Official Luthiers Forum!

Thanks again for another great tip Terry!

Mario, I have the roto microplane and it works well for medium duty jobs. You just need to be cautious not to present a corner because it will grab easily. I'm not sure yet how durable it will be or how well it will stay sharp. It is pretty thin stock.

Regarding the lateral pressure. I think it isn't a concern if you aren't putting substantial pressure on it. One thing you could do to minimize this and also to save on sanding sleeves would be use some other method to remove wood until you got down closer to the desired profile (such as a rasp or roto microplane.

_________________
Scott Thompson
Port Townsend,WA

"In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room"
-Billy Bragg

I haven't built a jig, I just clamp a piece of oak to my drill press table however far I need it to be from the sanding sleeve. Works fine. I use that to thin my bridge wings. Just clamped a stop onto the oak piece so my wings are consistent. Made ten ebony bridges a couple of weeks ago and they came out real nice.

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Terry thats a clever jig and idea thank you.

I didn't realize you could move the bearing on a robo-sander. I use my robo-sander a lot for tasks like shaping my headstocks. Its just so much safer than than using the router table.   

RoboSander for headstocks for me too Anthony...I've torn my last one out using the shaper...even the effort of taking the cutter off and reversing the rotation I'd still tear out every now and then...A dust mask and RS is the way to go!

_________________
http://www.presnallguitars.com

My fave robosander attribute: It's not as accurate as a bearing-guided template bit. But this is a good thing; sand down to almost there, and route the last tiny, tiny amount off. This also leaves you with the beautiful clean surface a router is capable of, and 80 grit sandpaper isn't, and when you're removing less than half a mm of wood, danger of blowouts is pretty much non-existant.

I had thought I'd build a "Luthier's Friend" type sanding set up myself, but I kept looking at the design of it (including the sliding vise) and finally thought, "This guy's got the thing nailed" and decided I'd spend the money rather than the time, so I bought one. So far, I feel that was a good decision. It works really well - the micro-adjustment feature, especially, makes it really easy and efficient to use.

Thanks for sharing your idea, Terry.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/