Can’t get enough of radius dishes, can we…

[Srick]

Like many, my shop shares its basement space with the laundry, cat's litter boxes, sewing machine, treadmill, furnace, etc. My wife and I are at that point in life where we have “mutually” decided that we should get as much out of the house as possible and bring as little in as possible into it. As we all know, this is tantamount to raising a middle finger to the god of luthiery, where minimalism is a dirty word.

And trying to sneak in a UPS box with two radius dishes was out of the question.

Then, I saw this item at Home Depot: A Two inch thick glued pine table top. When I saw it, you all know that a coffee table was not what came to mind. They were cheap too - $17.00.



And here we are, x days later:



My cute little Bosch Colt router was not the best tool for the job. The cut resulted in a ‘good enough’ 15 foot radius dish. As opposed to mdf, wood will splinter and cut unevenly - especially the wide grained pine in these table tops. I filled in the divots with spackle and coated the surface with shellac. It was a pain in the butt and I still have a second one to do. Once again, the conventional wisdom on this, and many other fora, is to just order one from John and be happy with your purchase. I couldn’t agree more. But once the 30 ft dish is done, I can proceed with the next build. (Before getting going, I built a mold, go-bar deck, and crested the radius dishes)

Also, there was way too much dust and sawdust for this little basement shop fitted with a jury rigged Shopvac dust system. Live and learn? No chance, I believe I have a cement head.

P.S. - Spent the morning vacuuming, sweeping, and wiping dust off of all of the surfaces in the shop.

[Airplanenuts]

Looks great, Srick! Great idea! I'm a big fan of making your own tools.

Best wishes!

-Rich

[MaineGeezer]

You're right, any sane person would buy them from John..which is undoubtedly why I, too, made my own....

[mike243]

Looks great! What did you use, or make, to guide the router? I imagine a couple of curved rails on which the router travels? Any photos?

At the cost of the materials, one could screw one up and not be out much money. And filling the irregularities and the finish coating is good thinking.

Thanks for posting.

[Srick]

As always, experience is the best teacher. The second iteration went much better (also a shallower dish) and very little filling will be needed.

Looks great! What did you use, or make, to guide the router? I imagine a couple of curved rails on which the router travels? Any photos?

yup, that’s right Mike. I’ll upload a pic later on. It’s the typical set up. Bosch Colt and 1/4 inch bit. If I decided to go into this for a living…. Uh…. No…. But an upgrade would be a much sturdier jig and a larger router. A Credit card payment to John Hall is probably the easiest and best upgrade.

Filling in the divots just seemed to make sense. It’s not perfectly spherical, but good enough.

You're right, any sane person would buy them from John..which is undoubtedly why I, too, made my own....

so glad to know that I’m not the only bozo on this bus!

Looks great, Srick! Great idea! I'm a big fan of making your own tools.

Thanks so much A.N. As implied in the opening, my window for bringing large tooling into the basement may have expired. That nice new Rikon drill press last year probably was the corker. However, the previous drill press, a 1940’s Atlas, popped the circuit breaker and made a big spark, so that purchase was given a green light.

[Srick]

The rail radius was traced with a ‘long compass’ technique. Then they were cut out on my bandsaw. I used scraps from the 3/4 inch plywood that I used to make the go-bar deck. The hose at the end was my best shot at sucking up the dust. It worked, sorta…

If you do try to make your own dish, just know in advance that you will have to put in a fair amount of work to get there. OTOH, sometimes it feels really good to make a lot of sawdust.

[mike243]

Srick, you, sir, are not a Bozo. I, on the other hand, inherited the family traits of bright neon red hair, a snow white face and bulbous red nose. I envy the tools you have built and collected for your build.

Thanks for the photo. I've seen that setup before; Susan Gardner(?) As mentioned in this thread.

I have acquired materials for a DIY bending iron
with good advice from the members here. Stray Feathers offered gracious and good advice.

I am eager to see your build progress. Have a great holiday season.

[Srick]

Thanks for the kind words, Mike. FWIW, I purchased a StewMac bending iron. i didn’t trust the Chinese products, and I didn’t have enough faith that I could make my own. Plus, torches are out of the question in my little part of the basement.

As far as the tools go, I have been amassing tools for many years. A trusty bandsaw and a great workbench have been my basement companions for over 40 years. Then, early on in my retirement, it got dangerous… my wife purchased a StewMac kit for my 70th birthday and I was gobsmacked. I Had to explain to her that building an acoustic was a pipe dream because I knew exactly how much stuff was needed to accomplish it. The guitar I ended up building cost about as much as a new D18! But it also allowed a lot of tools to come through the door, no questions asked.

Of course, I couldn’t just let those nice tools only get used once, so I had to go for build #2!

[mike243]

We have some things in common, Srick. I bought an LMII dred kit when they announced they were closing. I wanted a nice guitar, and was retired and 70, and thought, I can do this.

Years ago I started at a major northwest aerospace company in their tooling shop, so I got a few years of experience working to close tolerance and assembling design and non design tools.

I wish I had more time for building, and should have after we get the house and property ready to sell and downsize.

Take care,

Mike

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I have the jig I made for making my 2 sided radius dish using a router. I'll see about pulling it out Monday and perhaps I can take some pics and post.
I'd also pass it along if anyone wanted to come get it or pay for the shipping.