The last class was simple but somewhat time consuming. We had several things to do. Fit the saddle into the bridge. Fit nut between headstock and fretboard. Attach machines to headstock. Drill out holes for string in bridge. Attach strings. Readjust saddle and nut (raise height, lower height – in my case, I raised the nut [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Training’
Finish Update
I finished the epoxy pore filler. From a texture point of view, I believe I have accomplished the job. From a color point of view, I have an uneven tone. I need to explore pore filling more though I’m not sure I have the time to do it on this guitar. The neck and headstock [...]
Guitar Building Class – 4 of 5
Sunday I went to my 4th of 5th guitar building class. As I stated in my previous post, I did a lot of pre-work so felt that I would be ahead of the game and that turned out to be true. I discussed a few minor imperfections with Eli, my instructor and he helped me [...]
Guitar Building – Pre class work
As I stated in the previous post, I was working on cleaning up the body using hand scrapers and various non-powered hand sanders. After all the scraping was done, I turned to the hand sanders. After 3 solid days, I finished and am very pleased with the results. I had one area of tear out [...]
Guitar Building Class – Binding & Purfling
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 [...]
Guitar Building – Homework
In my previous post (Guitar – Headstock), I talked about the homework that my guitar building instructor gave us. In that post (an update specifically), I told about the problems I had with the headstock. Well, I worked on my backup option and used only hand sanding to finish it. The results are nice (OK, [...]
Standing Laptop Desk – Top is on
I worked very hard and got the top flat and smooth along with square. This process really honed my hand plane skills which I’m pleased with (of course, all the work on maple means I need to sharpen the hand planes now). I decided to make my own wooden clips. Here is a shot [...]
Fretboard glueup
Today was my second guitar making class at Woodcraft. I didn’t really know what we would be working on today but it turned out it was neck and fretboard glueup. The first step was to route out the pocket on the top of the guitar top where the neck flange attaches to the top. This [...]
Small Epiphany – Dovetails
In my daily (ok, not daily but nearly so) practice of hand cut dovetails, I came together with a finished practice joint that was very tight. I still had one small gap (I’ll talk about that in a bit) but the sides were very tight. In the cutting of the sides of the tails and [...]
Unremarkable Shop Time
I know that I haven’t been posting recently. My problem is that the time in my shop IS happening but it’s kind of dull and tedious (at least from a blogging point of view – I’m actually enjoying the time). You see, my situation mandates that I have a strongly adhered to budget for my [...]
Re-sawing by hand
As I move more and more of my woodworking to using hand tools, I have to try and experiment with different elements and techniques of hand tool applications. My latest attempt is re-sawing boards which is most commonly done with band saws. I have an increasing collection of saws. I have a bow saw that [...]
Dovetail practice
Just a quick post. In addition to the mortise and tenons, I have continued on with my dovetail practice. I hope I’m reaching a significant milestone because I cut one of my best dovetails yet. It was tight (except for one small corner) in all places. A joint like that would be one that I [...]
Mortise and Tenon
I decided that I should mix some Mortise and Tenon practice amidst my dovetail practice. The real reason, is that I have done machine cut mortise and tenon but not very well. Since this was a different technique given that I’m cutting them by hand, I was hopeful that I could do much better. I [...]
More dovetail practice – oak
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have taken a path to practice hand cut dovetails. In the first round, I worked with poplar. Now, I’m down the path of using oak. My first attempt (back before Thanksgiving) was a disaster. I had forgotten how easy it is to split oak and I did split [...]
Dovetail Practice – an update
OK, I’ve been practicing…and practicing…and practicing…and… Here are some of my test samples: I’ve tried both tails first and pins first. Pins first is frustrating. I find that I make many more errors with pins probably due to assumptions and skipping steps. For instance, when I make tails first, I mark the waste before I [...]
