Photo Update From The Guitar Hacking Shop

In the last couple of months I have had a lot of woodworking/luthierie firsts. As seen or mentioned in earlier posts I have used a spokeshave, glued my first neck blank and done various other things that are small potato(e)s to the more experienced.

To the left you see some boards. They are hard maple and hickory froma local firm more accustomed to working with construction contractors, but quite happy to have my business, the economy being what it is. Barnes Building Supply on Main St in Cedar Falls. Nice people. They didn't look at me weird when I said "hard maple...sugar maple, not soft maple, if you can." And when I asked for hickory they didn't say "whader ya makin, baseball bats?" They said, "I think I know who I can get that from" and picked up the phone.

Here you see the head of a nice Yamaha accoustic given to me by a friend. The tuners kind of sucked to I got Grovers for it and grabbed my drill. I neglected to tape over the holes before drilling them out for the larger tuners, to controll the tear-out. The light tan stuff is wood filler. Below is the head of a mid-60's Gretch given to me by the same person. I DID tape over the holes for this one. See, I can learn.

These boards were cut on my "new" table saw and will become another neck blank.

I also recently used a planer for the first time. It scares me more than most of my other tools but it is going to make shaping necks a much quicker process.

Between the planer and the table saw I have made more shavings and saw dust than I ever thought possible. I finally understand what the adds for "dust collection systems" in woodworking magazines are all about.






















This is Doyle. He's a Labrador.