It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done anything substantial on these instruments.
Today I FINALLY made it to the community woodshop to use the lathe and I was able to drill out the 4 knobs I need. I have a 5th partially drilled out, but the lathe at the woodshop is too big for me to go any farther. So now I can get to work getting those ready for the resin & turquoise tops.
I’m also dropping off both necks with the pyrographer on Wednesday for her to dress them up pretty. I’m really excited to see how those turn out. I’m hoping for spectacular.
I will be out of town this weekend so I probably won’t get a whole lot more done on the knobs until next week. I’m getting closer and closer to wood finishing time. I probably ought to drill out the body for the wire channels and the jacks before I do much more sanding. That way if I scratch them, there won’t be too much additional sanding to get those scratches out.
Still rattling around ideas about how I’m going to ground all 4 individual bridge pieces on the uke WITHOUT it looking like garbage. I have some ideas and so far the only one that keeps things visually clean involves being really precise with a long drill bit to get ground wires from the pickup cavity to the screw holes for each bridge piece. I just don’t fancy my chances at being that precise.
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I’ve been spending a lot of time doing fiddly work trying to get the wooden bits of the knobs down as perfect as I can possibly get them. So Today was the day I finally did my resin pours for the knob tops.
Of course they don’t look like much right now. All the turquoise chips settled so there’s just this hazy-looking bluish-colored resin on top (the stone chips were a bit dusty). I’ll be taking most of that plain resin off when I sand them down to a consistent size/shape.
Would be a good project to turn the resin down on a lathe, but the woodshop explicitly prohibits resin work on their tools. And I’m sure they’d lay down the law even harder when I told them there’s rock embedded in mine. I’ll see if I can put them in my drill with a bolt or something so I can spin & sand them down. Now I just get to wait while that resin cures nice and solid.
Of course, I had more resin/turquoise mixture than I needed for the knobs owing to my mix/measure cups not having measurements less than 50mL. So I poured some into pieces of wood with cavities so I can maybe play with it later, and some I poured into tiny cavities in other things. The one relevant to this project is that I had a couple long bug holes on my guitar body I wanted to try filling.
Total experiment here. I have no idea how to expect this to turn out. My hope is that it’s surprisingly stunning once I get it sanded down.
Worth noting here is the peek at the wood grain that pops in the spot where the resin spilled and flowed because it was a bit thin. Since I’ll be doing a flood coat later on, I’m hoping that takes care of any voids between the stone chips (I can see some in there).
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knob work:
Not as many bubbles amongst the stones as I thought there might be. I need to round the top edges, which presents its own series of challenges I need to figure out. I think I have a rough idea how I’m going to do it.
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Ahhhhhhhh. These knobs will be the death of me.
I just can’t keep them from being wobbly! I absolutely can’t achieve the sort of precision I need. I have to bail on these knobs, get better tools, and do lots of learning before I can revisit this idea. For now, I am just going to buy some knobs so I can finish these instruments and get them playable.
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I sympathize. Sometimes good ideas don’t work out like you visualize. So near the finish line, it’s smart to move on for now.
Being knobs, you can always come back later.
I just finished an electric S style. It took waaaay longer than expected, so I’m glad it’s finished and am enjoying its sound and playability.
You got a very cool looking guitar.
Instead of buying knobs, I’m having my dad turn ALL aspects of them this time on the same lathe, instead of only having him do a tiny part of the job and then trying to line things up perfectly on a different tool (pretty sure that’s the source of my problems). I was reading up on doing the turning myself and there’s more I need to learn before I dive that deep. The turning I did earlier was just spinning the piece onto a drill bit, and that’s significantly easier than knowing which chisel to use when, and how. The knobs are complex enough and I’ve had enough trouble with them that I just don’t want to mess with that part anymore. My dad also bought himself a small CNC recently, so maybe he’ll use that, too.
I sent him some drawings with dimensions.
This way, I can still do the resin and turquoise top on the knobs. I have a little piece of 1/4" rod I can use to put them in the drill to shape the turquoise tops.
And I can get back to work on the body. I only had pilot holes drilled for the various controls, so I drilled those out to diameter. I need to thin out the body some still, as the top is too thick to fasten any of the controls. I was planning to just use large Forstner bits on the inside of the control cavities to slowly thin them where I need them.
As for other drilling that needs to be done - the wiring channels and the cavities for the jacks, I think I’m going to use the community woodshop so I can use their drill press. I’ll double check that the table can tilt, and if it does, I’ll clamp the bodies in place and use the press to drill them exactly how I need.
I’m using a football jack plate on the uke and drilling that one is less trouble. On the guitar, I’m using a strat-style jack plate, but I’m positioning it sorta Ibanez-style. I was planning to point it similarly to a strat, but playing around with positioning, I sorta like it pointed the way Ibanez does theirs. I’ve got both sketched out where I want them.
Visited the community woodshop to use the drill press and get the drilling done for the jacks and for the rest of the wiring channels. Doing the strat-style one on the guitar was harder than I expected because my Forstner bits are short. Ended up needing to switch to a spade bit to get deep enough for everything to fit in the cavity. At least the rough stuff from the spade bit is inside the cavity.
Also took care of a couple smaller wood-removal jobs I was waiting to do. Got a bunch of little things done today and I marched closer to being able to start finishing work.
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The artist sent me her preliminary drawings for the headstock designs. I love her ideas. She’s wrapping the designs around to the sides of the headstocks, too. I’m not going to share pics until she’s done, but I’m excited for how it’s going to look. She’s going to add details like shading and such, so I expect there to be a lot of extra depth when they’re complete.
I’m pretty excited for that. I’ve moved forward with sanding on the bodies. I’m at 600 grit now. Trying to make sure I’ve gotten all of the scratches and dings but also trying not to overdo it and try to sand out natural elements of the wood I want to remain. Since the grain has so much going on, it’s hard to tell sometimes. Getting the surface super smooth like you get with the finer grits helps to find some of that stuff and sometimes I have to go back to coarser grits. I’m going to work at 600 grit for a little bit before I move on.
Next week I’ll be out of town but hopefully after I come back I can get the sanding all the way to 1500 grit. I hope that by the time I’m done with all of that, I have the necks back and my dad also has the knobs done. I want to get all of the epoxy flood coating done all at once.
Annoyingly the smallest mix & measure cups I could find locally are 1qt. Ended up needing to find smaller ones online, where it was super easy to find little 8oz cups. Of course none of it would be delivered by the time I got home, so I have to wait to place the order.
My nephew will be a little disappointed, I think. He hoped I’d have them done and could bring them when we visit next week for his high school graduation. I could technically bring the bodies, but they’re at a point where I’d risk damaging my work if I tried to pack them along with everything else. He’ll have to be satisfied with pictures.
