Blogging Fatso!

[David L]

OK, so here's what I did, I logged on to Ken's website (KMG guitars) and read up on KMG success instruction manual and I realized that I was trying to do too much. Set the file at the bottom of the fret, push and roll file ending at top of fret, lather, rinse, repeat. Just knocking the sharp edge off, still have the nice pretty bevel that I like but now without the razor edge.I was trying to get too fancy, "less is more". I mis-understood what fret end "rounding" meant, a better term would be fret end de-burring.

David L

[David L]

Sand, sand, sand, ho-hum-de-dum, sand, sand, sand, doodle-de, doodle-de-dum, sand, sand, sand, hum-de-dum-de... huh? oh hey there, you startled me, don't sneak up on me like that. Come on in, no your not interupting anything important, just carrying on with the tedious, mundane task of sanding, sanding, sanding, was looking for a reason to take a break, I would shake your hand but I mine's covered with this nasty rosewood sawdust, you see, come inside and we'll have a cup of starbuckets coffee.


In preparation to start routing the binding channels, I was reading up on the subject in the KMG success instruction manual and I realized that I really hadn't prepared the rim properly. I started sanding the sides with 150G sandpaper on a block and these ugly low spots started to rear thier ugly heads especially around the waist area. So after sanding for quite some time with 150G and not making much headway, I went to the local home improvement center an purchased some 100G and some 120G and went back at it. Went through 100, 120, 150, 180, and 220 grits. It really sucked sanding so much, especially rosewood, that dust is really nasty and it gets everywhere, in my eyes, in my hair, in my ears, I think it even got in the crack of my... well, it got everywhere, however, I'm really pleased with the results, through all of this, echoing through my head is John and Kens' (and others) voices "It's all about the prep" and now I feel confident (mostly) that I have prepped properly, so next up, routing binding channels.

David L

[David L]

Sorry, no pics, not much to take a picture of, just an ole hum-drum common ordinary, every day, run-of-the-mill, dime a dozen, boring E.I. rosewood box, boring (yawn). I've also been drilling the holes for the tuners, really boring, textbook stuff also but I will post some pictures when I get home from work, just because I'm overdue to post pics.

David L

[deadedith]

Thank goodness we live in Starbuckistan. Always java about.
DaveB

[David L]

Picture of headstock with tuners installed. In the picture is also a fancy shmancy tuner hole reamer. When I ordered it I was hoping it would come with some of Tony's magic pixie dust and that all I would have to do is get it near the neck and the holes would magically appear, no such luck! It's a cool tool but totally unnecessary, regular bits will do just as well. Since I'm the proud owner of it I will continue to use it when installing this type of tuners.

David L

[David L]

I didn't experience any tearout. I started with a 1/8 bit and went up through the drill index one bit at a time, through about eight or nine bits and finished it off with the reamer thingie. The box is inside the house in a humidity safe environment while I make final preparations to rout the binding channels. Here's the checklist:

1) Rabbits' foot
2) Four leaf clover
3) Horseshoe

I'm going to have to risk it and go without any magic pixie dust since Tony can't seem to keep it in stock, stuff's going like hot cakes as the saying goes. I may try today after work, we have 200 yds of carpet with funiture, so if I don't break any mirrors...

David L

[David L]

Started routing the binding channel on the back this morning, was going to do it earlier this week but Wednesday I accidentally walked under a ladder and Thursday a black cat crossed in front of me and...
Everything is going good with the routing, I'm getting a nice clean, straight, even cut all the way around so far. When I got to the butt of the guitar where the end graft is, I ran into an issue. I cut the channel for the end graft after the top and back were glued on, as a result the .060" binding will not be wide enough to cover the relief that I chiseled for the graft, there is a gap on the back of the guitar where the binding passes by the graft. Kinda hard to explain but I think ya'll get the jist of it. I'm going to order some .040" purfling and when I rout the channel for that, the gap will be incorporated into it, going away so to speak.

David L

[johnnparchem]

The purfling will make the back look fancier anyway. :)

[David L]

Yeah John, thanks, that's what I was thinking too. I'm using black binding and I think I'll go with b/w purfling, binding is .060", purfling .040", so it will go black .020", white .020", black .060".

David L

[Kevin Sjostrand]

See David, not a mistake cause you are fixing it.
That sounds like a nice back rim treatment........
Got any current pics?

Kevin