Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Made with the typical precision of a swiss watch Markus & with that indexing tool you have it even sounds like one I'm loving it & the actual process of cutting must be quite therapeutic. Think I would have struggled to make this even in some form of metal! Great job

Absolutely fantastic Markus. I got exhausted just reading this thread.

Thanks Nick and Bob.

The cutting process is just like breathing (and I can breathe - no sawdust in the air! )

This was the first lining I have kerfed with this saw (well actually it was only scrap wood with defects and not evenly planed), and when I looked on the video how long it really took I was surprised that is was something like 7 minutes - it felt just like one minute! It's something like a time machine - it makes me lose time without noticing it! Very relaxing, indeed.

One negative experience: when I noticed that the sound is getting de-synchronised towards the middle of the video I found this really disturbing! Well, I don't know how many will make it to the middle or even the end of the video. But that's not my problem.

Streeewth!

Wonderful Markus,

The Acid Queen kerfing machine is nothing short of a work of art and you demonstrated a great number of skill sets in bringing it from and idea, to a fully functional thing of beauty

Cheers

Kim

Brilliant! Just bloody brilliant.

Clancy wrote:Streeewth!

Yes, when cutting 4 or 6 mm per pass it isn't really silent anymore (not suited to work after midnight without running the risk that my neighbours would recommend me some remedies against snoring). Although, slowing down the cut reduces noise and the cutting quality will remain the same. Also, cutting only 2mm per pass makes a really silent job.

Kim wrote:The Acid Queen kerfing machine is nothing short of a work of art [...]

Oh, I chose the wrong soundtrack...

I'm not sure if this is art, I wouldn't hang it on the wall.

Lillian wrote:Brilliant! Just bloody brilliant.

Kim wrote: [...]and you demonstrated a great number of skill sets in bringing it from and idea, to a fully functional thing of beauty

Thanks. Yes, I am glad it works. I wouldn't know what to do with it if it didn't work. I would have to pay for dumping 12 kg of an assembled mix of wood and metal scraps.

I'll stretch this thread a bit by presenting some accessories and other details of the saw I have not not explained yet, or not even mentioned.

charangohabsburg wrote:A surrealistic - meditative journey along a kerfed lining:
[...]

Markus on YouTube wrote: [...]
The gizmo for feeding the lining I made after an idea I have from the Italian world class luthier Luca Waldner ( www.lucawaldner.com), back in the times when he had the guts to run an own Internet forum and had some really useful hints online.
[...]

Watching Luca Waldner's method for cutting regular kerfs in the linings was really a revealing moment for me. Just too simple to be true. Though, his apparatus was better designed than mine. Waldner uses a dremel-sized small circular saw which gets swung over the lining, so the remaining web, regardless of the thickness of the lining will be of a constant thickness. O course, this can also be achieved with a smart setup of a backsaw with a depth stop, where the latter does not stop against the lining itself but a miniature mitre box. The advancing system could remain the same. To have the pictures of the advancing gizmo also here in the forum (and not only 5 seconds each in the YouTube video) I'm posting them here once again.

The whole gizmo:


The spring loaded down holding mechanism:


In-feeding guide and feeding stop:


Manually operated out-feeding guide:


Manually operated feeder with asparagus rubber band and feed ratio adjuster:


Before feeding:


After feeding:


The last two photos are not well taken because one can see that in this case nothing got fed; I shot them after the whole lining was already kerfed.

The fence of the Jointapprentice Hobby a1 is another a bit complex bit of wooden machinery.

Let's start with the sacrificial fence which is a piece of 3 mm MDF or also plywood which gets a new cut each time the fence's position was changed. If one would readjust this zero-clearance slot once the position of the fence was changed, the cut would not be dead vertical anymore . So I designed the sacrificial fence in order to be able to advance it easily 10 or 15 millimetres each time I need a new kerf in it. I hope the pictures will speak for themselves so I can get a cold one while you are watching the pics.







The fence gets clamped to the saw's table with the ASCS (Advanced Spool Clamp System). Ordinary spool clamps will only clamp fine when tightening them nearly to death (I have tried it):




The finished fence, front side:


The finished fence, back side:


Edit:
I nearly forgot a picture of the stick-on fence extension to support long, floppy kerfed linings:

Using the fence as a clamp:















Using this tiny pies as part of a dust cover:


A larger piece clamped vertically:

And then there are those versatile system clamps.

This photo shows only the range of clamping hight the can master:


Here the same clamps in real use, clamping a thin piece:


...and clamping two thicker pieces:




- End of the Jointapprentice Hobby a1 clamping story. -