Official Luthiers Forum!

Well,I finally got to making one of these jigs that John Mayes uses on his videos. It worked well on my headstock and volute thicknessing. I know a lot of us have made this jig and it's good for brace ends.I was wondering what other uses it's real good for? What else do you guys use it for??

_________________
Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Doesn't putting a load like that on your idler drum send the tracking way
out of whack? I've never had one of those little belt sanders, so I don't really
know how sensitive the tracking is, but it seems like it would be rough to
keep the belt running straight. Either that or it seems the drums would have
to be so crowned that they could risk sanding a dish in to your headstock. I
know it would work fine for brace ends, but for something as wide as a
headstock I guess I'm a bit surprised it didn't cause any tracking issues.
Cool.

I've always set up a fence on my spindle sander for things like this.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I built one too out of an old POS craftsman sander I have. It doesn't knock the tracking too bad out of whack.

One thing to take note of though if you build this. Make sure you leave your self plenty of room between the sander and the platform so the headstock doesn't bump into the machine and not let you go in as far as you would like.

Mine works great for acoustic necks, but when I build tele's and the like it is just a tad too short.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

I just checked the rollers on my little Delta 4 x 6 sander and found that both the rollers are crowned.

Louis

_________________
- Louis Freilicher

Oh No! Not another learning experience!

Dave, I don't have that type of sander, but I would also use it to shape the wings of bridges.

I use my drum sander for all those sanding needs, like brace ends, bridge wings, head stock smiley volute.

_________________
My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Thanks Hesh,They're very easy to make with a piano hinge cut to size and a few nuts and bolts.You should make one.
I had no problem with tracking on the headstock thicknessing.
Brock, Yes I already ran into that problem.I moved it a bit to miss the sander base.
Thanks Rod.I also like my "Luthiers Friend" jig for some of these things. I like the fence on it for thicknessing small parts like bindings and braces.
I don't know but maybe someday I'll splurge on a drum sander.

_________________
Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

John I think as I did get this from working at Bourgeois.

In addition to as John has shown the headstock (not used for that purpose at Dana's) you can sand back the braces your going (if do so) tuck into kerfing and get a nice shape of (I am having senior moment and can't think of proper term) "scoops". If want tucks say a .060" can take a piece of binding and use that as an indicator. Of course you have initial scoop in the brace and thicker so can sand back and also down on brace.
You should be going down at a rather low rate, so shouldn't cause load problems or tracking problems on sander, if I read a previous post on this right.
Go slow and adjust as needed and works great.

Oh yea it was Dave' post on load, I agree a smaller sander may be a problem and ones (including Johns did this with were Griz 6x47 sanders

the crowning of the roller is not really a problem as long as you move the
headstock around a little and then use a block on it after you're done to
flatten it that last little bit.

And yes I got the idea from Dana's shop.

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Here's some pics of one that is a little more simple, but same concept...


Thanks for the great tip John!
Tracy

_________________
Tracy
http://www.luthiersuppliers.com