Official Luthiers Forum!

i was about to pull the trigger on the drawer slides, lazy susans, baltic birch ply, and some UHMW from woodcraft.com when i decided to go check out what they have at lowes. the slides and lazy susans seemed OK to me. im not sure if baltic birch is requisite for this project or not. will regular old birch or oak ply do? ill still have to order phenolic or UHMW from somewhere. what do you guys think?

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sweat the small stuff.

I would go to a high quality lazy Susan and slides but Big Box Bozo's ply is fine if you pay attention and selectively use pieces with few voids in the critical stressed areas

Personally, I'd stick with the higher quality hardware and materials that you get from Woodcraft. That is, if you want your Williams Binding Jig to be accurate, stable, and produce repeatable results.

The Accuride slides from Woodcraft will have less slop in them and the plywood will have few to no voids, twist, or thickness variation.
When selecting the lazy susan, place each one down flat, then apply pressure to the moving plate, and see how much side-to-side slop there is in it. Pick the one with the smallest sideways movement. I got a good one from Woodcraft. Not sure on borg versions.
The slides from the borg will have fewer ball bearings, plastic ball bearing carriers, tons of slop.
The plywood from the borg will be full of voids, oblate spheroid hole fills, twist, and will vary in thickness even across the same sheet. It may even be damp still....

Just my 2 cents worth. In the end, it's up to you....

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"

The lazy susans that Woodcraft sells aren't always the same as far as slop in the unit, but you can easily peen the steel down a bit on the edges of the raceway to tighten up the tolerances. I did that with a few, and it worked great. The Accuride glides are far better than anything that Agent Orange sells. Can't say that about the Smurfs as I'm not familiar with what they sell. You could get away with the fake baltic birch plywood from AO or the Smurfs I guess, but look carefully for stuff that's flat and with as few voids as possible.

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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."

basically every form and mold ive built so far for luthiery has been made from MDF. ive worked some with oak and birch ply so i know that it can be hit or miss. i think since ive never worked with baltic birch i will give it a try. its not cheap, but i found a free shipping coupon for rockler so that definitely helps. maybe ill post that link so others can take advantage as well. thank you gentlemen for the replies. i never know what jigs and forms baltic birch is reserved for so i guess i need to find out for myself.

don, i will never call them lowes or home depot again. they are now and forever the smurfs and agent orange.

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sweat the small stuff.

What A bozo I am!!! It finally occured to me what Borg Plywood is. And I'v been out there googling for it!

Well, I built mine with Lowes cabinet birch and it came out just fine. Built the fox bender too.

As for the hardware, got mine from woodcraft...VERY happy with that.

I built my Harp Guitar mold with standard fir plywood... tht came out fine too... but next time I will use cabinet grade plywood.

I bought most of the hardware from mcmaster, but if it made econmic sense, I bought that from Lowes. I mean, who needs 100 T-Nuts, 10x24? I LOVE mcmaster's dry wall scews. You can't buy THOSE at Lowes (special thread).

Mike

hblair, I sent you a PM.

Just as a FWIW....

Often if you search your local yellow pages for plywood, you will find a local distributor for *real* Baltic birch plywood. It really does come from the Baltics, and the quality is exceptional....far better than what is sold at the big chain stores. The next best thing, and perhaps just as good is Finnish Birch plywood.

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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."