Official Luthiers Forum!

Pat, I love that! Can we see a picture of the back side? Is it just leaning against the shelf or does it have supports that hold it at that angle? I'm getting tired of cranking my neck to get the sun at the right angle in my sliding glass door. Thanks, Wendy

I use a 2ft square florescent fixture that I put a piece of white translucent plexi over. I've also use it for sorting and viewing photo transparencies. Works great for both.

This is my set-up. I "borrow" a pane of glass from the shelves in the background and place it over a pair of aluminum beams (2x4's would work too). I use a 2' fluorescent work light under the glass for illumination. You can see my shooting board at the end of the dining room table.

like most of the posters I strongly endorse and apply the k.i.s.s. principle and use any ready light source depending on seasonal factors and time of day, i.e., bright window on sunny days, or a light fitting if the day/time of day is dark.

no worries about getting a light box out or it taking up other wise useful space, and etc.

one does not require a special piece of equipment for ever task no matter how mundane.

I am 180° on this subject. I have never understood the candling thing. I don't know a single woodworker who uses it for thin stuff such as guitar tops and backs. In fact my understanding of the term candling is that it was used to see how thin wood was as in a violin top when one was carving. Anyway I do hold things up to light if they are thick and not warped but not something as thin as guitar plates. If they are warped the wankyness is magnified when you unfold the book match and if you don't hold them just perfectly you don't get a good reading. You can take two Starrett straight edges and hold them up and get weird readings if you don't hold them right. It is very awkward to say the least. You can get away with the awkwardness by using a light table, a window is still pretty awkward , but to me it is complicating things.
One can simply brace one of the two plates and push the plates together with a finger or thumb and then examine the joint. You can see if it is tight or not. If you can see a joint, it isn't tight enough. You can push the wood at the joint and feel when it is rubbing and tight. (a little warpage helps here) Sometimes you can see what looks like a joint line but it is because one of the two pieces of wood is above or below the other. Push at that point and you will see and feel if the wood is touching or not. It is harder to explain than do. It is using your feel as well as your eyes.
You can feel how tight the joint is. Even if I used a light table and saw no light I (personally) would not trust that. I would want to feel the joint by tapping and pushing on it. I get a lot of feed back that way.
Anyway, another way to do it without light tables, windows, lights. IMO more unnecessary stuff.
L.

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Cut to size.....Beat to fit.....Paint to match.

I must say I'm with Link on this one. I use overhead lighting and also the feel technique, especially on the ends of the joint. Jigs and fixtures certainly have a place but for me space is limited and I pick and chose carefully the ones I build. I tend to limit them to jobs with high risk or jobs that have troubled me in the past.
Tom

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

I agree. Light boxes , fixtures, are not necessary but for me as important as the light source is the ability to easily place the plates flat on the box with no misalignment problems at all compared to holding them freehand in the air.
When I first started, I found I could manipulate the visible gap way to easily without my even trying. The light box eliminates that problem for me.

Same here. The pane of glass just gives me a flat surface to place the wood on. When I'm done it goes back on the shelves.

Amen!

Pisses me off when some guy calls himself a woodworker, and all he's built is a bunch of guitars and fiddles and stuff--never made a kitchen cabinet in his life.

Don't get me started about Starrett straightedges. Light goes right through them.

Sorry Wendy, i was overseas when you asked about it and I meant to do it when I got back but.......

Looks like answering posts are taking as long as some of my guitars!

Yes, it looks just like it is; 2 of those cheap battery-powered LED thingies. It just leans against a shelf and a bench dog in front. Works great, although not real rugged!

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Pat

Brilliantly simple and yet another use for such a useful workbench.

I use a window but I think I will try my workmate next time.

Wow, haven't been spending much time here, taking a break from building. Happened to check in and find an answer to a question I asked almost 3 years ago! Thanks Pat!

That's what I've done since the original post, 20" striplight underneath and 4mm perspex sheet on top.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Unacceptable!

All kidding aside, it's good to see you posting. Hope you get back to building soon.

Oh, and I use a window. Seattle isn't far from Scotland and this works just fine.

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George :-)

When I was building it was often done at night. I remember going outside and driving the car on the lawn and aiming the headlights at the living room window so I could candle my plates on the window.

I hated noting the gap, marking, putting it down, going back outside and parking the car, going into the shop and using the plane some more and then repeating the entire process of getting the car on the lawn again, etc.....

If you ask why I didn't leave the car there until you were done I'm going to scream......

Anyway my buddy Link turned me to the concept that we can easily see the joint very well simply by inspecting it closely. That's how I did it ever since and it works great, saves gas, you don't have the neighbors upset that some weirdo keep driving his car on the lawn and only has his boxers on..... Lutherie requires sacrifice ya know...

Overhead lighting works. Pretty simple for me, just hold the plates up to the light. Takes a little skill holding the plates together so that one can candle with some accuracy, but not particularly difficult and like anything else we do a bit of experience goes a long way. Takes all of 10-15 seconds to check a set of plates this way. I'm not sure I get the cabinet references, even though I've built them - I guess I find certain dimensions more critical than others in one application versus another. Each to his or her own.

Andy

Yeah I have a lot of overhead lighting in the shop and so I do the same; just hold them up.

I've thought many times about building a dedicated lightbox but with the size of my shop I have always dismissed it as a nice-to-have that I just don't have the space for. In the dream shop of my imagination the lightbox is recessed flush into the top of a secondary or teriary bench. But currently any spare benches are busy serving their primary duty as shelves

If you joined hundreds a tops a day -- then I can understand having a nice setup. But I think such a setup is absolute overkill for anything but factory settings.

All you need is one bright shop light. I use a clip on shop light that is easy to position - it has a 60 watt bulb. Prep the joint, use 3 strips of binding tape to hold the plates together. Here's the key point - just turn off all the other shop lights and then examine the top with just one light source. If you have lots of windows this might not work but I think for most of your workshops this will be fine.