Official Luthiers Forum!

I use a cover over the top of my guitars after they are finished. The biggest probem I had was from ball ends on the strings during set up. I finally broke down and bought a sheet of VYCO which is a vinyl board cover material that is used by draftsman to protect their work. It's a 5 ply, 1.1mm thk., virgin vinyl material (not that I'm against non virgin vinyls) pliable, cuts easy with scissors and is reusable. Has enough density and is thick enough to protect against minor accidents. Other than that I use old bath towels on the bench and change them as needed.

Tim

I always put a bib under the working area when stringing a classical guitar. Even a sticky note will work just fine. Keeps you from scratching the FP with your nails, or the strings.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

And don't point either! It can't be played. No. no. That's it, you've seen enough of that one.

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"...you have to get over your strict adherence to your largely imagined notion of absolute perfection..."

On my first couple of guitars getting the intonation acceptable was kinda like doing the Hokey Pokey. Best way I can describe it.

Tim

I agree with all of the suggestions so far ... definitely have to have protective cover of some description for the top when working on completing the instrument. Another strategy to consider adding to your build schedule is to just do the final buff/polish on the top in the bridge and fingerboard extension areas, and on the sides where the neck joins the body ... glue the neck & bridge, plane the fingerboard & fret ... then proceed to do all of the steps right up to final setup and stringing the guitar ... then pop off the tuners, saddle & nut, do the final buff ... reassemble/restring and put it in the case, ready to hand a pristine guitar to the customer.

BTW, Surgical drapes do a really good job at protecting surfaces

Seriously, not truly surgical drapes but the cloth like paper they use to wrap surgical instrument trays works really nice as a protective surface. I use them quite a bit because I have a ready supply of them from my day job. I really like using it over the sandpaper in my radius dish.

If you know anyone that works at a hospital, you might be able to get a large supply of them just by asking - they're perfectly clean when they throw them away after un-wraping the instruments. The blue thing in the pic below is the drape I'm talking about.

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