Official Luthiers Forum!

Lance, could i borrow your emoticon with that lil guy knockin' his head on a wall??? Dang i'm mad at myself! Tonight was not the best evening i had in my shop, i was finishing setting up my latest jig, the plexiglass rosette cutter and had only one last screw to install to hold my laminate trimmer on it. As i was reaching for the screwdriver, my elbow touched the laminate trimmer and sent the whole thing crashing down on the cement floor, breaking my plexiglass bottom plate in 2! For the longest 5 seconds , i was numb, couldnt move or think or even talk(bad words), i was probably blocking a lot of frustration after working on this jig for a number of evenings now.

Ah well, i guess i had sinned with too much pride in making it with plexiglass to see through it and thinking how brilliant i was ! Oh Bear, you lil genius you! R.I. dang P. ya smart idea . Anyways, the next jig will be made out of wood from which i prefer the smell when cutting it! There darn it, i feel better already!

on the bright side you'll know to remake it out of some of that lexan, or
whatever it is that is virtually unbreakable! Welcome to the club
Serge...prepare for many more bonehead moves. It's how we learn!

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Serge,my young friend- I have an extra of the Jasper jig-unopened. Send a shipping address. I'll send it to you posthaste.We're all in this together,right? All is not lost. MT

Serge, Plexi glass can be glued back together with the appropriate solvent cement. Go back to your plexi glass supplier and get some, it is cheap and works very well! Put it back together and use it for a bit before you make a new one. You might end up with modifications you'll want.

Shane

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Canada

Mike, that's awfully generous of you, so on Serge's behalf, I accept your kind offer. (I mean I accept for HIM. He will be sending you his address soon.)

Serge-- That subject line is one of the best I've seen.
That should be worth a medal, or perhaps even a free circle cutter.   
I know where you can get one.

SteveSteve Kinnaird38784.9947337963

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Mike, i sent you a PM, thanks again!

Thanks also John, yep, the learning curve...i also should have known better than to work on a messy bench, i'll be cleaning the mess tomorrow, i thought it would be better to blow that popsicle stand if ya know what i mean! So i left in a hurry to get a drag of fresh air which helped a lot(smoke), otherwise, some of my power tools might have preceded me outside

Serge, accidents, bonehead mistakes, murphy taking up residence in your shop -- whatever you want to call it is all part of what we do.

Here's one I did last week -- and it was a bonehead move -- last year I didn't get much done on account of extensive work travel. Months ago I had a neck blank made up -- 4 layers of veneer backstrapping glued on, inlayed the headstock with a big hummingbird and my logo -- the fretboard is inlayed with the wildlife of Canada/U.S. up till the 15th fret complete with engraving (we are talking many man hours invested). I had leveled the neckblank months ago and finally glued on the fretboard last week -- only to discover there was a bow in the neck after the glue was dry. Duh me didn't check the neck blank first. Then I see if I can straighten the neck by gently adjusting the truss rod -- and the Allen key nut snapped......(read defective truss rod)

With all the shell inlay I had to trash the neck as a hot iron on the fretboard would have destroyed the inlay...too long a story short I salvaged the headstock overlay and the fretboard....

Hey my friend it happens to all of us I love your enthusiasm and sense of humour -- you brighten my days with your posts.Anthony Z38784.9877893519

How can you not like a guy with Serge's enthusiam and good humor?More often than not, I grin when I read his posts. That alone ought to be worth a circle jig.Many others here have a similar effect on me, but I think we all sense something special in him.

There are bright sides...at least you didn't knock a GUITAR off the bench- after it was done and all rubbed out!
At least the trimmer itself didn't break! I dropped a dremel tool once and broke one of the magnets up inside. I didn't know it until I turned it on again...and heard all these little metal chips go flying around in the motor, and ruined it. You broke something that you can make over again! I know how it feels, but you might as well laugh it off!

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Mark one of my fav's is buffing out a guitar getting distracted and catching an edge....ya hoo!

   Serge, you can alway borrow my circle cutter from Hell if you want.... We're talkin' the very latest in tooling technology my man!!!

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Thank you so much guys, i'm humbled by so much kindness and comprehension and i'm touched by the solidarity that is shown towards me, and i'll make sure to pay this forward to another newbie one day. You sure all know how to make a guy feel better, i'm just blown away!Lost my words

Thank you all

Thanks Alain My Bro, i'll probably take it easy for a couple days, to get that Murphy thing out of my head and shop! I'll let you know!

Hang in there Serge. It's part of the game. You win some, you lose some.

Serge-lost your words? Come on now. I'll work on it tomorrow. Good night to all. "Bedbugs" etc. MT

Thanks Shane, but idon't feel like working with plexiglass no more, at least not for a couple of weeks [LOL

Thanks Steve, yeah, i think i pretty well chose that subject line, it probably was my spark of genius of the evening

Thanks Anthony, it made me remember that we always should be looking on the positive side of things, glass half full right! Did you read the post i talked about the time i lived in Sudbury, working at the Friendly's? After survivin' that, Man, you sure become positive!

Thanks folks

Shane, wasn't it you that taught me how to take 1/8 th" aluminum plate to my Delta 14" bandsaw. I've been using it ever since for jigs of this nature.

Do you have a pic of that to show Serge? It opens a whole new vista in jig-building for the small shop.

Serge, maybe the accident was a blessing in disguise! Here is the last Jig I made with aluminum plate:

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

My latest was spilling solvent on a newly buffed out top.

the depression was exquisite.

senior bonehead here.

Serge, as others have said, don't fret (pun intended) the small stuff. It could have been a guitar body that broke in half and you for sure would have had more time in that than you do this jig.
As Mayes spoke of, my advice to you is to look into LEXAN which is a trade name for Poly Carbonate. When they say bulletproof I guess they mean it because that's the stuff bulletproof windows are made of. It won't split as you are tapping a screw hole and it machines very well. One reason I reach for it is the thought of a router catching the edge of plexi and sending shards of glasslike plastic flying around my shop, well, it scares the heck out of me.
Yes, you'll pay more for poly than acrylic but it's worth it.
Good luck. Paul

Serge, we've all been there brother!
Making stupid mistakes is part of the learning curve. We would all like to learn from other's mistakes, but the reality is we learn better from our own.


Here's a couple of mine...

I had this gorgeous $130 Addy Spruce top I planned to use on a guitar. I got the center seam all edge joined and glued together. I drew an outline of an SJ on it in preparation for using it. Then I decided to move the position of the outline down so I could get some extra back center reinforcing strips out of it. I drilled the hole for the rosette jig, and then cut the rosette channels, inlaid the rosette and red heart pearl. Got it all nice and sanded to thickness. Then I took it to the table saw to trim off the bottom. Except I used the original pencil line instead of the new one. You guessed it...way too short now to be used.

Or how about this one! The cocobolo SJ on my website originally had an incredible redwood top on it...until I glued it on crooked. I tried to heat up the edge to take it off and reglue it, but I slid the palet knife right up through the top in the upper bout. Wrecked it. Another expensive top...ruined. Lost some more great red heart pearl in there too.

We all do it...wish I could say it gets easier!

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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."

Thanks Doug, Bruce, Matt, Hesh, Paul and Don, i'm going to write this in my notebook " Stay away from plexiglass as far as u can Bear" and Bruce, i had the same thought once outside the shop last night while trying to calm down. this is a minor set back and probably preparing me for a blessing! Lexan it will be in the future or aluminum thanks Paul, i'm only happy i did not get hurt in the process, you folks are the best!Serge Poirier38785.3981365741

Serge, I have a really good one that my therapist keeps telling me to share...I just can't talk about it yet...it's too hard...keep your chin up and maybe someday if I can just work thru this and get a breakthrough, I'll post it here... , and just remember no matter how bad yours seems, somebody here on the OLF can top it!

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http://www.presnallguitars.com

By the by, I don't even know what "Dang" means, but since everyone here in Tennessee uses it I do too...it must be really expressive and on-point!

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http://www.presnallguitars.com

Definately don't get worked up over setbacks in this biz, because you won't last long.

Wait until you snap a braz. Rw side while bending. Wait until the guitar you're about to ship falls has the case slam down on the top, and suddenly needs a new top, but you've already notified the owner that it will be his next week. Wait until the fire department calls you at 7:45am on Easter Sunday to tell you your shop is burning down.

A router base? I wouldn't even blink...