What's on your workbench right now?

Talk about modding or building your own guitar from scratch.
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JazzBlaster
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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by JazzBlaster » Sat Nov 17, 2018 10:48 pm

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Recently finished this Shell Pink beauty for my bandmate :-*

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by oid » Sun Nov 18, 2018 1:18 am

Finally decided to get my old MelodyMaker sorted out, got the splice for the new heel roughed out, but the neck went and split on me, should be an invisible fix once all is said and done, not that it matters at this point. Thinking I will also hack out that sloppy headstock repair. Tomorrow I will hopefully get the splice fitted and glued so I can start shaping the wood and get the geometry sorted.
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Logic gates based on billiard-ball computer designs have also been made to operate using live soldier crabs of the species Mictyris guinotae in place of the billiard balls.

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by BrendanP » Sun Nov 18, 2018 6:38 pm

A2 Bridge, 6.7k, A5 Neck, 6.5k Hopefully I'll have a chance to hear them in a few weeks.
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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by antisymmetric » Mon Nov 19, 2018 11:35 pm

Some progress on this little oddity- #1 pickguard with the Jimmy Reed pickup is nearly done- I'm still playing with details, such as how high it should sit above the recessed portion of the body. I waste an inordinate amount of time on stuff like this. ::) The paddle shift-looking trem arm is from a typewriter, something I threw into a box years ago because I thought it looked cool, and then completely forgot about, very pleased to have come across it just when I was thinking about the bridge & trem for this thing. It will receive further reshaping. There's still a long way to go, I'm still finalising headstock and fret markers- I'm trying to get a theme going that ties those things together. Plus frets, paint, and something cool to wrap around the edges of the body. Those brass saddles might not stay, I'll see how they look as things progress.
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Watching the corners turn corners

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by epizootics » Wed Nov 21, 2018 12:35 am

:? This asymmetrical (should I say 'antisymmetrical'?) looks the dog's (my apologies for using this expression, but it was the first that came to my mind). Will it be attached to a strat-style block from underneath?
You're doing well working on those details, the 'floating' feel of the pickguard was part of the cool looks of the Italian guitars of yore!


My workbench looks like we had a robbery at the flat so I won't post pictures of the actual thing, but I've been really busy recently...

The two-string, fretless baritone is coming together at last, which is a good thing because I need it finished by Monday when I take it to the five gals & guys who were unfortunate enough to sign-up for my Scavenging Lutherie class (the fee is 40€, just about enough to cover for the material costs - the aim being to show people with lesser incomes they can build instruments with minimal tools and recycled materials).

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...and my virtual workbench has seen some work too, I took this to the printers yesterday:

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...which might end up looking something like this:

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Danelectro scale, padauk fretboard, French sycamore from the bin for the neck; plywood body (the ply comes from the same bin as the sycamore!) and two mini-hbs. It'll be my first neck ever, and even though it scares the hell out of me, it's exciting to take a step in the direction of not having to buy ready-made necks any more.

Finally, the Catfish is nearing completion -

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I struggled with the finish of this walnut top, but finally found a type of shellac that gave me the results I was looking for (not pictured here). The wood is really old (80+) and very temperamental in terms of what it wants to complement its grain.

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by Fiddy » Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:45 pm

^
Lose the Jazzy trem. Way overplayed these days...

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epizootics
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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by epizootics » Wed Nov 21, 2018 11:18 pm

"and they sound horrible too". This one is for my first customer ever and he wanted a trem! He's a jazz guy and I managed to convince him to the combo JM tremolo / Charlie Christian-style P90s a try. The pickguard is giving me headaches on this one though, I still haven't found something that would both keep the bookmatch visible and tie the guitar together (à la Big Lebowski), bearing in mind he wants a stainless steel pickguard...

Talking of 'guards, the one on the Minotaur V drawing was lifted from the coolest bass on Earth:

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by antisymmetric » Thu Nov 22, 2018 1:40 am

^^ The Airline model people associate with Jack White had a few pickguard variations- the single-piece one might translate ok to your body design, and they also did a kind of "mirrored" two-piece that might work for you too. (The whole Supro/ National/ Valco range could be worth looking at).
There's also the Kay Value Leader that's in that direction- most I've seen are a one-piece "strip", but I've seen mirrored ones as well.

