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| S. Heslop:
Spent today sorting the tablesaw out. It's always been about half a degree off square since I made it, and it's one of those things I figured i'd sort out when it became a problem. Had to remove a bit of material from one of the parts, and the new rasp came in handy for that. I also sorted out the fence, which had alot of flex. It's still got some flex but it's alot more solid than it was. Cut some strips. There's still saw marks on them but i'm blaming the cheap blade i've always been using. Sometimes I think about getting a fancy blade, but they're so damn expensive. The idea for the fingerboard is to make it up from strips in some sort of pattern. There's probably a good reason why people tend not to make fingerboards this way, but I guess i'll find out why when it's done. I'm mostly doing it this way since i've got no wood left that's long enough to make a fingerboard from. The obvious problem with this is that it's gonna be a hell of a thing to glue up. The strips are coming out about +/- .1mm and that's probably enough to cause some problems. I think most likely i'll make up some sort of fixture to clamp them about two strips wide at a time, so I can joint those to glue the whole thing. Also, I spooked myself by measuring the neck on my existing banjo (which i'm mostly copying for proportions) and finding I was off by about 40mm. The dotted line on that diagram above is where the neck should really end. I've tripple checked the measurements now and it's just puzzling me how i'd be that far off in the first place. |
| S. Heslop:
This drum sander is the best thing I ever built. I'm getting alot of use out of it. Here i'm thicknessing the boards because they came out with half a millimeter's difference. Then they were trimmed to about 100mm long. Got just enough of them. Then glued up in rows of two. It's a bit of a weird setup, got little wedges applying the pressure (with a thin stick in between to hopefully even the pressure out), and at the edges ive got more wedges in an attempt to force... down the columns? It's hard to see how well it worked with glue obscuring it all, but I'll find out when it's done. There's also waxed paper tacked all over to stop them from sticking to what they're not supposed to. I think they're guaranteed to have some gaps, but hopefully nothing too bad. |
| S. Heslop:
Finished gluing it up. Ran it over the jointer a few times to partially even the surface up. The glue is still a bit damp so I didn't go all the way. Just enough to see if it worked. Plenty of gaps but it's still alot better than i'd expected. You can see the steps aren't quite even too, since the stops I had moved a bit. But the sticks are 6mm wide so it's not as noticeable as in this photo. |
| RussellT:
That looks good :clap: :thumbup: Do you think it would look even better if you'd alternated the strips across the neck as well. Perhaps you could take it to bits and try gluing it up that way instead. :lol: Russell |
| S. Heslop:
--- Quote from: RussellT on June 27, 2015, 03:50:44 PM ---That looks good :clap: :thumbup: Do you think it would look even better if you'd alternated the strips across the neck as well. Perhaps you could take it to bits and try gluing it up that way instead. :lol: Russell --- End quote --- I tried a few arrangements in software to see what worked, and tried that too, but it looked a bit weird. It does also seem weird to cut all these strips and not do anything too fancy with them. But like a true artist, i've been trying to cleverly justify this arrangement after already deciding on it. And i'm going with "it helps emphasize the asymmetry inherent to the banjo". |
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