Official Luthiers Forum!

Great thread! Thanks Hesh for starting it!

Wonder Rags have been my go-to for french polishing for a long time. I've had problems finding it recently, but I still have a big stash and it lasts a long time...

Dave

When I drop a small part, like a tuner screw, on the floor, and can't locate it, I vacuum for it. I stretch a piece of tee shirt over the end of the hose at one of the joints, and re-connect the hose. The cloth will act as a stainer to catch the part and keep it from going into the vacuum bag.

Another good way to look for small parts on the floor is to use a bright flashlight and shine it parallel to the floor at floor level. Be surprised what you can find.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

When I change the blade on my small band saw, it is difficult to keep the blade on the upper wheel while I get it onto the lower wheel. I now tape the blade on the upper wheel at locations 10 and 2, with small strips of masking tape. This keeps the blade in place until I get it on the lower wheel.

I use a short section of a wooden yard stick for locating my tone bars when gluing. One end is cut at the angle that I want the tone bar to be at the treble leg of the X-brace. It is also trimmed down to the correct width, for the space I want between the tone bars. I position it the correct distance from the X intersection, and secure it with 2 go bars. I can then glue one tone bar on each side of it and it holds the tone bars at the correct angle to the X and at the correct spacing.

OMGaaaahhhh

Thank you thank you!

This will save hours of crawling on the hands and knees the next time this happens lol

This tip has got to end up the most widely-used one! Thanks!


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay

I’ll add I bought a fishing magnet and stuck it to the bottom of a stick.
It works great picking up screws, but it’s a pain to pry apart if I get too close to a leg of my metal table.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

I used old panty hose....

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

That would work even better, but I always have scrap tee shirt rags in the shop. It would be tough explaining the panty hose to my wife

Steve, I'm sure your wife knows what panty hose are. You shouldn't need to explain them to her.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Ooo I have one.
I’d you kinda struggle to hold your guitar body steady while you scrape bindings flush from top and back…
Drill 2 dowel size holes through your binding carriage bottom and into a work board or bench.

Insert dowels to keep it from sliding around and stick your guitar body in the carriage… boom…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here is one from Rick Turner that he posted on the OLF around 2006 and we use a lot.

When trying to get Titebond or Fish into a tight space such as deep in a crack or under a brace judicious and precise use of compressed air can blow the glue into the place.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

And here is one from me that I use a lot starting next month when crack city in Martin land begins in Ann Arbor with people not humidifying their guitars and then they crack.

For top cracks I typically use Titebond original and the process is to rehumidify the instrument (we bag em and tag em) until the crack stays closed and then continues to stay closed when the instrument is out of the bag for a couple of days and in our normal 45% RH.

So I have to rub glue into a very tight crack and that's not so easy to do. One hand is in the box pulsing the crack from the underside while the other hand is rubbing glue or trying to into the crack from the top side. The goal is to have little tiny beads of squeeze-out all along the crack on the inside of the box that I then wipe off.

Be sure to wash your hands glue carries dirt into cracks and then your repair will show..... Ever see a dark line or darker line on a crack repair or even a top join? It's often dirt from dirty hands....

So with Titebond the viscosity is such that it's thick and does not wick at all. So I thin it to half strength, just a couple drops of water for a couple drops of glue. Rub that in until I feel wetness on the inside and then I put down a bead of full strength Titebond and because the inside of the crack is now wet it wicks into the crack and I now feel more wetness and some viscosity on the inside. Or, in other words the thinned Titebond helps to carry the thick Titebond into place.

Excess is wiped up topside and inside and wax paper and a flat caul are slapped down top side and rare earth magnets, powerful ones with 42 lbs of pull are covered in waxed paper and positioned inside and outside. Clean-up the next day is warm water and clean paper towel.

I've done hundreds of cracks this way now for nearly a decade and never had one come back open. I cleat too and should have mentioned that, very small diamonds with beveled edges cross grained and out of spruce too.

Does a preliminary layer of thinned Titebond potentially weaken the joint? Perhaps but we have not seen a single failure with a lot of samples out there now. On the other hand since the thinned layer is followed by full strength AND glue permeation prior to curing is likely greater when it's thinner I could also make the case that this may be a superior joint. Might be fun to test this.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

I'd certainly expect your two-step process to work best. Another important factor is the wood absorbing water out of the glue. When applied to a flat surface, water can migrate from the puddle of glue into the wood until the surface becomes saturated. But when working into in a tight crack, the glue doesn't have enough access to the puddle and gets dried out before it can migrate into the tightest spots.

I lost a screw outside the workshop on the grass, and I needed that screw. The grass was cut short but, even so, you lose a screw on grass and it's gone for ever. So I stuck all the neodym magnets I have together, wrapped them in a cloth and swept about 2 square yards of grass with it. Found it!

The magnet works well too when Hesh here vacuums up a g*bson style saddle and bolt too and you have to empty a shop-vac back and go through it.....

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Yep absolutely Dennis. What you describe is much what Rick Turner described using hot water and HHG or Titebond for headstock breaks that are not all the way broken and difficult to get glue in. Water seems to be a good carrier for some glues.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

If anyone has a tip of the day on how to position diamond cleats I'd love to hear it. This is one operation I like to use magnets with. I typically use hide glue but if a pot is not running then I will grab the tight bond. Gives you a couple seconds to look inside and make sure that the diamond follows the crack but it's tricky in the dark depths of the lower bought.

TJ Thompson has come up with a great system to repair top cracks.
https://proluthiertools.com/product/top-crack-corrector/

I also like the system he has for back cracks.
https://proluthiertools.com/product/back-crack-repair-kit/

A couple of things first. A cleat should not need to ever be serviced so it need not be a glue joint with a serviceable glue as long as the glue used is appropriate for the instrument.

So... what I do is magnets too and I put some waxed paper on a smaller magnet and then some masking tape to hold the cleat on the magnet. A drop of Titebond original and a finger to spread it around and then the top side magnet is placed and held in place as I position the magnet with taped cleat inside the box. When I get close the top side magnet guides the cleat into place. As I place the magnet in the box I am sure to keep the cleat orientation cross grain to the top and of course I check my work with a mirror as soon as the cleat is in place and while I can still manipulate it manually if need be.

If the cleat needs to go so far back that I can't reach it I have a tool that I made that holds my magnets in place with cleat taped to them until I get it in the deep reaches of the box. That top side cleat properly positioned pulls the in the box magnet with cleat on top into place.

Be sure to remove the magnets And be sure to cover with waxed paper they don't sound good glued in the box...

So back to my glue discussion. So why not use CA, medium for a cleat in a $200 beater? It will never need to be serviced and it's appropriate for the instrument. I would not do this in a Martin or anything with vintage value because it's not appropriate for the instrument. But there are times that it is appropriate for the instrument.

For the vast majority of cracks that we repair we have our own system with a plethora of special use teflon cauls with internal rare earth magnets for all manner of crack and brace repair.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Since I built a guitar about ten years ago almost entirely out of CA I don't have a problem with using it. I also did a cracked head stock repair on one of the first electric guitars I made about 1995 which I STILL regularly play and it's been tight ever since. So I have a lot of confidence using CA but the thing if for cleats it would be too fast for me. I only use hide glue on the true vintage ones thinking that's what they would have used back in the day. Otherwise good old TB.

Jean Larivee would be your biggest proponent! I seem to recall him going through gallons of CA.

Huh? In what capacity?

He used it for many things back in the day from some articles I've read including joining plates like cocobolo. I'm assuming that changed in the full production days though? He also claimed to be able to rough out a carved neck in 45 seconds so take it for what it is.