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Arthur - the sort of Bandsman

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Bill Flude
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Fretboard glued on - clamped until the morning.

https://flic.kr/p/2hVpFEN

I glued the two halves of the Ovangkol cap together - I now have some sash clamps.

https://flic.kr/p/2hVox5n

When the glue had dried I sanded the back with 60 and front with 80 and then 120 paper on a block to remove excess glue.  I chopped the corner off to try some of the finishing oil as it had arrived with the sash clamps.  It is going to be a very rich but quite dark colour......

 

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Just bought an old, but working, Axminster MSRS Drum Sander.

Saw it on eBay - only 4 miles away - the plate on it says 1999.

Will need to sort out a hose adapter for it and find it a space.

This post was modified 4 years ago by Bill Flude

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Clamps removed - fretboard successfully glued - ran a straight edge along the fretboard and it is nice and straight.....

https://flic.kr/p/2hVRDzd

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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I managed to lift the drum sander out of the car and have plonked it down in the area of the garage that houses my compressor and airbrush.

Connected up the shop vac and did a simple test - first on a bit of 2 x 1 and then a unplaned bit of 4 x 2.   I haven’t changed the abrasive but is works and I get a nice finish.  

https://flic.kr/p/2hWbkpH

 

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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I had glued the two bits of my cap together at the start of the week - went back to it yesterday lunchtime and it had a distinct curve on it - it was very damp yesterday - very stupidly I pressed down on the join and all of a sudden it wasn’t a join anymore......

By lunchtime today the two halves were almost flat again so I cleaned the glue residue and re-glued it - once the glue had set I positioned it on the body blank, lightly clamped it at the corners and drilled a couple of holes in two of the corners to be take a couple of locating screws.   Did a dry clamp then unclamped, glued and clamped.  I will leave it until tomorrow before removing the 15 clamps - glad I bought a few more last week!

https://flic.kr/p/2hWagwD

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Removed the clamps from the glued up body - the sound hole (not f hole?) still needs tidying - the join in the cap looks ok, there is one tiny hole but it will be under the bridge.

https://flic.kr/p/2hWzuGP

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Started the neck carve.......

Scary......

First two facets

https://flic.kr/p/2hWvMHv

Got the third facet sorted - thicknesses just about right then went on - the neck shape is a bit more D shaped then my two workshop builds - still some small lumps to sort and both ends need work.....

https://flic.kr/p/2hWzmSL
Will leave doing any more to it until I have some daylight to see it better.

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Worked out where I went wrong - after I got the third facet nice and flat and the correct thicknesses I missed out evening up the facets before I added more facets.......

Worked on it quite slowly with lots of use of a straight edge and have now got the shape closer to the two workshop course builds......

https://flic.kr/p/2hX789S
https://flic.kr/p/2hX78wR
https://flic.kr/p/2hX79hJ

This post was modified 4 years ago by Bill Flude

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Managed to do the preparing the fretboard and adding dots......

https://flic.kr/p/2hWHo2P

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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darrenking
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Hi Bill,

This is all looking great, love the Rickenbacker style sound hole. 

I had one of the Axminster drum sanders for many years and it was a great bit of kit. The two things that I did to mine were to upgrade to the rubber transport belt, rather than the sandpaper one which came with it (can’t see exactly what yours has), and to fit a brace to the open end of the drum carriage to tie it to the base part. This was just made of plywood, I think, and had slots so that the drum could still be adjusted up and down before the brace fixings were tightened. This made a huge difference in ensuring that panels got sanded to an even thickness as without this brace I always found the outer edge would be +0,2mm thicker than the inner edge however fine a cut I was taking. Obviously this doesn’t work if you are sanding panels wider than the drum utilising the open ended nature of its construction but I am guessing that, if you are mainly making guitars, this isn’t the case. Any how, the brace system was only held on by four M6 screws so it was very easily removed. The other thing that I found was that it worked much better with coarser paper, 60-80g being about optimum. Anything finer than this meant taking way more passes and burning out a lot more abrasive.

Have fun!

Regards

Darren


   
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Bill Flude
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Cheers Darren - I am really enjoying the build.   Working with the videos from Mark is great - think I in retrospect I would actually make notes from the video for dimensions - I am sure that I watched the bit about trimming the body end of the neck to 38mm four times before marking and another twice before cutting........

The drum sander was a chance buy - saw it on eBay and spotted that it was only 4 miles away - contacted him and had it home here within 4 hours from first spotting it.   As soon as I have it on a stand I will give it a proper test - it has got the rubber transport belt.

 

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Just had an email from Axminster - they have recently introduced/re-introduced an upgraded version of my drum sander so can supply most of the spares so that is good news going forward.

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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The body blank and cap were 49mm thick - have used my drum sander - removed about 1mm from the cap and 3 from the mahogany - needed to smooth the back because although I protected the front from clamps I forgot the back and had some clamp marks.

The drum sander worked well - need to do some fine setting up but front and back are flat.  The bottom of the cavity is now about 7mm thick.

In a moment of brilliance I realised that if I sanded the front the outline if the body would disappear - drilled two holes through where the pickup routs will be to screw template to body......

 

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Body remarked - pickup routs done to 14mm - control holes drilled.

https://flic.kr/p/2hZb3jn

Realised that I haven’t made a control cavity pattern yet.

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Made the templates for the control cavity and have cut the hole in the back.  I followed the revised order and cut out the body.

https://flic.kr/p/2hZabAW

https://flic.kr/p/2hZdMh2

Will do the rout another day as the workshop is chilly today.

 

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Now I have the bits trimmed from the body I can see what the oil finish will look like - only two coats so far and I only gave it a little bit of a sand....

https://flic.kr/p/2hZBsRh

https://flic.kr/p/2hZz32P

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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cardiffborn
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@frocesterbill

With dimensions I really agree on this point.

I've just binned a whole load of Post-its with various important dimensions scribbled over them. I've also got bits of wood with my aide-memoirs, ( how much I need to remove and finished dimensions), dotted around the shed.

It's strange how dimensions mutate from video to brain. 


   
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Bill Flude
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Might put an A3 whiteboard and some dry wipe pens into the 'workshop' to put notes onto - better still if I can find one that also takes magnets........

 

 

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Body rout now done - two tiny tear outs - one on the cap  alongside the switch hole - will be doing a round over so not a problem - the other is on the other side about 10mm down and a good sand will sort that.

https://flic.kr/p/2i2pawe

Think I need some decent router bits - on two of them the grub screw in the collar has fallen out - the first one was when I was routing the big cavity and I spotted it in the bottom of the cavity - the second was right at the end of the last pass cutting the body from the top.

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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Bill Flude
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Frets installed, super glued and trimmed - no photos yet because I have some glue to remove from the fretboard.........

 

This post was modified 4 years ago by Bill Flude

Measure once........
Measure again.........
Sod it - make tea!


   
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