Blogs

In the interest of speeding up production I got some new tools. I've been learning from my neighbor who has been building with wood for many years. So after a few sessions of watch and learn I headed down to Harbor Freight.

First new toy is a 4" belt sander / disk sander combo. I should have bought this thing months ago. I only picked it up on Saturday but it's already changed my building life. I was able to thin out the headstock on a guitar neck made out of some very hard wood in minutes instead of hours of hand sanding. Also I used that same hardwood to knock out a banjo-style bridge and the belt sander made thinning and shaping it a breeze. This will get used to death.

Second new toy is a trim router. Many builders here recommend a 1/2" roundover bit to shape a CBG neck. Problem with a big router is you can't get close enough to the headstock if you've already glued in your scarf joint. Well this little tool does the trick. Now, out of the box this thing DOES NOT accept the 1/2" bit. The hole in the deck/platform isn't big enough. But the good news is that the deck/platform (not sure the technical term) is clear plastic and that means it can be modified. So I used my Dremel and a sanding bit to widen the hole till it was big enough to accommodate the 1/2" bit radius and it works like a dream! So for not that much money I've got a small trim router that can do the job of a big bulky one.

The current build I'm working on is for a cancer charity benefit show raffle. Putting my heart and soul into it. The fretboard is wenge and that's a problem. When I use light wood for a fretboard I can just burn in the fret markers. Not so with wenge. It's very dark brown.

So I bit the bullet and decided to do my first set of inlaid markers.

Got some bamboo skewers ($1.99 for a a crudload of em) and got to work. It was very nerve wracking because if I screwed up, the build was toast! Fretboard was already glued to the neck and the neck and box are already permanently joined. Also I don't have a drill press! But a steady hand prevailed and the holes were drilled. Now the thing about these skewers is bamboo is a stringy wood. Trying to saw them proved an exercise in futility because the strands would just break. So I got my razor utility knife and rolled the skewer under it until it was cut cleanly. Wood glued the pieces in the holes and they fit fine. Still have to level them out, but they look decent.

I like to use grapeseed oil on my fretboards and the bamboo will probably soak that up and expand and cause problems so I'm going to use a drop of super glue on the dots and that should head off any problems.

The bamboo works, but I will probably make a different choice in the future.