What did you get done this weekend

[kiwigeo]

I got to work on a right handed Ibanez that a left handed friend gave to me for modifications. The intonation was so bad I dont know how my friend got the thing in tune.

I filled in the original saddle slot and rerouted for a wider 5mm wide saddle using the Stewmac Intonator to locate same. Compensation on the bass E string was around 7mm but could only get 6mm safely without getting to close to the bridge pin....this guitar must have been built on a friday afternoon (aparently the Ibanez factory used to give its workers a lunchtime sake ration on fridays). I then routed new slot using Stewmac saddle slot routing jig. The old nut was a cheap plastic crappo job so that came off and got replaced with a bone nut.

The truss rod was loose but even with the truss rod loose in the slot the relief surprisingly was around 0.011" so I just took up the slack in the rod and left relief as is.

Bridge pins are cheap arse plastic jobs and one sheared off halfway down the bridge pin hole but I managed to get it out. Will replace these with wooden pins when I get some in next week.

The bridge looks like rosewood but some clown has painted it black to look like ebony. Might give it a coat of black paint before I give it back to its owner.

[Paul B]

I didn't get a thing done, guitar related. Humidity has been all over the place in Sydney this weekend, 30% yesterday and 80% today. At least the weather is warming up .

Well, I cleaned the pool so it's not green anymore. We'll be having a swim next weekend!

[Bob Connor]

I got rosettes in 5 tops.

King Billy
Celery Top
Bunyah Pine
Sassafras
Adi

The Adi is for a Maple OM I'm building for Rick, the bass player in our band. I got the X-brace radiused and glued on.

The King Billy is for an O model Dave is building for himself and the Celery, Bunyah and Sassafras ones are part of an experiment to see what they're like as top woods.

[matthew]

I discovered I am really bad at cutting mattes for framing pictures

I sanded the cornerless bass, scraped the top for texture, and started finishing with a yellow ground.

[kiwigeo]

I discovered I am really bad at cutting mattes for framing pictures

Luckily youre a gun hand at building basses

[Taffy Evans]

Well this weekend in the workshop was all repairs, all guitars, and ranged from crap acoustic to Gibson Les Paul and a few Maton’s to set up and a few other acoustic and electrics.

I only do this part time so the pressure was on, or rather I got stuck in to keep the pressure off.

This is what I picked up from Townsville on my fortnightly trip to Townsville, 130 k away. I managed to knock most of them over.


I also advised the customer who gave me the acoustic with teeth [see picture below] gave him a big quote for the job and he said go ahead, I could not believe it. So I got stuck into it and it’s finished. It was a big job as I treated it like an expensive guitar, and took no short cuts due to this guitars price range. However cheep guitars like this are rarely built properly, so modifications had to be made along the way. I enjoyed the challenge and it will prepare me for any similar jobs that may come up on a quality guitar.

Remember this from an earlier post....


After bridge plate and top reconstruction......

[zac_in_ak]

not much did prep the wood for my go bar deck need to drill holes and put it together....did honey dos and got my eyes checked will be getting new specs today

[sebastiaan56]

Well I finished my router table and fired it up. First job was to route out some channels to make some wooden flutes, they all self destructed on the lathe. there are some things that $1.50 lineal/m second hand cedar is just not good for. You live and you learn. I also completed an aluminium whistle that has 7 holes, plays well and all in tune as well.

Second job for the router table was to trim the edges of a mandolin back, went like a dream, about 1 inch of tearout on one side, the rest went perfectly. Im a happy camper. Where do people source channel cutting roputer bits in Aus?

[Allen]

I got the new side bender about 1/2 finished. Managed to get the back glued onto a soprano uke and the top is braced and ready to be glued on today.

Took the motorcycle out for a ride down to Innisfail Sunday morning with the wife. Lovely day and I really need to get out and do that more often.

[matthew]

[kiwigeo]

Taffy,

Some people love their guitars dont they?

Did you replace the whole top on the thing?

Cheers Martin

I also advised the customer who gave me the acoustic with teeth [see picture below] gave him a big quote for the job and he said go ahead, I could not believe it. So I got stuck into it and it’s finished. It was a big job as I treated it like an expensive guitar, and took no short cuts due to this guitars price range. However cheep guitars like this are rarely built properly, so modifications had to be made along the way. I enjoyed the challenge and it will prepare me for any similar jobs that may come up on a quality guitar.

[gratay]

Martin, I own the exact same model Ibanez as that one your working on..Its my campfire / drag around guitar ..
I put bone nut/saddle/bridge pins and some grover tuners on it which helped it a bit..It can be pretty nice with the right set of strings.

[Dominic]

I gotta fess up. My new table saw, which I still love but in a different way, threw a 500mm square piece of mdf at me last week in a moment of stupidity (mine not the TS).

Luckily I caught it with the back of my hand. Unluckily for my hand, it needed a bunch of stitches to put it back together again.

This should be obvious advice but it somehow escaped me ... 'always pay attention to your machines. They can bite and it hurts'.

So not much work done but I did drop around and have a chat with Graham which was very nice.

Dom

[kiwigeo]

Grant,

I've just been out in the workshop exercising the right sode of my brain on the left hand guitar and Ive got to say for what it is it doesnt sound too bad.

The Daddario XP strings I put on the guitar certainly sound alot better than the old set that were rusted to the machine heads.

Martin, I own the exact same model Ibanez as that one your working on..Its my campfire / drag around guitar ..
I put bone nut/saddle/bridge pins and some grover tuners on it which helped it a bit..It can be pretty nice with the right set of strings.

[Taffy Evans]

Hi Martin

Martin wrote
Some people love their guitars dont they?

Did you replace the whole top on the thing?

I did not replace the whole top. I routed through the top down to the bridge plate just short of the full bridge footprint. I then cut and removed the damaged part of the bridge plate and replaced it with a piece with a larger foot print than the piece removed, and joined it to the existing part of the plate with a large dovetail joint to ensure a strong bond. I then cut a piece of fine grained cedar and glued it into the routed bridge shaped hole in the top. A perfect tight fit was needed, it’s glued to the bridge plate and of course to the edges of the recess it fitted into. It looked very strong to me and better than original.


Black shading is the new plate area

New plate in place

Recess filled and levelled



[/quote]

[Allen]

That's some pretty amazing work you did on that on Taffy. I can't see where the patch is in that last photo. Did you end up needing to reshape the sole of the bridge plate for a better than original fit? It obviously wasn't that great of a fit to start with.

[Allen]

Dominic, do you use zero clearance inserts for your table saw?

They make a huge difference in how often a piece gets thrown back at you. I made up 1/2 dozen on the weekend for the different blades that I use, and have a couple of spares in case I need them. They're just made from some 12 mm mdf that I traced the outline of the factory insert onto. Then cut to fit. Cheap and easy insurance. Especially with all the little pieces of wood that we are cutting up building guitars.

[Dominic]

Hey Allen, I do use zero clearance inserts. My problem was that I made the cut and then just left that large piece sitting there between the blade and the fence and just seemed to wait until it grabed and kicked back at me.

I should have finished the cut first and pushed the piece clear and i should have been using my riving knife which had been removed so i could do my dados. Like I said, stupidity.

But I have seen a really cool cross cut sled in one of the woodwork mags that make cross cutting large sheets easy and safe. Thats what I want to make.


Dom

[Allen]

I suppose you realize that you had it comming

[Dennis Leahy]

Matthew, What is that double bass made of? Looks awesome!

Are my eyes seeing it correctly - "flat" back (not carved)?

Dennis