Official Luthiers Forum!

So... I was all gung-ho and bought 2 tops and 2 b/s sets for my next two builds. My connection at the cabinet shop got the red light from the owner and my buddy down the street with a drum sander moved without warning. I've contacted other cabinet shops and even some builders in my area with no luck. My last resort is to ask YOU how much you'll charge me to thickness these plates and sides...

Next time, I will just have LMII do the work for me I suppose...

I would really appreciate your help. Thanks!

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Don't confront me with my failures--I have not forgotten them.

That's what I was thinking. An hour south of Indy is a bit far from my shop. Hopefully you can find someone closer.

Matthew, You are welcome to use mine (18-36 ) but I am a bit north of you in Middlebury Indiana.

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jw ( o)===:::

Ahr.. For my first, my mentor forced me to do this the old way with a decent plane - nice and quick on the top, but forever with the Macassar ebony back so he took pity on me with that and let me loose on the drum sander... well worth hand thicknessing the first top.

Take up Joe`s offer, I have met him at a couple Luthier gatherings and he is a good guy to know. You will certainly see some cool guitars he has in for finishing while you are there.

I did some thickness sanding for Paul up here in Southern Ontario and it was a pleasure to meet him and spend a few hours with another builder.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

A drill press and a safety planer works great. Well maybe not great but it gets the job done. It works very well. You can use it to get close and clean up with a plane or use it to go very close and clean up with a scraper. Good for many other jobs too.

Thanks guys!

This is for my 2nd and 3rd guitars but the first was a (cough) kit (cough). I was so excited at how well it came out, that I decided to jump off the deep end, sell all of my guitars and half of my woodworking tools to buy some decent tools.

Joe, if you are THE Joe White that is so highly regarded around here, I would be excited beyond belief to visit your shop. I did Tru-Oil on my first build and was thinking about asking you to finish my 2nd and 3rd ones since they will be for sale. The Tru-Oil just isn't tough enough for the kind of picking I do, so it is already scuffed a bit. Name a day and time and I'll be there.

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Don't confront me with my failures--I have not forgotten them.

Matthew: They can be done by hand.Cabinet scraper for the tricky type of woods that tend to pullout chips and hand plane for the rest.When I first started did it this way for a number of guitars. There were no cheap thickness sanders at that time and I thought that the task of making my own was too difficult.Hated the task of thinning backs and sides by hand which drove me to do some research in regard to a hand built sander. Was able to put together a simple sander with a hand feed that does not take a real heavy cut but gets the job done quite accurately.This made guitar building fun again.Suggest that if you are going to continue to build to think about this route or invest in a commercial sander.
Tom.

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Tom, would yo umind sharing a pic or two with a description of how your machine works?

Thanks!

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Thanks for the advice! I actually scored the GAL Luthier's Tools book for really cheap and they have plans for a sander in there. I may look into that sooner or later, but my shop $ is pretty low at the moment and I still need a 15' dish and some downcut bits for inlay. I honestly think after that, I will be fully functional.

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Don't confront me with my failures--I have not forgotten them.

There's another thread on drum sander preferences which might be worth your while.

Seriously, I hear you on the $$ issues - but the day I got my Jet 10/20 drum sander was a great day indeed. So easy, and more uses than you can think of. Of course, then you need to think about dust removal.

Anyway, it's always easy to spend someone else's money....

Darryl : I am very much a computer dummy and have not a clue on how to post pictures here. Sorry about that.Best I can do is try to describe the sander. Main shaft is 3/4" cold rolled steel with a pulley that has half of the Vee machined off,the face furthest away from the set screw.This is set up on one end,then 6" discs of 3/4" mdf were cut out,enough to fill the shaft. Mine is about 18 inches on the sanding surface.The first disc on the shaft is attached to the pulley by wood screws and then subsequent discs are glued to each other as they are stacked on the shaft and clamped. This stiffens the shaft considerably.This of course is the sander drum. The shaft was then mounted in pillow block bearings on either end of the shaft that were attached to a wooden frame.A Vee drive pulley is attached and is driven by a motor mounted low in the wooden frame. A table is under the sander drum has a piano hinge at one end and an up and down adjustment the other. On this table is the slide table guided by mdf strips screwed to the bottom adjustable table. A aluminum stop strip is attached to the slide table in order to hold the work. The bottom table with the piano hinge has the hinge attached to a 2by4 one end of which is pivoted on a bolt,the other end can move up or down in order to allow for adjustment to keep the table and drum parallel.Sandpaper is glued to a plate wider then the drum and placed on the table under the drum.This is passed through the sander with a motor running and the drum lowered in order to sand the drum true.If you are careful when you manufacture the original discs the sanding goes quickly. Sanding paper of 3inches wide from a roll in wound on the drum in a helix and secured to the drum at each end with hose clamps.A cover was made to sit over the drum to hook to a shop vac to keep dust down. Hope you can follow this ,sorry about not having any pictures. Tom.

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Thanks Tom! That was a great description.....and sounds like a simple solution.

How do you feed the tops and backs through the machine? Push them halfway then go to the other side and pull them? With a manual feed can you still get a consistent thickness?

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Darryl: Because the plate being sanded is captured on the slide table by the aluminum stop strip you have some more slide beyond the end of plate that you push on and can push the whole thing through from the feed side. You can tell you are through by the feel and sound.You have to be careful not to hit the drum with your hand. Have lost a bit of skin this way but through carelessness. The dust cover comes almost down to the slide table prevent you from putting your whole hand near the drum. Because the bottom of the drum is coming toward you in rotation it's not as dangerous as it sounds at first. In order to insure a degree of accuracy the movement under the drum has to be constant and continuous. If you stop part way through you will end up with a groove across your plate.It will not be too deep but may be a problem if you are close to your intended thickness.Sanding strips like binding can be a bit of a problem to if they don't lay flat on the table. They may tend to come flying out of the sander back at you like arrows,again not as dangerous as it sounds if you are aware and keep you wits about you. That could be corrected by some sort of rubber sheet attached to the top of the slide with glue. At least I think it could. Tom.

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

For the cost of shipping, I'll do them on my wide belt sander.
If you want a really neat deal, install your rosettes first on the top face, about .020 to .030 below the surface. Then the face gets leveled to the rosette, turned over and thinned from what will be the inside of the top. This can be done with the sound hole partially or completely cut through. If partial, then it usually comes free as the inside is thinned.
Then you be ready to brace, mon.

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Hank Mauel

That is a sander and that is a deal....!

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Hank's deal is the best running. Those wide belts are the best.

But you know... you can build a pretty cool set up with a plunge router and some suspention rails. Bruce Dickey did a write up about this way back when... but essentially you suspend the router over the part you want to thickness and take light cuts with a router, then plunge a bit and repeat.

As long as you are careful not to tear out the edges this is a way to work around not having a drum sander.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

I now have a Performax 10-20, but I did my first few tops/backs with a hand plane and then ROS. I found the time getting down to thickness with the hand plane was very educational. I now use my 10-20, but i certainly learned alot from working the wood with the hand plane.

Just another way to go.

Glenn

Matt,
If you've not yet found a way to thickness your plates, I can help. I have a shop built drum sander AND I live in Columbus, IN. I'd be glad to help out. Of course, no charge for a fellow hoosier.

Bud