Shoestring Tele

[swarfrat]

First boltup. Weight is definitely 'all there' as my brother would say, but I'm currently inclined to either leave it be, or just hollow out under the pickguard (leaving some rib meat between the neck and bridge - probably two full depth 1/2" wide beams, not the whole thing). That could actually go well with a tummy cut and wouldn't require any tomfoolery.

It is tempting to string it up tonight. But I'm going to wait.

 

[Cagey]

I suspect trying to hollow it out under the pickguard is going to return so little it's not worth the risk of something going wrong in the process. Not that routing a cavity is such a demanding task, but routers are wicked beasts. No sense letting them near something if there's not a compelling reason.

 

[swarfrat]

True dat.

I also need to come up with some sort of design for the neck plates. It'd be a shame to do father/son matching big/little right/left tele's together and not do SOME sort of name plate - there's so much to work with there. But I just can't come up with anything so far.  I can't really do anything related to "mini-me" as my son has no idea about the movie.

 

[Cagey]

Maybe one of the famous cartoon duos, like Batman/Robin, Ren/Stimpy, Chip/Dale, Pinky/Brain, etc. He won't appreciate any of those at this stage of the game either, but I suspect those instruments are going to be around for a long time and at some point, the reference might be fun.

 

[swarfrat]

Tree house update. Didnt make the 2nd floor milestone. Circumstances only allowed an hour or two this weekend. I was stringing up the rope ladder and realized a clove hitch can roll, so I had to drill my rungs and knot the rope. But I'd cut one end in a hurry and just tied it off, planning to lash it later, but frayed 1/2" rope doesnt go quickly through 1 /2" holes. Alas at that point I realized no midnight oil was going to save me, and he had gotten to play on it already.

Tomorrow is the Big K. It's just another day. I mean its important, but as far as deadlines go it was kinda arbitrary. We still have plenty of playable weather ahead. Indeed, mid-south winters are mostly just gloomy and not really harsh.

 

[swarfrat]

And just for =CB= who hasn't been around since 2013...

This is a cake yer baking guitar-boy!

Dad was fixing dinner. Kiddo was wanting to bake something real bad. Trying to focus his energy (and avoid broken eggs all over the kitchen) - we baked a cake using Grandma's famous pound cake recipe. Been thinking about trying to involve him in making something, with the idea that hopefully he might eat it if he made it. So we started with a cake to sweeten the experience.

 

[bagman67]

I admire the way you include your boy in so much of what's important to you in life.  Happy cake munching!

 

[rgand]

That sets the stage for him to be a great dad himself someday. He has a good role model.

 

[swarfrat]

Picked up an older, small but nice Delta 4" Jointer tonight. Hope to get some jointing/planing done this weekend/whenever the weather gets cool enough to work in the garage.

 

[swarfrat]

Much cursing at said jointer. Reading up on it now, need new blades too (tried offsetting them but theres a nick, and I had the in/out feed set wrong, sniped the end of the glue surfaces badly. Got plenty more, but i might make the basswood mini body a three piece instead of two piece

 

[Cagey]

It's been a while since I had a jointer/planer, but I remember being very frustrated by the setup of the thing. They're very sensitive to infeed/outfeed table parallelism.

 

[rgand]

It's been a while since I had a jointer/planer, but I remember being very frustrated by the setup of the thing. They're very sensitive to infeed/outfeed table parallelism.

I used one that was set up wrong. You got a nice taper to your work.

 

[Cagey]

Exactly. And it doesn't take being out by much.

 

[swarfrat]

Craziness around here - ready for some cool, dry weather for a while. But I noticed something while looking at the SX neck. A lefty you say?

 

[TBurst Std]

Ouch.  Reversed the nut

 

[Logrinn]

For those backwards sounding solos?  :icon_jokercolor:

 

[Cagey]

Or, you know, chord inversions...

 

[swarfrat]

Must be what Warmoth means by "Right Hand Reverse"

 

[swarfrat]

Christmas break is here and... I guess we'llbe working on guitars instead of the treehouse. It's been like this for three weeks. Not in the seven years we've lived here have we had standing water this long:

 

[rgand]

You may need to build a dock to tie up a canoe so you can get to the tree house.