Steel Guitar Builder

This is what I've pretty much settled on. Was thinking of moving the jack to the bottom flange to clean up the end. So the cable would plug in from below. Good idea? Bad idea?

Material is 2"x4"x10" 6061 al

Warning noted, Ron :lol: I have been having a lot of fun with this project. It's taken me many many months of research and learning to get to the point of starting the actual build, but now that I have it's become even more fun. I think building it will be the easy part, though. Once I'm done I'll h...

Still haven't finished the steel plates, but started working on the brass fingers. I'll do them in pairs to reduce waste. This is the beginnings of the first two. I'll get four more like this done before cutting them all apart on the band-saw and proceeding with the remaining machining steps so that...

Ahhh. So it looks like the endplates only cover maybe an inch or so of the aprons on your guitar. That would be an easy solution - just shorten the sides to expose the inside mounting flanges. There is no need for countersinking. I like it. Not sure why that didn't occur to me.

Thanks.

I had a look at those, Ross, but it looks like the hole would have to be drilled from the outside. Bent's end plates have no visible hardware on the outside, which is the look I'm striving to achieve. So he must be drilling from the inside somehow.

@Bent Do you attach your siderails to the end plates? Looking at some of your photographs it looks like you do. In particular I'm referring to this photo: http://steelguitarbuilder.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1153 I'm wondering how you manage to drill and countersink the holes through the end pla...

I spent the evening making a jig and cutting the v-groove in my raise plates. Don't know if it's the right way of doing something like this but I'm just making this up as I go along. Seems to be turning out okay though so pushing ahead. What do you guys think of using gun-blue on these steel parts? ...

Thanks, Gents.

I'm almost ready to start milling the lower plates now. I just have to do some rough cutting with the band saw first in order to reduce the amount of milling that needs to be done. Hopefully the third time is the charm. I've already screwed up two sets of them.

Well, I've done a lot of work with the CAD software and I'm now at a point where I feel comfortable actually starting the build. So I've started cutting out the pieces for the changer. For the raise and lower plates I'm milling all of them at once by sandwiching them between some 1/4" aluminum plate...

Thank you for the feedback, Bent. I will make some adjustments as a result.