Christine

53 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

That's a great colour I would probably go black pickguard as I am a confirmed hater of anything Tort!! 😁 

A confirmed hater of tort? You and me be mates!

But to be fair it does look good occasionally just not on my own basses

35 minutes ago, fryer said:

Please don't make one - it would be 100 times better than mine.

Yes but it would only be a Chinese Welsh copy of the real thing

A new thread on me, I've never seen veneering done like that, almost a hybrid hide glue method remelting damp PVA and a very quick setting as it loses heat I imaging

Planes, we all need them but most people struggle with them through no fault of their own. The trouble with them is they are so abysmally finished which has fuelled the emergence of so called super tools such as Veritas and Lie Nielson... No I'm not knocking them, they are lovely things to own and use but they aren't really necessary your average Record or Stanley can be made to work far better than they do out of the box. How much better?  Well get them fully sorted out and they are unsurpassable, many years ago I bought at huge expense some Norris planes, which are the Rolls Royce of bench planes but my Record planes work equally well now, I ended up selling the Norris'.

OK so if we view the humble bench plane as a kit when we buy it and don't expect to take a fine shaving with it no matter how sharp your blade is we won't be disappointed. Planes to me come in two main types, your standard bench plane, smoother/Jack /try/jointer and the variable geometry planes such as the humble block plane, variable geometry? I'll explain later. Much of the way we can tune these planes work for both types so I'll concentrate on the more complicated bench plane.

First lets familiarise ourselves with the thing and it's parts. We have a body, wooden handles, a Frog (that holds the cutting iron), a cap iron/chip breaker (curling iron in the picture below), a locking lever and lastly the actual cutting iron.

Each of these parts play a critical role in how the plane works and none of them are even close to being satisfactory out of the box sadly so you'll need to spend half a day fixing them. The first job is to take the plane fully apart noting how it goes back together. We will look at each section in turn:

The Mouth

Looking at the picture above you can see that the leading edge is perpendicular to the plane base, that isn't good. We need to get a set of needle files and a second cut small file and file that leading edge to 45 degrees, it's not easy and will take a while. You need to bring that to an edge meeting the plane base and we need to check that the new profile is truly square with the plane sides. Why have we done this, it is to give room for the shaving to curl away from the cutting iron without clogging the mouth of the plane and that's it.

The Frog

Place this in position on the plane base, give it a bit of a rock to see if it wobbles. If it does you need to carefully file bits of metal away until it sits firmly on the plane base, this is a straightforward job. You also need to check if the blade supporting face can sit 100% parallel with the mouth's leading edge. Lastly you need to check that the cutting iron sits flat on it at the very bottom where the edge of the cutting iron bevel is, also at the top of the frog too so when the iron is locked down it sits 100% flat, so you may find yourself doing some more gentle filing. This is so the cutting iron is stable and vibration free during use, any vibration will render the plane near useless

The Cap Iron

Pay attention to this, the cap iron is at the very heart of the plane's function and more critical than a sharp blade. I'll explain its function first this time. It's whole purpose it to bend the chip as it is cut from the wood and basically break it, not into bits but breaking the chip from advancing into the workpiece and thus creating the typical curly shaving

Notice two very important points in that illustration, the closeness of the chip breaker to the cutting edge (less than 0.5mm and the narrowness of the mouth opening, again less than 0.5mm. Those two things are what make a plane create a good clean cut. The breaks as said breaks the chip and the mouth stops the chip advancing into the work piece, with me?

OK so the cap iron needs the following doing, it needs to sit flat on the cutting iron, at this stage your cutting iron needs to have been sharpened and the back made fully flat like I explained in the sharpening thread, if it isn't do it now.  We need to ensure that the leading edge of the cap iron(chip breaker sits on the back of the iron with intimate contact as in 100% perfectly, if it doesn't shavings will get in there instantly and clog the plane and it will not work. Start off with a file and create a little angle back from the leading edge, there isn't one shown it the illustration above and that is wrong, why, well when you assemble the cap iron and blade and tighten the screw you bend the cap iron down and the blade up, this will open up a gap at the leading edge (clogs). Once you have that leading edge take the cap iron to your sharpening stones with are or need to be 100% flat and grind the leading edge with the 1000 grit stone, check it back on the cutting iron, look carefully for any gap on that leading edge and carefully work to eliminate it. This may be a slow job, it once took me nearly a day to get one done for some reason I forget. Once you have it on the 1000 stone you need to polish the front face (the bent bit). I find the best way is to roll it down the 1000 grit stone very carefully  so the bottom 6mm or so is evenly grey, then take it to the 6000 grit stone and polish it to a mirror finish but also paying attention to the mating surface to the cutting iron too, very like trying to sharpen the thing but only gently just to remove that burr. Once done recheck that fit on the cutting iron just in case you've opened up a tiny gap, if so regrind it on the 1000 grit stone.... don't skimp on that, it is critical. Why did we polish the front of the iron, well it lets the shaving slide very smoothly away from the mouth, is it really necessary? Yes, try not doing it, trust me, polish it.

