Paul M
Forum Replies Created
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I would just put the wax in the pot, since it’s a wax pot?
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That’s what I use, my violin friend in the building uses a double with one for hot water, that’s what I started with but it was too big. I have a single one now like the one there and it’s great.
I 3d printed a lid inspired by Ian’s. It has three holes, I put the glue in little plastic squeeze bottles and that works awesome (the volume of the glue keeps it warm in the bottle when you pull it out of the water). I keep another bottle with just water and then there’s a cap for a hole in case I want to dip something in water.
Also a hole for a candy thermometer.
Makes working with hide glue super easy.
Glue bottle idea stolen from Laurent Brondel.
Bottles (tbh I don’t love these bottles but they work fine):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VVCCHQ9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1Thermometer:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0747CJDHG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Pot:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08MTCT4J7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1Here’s the model
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IPiiA4Btg0en7WAf9gNxHlA1e07xUQEv/view?usp=sharing -
I think the Harbor Freight Sets are good value, they have a graduated Imperial set that’s cheap.
I started buying separate packs of the ones that I use a lot and break a lot (1/4″ etc) on Amazon separately.
Individual brad point bits are nice for specialty things.
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check out the Ted Woodford 7 or 8 part series on rebuilding a Harmony guitar, not the same model as yours at all but has tons of solid information. On youtube. He covers putting in braces around the soundhole to fix buckling. It can be a symptom of ladder braced guitars.
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I did a gouge scoopy on a guitar I dropped a clamp on the top of. I used the loctite gel CA that Ian recommends. It’s definitely not invisible but really not super noticeable. The guitar is french polished. It doesn’t stick out particularly at all.
Definitely important which CA you use. The gel stuff does not penetrate the surrounding wood at all.
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On my router table I have it marked with an arrow which way (in general) to feed, against the direction of the blade. It helps, the noise of the router and focusing on not cutting my fingers off, generally it’s not a super pleasant process and it’s helpful to have it marked in so I don’t have to think about it. It would not hurt to mark up your guitar body likewise with the way you want to make the cut.
Running some test pieces on scrap lumber might help get a feel for it.
You said you are trimming which is hugely important. The closer the better (obviously if you go over, you lose). When I started making guitars I didn’t get the trimming memo and would attempt to route off large quantities of material with disastrous results.
One thing I’m doing lately on my acoustics when I route the edge is touching into the problem areas first so that there’s less material there for the router to grab into when I do the full perimeter. I think this helps (?)
If you are doing everything right, the one thing I would say that’s more a feel thing is going very, very slowly, listening to the wood/machine (with hearing protection). If you’re going through the tough spots millimeter by millimeter I think it gives the bit more time to sever the fibers. I try to hold the body very firmly so that I’m in control.
Not sure any of this is helpful. Routers kinda suck, they are super useful but you can definitely destroy a lot of work very quickly in a few seconds. It’s a total attention kinda thing.
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ah without the multi spool thing it’s $249 got it!
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It says $399?
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Im not a wiring pro
I think the Billy Sheehan bass wiring has something like this but it’s with two jacks. I think there might be an option to run them both together on one jack or to run them separately on two jacks (which to me is superior than a stereo jack).
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your hand tool work is really inspiring. thanks for this.
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I’m a gloom and doom kinda guy but personally I think whatever fucked up weather thing you had in the last 2 years, anticipate it happening at least 2x in the next 15 years, I think that’s the optimistic scenario.
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I work as a nurse two 12 hour shifts per week. My new job is 7-7, every fourth weekend. I’m in Maine and the pay is very shitty for what I do (if I was in Boston I could make make at least another 1/3). I am able to just barely pay my bills on two days a week, I siphon off a very small amount to my 401k but my bank account is very slowly shrinking.
The work is interesting to me. I’m on the IV team, basically I put in IVs all day, or maintain dressings and sometimes I put in PICC lines (very long IVs that stay in for months). 1/2 my coworkers are all high strung and kinda insane and that stresses me out a lot (the kinda thing where I’m home and I’m having an arguement with one of them, but it’s in my head, and they aren’t there). But it’s not horribly exhausting (like working in the ER was).
Financially it’s not a great move being 48, having no real retirement plan and working 2 days a week.
<div>BUT</div>
It does allow me 5 days a week off, which is a real luxury. My goal is to practice guitar in the morning till 11 and then be in the shop from like 1 till 10pm or so. My focus is on building. I was thinking I would take in repair work to pay for the shop but thus far I find that the repair work stresses me out and gets in the way of the building and that they don’t really work well together. Maybe that will change but I’ve stopped trying to drum up business.
My goal this year is just to build the coolest guitars I can think up. I am lucky that at the moment I don’t need to sell guitars to eat. It would not be possible to experiment and explore. I’m of two minds with the making: players are super conservative generally and want stuff that looks like the old stuff (52′ tele, Hauser Classical, D-18, etc) BUT all those markets are super saturated and there’s absurdly great makers already occupying those spaces. So I’m trying to make stuff that appeals to me as a player and that’s unique without being self-consciously weird. And hopefully great in all ways. Up until the last guitar I made, everything was sort of prototypes to prove I could finish the types of guitars I’m working on (Selmers/Classicals/Fenderish things). But the last one I did I really threw the kitchen sink at with a bunch of ideas I had and it was a success (to me at least). So going forward, I’m hoping to keep taking risks and experimenting while making my own style and seeing if anyone wants to buy them. The nursing job is making that possible. I have no idea if this is going to work in any way or if I’ll be making guitars in 5 years, I find it quite difficult emotionally sometimes. But I’ve wanted to do it forever and so I’m trying to remind myself to enjoy the shop. I’ve worked myself into feeling fairly ill at crunch times and I’m hoping to do that less.
