This Week in Wood » Routers

Tomorrow, I’ll know…

glennth — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 22:03:20 +0000

Tomorrow, I’ll know how my initial try and binding and purfling turned out.

Using a trim router, did a lot of test channels. My trim router is a Festool MFK 700 and I chose a trim router instead of a full size because I felt it gave me more balance and control over the process. Using this router, I did feel quite good while doing the channels. The router bit that I used was from Luthier Mercantile International and was the Binding Cutter/Bearing Kit. The full kit comes with a router bit and 8 different size bearings which allow good adjustment for channel widths. Once I got something I was happy with, I cut the channel in one of the 3 guitar bodies I’m working on.

Sorry for the picture quality, I never got a macro capable camera and was clearly too close. The fit turned out nice. I’ve got 3 purfling pieces and the binding. The purfling consists of ebony, bloodwood, and a dark wood that matches the trim on the binding. The binding is maple with a dark wood trim on the bottom.

After the channels were cut, I breathed a little easier though one hard step was left and that was the glue up. I needed to apply glue to the channel and the pieces and work my way around taping the pieces down. The tape was my clamp. I used longer pieces of tape than we used in my class back last summer on my first guitar but I felt that this allowed for more clamping pressure. I applied glue about 5″ at a time which allowed me to control any twist in the purfling pieces. Twist seemed most difficult to control when just beginning though at the end, there was a lot of glue on my hand and on top of the purfling and binding that it was also hard to control.

It’s not a very exciting shot but it shows the tape clamping down the purfling and binding. Tomorrow is the day I’ll remove it and check out how it turned out. If it turned out fine, then I’ll be able to do the rest of the guitar in one sitting. I just didn’t want to do that in one sitting without a trial run. I’m hopeful!

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Tomorrow, I’ll know…

Guitar 4 – Rosette Install and Glueup

glennth — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 04:45:41 +0000

When installing a rosette into a guitar top, you need to make sure that you’ve got an accurate measurement of the guitar top. In my case, my guitar top is 3 1/2 mm thick. This means that when you cut out the channel or groove for the rosette, you need to cut no more than half the thickness. I set my cut depth to 1 1/2 mm. Since I had already set my cut up with some trials on a scrap, I had stop blocks set up. This allowed me to cut the groove using a router in 2 very quick passes.

When trying to fit the rosette pieces in, I found it was a bit too tight. I used a skew chisel (a chisel with an angle on the cutting edge) to lightly trim the outer edge which is where it was tight. It took 5 or so cleanup cuts to get the fit to be just right.

Next was the actual glue up. It’s easy to get the clue into the channel and on the walls of the channel. I also wanted to get some glue between the pieces. That was very difficult and I’m not sure I achieved it. The fit was very tight though and I’m not sure I needed much clamping pressure. I put a sheet of wax paper down and put a hand plane on top and called it done.

When the glue was dry, it was time for a little cleanup (scraping and sanding) making the rosette was nice and smooth. The final step was to cut the actual sound hole in the top of the guitar.

And just for fun, I got one of my favorite persons to sit in with my work.

Guitar 4 – A new approach for the Rosette

glennth — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:24:50 +0000

I was having a lot of trouble with the approach I had been taking. I was trying to create 2 thin rings of ebony. I already had a ring of lacewood. One ring of ebony would have been smaller than the lacewood and the other larger. Small rings of spruce, which is the wood of the top of the guitar, would have been in between. The ebony was just too brittle and I broke all 4 tries at making the rings. It was quite frustrating.

So, I decided to try a different approach.

In this new approach, I used some perfling I had. Perfling is usually very thing and flexible wood or some other material that goes on the interior of the binding. Binding and perfling go along the outer edges of the top and bottom of guitars. The perfling that I decided to use is a black, white, black sandwich of wood but still very thin. I then attached the perfling to the interior and exterior of the lace wood ring with no gaps in between.

I routed the groove (you can see a few earlier attempts in my test scrap) for the ring and perfling. The tests allow me to set up stop collars on my router which enable me to make a very tight fit for the final attempt on the actual guitar top. As you can see in my sample, I achieved a very tight and nice looking joint. Hopefully, I’ll get to my shop today and do the final installation and glue up. Sometimes it doesn’t work though and life gets in the way.

