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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on October 14, 2018 at 9:47pm

I'm single too. That's why I was able to use the kitchen floor. : )

To get an idea of the size difference between my old table and this one. That piece of ply leaning up against the wood is my old table top. About 4x4 foot on two saw horses. 

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on October 17, 2018 at 11:31pm

Work bench is still a work in progress. A few more things and it'll be a real bench. My very first. 

Shelf isn't attached yet. Got to trim the rough stuff off. I left a gap at the front for extra leg room. No kicking my shins. The upper leg supports will have a bottom added. They will be catch all boxes for everything from saw dust to things you'd grab all the time. Pencils, tape measurers, bench dogs and the like.

land of corse, on the bench.

Salvaging this build. I'll have to use longer screws in the bridge. The bridge pickup wont be as close to the bridge as it would on a strat. But that's OK with me. Really don't like the sound of a bridge single coil. The body has three thin coats of polyacrilic. I smoothed out the strokes with the green pad. Then brought it back up to a semi gloss with the blue. So yes, I have work on my work bench before my work bench is done. : )

Making a change to the bench as well. The clamp will be on the short side. Right under where the ply wood is holding the guitar body. This way I'll have the length of the table for the bench dogs

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on October 18, 2018 at 5:12pm

A removable clamp that could be installed on either side would be a good idea. 

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on October 18, 2018 at 6:41pm

Hi Guy's, that's a nice bench coming along there. My son is just getting his workshop set up for guitar building, and the first thing he started with was a bench, purpose built like yours.

I have nine work benches but not one is built like yours, or his. They are all conversions of other things cobbled together. Oh well whatever works.

Cause, you talk of a clamp to be mounted to the bench and I was wondering if that is what could be called a vice.

Anyway Pauls suggestion of making it removable prompted me to post these photos of my guitar body vice that I built some years ago. It sits under a bench until needed, then is clamped into the "island" vise so that I can work all around it if needed.

Cheers Taff

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on October 20, 2018 at 4:03am

That is awesome Taffy.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on October 19, 2018 at 1:17pm

Awesome clamp Taffy!

I"m going to make a separate post about my bench. Put all the stuff there. 

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on October 19, 2018 at 3:29pm

Thanks Cause, I call it a vise though.

Taff

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on October 24, 2018 at 3:08pm

No pics yet. Put the first very light coat of poly acrylic on the replacement neck for that guitar body. It'll get three very light coats then sanded dull. Going to have to redrill the peg holes to fit the tuners I'll be using. 

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on October 26, 2018 at 8:21am

This guitar body was doomed from the start. When screwing in the tuners all three screws broke. These tuners are from a ver cheap electric guitar I bought years ago. When screwing in the neck I could not get it to sit flat on the board. So I thought I'd back the screws completely out and re drill the holes. One of these screws broke. So I'll end up drilling out the head stock tuner screws and pegging those holes back in. Cutting the body apart and twisting the screw out of the neck. I'll drill all four holes out and peg them closed as well. 

Building it's replacement now. I have a second Les Paul style neck I can use. 

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on October 26, 2018 at 10:43am

Hi, sorry to hear about the problems you are getting Cause.

There a couple of things I always do prior to drilling holes in guitars, they are simple solutions but I'll share them anyway. Drilling out a small screw in timber is not always that easy so prevention  is better than cure.

First I always drill a test hole in a scrap piece of similar timber, and test the screw for fit.

Seconed, I always rub candle wax or soap on the screw threads, especially tuner screws, prior to fitting.

And third, To save having to do step one over and over, I store the drill bit seperate from the rest (this means keeping drill bits dedicated to their job). They are stored in blocks of wood with a sample of the screw or fitting it relates to.

This may help others,

Taff

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on October 26, 2018 at 1:36pm

Thanks Taffy. I'll give the candle wax trick a try. The holes were wide enough. Just not deep enough. In the end it's all learning experiences. Like why using really cheap stuff it's always a good idea. : ) Plus this will give me good practice on saving and repairing a used guitar neck. Just glad I didn't have these problems with my Cosmic Glider guitar. 

Here's a look at the construction of the next guitar. The outside are 1/2 ply. All the ply on the inside is 3/4. None of the 3/4 ply would be needed if you weren't using pickups. The inside real wood is another 2 3/8 x 12 1/2 chuck of that 80 year old door. 

The piece of wood sitting on top is the bridge plate. The long narrow space at the bottom is for the controls. I can either make an L shaped pickguard. Or drill the holes into the top and have a long access panel in the back. The 3/4 ply is what the pickguard and access panel gets screwed into. The over all outside dimensions are 10 wide, 13 long and 2 1/16 thick. 

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on October 27, 2018 at 6:57pm

I've had my fair share of broken screws. They always seem to break just before the final seating twist leaving no screw material to clamp onto to twist out.

I've made it a habit to go to the hardware store and buy new screws for tuners, necks and bridges. Only drawback is they only offer chrome and stainless steel. Don't even look at the brass ones, more trouble.

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