What's on your workbench right now?

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

Post by antisymmetric » Sun Dec 22, 2019 4:03 pm

Zork wrote:
Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:34 pm
And how does that bridge work? It is a vibrato of sorts, no?
It's a Strat block/knife edge setup. Best way I can explain it here (Sorry the pics have been wrecked by photobucket). I'll do this to any Strat trem that crosses my path. To me, best of both worlds- the inertia block & springs from the Strat with something like the *superior* (highly subjective, obviously) geometry of the offset trem. On this one I've pushed the fulcrum point up a bit higher than previously, it's partly up into the top plate instead of at the top of the block, and it's just a bit less sensitive. That one in the link works well, but maybe a little twitchy. This one is exactly what I was after :)
Watching the corners turn corners

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

Post by epizootics » Mon Dec 23, 2019 12:49 am

antisymmetric wrote:
Sun Dec 22, 2019 12:20 pm
My first go with the vinyl wrap. I'm still just a bit on the fence with the look, but I'll carry on with it and see how everything pans out. There will be matt white side binding, and I've done two backs out of 3mm acrylic- one gloss black, one matt white (close in look to the binding), I'll see which looks best. The side binding will enclose the back. Thinking now maybe the pickguard shouldn't be glossy...
(Those brass saddles won't be staying btw)
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Oh dang, this is an insanely cool little guitar. Crocodile is a great toneskin from what I hear, it'll give your sound a lot of bite. ::) :whistle:
I'm a big fan of your altered tremolo. That's a really good idea. I've been working on a homemade trem and it's interesting to study how the different units on the market (or the ones from yesteryear) work and differ from one another. The JM unit has the strings anchored just above the fulcrum point at a relatively close distance, with both the spring and the trem arm relatively far from it. This is the key for a tremolo that shimmers - little pitch variation for a wider rotation, where the arrangement on, say, a Kahler unit has the fulcrum point far away from the string anchor, allowing for a big pitch bend range. I like your take on that.

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Fri Dec 27, 2019 2:49 am

Made something fun for my girlfriend. It was originally intended to be for Xmas, but I kinda went nuts on her and her daughter this year, so I'm not including it in the Xmas gifts.

A while back I'd seen a meme of a wood screw welded to a couple nuts that said "when a welder gets romantic" and thought that the hex nuts welded close was a bit reminiscent of a sunflower. The girlfriend LOVES sunflowers, so I started thinking of a way to modify it and make it more epic. Here's what happened:

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I started with some 3/8"-16 extra-wide hex nuts and threaded rods in unfinished steel (so I wouldn't have to grind off any coating or potentially have health issues due to welding said coatings (I'm looking at you zinc)).

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After welding a group of hex nuts into a hexagon shape (using 19 nuts), I welded nut onto the top of one of the long rods. I used a long bolt for the center for mounting, and secured all of it with 2 nuts (1 for spacing, 1 to secure).

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Here's the front. The center button-head cap screw is the long one in the previous picture, and the rest are the shortest cap screws I could find (both for weight and so it wouldn't look so bad with unused threads sticking out the back). I painted the 19-nut hexagons for the main flower head body black to match the cap screws.

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At this point, I'd made a couple mistakes, and had to order a bunch more nuts. They were cheap, so no worries. I used the same hexagon pattern of 19 to make a "flower pot". For the bottom hexagon, I added another ring of nuts around the original 19, and for the top I added 2 rings of nuts around the original 19. I then used a long threaded rod through the center of the bottom and top of the "flower pot", adjusted the height so that I would need to pry the threaded rods into the corners, so they wouldn't just fall out. After welding in the rods in the 6 corners, I removed the center positioning rod, ground off any discoloration from the welding, and then started hitting it with an enamel clearcoat.

The fun part was the petals. Ok, not entirely, but they look amazing. Because sunflowers are bright yellow, and I didn't want to make something and just paint everything, I decided to buy a 12"x 18" sheet of 26ga. (?) copper. Cut strips of the copper with a plasma cutter, then I sanded the corners down on a belt sander, and rounded everything over. After the petals were all cut out, I polished them roughly with a rough sponge (Brillo pad essentially), then mounted them to the flower heads.

Once everything was assembled, I hit everything again with another couple coats of clear enamel. Here's the finished product:
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I'm enjoying the welding and now REALLY want a MIG welder at home...
Pickup Switching Mad Scientist
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 Rgand » Fri Dec 27, 2019 8:09 am

That looks like it was fun to do. The button heads look good for the centers.
Shadoweclipse13 wrote:
Fri Dec 27, 2019 2:49 am
I'm enjoying the welding and now REALLY want a MIG welder at home...
I couldn't live without mine. Bought a Hobart Beta-Mig 200 many years ago and it's been a trouble-free workhorse.

