The Scroll Shop (Ed of H's Shop Thread)

[rv_bass]

Thanks, Paul, I will try that

[edwardofhuncote]

Greg, can what you described be used to fill a strap button screw hole and reset the screw that has come loose?

Probably would be overkill for a wallowed-out strap button screw hole, Rob. Like Paul suggested, I'd probably (and have) just glue a couple splints of toothpick into the hole. If it's really, really bad, I might drill it out clean and dowel it, then redrill the hole, but it'd have to be an extreme case... most of the time a sliver or two of wood glued into the hole is plenty to tighten things up. 

[cozmik_cowboy]

Coz; Stew-Mac, ya' gotta' love 'em!

https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-and-supplies/tools-by-job/tools-for-bridges/bridgesaver/

But (tootin' my own whistle here) loooooong before this clever invention, rather than risk a disaster trying to remove a badly worn, but stubborn bridgeplate, (please don't ask me how I know about this...) especially these giant rosewood ones found in early 70's Martin guitars, I found that if you had the bridge off first, (and usually it was already coming up) you could pre-shape and mark a very thin maple shim at the 1-6 pin holes for alignment, then glue it in place. After it set, you could fill all 6 pin holes with an emulsion of slow-set epoxy and dust from the sander. When the bridge was glued back in place, you were drilling back through essentially "new wood". I'm sure I wasn't the first knucklehead to dream up this solution, but I did arrive at it independently... did it dozens of times, including on my own 1950 D-18.

Then Uncle Dan over at Stew-Mac just one-upped everybody. It's a cool tool, and my buddy and mentor Ward claims to have made the initial investment back in just a couple jobs.

I'm familiar with the Stew-Mac tool, but it just deals with the bridge plate, no?  My curiosity was mostly in re the top, in between the bridge & bridge plate.

Peter

[edwardofhuncote]

Oh yeah, I see your point. I'll have easy access to all 12 of those holes with the bridge off, so I'll just fill them one by one. And in positioning where the new pin holes go, ideally none of them go back through any of the plugs, but rather split the difference between the two rows of pins, laterally and longitudinally. (ain't no way that's a real word...)


Here, like this approximation shows... it'll be a new bridge of course. Thanks for making me think out loud. It really helps... all this stuff works in my head, but sometimes you have to draw it out.

*I'm also planning to widen (thicken) the saddle slot out to 3/32 or better, to allow for even better string-to-string compensation. The intonation is remarkably good on this Martin now, for having been built during a time period in which they were infamously bad, but I'm concerned that once the extremely shallow neck angle is corrected, the intonation will be way off. Basically, I'm building in some insurance!

[KR]

Greg, keep these luthier posts coming. Happy New Year, too.

[cozmik_cowboy]

OK, thanks - that makes sense, even to me.

Peter (who will assure you that longitudinally is, in fact, an actual word)

[edwardofhuncote]

I'm having a little Shop clean-up day today. This place is getting to be a hazard area.

So, taking a little coffee break, and from sweeping and dusting... here's the update on the D-20 conversion project. After passing it around to all my geetar-playin' buddies within driving distance, the consensus was that this thing is begging to become a flat-picker's dream. So I have taken it to Phase Two. The bridgeplate has now been shimmed with a thin maple plate, and all 12 pin holes were filled with epoxy and rosewood dust. (I save this dust whenever I am planing an upright bass fingerboard, so I have an endless supply of it)

After the epoxy had set and fully cured, I set up my Dremel tool in the Stew-Mac router base, and inlaid a carefully shaped piece of rosewood into the topside of the bridge where the pin holes were, then dressed it off flush, making it effectively a clean slate to drill into, solid all the way through. Then I routed the saddle slot out to double wide. Can't say enough good stuff about Stew-Mac's downcut carbide bits. This old Brazilian rosewood is some hard stuff to start with, and you don't need to be second-guessing whether your bit is going to bite or jump in these situations. I got a decently clean rout on both jobs, and after polishing the wood back out, it oiled up nice. Note, that guitar looks like a mummy during this operation...

Like I was telling in the last installment, the new holes are located between where the two rows of bridge pins used to be. I took a while to do a tapered ream and countersink for a new set of bridge pins in ebony with an abalone dot. Matching endpin and strap button too.

And as a bonus hat-tip to Cozmik Cowboy, I took his advice and ordered a set of Waverly W-16's in gold, with ebony buttons. I was trying to think about what to do about all those extra holes in the peghead... and here's what I came up with... it's glossy black pickguard material, adhesive-backed. I made two mirror-imaged pieces to fit exactly the footprint of the original tuning machines, but only drilled the holes for the 6 machines to be mounted. It's completely reversible... no extra holes drilled, no holes plugged. And the black trim matched the rest of the Style 20 decor, to a T. I am wondering if some little rubber grommets could be plugged into the inner holes? Just... you know, for that little bit of extra attention to detail. Yeah, I might look for that.

I restrung it last night, and played a few minutes. Success - Phase Two is complete... if Ward's cool with it, and doesn't see any red flags, the neck gets reset. And we'll make a brand-new bridge. I'm thinking at this point, I could get used to this neck. The more I look at it, the more I actually think it should stay. The angle though... we gotta' fix that.

Here's some pictures:

[cozmik_cowboy]

Looking good, Greg; the tuner-hole covers are an elegant solution!

Just as a thought, before you reset, watch this: 


My cheapo Takamine 12 needs a rest, but nobody (including Takamine) can tell what its actual neck-joint anatomy is (and a standard reset would be several times what the thing's worth even if it were straight-forward), so I'm thinking about doing it his way.  So, try it on your lovely Martin so know whether to risk my $83.50 EvilBay buy........


Peter (who will emphasis that this not an endorsement; just at thought)

[David Houck]

Nicely done, Gregory.

[pauldo]

Wow! 😎

[jon_jackson]

Very nice work, Greg!

[edwardofhuncote]

Thanks fellas.

Well, I made a trip through the hardware section of Lowes, and found these nifty little matte finish black plastic hole plugs, perfectly sized; 1/4".

Whatchall think of the finished look?

[pauldo]

I think you are a bonafide Craftsman!

[growlypants]

DITTO!

[keith_h]

. Right this five minutes, I am less bothered by the elongated 12-string headstock than I was, and have somewhat grown used to the chunkier neck.....confines the scope of work to replacing the bridge and plugging/shimming/redrilling the bridgeplate

At least amongst those of my age cohort, it was once common to buy a 12 & string it with 6 to get a wider nut - but I think every one I've ever seen rigged like that was a solid headstock (not that it would matter).  But (and keep in mind I'm no luthier) I have to wonder how one would go about plugging & redrilling bridgeplate and top; do tell.

I've got a couple cellos in here that need setting up... meh, nothing special. I had a wild notion of making one of them into a travel-sized bass. Then I realized it would be more of a conversation piece than a bass, and not that much of a conversation. 

Conversation piece?  Nonsense!  Just one of a number of acts doing just that: 

Peter

Dead South is in heavy rotation in my current playlist. A bit of metalgrass just to show how versatile the cello is.