Quote:
Originally Posted by jefrs
That's looking nice.
You obviously know what you are doing...
If I may, a couple of tips for epoxy, it's a thermo-setting polymer:-
If you can bake at 50°C then '24 hour' epoxy will go off in 30 minutes and set in a couple of hours, but leave for over 24h for strength to develop.
It will come off if you can heat it to over 120°C (hot air gun).
Epoxy putty is not very sticky. To encourage the putty to adhere well to the job, very lightly smear the job surface with normal 24 hour epoxy adhesive.
Mix epoxies untill well mixed, then mix for as long again.
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Great points!
That putty I use is formulated to bond really well if you give it a good squeeze! It also comes in a metal and an underwater version for fixing water pumps and swimming pools! Awesome stuff.
I've got access to an autoclave for my vacuum work, but with guitars, strength isn't really that much of a priority - it's not like I'm making rear wings for Indy Cars
. Carbon (vacuum laminated with a good resin/cloth ratio) is between 6 and 9 times stronger that steel for the same weight depending on how much you pay for your carbon and how you've arranged the fibers. It makes wood seem like rubber.
However, this bass is going to be too light. That's where one of these comes in.
At the moment the wooden part of the bass weighs 3 pounds. The carbon "body" will probably weigh less than the tuners ... so I'm going to put a pound of lead behind the bridge (or whatever weight is needed to balance it so it's "neutrally buoyant" - might only be 1/2 lb).
Should come in at about 5 1/2 pounds with no neck dive because 1/5th of its weight will be inside the rear strap button.
Remember (like Bucko says), I'm making this up as I go along.