So we are very nearly there! Now we need to reassemble the plane, firstly fit the frog, position it so the cutting iron is very close to the mouth leading edge. This is a variable setting, for fine bench work set it close, about 0.25 -0.5mm, for fitting doors and windows open it to 1mm; it just lets a thicker shaving through and advances the length of wood that can be lifted off the work piece during the cutting process. You also need to make sure the cutting edge is parallel to the mouth opening. Once set, carefully remove the cutting iron holding the frog firmly and then tighten the frog down with a screwdriver, recheck the cutting iron with the locking leaver in place and then fit the handles.

Flattening the base of the plane

Sadly the base of a new plane is a bit of a nightmare, they are finished on a belt sander believe it or not and are near useless for fine work, you need to flatten it. Now thankfully the base doesn't need to be flattened all over but it needs to have the front leading edge or toe, the front and back of the mouth and the heel all in one flat plane but the more you can get flat the better. You will need a roll or part of a roll of 80 aluminium oxide sandpaper, a long flat surface and some time.

First job is to back off the plane iron about 0.5mm inside the plane body but you need to keep it there along with everything else, fully tightened just as you will be using it later on.

Take your 80 grit (or coarser/faster, fined/slower) paper and clamp it to a flat surface ( a planer bed or circular saw table, anything that is truly flat, even a piece of 50mm wood if it is really flat) so that it is quite tight. Take your plane and put it on the paper, you will need to use the plane over the paper just as you would over a work piece, so pressure on the front handle pushing on the rear then relieving the front pressure and transferring to the rear, lift up and do it again. After a couple of minutes have a look at the bottom of your plane and you will see what needs to be done. Every plane I've done needed a lot of work to get the front and back of the mouth flat, maybe an hour or so work. You will need to change your paper when it gets dull too. Once it's done and you have a largely flat plane you're ready to impress your socks off.

Reset the cutting iron in the cap iron and fit it, lock it down and adjust it so the cutting edge barely protrudes, run it down some smoothish wood, it should cut like nothing you've ever used before, the surface should shimmer, the shavings should come off gossamer thin looking like lace (if the wood is open grained) if you have paid attention to all the above. There are no if's or buts with this one, that is the only way to get a bench plane to work, some may be better or worse when you start but they will all work when they're done. Any problems, check your cap iron fit first, the chances are they will lie there.

Ongoing maintenance, sadly there are a lot of strains and stressed in a new plane body, your nice flat plane will tend to get out of true, you may need to check it and reflatten every now and then, I seem to remember doing mine every month (just 5 minutes) when they were new, now 30 something years on it's just once a year.

Variable geometry planes

The block type plane, these are different as they have no cap iron and have the bevel uppermost, why? Different types of wood/grain direction needs different cutting angles. Endgrain (butchers blocks for example - block plane!) needs a low cutting angle, flat wood grain needs an average 45 degrees but some very difficult woods need a steeper 50 degrees (York pitch) which is more of a scraping action

Looking at the above you can see on the block plane we can vary the angle of the bevel (you only need to vary the actual honing angle not the whole bevel). You can get block planes with a basic angle of 20 degrees and 12.5 (I think it is) to give you a wide range of possibilities.

Setting these up is very similar to the bench plane except for there is no cap iron, the frog is also non adjustable so you may need to do some filing to get that flat and square but the mouth should be adjustable instead, remember to bevel the leading edge to 45 degrees like the bench plane. That is about it I think, I tend to set my mouth opening very narrow on a block plane, maybe less than 0.1mm to help get a better finish

It may all seem a bit of a phaff  but it really really is worth doing, I promise you your planes will be objects of great pride when you're done, planing will be a pleasure as shavings whistle off the wood leaving surfaces that don't need sanding (grain depending of course), joining planks of wood with invisible glue lines will be easy and the quality of your woodwork will increase tenfold

That case is awesome! I am really impressed with the whole thing, giving me ideas now.

