Guitar finishing jig

[Dave Sayers]

Well, it seems that the more I build guitars the more tools and jigs I find a need for. At the moment I'm finishing a guitar and I'm getting a bit fed up of trying to move around the guitar body. I need a moveable rotatable vice thingy and I need it cheap, or free, and I need it quick. I've seen others where a stick thing goes into the neck pocket. I'll invent my own and copy that idea. So what to use as the main rotatable bit? Well, back in the days before colour reflector telescopes were invented I had a black and white reflector telescope that was now hanging around in a disused greenhouse. A die cast mount that tilts and turns in three dimensions? Just the job, with a little cleaning up.

[Lonnie B]

Now that is fancy. I use a 4x4 about a foot long with a hole drilled in it which I stick a dowel into then reduce the other end until it fits snugly into the peg hole of the guitar. It swivels around nicely. I can sit on my stool in my shop and spin it around as I apply the finish. Works but nothing as fancy as what you've got there. Good job with thinking if a new use for it. :0)

[Dave Bagwill]

I like it, and use something similar though not as refined.

Dave - I don't know what you mean by a 'color' telescope, though. Refractor or reflector or maksutov etc - they all pick up the colors of the objects, right?

[Dave Sayers]

The colour telescope thing was a joke, like the old B&W tellies.

Ah, Dave, I did realise in the middle of the night that perhaps I was over engineering it. The new model is a vice attached to the indoor bench and a long stick with a hangar bolt in one end. The bolt can be put through a hole and a nut put on. Then I can turn the guitar around as needed in the vice. I'll still make the black metal one, though, and use it to impress the gullible, like I do with my guitars.

I'm in a funny mood today as I've just had some good news, so I'll say that I also write books as a hobby. In one of them the main character wants something to make his new home his own......

"It was as he was on his way back that he stopped outside a music shop. There in the window among displays of shiny guitars and amplifiers was a plain box with tinsel draped over it. ‘Build your own lute!’ it declared, ‘Fun and educational. Requires some woodworking ability and tools.’ This, Doug decided, was just the thing for the Dragon House. He could see the beautiful medieval instrument all shiny and lovely, standing on one of the ancient chairs in the dining room, and the fantasy Doug proudly explaining to a visitor that he had made it himself. The visitors would be deeply impressed.

Then the reality that was Doug Sanders interfered, and he had another vision. This was of a glue covered thing that looked a bit like a lute, and had a neck that had been put on backwards so that it was unplayable. Even worse, in this vision he’d had to hammer six inch nails through the neck to hold it to the body and use old bamboo skewers to hold the strings on. Finally the vision ended with him standing the lute thing on a chair, and it falling off and breaking into two pieces."

[Lonnie B]

Very good Dave. Enjoyed the little story. But to be honest I love this forum as everyone on here is an artist in there own right. I was a solid Glass Sculpter for years. Trying to switch those skills to wood. It has been quite a challenge as all my squares come out rectangles, my circles come out more like triangles. Nothing comes out the way it went in so I identify with your fictional charactor. :0)

[Dave Bagwill]

You guys crack me up! :-)

[Ray Ussery]

Lonnie, what was that triangle thing again? Pie R SQUARE? Wait...I'd have to take my shoes off again...but...
I swear I saw it today on the stove, mother made a pie and it R round...ROUND I tell you ROUND! Then she cut a piece of it and I thought about what you said and there it was...a triangle...I get it...I think...but still waiting for the "Square"...but then she said the round sweet potatoes would be SQUARE...so now I'm really confused...maybe after Thanksgiving...or I could get a calculator for Christmas....I'm not sure that would help...I think I need an aspirin, my head hurts.... :>)

Nice job Dave S.