Brian Boedigheimer BBmade
Forum Replies Created
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Thank you. If you think of the stuff they used at Taylor let me know. I am actually asking this for a friend that sent me a message today. It may have been vinegar that I heard about. It had to have been on a Looth Group stream.
Thanks!
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Wow this is great, thank you for sharing.
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Thanks everyone. The customer is going to take it and try it. The sensor in the D/g is really close to the pin hole. They sound louder than the rest of the strings. The outside sensors look pretty good in terms of location but the low E still sounds a little anemic.
The customer is going to pick it up and try it now that there’s a new saddle. If he doesn’t like, it I’ll let him know about possible replacement sensors or pickup alternatives. LR Baggs has a new one that looks promising.
He spent a lot of money on this guitar used, and now a fair amount on repair work. The store really didn’t do right by him when he pointed out the issues but, considering that particular place, I’m not surprised.
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You will need a adjust the infeed roller in reference to the new cutter head. I’ve made the adjustment on a Jet planer years ago. There is a reference piece of wood you need to make so it sits on the table and you your raise it up until it touches the cutter and then compare it to the infeed roller. If I can find the reference piece at work I’ll snap a picture but, you should be able to find what you need online.
There are also adjustments to the bed rollers that can be made with a straight edge.
If memory serves me, it’s all explained in the manual which you can probably find online as a PDF if you don’t have it.
Takes some time to dial in but once you do, it will be sweet.
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Everyone replying has some great feedback. I too would be very wary of getting into a shop without crystal clear expectations and, make sure the agreement is in writing including options to change the agreement.
If you give them a percentage, that should only be on business they send to you. When they ask you to repair store inventory, are they going to pay your price minus their percentage? Anything left up for discussion when you get into the actual space can quickly become sources of frustration and confusion.
I would opt for rent with no percentage personally, otherwise 10% and $200 a month, but the percentage would only be on work they send my way.
The people that come directly to you could also benefit the store buying things that you don’t want to stock.
That brings up parts and materials you stock versus what they stock. If they don’t have it, will they order it so they make the profit? Are you sitting down to figure out the specific item they need to order and making nothing?
Doing favors, making deals with friends can turn sour quick. It is easy to get excited by the possibilities and figure things will just work, but they often don’t.
I’d rather pay the rent, charge what I charge, and keep the books clean and simple.
My experience with music stores has not been great. There have been some really sketchy characters I’ve done work for, and a couple good ones. I would NEVER give a music store a cut of anything at this point, and I would not discount my work for their inventory either.
Time is the one commodity we never get back, and we are paid for not only our time, but also our knowledge and experience. Imagine giving away 20% of your time, it might change the perspective.
1,440 minutes in a day. What percentage of those minutes are you willing to let someone take from you?
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Thank you! Yes this stuff is a sticky mess and does not come off easily. It did as close to nothing on the pickguard material but doesn’t want to come off the top. I got the pickguard off the guitar in about 30 seconds and thought, this is too easy the next part will probably suck and…it does.
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I’ve diluted titebond with distilled water to fix things like this. Press carefully to open the crack, apply the glue, then pat the glue down into the crack with my finger.. Push the crack shut and open a few times to help spread the glue and repeat.
Other people I know have used suction cups to pump the glue down into the cracks.
I’ve also known of people taking the rubber piece off the syringe and flipping it around to create a suction cup for pushing glue down in.
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Update:
Yes indeed, adhesive holding pickguard to the lacquer. The pickguard material came right off and the underside is perfectly shiny. The adhesive failed on the pickguard but not the lacquer of the top. It’s a sticky mess removing it.
I think once all the adhesive is cleaned off I’ll abrade the lacquer on the top with something like 800 grit to give it one consistent sheen and level out some scraper marks. Then I plan to abrade the underside of the pickguard as well so the new adhesive film will keep the pickguard in place for the long haul.
That is the plan thus far. A very sticky, tedious cleaning that I’m about 75% done with.
This photo shows the situation immediately after the pickguard came off.
I welcome any insights as always.
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Very nice, thanks for sharing. I’ll have to do something like that for mine soon.
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You could measure the middle pickup with a meter set to ohms to make sure there’s a reading. If so check the next connection at the switch. Does that connection look good? If you tap the lug of the switch do you get noise at the output jack? If the positive connection at the switch happens to be touching the frame of the switch it could be shorting.
I have an online guitar electronics course, geared for new looths or anyone that does electronics as a “paint by numbers” approach, but would like to have a better understanding.
The course starts in our fall semester (third week of August and runs through early December).
Not trying to sell anything here, it’s part of our diploma program in Red Wing.
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It will depends on what you want to use for color. I’ve done this type of finish by dying the bare wood the main color I want for the guitar then applying a sealer and one light topcoat. Then I apply a dark paste wood filler, usually oil based or alkyd resin filler because it has a longer working time compared to water base fillers. I remove as much excess as I can by letting the filler flash, then using a squeegee and letting it flash a little longer. Then I use burlap to remove the haze of filler left behind. After it dries over night I lightly and carefully sand any remaining filler with 320 grit. One wrong move and you are through the thin topcoat and sealer and removing color. It is not easy and a person needs to be comfortable with a touch up brush.
An easier way is to seal, scuff and seal then apply a paste wood filler without using burlap. Sand the remaining filler the next day and reseal the guitar. When that dries, if the surface is nice and smooth, spray color on. Clear coat and finish the finish. The differences between the two techniques are subtle. Applying color to ribbon mahogany can look deeper when you apply to bare wood but I don’t know if it’s worth the pucker inducing process.
When I do filler before color I make the filler black. That looks pretty terrible on mahogany until you do the color. Then it looks amazing.
All of this for me is done with nitro lacquer.
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If it is poly, it isn’t blushing. It’s delaminating. It has something to do with the styrene’s if I remember right but I’m no chemist.
Buffing won’t do anything to fix it and neither will solvents. I had a conversation about this with a chemist at Axon-Henzen 15 years ago because it always bothered me seeing it in a poly and suspecting it couldn’t be blushing and therefore can’t really be fixed short of stripping and refinishing.
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2K can be a great product. It sprays a lot like lacquer but because it’s catalyzed it’s more durable and more flexible.
Pay attention to flash time, re-coat windows, which solvents for thinning etc. don’t ignore the product data instructions and information.
What size nozzle is your spray gun? That can help as well as paying close attention to how far your gun is off the surface and your air pressure. Too close and/or too much air will trap a galaxy of tiny bubbles in the finish you might not see until you sand.
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I’ve had several different kinds. The vaporizers work well but if you have hard water they leave a fine mist of white powder over everything. Subtle but I found it annoying. I also had problems with the unit not turning off and there was moisture all over everything.
I switched to this one, typical evaporative with paper wick inserts. My shop is around 600 square feet and it’s rated as a whole house humidifier. I suggest getting one rated for more square footage and as much water capacity as is reasonable for the space.
In the midwest, when it’s 10 degrees outside and the shop is 68 degrees, I’ll go through 5 gallons per day. The shop space is well insulated and has vapor barrier but it gets cold and dry outside. Gas heater dries things out.
All said though, my shop stays 40-45% with this one humidifier.
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I’ve never used Fusion 360 but, see if there is a way to change the radius on each end of the control curve you are trying to fillet. In Rhino there are handles that allow you to change the radius one each end or add handles to have multiple radii along a curve.
They can be finicky at the beginning or end depending on the radius entered.
Not sure if any of that relates to Fusion or not. It would be very interesting to hear how to solved the issue or what other people suggest. Customizing the radius of a fillet in this situation sounds easier than a Boolean nut that could certainly work too.
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That all makes sense thank you. I will give that a try.
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I haven’t used an automatic traverse but I’ve been in your shoes. It takes quite a few attempts to get comfortable winding and plenty more before it starts getting consistent. For me it was too much tension.
Some people with use cloth or felt between their fingers and others will have a simple attachment coming off the winder that has something like felt between two pieces of wood or plexi. A gentle, small clamp, something that keeps the tension consistent is helpful.
It takes less tension than I thought and struggled with to get reliable winds.
Prepare yourself mentally to notch around a dozen attempts and yes, it costs money to buy that coil wire. The small rolls from Stew Mac are outrageously expensive. I buy larger rolls off eBay from reminginton.
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Finishing is some of the most challenging steps in the building process. It’s the least understood and the most prone to tales of foil and fable. Grandpa’s secret barn varnish and magic application techniques.
The best finish in the world is the one that meets your needs, works with equipment you have and can be safely applied in your workshop.
Manufacturers of coatings do us little favors as well. Waterborne lacquer? There’s no such thing, but if you have experience with actual lacquer it seems familiar, you buy some with a certain confidence and expectation, only to find and you hate using it because….it isn’t lacquer.
Like Ian said, what finish are you using?
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What grit did you abrade the finish with? Without that info there isn’t much guidance to give.
If this is a gloss nitro finish, you’ll need to abrade it to 1000 grit or higher to buff back to a high gloss.
If you abraded with 220, that’s a long slog to get back to high gloss and on a thin nitro finish, easy to cut through the lacquer.
Let us know what grit you abraded with.
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I had a Google voice number but they would periodically require me to use it or lose it. Now, it’s just gone and there aren’t any available in my area for some reason so, screw Google in general.
Thanks all. I welcome any and all perspectives on this topic. Keep ‘em coming.
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I have a couple pallet knifes that I filed and abraded a long, thin edge just for situations like this.
After the bridge is removed I clamp it to a flat plate with a damp paper towel between the bridge and the plate. After 20-30 minutes I use the palette knife to carefully cut the top wood away from the bridge then clamp that piece “flat” with something soft that can contour to the irregular shape of the top wood until it is dry.
At that point I can glue the piece back into place. I use wax paper then a the same soft backer then a small wood block to clamp the top wood back where it came from.
As far as the soft backer material, I always found the rubber drawer liner for kitchen drawers worked pretty slick.
I did this even on less expensive instruments because it was easier than patching in new wood and even though something like epoxy might be fine, I hate using epoxy.
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I’ve thought about that. We’ll see how busy customer work gets at this point. The tire kickers on Craigslist probably wouldn’t get a second number either. Thanks!
