A little playing

I realise that my blog is often about everything bar music. I suppose building guitars is related, but whatever. Over the past while I have...

In no particular order...

Recorded a couple of tunes for Rory O'Connor and Amy McGarrigle (links later):

My gear:

Recorded a CD with the KJJO (Ken Jordan Jazz Orchestra):

Played a 2 week production of Sweeney Todd at the Millside Theatre (I really miss this, I would have loved to have done another month. Loved every night!!) Peter Corry and Nuala McKeever as Sweeney and Mrs Lovett.

Sorry for stealing your photos, Kate, I was playing and didn't have time to snap any...

Actually I did... final show, standing ovation, sold out. Excellent!

Lovely building!

Recorded with Ricky Graham and John King "Signals Under Test":

I played with them on a couple of gigs, 1 in the Black Box:

KJJO Gig, Errigle Inn:

I have to start writing more music, making more time for that and trying to get an average of 1-2 hours of un-productive practice a day into 2 hours of solid grind. Linear patterns won't learn themselves. Fact.

Night!

New guitar/bass projects (lots of pics)

I finished 2 hand planes and I meant to update this a while back but here they are. A convex bladed one and a short block plane for smoothing:

I designed a new instrument a while back for either thin-line electrics (sort-of retro feel) or for a deep body chambered jazz guitar with a laminate top and an "f" hole like on old 335s or other archtops. I am super pleased with my plans - I really do like to draw. My design:

I trued up some Sepele and Tulipwood to build this from, here is the result (the Sepele (Mahogany) one will be a deep jazz guitar, the Tulipwood will be the thinline - both neck through, both with that Les Paul neck relief):

Here are the projects that I am working on, from left to right;

1) 8 string, 27" scale laminate through neck. Planned tuning of F# B E A D G B E or F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb - the longer scale should sustain this with heavy strings and still sound tight. Emg 45DC 6 string bass pickup being used - seem to be highly recommended by luthiers - active electronics. Ash body, Walnut top, Maple/Walnut laminate neck. Fingerboard not ordered yet.

2) (under the 8 string) 4 string semi-acoustic fretless bass. 34" scale, through neck. Tulipwood body, Ash top. Vintage bridge with brass saddles, Jazz bass pickups.

3) 4 string, 34" scale, neck through (maple). Music Man Kent Armstrong pickup. Active or passive.

4) 6 string bass, 34/35" scale, laminate through neck. Planned tuning of B E A D G C on standard guages. I have a Wilkinson 6 string Music Man pickup coming from the States for this :D Active or passive.

5) Thinline electric guitar, 24.75" scale. The neck relief is in contention due to the thinline design, it may end up being straight with a recessed bridge - I will plan when my parts arrive. PAF style pickups, wound with more wire for a bit of a hotter output, but ultimately a super versatile pickup.

6) Jazz guitar - deep body, through neck, chambered, Walnut top, PAF Jazz pickups with 12 individual adjustable pole pieces on each... maybe un-necessary, but sure they come recommended.

My dad found a very simple but AWESOME idea for a router jig which will level even bad planks, it is just a set of parallel guides, bars for the router to run on and a level bottom surface. It works VERY well, so I will do a post entirely on that, but here is it in use:

Maple:

Sepele (how beautiful is this wood!!!):

It leaves you with a super finish and a planar board:

Couple of shots of a couple of laminate necks that I am building:

I am levelling the neck out in this shot:

I am super pleased with the joints - tight :)

Here are the 6 neck blanks. 2 Maple, 2 Sepele Mahogany, 2 Maple/Walnut laminates:

I levelled out the 8 string body and prepared the laminate to create the laminate tops on this. Note that the design is old; the overall shape is ok but I am going to redesign it within its current size so that I don't have to build again - that would be pretty wasteful. Just a couple of curves I don't like. Can be totally sorted!

This is 1 of the 2 wings, both currently in the front room hardening in the warmth - wood glue is useless beneath 10*c.

That is all for now. I am expecting parts this week, so I can get on with cutting the necks to shape and get some things looking more like instruments!

God bless all :)

Mike

Convex hand plane - home build.

Short post - I am tired, medicated and tired. Did I just say that?

Ok..

