Official Luthiers Forum!

Here a good one for ya. I was trying to cut out the neck mortise on my newest OM and was holding the box in a vacuum vise. When I fired up the router I got about half way aroung the pocket and apparently, the vibration from the router caused the vise to lose it's grip. You guessed it, dropped straight to the floor.

When I realized what had happened and looked down, there it was with it's new englemann top split for about three inches from the tail end up.

This is the part where I used good judgement.

I decided to walk away and take my wife to lunch. When I got back, I remembered a trick from Amy over at the MIMF forum. I finally broke out the hide glue and after it was mixed and heated properly I "smooshed" it into the crack with a clean finger then clamped it up to dry for a while. Had a neck to carve anyway...

When I came back and sanded off the mess I had made I can't even find the original crack.

Moral of the story: stop and take your wife to lunch, it might just make your day.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Oh man that's a GREAT story... and a good lesson..

I closed up the box on the classical and the cedar guitar last night, the classical was fine but this morning when looking at the cedar one of the brace ends on the back didn't sit in the slot and caused a bump (it was late and I wanted a jump start on the weekend)...

So I stopped, had breakfast came back out and pulled out some dental tools, scraped it's edge back and with some cauls and a good clamp it popped right in and looks normal again.

It happens to all of us, the good ones can hide their mistakes

-Paul-Sprockett38423.5596412037

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Thanks for sharing. You guys give me hope that I can get to the skill level of hiding my mistakes, instead of having to start over again!

Jeff

Jeff I don't think there's a builder doing this by hand that can make a guitar with absolutley no mistakes, I've made some big ones in the past and with each you learn a lesson and hopefully never repeat that mistake.

I make far less now that I did when I started but I still make them on every single guitar I build, it's part of the process of growing and learning. Without mistakes we would never know what NOT to do, I also find that as I grow in experience my mistakes are easier to fix because I learn to takes steps to prevent them or ways to overcome them through various methods. Some things are very difficult to master, and you just have to do them a number of times to get them right.

I still can't get a perfectly clean cut for my brace ends like Lance does in his kerfing, but I'm getting closer, building guitars is a process, just have to go through it become better at it.

Cheers

-Paul-

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Just curious, what caused the suction to give way? How many inches of mercury does it pull? Does your set-up have a gage? I am thinking of making some vac setups, and need to learn all I can, good, bad and ugly. Thanks

Go to that JoeWoodworker.com site... he's got lots of great instructions there. He also has parts for sale there at reasonable costs.

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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."

Terry, I think what caused the vacuum to turn loose was, in all honesty, stupidity.

I had thrown together this little disc shaped thing that attaches to the side of my bench. Instead of ordering the correct sealing material, o-ring stock or something, I just stuck some high densith foam weather stripping on it.

When it is turned on the vacuum appears to be sufficient, but the foam was a little thick. This allowed it to rock back and forth a little. Not good!!!

So, when I tried to use my lam trimmer to route out the neck pocket, the vibrations rocked it around enough to make it turn loose. At least that's my theory.

Since it was my stupidity that caused it, it was only fitting that I had to do the repair.

Live and learn....

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Wow. Thanks for sharing that. Humility doesn't always come cheap.

Sometimes there are no viable substitutes for certain tools, supplies, procedures or products. I've learned that all through life. I tried to build a VanDegraf generator in 7th grade using a sewing machine motor and footswith speed contoller. My science teacher gave me the aluminum globe, and Dad gave me the sewing machine stuff (Or did I rob my mom's machine....) It didn't give much spark, and I needed about 4 or five hands to make it work. NOW I would build a jig first. Don't know what I'd make it for, but I'd build a jig first God bless ya real good!

Dave,
I had the exact thing happen to me 3 days ago. Except it was a toggle clamp that gave out. And when it happened I was afraid to walk over to it. About 10 seconds later I walked over to find no cracks. The laminate trimmer did eat into the mortise a little, but it was repairable, thank God------Snick

Guess these things happen to all of us at one time or another.

Since I don't have any fancy jigs to post or stories to tell about what famous person bought my guitar, I though I could at least share some of my blunders.

Stay tuned for the next one...it's just a matter of time.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

[QUOTE=Dave Rector]

Moral of the story: stop and take your wife to lunch, it might just make your day.[/QUOTE]

Dave,

Thanks for sharing the story and I'm sure glad about the good outcome. I'm glad my wife hasn't seen this quote though or I'd have to take her out to lunch most days I do any guitar work. Mistakes happen and we learn from them, I allow myself to make the same mistake twice after that I do start cussing though(In latin of course Steve!).


Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

I must have conveniently left out the part where I was cussing that vac clamp.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Was that binary cussing?

Sorry Bruce, it was just plain old Okie cussing.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

You from Muskogee?

Nope.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

+
I did the same thing with the vac clamp and my guitar back broke. I replaced it and it looked pretty good. Then, while cutting the binding channel, the router bit worked loose and cut a channel 5/8" deep. I may just give up one that box..