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It’s all about glue lines.

My electric bodies are made by laminating dissimilar wood plates together and sculpting the face to reveal decorative wooden contours. The angle of the cut is so shallow (5 degree slope) that the glue lines are accentuated when revealed. The four small pieces shown are tests….conducted because I knew, and could alter, the amount of pressure used to laminate these little parts prior to making the commitment to build the whole hydraulic press. It was determined that 200 p.s.i. would produce a good result. Knowing that, I paid an engineer to determine how much deflection would occur on these aluminum plates when various pressures were used. At 80,000 pounds I get a .006” bow…..acceptable.

The other trick is to learn to lay down the glue very evenly….for which I made a small grooved spreading tool that worked very nicely. I brush on epoxy then squeegee it off with this tool which leaves little corn row beads of epoxy .1” apart and .02” inches high.

I just got it together yesterday for the first time and there it is applying 50,000 lbs on my first glue up.

I love tooling.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

That's hot. If a tool can be hot that is. If so, that's hot.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

That's a simple matter of adding some heating elements and a microprocessor. That epoxy will fully cure in 15 minutes at 160F. Ok....it's not THAT simple. One would need a set of insulated plates between the plattens to isolate them....but it's doable.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I dont build a lot of electrics .. but THAT is WAY F'N cool ...... talk about easy glue ups. Sweet.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Very impressive tool Stuart....excellent!!

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

nice tool .

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Why does this tool remind me of the movie: "The Fly"?

I like it!

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Yeah...the ones I have to buy.

I guessed the engineer would say that 2.25" plate was going to be about right but he called for 2.5" and I happened to have a whole bunch of 2.75" laying around. So yeah, it's a little studly...but not by much.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I take it you're not a believer in the 'starved glue joint' myth?

I've been itching to make something similar for years, but another project always gets in the way. Three Kurt vises with tall jaws work pretty well as a hydraulic neck press in the interim.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Dude, that is quite the machine Sure beats my 150lb press (i.e. I sit on top of the thing).

I always enjoy watching your progress. Our building styles are polar opposites. Yours with all the fancy power tools and CNC to get it just right and repeatable. Mine... pretty much a monkey with a sharp piece of metal to chop at a stick with. And yet we come out with more or less the same result (granted, you build electrics and I build acoustics, but I do have an electric planned).

I bet that press would be great to laminate veneers for acoustic backs as well. Combine with laminated sides using the same veneer as the outer layer, and you could have some fine looking guitars that are cheap and enviro-friendly

If 200-400 psi doesn't starve a glue joint then that myth is busted. Hehe...I still use Kurt vices for the neck laminates. But I have more cylinders and a plan for that too

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

If you sit on your hands while you do it you can still advertise "hand-made" guitars. I saw a shot of a guy who raises up a corner of his house and sets it back down on his laminate. "House-made" sounds interesting but I dont' think "butt-made" will sell many of them.

Hmmmm....Bumstruck Guitars?

Thanks for the nice comments, all!

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Foot-made in this case Lay the top on the floor, glue on the bridge plate, set a wood block on it, a brick on top of that to maintain a bit of pressure for later, then perch on top of the brick for a minute or two until the glue is gelled up. Want another 50-100lbs of pressure? Stand up and push on the ceiling

I use my feet quite a lot actually. A third hand would be better, but you use what you got. I'd be pretty grumpy if I had to shuffle clamps around for every little thing that can be held in place with a foot while working. 'course, it helps to have extremely flexible legs.

Ah there's really nothing quite like tool porn is there?

I believe I see a Machinist background here . Calling on Machine shops everyday as I do I would have to say , Thats as impressive as I have seen in a while ! Nice work !

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Looks nice! I need something like that to press all my frets at once in my fretboards. Do you plan on makeing a caul for it to do that as well?

Nah...that's a dedicated tool. I'll have to fret a few more guitars by hand before I might see how a press might be of value. I don't ever expect to see that, however. Using a hard enough fretboard wood, sanding properly with radius blocks, and gluing the fretboard to the neck with an accurate gluing caul....sort of obviates the need for an overall fret press. Production houses will use an overall press....mostly likely because they can't take the time to do all those other steps.

It's one thing to make a beautiful thing...

...it's a whole nother thing to make a thousand of them.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

THe factorys do it also because it sets all of the frets at the same time or pressing.You get more level frets that way and that saves fret height when leveling and recrowning. That's why i want to do it that way.

Nice!

You could make something like this mark
not exactly tool porn though

What I want to know is how much that little fella weighs? My father is a tool maker and machinist, so I know what those steel blocks feel like in real life. lol Can you even lift that thing by yourself? It's way cool though, and I will agree that a tool can be hot, and that my friend is HOT!

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http://www.sixgunguitars.com

Looks like Aluminum to me . Probably a 6063T Alloy , strong but alot lighter than steel . Still rather heavy based on the size im seeing. Could be steel I guess .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

It's 6061 T-651....all left over from another business.

In one way, all that metal seemed more or less free to me. On the other hand; every one of those pieces represented some sort of research or planning mistake I made earlier in life. As such...finally using it for something productive offers a reprive from shame and guilt evoked every time I looked at it....just sitting there on my floor.

Well, I certainly feel lighter now...but I'm guessing this thing is pushing 250 lbs. I can only lift up a corner of it.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic