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I'm on a little bit of a roll after a long time away, and so I had to make my first blooper pretty quickly. I'll follow later with some real progress ...

Just in case you ever wondered - Palo Escrito bends really easily!

I took my first Romanillos style guitar out of the mold today - still need to set the neck and glue on the back, which I do Online Apprentice style. I was liking the body size so much that I decided to get #2 into the mold. The top and back were braced a long time ago, and the sides marked for waist and end cuts. So out comes the bender, spritz the sides and wrap in foil, build the sandwich, into the bender, heat, bend, no problem. Reheat, etc.

When I unwrap the side, it occurs to me "dang, this side looks thick". Sure enough, I had never done the final thicknessing, and so the side was at 0.135 when it went in the bender. No problem at all, it never complained once. Nothing left to do but go ahead and bend side 2 as well. Heh, I like really heavy rigid sides - yeah, that's the ticket. Now I need to figure out how to saw 3.9 mm slots in the heel for the sides - it's a little bigger than my usual setup for 2 mm sides (I'm not using wedges, and the heel on the neck I built is not deep enough to allow for that as a fast modification.)

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Jim: WOW, thick sides. Wonder if you could just taper the ends of the sides to fit your slots...??
Tom

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

Same thing I was thinking. Just thin those edges out on the inside of the rims.

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Having second thoughts after pondering the situation. I wanted this to be a spec guitar and so I don't think I want to build anything too unusual into it, compared to what I would normally be doing. Since the stuff is so easy to bend, I've been thinking about unbending the bent side and taking them down to proper thickness, but the waist bend is pretty tight and I'm worried about getting it out completely.

Anyway, I hope to set the neck on the first one of the batch today.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Hmmmm, maybe set it on fire and then scrape the charred wood off to get to the good stuff!!! Hahaha. Just kidding. You could almost skip the kerfing!

I'll be in the shop Friday-Sunday after I drive to Corning from Albany. Just drove from D.C. to Albany yesterday. I do not recommend making that drive to ANYONE, EVER unless you really do not like said person!!!! Hoping to close the box on #1 this weekend and move on to the neck. Got a lot done the weekend before last as well, although mostly jig building. Built a table/go-bar deck that just needs casters added and a vice mounted, built it out of an old sycamore benchtop and some wormy oak scraps. Also built a little circle cutting jig for my Bosch Colt and put it to use.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE and good luck getting work done this busy weekend.

Well, do wonders never cease. I remembered that, as part of replacing my first set of Palo Escrito which pancaked uncontrollably (this must have been 5 years ago), LMI had also sold me with an extra set of sides (can't remember why I wanted them - maybe a bad match in a second set?). Yes, there they are in the bottom of the random wood pile, and they are prettier than the sides I just messed up!

They are at 2mm now, and we are good to go!

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu