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An experiment in top rotation at bridge under simulated string tension, during construction.
Ribs with top glued on fixed in mould.
Back is not on yet so I have easy access to bracing.
Thinking about it, the top lift may be measurable while I'm testing this way, worth a look.



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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.

Just about ready to close the box.

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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.

New to me sander, makes these templates really easy to finally shape without CNC. OK for 90 bucks from the bay

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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.

I haven't posted much lately. Busy I guess. I have the little Torres on hold while I played with the viola that was driving me nuts. It was getting pinholes in the varnish, and it got worse. I ended up scraping everything to bare wood. NOW I feel better.

I really don't like scraping varnish at all. Now I have to even up the ground color some. It is just shellac now. Brush on until it is even. Brighten up the maple, and dull down the belly. Then I'll work on darkening it all up, to a fairly dark green/gold.

Edit,

I just noticed that the color seems almost the same in the photos. In real life the belly is very yellow and darker. The back is much paler, and not yellow at all. I added some Azo green to the lemon shellac. A tiny bit on a toothpick, into a couple? grams of mixed shellac. I squished it in with my finger. It is somewhat staining, and has remarkable tinting strength for a greenish yellow. I put a coat on the maple parts, and now it is very even. I should be able to do the same things to the front, and back, and it will look the same. I took a couple pictures to how even it was; and then noticed that the other photos didn't show how off they were.

Oh well. Now it looks even! It didn't before at all.

The beginning ground coat didn't really cover the wood. It should so that the varnish that you paint on top of it can just be washed off with something. It should really look like it could be done right there. Many only instruments have much, or most of their colors worn off; but most of the ground out is there, except where it was really scraped.

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Why be normal?

Well, that came as a bit of a shock. Put the bit in propely, snugged it up, switched on and it was a darn good job I had a firm grip on the Makita palm router... Didn't even get to start cutting with it!!

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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.

Huh? I’ve never seen that before. Did they forget to temper the shaft? That could have been a severe injury.

Curious about details, what were you going to cut and how did it get bent before you started cutting. Or was it just initial contact with the wood.

I have to say that's a lot of cutting edge for a 1/4" shank bit in most materials. Also a lot of shank sticking out of the collet.

Must have been just a little scary.

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

Routers scare the bejesus out of me. The two things I would do in the future are:

1. Not use bits from this manufacturer.
2. Not have that much shank sticking out of the collet.

We could CSI this for a long time to try to figure out how it happened, but the odds are it is a combination of the lower quality of the router bit and expecting too much of the bit (regardless of quality). If you move in the direction of better bits, and expecting less from the bit, you will lower the risks.

Glad you didn't get hurt Colin! I've never seen one do that, I would cross that brand off of my list for sure!

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Maybe the bit started out with the shank well into the collet, but it slipped part way out and bent upon turning the router on?

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Looks like the router got dropped...

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

No, bit put in and tightened, good distance in collet (longer shank than normal) started router away from workpiece, nothing cut at all, BAM!
I was very lucky I managed to hold it and switch off. -
Note to self - have to get an inline footswitch .
EDIT - Ordered
And the supplier is off my Xmas list!

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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.

Wild. Glad you’re not hurt, Colin.


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Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
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Weird. Bet it shimmied quite a bit after it bent.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Let's put it this way, YES

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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.

Super frightening! Glad you are unscathed, Colin! Like I said above, these particular tools really scare me. I'm at my most puckered when I'm running my router table, and second most puckered when I'm running a handheld router in an exposed manner. Part of my desire to ramp up my use of my CNC (where appropriate) is the increased safety of not having my hands anywhere close to the spinning bit.

That reminds me of something that happened to me in the late 80's. I was working in a shop, usually running a LeBlond tool room lathe. A guy was setting up a turret lathe, that I didn't use much. He had a 1.5- 2" or so bar in it, that's sticking out a foot or so into the aisle. It had a teflon ring in the end. I had him stop, and tied a red shop towel on it, so no one would walk into it. He turned it on and it did the same thing that happened to Colin! The lathe was hopping up and down. I was NOT that far from it.

Yes it was only soft 1117 or something, but it was 1.5 - 2" around. It wasn't going at nearly the rpm that that router bit was probably going. But it could have done serious damage.

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Why be normal?

Crazy! You should consider sending that picture to the manufacturer.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Well, I'm still finishing up old projects. This one is another amp--I'll be back to building acoustic guitars after this one and be a bit more on topic for this section of the forum. BUT, it's still what's happening in my shop.

This is a single ended 6CA7 (or EL34--will also take 6L6GC tubes) with a special order ultralinear transformer. Preamp tube can be 12AX7 or 12AT7, or the octal socket lets me use a 6SL7 or 5691 twin triode. Right now I'm running a NOS 12AT7 and I like it. It has a DC heater supply and a choke filtered power supply. I built this one more like the hifi amps I've built--all point to point wired with no turret boards--just some terminal strips and the tube sockets. The design is pretty much a mashup of a lot of the designs in the Radiotron Designer's Handbook (the obvious source of a lot of Leo Fender's designs).

The wooden parts were scrap EIR and curly maple from guitar making projects. I'm not one to throw my scraps away if they're at least a certain size.

What I hoped to accomplish with this was a clean amp with lots of headroom, but still not sterile sounding. I think I accomplished that. It's easily the quietest guitar amp I ever built--I think the point to point wiring with all components sitting very close to the tubes is largely responsible for that.

Cranked up really loud, it will still break up nicely. But I wanted something clean and dynamic for fingerpicking. I'd guess it to be somewhere around 8-10 watts.

Anyway, I've used up all the amp parts that have been in my way for 30 years now. I have a 7 string Hawaiian guitar, a rosewood topped hollowbody offset electric and a banjo made out of walnut I got from my granddad's shop years ago to finish up now before starting anything new.

Edit--I actually also have a resonator 8 string uke that I started 40 years ago--spun all my own cones back then and everything. Need to get that one done too...

Dave

Dave, I know nothing about anything electrical. The bottom looks terrifying to me, but not as bad as looking at circuit boards! The top looks like pure simplicity. I don't even think that my Marantz 2235 had tubes in 75. I like old cars before electronics too, you could to just about anything on them.

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Why be normal?

Yeah, old time point to point wiring isn't pretty at all! But keeping all the connections to components as close to the tubes as possible pays dividends. It takes a lot longer (for me anyway) to do it this way than to use a board though. If you look at the undersides of most of the old tube amps (other than Fender, Marshall and a few others), you'll see more of this.

But if you really want to see terrifying wiring, the mainframe computers and associated peripherals I worked with in the 70's and 80's are amazing! They had dozens and dozens of circuit boards (all solid state by the time I was working with them) with a backplane that was point to point wired with tiny wire wrap wires. Thousands of them. To work on the hardware, a person had to have steady hands and good eyesight. Today I have neither!

Dave

YE GODS!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I laid-out and hand-wrapped scores of those back in the day! I was not the circuit designer, just the implementer. Because I was good at it and I knew what I was doing, it was actually easier than building a guitar .
In the 1980s I toured the old AT&T manufacturing site in Oklahoma City where all the long distance switches were built (ALL of them) and saw wire-wrapped circuit boards the size of oven baking sheets! I love a good hand wired chassis....

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

The real fun stuff on that old wire wrap work was the 50 ohm twisted pair wirewrap wire that had to be cut to EXACTLY the right length since the circuits had to be tuned down to a fraction of a nanosecond. Sit on the O'scope and trim the wire until it's right. I enjoyed that stuff back then!

Dave

I did a lot of wire wrap. Never did like it but it had its place at the time. As Dave said, high speed lines were time consuming.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"