Steel Guitar Builder

Well, I think I'm ready to start putting together the mock-up now. I just finished making this little tuning block. Will start assembly tomorrow. I'll start a new thread for that, as this one has pretty much drifted away from it's original topic.

Limo wrote:Looking very good! So how long of a piece of wire did it take to do one spring?

Thanks. About 3 feet or so, Limo.

I believe the mill you have is the same as my G0704, LaVern, but with the DRO included straight from Grizzly if I recall correctly. I added my own cheap chinese DRO setup. I was screwing up too many parts trying to properly count how many times I'd turned the cranks :lol:. I still screw up fairly re...

I'm really having a blast with this, LaVern. So much to learn. Keeps the brain active. Tonight I made a 1-string roller nut for the prototype. It, as with the finger block I posted about last night, will be bolted to a piece of plywood for the mock-up. Next will be something to hold one of my machin...

Not sure if anyone's interested in this stuff, but the forum is pretty quiet so I figured I would at least document my progress for the sake of any future noobs like me that stumble upon it.... Tonight I milled a little block of aluminum to support the finger assembly in the one-string mock-up. Alre...

Slow day yesterday. Nothing accomplished. Managed to turn a spring-winding mandrel tonight after work based upon a drawing posted by Bent Romnes. My second attempt at winding one worked out ok for the prototype. On the first one I was not prepared for how much wire actually goes into one of these sp...

18ga steel. The groove is about .018 deep

Oh yeah. The completed finger assembly...

Ok, things are going well, today. I slowed the RPM down to 500 as you suggested, went one size smaller for the pilot hole drill bit, used lots of cutting oil, stopped the mill once I was through and retracted the reamer without the machine running. Success! I now have a nicely pressed in bearing - n...

Thanks, Ross. I've purchased at 0.499 reamer and I've done one test so far. The bearing is tighter than the one where I just used a 1/2" drill, but still not "press-fit" tight. I will try some more tests now that I've watched a few yootoobs on how to actually use a reamer :lol:. I have the raise and...