MikeC's bench

[ernym]

Nice careful work. One inexpensive tool that helps me alot is using a pin contour gauge. You can use it to check asymmetry anyplace across the long arch. Looking great!

[MikeC]

1 hour ago, ernym said:

Nice careful work. One inexpensive tool that helps me alot is using a pin contour gauge. You can use it to check asymmetry anyplace across the long arch. Looking great!

Thanks E   

I have the pin contour tool, plastic one.  After I remove the excess wood between the template areas then I'll use the pin marker and also an iso line marker that makes pencil lines for final adjustments.  Some areas are close enough to the templates that I can remove the excess with a toothed thumb plane,  some areas require some gouge work.  

[MikeC]

Well.. it's gettin there,  slowly but surely.   Something kept buggin me about the shape of the upper and lower ends so I compared to my long arch template from the Titian and realized the long arch has a recurve similar to the cross arches...  so I treat the end like two quadrants and plane around the curve of the plate outline rather than across, with a small thumb plane.  Seems to be coming out much better that way.  

 

[MikeC]

Drilling the holes for locating pins. 

 

[MikeC]

Drawing contour lines and final adjustments,  I'll go through one more round of adjustment after this since it's not quite right but this shows the process.  

After fixing the long arch by making the recurve at the ends, that left some high areas adjacent so those areas had to be planed down.  

Somehow I need to figure out better lighting for the videos.. .

 

[Sean Couch]

Nice, you are moving right along.

I need to make one of those contour line tools. Last Friday I rigged up a quick and easy C-frame to hold my digital indicator for measuring graduations. I should be able to use it to mark contour lines by adding a set screw so it can hold a pencil.

[MikeC]

Hi Sean

I made a wood frame for a dial caliper,  works ok once it's adjusted but with a wood frame, it goes out of adjustment with any change in humidity.   I also have an antique thickness caliper which I really like but it's graduated in inches,  would be better if it was in millimeters.  

[MikeC]

I'm in a hurry to get this violin finished so I decided to speed things up...      

 

[Mike Atkins]

2 minutes ago, MikeC said:

I'm in a hurry to get this violin finished so I decided to speed things up...      

 

 

lol... that's pretty high speed! What I've been trying to do is show the initial work to help people see what I'm doing, then speed it up so they don't have to watch me repeat the same step over and over endlessly...to each their own though and I'm no expert at anything particularly editing... but this was kind of funny to watch.

BTW... I use DaVinci Resolve for video editing, it's an awesome program and there's a free version if you're interested. I like it because it allows you to do everything in a single program (unlike Adobe) and it's free (unlike Adobe).

[MikeC]

I'll take a look at DaVinci Resolve.  I've been using OpenShot video editor.  it's free and fairly simple to use. 

I just did the high speed for fun,  It's kinda neat though to see the arch form in such a short time.  

This was a one off,  I'll be doing videos normal speed.  As boring and repititious as  that may be, I wanted to show the entire build process pretty much real time.  

[Mike Atkins]

21 minutes ago, MikeC said:

I'll take a look at DaVinci Resolve.  I've been using OpenShot video editor.  it's free and fairly simple to use. 

I just did the high speed for fun,  It's kinda neat though to see the arch form in such a short time.  

This was a one off,  I'll be doing videos normal speed.  As boring and repititious as  that may be, I wanted to show the entire build process pretty much real time.  

Just to clarify, I definitely wasn't suggesting that your videos were boring and repetitious... I don't mind it as it gives me a sense of how the work goes and reminds me not to rush through it like I do for everything.

[MikeC]

Lol,  that's ok,  I think they are boring and repetitious, not excessively though.   

[Sean Couch]

6 hours ago, MikeC said:

Hi Sean

I made a wood frame for a dial caliper,  works ok once it's adjusted but with a wood frame, it goes out of adjustment with any change in humidity.   I also have an antique thickness caliper which I really like but it's graduated in inches,  would be better if it was in millimeters.  

Hey Mike, I did the same, made one out of ply wood as a proof of concept. The changes due to humidity had me concerned. Also, my frame would flex a few hundredths of a millimeter if I turned the rig upside down after zeroing it. I assume it was from the weight of the digital indicator.

