Building my first body.

[line6man]

Ok, so I'm pondering ways of doing a wooden control plate. I do not have enough Bubinga left over to make a control cavity cover, unless I find a creative way to bookmatch some scraps.

How do you guys think it would look if I did a bookmatched Bubinga control cover with a Maple accent line down the center?

Would it distract from the subtlety of the Walnut? Would the Maple stripe look stupid?

 

[DangerousR6]

Make it and see, it's really a win-win situation. If it turns out to look good you win, if it doesn't, it most certainly will look good on something else... :icon_biggrin:

 

[B3Guy]

I have a feeling a maple stripe would add an insane amount of class. Go for it.

 

[hannaugh]

Wow, I don't know how I missed this thread before, but that's looking awesome, dude! 

 

[line6man]

Ok, I'm giving it a try.

I resawed the scraps down to just the Bubinga, then very poorly thickness planed with a router and a crappy jig I put together from from MDF and a staple gun. :blob7:
I'll worry about properly thicknessing after I glue and route it. It's easier that way.

I don't have a jointer, and nor would I want to use one on wood this size, so I used the table router with a template bit and a metal ruler as my template.
(Before anyone says it, I realize this is a rather deep pass. But it worked ok on the Maple.)

The Bubinga pieces meet up nicely.

I cut the piece of Maple I had left over, at a diagonal and joined it up with one piece of the Bubinga. When the glue is completely dried, I'll cut and joint it and glue to the other piece of Bubinga. It should look like this.

 

[Updown]

That looks cool to me  :icon_thumright: Glad you went with the maple strip.

I love watching these sort of builds !!

 

[line6man]

It's looking good so far!

Just some more sanding to level it out, then I can route it into a cavity cover.
I'm getting worried about the glue joints though. The wood is like 1/16" thick at this point. It could crack on me. I may glue down a piece of metal on the back, to add rigidity.

 

[Cagey]

The wood is more likely to break before the glue joint will, but the end result is the same. I think I'd want to epoxy some sort of plate on the back. Wouldn't have to be too thick or heavy. In fact, you could probably get away with a thin wood plate and some Titebond if you run the grain perpendicular to the show piece. You just need to keep it from flexing. Check the local hobbyist stores where they sell stuff for building RC planes. You'll be able to get some surprisingly thin, strong and light birch plywood.

 

[line6man]

Yay! It came out well!

After I got the top nearly flat, I positioned the template and started routing. Unfortunately, I got a horrifying crack. :sad:

A bit of glue fixed it up. (You can see the roughness of the backside, that will be sanded.) I should have taken the bandsaw rough-cut closer to the template before routing.

After gluing, I took it down as close as possible on the bandsaw, then very carefully continued routing.

The end result:

 

[Nando Vallart]

Looking really good!

 

[Cagey]

That came out great! Looks good on there. Did you end up reinforcing it, or decide against it?

 

[Corey P.]

Very nice!

 

[reluctant-builder]

That looks great. Nice work!

 

[line6man]

That came out great! Looks good on there. Did you end up reinforcing it, or decide against it?

I'm going to glue something on the back to reinforce it.

Perhaps I should secure the cover to the body with magnets instead of screws? That would prevent the screws from stressing the wood in any way, and give a cleaner look.

 

[B3Guy]

yep, magnets would be awesome

 

[mgaut051]

that looks great!

 

[bagman67]

That came out great! Looks good on there. Did you end up reinforcing it, or decide against it?

I'm going to glue something on the back to reinforce it.

Perhaps I should secure the cover to the body with magnets instead of screws? That would prevent the screws from stressing the wood in any way, and give a cleaner look.

How will you remove it once installed?  Fingernail? Cut out a little place to grab it?  Seems like the real danger is in mucking up the edge when you detach it, since you don't need much torque with the screws to get it to stay put by conventional means, especially if you back the thing with a reasonably stiff piece of plywood.

 

[line6man]

That came out great! Looks good on there. Did you end up reinforcing it, or decide against it?

I'm going to glue something on the back to reinforce it.

Perhaps I should secure the cover to the body with magnets instead of screws? That would prevent the screws from stressing the wood in any way, and give a cleaner look.

How will you remove it once installed?  Fingernail? Cut out a little place to grab it?  Seems like the real danger is in mucking up the edge when you detach it, since you don't need much torque with the screws to get it to stay put by conventional means, especially if you back the thing with a reasonably stiff piece of plywood.

If I reinforce the back with metal, a simple swipe of a magnet would pull it off.

 

[B3Guy]

disconnecting magnets with a stronger magnet . . .classic!

 

[Cagey]

I've seen it done where a small hole (maybe 5/8" or 3/4" dia. - the size of a fingertip) is drilled, so you can just grab it and pull it off.

But, I think if you're just careful not to overtorque them, the standard cover screws will work just fine and function more reliably.