Shop Apron Lament

When I was working as an all-purpose special effects shop monkey in 1997, some guy came through the industrial park where I worked selling denim shop aprons for five bucks apiece. Unlike most of the peddlers that made the rounds periodically, this one had a useful product at a good price, and he sold quite a few aprons to us that afternoon.

Mine was quickly besmirched with paint, bondo, resin, cyanoacrylate, and all manner of other unhealthy substances. I probably could have pointed to each stain and told you which project it had come from.

When I left the shop for my first real full-time web design job, I took my apron with me, but living as I did in an aparment I didn't have any real use for it at home, and it spent most of the next 4 years in the storage space above our parking spot.

I think it was in a box of junk in the trunk of my 1966 Mustang when we left California. The Mustang was left behind, its fate uncertain. Ultimately it was sold and scrapped... no telling where the apron wound up.

As I spend more and more time working in my tiny shop now, I kind of wish I had that apron. The pay was terrible and hours could be miserable whenever a deadline approached, but there was a certain satisfaction to be had from making physical things for a living. The apron would have been a nice souvenir (and a way to keep most of the sawdust off my clothes.)

Tenor #1: Neck, Part XI

Fretted and Routed
Originally uploaded by Usonian.

In the end I decided to take a bit more wood off the neck behind the first several frets. Not a lot, but enough to feel perceptibly more slim.

With that done, I decided to try installing the rest of the frets. The going definitely got easier the more I did, and after the 18th one I almost felt like I knew what I was doing.

There are still a few frets that are not completely flush with the fingerboard. Rather than attack them with a hammer and block of wood again, I think I will build a caul to fit over one of my vice's jaws and press them that way.

With the frets in place, I went ahead and routed the star-shaped slot in the peghead. I'm not sure how, but I managed to cut it noticably crooked. As a result I had to go back and cut a few of the points much larger than I would have liked so that I'll be able to glue the star in straight. Between the black cyanoacrylate I have to glue it in, the black dye I'm using on the peghead, and layer of gloss finish that will ultimately cover the whole thing it shouldn't be too noticable.

Tenor #1: Neck, Part X

After gluing on the fingerboard, there were a couple of spots where saw marks in the neck were deeper than the edge of the fingerboard. Without doing any research on the preferred filler material for luthiers, I picked up a small tube of DAP Plastic Wood, which filled the space nicely. It's quite obvious, but it's on the side of the neck that will be facing the ground, and with the mahogany stain I also picked up over the weekend it should be fairly inoffensive when all is said and done.

I spent more time doing final shaping on the neck and peghead last night. It still feels a bit chunky, but due to my decision not to install a truss rod, I'm hesitant to take very much more wood off lest I weaken the neck.

On the other hand, I am also trying to be vigilant about not rushing things now that things are so far along. It's looking like I won't have much evening time to work on it this week anyway, so I'll continue to mull it over.

I also took the plunge and tried installing a fret. After doing just one manually, I have a better appreciation for some of the expensive gadgets Stewart MacDonald sells for fret installation. Someday when I have a drill press I'll probably shell out for a fret press caul.