying to bend?

You can get 6" jointers for $200ish, but it's usually a pretty big step to hit 8" and they become very heavy and cumbersome. If you want to joint halves for solidbodies though, a 6" won't cut it. Harbor Freight has a 7" jointer for $259. Do you think something like this is worth the investment? Have any of you had any experience with these?

Personally I would save my dollars or look at Craigs list or some of the woodworking forums and buy a used Jet 6" or delta 6" for the same price as the HB.

Just my .02cents

mk

But my whole issue was being able to do 6 1/2"-7" for body blanks. You can get some nice 6" jointers for reasonable prices, but the 8" get pricey.

You can get 6" jointers for $200ish, but it's usually a pretty big step to hit 8" and they become very heavy and cumbersome. If you want to joint halves for solidbodies though, a 6" won't cut it. Harbor Freight has a 7" jointer for $259. Do you think something like this is worth the investment? Have any of you had any experience with these?

These may seem like simple questions but I've never tried binding so please bear with me Does the plastic readily bend to tighter contours or do you have to coax it somehow? Does it sand easily or do you need to scrape it? Can you trim it with a flush trim bit instead? You should use superglue to bond it, right? Will oil finishes work over the binding (if you're doing the whole body in an oil finish)?

Thanks!

What is the difference in thickness across the piece? If I remember you were having it sawn around .125-.195", how many thousandths is it off? As long as it is reasonably close you can clean it up easily with a drum sander(1/4" to 1/8" would be more of a challenge). The warp is no big deal when the wood is that thin, and most likely will be fine if you weight and sticker it as soon as you expose it to your humidity. This is how ANY wood should be treated when you first recieve it, and you should allow enough time for the wood to fully aclimate to your humidity (Time will vary with thickness). Curling like that has nothing to do with the re-sawing.

I was just hoping that with their resawing ability that they claimed to have, all 6 pieces would be roughly the same thickness. I don't have calipers, but on the piece in the pic the right side is roughly 2/3 the thickness of the left and there's quite a bit of variation in the six pieces. I'm going to get some decent calipers this weekend, so I can get up some better specs. I may have just been expecting too much cause I've been used to buying pieces from StewMac and I've had very good luck there. The figure in these pieces is gorgeous so it's worth it (I hope!)

Thanks for the help guys!

I ordered some walnut on ebay and I had the seller resaw it into 3 sets for electric drop tops. Here was a thread I made about the wood in question. Well, I got it today and it has some curve to it and the pieces aren't uniformly thick I guess I was expecting alot cause they claimed they had real specialized resaw. Well, I was wondering what I should do now. Can you stick these pieces into a drum sander like this? Can I just glue them onto my body blank and then sand? Is the curve more than some real good clamping and Titebond can handle???

Help!

Good pic of the curly figure

What kind of sanding attachment did he have on that drill (the large almost bowl shaped one) ? That could come in real handy!

Hey all! I snagged this on ebay and as long as the pics don't lie I think I'm in love

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=180155012898

The seller said he has the 16" Grizzly resaw so accurate cuts shouldn't be a problem, but he can't thickness sand them for me. The board measures 1 3/8" thick so how many bookmatched sets do you think I can get out of it, allowing for some sanding afterwards? I'm thinking of using them for drop tops so they don't have to be much thicker that 1/8"+ but I don't know much about resawing and what you need to allow for sanding.

I was hoping to make a semi-hollow guitar with the walnut for the front and back, and if I could get some more I'd make a twin but with some different specs or maybe even a bass.

Thanks for the help guys!

I met the guys from JX3 at a woodworkers show a couple years ago. Nice fellas, and are pretty close to were I live in Oregon. They were using a nice smooth low loss blade as I remember(unsurfaced resaw cuts were pretty smooth, and they were pretty proud of the results). If you go really thin you have to be sure the cuts are really accurate (no wandering). You are going to have to ask them what the kerf of their blade is and how close they are willing to cut(they are taking a risk when they cut close). Getting a couple acoustic back sets out of a 1-3/8" piece of wood is not too difficult at all. If the wood is straight and ready to evenly cut at 1-3/8", you could get two 1/4" sets if the cutting accurate(you need to make three cuts and you would have 1/8" for the kerf of each cut(most blades don't need that much kerf)). How much you have to allow for clean up will totally depend on how straight they cut and how smooth the cut is(straightness is the big variable).

Peace,Rich

They say I can get 3 sets @ about .17" They don't think it'll be a problem ... think I'll be OK? They say they have the Grizzly 16" horizontal resaw which is a $16K machine, so I'm hoping for the best! They'll be drop tops more than likely so I'm should make out OK. All told, not too shabby for $100 I hope.

