MIMF

Decades ago, I tried a Harbor Freight trimmer. The runout in the shaft was so bad that the device was useless. Shy away from the cheap routers.

The one that I have that I use the most is the Ridgid cordless. I bought extra bases so that I could leave them set up for different operations and just move the motor around. It’s a light duty router. I don’t use it for truss rod slots—it would do the job but not with enough beef to satisfy me. I u...

I use 24 lb copy paper (with an ink jet printed label) and fish glue.

If you don’t mind retuning when you put on the capo, then the frets can be any size you want. Otherwise, the shorter the fret, the less the capo will pull the string sharp. For my personal guitar, I put up with the inconvenience of retuning for a capo in return for ease of playing I get with the tal...

A few months of light exposure ought to darken the patch considerably.

Nice fit. Congratulations.

Yes, but much smaller and closer to the original outline so that you don’t go out to the edge. It will look better if you redo the mahogany patch as one piece rather than inlay strips. Making a template to guide the router will increase the odds of your success. You can make the template several tim...

Why not rout a little shelf around the opening and make the mahogany filler fit that rabbet? Any gaps would be the same color and wouldn’t require filler to look professional. Timbermate will look like you pushed putty in the gaps and will shrink later and leave depressions.

I have purchased “Prime-Dent” and “Orthosource” flowable composits on EBay in the past. Both seem to work—it’s some kind of a UV cure binder with what seems to be glass particles embedded. You also need some curable bonding agent(I bought “Optibond”), some phosphoric acid (I got way too much for lit...

Ebay. Cheap, no problem. I don’t know who else buys it. I’ve never heard of back alley dentists. A dremel tool and a mirror, I could save a fortune on dentistry.

I stayed with the dental fillings.

For my big one, I used a 500w charcoal lighter from Lowes. I had to get it hot and bend it to fit it in the pipe. This little cartridge (200w) was $10 on Amazon. I used to use a propane torch but went to electric to avoid the fumes.

Thank you, an even better idea.

Thank you. Sounds easy enough to do. I’ll give it a try.

I have a 2 3/8” pipe with an electric charcoal lighter inside that I use for most of my bending. I sometimes bend tighter radiuses by heating the outside if the bend. I decided to make an iron with a tighter radius. I have the pipe and the heat cartridge shown in the picture below. Unlike the charco...

You can buy dyed black holly veneer from LMI. You have to be careful to scrape both sides before you glue it, but once scraped, the glue joints hold. I think they use pressure to get the stain to penetrate.

I usually don’t use plans but brace according to my goals at the moment. Barry’s right about bracing between the transverse and the heel block. Mine doesn’t show because I install it after I glue on the top. I use a top cutoff with the grain running at 45 degrees to the long grain of the top. It fit...

You’ll have to evaluate my comments, too. We each do things slightly differently for different reasons. I think you might want to finish it as it and see what you get. You will build more. The hard part is correlating features with results. I shoot for a little more bridgeplate thickness (.105- .110...

I would flex them across the grain. The stiffer one cross-grain I would use on a larger body. The floppier one on a smaller body. 60 rpi is pretty impressive, but how it works still depends o the individual board. Any board that’s floppy I save for when I’m making a narrow body guitar where the flex...

Congratulations. Looks good.