Guitar Repair Day: Dean Resonator Edition

So with the Covid-19 bug going around there hasn't been much to do.  However, my friend Phil found something for me to do, by accident of course.  He owns a Dean resonator that has been his number one personal guitar for years.  And during all those years I have repaired it numerous times.  Let me think off the top of my head what I've done.

1.  Complete re-fret.
2.  Fixed a broken headstock.
3.  Repaired the electronics a number of times.
4.  This includes replacing pots and capacitors.
5.  Buffing out the guitar.
6.  Replacing both pickups.
7.  Repairing/replacing the screws that hold the tuners in place.
8.  Set-ups (of course.)

So yeah, I've tweaked it a few times to say the least.  Well, this last time the guitar ended up falling and putting a hell of ding into the binding and fretboard.

So, what to do?  Well, if this was an episode of Dan Erlewine's trade secrets here's what he would do.  He would take out all the frets.  Then remove the binding.  Next, he would fill the small pieces of the wood back in.  Then it would be time to install new binding.  After that was set, new frets would be installed and dressed.

That, of course, would be something like a $700 job.  For $869.00 Phil could buy a brand new Dean resonator from Musician's Friend.

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/folk-traditional-instruments/dean-chrome-g-acoustic-electric-resonator-guitar/515945000457000?rNtt=dean%20resonators&index=2

So I had to fix it in a way that wouldn't interfere with his playing, but not cost an arm and a leg.  Here's what I decided to do.

First up, it was time to break out the C.A. glue.  I was simply going to fill the crack, and sand it smooth.  It sounds easy, but a lot of things can go wrong.  Here's what's going on in the photo.  I filled the crack with C.A. glue, covered it in cellophane. and clamped it tight.  C.A. glue won't stick to cellophane which is why I used it to protect my clamp.  

Now let's see what we are working with.

The good news, is that, it's holding all together.  The bad news, is that, it doesn't look great.  But that's to be expected.  That's what the next phase of the project is for.

I normally don't put duct tape on guitar, but this called for special circumstances.  I planned to use my rotary sander, and I didn't want it sanding parts that weren't the binding.  Important note: With a rotary sander I made sure to wet sand with a fine grit sandpaper.  In this case 600 grit.

Since I can't hold the guitar, sand, and take photos at the same time, we're going to fast forward to after I've sanded.

The side is getting there, but let's concentrate on the top.  I took a straight razor blade, and shaved the binding flat.

Now, to smooth this down I needed to sand it with a high grit sandpaper.  Luckily C.A. glue sands out extremely nicely.  I used 1500 grit automotive sandpaper.

The trick is to wet sand.  Keep plenty of water on it, and don't be afraid to wash out the sandpaper.

If you look up on the neck you can see where the neck had previously broken.  But back to the sanding.  The sanding smoothed everything out.  I also shaved down a few places on the fretboard with the straight razor again.

But my next tool is the real secret that shouldn't be a secret to anyone in the luthier trade.  Break out a buffer!

I've found a buffer to be my best friend in my workshop.  It can take care of all sorts of things.  In this case, it smoothed out where the wood met the binding.  It also smoothed out the hardened C.A. glue.  This is the result.

I should have taken a better photo, but good news is that, the side of the guitar and fretboard are smooth once again.  The binding is whiter where I repaired it, but it is smooth.  After this, there is one last thing to do.

Don't forget your Ken Smith polish.  That stuff is great.  It's getting kind of hard to find these days which I don't understand.  It's the best stuff I've come across in over 20 years of repair.  

After all the work that came before, the next part was easy.  I set her up, double checked a few things, and make sure everything was right.  Phil was happy with her.  So yeah, it was a tough break, but at least I kept the cost way, way, way below the Dan Erlewine special of $700 or so.  And if Phil puts another ding in her, he knows I'll be here.  Repair's my thing, and I enjoy doing it.  

The Ironbark Eucalyptus Tabletop Project

I've been working on a secret project now for a couple of weeks.  There's a good reason why it has been a secret.  You see, two lovely gals I know decided to open their own hair salon.  However, they needed to keep it, "hush, hush," so they wouldn't get fired from where they were working.  They needed a desk for their salon and were experimenting with turning an old TV cabinet into the main desk. 

