Push Me Pull You

When I was cleaning out my shop to make room for the lathe, which involved new tool chests, rearranging tools in the tool chests, and reorganizing all the drawers in the garage shop, I purged a lot of hardware that has been traveling with me for a decade or more.  I actually had a box of cobbler tacks, among various other small lots of stray nails, screws, and old cabinet hinges, etc.

I threw away the old iron that didn't work but I was going to fix someday in order to wax my skis--the same skis that are now the bottom half of a sled for my kids and probably won't need wax.  Gone is my collection of circular saw blades that came off the saw because they were dull, but are resharpen-able (for about twice the cost of a new blade).  No more is my galvanized steel bucket full of pole barn nails, salvaged from a chicken-coop/shed in the back yard of a house I lived in 15 years ago.  My buddies and I had a grand time burning down that shed along with the original outhouse one thirsty autumn afternoon.  The knee pads with a broken strap that I paid $5 for at the China Depot--gone.  The glue-encrusted rubber gloves, grimy dust mask, welding goggles, dog leash, and cut-off ends of several baseball bats--mere memories.  I could not bring myself to discard the winter gloves that I have had since 1984, though; they are still reasonably intact and fit, so I put them under the seat of my truck for emergency use.

When I came across the Quick grip hold down clamps, I had a dilemma: I never have enough clamps, and here were two that I have been moving around for many years, never having been used because they are meant to be installed in the top of a workbench and have only one side--the other end being the work top surface.  They require a hole to be drilled the your work bench top and are fairly immovable once installed.  Just never found a good home for them.  But how could I throw out a pair of clamps?  The solution:  I welded them together.  Already they have proven to be useful in a variety of situations that I could not have envisioned.  I wonder what other stuff I threw out that I could have found a use for eventually?  Dammit.

Yoda, at Last

Saturday was sucked up by the hitch adapter, mowing the lawn, and the heat/humidity being just ridiculous.  But Sunday was a beautiful day to spend in the garage-shop and Yoda beckoned.  I got consensus from the family that we would think about God while we proceeded with our day instead of spending a couple hours visiting with his flock.  So I got an early start, read the paper, had some breakfast with the family, sent a letter to congress [read: shat], and was hard at "work"  before 9AM.  What a great start.

I had already glued the two mahogany blanks into one piece for the back, so I was ready to cut the back into the dreadnought shape and inlay the back strip.  I had also previously made an MDF template from the original damaged back, so it was simply a matter of setting up a piloted flush cut bit in the router table, double stick taping the template to the new back, and routing it out.  Just to be safe, I ran a test piece from a leftover cabinet back panel and it worked perfectly.  I was a little concerned because I had cut the template free hand with a jig saw then sanded it down to shape with a drum sander in the drill press.  This actually yielded a good result, but there were very slight variations in the surface that I was concerned would telegraph into the finished piece.  Fortunately, this did not happen on the test piece, so I went ahead and cut the actual back.

Next, I used a jig that I had previously made to guide the router for cutting dadoes to set up the back strip inlay.  I had also used this jig as a clamping cawl when I glued the back blanks together.  The back strip was 11/64" wide and all I had that small was an 1/8" bit, so I would have to make the groove in two passes.  I set up the groove to be 1/16" deep, as the back was roughly 1/8" thick.  Although this operation was rife with opportunities to ruin the most expensive part of this endeavor, amazingly, it went smoothly.  I taped off either side of the groove so that I didn't get glue on the adjacent back which would cause it to not accept stain, and then glued in the back strip.  Of course the back strip was about 1/16" proud of the back, so I planed it down to about 1/32 to sand down the rest of the way.  And of course, I managed to take a gouge out of the back with the plane.  And there you go.  The last time I ground the plane iron with my half-assed grinder, I managed to get the iron bevel skewed so that it is no longer straight and cannot be made parallel to the sole. Building a better tool grinder will undoubtedly be my next distraction.  I was able to fill the gouge and this will require some delicate sanding, but it is not unfix-able--just irritating.

The next step was to glue the bracing to the inside of the back.  I had salvaged the bracing from the original, so the arch would be formed by the arch carved into the original braces.  This did present a glue-up puzzle, though.  I am sometimes asked by well-wishers what I would like as a gift for a birthday, or Christmas, or Father's day.  I always reply that I wish for nothing.  But when pressed, I usually say "clamps".  I just never seem to have enough clamps.  You can see from the picture that I had to improvise with various cawls to try to get uniform clamping pressure across the braces in order to form the arch into the back.  But in the end, it worked out OK.

