Category Archives: Workshop jigs and fixtures

Jigs Fixtures and Tools, News, Workshop jigs and fixtures

New Workshop Completed

19th August 2020 davidala Leave a comment

I finished building my new workshop a few weeks ago – something I decided to start building to get me out of my super-cramped garage as soon as the Covid-19 lockdown was announced back in March.

I went for a simple wooden framed design on a concrete base with a flat roof to give me as much headroom as possible whilst staying within the 2.5m permitted development limits on height. Plenty of rockwool insulation in the walls and ceiling and a few inches of celotex on the floor should keep things toastie in winter as well as keeping the machine tool noise inside. I clad it in Siberian larch feather-board for a good and long lasting look.

I now finally have room to swing a cat while making musical instruments (or anything else) although there is still quite a lot of stuff still left in the garage! Here are some pictures of the finished workshop:

[Show slideshow]

And here is a gallery showing the construction process over the last 3 months:

Guitar making, Workshop jigs and fixtures

Guitar luthier Jig for binding channels

20th March 2015 davidala Leave a comment

Guitar luthier Jig for cutting binding channels

I just built a very simple guitar luthier jig to help manage cutting the binding and purfling channels using a laminate cutter (small 1/4″ router).

Design

The aim was to overcome a few key problems with my previous design which I use in conjunction with a jig to hold the guitar body level.

Vertical movement on the vertical slide tending to stick.
Body of the jig too wide to allow working up close to the neck and heel of the instrument.

The essence of the modified design is simplicity.

Narrow base that can be easily clamped to table top.
Slide constructed from a 22mm copper tube sliding over a 20mm dowel.
Horizontal stability from a vertical steel tube that the body of the jig slides over.
Laminate cutter screwed to a base that slots into the vertical slide of the jig.
Balance the weight of laminate cutter using thick elastic running over a pulley at the top of the jig.

Photo of finished jig:

Photo of jig to hold guitar body level:

Performance

Performance was pretty good and managed my cleanest channels yet. However the design could still be improved.

By using a slightly thicker steel stabilising tube.
By providing a locating mechanism to keep the router base engaged with vertical slide.

Guitar making, Jigs Fixtures and Tools, Stringed Instrument Making, Workshop jigs and fixtures

Plans for Guitar Vice

24th August 2014 davidala Leave a comment

In kitting out my workshop with guitar luthier tools, I really wanted to get one of these but they seem only to be available in the USA and the postage is as much as the vice so I decided to build my own.

Here are some very loose plans I sketched for the vice I built from oak firewood!:

P1010203 — Here you can see the wedge used to hold it firmly against the bench

Here is the finished vice:

Extremely useful when carving the cello necks too.

After grain fill - ready for spraying — After grain fill – ready for spraying

And here it is in use.

Guitar making, Workshop jigs and fixtures

Guitar Workshop Inventory

6th January 2014 davidala Leave a comment

Jigsaw, drum sander and vertical oscillating sander opposite new bench

These are the things I would find it hard to do without in my workshop.

Power tools

Bandsaw
Drum sander
Vertical oscillating sander
Pillar drill
Lathe – doubles as sander (with shaped discs) and mop polisher
Laminate trimmer with top and bottom bearing laminate cutters and very small (1/2/3mm) cutters. Circle cutting jig with vernier adjustment
Palm sander