Making a new bridge, pt. 1

An old chunk of ebony will be the new bridge for Milo’s guitar. I measured the existing bridge and made a drawing so I didn’t have to bring the guitar to tge frozen hell that is the workshop at the cottage. 

First I squared two sides of the chunk, then I drilled two 13 mm holes for the half-round grooves. Then I ripped it lengthwise. 



Like so. I cut it to length but kept it a couple of mm long, the reasoning being it’s better to have a slightly larger footprint to cover any boo-boos from removing the old one. 



I tried to use a chisel to shape the three-sided pyramids but I could just as well have used the chisel on a piece of glass. So I roughed them out on the belt sander. I know! Show me a builder who’s made more derogatory remarks about abrasives than me and I’ll be impressed. 



Then to make amends I switched to a French handcut rasp, crazily expensive but for this, invaluable. 



And here’s where we’re at. I won’t go further without the old bridge beside me, but the heavy work is done and with the luxury rasp, a sharp file and some scrapers I can continue in the apartment. 

Getting ready for surgery

Having stumbled onto some plywood I set out to make a neck removal jig for the ancient guitar. As with all jig ideas of mine - at least the ones expected to work - I based the design on a readily available product from Stewmac. But mine will have fewer moving parts, and it might not fit other guitars. 

The main idea is to apply an increasing pressure to the heel, while heating the neck joint to loosen the glue securing the dovetail. Stewmac solves this with a screw going through a threaded hole in a metal bar, but as I make this with a minimum of tools in the kitchen I’ll go for a plywood cradle being pulled up. 

The screws visible in the pic is only clamping the parts, they’re connected to a bit from a Zyliss vise system. 

And even though I don’t have the full stash from the workshop at hand, I managed to find two large screws with square nuts. You can guess the rest, can’t you. The nuts won’t spin because they’re square, so turning the screws will lift the cradle and press the heel upwards. The top plate has felt cushions and will be secured to the guitar with a strap or a couple of clamps. 



Now we await the foam cutter. And re-watch some of twoodfords vids on youtube. 

Resawing shelves, continued

Back at the cottage with some time to spare, so I soldiered on with the kerfing plane. In this pic you can see the mini bench or table vise from Sjöbergs, makers of the fantastic workbenches. I have it mounted on the veranda with machine screw inserts so it fairly rigid, at least as rigid as the quite rickety house. 

One more pic to show you the surroundings. Even in bleak November weather, there is no place as beautiful as this archipelago. 



To make the kerfs in the ends of the board I needed a bigger vise so I relocated to the workshop where my bench and shopmade wooden vise resides. 



Once the board was slotted all around I enlisted my wife Ann to help me wrangle the humongous frame saw. It rips like crazy, and works especially well in dry mahogany. Walnut and cherry tend to steer the blade with the longer fibers but today the blade followed the kerfs just as intended. 



And the first slice is off the board. It took us around 40 minutes and we are still married so I count that as a total success. Maybe we’ll attack the next slice tomorrow, after hunting seafowl in the morning.