While the glue was setting on the back, I worked on the fretboard and head stock.  I had filled all the dings and divots in the fretboard and neck and had everything pretty much sanded down.  The wood filler I am using is a little pink and it looked really pink against the rosewood fretboard, but I'm hoping it will stain OK.    I cut a piece of cherry veneer from some scrap and planed it down to 1/8".  With it double stick taped to the headstock, I routed it to shape, then drilled, reamed to 1 degree taper, and lapped the tuner holes.  This was probably overkill, but they are nice looking holes (and what else would I do with a 1 degree reamer and a box of lapping tools).  In order to rout the access hole for the truss rod accurately, I clamped the headstock into the mill vise using tapered maple blocks that I made last week for my bench vise in order to clamp the neck for sanding.  This worked out reasonably well and I was able to have good control of the cut with the mill.  This will be covered by the original tortoise shell plastic plate, but the hole still had to look precise in case anybody ever adjusted the rod and got a look at the hole.  The cherry is going to stain up and look very nice, though oddly similar to the original paper veneer that I had removed.  I might end up doing an inlay or something to set it apart.  We'll see how the rest of the project goes.

The back turned out pretty nice, though its a shame about the gouge.  It won't be detectable, but I hate that it happened.  That hand plane has always bothered me--I really need to get the iron straightened out and get more comfortable with it.  You can see in the picture where I still have some more sanding to do.  Dammit. Shame on me for using a hand tool.  I am very pleased with the grain pattern that we lucked into.  Its almost a shame to put such a nice piece of wood on such an ill-fated instrument.  Oh well, luck of the draw.

Preparing to install the top next weekend, I cleaned up all the machine tuners and the pickup for re-installation.  They cleaned up well enough, but still pretty dinged up.  I soldered a new input jack to the pickup and then installed them, only to find that the jack was not deep enough to fit through the repaired hole.  I had installed a thin veneer piece to the inside of the blown out hole and the made a nice round plate for the exterior side in order to reinforce the area against the trauma of plugging/unplugging.  The threaded end of the jack is not long enough to extend through even the original wood, let alone the two additional pieces.  So I guess a trip to Radio Shack is in my future.  Sadly, my local Shack is in a strip center next to a restaurant that apparently barbecues road kill in a secret fermented horse urine sauce.  At least that's what it smells like.  But I just can't justify a trip to Mendelson's for a simple $2 item.  Maybe the hardware store will have one.....

Anyhow, next week, I should be installing the back and working on installing frets and maybe setting the neck.  It's getting closer.

Dirtbike Carrier Unit Adapter

Although I was eager to get to work on Yoda, I had a chore to do first this weekend.  I have made a verbal agreement to sell my dirtbike with the Carrier Rack Unit I made last spring; but, the guy has a woosy hitch--1-1/4" receiver instead of the standard 2" that the unit was designed for.  So I spent Saturday morning at the scrap yard and found a 3" round tube and a 1-1/4" solid steel bar to make an adapter.  This set up will actually work better than my original design, with the tube fitting inside the tube on the CRU instead of the square tube extender I use with with the larger receiver. 

Its Alive!

Who doesn't love a 3 day weekend, even when you have house guests.  If you ignore them, you can get a lot accomplished.  With the wife and kids running interference, I was able to sequester myself in the garage-shop several hours at a time, and Voila!, I solved the mystery of the government [read: non-working] lathe.

Because the mill was working, I believed that the switch configuration was correct.  So I had 3 phase power going at least to the end of the wires at the lathe.  My concern was that there were only 3 wires coming from the motor and one of them was green, suggesting single phase 220V with a ground.  But the motor plate clearly said 3 phase.  Further obfuscating things was the directional switch--reverse-off-forward--that was wired in the connection box  to the motor with all black wire.  But when I took the cover off the switch, I could see clearly that it was a 3 pole switch, which made the connections somewhat irrelevant except in making the reverse position actually run the motor in reverse and vice-versa, but this was only a matter of rearranging the wires after I got the lathe running, if necessary.  My next step was to look at the wiring at the motor. 

While removing the side access panel, I admired the craftsmanship that went into building the machine, down to the point of tapping the housing for the machine screws that hold the access panel in place instead of using nut and bolt.  With the panel removed and a good light, I was able to get a better look at the motor plate, which offered the critical clue as to why the motor was not running.  This is a dual voltage motor--208/220--460V.  It dawned on me that the school from which the lathe came was probably set up for 460V, so the motor was probably wired for that configuration.  All that remained was to rewire the motor for 220V (220--221, whatever it takes). 



When I removed the wire access panel on the motor, I was relieved to find the wiring diagram printed on the inside for both voltages and all the brass wire identification tags were still intact on the wire leads, so it was simply connect the dots. Once I had the motor re-wired, I fired it up and it ran perfectly.  My variable drive does work for adjusting the spindle speed, except that at too low RPM, the spindle won't turn at all. I was a little concerned that there was no ground wire, but I bonded the case to the metal conduit I have run continuously back to the sub panel, so short of running a separate conductor (which is over kill and would be a PITA), that will have to be sufficient.  But all in all, the system works as intended and I was up and running early Saturday, leaving some time to get back to work on Yoda.