What’s the verb for making knurled knobs? I finally managed to borrow the tool needed from an old friend and colleague and got some work done on the knobs today. During the week, I have also completed the slotted plungers that the strings will run through. Here are some pictures: This last picture shows the tool itself. To make a “cross” shaped knurling, a tool with two wheels is used. I personally purchased that tool along with this one at the company I borrowed it from this week, but it was almost 20 years ago, so not surprisingly, we couldn’t locate...
Learn MoreIt’s slowly getting there. I have a lot of finishing to do, and I still don’t have the knurled knobs, but today I completed the first tuner with the correct threads and it is looking good. If you compare these threads with the ones from the prototype post, you’ll notice that these are much finer. This means that more turns are required to tune the string, giving a better fine-tuning action. You will also note the radius on the base plate. The plan is to use identical base plates whether it is a trem unit or not, so I have made two to test both...
Learn MoreI just found the coolest clip on YouTube that illustrates exactly what I’m after with carbon fibre. I’ll have to stop myself from building this too, or it will be a long time before I have anything...
Learn MoreI have made some progress on the tuners and bridge. In the image below, the pieces for the base plate of the bridge can be seen. Tomorrow, I should receive the thread cutting tools I have ordered so that I can continue on the threaded plunger and tuner knob. In the meantime, I am also cutting myself a second styrofoam 3D...
Learn MoreI wanted to a) see if I could create a mould for the carbon fiber idea and b) see how things would turn out, so I set out to create a simple mockup without a bandsaw. I had a spare can of spray insulation, so that seemed like a good idea: but not really…. So, I went to Bauhaus (i.e. home depot) and got myself a sheet of styrofoam, the kind used to insulate floors. It was a lot of fun. It taught me a couple of things as well. First of all, the “raised” (or rather, “uncarved”) portion where the controls are supposed to sit will not work. I have angled the edge to sit more comfortably on the leg, so will have to re-think one or the other. Secondly, I made the upper left corner, where the arm rests, quite carved. This is very comfortable and standard “stratty” but will not work out with a body made of a glued on top out of a different material than the bottom. Re-think...
Learn MoreI have decided to make my materials available under Creative Commons licensing. Take a look at the footer of these pages. It reads: Strandberg Guitarworks plans by Ola Strandberg are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. What this means to you is that you may use plans and ideas that I publish here but that you: Have to notify others that I was the originator of the work and Have to make your materials available under the same license. This is important – if you use it, you have to publish it and let anyone else use it. I would also humbly request that you let me know that you are using it as well although this is not strictly part of the license. I will in the coming days, weeks and months publish anything I come up with in the spirit of creating better instruments. I am convinced that you and I will have differentiators that make someone like your work or my work better and that we can both co-exist. Thanks in advance for respecting...
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