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It's all part of the service.
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
And the Bagpress jig arrived - seems extremely well built. Such a clever system.
250k pots - it should be.
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
So first lesson learned - be more careful when ordering parts. Managed to end up with left handed tuners
No harm done. After a brief moment of considering a reverse headstock, I ordered some more and will save these for a future project, maybe get another right handed set and then have a couple of sets of 3 a side.
Itching to get started but had one more thing to do to finish off my workbench first.
Got the vice face made and fitted the vice. All went fairly smoothly.
Then I thought I would make a start on copying the templates. Just got them roughly cut out with a jigsaw before I ran out of time. Going to have to tidy them up a little before flush trimming them with the router.
Afromosia is another dense tropical hardwood, chocolatey brown with interlocked grain (damn awkward to plane), the dust is like ground pepper.....
Been working through watching the O’Brien guitar course - great content. Love that he’s making a bolt on and a carved top set neck too - double the value!
I made a start on the body blank. Not a straight or flat side was to be found anywhere so I figured I better learn to use a plane! A few YouTube videos later and I had a couple of sharp and set up planes. Did the edge first and also flattened and squared one face which will be the bottom. I’ll do the top once it’s all together. Glue up seemed to go ok. Found it tricky holding it together while trying to get it clamped up. I’m sure there’s a knack. Also not sure I have the best clamps for that job, but they seem to have done ok.
After that I made a start on the neck. Again, not flat or square anywhere so flattened the top and then squared one edge to use for reference. Whacked the centreline on and marked where the nut will go. Wasn’t 100% sure where to locate the truss rod so a bit more YouTubing and went for just short of where the nut is. Then some head scratching to work out the best way to approach it. The guide on my router was deeper than the neck blank so I needed to raise it up. Went for screwing the blank to a couple of 2x2s with some sticking out the ends to clamp to the bench. I made sure I placed one of the clamps such that it would act as a stop for the end of the channel. The plan was to do a few passes using the reference edge as a rail for the guide fence. Unfortunately on the first pass I was too busy checking how it was cutting and didn’t focus on keeping it tight to the edge so had a small wobble. It was only in the first pass and only about 2mm deep so I don’t think it will matter and it will be covered by the fingerboard. Widened and tidied up the nut end with a chisel and I think it’s ok definitely a part I was really worried about. All in all a good weekend’s start to the project
Regarding your query about clamps - you could do with a few more. I suspect it would be difficult to get suitable clamping pressure with those f-clamps. If you can get hold of some use sash-clamps (or cramps, Ive never worked out the difference), they will do a much better job. As for holding it all whilst applying the clamps? Practice, and several dry (i.e. no glue) run throughs. And have everything ready to hand so there's less mental stress once glue is applied! The number of times I've found myself sprinting around my garage looking for extra clamps.......
Happily it is now unclamped and all seems to have cured ok and seems to be still flat and well bonded as far as I can tell. I will definitely look for some more suitable clamps for the next build though.
I strangely like the smell of Padauk, reminds me of a kind of Vanilla perfume
Link to Amazon
I have a bunch of these (well, an older model) and would recommend them as a good compromise between price and utility.
https://www.axminstertools.com/axminster-trade-clamps-sash-clamp-760mm-505578?queryID=892a7be25e2b13b0723c3a366941c521