Hand Tools and Techniques

[bruce bennett]

there is nothing on a basic electric guitar - from LP to Strat - that cannot be done with hand tools, practice and patience. There are more complex designs that might require CNC (the Backlunds come to mind,

FWIW. the first two Backlunds were done with only a joiner and a De Walt router.
but yes, a CNC would make these designs a great deal easier to build. I plan to get one someday.

as for hand tool techniques.. I'm not sure I could provide any more useful information.. other than Keep your tools razor sharp and all "sliding" surfaces polished and a coat of Natural wax on them, which goes double for any hand saw blades.

I even apply those same ideas to my power tools,
All my machine tool surfaces are cleaned, polished and waxed monthly,
it really makes a big difference in how easily the tool does its work.

also if I see a build up of pitch or waxes on blades, I clean them with a shot of East Off oven cleaner ( use that stuff OUTSIDE ) and water.. then a light coat of canola oil or carnuba wax to keep them in top shape.

 

[Murkar]

+1 Bruce! And everyone else All great things to know and keep in mind.....

This is less of a thing for most of the people who have been around here a long time and more a tip for beginners doing their first build or just getting started with building guitars, but the idea of sharpening your tools is a bit of mystery for a lot of people when they are just starting out.

So since Scimitar mentioned it's a good idea to note some techniques, I thought I should post a small bit on sharpening for those who are new to using hand tools.

So here it is, Sharpening:

As others have mentioned, if you want to work with hand tools, your tools need to be razor sharp. There are a number of ways of achieving that goal, but in a sense they're all basically the same. If you can't shave with your tools, they're not sharp enough. A properly sharpened chisel or plane iron should slice hairs off of your arm with very little effort - literally, razor sharp.

The cutting edge of a blade is formed between two planes - the back of your blade, and the cutting edge. As a result when you're sharpening, it's very important to work on BOTH surfaces. The idea of sharpening is essentially to get these two surfaces so flat that they come together to a point with zero radius. Achieving absolutely zero radius is impossible of course, but the smaller that radius is, the sharper your tool will be.

Step 1: Lapping. This is necessary with all new tools. You need to lap the back of your tool so it is dead flat. When you buy a new tools, usually it will not be flat. There are a number of ways to do this. The easiest is probably with a water stone, but beginner's won't have access to a water stone so a piece of sandpaper attached to a piece of glass or other dead flat surface with some double stick tape will do. Sand until the back of your tool is flat. When flat, continue working up the grits from say p220 until you reach 1000 grit. You should not have deep scratches left on the back of the blade when you're done (i.e. each grit has removed all scratches left by the previous grit). You only really need to flatten the first inch back from the cutting edge on the back of the blade. This is the 'working surface' of the back.

Step 2: The next thing you need to do is flatten your cutting edge. It should be flattened up to 1000 grit - if not, follow the same process as step 1. For this though, you should have a honing guide to maintain the correct edge angle. Use a honing guide to set the angle at which you're sanding the bevel and keep it on until the blade is sharp, maintaining the same angle always as you work on that edge. If you change the angle, you will radius that edge. This is why it isn't a great idea to try to sharpen by hand with no honing guide.

Step 3: Starting with lower grits and working to higher grits, you need to sand the back and the cutting edge as I mentioned before. Start with the bevel (the cutting edge) and sand at p1000 until you feel a small burr form on the back of the blade. When the burr has formed, flatten the back with the same grit. Then move up a grit and repeat again.

Note that it is quite important you don’t move to the next grit before the burr has formed. However once you get to higher grits, you won’t be able to feel the burr anymore, so you’ll have to guess at when it’s formed.

If you are a beginner and using sandpaper, you’ll have to stop once you reach higher grades of sandpaper because you can’t go any higher. Your blade will not be sharp enough at this grit, however. The solution to this is to use 3M Flexible polishing papers instead of sandpaper once you reach 1000 Grit sandpaper (p1000). These are available from StewMac for like $13 - get the whole set of grits from 400 to 8000. Note that the polishing papers come in grits as low as 400 – don’t be fooled, you’ll want to start polishing with 400 after you finish p1000 sandpaper. The flexible polishing paper at 400 grit won’t remove scratches in metal left by any sandpaper rougher than 1000 grit. Remember to flatten the cutting edge, then the back with every grit until you reach the finest grit (8000 for the 3M papers).

If you’re using waterstones of course you won’t need to use sandpaper, but just progress up the grits the same way you would using this method above.

Hopefully that should serve as a comprehensive guide for newcomers for sharpening your first tools properly

 

[poro78]

Hmm... This cool video was posted 2 days ago to Paul Seller's YouTube channel.
I tried to find a perfect thread where to post it, hopefully this one will do.
So, seek your old poorly cutting saws, watch the video and roll your sleeves.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTqZTGPPRj0"]Recutting and Resizing Saw Teeth - with Paul Sellers - YouTube[/ame]