Huge breakthrough: all the hardware, except for one motor coupler, is installed; and I got the motor controllers configured enough to spin the motors. All 3 axes. This is huge; I have some fiddling around to get the thing moving predictably and smoothly, and to install some movement limiters so it doesn’t self destruct– but…

Closer….  

Spindle mount (really, a bracket for a palm router) and ballscrew is “in the mail”. We’re getting really close to being able to try to turn motors, though. Kind of exciting.  

Yesterday I got a whole big bunch of extrusions to make a router table. (Actually I thought I was ordering a single extrusion, so this was a huge disappointment). Anyways I decided to make it work and epoxied them all together. Today I drilled, tapped, and assembled the finished table for the Y axis of…

For a couple of years I’ve been fooling around trying to get a CNC machine happening so I can ‘rough in’ necks. This has become more pressing now because I’ve had some ideas lately about how to make the necks more playable by accounting for how the shape of the closed hand changes as you…

When the finished soundbox of the Boomer came out of clamps this morning, the tap tone was terrific. The sound is tight and big. I routed off the lip left by the top, and then routed the top and bottom of the guitar with a special bit for binding. The only trick is to make…

I need more clamps. This is barely enough. It will do, but frankly I’d rather have clamping pressure along every single inch of the seam. If anybody wants to know what I want for Father’s Day, or any gifting opportunity for that matter, it’s this: more bar clamps.

I glued the maple bridge patch on here yesterday and now I’m starting the top bracing. I’m using Sitka Spruce, in an X configuration. This picture is of the first spar of the X.  This involves a lot of careful whittling, lots of patience, taking only a little wood at a time so it hugs…

I caught up the maple-bodied boomer while waiting for the fingerboards… and today those came, so I am putting together a neck too. The last thing today is making up a rosette, based on a new pattern I have been working with… using a laser engraver. Once it’s engraved I’ll cut it out. This one…

I tried. All weekend long. I really did. But it’s over 100 degrees Fahrenheit here in Minnesota,  and it’s only the end of May. What is July going to be like? What is 2025 going to be like? The guitars will have to wait a few days.