Ya know, I got busy, summer ended, the school year started, and I did little random repairs that didn't seem worth blogging about.
I have done a fair amount of work to the Cuatro, and I'm now fabricating sides for it.
My first task today was to wire up a Variac that I had gotten about 20 years ago at a flea market sale. I needed to be able to control the temperature of my bending pipe, and this worked perfectly!
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| Cuatro, Variac, and bending pipe. |
I bought a chunk of douglas fir a few months ago, and planned on using it for the replacement side of the cuatro.
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| Soaking the wood. |
I couldn't bend wood on a pipe and take pictures at the same time, so I didn't. I did use a silicone baking sheet over the wood to keep splintering at bay and retain as much steam in the wood as possible. It worked quite well, without the sharp edges I would have had to deal with if I used steel shim stock. I bent two pieces on the iron.
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| I clamped the bent pieces onto the cuatro, with wax paper in between the pieces and the instrument. I just couldn't bring myself to make an actual mold. |
That actually took a couple hours for the wiring job and testing of the pipe, leaving me with a little time for some bridge work. The bridge on my 60's era Stella tenor guitar has cracked into pieces, and failed completely. The funny thing about the bridge is that it is Brazilian rosewood - which was then painted black. Seriously.
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| Blank and model. |
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| After some shaping, with pencil marks to keep track. |
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| After some more shaping. I did NOT use that nasty rasp on the side - talk about ripping splinters from the sides of the wood! |
With kids hanging around outside, and the night coming early, I had to quit. I'll see how the cuatro sides look when I take them off tomorrow.
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