Featured Lab Tech (2/2) ~ Luthiery Laboratories

Featured Lab Tech (2/2)

Selected Laboratory Technology

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Full-Sized Plans

It really helps to make full-sized drawings before you start a guitar project. But finding guitar-size paper can be a problem. My Home Depot has big rolls of brown wrapping paper outside that are a good size, I tore off a few yards. Below, I've drawn a plan on a nice big piece of cardboard I saved that was the backing for something. But how do you transfer these plans to wood? I don't want to cut up my master, I need some extra-large tracing paper. So I went to Staples, but the closest thing they had was still too small, and $20. So I went to the supermarket next door, and found this baking paper.

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Radiata Glue-up

I picked all the scrap pieces out of the trash for this cool picture

This is a body made from 2x2 Radiata pine from Home Depot. This material is actually 1-1/2" square and gives you a choice of tight grain on two opposing sides and loose feathery grain on the other two sides. This is the tight grain.

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Templates

The control cavity templates were reverse-engineered from a Gibson-style guitar. They are cut from 1/4" polycarbonate, while the matching cover template is MDF. Again, inspired by StewMac's design. StewMac does not include the cover template, they expect you to buy their cover.

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Truss Rod Channel Jig

This is the jig as I first built it, with a drill guide attached to the end. That doesn't work very well. The jig is made from 1x2s, 1x3s, and MDF for the base, mostly scrap. The eye bolts are used to secure the workpiece. The new router plate makes the centering block obsolete. Yesterday I sank a dozen screws into the jig itself to stiffen it, re-glued the rails, and semi-permanently mounted the pine spacer under the neck.

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Ultimate Router Plate

This is based on an older design I made from an even older piece of phenolic, which you can see behind. Phenolic is very stiff and strong, good for tooling, but you can't see through it. If you look at that one, you can see the giant hole I made for vision. I was barely able to adapt it to the small router, but the vision hole was useless.

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Work Bench

Here is my new guitar workbench, gratis, courtesy of Home Depot for me to review.

I added the drawers myself, and the side bins, to make a real nice piece of furniture. I pulled the drawers out of an old desk someone was throwing away last summer and tossed them in the attic for someday. Well, someday came - it pays not to be too proud on trash day - go price drawers, they're expensive. I made new matching fronts from a piece of floor molding. I also added the little shelves, vise, and power strip. The old towel makes a nice work surface for guitars. Of course, this bench is rated for 3000 pounds of abuse, but this one will never see that. Thanks, Home Depot!

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Featured Lab Tech

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RetroBrite

"RetroBrite" is a name for a process that restores old yellowed plastics to new. Many plastics yellow or darken over time. RetroBriting can reverse this aging, but with a number of caveats that, in my opinion, make it pretty useless. While the process actually does work - it reverses the discoloration - the effect is temporary. After a few months, the plastic will return to its yellowed state. When this happens, you can repeat the treatment, but at some point the chemicals involved are going to start to degrade the plastic.

My first experiment was whitening some yellowed tuner knobs, and it did work. With nothing more than sunshine and hydrogen peroxide, the knobs lightened considerably. That was several years ago, and today the knobs are as yellow as ever.

What causes this yellowing? It is variously attributed to sunlight, oxygen, bromine content, and other causes. While all of these things can contribute to it, none of them are necessary. Some plastics simply turn yellow with age, and nothing will stop it. In my experience, the real culprit is simply bad plastic, and the only real solution is replacement.

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