The headstock isn't tight, it fits What are you after, gig space

Building a quality bass isn't cheap in either materials or labour time, 1600 euros is hardly expensive for lovely looking things like that, I can only imagine they are wonderful to play

1 hour ago, Jabba_the_gut said:

Cheers @SpondonBassed

And as I have a new router table it would be rude not to buy a couple of new cutters. I recently bought two bearing template cutters that are opposite ends of the spectrum......

The larger of the two is a Radian tools one as mentioned by @Christine in one of her excellent build threads.

The four flute Radian is a lovely smooth cutter to use, I do like mine. What is that little one, it looks a very useful tool?

4 minutes ago, bottomofthebarrel said:

A moment ago:

 

I was posting there about the time this happened, no idea if that might have been an issue?

1 minute ago, Bigwan said:

Eh? I didn't get any of that from following your threads at all! All I got was an "I wish I could do that..." sort of burning sensation...

Thanks, it does worry me though, writing isn't a skill of mine so I tend to stick to the point a little too much

Bass building aside, something that always worries me is how my writing is perceived when I try to say something. I'm badly dyslexic (thank goodness for spell checkers) and I really struggle to write naturally. I worry I sound arrogant, I think it reads that way quite often, I hope not but I think it probably does. I'm just a regular person playing around in the workshop and making mistakes just like everyone else, I am a relative newcomer to luthiery despite having made a good few many years ago but those are skills forgotten now.

I really appreciate the help I get and ideas and I learn so much from them as I do from all the build threads

So that's enough of being nice, back to sounding arrogant

3 minutes ago, Bigwan said:

I may be talking out my hat (if I was wearing one) but surely the most obvious place to put the front strap button is as close to the headstock as possible while still on the body, and move the rear strap button away from the bottom edge to change the pivot point? See Dingwall Dbird as an example:

Crossed posts! Yes this is what is on my mind, well sort of. I do like the back of that body, I've never seen the back of a Dingwall before, I like it

1 minute ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Hi @Christine  

I'm away from my October at the moment but in brief I usually attach the back button, then put a strap on and hold the front end in various possible places to feel how the balance feels (obviously with all the hardware already in place)

Generally you can feel what is going to work and what isn't. For all my own guitars nowadays I put the button at the 3/4 position at the side of the bottom heel but I need to attach a photo to explain why - and that may be a few days away!

Thanks everyone, all these ideas are a great help

I seem to have incapacitated my back this morning just bending slightly, the joys of getting old :(

@Andyjr1515   I have seen pictures on the Orange Telecaster thread of your strap locations under the heel of the neck, it's on my list of places to try. I'm not certain where the back button is going either; I'm considering putting it high up on the back rather than centre, the idea behind my thinking is to create a line between the two buttons that will naturally bring the neck up. Of course that may be completely wishful thinking but it is a position that can be used on Thunderbird type bodies   

1 hour ago, bartelby said:

maybe they were talking about: https://www.duckbrand.com/products/duck-tape/colors 😉

Pink duck tape? .... off before I hit you with my bag!!

Hows about using a 50mm x 1mm panel pin, drill a 1mm hole and insert the pin with a strap button help onto it. As long as I drill into end grain I can insert a sliver of wood to fully hide?

56 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

So far looking at these you are succeeding in converting me to the charms of the TB!! They are looking great!! 😀

I'm very pleased with them, looking better than I thought, once the edges are smoothed and rounded ...and painted they should look the part. I'm looking forward to seeing that ebony lacquered, I hope they will come to life then.

I'm a little worried that I may have made the body a little lightweight and the neck may become heavy in balance despite my efforts to keep the headstock lightweight. I'll have to see when I stick some hardware on it and a strap.

On that subject, how can I try out different straplock positions without drilling holes all over the body? Any suggestions would be most gratefully received

I finished off the shaping of the wings today, just rounding off the general profile of them, I also cut the veneers and stuck them on in the vacuum press. Tomorrow I'll finish off the shaping and get them glued to the bodies

4 hours ago, SpondonBassed said:

OT:

Have you ever taken on an apprentice Christine?

I did once but he was a waste of space, couldn't concentrate, was an accident waiting to happen. Thankfully he left of his own accord

2 hours ago, SpondonBassed said:

I can see how a hollow ground blade might steer the cut in the wrong direction.

The oil stone that I inherited would be ideal for that job.  That would allow me free to adopt a method similar to yours for sharpening edges that are not curved.  Nice.

