Luthier / Guitar Enthusiast and a Shop Smith

whodatpat · Post by **whodatpat** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:20 pm

Are there many (any) luthiers who use a ShopSmith extensively in building guitars?
I have slowly been turning into a luthier. I am an OK guitarist, but I love to tinker and build stuff. What started out as a single Cigar Box Guitar has now become a desire to make complete electric and acoustic guitars from scratch.

One of my Cigar Box Guitars http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTfk7mZZz8A

Starting off with virtually no tools at all I have been filling my basement with Craigslist finds and the occasional Ebay victory. I am to the point now that I could really use a good drill press. I do not have a table saw at all and my bandsaw is a small Ryobi. I have a Porter Cable and a Craftsman Router and a router table.

I would love to be able to re-saw large wood blanks in order to book end join them for guitar bodies. Final size of a guitar body is about 2x14x17. So block size to start would be about 4x7x17. I am not sure if this is pushing the outer limits of a Shop Smith or right up its alley.

I can piecemeal more stand alone parts like a Drill Press, Table Saw, and the rest of the odds and ends in the neighborhood of $100 each used. OR, I can take one of these $500 used Shop Smiths I see listed all over the place. I need to decide on a direction before I buy to many more single purpose tools.

So, I am basically asking someone to talk me off the ledge because $500 is just the price of admission I will be spending thousands more to do what I want to.

Or; Jump In, the water is great and you will find what you want for about 500 bucks with some patience and digging.

Patrick

dwevans · Post by **dwevans** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:37 pm

Welcome to the forum!

I too am an amature Luthier, I strictly work on Acoustic Guitars though. Although I do not do my own resawing, there are a few luthiers out here who do. One in particular modified his ShopSmith bandsaw to resaw slightly over 6" I don't think you will get it to go much more than that.

However, There are plenty of other uses for the ShopSmith in Luthier work. I made my own drum thicknessing sander powered by the ShopSmith and that works great! I also use the disk sander extensively and the drum sander with the right jigs makes a pretty good bridge!

holsgo · Post by **holsgo** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 7:30 pm

Not that I'm a guitar maker at all but the one thing I have noticed is that the Shopsmith has all the parts for any model made in 50 years. How many times have you bought a HF anything and been able to say that. I have found the machine excellent not just for what it does but what you can make it do. (My posts have pointed to that but I seem to be the only one interested in what I'm posting). Anyway, there is no built in obsolescense with the machine so you'll find years of things available if anything breaks.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 4:43 am

holsgo wrote:Not that I'm a guitar maker at all but the one thing I have noticed is that the Shopsmith has all the parts for any model made in 50 years. How many times have you bought a HF anything and been able to say that. I have found the machine excellent not just for what it does but what you can make it do. (My posts have pointed to that but I seem to be the only one interested in what I'm posting). Anyway, there is no built in obsolescense with the machine so you'll find years of things available if anything breaks.

Oh, so not so. Your posts, opinions and problems have all been interesting reading. The fact that I do not reply cannot/should not be interpreted as "my not being interested".

I try to reply only when I have (or think I have) something to add.

holsgo · Post by **holsgo** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 6:13 am

Great. I have a new, very easy mod I will put up later today. I felt like I was talking to myself those last few.

whodatpat · Post by **whodatpat** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 8:11 am

Great, now i am gonna read all of Holsgo's posts to see what the possibilities are.

holsgo · Post by **holsgo** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 9:06 am

Oh no! Now I've done it.

mrblanche · Post by **mrblanche** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 9:51 am

I posted up some photos of the from-scratch electric guitar I built recently.

https://forum.shopsmith.com/viewtopic.php?p=78903&postcount=128

I think the main thing I need that I don't have is a thickness planer.

pennview · Post by **pennview** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 9:56 am

As someone else mentioned, you can't resaw a 7" wide board on the Shopsmith bandsaw because it's limited to 6". You'll need something like a Delta 14" or one of the clones (Jet, Grizzly, etc.) that allows you to install a riser block that increases the resaw capability from 6" to 12" or you can buy a saw that already has the cutting capacity you need. A Mark V Shopsmith likely will meet your other needs for building a guitar.

rlkeeney · Post by **rlkeeney** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 5:48 am

I too am interested in building guitars and have done a bit of research into this.

My acoustics are 16 inches across and my electrics are 13 inches. Unless you are willing to modify your band saw or build the guitar with three pieces of wood a Shopsmith bandsaw is not going to do it for you.

You could buy the wood already cut to size but that would take some of the fun out of it.

Take a look at these. He uses a modified Shopsmith bandsaw. Somewhere in all of this there are details on the modification. He completely replaces the table and the trunnions.

The Texas Tele Project
http://www.crenshawweb.com/texastele/te ... roject.htm

Alder and Maple Tele
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread. ... Maple-Tele
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-de ... -tele.html

New Build - EVH Wolfgang
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread. ... H-Wolfgang

New Build - PRS Custom 22
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread. ... -Custom-22