Did you build a wall ornament or a playable guitar the first time ??

[Skyjerk]

This is a harbor frieght arbor press converted to fret press. Really easy to convert for this use. This one is 15 years old or so...


View attachment 616848

Also, is your press experiencing any anxiety, depression, or high blood pressure perhaps?

 

[Joe Desperado]

how did you attach the radiused caul to the arbor?

The stew mac caul has a 3/8" shaft. I drilled a 3/8" hole in the bottom of the press shaft and then also drilled and tap a 10/32 screw from the side. I use a thumb screw to tighten the caul in pace. Well sort of. The shaft of the caul has a grove around it. The thumb screw is aligned with that grove to hold the caul in place, but allows it to move/spin slightly. This way, your neck does not have to be perfectly straight/parallel in the press. There is also a larger thumb/wing screw in the front center hole. This is so you can lock the press up or down by tightening. For gluing in frets, you can press the fret in, lock this screw and let it dry before moving on.

 

[Skyjerk]

The stew mac caul has a 3/8" shaft. I drilled a 3/8" hole in the bottom of the press shaft and then also drilled and tap a 10/32 screw from the side. I use a thumb screw to tighten the caul in pace. Well sort of. The shaft of the caul has a grove around it. The thumb screw is aligned with that grove to hold the caul in place, but allows it to move/spin slightly. This way, your neck does not have to be perfectly straight/parallel in the press. There is also a larger thumb/wing screw in the front center hole. This is so you can lock the press up or down by tightening. For gluing in frets, you can press the fret in, lock this screw and let it dry before moving on.

Sounds easy peasey. Thatsa whata I'mma gonna do!

Matter of fact, I might just go do it today

Thanks!

 

[Skyjerk]

The stew mac caul has a 3/8" shaft. I drilled a 3/8" hole in the bottom of the press shaft and then also drilled and tap a 10/32 screw from the side. I use a thumb screw to tighten the caul in pace. Well sort of. The shaft of the caul has a grove around it. The thumb screw is aligned with that grove to hold the caul in place, but allows it to move/spin slightly. This way, your neck does not have to be perfectly straight/parallel in the press. There is also a larger thumb/wing screw in the front center hole. This is so you can lock the press up or down by tightening. For gluing in frets, you can press the fret in, lock this screw and let it dry before moving on.

I also have a 50-ton hydraulic press I use for forging damascus, but it would suck if my phone rang at the wrong moment and it crushed the neck into splinters

 

[Joe Desperado]

Also, is your press experiencing any anxiety, depression, or high blood pressure perhaps?

Ah. Is this in regards to the Rx bottle? They are Anti-dePRESSants made specifically for this this process. LOL. The bottle holds the different brass radius cauls.

 

[Joe Desperado]

BTW this is the one ton press as it has a taller yoke. The half ton is hard to get thicker necks in.

 

[ScotttheScot]

This is a harbor frieght arbor press converted to fret press. Really easy to convert for this use. This one is 15 years old or so...


View attachment 616848

I was trying to think of a way to install a return something like what you would find on drill press ?????? Is that a homemade neck support I see in this picture? If so how did you make it ?
Thanks

 

[ScotttheScot]

I was considering adapting the harbor freight arbor press as well. Its affordable and from what I can see as its sole job, it does a good job of pressing down on stuff

Ive been using my drill press previously, but the arbor press can simply press harder.

The one advantage the drill press has a return spring hum ????? I’m working on that idea.
My wife’s old roller blades are going to become a fret wire bender .

 

[ScotttheScot]

My over beam pin router it will double for a fret slot cutter when I get an expensive blade from Stewmac . I plan on making a duplicating carver until then I’m using the stepped template approach to shaping the arch top on my LP

 

[LtDave32]

My first guitar build, all from scratch:

The real story here is that the guitar you see in the above pic, it is the only one I have ever built for myself. That was in 2009.

Now here I am today, retired from the water dept, gone into a full-time production with a business of making guitars.

..And that's still the one and only guitar I have ever made for myself. All others since then, must be 200 of them, have been on orders for other people.

 

[ScotttheScot]

Amazing!! I know there’s a lot of prolific builders on this site but Man you have got to very proud !
I wanted start a furniture business but the volume of lumber, shipping, packaging also custom cabinets it just felt like a mountain I wasn’t up to climbing.
If I and that’s a big if ,if I build a guitar that’s sales worthy I would only build guitars to fuel my hobby.
Let me ask this question did you ruin your love for making guitars by making it a business? If you haven’t you are one of the lucky ones !! Hope so

 

[Joe Desperado]

I was trying to think of a way to install a return something like what you would find on drill press ?????? Is that a homemade neck support I see in this picture? If so how did you make it ?
Thanks

Yes. Two pieces of cove nailed to a block lined with cork.

 

[Louie the Slug]

Built my first guitar on a self-dare in 2015. Always loved music and Hendrix so decided to build Jimi’s Woodstock Strat, thinking it would indeed up as a wall ornament. I’m a lefty so I built it like Jimi’s, right handed but strung lefty, Had no real intention of learning to play guitar. Then I finished it and it actually worked! So, what the hell, took some lessons and……..three more guitars (Peter Green’s 59 LP, Page‘s 59 Dragon Tele, and my own take on a 59 LP Jr - all true lefties - I had quickly discovered one aspect of Jimi’s genius while learning on that Strat), an amp, three pedals (and counting) a pedal board and a guitar rack…….lap steel is next. Stop me before I build again!

