Comment

Comment by carverman on April 2, 2011 at 1:48am

I'm not going to carver guitar necks, as I find that that is too precise a task for

a clone carver (others may have a different opinion on this). For gunstocks

and other "long" items it should be fine, but with any router bit, you are not

going to get a smooth finish down to the dimensions you are looking for,

These copy carvers should be fine for about 80% of the ROUGH carving,

to save time removing excess wood..but IMO, the finally touch needs skilled

human hands with either a scraper, spokeshave or in my case a Foredom

handheld carving motor (with carving bits or a sanding drum) and for very

fine detail, a 35,000 variable speed micromotor..and of course an assortment

of sandpapers in different grades.

Comment by carverman on April 2, 2011 at 1:44am

Bob,  I'm going to H-D and get a couple of those 1.5 x 8 x 12 cement pavers

for ballast.  I think that once I start, I will need some ballast as the counterweight

is going to make the swing box very light and prone to vibration on the pipe

tracks. 

Comment by Jay D. Wyant on March 31, 2011 at 5:02am

I am just curios as to how long it takes to carve a neck, once you are all set up. I have read all of this discussion, and watched the videos, but don't see any mention of how long a process this is. Very cool by the way!

Comment by carverman on March 30, 2011 at 2:37pm

Another thing the plan mentions is that the carriage/swing box can jump off the

rails (3/8" pipe) due to hitting some inconsistences in the wood.  I don't expect

to do much hardwood carving, as I use local basswood mostly and tupelo when

and where I can get it.  The carver who made up these plans mentions that

he added some weights to bottom of the swing box to weight down the pulley

wheels so they don't jump off the pipe track due to excessive vibration.

I guess this will all become apparent with trial and error and I may use a vibration

absorbing foam rubber mat underneath the base as well as some screwed down

weight.  I have  to  try to find a  heavy piece of square steel at a local scrap yard as the ballast weight.

Comment by carverman on March 30, 2011 at 2:29pm

Thanks Bob.  In the plans, he mentions his method of using a rotating mount

with a screw that indexes at 90 degrees. I'm working on a similar design

with a spriing loaded pull pin and 4 holes that will lock the 360 degree

rotation into 4 separate 90 degree stops.   These mounts have to be identical

for both the study cast for the stylus and the bandsawed and somewhat

shaped blank for the actual carving.  Since the rotation is based on visual,

the blank and the study cast will have independent mechanisms for rotation.

I'm only doing a few a year, so there is no need for highly mechanised

duplicating system..but this one will certainly be a time saver for roughing

out duplicates.

 

Just finished mounting the swing box on the rails, and the wheels track pretty

good. The 8 + 2 + 2 lb barbell weights on a 1 inch shaft allow me to counter

the weight of the router and swing box and it is pretty much effortless to

operate now.  The smaller weights allow for a more finite adjustment similar t'

the large weight and small weight on a weigh scale.

 

Stiil working on the finite details of mounting the indexed mounts for the

carvings.  This may take another 2 weeks or so, as I'm still working on what

is the best design for this, but if I can't come up with a more elegant method,

then I will use the screw method to index as the plans suggest.

Comment by carverman on March 30, 2011 at 7:03am

Hello Bob whereever you are.

Ran into some minor snags with the swing carriage. Nothing insurmountable,

but had to make a couple of modifications to make it accurate.  

Going to STEP B, which is designing and fabricating the mounts for the

study cast (model) and the blank using a 90 degree indexing method as

he suggests in the document.  You used a bicycle chain and some gears,

how did you come up with that scheme?

Comment by carverman on March 28, 2011 at 11:02am

As you can see below, with the on-axis end view, shiming the router and

the stylus requires a bit of ingenuity.   The Bosch router is speed adjustable

via a thumbwheel on the top from 15.000 to 25,000 rpm, so that is a good

feature for some bits.   Right now I have the bit and stainless steel stylus

that I got from the website because I need similar sized units for initial

setup and trial and error. Once I get used to it, I will be making my own

stylus as he suggest with by using a steel shaft and some melted lead

weight to fill the hole that the router bit made in wood.

Comment by carverman on March 28, 2011 at 10:58am

Comment by carverman on March 28, 2011 at 10:57am

BeLow is the"  top view" of the front of the swing box (without the sides, back

or hinges added.  I'm still trying to get the best alignment between the

stylus bit and router bit on axis as well as bit height.

Comment by carverman on March 28, 2011 at 10:55am

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