So they called me for help since I'm a woodworker.  They wanted to know how they could modify it so it didn't look like such a TV cabinet and more like a professional desk.  I went over there, and told them since it was made of particle board and layered wood, you couldn't really sand it, dye it, or modify it that much. 

That's when I came up with the bright idea of making a natural edge tabletop for it.  They asked, "Wouldn't that be a lot of work."  I'm like, "Naw, it's not as much as you'd think."  Of course, I was lying out my rear end because of ...... girls.  You know, us men get our fake muscles and stuff around pretty gals.  So I said with conviction and a Viking sword raised to the roof (okay, there was no sword,) that I would build an awesome natural edge tabletop to sit upon the cabinet.

So now, I had to put my woodworking skills where my mouth was.  This meant I had to run to Dad since I'd never actually built a tabletop before.  However, he has been involved in building a number of them.  So the first step was to actually get some wood.  Dad talked to his buddy Pete at Viable Lumber in St Pete.  They went through Pete's warehouse to see what kind of dried wood he had.  It turns out he had two pieces of Ironbark Eucalyptus.  Here's what they looked like when I got them.

They had actually had a few years to dry.  The bad news was that they had warped badly while drying.  So that meant I was going to have to cut them down by quite a bit to even them out.

So I brought them out on my driveway and started to work on them.

There were two different ways I could join the pieces together.  I could do it the easy way, and make the edges straight like boards, and then glue them.  Or, I could follow the natural edges of the wood, and join them like that.  However, that would be much more labor intensive.  But, it would look much nicer, and more original.  It would also allow more of the wood to be saved.  We decided to follow the natural edges and join them there.

So we rough jointed the edges, and then went to work on running the pieces through the thickness planer.  This, of course, led to other problems.  Namely, the gripping paper tore.

To make a long story short... We got the planer to working, and found out that the pieces of wood were too big to fit through it.  So we had to do all the work by hand.

Luckily, we had just bought an electric hand planner.  That way I didn't have to use tools that Noah would have had to used. 

Here's what it looked like after a bit of cutting.

My next job was to get rid of all that bark.  This time I had to do it the old timey way.  That being, with a hammer and a chisel. 

So now came the time to keep on planning the wood.  After I planed it evenly, I put water on the wood to see what it would look like when finished.

Then it came time to join the two pieces of wood together.  This meant we had to take a grinder to the edges and join them up as best as possible.  You know the secret to it?  Chalk.  Really, look at the pictures.  In the third picture down you can see Dad grinding the edges of the wood.

The next thing we did was flip the pieces of wood upside down, fit the wood together, and clamp it in place.  Thank goodness we have such large clamps.

On the underside we screwed in support beams.  These would help hold the wood in place while we epoxy it. 

Here's the topside of the table with once it was braced.

Next up was the epoxy.  We mixed it with the wood shavings from this very piece of wood.  We also made sure the epoxy was dark, so that it would make artistic streaks in the wood.  But you'll see that later.

After the epoxy dried it was time to sand it.  Luckily I didn't have to sand it by hand.  We had a rotary hand sander.  It made sanding so much easier.  And let me tell you, that epoxy was hard as concrete. 

As I was doing this, we flipped the table so that the underside was up.  That way, we could remove some of the bracing, and add metal braces on the ends.  I cleaned up the epoxy on the underside with the sander as well.

Now back to sanding the top.

I do want to remind my readers that this blog is the "short" version of what happened.  In-between all these photos were a lot of planning and sanding.  In fact, there were many, many hours of it. 

Now it came time to put a finish on it.  Dad decided on polyurethane due to it being easy to work with, and it being a durable finish.  Since this desk would be used every day, it needed to hold up to the rigors of a working environment.  So here's what it looked like when the first coat went on it.

Here's what the epoxy filled gaps looked like.

Pretty nifty huh?  And to fast forward, here's what the wood looked like on the final finish.

Since this was planned to be a natural edge, rustic looking tabletop, we didn't put a lot of finish on it.  It had enough to look glossy, but not too much to look shiny. 