I made a convex handplane to help me make carved top guitars which I plan to do. I cannot possibly justify spending £55 or more on a plane - I mean I could put that money to much better use, so I bought a £7 plane blade (35mm Stanley) and cut it to an approximate rounded tip (I drew a guide, but worked by eye a lot). I then cleaned this and bevelled a 30* blade on it with a grinder and finished off on the wet stone. I spent a good hour or 2 on the blade.

Next I fabricated the parts for the plane out of Ash, Oak and Rosewood. I had scraps of each of these from old projects or old furniture (hoping dad didn't have plans for that table...). There are plans online, just google it. I looked at them and much in the same way that I cook, I remembered a few key stats and went ahead with it.

The blade is set at 45*, the opposing side is also 45*, the plane blade bevel is 30* and the gap between the blade and the front of the plane (sorry, it must be called something better) should be between 1 and 3mm. I have mine set near 1mm because I plan only to take the smallest amounts of hardwoods off. For a smoothing plane or a block plane I suggest a little more, especially if you plan to work with softwoods because this gap ensures the cuttings go up and through the plane rather than falling under it causing the plane to slip and the cut to be very uneven. Just build one and see what I mean - you can easily modify it if it is too large or too small an opening. Probably easier to shim one which is too large though. Maybe worth erring on that side.

Some un-finished media below - I have since finished the plane with Tung oil. It has really lifted the colours of the woods. Rosewood is beautiful for the purple tone to it, really beautiful. Nice to work with as well, despite it smelling like circuit boards.

Here is a video of the plane:

A couple of pictures:

Just applied a coat of Tung oil:

Here is some of the timber for some new builds - not pictured - 10' of 12" wide tulipwood.

Left to right: Ash, American Maple, Sepele Mahogany, 2x Walnut.

Cyclone Dust Extractor - Home Build #1

Considering that I am planning to make a few instruments (or at least a good amount of dust) this year, I have decided to invest in some dust extraction. I cannot justify the cash required for a large machine, so I decided to buy a powerful chip extractor and build a cyclone filter system which should filter down to 2-4 micron particles of dust - the chip extractor alone would only extract down to 12-14 microns, so MDF and all fine dust goes through and is still in the air.

The chip extractor is induction motor powered, and is an impeller design which kicks out 1000 cubic metres/hour (573CFM). This is pretty good for my purposes - 400CFM is recommended for bandsawing, and similar for bench-sawing. These are about the most demanding.

It is recommended not to reduce below 35mm on these systems otherwise the impeller just generates drag. I am using 100mm for most of the work and for the smaller tools I am reducing to 40mm or thereabouts.

I looked at a few cyclone home builds online - a google will turn up lots of these in all wonderful various sizes and designs. Ok, some are pretty terrible designs, but hey - you have to give it to people trying.

Here are 2 links:

http://www.sydneywoodturners.com.au/site/articles/machinery/extractor2/cyclone.html

http://www.codesmiths.com/shed/workshop/cyclones.htm

The first shows a simple design which is pretty functional and effective, the second is fine for hoover-based stuff, though it will never handle more than light dust. there are a bunch of very cool builds showing sheet metal construction in much larger scales - I can't find this right now. Anyway, the principle is simple, so I started into it the same way I like to bake and cook - with no plans - just an idea of what I want the end product to be. Ok, I planned a little, but all in my head last night.

My cyclone chamber (top) is a Tesco bin. The dust will fall into the green water tank which was un-used in the garden. I cut tops out of some left-over chip-board - it won't get wet (hopefully) so even this terrible "wood" will do the job, plus it is re-using old materials which I like to do.

In the top chamber there is 1 turn of a screw - I made this by chopping up the old lid from the water tank. There is 4" drainpipe which will attach to some flexible aluminium tubing (for extractor fans) - this goes to the tool. All secured up well, gripfilled to within an inch of it's life :) It is worth noting how VERY weak the bin is - polyprop I think, but very very thin - it shatters very easily - I cut the most of my holes with a poker I heated in the fire... couldn't find dad's soldering iron (ok I could, but I didn't have the heart to wreck it, or my own for that matter!).

Down the centre goes the pipe leading to the chip extractor - this is mounted in the lid:

The whole top section will be sealed and will lift apart at the top of the green tank, here is the top plate of the green tank with a hole cut for the cyclone bin part - no trammel bar work here folks - traced a rough circle and winged it with the jigsaw. Does fine - it isn't a piston head or a guitar!

