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Showing posts from August, 2011

Four Good Books to Read on Classical Guitar Making

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The chequered bark is unique, and its resemblance to a saurian hide has well earned for it the name of Alligator Juniper. So apt is the description that if you have ever heard of the existence of such a tree you identify it upon your first sight of it . Donald Culross Peattie, A Natural History of Western Trees , 1950 Four books to read if you are interested in making a classical guitar. Guitarmaking , by Art Overholtzer. This is not the book to use to make a classical guitar, you'd get stuck half way through and then you'd have to figure out on your own how to finish it. Overholtzer has some different ideas about guitar making, and like Bogdanovich, if you have a shop full of big huge metal or woodworking machines you can make the Overholtzer guitar. Read it for Art's opinions on wood and sound production. Make Your Own Classical Guitar , by Stanley Doubtfire. Another book that shows you a wacky way to build a guitar. Some very interesting techniques and several g

Thoughts after a Sharpening Session w/ Water Stones

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Fallers, or choppers, as they are known locally, work in pairs. An outsider is impressed by the number of tools a set of choppers carry around with them in a Redwood operation-two axes, two eight-foot saws, one twelve-foot saw, two dozen plates, one dozen shims, ten wedges, two sledges, one pair of gun stocks, one plumb bob, twelve springboards, six pieces of staging. H.I. Bower, from a speech presented at the Pacific Logging Conference , 1936 It took me almost 2 hours to sharpen all the plane blades that are on the cutting board, I made a pact with myself never to let the blades get in that bad of shape again. There were more blades that needed sharpening, but that meant going out to the garage to dig out the low speed grinder from the furniture and other stuff left behind by the previous owners that still need to go to Good Will. Another day will be set aside for grinding more edged tools. All I ready needed were the 2 blades for the No. 4 planes, likewise for the No. 3 and 1 fo

New Tool Chest, Part 2

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Sheer, snow-mantled peaks of the Front Range frowning down on verdant valleys; a high rolling plateau carpeted with dwarf tundra plants: these are the hallmarks of Rocky Mountain National Park. from Rocky Mountain National Park Map , National Park Service, c.1974 I have noticed that many of you are going to a 2008 posting I did about my new tool chest, it's not "new" any more, I still use it, though in the near future it may be replaced by a cabinet style tool chest to free up floor space. Here are a few notes about it. The design is based upon the famous tool chest of Duncan Phyfe, the plans I used were the ones drawn by Carlyle Lynch. (The plans are available from www.toolsforwoodworking.com ) I didn't want the box to be as big as Phyfe's, I measured the longest saw that would live it and then sized the exterior dimensions accordingly. I think the Phyfe chest is 36 inches long, I subtracted 2 inches from all dimensions to keep the same ratio for the ent