Hey all! I snagged this on ebay and as long as the pics don't lie I think I'm in love

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=180155012898

The seller said he has the 16" Grizzly resaw so accurate cuts shouldn't be a problem, but he can't thickness sand them for me. The board measures 1 3/8" thick so how many bookmatched sets do you think I can get out of it, allowing for some sanding afterwards? I'm thinking of using them for drop tops so they don't have to be much thicker that 1/8"+ but I don't know much about resawing and what you need to allow for sanding.

I was hoping to make a semi-hollow guitar with the walnut for the front and back, and if I could get some more I'd make a twin but with some different specs or maybe even a bass.

Thanks for the help guys!

I found a few nice pieces of curly French walnut that I want to use as a top and back for a semi-hollow. How does French walnut compare to the walnut we typically find here in the US? Also for clarification, when you go to the mill and buy something just labelled 'walnut', what type is it usually? Thanks for the help!!

Do you think it's a bad idea to do a laminated bolt-on neck? Would the screws hitting a glue joint cause an issue do you think? Thanks for the input!

na, ibanez has a bunch of necks like that. check out this one here on the main site:

http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/neck.htm

Cool

Do you think it's a bad idea to do a laminated bolt-on neck? Would the screws hitting a glue joint cause an issue do you think? Thanks for the input!

but I just need something pretty basic to do a few necks. Thanks!

How about this?. I used spokeshaves for my first few necks and I loved the feel once the spokeshave was set up properly. However, in the time it takes to tune up a spokeshave, you could have carved several necks with a microplane. Those in the link are a 8" - I use a 12" double handled one for neck carving. I still like the spokeshaves but love the microplanes.

I'm gonna check these out! Thanks!

When scarf jointing, you need to make sure your pieces are jointed and squared off so you don't have two different angles when gluing them together. It will still produce a strong joint, it's just a bit crooked. I did this before when testing a neck jig and didn't square the headstock piece off. What method did you use to scarf the headstock and neck?

I rough cut the angle on the laminated part with my bandsaw and then flattened it on my jointer. I glue the headstock on without cutting the angle first, and then cut off the excess from the headstock and jointed it until it was flush with the rest if the neck. The best thing in the future I think is to make a jig like I saw on your website Jon, but I'm stuck now

I don't know a safe and fast way to fix this because you'd risk making the blank too short if you use a jointer.

Your headstock is tilted to the side a little. I'd use a very flat, longish sanding block to sand the far side in the picture, the high side, until it almost lines up with the near one, then flatten the entire surface by sanding diagonally and across the headstock. But maybe someone else has a simpler method.

Todd

The headstock did move a bit as I was clamping, but I didn't think it'd be that big of a deal since it's going to get trimmed up.

The neck I'm working on is made of maple and sapele laminates and a scarfed sapele headstock. My neck blank is nice and square, and I could have sworn my cut for the scarf was too, but after I glued the headstock on and jointed it smooth I found that the break right where the nut will meet is angled maybe 10 degrees!

Here are the pics ...

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/3320/head2cb9.jpg

The fretboard you see there is a StewMac Fender style one and I planned on hacking off the nut slot area and use a Gibson style nut with the angled headstock.

What can I do in this situation?? The headstock is already 9/16" thick and the neck blank really can't get much thinner or it won't work in the body I built. I don't know how to square up this edge so it looks decent. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

I have one of those 10" Craftsmen. Although it has its flaws, it can be setup to do a decent job.

On mine, it cut great out of the box, but eventually ended up much like you describe.

It quit cutting strait and had a guide bearing freeze.

After a new blade, bearing, and learning how to setup and care for it, it is back making very good cuts.

I got the replacement bearings from this Ebay seller http://stores.ebay.com/VXB-Bearings-Skateboard-and-Slotcar

The size is 6 x 19 mm http://cgi.ebay.com/20-Bearing-Lot-626-ZZ-...oQQcmdZViewItem

Thanks!!!

Hey all! I'm wondering if you think you can get a decent semi-hollow tone out of a strat or tele sized guitar. 335's are made of maple with a center block, right? Could I use a maple body blank and hollow most of it out and get close? Or will this be too bright? Any opinions would be helpful

Sounds good Rich. Thanks! :D

Is your blade tensioned properly? Are all the ball bearings locked in place and adjusted to where they should be?

I haven't touched the tension, but I've been using the saw for light jobs for a few months now. Where would there be ball bearings? I've got roller guides. I don't know how adjustable they are though.

I have this band saw and it's worked OK for most things I've thrown at it, but lately I just can't get it to cut straight at all. Even when you feed the stock very slowly and very straight, the blade veers off to the right and binds. What could be causing this? I don't know how adjustable these things are. What should i look for? Thanks!