The guitar case
Feb. 27th, 2016 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillSo recently it started warming up and I got back to work on the guitar case.
I'm not claiming this is a cause and effect scenario--but I can't help but notice that having the workshop be slightly warmer has coincided with my being willing to spend more time out there. And once I started standing around looking thoughtfully at the guitar case, it occurred to me that there might be an easier way to get the jig out.
Last time, I built the entire bottom of the octave mandolin case around the jig I used to hold the side strips in place while I glued them together. Removing the jig was quite difficult because while whacking the jig into the case broke the hot glue bonds, the jig became wedged in place. This time I attempted to make jig removal easier by only hotgluing every other strip to the jig and relying on friction to hold the strips between them in place while the glue dried. This worked fairly well in the gluing stage, and I figured breaking half as many hot glue bonds would be about half as hard.
But it occurred to me--maybe I could sand the sides smooth on the outside -- and then fiberglass the sides before I glued the bottom on. So I pulled the screws out (the ones that ran into the columns so I could support the jig on the soup cans while I whacked the top off, remember?) drilled the holes out with a forstner bit, patched them, did the epoxy seal coat, and fiberglassed the sides.
Then I carefully sanded away any fiberglass sticking out from the sides, laid the whole thing flat, and whacked all around the jig with a mallet (and a short piece of 2x2 to direct the mallet's force exactly where I wanted it--think mallet and really blunt chisel). Once the hot glue bonds were broken I simply pushed the whole thing out the open side.
Last time removing the jig took me two hours. This time? Six minutes. As a bonus I can re-use this jig if I want; I did not have to saw large chunks out of it. As a second bonus I went around what will become the bottom half of the sides and removed the blobs of hot glue through the open space where the bottom will go. Much quicker than trying to remove them once the bottom is in place.
I was worried I would tear the fiberglass, but it looks fine. I was worried the sides would be too floppy to glue to the bottom in their proper configuration without the jig. They were definitely a bit floppy. I stabilized them somewhat by laying the lid, open side up, on the workbench, laying a layer of wax paper over the lid (I did NOT want to end up gluing the sides to the lid with a stray drop of epoxy or dookie shmutz (epoxy plus sawdust)) and then fitting the sides into the lid. In one place I used a short stick to brace the sides out where they were trying to squeeze in more narrow than the lid.
That seemed to stabilize the sides properly so I went ahead and glued the bottom on, and spent my work time today sanding the bottom back to match the sides exactly. With a bit of luck I should be done with the outside fiberglassing by the end of next week.
I'm not claiming this is a cause and effect scenario--but I can't help but notice that having the workshop be slightly warmer has coincided with my being willing to spend more time out there. And once I started standing around looking thoughtfully at the guitar case, it occurred to me that there might be an easier way to get the jig out.
Last time, I built the entire bottom of the octave mandolin case around the jig I used to hold the side strips in place while I glued them together. Removing the jig was quite difficult because while whacking the jig into the case broke the hot glue bonds, the jig became wedged in place. This time I attempted to make jig removal easier by only hotgluing every other strip to the jig and relying on friction to hold the strips between them in place while the glue dried. This worked fairly well in the gluing stage, and I figured breaking half as many hot glue bonds would be about half as hard.
But it occurred to me--maybe I could sand the sides smooth on the outside -- and then fiberglass the sides before I glued the bottom on. So I pulled the screws out (the ones that ran into the columns so I could support the jig on the soup cans while I whacked the top off, remember?) drilled the holes out with a forstner bit, patched them, did the epoxy seal coat, and fiberglassed the sides.
Then I carefully sanded away any fiberglass sticking out from the sides, laid the whole thing flat, and whacked all around the jig with a mallet (and a short piece of 2x2 to direct the mallet's force exactly where I wanted it--think mallet and really blunt chisel). Once the hot glue bonds were broken I simply pushed the whole thing out the open side.
Last time removing the jig took me two hours. This time? Six minutes. As a bonus I can re-use this jig if I want; I did not have to saw large chunks out of it. As a second bonus I went around what will become the bottom half of the sides and removed the blobs of hot glue through the open space where the bottom will go. Much quicker than trying to remove them once the bottom is in place.
I was worried I would tear the fiberglass, but it looks fine. I was worried the sides would be too floppy to glue to the bottom in their proper configuration without the jig. They were definitely a bit floppy. I stabilized them somewhat by laying the lid, open side up, on the workbench, laying a layer of wax paper over the lid (I did NOT want to end up gluing the sides to the lid with a stray drop of epoxy or dookie shmutz (epoxy plus sawdust)) and then fitting the sides into the lid. In one place I used a short stick to brace the sides out where they were trying to squeeze in more narrow than the lid.
That seemed to stabilize the sides properly so I went ahead and glued the bottom on, and spent my work time today sanding the bottom back to match the sides exactly. With a bit of luck I should be done with the outside fiberglassing by the end of next week.