Back on track!

glennth — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 05:34:55 +0000

After the damage, I started thinking about how to use the damaged neck. After some thought, I reached the conclusion that attempting to fix the headstock would give me some skills (or at least a first attempt at skills) at repairs. Even if I wasn’t satisfied with the results, I could use this repaired neck as my trial run for some of the various shaping work. So that is what I did.

First I worked on making the main damage area patchable. This meant making it a shape I could patch (squaring it up) and cleaning out the area to be patched. My next step was to epoxy fill some of the splits that happened on the end grain. After the patch was created and glued in, I also had a small area to epoxy fill and then it was done. In my next post, I will show the cleaned up version.

I’ve begun to shape the neck as well.

You can see the rough cutting of the heal block on the neck. I’ve decided that since this guitar has a cutaway, that I will not go with a tapered heal block. A tapered heal block gives a very awkward transition from the body where the cutaway is to the neck where as a non-tapered heal block can have a smooth transition.

I’ve also shaped the width of the necks (both the repaired neck and the undamaged neck) so that when I’m ready for the fretboard, I can use the neck to trim the fretboard.

I’ve also begun to shape the round back of the neck using sanding, files, and rasps. I hope to have a picture for the next post.

Last thing I needed to do was add a patch to the undamaged neck because I routed the groove for the truss rod too deep. My repair worked like a champ and now I have a flush and tight fitting truss rod.

Oops! A setback.

glennth — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:14:36 +0000

In keeping this diary, this blog, I am giving you insight into how I approach woodworking or more specifically with my latest project, luthierie.

With my first guitar, I did make an error or two but was able to work around and even fix the error with the help of the instructor (Thanks Eli!). With this guitar, I am adding a whole bunch of steps that I need to learn on the job with. For instance, my first guitar came from a kit and the neck was already put together and even roughly shaped. My current guitar project required that I build a guitar from a stick of wood. As I noted in an earlier post, I misordered the wood for the neck so I had to order additional wood and while I was at it, I ordered wood for a second guitar neck. Welcome to mistake central.

Now I’ve worked on making the neck which included creating an angled headstock and a stacked heel block. I’ve also put an interesting veneer.

My current step was to shape the head stock so I could move on to shaping the rest of the neck including the gentle curve into the heel block.

My first attempt was an utter disaster. I went into it thinking that it would be a success but it involved 2 things that worked against me. First was use of a power tool that I have a great deal of fear and respect for – the router table. The second complicates the first further by using this tool in a technique that I’ve had no experience with – pattern routing. When attempting this, I started off well enough but when I got to the end grain of the headstock, the material shot away. Routers have so much energy going into them that even when you have some one like me who lifts weights and is pretty strong – it’s just not strong enough in certain situations. It was scary and while the material shot away from the router bit, it did not leave my hands. It did however destroy the end of the headstock. This was the headstock on the neck made with a fairly simple maple.

Using my failure, I traded the 3hp router in the table for a trim router (FesTool MFK700) and this turned out to work much better and I felt much more under control. I moved on to the 2nd neck (the one with the birdseye maple) and made a well shaped piece of headstock.

I worked on the damaged headstock and have a rough plan to repair it. This will allow me to keep it as a work in progress and at the very least a training piece for shaping the rest of the neck.

Guitar Building Class – Binding & Purfling

glennth — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:40:30 +0000

This past Sunday, we worked exclusively on the binding and purfling. Our first step was to route out the rabbit on the front and back for the binding. The second step was a rabbit on the inside of the rabbit for the binding on the front side which is for the purfling (less deep). I got to try the Festool trim router which is one of the only trim routers with a micro adjust which is great for the adjustment to get binding depth correct. I think I’m going to save up for this and get this for my next guitar.

The next step was to do a very minor trim on the binding. The binding consists of a very small piece (white in my case) glued to a thicker piece (black). The white needed to be smoothed out to be flushed with the black piece.

It took all 3 of use to do the work of glueing the binding and purfling on both the guitars. It was kind of stressful because the purfling was prone to tangling. The clamp was painters/blue tape. Here is a shot of my teacher Eli and the glued up body.

Eli, generously, allowed me to get a new piece of figured wood for the headstock. I get another try at that so that is part of my homework. We also need to ream out the strap mount on the bottom of the guitar and the hardware holes on the headstock.

