Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm thinking to make a multi-radi horizontal sliding thing for the sander with changeable "holsters" with vacuum for each size block. Am I over thinking this? It doesn't take too long to do freehand, but ya-know....

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Pat

I've seen a couple nice designs of jigs for that task. I think a couple of them can be found on this forum. I've not bothered though because freehanding it on the belt sander is so fast and works fine.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Yes we have both -- fashioned the contours with Bondo attached adhesive backed abrasive, very simple works great. We actually make our J185 and J200 tail blocks on our CNC machines --- stacked laminated glue ups.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Mine's a bit clumsy but works- T shaped board clamped to the linisher (belt sander) table, swinging arm with a bolt locating various radius points.
Vertical plate on the end off the swinging arm gets required block screwed to it.
Start linisher, swing arm with block.
But sometimes I just mark the radius from the mold on it, use a block plane and finesse it in the mold with abrasive, less hassle than setting it up if it's just one at a time.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Ken, are you talking about a sanding block like a fret board sanding block?


Screws?! But that would be so much easier than rigging up a vacuum setup! err...why didn't i think of that?!

I just found this where TK uses a pattern sander setup. Hmm....less space! viewtopic.php?f=10101&p=274515#p274515

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Pat

Timely thread. I just revised mine so I can radius a headblock with the fretboard suport attached. I also put a spline down the center to keep the two pieces aligned.

Clamping setup works but is not elegant. Vacuum would be ideal.

The jig seems to work fine as did it's predecessor.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Yep -- upside down with rails, not in the shop now but I can take and post a picture if you'd like

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Nice upgrade!

I am leaning toward the pattern fence on the sander because it's smaller. Plus I'm sure I could come up with a few other ways to use that. Just have to make a new bottom plate for every radius.

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Pat

Here's our Martin block contouring station (tail and neck) -- pretty simple. I use Bondo to form the contours. I count strokes and change the edge in an effort to keep them symmetrical -- about a minute or so. I make the more rounded tail block on the CNC machines.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Just curious -- how did the expression "head block" become synonymous with "neck block" and "heel block" the latter two in my view being self explanatory?

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

As opposed to tail block, I suppose.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

That makes sense --- but again, the term I learned was "end block"

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I make up my own terms sometimes!

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Pat

You got me wondering about this because the origins of terms interest me. It turns out I got tail block from Sloane's book on classical guitar construction and head block from Cumpiano's book, which also uses the term tail block.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Ok, I can see radiusing an end block, which I free hand on a belt sander. I can see where the jig would be a step up, But I always thought a neck block should be flat were the neck meets the sides. Am I wrong? (again)

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

The neck block doesn't have to be flat in the neck/body joint. It depends on the design of the body shape. The curvature of the upper bout sides can be continued through the neck joint, although that's certainly not the case for most guitars.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

My SJ has a radiused neck & tail block, I was reminded of this today as I free-handed them on the drum sander. I have built jigs for everything else, probably time to make one for this operation as well.

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Gwaltney Guitars