Woodworking Wednesdays: Projects, Projects, Projects!

Welcome back to Woodworking Wednesdays, the weekly digest of ongoing projects in the workshop. In today's issue, let's have a look at the development of some projects that were out to the sideline.

Almost there.

There were two instruments left for finish. On my last visit to the workshop last Sunday, I had the chance of starting this with some lacquer and have them almost ready. There are missing nuts, saddles, tuning machines and strings, but that means they are almost there in regards to completion.

It's always great to come back to the place where I learnt to make instruments. Each time I'm there, I learn something new. This time it was about the properties of lacquer. I found out that this thing dries almost as fast as you spray it. It's crazy! You apply it and you needn't wait for to long. This means I'm saying my farewells to varnish. It might be brighter, but the fast drying time is way better. Beisdes, finishes can be tweaked. So the instrument could shine or not. That depends on the buyer. Or in this case of me. Since these do not have a buyer yet.

After the lacquer is on, the process is the same. We smooth the surface with fine-grit sandpaper (I used a 1500 grain) and water. We just need to be careful because lacquer is way thinner than varnish. It is also easier to smooth. So the use of sandpaper should be very light. Then, we can apply as much polish as we want to make it shine!

Bridges

This is my dose of adrenaline of the month. Since we are starting I had a double shot. After the polish, we need to remove the finish from the place where we are going to glue the bridge. Yes, it is weird, but it would be weirder to have the bridge hit your hands while you are playing. Ok, that could be a really funny thing to watch. Regardless, the idea is to make the are free of any material so you glue wood with wood.

Once the area is clean, we can drill holes through the bridge and sound board to make some anchors on the bridge. This will help us keep it steady after applying the glue. Also, it will be fixed in once once we apply pressure to glue it. Here I used a bike's inner tube to hold the bridge in place and some pieces of wood for extra pressure.

Showing off a bridge

So I wanted to show a bridge I made out of a piece of wood I thought I had ruined with my router. It tunrs out it only needed some work.

I'll be showing the whole process on video. I'm trying to record more of my work to show around here since I think this series needs a revamp. In these photos, I wanted to show the finish of this purpleheart. It looks amazing!

A different desing

Going off from these two instruments, let's see how the concert ones are doing. Let's start with the one I showed last week. It needed an adjustment in the headstock since the whole are is smaller that what I usually do. So I went ahead and make it more modern .

I've plenty of similar designs, so I wanted to try one myself. It was easy to do with my router and files.

Fretboards

Since my mitter box broke, I was worried about how to make th fretboards. But I went back to a very traditional way of making them. I show a lot of this process on this short. But here are some photos too. The idea is simple. You need something to keep your saw straight. With that you can do the rest. But it is a long process since you need to readjust everything for each fret slot.

And just like that you can make 4 fretboards. Some luthiers use a saw disc for this. It saves a lot of time and you can make plenty of pieces in just one day and store them.

Speaking of fretboards, I went ahead and glued two of these on some of the projects that needed them. But those photos are for another post.

Preparation

Other two instruments got their bindings channel as well.

You only see one here because the process is the same. And this one you see is my second concert-trype instrument. It has a red cedar top as well. It will back some black bindings and mahogany purflings. And it's going to be a sweet instrument. It's also going to keep me busy for the rest of the year like its counterpart.

And that's been all for today's entry. I hope you liked some of the projects show around here.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask. Comments are always welcome.

Have a great day!

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