PS; I have a scythe that I'd love to learn to sharpen well.  In my youth I never quite got my technique down to my satisfaction.  Any  tips for that one?  Heeheehee.

I might be many things but the Grim Reaper isn't one of them!

Yes for the bevel side the oilstone would do but not the back which still needs to be flat (ish)

3 minutes ago, fryer said:

How did you get the slope from 21.5 to 20.5 straight with that draw knife ? Do you have magic eyes ?

That's easy, I use these

Seriously, you can get it close by using the bevel as a guide against some sort of reference surface, in this case the edge of the neck. I only take it so far then use spokeshaves and a block plane to get to the finished profile. The draw knife just makes the process of removing wood quicker, 3 minutes or so as opposed to maybe 15, I am inherently a lazy sod

I would have liked to get the nut end down to 19.5 but I got nervous about the amount of wood under the truss rod anchor

28 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

My housemate got one in for our workshop when he was making his first ukulele from scratch, kerfings and all.

It was the first and last time he used it.  For later builds he bought in ready carved necks.  It's definitely a tool that demands respect.  I'd imagine the trick is to observe the grain closely at the heel of the neck and modify the cut accordingly?  If there is a recommended drawknife sharpening technique would you be kind enough to append it to your blade sharpening guide please?

I'm loving how the final form is shaping up.

Ha! Sharpening a drawknife, yes the exception to my rule You need to keep the bevel either flat or with a slight convex curve, the bevel becomes your bearing surface for work like this. It's a fiddly thing to sharpen at best but worth the effort and practice to get to know how to use one. They come into their own with green wood, bodging and such but have a valid place in the workshop.

It is a case of observing the grain and how the wood works, sometimes you need to work both ways on a single cut but it is a very fast tool so it's less hassle than it sounds. Practice in scrap first and soon you will be doing quality work with it

Edit: sorry sharpening, one of the few tools where the stone goes to the tool not the tool to the stone

19 minutes ago, Norris said:

I envy you having the time to spend building (let alone your skills!)

Fabulous work

The joys of retirement

57 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

There are lots of possibilities now I have the table, John!  I got a set of bearings as you suggested - brilliant!

Never seen those bits before - I'll investigate

What bearings are those?  I'm new to router tables too, I'm used to a spindle moulder and a ring fence.

I think the world is out to get me at the moment!! One of those days, well one of those nights, the day in the workshop was good though, got tons done

What you ask? Well this: I carved out the necks, out of interest, anyone ever use a drawknife? Maybe better of sticking with spokeshaves if you haven't but a very useful tool with some practice. I carved one neck ultra thin, 20.5 at the nut and 21.5 at the 12th, hells bells I like it! Trouble is I did it on one of the ebony ones, maybe I'll get lucky and no one will want to buy it

After that I planed down the stock for the wings and cut them out, I started the contouring too, a little heavier shaping then the original Tbirds, still quite flat but will put a bit of a shallow curve into them tomorrow I think. Oh I cut the control cavity too

Drawknife

Tools used

Uncontoured wings

Basic taper

I've not had one yet so fingers crossed

20 hours ago, SpondonBassed said:

Now now.  No use getting wound up over a pickup or two here or there.  At least it's polarised your opinion of the vendor.

(Sorry to hear of the set back)

It's put me back badly, I was hoping to have these sprayed by the time we went on holiday next week so they would be dry when we got back after four weeks but that is out of the window big style. I would have minded less if they had actually ordered one for me when they went out of stock over two weeks ago when I ordered, not when we phoned up to ask what was happening. I think they will have to try hard to get me back on side now, plenty of other suppliers out there!

Yesterday was a day off, first of a few I think, today I gave the headstocks a sanding and bevelled the edges. I then gave them a coat of sanding sealer (with a brush) before grain filling, after that I gave them another coat of sealer and glued on the fretboards after running a file down the frets to get the ends flush with the binding

My other half called Bassdirect today to find out where the pickups we ordered were, turns out they sold the last one nearly two weeks ago the same day as I ordered mine and they haven't bothered getting in touch with Mike Lull until after the call earlier. Am I impressed with that you might ask? 2 - 3 weeks they say, bet it's 4 - 5, I'm in half a mind to cancel and use Mojos, I really really hate shoddy service, I suspect that will be my first and last order with them, not happy! Considering Andy's experience getting his Nordies in for Len's beautiful bass I shall expect a toilet roll in the post on the first shipment! (can you tell I'm a little cross?)