It needed to dry for a couple of days, but after that we took it to the gal's shop to be fitted to the cabinet.  I will fast forward here, but we altered the cabinet, and fit the tabletop to it.  That took a few hours, but was well worth it.

After we had done our part, the girls had planned to have metal wrapped around the cabinet.  That way it would match the rest of the shop, and have a rustic look to it.  Here's the final product.

If you want to see the desk, or get your hair done, you can find it at Revolution Hair, Co. in Tampa, Fl. 

The good news, is that, many unsolicited comments have been given about the tabletop/desk.  Everyone loves it, and wants to touch it.  They say it has a very nice touch since it is so smooth. 

I'm glad Dad and I were able to deliver on the tabletop.  It was a harder project than I thought due to having to use hand tools instead of running it through the planer.  But in the end, the tabletop came out better than I thought it would.  The girls are extremely happy with it, so that's the important thing. 

Will I ever make another one?  Well, if I do, at I have some experience making one.  And I know what I'm in for if I decide to undertake another project.  I'm happy that I can add this project to my woodworking resume.  I think it makes me a more "well-rounded" woodworker. 

School Dayz: Second Week In: Scholarship Edition

I just completed my second week of school at Erwin Technical College (formerly Erwin Vo. Tech.)  On Friday all of our tools came in.  And it wasn't just a few tools.  It was $1200 worth of tools. 

However, instead of pulling a "Tim Allen" and talking about tools, I wanted to talk about something a little different.  I wanted to talk about how I received those tools.  I know you're thinking, "Well, with cold hard cash right?"  In a sense that's correct, but it's a bit deeper than that.  So let me start at the beginning.

The first thing I did was talk to "Employ Florida" about going back to school.  They sent me to the Social Services section of Hillsborough County.  (It's still in the same building.)  To go to Erwin, I would have to apply for a Pell grant, then get turned down for the Pell grant since I have a Bachelor's degree.  Then, Hillsborough County would help out with their Greater Opportunities program.  Their reasoning is that, "It's better to pay to send me to school than pay for me to collect unemployment."

So, my tuition, books, and tools were all covered by the program.  For 15 months of school, the cost was around 3,700.  The tools were $1200, and the books were $400.  So it totaled a bit over $5.300.  Compared to the for profit schools Erwin is a fantastic deal.  At that cost the school isn't making any money.  The program is 15 months, and there are 15 people in my class.  I have two and sometimes three instructors at a time.  So I have to say it's a great deal, and a great program.

I know a lot of people complain about, "What is government doing for the people?"  Well, this is a social service that I believe that people can get behind.  I think this is the kind of thing that government should be doing.  And I have to admit, I am thankful for it.  I am very thankful.     

So I have come away with a new point of view on scholarships.  I always knew they were important, but now it's a bit more personal for me.  Otherwise, I don't think I would have been able to go back to school.  So I extend a very heartfelt, "Thank you Hillsborough County."

If I Had A Hammer

So the other day my Dad and I were coming back from the city dump.  We had just gotten rid of some old wooden fences.  We were about two miles from home, and stopped at a red light when Dad noticed something.  A hammer lying in the middle of the road.  It kind of looked like this:

It turns out it is a very worn, very used Estwing 22 oz. framing hammer.  They sell them at Sears.

http://www.sears.com/estwing-22-oz-framing-hammer/p-00938366000P?sid=IDx01192011x000001&kpid=00938366000&kispla=00938366000P&kpid=00938366000&mktRedirect=y

It must have been in the back of a work truck.  When the truck went around the corner it must have fallen out and into the street. 

I would like to give it back to the person who lost it, but I'm afraid if I posted it in the lost/found section of Craigslist a bunch of nuts/liars would come out of the woodwork claiming it to be theirs.

It's not a cheap hammer by any means.  As you can tell from the pictures it is well used.  So I decided to put it with some other tools so it will be happy and not alone like it was in the street. 

What's funny is that just a year or so ago my Grandmother gave me my Grandfather's hammer that looks a lot like this one.  I mean it, they are like twin hammers.  So now I have two hammers. 

It just occurred to me that I am "that guy" who got something that "fell off of a truck."  Funny how the world works.