Here is this lid attached (grip-filled) to the cyclone part:

This is how it looks with it all bolted and glued together minus the top plate with hose. I have used expanding foam to fill any gaps around the drainpipe.

Here is a show looking into it with that foam starting to expand. It is awesome stuff.

Ok, not much to say - I will complete this tomorrow and hope that the extractor comes soon - looking forward to a dust free experience :)

Back to the show tomorrow night - last week was really successful, so here is to another fun run!

God bless,

Mike

Wear gloves

So today I decided to put the 5/8" blade on the saw before I did some warm-ups before playing Sweeney Todd. I really wanted to see how it ran... how impetuous! Anyway, the blades are coiled and I know they can spring and since the blade was 5/8th it will have quite a spring, so I decided to hold the blade tighter to stop it surprising me. Without gloves. This is what you get for being stupid:

A lot of blood involved, but it isn't as bad as it looks - all super-glued back together. Gloves from now on... Incidentally, not only does the blade cut person really well, but I cut a 1mm laminate from a 2" piece of rosewood - just some scrap from an old table. Like butter. Nice.

In the next few weeks I will have the workshop cleaned and I will be going to buy the following timbers:

Walnut, Ash, Maple, Mahogany and maybe some Tulipwood.

Instrument wise you can expect:

Archtop electric - aimed at jazz players

8 string electric - probably going to suit rock playing

6, 5 and 4 string basses, maybe a couple of fretless basses

Cannae wait!

Mike

New build, misc...

I find myself snapping lots of random things I am doing, so these next few posts will be pic heavy. I really ought to space this out to see me through the inevitable drought, but I am in a good mood, listening to Tower of Power and feel motivated to do this.

In the past few days I did a few interesting things:

Started a new bass/guitar build

Made/retro-fitted a replacement nut (it is interesting... really)

Learned how to lie more convincingly - see above!

Repaired a broken neck

I found a piece of Ash from a build I did in 05/06 - it was large enough to make the wings of my bass design from, so I decided to try the bandsaw out for what it was intended. Bear in mind that Ash is pretty hard, it is the reason my old cheapo Ryobi bandsaw is hosed - just couldn't manage it.

2 1/4" Ash, semi flamed on inspection! Beautiful!

My design:

My templates have an extra inch or so on the edge to allow me to attach them to an over-sized blank for the sake of stability when routing to finish the edges. This is why it doesn't' matter that they are over-hanging.

This is the final shape from the cutting. This was done about an hour faster than normal - minimum! I remember cutting that Ash the last time - it was a nightmare!!

I got a rather fancy looking bass in to repair. To the naked eye it was made with a burl wood and lots of exotic materials, but it sounded TERRIBLE. I refused to believe that woods which would have cost £300 for the build were going to sound soo bad, so I reckoned that they had somehow put an image on some plastic wood (not an oxymoron... Ibanez use this), or used MDF or something. It still baffled me, but the grain was all wrong. Anyway, I HAD to know. I opened the back plate and found this:

CONFIRMED! Injection moulded chipboard! I am amazed at how real they make this look. I bet 95% of people are fooled. I am disgusted! Anyway, I wasn't paid for my opinion, but to replace the nut... more rant.

The nut was in to be replaced because it was wearing out (plastic nuts are horrid, weak and have NO tone - but then I am just a little biased). So I took the nut off - gentle tap with a hammer:

Cheap ROT!!! Injection moulded plastic, and not even solid!! People, if you have a plastic nut - do yourselves a favour and replace them, the benefits are seriously worth it!

This is the replacement blank - rough sketches to show you how it will look - these are not my measurements... just rough! The nut I am using is bone which is legally sourced (ie not Ivory), and it weighs a lot - for it's size. 10x the weight of the plastic nut I reckon. It works nicely and smells HORRIBLE!!!

Getting the depth and width right:

Sitting well, despite the slot that was there being over 90*, so I had to file this to about 93* or so. No big deal.

These are my light initial marks for guidance:

This an initial slotting and shaping pic:

Finished!

Operator's note - this is NOT how a headstock joint should look:

It is now fixed - no pic of that though, will probably get one soon!

That will do me for now - currently clearing the workshop. What a task. I don't have the motivation... more coffee?

Best wishes :)

Mike