What's on your workbench today?

[telepraise]

How do you guys do your inlays? CNC? Or is there a way for a fella without a CNC, but a Dremel?

Cheers,

Alberto

Freeman covers the process well in his post. My inlays have all been pearl in ebony so I use the method I read about in one of my luthier books.
• cut out inlay with a jeweler's saw, clean up edges with jeweler's files (for delicate inlays, glue the pearl with white glue to some 1/8" thick hardwood to support it to avoid cracking the pearl, when done, soak in water to release pearl).
• paint the background wood with white modelers glue
• temporarily glue down the inlay in place with white glue
• scribe around the outline the inlay with a tiny sharp knife, it'll leave a visible fine line
• with water and a pallete knife carefully release the inlay
• route the cavity to the knife line
• glue in inlay with epoxy tinted to the background color
• when dry, level and polish with grades of sandpaper
* In the dremel, I use several sizes of solid carbide cutters from Stew Mac. They're pricey, but anything else heats up fast and burns the cutters

 

[raito]

As I recently came into about 1K hours a year of new free time (and keep in mind I'm pretty well retired), I have time for stuff.

On my bench today:

Making a specifically sized T-nut to replace the lost one in my lathe. It holds the change gears together. Until I fix it, no power feed or threading.

Sourcing some longer parts for my 3018 router. The short Y axis is a pain. Fortunately, a couple pieces of 2040, longer rods, and a new leadscrew will fix that.

I do have a paisley body, a very unique tele body, and a P bass to assemble. I might even get to that sometime.

On my virtual bench:

Figure out why gcodetools for Inkscape sucks so much. It doesn't follow paths properly and changes all the circular arcs to cubic b-splines. It's not in the interface or the part that adds the toolpaths to the drawing. It's in the code generation. It also needs to respect units.

 

[guitarbuilder]

As I recently came into about 1K hours a year of new free time (and keep in mind I'm pretty well retired), I have time for stuff.

On my bench today:

Making a specifically sized T-nut to replace the lost one in my lathe. It holds the change gears together. Until I fix it, no power feed or threading.

Sourcing some longer parts for my 3018 router. The short Y axis is a pain. Fortunately, a couple pieces of 2040, longer rods, and a new leadscrew will fix that.

I do have a paisley body, a very unique tele body, and a P bass to assemble. I might even get to that sometime.

On my virtual bench:

Figure out why gcodetools for Inkscape sucks so much. It doesn't follow paths properly and changes all the circular arcs to cubic b-splines. It's not in the interface or the part that adds the toolpaths to the drawing. It's in the code generation. It also needs to respect units.

You may want to try Easel. It'll accept an SVG or DXF and has a good track record. I've been using cambam for a long time. Make sure you have the correct post processor selected for GRBL too.

 

[raito]

You may want to try Easel. It'll accept an SVG or DXF and has a good track record. I've been using cambam for a long time. Make sure you have the correct post processor selected for GRBL too.

I appreciate the help, and I hope it helps others. You're always helpful around here.

I have ways to generate G-code -- that's not a problem. The gcodetools extension was abandoned by the developers when it got selected to be packaged with Inkscape. But it's been neglected for some time. I still have all the stuff I used way back when I used AutoCAD (which I still have) to design stuff to bitbang out a parallell port into H-bridges I soldered. So I can get things done.

Things have certainly changed since then. For me, the 3018 is really just a useful toy.

I just haven't had anything put back into an open source application since I stopped working. There, we were making contributions to things like Python, OpenSSL, and Postgres. If it's not too rough, I can give something back.

One oddity with gcodetools is that it'll put in an M3 at the start, but no spindle speed. Pretty silly. It's trying to be everything to everyone, but fails. The units thing is an example of the program moving forward, but the extension only getting enough attention to keep running.

 

[Greplington]

My wife's coffee table project is on the main workbench in our garage at the moment.

My teenage son's cheap strat rebuild project is on my secondary workbench at the moment.



My project is off to one side for the moment... (although I can move the other projects out of the way when I get time to work on it, of course )

 

[1bad914]

A tele shaped stool for my shop made from a whiskey barrel head and staves. A work in progress.
View attachment 936823

Finished this. Not pretty, but works great for the shop.

 

[VicUA]

Was hot today! Couple minutes with wide open torch dancing.
Love this moments.
I sometimes want to burn something! )

 

[Jim_in_PA]

Today's "virtual" workbench is covered with the very last walk-through of our old property as the buyers go to settlement tomorrow morning. Bittersweet after over 22 years, many major projects and a shop space that I'm truly missing. But here's to new beginnings and maybe a new shop building this year here! Meanwhile, my physical bench is too flippin' cold in the temporary shop...missing the minisplit for sure.

 

[JohnnyThul]

Inlay day! It took longer, than expected, so, I didn't fill them today and cleaned everything up, will do that tomorrow.

 

[Greplington]

Not mine, but my son's project. This was a cheap and cheerful strat clone with the almost-compulsory burst finish. We stripped it back with a heat gun and a scraper and gave it a sand, and he's working on it with the pyrography kit. Most of the design here is freehand with the burner, and all of it is his own hand drawn design. A set of locking tuners and a set of alnico pickups are on the way to improve the quality of the instrument overall. This will be getting a few coats of poly to seal it all and enhance the grain in the ash veneer and a little bit of burning on the headstock to tie it together.

