Woodworking
Finishing “Coco Bear” the Appalacian Dulcimer
My biggest concern in finishing the dulcimer was sealing the Cocobolo. I’d read that the oils in the wood along with it’s natural density made finishing difficult. Again turning to online forums, people typically recommended sealing the oils in first under a couple coats of shellac before applying your finish of choice. Though I own … Continue reading
Glue Up and Carving the Scroll
Joining the back and sides went smoothly. The concern I had here, and in general with gluing Cocobolo, is the oily nature of the wood. I’d read numerous articles and blog posts discussing difficulties with getting the glue to adhere. I followed the advice of several commenters in first sanding/planning the edges to be joined … Continue reading
Starting the Kimball Dulcimer
After finishing up the “Back to Basics” dulcimer, I took a few shop days to prepare for the next build. This time was spent building a couple keys jigs/fixtures that I was lacking. Something I knew I wanted for the next build (and future guitar builds) was some spool clamps. If you’re not familiar, spool clamps are essentially … Continue reading
Back to Basics
In the first post of this series, the kids and I built “canjos” following our visit to the Great Smoky Mountains. Besides being a fun “shop time” activity with the kids, this was a prelude to – and preparation for – building our own mountain dulcimer. I admit I was tempted to purchase a finished dulcimer from … Continue reading
Canjos and Dulcimers and Bears – Oh My!
This most recent Spring Break week, we decided to take our “new” popup camper out for our maiden voyage on a week-long trip to the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. The original motivator, besides finding a relatively warm place to camp in March, was to ride one of the alpine coasters running in the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area. The … Continue reading
Beat Boxes: Building Cajones with the Kids, part 1
One of my (sadly now former) co-workers is an amazing drummer. As in professional-studio-musician-in-another-life amazing. I would spend quite a bit of time chatting with him about music and his experience as a working musician. Shortly before his departure he mentioned to me at the Chicago Drum Show was coming to town in my neck of the … Continue reading
This Cabinet Goes To 11!
With apologies to Nigel Tufnel… Shortly before completing the cabinet, I began considering the hardware – what to do for drawer pulls and knobs? Nothing off-the-shelf appealed to me, so I started searching for an alternative. In the end I modified some Marshall stack gold-top volume knobs for drawer pulls and some very cool, retro “chicken … Continue reading
Picky Media Cabinet
I love doing fine woodworking and remodeling. I’m not fond, however, of building basic cabinets and honestly wasn’t interested in spending any real time on the cabinetry. Unfortunately, after a fairly extensive search, it appeared that if I wanted a shallow base cabinet with a configuration anywhere near what I envisioned, I’d need to build … Continue reading
Electronics cavity, headstock, and placing the bridge
I managed to make significant progress on the SG build this weekend. After routing the electronics cavity I laminated sheets of black and white acrylic together with some CA glue and fit the cover. Though I’d typically fret and fuss with something like the headstock design, in this case I basically decided to wing it … Continue reading
The LCA SG Jr.
An annual running joke at my company is that due to overspending on the space, food, and booze, the social committee ran out of budget for entertainment. The solution, they say, is to form an all-volunteer, all-employee band! This year was no exception. The band, affectionately known as “LCA” or “lowest-cost alternative” has been a … Continue reading