Official Luthiers Forum!

...What would it be? I'm profiling sides right now and I would love to have a motorized sanding dish. So much so I think I'll start looking at plans and ideas. What about you?

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

Buffer and motorized sanding dishes

Finishing.....all of it!

_________________
My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

+1.

and cleaning the shop.

Pat

_________________
formerly known around here as burbank
_________________

http://www.patfosterguitars.com

All sanding and cut backs. But back to reality, one day I,d like to be able to rough out my necks faster.

Jeff

Neck carving, neck carving, neck carving, then neck carving. Then maybe a motorized radius dish.

I kinda like all of it.
I guess final sanding and laquering, I wouldn't mind a robot for all that.

_________________
Old growth, shmold growth!

Brace carving and shaping....hate it.....boring....

Pore and grain filling.

_________________
_________________

+1 to that as well.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

I tend to agree Todd but I'm getting older (60 a couple days ago) and it is tending to make a really big difference in my guitar building. I'm really surprised actually how much my hands hurt after a long sanding session. My thumb is gradually getting better after some nasty tendonitis I developed causing a 'snapping' that was really painful and had me unable to build at all for a few weeks.

When I was younger all my muscles and joints could take it very easily and of course get stronger over time. Now things seem to just hurt more instead getting stronger. And profiling on a sanding disk tends to irritate a shoulder injury that I've had after years of surfing. So it's not a matter of complaining, at least not for me, it's a matter of looking for ways to extend my building for many more years by using machines for some of the hand work that is genuinely getting difficult to do.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

I wish I had a finishing replicator and an army of glue clean up nanobots. And an idish sander. Or an apprentice...

_________________
Pat

Pore filling

I DO automate a great deal of it with cad/cam/cnc. So...drawing, tool path generation, machine setup...all that can get tedious. Mostly it's enjoyable...sometimes it's repetitive.

There's a LOT of sanding involved with the complex surfaces, radii, and pockets on my electrics. Although it's the hardest part of building for me, finishing is the part I enjoy the most. Things are quiet in the shop...I can listen to Bach while I do 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

It's not so much the difficulty as it is the tediousness of certain tasks.

_________________
Old growth, shmold growth!

Finishing.

I can already automate everything else

_________________
Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

+1 several times

_________________
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/

I realize that this for the most part a humor thread. I wonder what 19th century builders would think given our power tools! What those power tools allow us to do is spend more time and energy (efficiently) on finishing. And the folks that buy from me want a hand built instrument, not one built by robots. But if I could automate ANYTHING, I'm going to echo above: shop cleaning!!!!

I'd automate mounting the bridge. I just don't have that down yet, and end up with a lot
of drop filling around the edges. I finally made the two jigs to route the finish off the top,
and rebate the edges of the bridge. That looks so far (only one guitar done) to have helped
a lot, hopefully.

_________________
Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

Without a doubt . . . finishing.

_________________
Aaron Craig

I don't want to automate finishing - I just want someone else to do it.

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

+1 Cleaning the shop

19 th century makers largely used other peoples labour. They were the power tools of the day. Pretty much all the famous makers of the early 19 th century (Lacote, Stauffer, Panormo) employed skilled workers. Amati, Strad and Guarneri were almost certainly workshops of several people. The lone instrument maker is largely a 20 th century concept, although I'm sure that there are numerous example of single maker workshops throughout history. Apart from Torres the vast majority of the famous makers employed people.
Power tools have replaced much of the preparation work done by hand. Hard to beat industrial sanders with a hand Plane. Just like in many other industries, people are expendable.

Alll that would accomplish is making them FASTER !

_________________
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/

A cynical, highly generalized comment.

I enjoyed your comments up to that point. A more accurate observation might include an acknowledgment that it is the desire of the consumer to ALWAYS to have a product they can depend on. There might be an industry in which this axiom can be ignored...but I can't think of one. Most manufacturers understand this as they automate their processes to that end. People aren't expendable but they certainly are the least predictable aspect of manufacturing. Make no mistake, people are the hardest aspect of manufacturing to manage. Personally, I never much liked having to "manage" people. That rubbed against my ideas about initiative and independence. I tended to project all that onto them. But that's beside the point.

Put yourself into the position of HAVING to produce a volume of guitars with a world class finish. Then note most of the comments in this thread. People generally don't like the hyper-tedious aspects of finishing. Hence, the development of tools to speed the process along.

_________________
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