I’m trying to negotiate a new relationship at the same time and explain to my girlfriend that a) I’m really fun and great to be around and b) I’m also super unfun because I want to be in the shop all the time.
Anyway…that’s the story.
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on a side note: didn’t Montpelier flood horribly last year? I don’t want to be the voice of doom, but whatever bad thing happened last year weather wise is probably going to happen again, but worse.
Personally unless I’m high up on a hill, I don’t want anything of value in a basement anymore. I would be really careful having expensive things that belong to other people in a basement, I would definitely make sure you’re well covered insurance wise.
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there’s all sorts of calibration tests you can download from thingiverse that can help you pinpoint the problem (and usually are faster to run than trying to print a big part).
But if you switched filaments and you’re having a problem it seems likely your filament isn’t good.
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has your filament been sitting outside for a while? It can pick up humidity and cause problems.
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anyone?
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I have a double wax warmer….it is nice to have a second side with just water for cleanup. But it takes up a lot of space. A single would probably be fine.
But I end up using this more.
https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/tools/sets/102874-glue-pot-and-warmer-set?item=09A0284
a.co
Amazon.com: Double Wax Warmer Double Wax Pot Professional for Hair Removal, Electric Wax Heater Machine Dual Wax Pot Warmer Professional With Adjustable Temperature for Facial,Skin,Body,Spa, and Salon : Beauty & Personal Care
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or just the double, can’t you leave the wax in there?
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no idea about potting pickups. you might want a double pot. I think they are big enough to contain a pickup, for sure.
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Just wondering, what would you do for CAM after you design the guitar in Blender? It doesn’t have any cam function, correct?
Blender sounds interesting…it seems more “creative” than fusion maybe. But the built in cam in Fusion kind of keeps me there. Even though sometimes the cam is maddening.
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I’ve done this so far on Gypsy Jazz and Classical guitars.
My one concern is that it puts a lot of tension on the tongue of the neck. I haven’t had any issues but it’s something to be mindful of.
I have always put two 1/4″ carbon fiber square tubes in all of my necks (from dragonplate) and these extend all the way to the end of the neck. My adjustment screw goes between them. I can’t say that this additional stiffness in that area makes a big difference but I’m not going to not use them to find out.
Good luck with it.
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Pretty sure Greg Smallwood invented that specific joint but I’m not totally sure.
Common on classical guitars. I’m not sure who else is doing it on steel strings, it seems to work for me…my oldest 2 are just over a year old with zero issues.
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Chris the medical pumps I saw were around 1cfm, are these the ones you are using?
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Thanks for that and sorry for the delayed response!
What sort of pump would I be searching for for a used industrial pump? I see a lot of used medical ones but they are in the 1cfm range, I’d ideally like more than that.
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I think 4 setups is too many, unless you are doing production stuff and you’re REALLY good. Each flip induces some amount of error (could be close to zero, or a lot).
I’ve switched to doing my acoustic necks as a kind of V joint at the headstock (birds beak without the joint), thus I can machine my neck face down and the headstock separately, and a few seconds of work gives me a perfect and cool looking joint.
Acoustic necks are hard AF on CNC, there’s no way around it. Fender style necks are super easy.
Another option is to CNC the back of the neck but make a routing template for the headstock and route that afterwards. Basically indexing the headstock is super complicated. I did devise one way of doing it that would be relatively straight forward but still complicated.
The Austin Shaner discord has tons of conversation about this stuff.
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Unfortunately I think Danny West, who is a regular here, had a flood yesterday that damaged his shop. Food for thought about basement shops.
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for me, high flood risk would be an absolute no go. I know real estate up there is super crazy hard to find but I just think of how many $100 things I have in my little shop…a flood would take out everything, it would be over. Having a shop means a ton of expensive hard to replace shit. Plus wood. Plus liability.
It’s not just grabbing a bunch of instruments but like my Delta bandsaw that totally works, my CNC, etc etc.
My business here is more or less a hobby, but if I had to make my living from it right now I think that would be even moreso an issue.
Just my $.02
But finding a space is super hard, I get it.
Maybe on the top floor somewhere of one of those downtown buildings? or up the hill?
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how would the customs thing work in Germany?
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Are you able to insure through Pirate Ship? I’m not seeing an option yet. Finally this guy is going to buy the guitar (I hope).
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yeah just to be clear the advantage of Fusion is that it’s all under one roof and it can continuously update your cam as your model changes. For me as a pretty ham handed modeler, as I’m prototyping something, if I make changes after making a prototype (I pretty much 100% always have to) I can go back to the modeling environment, make the changes and then Fusion can update the CAM to the changed model.
This isn’t really an issue with 3d printing as you’d just slice again, but for CNC, at least for me, working out the CAM is pretty time consuming and a lot of trial and error, so having it all under one roof is a huge deal.
I may be not understanding how some of these other cam programs work and this may be a bigger idea in my head but for me that’s a huge advantage with Fusion, but only if you are actually going to do real CNC. And probably just CNC on guitars, which I think it probably fairly complicated as far as CNC goes. Cam on a box is maybe nbd. A guitar neck gets pretty crazy.