UPDATE: After 2 days, I took the tape off. I think we may have used too much glue (it was very toxic smelling and I used a respirator when using it – apparently it’s model making glue) as the glue under the tape was not quite dry. Also, I had a piece of the veneer on the side near the bottom come off when removing the tape. I repaired it but it looks like a repair so that’s a bit of a bummer. I’m going to let the guitar set for a day or two to see if the glue dries so that I can scrape the binding/purfling.

On the headstock, I prepared it and glued it up. I’m not sure the glue up was a great job. I may have to do some filling on it. I’ll know later when I remove the clamps. The figure looks great so I’m hopeful for this to turn out.

Shop Tour – Pictoral

glennth — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:44:11 +0000

I know, I know. Finally he shows his entire shop. Of course when you entire shop is less than 10′ x 16′ there isn’t much to show off.

First, here is my main work bench. Someday, I may build my own from scratch but I wanted to get to work so I bought a bench kit from Sjoberg. I did some research and for lesser expensive bench kits, it got lots of good reviews. There are better benches if you are willing to spend $1000′s of dollars (see Lie-Nielsen for example). A real big difference between many shop built benches (or these expensive ones I mentioned) and these in-expensive kits is the weight or mass. These inexpensive kits are prone to moving around as you use them. I’ve drilled holes into the leg bases and the floors so that I can have a removable anchor using dowels. It’s worked great.

Here is a shot of the entire corner where I have a quick/dirty shop made cabinet for hand planes/chisels/marking/measuring tools along with hand saws on the wall. I keep my saw benches (modeled after Christopher Schwarz’ design). This area has really worked out well as I move more towards using various hand tools. You will notice that I have a dust collection set up. This is somewhat the remnants from when I had my table saw (can you imagine a table saw taking up nearly the entire shop) but it’s still useful for shop cleanup and some of the remaining power tools (planer, sander). Notice that I still am working on that handcut dovetail hope chest.

Oposite my main bench is a secondary bench that I use for metal work (though I don’t do this much) and I can put a anvil or metal vise into the bench vises. Above this secondary bench, I have a cabinet purchased from the local borg which holds a few reference books and most of my finishing supplies. Also in the farthest corner, I have a scrap bin and trash on wheels (it’s helpful in such a small shop to allow everything to be mobile.

On the same wall but at the other end as the secondary bench, is where I have my benchtop drill press, benchtop planer, bench top oscillating sander, dovetail jig (for router cut dovetails). Above all that I have storage for fasteners and other misc hardware and supplies. Lastly, is my Craftsman (as in Sears) toolbox for hammers, screw drivers, wrenches, plyers, socket sets and such. Notice in front of the second door to my shop (which is hardly ever used) is a ladder. I use it to get to the overhead storage where I keep other wood odds and ends. Also you can just see my collection of bessy clamps that are vital to building anything.

Opposite the above power tool area is my Festool bench. It’s the orginal MFT 1080 (I think that is it’s number) bench (latest version is the MFT-3 which is a different shape but has the same essential features). I have the MFT bench on top of a shop made cabinet which holds routers (I have 4), circular saws (I have 3), router bits (never have enough), and some other misc tools. Next to that, you can see a band saw which I would like to change out the blade for a wider blade and tune it up so I can use it for cutting both smaller items (that the Festool circular saw has difficulty with) and cutting thicker material to be used for project. Behind the bandsaw, I have scraps that I haven’t put away but behind that I have a panel clamp system.

There are some other elements of my shop that are not actually in my shop. I have had several posts regarding my Sharpening Center which I keep in my garage. Now that you’ve seen the shop you can understand why. Also, if you noticed the dust collection looks like it comes through the wall, it does. I have a small shed outside of the shop where the dust collection system stays and makes it’s dust and noise which is not in the shop. Lastly, I have a sheet goods storage area in another shed (it’s a partitioned part of my gardening shed).

This is what makes up my woodworking efforts. I hope that you enjoyed the quick tour. I hope to put together a video tour as well but that will be later. If you have any questions, please post them in the comments and I will address them as I can.