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:00 am

Thanks man!! It was definitely a lot of fun. Maybe in a couple years when I'm married and have a house, I'll start searching for one. When I took my welding classes earlier this year, we had Miller machines that could do MIG, TIG, and Arc. I'd love to have one of those.
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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 Rgand » Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:35 am

Shadoweclipse13 wrote:
Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:00 am
Thanks man!! It was definitely a lot of fun. Maybe in a couple years when I'm married and have a house, I'll start searching for one. When I took my welding classes earlier this year, we had Miller machines that could do MIG, TIG, and Arc. I'd love to have one of those.
Those Miller Multimatic 200 machines are nice. There are times when it's good to have TIG. Years ago I worked in a shop that built food processing machinery. We had portable welders that were both MIG and TIG. The brand was TriArc or something like that. The TIG didn't have a footswitch but set properly, you got used to just striking an arc and proceeding. They were outstanding machines. When I got my welder, those were no longer available or I'd have bought one of them.

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:56 pm

Rgand wrote:
Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:35 am
Shadoweclipse13 wrote:
Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:00 am
Thanks man!! It was definitely a lot of fun. Maybe in a couple years when I'm married and have a house, I'll start searching for one. When I took my welding classes earlier this year, we had Miller machines that could do MIG, TIG, and Arc. I'd love to have one of those.
Those Miller Multimatic 200 machines are nice. There are times when it's good to have TIG. Years ago I worked in a shop that built food processing machinery. We had portable welders that were both MIG and TIG. The brand was TriArc or something like that. The TIG didn't have a footswitch but set properly, you got used to just striking an arc and proceeding. They were outstanding machines. When I got my welder, those were no longer available or I'd have bought one of them.
I've never (yet) tried TIG, but I could see how using it would be a handy thing. That's too bad that the TriArc wasn't available. Have you looked into used/ebay? You might find one some day...
Pickup Switching Mad Scientist
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 Rgand » Mon Dec 30, 2019 6:37 am

Shadoweclipse13 wrote:
Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:56 pm
I've never (yet) tried TIG, but I could see how using it would be a handy thing. That's too bad that the TriArc wasn't available. Have you looked into used/ebay? You might find one some day...
Naw, the amount of use it would get is so slight it wouldn't be worth the search and cost. Maybe some day I'll have a need enough but MIG does the trick for just about everything I do.

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by nelsongeets » Mon Jan 13, 2020 8:34 am

This one's currently on the setup bench. Surprisingly, even though all my builds are heavily inspired by classic offset designs, this is the first time a mastery has made it's way on to one of them. Really nice piece of hardware. This is just a "stock" unbranded non-locking trem. I was able to tighten the collet a bit under the plate so there's no slop in the arm when you press it in. Pretty happy with its functionality, but I'm thinking about bending the arm up slightly so that it's easier to get your hand under when pressing it down.

It's not pictured here, but I also decided on painting the headstock to match the body. Happy I did because it really completed the whole look quite nicely!

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I had routed a shallow neck pocket, but still wasn't happy with the break angle of the strings over the bridge, so decided to shim it. I routed out this full pocket 1.5 degree neck shim. Strings definitely feel more stable now, and tamed some of the overtones I was getting on the high E string.

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by CROSS_guitars » Mon Jan 13, 2020 6:45 pm

Setting up some stangs

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by gilla409 » Sat Jan 18, 2020 11:53 am

Finally making some headway!

I returned the Eden offset body, as the savings would have been negated once I went through the trouble and expense of having a custom pickguard made. I ended up getting a Northwest Guitars JM body instead, and it's 100% better. Shipping from UK to USA was 5 days, and arrived without a scratch.

I brought the neck and body to the metal shop I work at to do some drilling and fitting today. Got the bridge bushing holes drilled, bridge installed, routed pickup cavities to accommodate P90s, and drilled/installed steel inserts into the neck. Next I mounted the neck and trem, shimmed the neck and aligned it, which is where it sits now. Next I'll be fitting the neck pocket of the pickguard and drilling pilot holes for it. Hopefully tomorrow I can start installing the pickups and electronics, and start shaping the nut.

So far I'm extremely pleased with the way this build is going, definitely happy with my decision to return and get a different body. 😎

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by gilla409 » Sat Jan 18, 2020 11:54 am

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by countertext » Sat Jan 18, 2020 2:53 pm

gilla409 wrote:
Sat Jan 18, 2020 11:54 am
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An OSG rite of passage: Deciphering How To Post Images
http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vi ... ?f=5&t=202

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by gilla409 » Sat Jan 18, 2020 6:11 pm

Thank you sir!

I pulled it off a couple times, but for some reason it didn't work this past time. Thanks for the link tho!

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Re: What's on your workbench right now?

Post by Lamar Fandango » Sat Jan 18, 2020 8:31 pm

I'm working on a 70s J-45. I'm in way over my head, but learning a ton. Got the neck off. I'll have to rebuild some of the dovetail joint (factory sloppiness, not my malfeasance). I'm saving that shitshow for later. Now I'm building up the courage to hot knife the top off. I practiced by popping the top off of my newer Hummingbird. Kidding. I have no idea what I'm doing.
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