To Dust I Return

January 14th, 2011

More Junk I Could not Live Without

The addiction worsens.

When I started building my Telecaster clone, I had no idea guitar cavity covers were made from pickguard material. I decided to make one from wood. Maple, to contrast with the walnut body.

I had a new router inlay kit (recent addiction-related buy), so I used it to make a 6″ by 2″ cover about 3/16″ thick. I made the blank on the band saw, so it was a little oversized.

I’m getting ahead of myself. First, I made an acrylic template for the router. I was really disappointed in the results, because I overshot the length by three units of measure. Later, when I measured the finished cover, I realized things were not so bad, because those units were thousandths of an inch. This is how crazy I’ve gotten. I missed 6″ by three thousandths, and I feel like a failure. You can’t even see three thousandths on a ruler that reads to 1/64″.

So anyway, I had this overly thick cover, and I wanted to thickness it. But how? I have all this junk in the garage, but none of the woodworking tools were right for the job. You can’t really use the planer on something this small. The table saw could conceivably do it, if you made a weird jig and tried to resaw it, but it would likely fail. The band saw is useless for precision work; it ought to come with a sander built in.

I decided to try the sanding drum (okay, one of two sanding drums I bought) on my drill press. I got the drum at Woodcraft. It’s amazingly cool. It’s about 3″ by 1 1/4″, and the great thing about it is that it takes regular sandpaper. You cut it and cram it on there somehow. No running around town looking for overpriced sleeves in inappropriate grits.

Someone showed me a thicknessing jig at Stewart-Macdonald. It’s like a tiny router fence you put on your drill press table. You adjust the distance between the drum and the fence and run parts through. It costs $159, though. Even I am not that stupid.

I built a little fence from MDF and gave it a try. I couldn’t get it to stand square, so I sanded it, figuring it would have to end up parallel to the drum. This probably ruined the flatness of the fence, but I don’t think that matters as long as the distance between the contact points of the drum and fence are constant. Anyway, I did it, and it seemed to work.

Wow, was it slow. I ran some scrap through it like 10,000 times, and nearly nothing happened. Forget that.

Also, it made horizontal lines on the wood.

Today I got an email pimping a DeWalt belt sander with an inversion stand. I thought this was the greatest thing I had ever seen! You end up with a belt sander with the belt running perpendicularly to your bench, with the movement in the vertical or horizontal direction. I had to have this! It would solve all my problems.

I started Googling around, and in a few minutes I realized I was an idiot. There’s a real tool made for this purpose, without a weird little stand. It’s called an oscillating spindle sander. And wouldn’t you know it: Ridgid makes the best one for home use, and it also does belt sanding, with a special attachment. You can literally put a belt on top of it. And it has a flat table with a miter slot, and the table TILTS.

Come on. How was I supposed to not buy that? Be serious.

I found it it’s an extremely popular tool among luthiers. I should not be surprised, with all the stuff it does.

Anyway, now I have to figure out how to make a jig that will let me thickness stuff with it.

One wise guy on a forum told me to thickness the part on the milling machine. Okay, yes, I could have done that. But that wouldn’t have made my addiction very happy. Also, it’s probably not very easy to mill stuff that’s 1/8″ thick, in a milling vise. I could try to do it with double-side tape, but it seems like a good way to fling the part at my head or get a very nonuniform thickness.

I’m going to see how the sander works. It’s still in the box.

I’m also getting a dust extractor for my tiny DeWalt 611 router. This router is wonderful, but it shoots the dust into your face like a cannon. I tried my big DeWalt the other day, with the built-in dust thing hooked up, and apart from the noise, there was no evidence it was working. I never saw a speck of dust. But when I lifted it up, the routing was done. That convinced me dust collection is a must for routers. Sadly, DeWalt doesn’t include the $5.00 extractor with the 611, and the only place where I can find it charges $9.00 for delivery.

I broke down and bought a ridiculously expensive replacement hose to run between my tools and the Shop-Vac. The regular Ridgid hose is about as flexible as a culvert, and when you hook it up to a small tool, it likes to help you steer. And it also rolls the tool off your bench and onto the garage floor. The new 10′ hose is way better, but it costs twice what it should. I’m going to look for other sources.

I was going to get a dust collector, but as time passes, it seems less and less appealing. The table saw doesn’t make much dust, and the vacuum can handle it. Dust collection doesn’t work on the band saw. The little router dust extractors are fantastic. The planer has its own fan and dust nozzle, and they work great. There is no way to put dust collection on a drill press. It’s starting to seem like there was never any point in getting a cyclone. Maybe they’re only useful for people who generate lots of dust, like commercial shops. For me, it seems like a big expense, no improvement in performance, and a great deal of plumbing work.

If I can get the cavity cover done, I’ll start sanding and finishing the guitar. We’ll see how it goes. I think it’s going to turn out very well. Next time, I’ll make my own neck and save $200.

Time to go face the dust.

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