What's on your workbench right now?

[bodhi]

just out of the bench ,du to weather i have speed the finish (i will redo better when weather allow)

Whoa!!! What are the woods and finish on that?? Awesome, might need to adjust my thinline plans a bit....

[kifla]

just out of the bench ,du to weather i have speed the finish (i will redo better when weather allow)

Ludo, that is 'effing beautiful!! Custom shop has noting on you!

[Deed_Poll]

Ludo, you are a master! I always enjoy and appreciate your work

[bodhi]

We're in pretty tight lockdown right now ever since early December, so have been pretty much unable to do anything larger scale with my guitar projects for a while now, since I don't have access to a proper workshop. In the meantime over the last few days I've been doing some light metalwork and assembly on a cakepan tube-amp testbed, which is taking surprisingly long, but should allow me to do some quick work with testing and verifying proper amp and tube pedal builds and possible mods. I've learned the suprisingly high usefulness of having a drilling spray for the bits, they basically go through almost like butter instead of grinding through.

If all goes to plan I should have a handful of amps and some preamp pedals done by the end of the year...

[kifla]

Little profile contouring

[Norrin Radd]

We're in pretty tight lockdown right now ever since early December, so have been pretty much unable to do anything larger scale with my guitar projects for a while now, since I don't have access to a proper workshop. In the meantime over the last few days I've been doing some light metalwork and assembly on a cakepan tube-amp testbed, which is taking surprisingly long, but should allow me to do some quick work with testing and verifying proper amp and tube pedal builds and possible mods. I've learned the suprisingly high usefulness of having a drilling spray for the bits, they basically go through almost like butter instead of grinding through.

If all goes to plan I should have a handful of amps and some preamp pedals done by the end of the year...

What is this spray? Is it specifically for drilling into metal?

[Norrin Radd]

Little profile contouring

I'd say that's a BIG profile contour! - Looks great, too - nice work!

[bodhi]

We're in pretty tight lockdown right now ever since early December, so have been pretty much unable to do anything larger scale with my guitar projects for a while now, since I don't have access to a proper workshop. In the meantime over the last few days I've been doing some light metalwork and assembly on a cakepan tube-amp testbed, which is taking surprisingly long, but should allow me to do some quick work with testing and verifying proper amp and tube pedal builds and possible mods. I've learned the suprisingly high usefulness of having a drilling spray for the bits, they basically go through almost like butter instead of grinding through.

If all goes to plan I should have a handful of amps and some preamp pedals done by the end of the year...

What is this spray? Is it specifically for drilling into metal?

It's an aerosol cutting oil, you should probably be able to google that and find the local variant. Essentially a kind of lubricant that reduces heat build-up and friction between the drill bits and the aluminum (in this case), reducing wear on the tools and making a far quicker job of it. Using a 2mm increment step drill bit and a two-handed wall socket drill at a reasonable setting, the 28mm holes for 6v6/6L6 and similar sockets took a bit less than a minute each to drill, compared to me having problems with torque with the smaller (up to about 14mm, whatever the closest imperial thingie is) step drill bits without the spray. I find even without the spray step drill bits are a lot better for making holes in metals than most straight drill bits, I believe mainly cause the heads have a slighly less rounded shape that makes for more efficient cutting.

[bodhi]

We're in pretty tight lockdown right now ever since early December, so have been pretty much unable to do anything larger scale with my guitar projects for a while now, since I don't have access to a proper workshop. In the meantime over the last few days I've been doing some light metalwork and assembly on a cakepan tube-amp testbed, which is taking surprisingly long, but should allow me to do some quick work with testing and verifying proper amp and tube pedal builds and possible mods. I've learned the suprisingly high usefulness of having a drilling spray for the bits, they basically go through almost like butter instead of grinding through.

If all goes to plan I should have a handful of amps and some preamp pedals done by the end of the year...

What is this spray? Is it specifically for drilling into metal?

It's an aerosol cutting oil, you should probably be able to google that and find the local variant of that. Essentially a kind of lubricant that reduces heat build-up and friction between the drill bits and the aluminum (in this case), reducing wear on the tools and making a far quicker job of it. Using a 2mm increment step drill bit and a two-handed wall socket drill at a reasonable setting, the 28mm holes for 6v6/6L6 and similar sockets took a bit less than a minute each to drill, compared to me having problems with torque with the smaller (up to about 14mm, whatever the closest imperial thingie is) step drill bits without the spray. I find even without the spray step drill bits are a lot better for making holes in metals than most straight drill bits, I believe mainly cause the heads have a slighly less rounded shape that makes for more efficient cutting.

Mind you, the best tool for this is supposed to be a sheet metal hole punch, but the step drill bits work fairly well, and I haven't really tried to clean up the holes other than using a file to level down the edges. They'll get covered up by the sockets in any case, so not sure what I'll end up doing on the final builds yet.

[kifla]

Mind you, the best tool for this is supposed to be a sheet metal hole punch, but the step drill bits work fairly well, and I haven't really tried to clean up the holes other than using a file to level down the edges. They'll get covered up by the sockets in any case, so not sure what I'll end up doing on the final builds yet.

For deburring the holes...buy THIS little tool; cheap and effective. One of my favorite tools.

[HorseyBoy]

Jazzmaster on the (kitchen) bench for a new set of pickups, these Wide Range Mini Humbuckers from Lance Amplification (via Harvester Guitars).





Pickups are intriguing in that they fit on a Jazzmaster plate and match the standard pickup covers perfectly, but you can see that they are offset from the plate and the orientation can be switched, effectively moving the placement of the pickup (closer to or further away from the bridge or neck). If you leave enough wire, you can switch the direction around simply by loosening or removing the strings and undoing the screws. You'll also see they're a little deeper than standard JM pups, so I pulled out the Fender foam and put some new foam in its place.



Also threw in some 500K pots while I was at it, which was the fiddliest part of the procedure.





The sound is bright and sparkly, with a bit more twang than a standard JM set. The bridge measures at 13.74K and the neck comes in at 11.14K but they don't sound "high output" in any way. To my ears they sound closer to a vintage Firebird pickup or a Fender Wide Range Humbucker. Still fiddling with heights but I've been very, very impressed so far.

[smjenkins]

Jazzmaster on the (kitchen) bench for a new set of pickups, these Wide Range Mini Humbuckers from Lance Amplification (via Harvester Guitars).



Pickups are intriguing in that they fit on a Jazzmaster plate and match the standard pickup covers perfectly, but you can see that they are offset from the plate and the orientation can be switched, effectively moving the placement of the pickup (closer to or further away from the bridge or neck). If you leave enough wire, you can switch the direction around simply by loosening or removing the strings and undoing the screws. You'll also see they're a little deeper than standard JM pups, so I pulled out the Fender foam and put some new foam in its place.

Those pickups look super cool. I love the idea of reversible mini-humbuckers.

[HorseyBoy]

Those pickups look super cool. I love the idea of reversible mini-humbuckers.

They sound great, too!

I think these are the first set after the prototype, although James (at Lance Amplification) has been winding his Wide Range Mini Humbuckers and Thurnderbirds for different Harvester guitars for a while now.

[SuperAxe]

just out of the bench ,du to weather i have speed the finish (i will redo better when weather allow)

Lovely, what timber on the top?

[antisymmetric]

Classy work Mr. Ludo!