He's already talking about getting a good quality kit to make something a bit better and has all kinds of ideas for carvings, burnings, resin etc...

 

[Engraver-60]

I bought a TC Electronic G Major rack mount effects processor off Reverb. These are notorious for having crappy rotary encoders and this one is no different. I had thought I'd use a MIDI Editor but it turns out that I can't find one which actually works.

I took it apart and checked out where the encoders attach to the front panel PCB. There is an Alps "ring encoder" which is total unobtanium at this point, but even if you could get one, you wouldn't want to as they are so lousy. I cut it off. There is another one still on the board. It sees what happened to the other one. It knows what's coming. I'm sorry, it was inevitable.

View attachment 936113

The regular inner encoder/switch looks like it was already replaced once. I cut it out too.

There is enough room to put two regular encoders side by side. I'm going to cut a piece of Vero board to mount those on, then bring solid wires up from the PCB. Wiring mockup is shown below. Maybe put a bit of foam tape between the two PCBs to act as a little spacer. I ordered 10 encoders from Mouser at about $1.50 each. People are selling "G Major encoder" on e-bay for $20.

View attachment 936114

I'm very confident this will work so long as I don't injure the PCB while desoldering things.

It's going to look weird but it will keep it out of the trash.

My Fender Cyber-Twin V1 has encoders, and after the amp sat in storage for too many years they were like playing roulette. I never knew where they'd stop. I took the amp apart (very scary with so many pcb boards) and sprayed De-Oxit on the disassembled encoders and put back together, and it works fine now.

 

[Digital Larry]

My Fender Cyber-Twin V1 has encoders, and after the amp sat in storage for too many years they were like playing roulette. I never knew where they'd stop. I took the amp apart (very scary with so many pcb boards) and sprayed De-Oxit on the disassembled encoders and put back together, and it works fine now.

If it happens again threaten them with the Dremel cutoff tool! It's nasty. Take your finger right off.

 

[ndcaster]

I replaced a pickup one of my partscasters and changed the wiring entirely.

The Donlis '59 style neck pickup was too dark and powerful for a guitar that had textbook twang, so I swapped it out for a Dimarzio "Humbucker from Hell," which is a total misnomer. I wish they'd call it the "Clear Skies" or something, but I digress.

The blender circuit I had on there was sub-optimal, so I wired the humbucker to a 500k push/pull pot so I could further cut it down to a parallel sound. The bridge pickup, an old Lawrence L280TL, pairs well with it.



This guitar plays great, and now I have a pickup/wiring situation that suits the twang of the tele and isn't fighting against it.

Happier.

 

[ghostchord]

A lot of sanding for my found SPF/flame maple top pair. The end grain is particularly not wanting to look good:

 

[Jim_in_PA]

Well...my workbench is positively frigid in the very cold temporary shop right now. Thankfully, it's time to put together the plan for a new permanent shop building on this property so rather than freezing the fuzzies, I'm going to be working on that plan and process which will start with a boundary survey to determine the exact lot lines so an accurate plan can go to zoning with allowable setbacks. The line on the side where the building will go is actually quite a few feet onto the neighboring property due to subdivision lot size rules combined with "grandfathered use". But that's going to work out ok here as it means the building can be close to the fence rather than 15 feet away from the fence that divides "use". This should be an interesting journey!!

Oh, on Saturday morning I had the absolute pleasure of meeting long time community member I_build_my_own who is moving into this area. We had a nice chat at his new place and I got to fondle some very, very nice guitars he has built over the years. He does beautiful work. Hopefully, when we get to meet "here", he'll be able to help me understand just how bad my own guitar build suck and how to improve them. LOL

 

[Greplington]

I keep forgetting to get more deep-throat clamps (and more clamps in general!)

You can use pieces of scrap timber placed across the body and clamped at either end to place clamping pressure on the centre of your top. Much cheaper than more of the deep throat clamps!

 

[Ripthorn]

You can use pieces of scrap timber placed across the body and clamped at either end to place clamping pressure on the centre of your top. Much cheaper than more of the deep throat clamps!

You can focus the pressure by slightly arcing the edge of the scrap placed across it, as well.

 

[Freeman Keller]

You can use pieces of scrap timber placed across the body and clamped at either end to place clamping pressure on the centre of your top. Much cheaper than more of the deep throat clamps!

Or a go-bar deck

 

[Moodivarius]

Couldn’t get to the bench.

Another 10”/25cm of snow this morning till now. Still coming lightly.
Went out on the tractor & dunked it out enough, so the Mrs. could get to work in the morning.

Going through Thunder Bay now.

I’m the top-left red bubble. Dryden.


Scott

 

[novakane]

Got the start of a neck blank made for my first time attempting to make a neck from scratch. Mahogany on the edges, alternating Wenge and Maple in the middle. I'll be building it with a scarf joint and the headstock piece will be wider than this blank, naturally.
The piece of Wenge on the right will be used for the fretboard.
Still plenty of final math double checking before I cut that scarf angle, I really don't want to mess this up and have to go buy more planks! (We just got a massive snow dump)