Quick Update: Dovetail Chest – Day 5 (last day)

glennth — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:29:53 +0000

OK, this was the last day. With all the work to do, I didn’t truly expect to get finished. I didn’t get to the following:

Put a coat of finish on the outside (this would have been the last step and would have been done an hour before leaving).
Put the hinges on the top (almost got to that, I’ll discuss a bit below).
Completely clean up the box (this is sanding, scraping, planing, patching dovetails with patches and in limited cases epoxy/sawdust to match)

We started the day by starting patching. Many of us had gaps in our dovetail joints due to ill fitting dovetails (I had quite a few). The notion behind this is that the best patches are made so that they match end grain or long grain. A little glue is put in the hole and a patch piece is hammered into place then excess is cut off, chiselled flat, and maybe sanded. Sometimes the hole has to be enlarged by many different means depending on the desired look. Last chance is to add an epoxy/sawdust mixture. This will fill limited spaces but is darker so doesn’t match as well.

We could have spend all day on this but after lunch we cut the top off. I used a table saw and remembered why I don’t like them (glad I got rid of mine).

After that, we had to clean the edges where the table saw cut off the lid. This was to prep it to route out for the hinge. We did this and at the end, we discovered that last cut (in my case the last 2) had the router bit slip a bit and make too deep of cuts. Gary gave us a way to patch and repair which we will do at home.

So when I get home, I’ll fix the hinges. Then I’ll decide whether to fix the dovetail joints more and do the finish (planning on shellac to match earlier pre-finish). I’m leaning towards using this as a traveling tool box though it may be too big (unless I’m taking a lot of hand planes, saws, chisels, measuring/marking, and other misc tools).

Overall, this was an awesome experience. Gary is an outstanding instructor as long as you can take critisicm. Given that we are trying to learn, I’m not sure I’d recommend any class, in any subject, for someone who can’t take critisicm. Any time, Gary criticised me, I took mental or real notes.

I was originally planning on taking a separate 1-day dovetail class but after talking with Gary, I felt that I could practice on my own at home. I think I will do 5-minute dovetail excersices and make a few small boxes and see how I can improve from there. I’m looking forward to using more dovetails.

Quick Update: Dovetail Chest – Day 4

glennth — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:00:20 +0000

It was a big day.

We prepped our pieces (cleaned up the interior for pre-finishing) and taped off the glue joints so that finish didn’t cancel out the glue.
We adjusted a dado (for the top and bottom) so that the pieces didn’t need a hammer to go in.
We pre- finished our pieces – specifically the interior pieces.
We cleaned up our finish.
We dry assembled in case we needed to adjust anything and discover how many and what length of clamps were needed.
We assembled in two stages since it has been so dry and hot and the glue working time was measured in seconds not minutes.
We started cleanup.
We began planning for next stages including patches and repairs (I have way too many) and installing hinges (a jig needed to be done).

What’s left, if it can be done in the time remaining, for tomorrow is:

Finish cleanup (benches are very high so we will have to be creative). This will take quite a long time in my case. I may revert to using a plane though I think Gary is worried about my skill set on that.
Patches and additional clean up of said patches. This could also be a lot of work as I may have dozens of patches and these can be very challenging.
Cut the top off and clean up the new edges. This may be the shortest amount of time.
Router out for the hinges and install.
Finish piece.

The first two are so intensive, I have doubts about finishing at this point.

How come…?

glennth — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 05:48:29 +0000

OK, I’m a strong guy.

I can wrench down any router bit so it is nearly impossible to get it out after it’s been used. So, how come I can do that but no matter how tight I make the hold downs for any fences on the router, they eventually slip and screw up my project? It is very frustrating.

I was working on a pair of doors that I’m making for my hand tools. It’s for a cabinet that hangs on the wall and holds hand planes, chisels, marking and measuring tools. The main cabinet is already built using hand cut dovetails on plywood with adjustable shelves. The doors had the same hand cut dovetails done and I was routing (I’m using more hand tools but not all are power free) a groove for a plywood back to the door. My first 2 sides went well but when I got to the third, the fence slipped and of course made a mess. I think I can salvage it though it’s appearance may not be great (it’ll be noticeable on the inside of the door).

I’ll write a post with the finished project after I recover and get these doors done and installed. After that, it’s about coming up with solutions to hang chisels in the door along with marking and measuring tools.