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Ever
have a work piece slip in your vise's wood jaws? If you line your
jaws with these little rubber jar opening grippers the piece will
not slip under even the greatest pressure These little guys are in the kitchen gadget section of your supermarket and cost about a buck. |
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Varying string diameters make getting the string spacing visually correct a tedious trial and error process. Here is an Excel spreadsheet courtesy of the GAL magazine that calculates the string centers in millimeters for various nut widths and string weights. Also includes a string tension calculator. Right mouse click the image and choose "...save target as" to download. (Mac users option click) |
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| Here is a second spread sheet from Steve Mayo that calculates nut spacing in inches. Right mouse click the image and choose "...save target as" to download. (Mac users option click). Double clicking will fire up "Excel" if you have it on your system. |  |
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Ever feel like your wrangling cats when binding an instrument ?
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| This little wonder is from Bo Walker. Bo first glues an inch or so of the purflings and then uses this elegant little jig to manage the lines as he glues his bindings. The brush is a hobby shop item that has had most of the bristle cut off so it is quite stiff and spreads the glue evenly. | ||||||
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Here is another
from Bo. Its a "Spiro-Graph"
for grown ups. The patterns are the asymmetric sound holes for a
Selmer reproduction
that he is making. The templates are made from thin model plywood.
The disks are have a radius of the I.D. & O.D. of the rosette.
By holding the template in place and using a pencil as the axle,
he rolls the disk around the template for a perfect layout. |
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| Bo intends to adapt this to actually cut the rosette channels and we look forward to showing you how he worked that out very soon. | ||||||
| This is a Steve Kinnaird jig for making rosettes off of the soundboard. The center disk is the ID of the ring. Around the perimeter are dowels that plug into holes on the workboard and have been threaded to accept the thumb screws . Before use Steve covers the surface around the rosette with wax and then assembles the whole ring dry. Once everything is in place he floods the assembly with super glue. |
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| When Bo saw the genius of Steve's dry assembly method he dashed home and created his own version of Steve's jig. Bo used maple cam clamps, wax paper and masking tape covered disk. Click here or the picture for a complete article on this jig. |  |
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| Here is a slick device by John Fitzgerald to cover the soundhole while spraying finish. The hinged disk is slightly larger than the soundhole. The block that presses against the back is threaded. You flip up the flap to insert in the sound box, open the flap and then turn the disk counter clockwise to raise the disk to the back of the sound hole. |
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This is a layout aid to draw the fret height on the nut. Just a block of wood with a small groove that holds a .5mm lead from mechanical pencil. Draw a second line to denote the string depth by tapping a 1/16" brass shim to the underside. |
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These next two are from Steve Lamb. Steve is a professional repair man. The first is this drill guide to accurately drill dowels holes to repair a broken neck. The u-shaped cutout fits around the trussrod nut. Steve leave the break as undisturbed as possible and uses 1/4" threaded rods as dowels. When the neck and head are both drilled he reassembles using epoxy glue. |
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This is Steve's jig for pressing in frets. It consists of an aluminum I-beam that has adjustable posts and two clamps to fasten the jig to the neck. Steve uses the press screw with an appropriate caul to press in frets. Steve is thinking about marketing these, if you think you would be interested in having one click here to e-mail Steve. |
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Here is Steve Mayo's binding channel cutter. It is built around a Stu Mac Dremel router base. Steve prefers the Black & Decker rotary tool over the Dremel. The base has screw feed micrometer adjustment. The wooden foot is rounded in a cone shape and in use is kept pressed against the side to keep the cutter perpendicular at all time. With this type tool it is essential the the cutter is held tangent to the side to insure a consistent depth cut. With the wooden foot removed Steve also uses this as a rosette channel cutter by revolving the base around a pin at the center of the sound hole. |
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This is a band saw jig that Steve Mayo uses to cut binding strips. It consists of a guide block that has two guide shims the same thickness as the binding to be cut. The shims are set to the width of the stock to be cut and locked in place with the wing nuts. The jig is then clamped to the saws table with the blade riding in a saw kerf at the front of the lower block. The work piece is pulled through the jig past the saw blade and neatly cut to a consistent width. |
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| Ed Schaefer uses this neat jig to pre-bend the laminated bindings that he uses on his headstock. |  |
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| Here is a nifty shop built drilling jig that Bo Walker uses to drill his tuning machine holes. Note the two pins that index the jig against the side of the peg head. |  |
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This is David Adam's version of a side bending machine. He hasn't tested it yet (just finished putting it together) but there is no reason why it shouldn't work. He used a quick-grip clamp turned spreader instead of a screw (the rest is standard issue Fox bender). |
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