That Kay bass you're using for Minotaur V inspiration is cool- I'm using that same pickup in my build, except I've switched the height adjustment screws to work from the back. Going OCD for the clean lines! :wacko:
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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by oid » Thu Nov 22, 2018 2:08 am

These original designs warm my heart, so nice to see people making things you can not buy.
epizootics wrote:
Wed Nov 21, 2018 12:35 am
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That is pretty much perfect without a pickguard to my eye, I kinda want it, love everything about it in that picture. Keep the trem on the Catfish, ignore the naysayers.
antisymmetric wrote:
Mon Nov 19, 2018 11:35 pm
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This makes me smile everytime I see it, especially the type writer arm, get the V and T keys from the old round keyed type writers to turn into your volume and tone knobs.
Logic gates based on billiard-ball computer designs have also been made to operate using live soldier crabs of the species Mictyris guinotae in place of the billiard balls.

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Sun Nov 25, 2018 10:39 pm

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Before the stomach flu/food poisoning killed the momentum of my weekend, I finished installing the vertical supports on the first of my French cleat walls in the garage.

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I'm 5'5" tall, and this one (about 6' high) is the shorter of the two. So excited to have a ton of tool and template storage!! This coming weekend, I'll get a ton more done. I bought all the plywood I should need for the cleats themselves, but haven't started cutting them yet.
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http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=104282&p=1438384#p1438384

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by epizootics » Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:00 am

Wow, I'd kill (or at least commit some light misdemeanor) to have that kind of space! Looking really good, a well-organized space makes our line of work much more pleasant.

Talking of cluttered workspace, this one is finally leaving my workbench (and leaving such a mess behind it that no one would ever know if the place got ransacked by twenty angry possums):

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It turned out to be a weirdly pleasant instrument to play, the baritone scale makes it less confusing to an untrained fretless player like me than a bass scale would. That humbucker is really quiet and keeps the sound nice and warm. I had to finish it in a hurry because it needed to be ready for TODAY. I am taking it to the workshop, where I'll try and show four poor souls how to make one just like it without losing any fingers.

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by oid » Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:49 am

Man, I love that thing!
Logic gates based on billiard-ball computer designs have also been made to operate using live soldier crabs of the species Mictyris guinotae in place of the billiard balls.

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:56 am

epizootics wrote:
Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:00 am
Wow, I'd kill (or at least commit some light misdemeanor) to have that kind of space! Looking really good, a well-organized space makes our line of work much more pleasant.
Thanks dude! Saturday night, I made a plywood box so I could start to store some of my oak cut-offs that I'm keeping for whatever project floats my way. I'll need a few of them, but it'll be nice to have 4/5 more boxes from the garage gone. It's also nice because Thursday morning, I sold my washer and dryer (had my own set, but my apartment had a set). Now, I have 54 cubic inches more of space back!

I'm slowly going through stuff in the garage in boxes, tossing things, and organizing what I'm keeping. I was planning on getting more projects done this winter, but honestly, if I can finish purging the rest of the shit I don't want, and organize the rest, I'm happy to wait for spring to start building stuff again. I DO need to do some more shelving, but that's not a huge deal. I can usually churn out shelves pretty quickly.
epizootics wrote:
Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:00 am
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That looks great!! I love the washer/metal under the knob! That's super classy looking! What scale is it?
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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by epizootics » Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:20 am

Cheers! It's a 28" scale, give or take. I tuned it to C - F and it sounds pretty ok, but I could go with bigger strings (the largest I had at home was a set of 13-56s).

Those washers are saving me a lot of trouble. Instead of having four people routing a cavity in the body, it only take a forstner bit the size of the washer to inlay it into the body, then a slightly smaller one to make room for the pot/jack output. You can also polish them in no time by putting them between two nuts in the drill press and sand them while they are spinning.

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Mon Nov 26, 2018 2:44 am

epizootics wrote:
Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:20 am
Cheers! It's a 28" scale, give or take. I tuned it to C - F and it sounds pretty ok, but I could go with bigger strings (the largest I had at home was a set of 13-56s).

Those washers are saving me a lot of trouble. Instead of having four people routing a cavity in the body, it only take a forstner bit the size of the washer to inlay it into the body, then a slightly smaller one to make room for the pot/jack output. You can also polish them in no time by putting them between two nuts in the drill press and sand them while they are spinning.
Neat! I might have to try that with the washers for a build...
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http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=104282&p=1438384#p1438384

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