What Ever Happened?

Well...

It has been a while since I've posted something on here, but I've been really busy with class and going on adventures to various places to really take the time and write out something.

In fretwork class (which basically has taken the place of the neck reset class in terms of frustration-causing and swearing) I have progressed quite a bit further in the process, even if it has been fighting me the whole way. Before I was able to band saw and trim route the excess wood away from my mock up, I had to clean away a pant load of dried and hardened glue squeeze-out. That wasn't fun at all. Then, after that was all cleaned up and trimmed away, I had to radius my fingerboard. This was probably the easiest step of the whole process (in terms of not fighting me every step of the way)

 

That was the last of the easy parts, however. Next came bending and cutting the fret wire to length before hand hammering it into the fret slots. A bit of advice I have for future Steve is DO NOT OVER-BEND YOUR FRET WIRE. Over bending causes all of your frets to not seat properly against the fret board and you will need to do a whole bunch of gluing to make your frets sit in their slots better. Based on this picture of Damian, you can clearly see just how much fun this is.

He wanted to smash his fingerboard with that tiny hammer.

gluing ALL of the frets...ugh

 From there I was given yet another tiny neck to work on; this time for practicing the techniques for leveling, crowning, sanding/refining, and dressing fret ends.

Leveling, crowning, and dressing fret ends isn't that bad of a process. It could be considered fun at times, but the sanding and refining step of the process sucks something fierce. To try and explain this, leveling makes sure all of your frets are the same height, but it leaves a flat spot across the very tops of your frets (roughly the width of the fret). This is bad. The next step is crowning the fret, which entails you taking a fancy file and rounding off the corners of the flat fret top, leaving you with something resembling the top of a school bus. There is still the flat spot in the middle, but it is narrower and the edges of the fret aren't as angled. Next comes the sanding and refining process, where BY HAND, we shape the fret even further back to its rounded shape so that there is the tiniest flat spot left on the top of the fret (1/64th of an inch if we are being generous). Words cannot describe out painful (literally and figuratively) this step in the process is...seriously, I'm developing tendonitis. Dressing the fret ends isn't that difficult. Just a few passes with the file to remove any sharp pointy things that would otherwise poke into your fingers. Finally, rub with some ultra fine steel wool, and theoretically, you should have one fret job done. 

masking tape to protect the board while working on it

the tools

the mess

theoretically done

Elsewhere, I have made a whole mess of trips the past few weeks, to Des Moines and back and Home and back. Whilst in Des Moines, I visited my sister and met her new puppy, Gatsby. We're the best of buds and I didn't have to bribe my way in with dog treats this time (sorry Comet).

I also ate at a restaurant called "Zombie Burger" which was an all-around bitchin' place. Zombie themes and awesome menu in jokes, combined with great burgers...good experience.

That weekend, I also stopped at Dave's Guitar Shop on the way back to school where I was able to play all of guitar...My favorites were the Derek Trucks model Gibson SG as well as the Vintage Original Spec. Gibson SG. Ooh baby...simply killer.

 

 

the Trucks SG

the V.O.S.

Fast forward though a frustrating few days of fret work (see process above) and it was time to hop in the car again for thanksgiving. Overall, it was a really low-key couple of days. The family all got together (including Gatsby!) to stuff ourselves silly with food and generally enjoy each other's company. Unfortunately, the tryptophan didn't prevent me from taking over the kitchen table to work on various design element drawings I needed to make for my build classes in the spring.

Oh well. Its only 3 weeks until Christmas break and the end of the semester (crap! I still need to order my building materials!) Its crazy to think of how quickly this school year has gone by so far. I have a feeling that I am just going to need to put my head down and power through some things near the end here, but I wouldn't change this for anything. Well, except for the tendonitis I am developing...I could do without that.

Steady as She Goes

Ok, time for a new blog as I have promised...

I believe my last post covered up to the start of my final week of my first group of classes. man, I feel like I need a flow chart or a diagram for that sentence; so many adverbs and modifiers...anyway, not the point.

That last week was a doozy. I was able to knock out that final neck reset with a day to spare, at the cost/sacrifice of a couple of points because I choose to take that hit in order to use that class time for the numerous other projects I needed to complete. Could I have gotten the full points? Probably, but it would have taken time that I really didn't have to spare. Why didn't I have enough time, you ask? Because of the evil that is the pyramid bridge project.

There it is in the process of getting the pyramid facets shaped. The tape is there to attempt to protect the already shaped sides from damage, as well as act as a guide for how much material needs to be removed from where. Because the rosewood is so dense, you could only do so much chiseling with it before you run into a chipping scenario (that and you can only chisel easily with the grain, which as luck should have it is only on one half of the triangle you are trying to make flat). Sanding is probably the best way to attack getting all of the facets flat, but that creates a fanny-load of that ever-so-irritating dust I mentioned before.

Here is what the final product looks like...good enough for a "C". Luckily, because the instructors realized how difficult of a project this is, they decided to adjust the grading to be out of 30 points instead of 40, so my 33 went from a C to an A+...sweet. Yeah, if any of those lines are crooked or slightly off-center, it is really noticeable, which is why the instructors chose to test us on this style of bridge. All I know is that I am happy that I was rewarded for all of that work and damage to my hands.

The tendonitis is my fingers started acting up again...I blame hand tools and rock climbing. Fortunately, everything popped back into place a day or so later, and I was able to rest them well over the weekend. I just need to remember to take breaks and not power through everything.

The bridge reglues went well, except it resulted in my first chisel related injury where I sliced my finger open, not on the business end of the chisel, but near the handle where, while flattening the bottom of the chisel, created a sharp corner the length of the body. I rubbed my guide finger on that and cut it open. Oh well...

Now I am in fretwork class and electric guitar set up, and with these new classes comes a new lab station:

The most difficult part of this whole thing is trying to find a place to put all of your tools, and then finding them once you have put them away. I have 10 drawers now as opposed to the 4 I had at my other bench. Also pictured is the early progress of my fretwork mock-up (a guitar neck that I will be putting frets in, dressing them, then pulling them out a whole bunch of times).

It started as a slab of rosewood that I had to run through a jointer plane (basically a giant block plane) because the material is too thin to run over the power jointer. Then I taped a special template to the slab of rosewood that would allow me to cut all of those fret slots on a special, thin-blade table saw. Measure and cut the taper, then finally remove the excess wood at the bottom. For this, my instructor said that we could do a small design at the base of the fretboard, but not to go too crazy because we would need to sand down each time we pulled the frets out.

it is what it is...

Now I get to glue that fingerboard to the rest of my neck mock up

and then trim and route the excess wood so I get a pseudo neck to work on (that comes tomorrow)

I also made a fret wire holder out of a scrap of wood...so there's that

I was also able to finally work on one of my own guitars today...I replaced the crappy plastic shims from under the saddle on my acoustic guitar with shims made out of scrap rosewood from my pyramid bridge. Nothing too big or noticeable because the neck on that guitar needs to be reset eventually as well as getting new saddles...it has a laundry list of things wrong with it, but I don't have the time, or in the case of the neck reset, the necessary tools to fully complete the job. At least it gives me something to do while my roommate has "quarantined" himself in the living room with my xbox while he gets over "strep throat"...read into that all you want. All I know is that I am the one who is stuck in their room all evening. BOGUS. Joke is on him when he finds out I cancelled my Netflix subscription that he would take full advantage of...ugh. Can it be Friday so I can go visit my sister and her puppy, Gatsby?

Until next time, folks...