Workshop glimpse, early November

Oops, we're in November already and October didn't see much action on this blog. Sorry about that, especially since I keep referring prospective buyers here. 

The explanation (which is not an excuse) is I've been abroad in work and then I spent a wonderful week's vacation at the summer house. But the project there is building a sauna at the moment. 

But things do tend to happen in the Argapa cave even if I don't publish enough. So tonight I'll show you some pics of the concert and of the bridge to the walnut tenor. 

The koa concert is on the home stretch. I've given it its wash and build coats of shellac and scraped it back. My new method of doing these coats cut a week from finishing, at least. 

Then some pics of that bridge. I showed you the one I made for the concert, this will have wings but I chose the same wood and the same tools. I considered ebony but that's so hard to plane and carve. And I thought this bridge would go nicely to the headplate veneer. 

The only machining I did was cutting the slanted saddle slot on my mini table saw, before and after that it was only edge tools. No sandpaper or even files. 

In this first pic you can see how I chisel away the end to make a wing. On the first end the grain direction was helping me, on the other end it was really tricky. 

Here you can see the wing after paring for a few minutes. 

The other end done, and a couple of facets. 

Two curves snuck into the design while nobody was watching. 

I love freehand carving. Never will I settle for a bridge design and crank out twenty at the time, it's so much more fun to let them grow into shape depending on the piece of wood and my mood. 

I think the walnut shows some promise, don't you?

(What I haven't shown is the custom piccolo. It's taking shape but it's gonna be a surprise for someone. Anyway it got its fretboard glued today.)

Bridge shaping

I found a piece of really hard mahogany which will make a good bridge. I shaped it with nothing but a chisel and my Leslie Nielsen no.1 plane. Both razor sharp. 

A dry fit, or more exactly; the bridge lying on top of the soundboard. 

Improved fretting

Fretting time! On the koa concert. I've decided to try a method reminiscent of the one I use on the piccolos, which are fretted directly into the neck. 

On ukes with fretboards, I've done it like this: http://argapa.blogspot.se/2013/10/fretting-fretboarding.html

I've cramped the fretwire into the fretboard before cutting it to length, then snipped it off with pliers before filing and sanding the ends flush with the board. It works well enough but I want to minimize the risk of protruding fret ends if the fretboard dries out. 

Since it isn't possible to file and sand the frets on the piccolos I undercut the tang and shape the ends before pressing them in, and it's the undercutting I'm going to do on this fretboard. 

Here you can see what I rant about. The tang is cut at a 45 degree angle. 

To get the length right I measure it at the slot. Always start with the longest ones; if you make them too short just move it a step or two closer to the nut end. As you can see that happened on the first fret tonight, that's why there's a seated one in the 14th slot while I'm working on the 15th. 

Give one end a tap with the hammer. I use a brass hammer on which I file and polish the face regularly. 

Then I use my lowlife cheapo fretting pliers. You can see it in more detail here:

http://argapa.blogspot.se/2013/07/new-gadget-for-fretting.html

I start at one end and work my way across. It works really well, at least well enough for me to forget about the upgrades between the occasions it's used. 

In the last pic the whole board is fretted and lies on the neck. The slight backbow disappears when it's glued on. 

I will show the file work in a later post, on this fretboard or on another.