Ironing board work station...

[Finger Ease]

I have a work shop in the garage where I work on guitars and such. But during the winter months it gets too cold to work out there. So I was trying to find something to make a workbench to use inside the house. My wife came up with a great idea..."use my ironing board".
So we set it up and I got my rolling stool and set the board to that height. It works so good. She put a padded cover on the board and afixed a soft towel to cover the top.
When using this you can get to the neck so easy, you don't have to keep spinning the guitar around. I got a nice bag to keep the tools and stuff in and it hangs off the side perfectly. All my tools are right there.
Thanks Margie...for always being there for me.

 

[Sweet Lou 275]

Good idea. I've got one of those short boards that mounts in your wall. I've found it to be better than my actual bench most of the time.

 

[Soapbarstrat]

I just recently found one sitting out for trash pickup. It’s heavy duty. Real thick tubing legs. And, I would have assumed before an ironing board would be too likely to suddenly collapse because of flimsy legs or something like that. But on this one, you have to work hard to get these damn legs to fold up. That’s probably why they threw it away. But it’s a plus for extra security with staying intact as a workbench.

 

[1 21 gigawatts]

Just don't tip it over. I would imagine that an ironing board would be pretty top heavy with a guitar on it. The type that folds out from the wall sounds like a good idea though.

 

[hopdybob]

So we set it up and I got my rolling stool and set the board to that height. It works so good. She put a padded cover on the board and afixed a soft towel to cover the top.
When using this you can get to the neck so easy, you don't have to keep spinning the guitar around. I got a nice bag to keep the tools and stuff in and it hangs off the side perfectly. All my tools are right there.
Thanks Margie...for always being there for me.

picture please

 

[highwaycat]

I used a nice flip out iron board back in the days when I lived somewhere else. I liked it.
Now these days I use neck jigs. No I don’t simulate string tension, I just like em.

 

[highwaycat]

I made a low profile one that’s light weight, it comes in handy.
$40 at lowes and they cut the 2x4s and board for you.

 

[Soapbarstrat]

No I don’t simulate string tension, I just like em.

Why would you not simulate string tension if you have the darn thing?
I’ve used a neck jig for over 30 years and have almost always preferred the results I got simulating tension vs not. And I don’t mean there were times I preferred the results not using it. There were just a couple lucky cases where I got the same great playing results not using the jig.

 

[highwaycat]

Why would you not simulate string tension if you have the darn thing?
I’ve used a neck jig for over 30 years and have almost always preferred the results I got simulating tension vs not. And I don’t mean there were times I preferred the results not using it. There were just a couple lucky cases where I got the same great playing results not using the jig.

I use to service budget guitars.
They’re different.
For those particular guitars, 3 things I don’t do is simulate string tension, use a knotched straight edge(the fingerboards and radius are way off) and use a radiused leveling beam.( I would use a radius beam to prep a board for a refret though.
They’re different animals.

That’s cool you’ve been using neck jigs for that long.
I thought back in the days they were only used for adding or removing relief into the fingerboard by removing wood.
I know some people would just pt pressure on the neck with good results.

Basically the neck jigs support the neck extremely well and they’re handy for other stuff like shaping the back of a neck.

I’ll give the string tension method a go next time. I honestly don’t do a lot of fretwork these days. But before I made a neck jig I just used a wooden board, did a couple hundred fret dresses on that thing.
I’m not too enthusiastic about fretwork anymore, I think nut work is way funner.

 

[highwaycat]

Question, for simulating string tension, is the improvement just for the low E?
Because I’m happy with my fret levels with the rare occasion a walmart guitar will still buzz slightly only on the low E. Everything else will be perfect, and following the radius removes all fretting out. None of my fret levels fret out. I remove around .002” material which is really good for a budget guitar.
If you actually took a cheap guitar and leveled with a radius beam, even using a fence, you’ll remove a ton of fret material especially the ends of the frets.
Long story short cheap guitars need the fingerboard trued up.
The fret wire is very soft so it conforms to whatever inaccurate fingerboard it goes on.

 

[Soapbarstrat]

Question, for simulating string tension, is the improvement just for the low E?

Well, no, it’s mainly for getting rid of any problematic fretboard areas that are there when under string tension, but go away when the strings are off. Like my old Kramer that has a wandering hump between the first and fifth fret area. Doesn’t show up without strings, and with strings, adjusting the truss rod moves the hump either toward the nut or toward the body. I did a fret level out of the jig just to see if I was good enough to do it that way. Was not a wise experiment. Did not work out. But the frets were too low to begin with, so they were sacrificial either way. I think it was also because many years before, I did a different Kramer out of the jig that turned out great. It was for a friend and actually turned out to be good advertisement for me when different friends of his would play it. The reason I did it out of the jig, was because he showed up with it, while I had something else in the jig, and he needed it for jamming right away.That’s funny that you prefer nut work. I don’t like nut work because it’s an obstacle keeping me from seeing how good my fret work turned out.

 

[mfguitar]

They can work well. I had an older board that the legs were much more stable than current models. My plan was to customize for guitar work only but alas that never happened.

 

[highwaycat]

I don’t like nut work because it’s an obstacle keeping me from seeing how good my fret work turned out.

What kinda obstacle?
I remove the nut before fret work and make a new one afterwards, but I can use the old one and fine tune it.
I rule out part of the setup during parts of making a nut. You need it for the setup but maybe you can get by using a capo?
I created a thread about nut templates that can improve anyone’s nut work, it’s worth a try.
Basically, before replacing a nut I’d fine tune the old nut just to rule things out/diagnose and rough out a setup.

 

[Soapbarstrat]

What kinda obstacle?

I mean that I have to get the darn nut all tweaked just right so that I can find out just how well the guitar plays with the new fret job. I can’t get maximum playability with an unperfect nut. I would rather not have to deal with the nut right after finishing a tedious fret job, but that’s when I’m bursting with curiosity of how good of a job I did.

 

[highwaycat]

I mean that I have to get the darn nut all tweaked just right so that I can find out just how well the guitar plays with the new fret job. I can’t get maximum playability with an unperfect nut. I would rather not have to deal with the nut right after finishing a tedious fret job, but that’s when I’m bursting with curiosity of how good of a job I did.

Sounds like you want to try it all set up.
Rule out the nut and just play the fretted notes and do some bends.
If you look at ron’s tutorial you use a sharpie marker and that takes a lot of the guesswork out. What arr you checking for? I might use a digital caliper to check for consistent fret height, other than that I don’t know what else you’d check for.
Maybe you can do a method people do with neck jigs where they use the jig to get the neck straight then level the frets. Then you restring the guitar. So you don’t actually adjust the truss rod at all. I’ve never tried this though. You can look at the neck from the bridge side to headstock side and the frets should look like a mirror, you can look for twists and high frets that way.
Check out my thread on nut templates, it looks silly but it works.

 

[Soapbarstrat]

What arr you checking for?

Just want to rock the hell out of it and have fun with the result of all that tedious work. You know, that whole “all work and no play....” thing.