The one pictured below is rev 2. Looks to be stiff enough for the job at hand. Right now, the plunger is not coaxial with the anvil. There is a shim causing the tilt. I am going to remove the shim and put in a set screw. That should eliminate my tilt and allow me to also use it as a contour drawing tool.

The frame is made out of one inch square aluminum tubing and some 3/8” threaded rod.

[MikeC]

Scraping away the toothed plane marks and smoothing the surface.   I found an exposure setting on the iphone.  Hopefully I can adjust so more detail shows and the plate is not so washed out with light. 

 

[Sean Couch]

Nice progress Mike. You are moving right along. I enjoy scraping more than I thought I would, but it helps a lot to finally be able to form the burr. Thanks again for your and Mike’s (the other Mike) help on that matter. My scraper works, but is probably not ideal. I think I am going to buy an accu-burr, or get one for Father’s Day.

I haven’t made it to the shop today, might have to wait until tomorrow. I wanted to come on and get some replies in. Just because I am slacking, doesn’t mean you all can too.  lol.

[MikeC]

I have to slack some since I'm in the middle of a kitchen remodel.  But I get out to the shop when I can.  I need to de-cluttler the shop, it's hard to find things sometimes.   I have a thickness caliper that was put together from a kit in 1985 and it's missing parts so I decided to rebuild it and replace the missing parts with brass.   Once it's done I'll post a picture of it. 

Scraping is a fun part.  It's good to turn off the bright overhead light and just have a small desk lamp at a low angle.  Doing that showed up a lot if irregularities from the scraper that I didn't realize were there.  

 

[Sean Couch]

Lighting is important. I reorganized my work area a little bit ago. Needed more space and better light. I have my Dad’s old fluorescent articulating Architect light, but it doesn’t give oblique lighting. I use a trouble night for that. I had it and wasn’t using it anywhere else, so on the bench it went. It isn’t ideal, but better than nothing. It definitely shows the irregularities.

I did make it to the back bedroom, where my shop is (it’s good to be single), today. Only spent an hour working on the top, but managed to remove quite a bit of material. It still shocks me how fast the spruce disappears. I have to constantly tell myself to go slow.

[MikeC]

I started making the edges square. Didn't have much time for it last night but wanted to make a little progress.  

 

 

[Sean Couch]

Oh boy, you are more brave than I. I don’t use a plane, maybe I should. I use just bout the same method as Davide does, but I use the Perma-Grit and not the Sandvik sanding plate attached to wood forms. I do have a flat finger plane that I could try with your method, and I may on my next violin. 

[Davide Sora]

6 minutes ago, Sean Couch said:

Oh boy, you are more brave than I. I don’t use a plane, maybe I should. I use just bout the same method as Davide does, but I use the Perma-Grit and not the Sandvik sanding plate attached to wood forms. I do have a flat finger plane that I could try with your method, and I may on my next violin. 

A fingerplane with squared sides speeds up the work a lot and saves the grit of your sanding blocks, highly recommended, it's difficult to make mistakes. Obviously, you can't make curves, for those I use a knife, but it's easier to make mistakes and it takes a bit of mastery and caution.

[Sean Couch]

38 minutes ago, Davide Sora said:

A fingerplane with squared sides speeds up the work a lot and saves the grit of your sanding blocks, highly recommended, it's difficult to make mistakes. Obviously, you can't make curves, for those I use a knife, but it's easier to make mistakes and it takes a bit of mastery and caution.

Aye, I understand, but being at the level that I am, I like to go slow. I have no mastery, only caution (planes and knives).

[MikeC]

The plane works well on the upper and lower bouts where it is a convex curve but like Davide, I'll use a knife for the C bouts and corners.  I was thinking maybe a small curved plane in the C bouts but probably just a knife will work better. 

With the plane you have to check often to make sure you're not going to far into the scribed line since the line is on the bottom where you can't see it.  But just looking at the edge you can see as the bevel gets smaller, that you are getting to the scribed outline.  

 

[MikeC]

Also I don't have permagrit or sandvik but sand paper on a dowel or block works well, it just wears out faster.  

[MikeC]

I was just thinking, since I learned so much by watching Davide's videos....

You know one of Stradivari's early labels says  alumnus Amati.   Maybe I should put alumnus Sora on my label.   

[MikeC]

Final shaping of the corners.     Some of it is a little out of focus,  I need  a better camera and better lighting.   Later, I'll video some of the other corners and try to make it better.