 

[ScotttheScot]

Built my first guitar on a self-dare in 2015. Always loved music and Hendrix so decided to build Jimi’s Woodstock Strat, thinking it would indeed up as a wall ornament. I’m a lefty so I built it like Jimi’s, right handed but strung lefty, Had no real intention of learning to play guitar. Then I finished it and it actually worked! So, what the hell, took some lessons and……..three more guitars (Peter Green’s 59 LP, Page‘s 59 Dragon Tele, and my own take on a 59 LP Jr - all true lefties - I had quickly discovered one aspect of Jimi’s genius while learning on that Strat), an amp, three pedals (and counting) a pedal board and a guitar rack…….lap steel is next. Stop me before I build again!

Nice !!!!!!

 

[LtDave32]

Ah. Is this in regards to the Rx bottle? They are Anti-dePRESSants made specifically for this this process. LOL. The bottle holds the different brass radius cauls.

So what you're saying is, 12" radius cauls put you in a good mood, but 7.25" radius cauls maybe not so much??

 

[LtDave32]

Amazing!! I know there’s a lot of prolific builders on this site but Man you have got to very proud !
I wanted start a furniture business but the volume of lumber, shipping, packaging also custom cabinets it just felt like a mountain I wasn’t up to climbing.
If I and that’s a big if ,if I build a guitar that’s sales worthy I would only build guitars to fuel my hobby.
Let me ask this question did you ruin your love for making guitars by making it a business? If you haven’t you are one of the lucky ones !! Hope so

Some days it gets pretty tough. With some materials, it can wear me down. I've got this bundle of 1" hard curly maple stock that I use for my Fender-style necks.

It is the hardest shit I have ever dealt with. It doesn't give sawdust. It gives coarse bundles of steel-wool like wads. I shit you not. I pick a pile up off the floor and it's like an afro . But way harder.

It is nothing but pure hard labor to carve a neck out of that stuff. It looks fantastic, high flame, etc and it makes for a beautiful neck, but it's a tough go.

It's a hard job dealing with tough wood, but it's a pure pleasure dealing with other instrument woods like mahogany, spanish cedar, swamp ash..

If I make a mistake that renders the part of the guitar I'm working on unusable or non-fixable, It frustrates the hell out of me. One really has to watch it and be careful, or you can go broke replacing wood, not to mention all the damn labor of re-doing it. So it becomes a personal contest with yourself on seeing how many operations you can do without making any mistakes.

Fancy inlays can be hard to do, but I'm having a special bit made that only has 1/8" of cutter at the end, the rest is shaft. Long story, but it's what I need for my Dremel router base and templates in order to accelerate the job of things like trap inlays. There's other little things like multi-layer binding that can be tough, but like doing the dishes, you just work through it bit by bit.

The DSG hallmark process of wet-sanding all lacquer finishes to a glass-like perfection is work. Lots and lots of work. But it renders a really beautiful instrument. Factories just don't do that anymore. They shoot a flow-coat and buff it out, then assemble and ship.

But it's all that damn work that built my name and rep. I have to keep up that standard at all costs.

But I still love it to death. If I were suddenly found with no guitars to build for a few weeks, I'd go crazy.

My customers have all been terrific. Great people to work with. Quite a few of them have multiple instruments of ours. I owe much to them.

I left my job with our town's Water Dept to do this full time, and I'm very, very glad I did.

 

[fatdaddypreacher]

My over beam pin router it will double for a fret slot cutter when I get an expensive blade from Stewmac . I plan on making a duplicating carver until then I’m using the stepped template approach to shaping the arch top on my LP

someone posted a new stew mac blade for sale here recently on this forum, as they accidently ordered two. i'll see if i can find it.

 

[fatdaddypreacher]

someone posted a new stew mac blade for sale here recently on this forum, as they accidently ordered two. i'll see if i can find it.

pm sent to you via conversation.

 

[fatdaddypreacher]

actually, i don't know what i had intended exactly when i build my first. i don't know how to play (noodled around a bit over the years, but still can't get a riff together). I love electric guitars, and my favorite is the les paul, so i thought since i worked with wood and was comfortable around tools, i'd try to build one. I drew up some pics from the internet, got some sizes together and made some plans as best i could. I thought i was a genius when i came up with a set of step carve templates, only later to find that to be standard practice....duhhh. anyway, i had a squire strat here i mimicked the scale off of, and gathered some scraps together from work. three piece maple top and 3 piece alder back, with laminated maple neck. finally got that hideous thing together, and oddly enough the dude at the music shop was quite impressed with it and couldn't seem to get past the fact i built the neck....i didn't know i was supposed to buy one already shaped....duhhh again. anyway, i asked him what it needed and he told me to paint the ugly [email protected]@@@@@ and put my name on it. It weighed 10 pounds but everyone that plays is loves it. i guess even a blind hog can find an acorn every now and then. it's still hanging around here somewhere...stripped down ready for a fresh paint and upgrade.

 

[ScotttheScot]

That’s a great account and it gives confidence to first time builders.
Thanks