Woodworking

[Bo Deadly]

I know we don't talk woodworking much but it has it's place in pro-audio.

Here's a keyboard table I just made. I only have a site saw but I made really good cross-cut and rip sleds (rip sled is in last pic) and that made all the difference.

 

[rock soderstrom]

Like!

 

[Whoops]

Looks really nice, congrats.

I really don't like to see on stage ugly plastic keyboards saying "M-Audio" , "Roland" or whatever the brand of the day, I think it looks horrible on a stage.

Your setup looks beautifull

 

[Bo Deadly]

Thanks.

Yeah I have never done stain and poly before but it does look really nice. It's got a really smooth but durable feel to it.

I just wish I could play keys better. Basically I'm doing fake-jazz at this point  :-[

 

[Ricardus]

That's great.

Interesting. I was watching a performance the pretenders recently did on the BBC and the keyboard player had his nord in a wooden case something like this, and the wood and the shape just gave the whole "real piano" vibe, and it was super cool.

 

[Bo Deadly]

In case it's not obvious, it's supposed to look like a vintage synthesizer. The back is like the MiniMoog (the L tray is adjustable) but the cross-member, how it bolts together and the front is all Prophet 5.

 

[Tubetec]

I was going to mention what seems like a trend now to box up keyboards into something more resembling an organ , I see Ricardus noticed this same thing . A volume pedal might be a nice addition , maybe even a set of ceremonial daggers to wedge the keys down .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg9jHTYZ-6U

Ive wiled away many many happy hours woodworking ,
Varnishes and other wood finishes are gone so expensive these days I been trying the old style linseed oil based finishes on garden furniture and tools  with wooden handles.

Generally I make a blend of equine grade Linseed ,  turpentine and tea tree oil . Its simply brushed ,ragged or rollered on , the catch is it does take time to dry and cure . For me the fact that its all natural and easily made up yourself from plant based ingredients makes good ecological sense. Applying a polish made with a blend of bees wax, linseed and turpentine every once in a while and water bounces off .

 

[totoxraymond]

That's gorgeous!

I wish my woodworking skills were as good. I'm building a DAW controller and i would like it to resemble your keyboard finishes... (i need more tools)

Congrats!

 

[pucho812]

looks awesome. great job.

 

[john12ax7]

There's been some woodworking talk in the machine shop from time  to time.  It's DIY so a welcome contribution.

Looks nice. Is it all pine? And joined together by screws?

 

[Bo Deadly]

All the props are appreciated. Thanks.

Looks nice. Is it all pine? And joined together by screws?

Oak "hobby" boards from Home Depot. The sides are bolted into brass anchors in the front / back and crossmember (and there's one in the bottom up into the middle crossmember pillar). So it can be disassembled into 4 pieces. The back tray is attached to the crossmember with a piano hinge (also from Home Depot) and adjusted with little shelf supports (which I commandeered from one of my kitchen cabinets). The legs are monopods from a camera supply store. Other than that, it's a few specialty parts from McMaster Carr (like the giant 3/8" flathead machine screws that bolt through the bottom ribs into the legs).

 

[warpie]

Looks great! Well done.

I've never done any woodwork but I often watch yt videos about woodworking. I kinda love it ☺

 

[rackmonkey]

Just getting around to this. Nice work, Squarewave! I’ve been woodworking for 20 years (mid-century furniture, turned bowls/lamps, boxes, etc) and I think the job you did is top notch.

The rip sled opens up so many possibilities. Being limited (safety-wise) to cross cuts like most casual hobbyists are just makes otherwise doable projects seem out of reach. Smart move to build that and a lesson for would-be woodworkers.

 

[rob_gould]

Looks great, well done!

I started my own business making hard wood 19" rack cases, cases for modular synths and other bits and pieces last year. It's been hard work but extremely rewarding to get to a point where people are willing to pay for things I've made. I can see myself doing this very happily for the rest of my life.

 

[Rocinante]

I was a carpenter for years so really appreciate good work like yours squarewave. Because of covid And have taken my time in building our new studio and I forgot how enjoyable woodworking can be. I just finished building a desk for our DM2000 and as much as I really wanted to get it done now, I also enjoyed every minute of it. The podcast "Infinite Monkey Cage" playing in the background while I did miter cuts was pretty damn peaceful.

 

[Bo Deadly]

There were a few nerve-wracking moments for this build. The ribs underneath that make the angled platform for the legs are 7 degree compound miters (meaning the blade was set at 7 degrees and the piece was run through at 7 degrees). Because the pieces are so small I had to grip them against a custom block on the rip-sled using nothing but my fingers which put them literally ~1cm from the blade. It kinda makes me twitch a little thinking back on it. I should have made a better jig.

PS: I didn't intend to post this in The Lab. I thought I posted it in The Machine Shop. Oops.

 

[fazer]

That came out great squarewave.  My brother swears by those table saw sleds.  Nice work.

 

[cyrano]

Gorgeous!

Wish I could do woodworking like that. Metal is usually OK, but when I try wood it always ends up 'not too square'  :-[

 

[Bo Deadly]

Thanks. If you want to do vaguely accurate work you must use a really good crosscut sled for cross cuts (as opposed to the little miter-gauge that usually comes with the saw) and occasionally a rip sled. Strangely I don't have any pics of my crosscut sled but there's nothing particularly different about it from any of the pics / plans you might find on the Internet. But here's a pic of my rip sled:

 

This also gives you a pretty good idea of how it's used. The idea is simple. You clamp your piece to a board that has a rail glued to the bottom of it called a runner. The runner fits almost exactly (usually slightly smaller to account for debris and wood swelling) into the miter-gauge slots that all table saws have. Then you just slide the whole thing into the blade. This keeps the piece stable but it also minimizes chipping of the edge because the edge of the board is right up against the blade.

Another thing that this pic illustrates is how to make jigs just to make other cuts. For example, this pic is of a fence that was then used with the rip sled to make the compound miter cuts for the very small ribs that went under the keyboard table. Meaning I made a rip sled to make a jig to use with the rip sled to cut 4 pieces.

That's pretty much what you have to do if you have limited equipment like me. I have what's called a "site saw" (Dewalt DW745) which is basically a cheap table saw that would be used by a contractor on a job site to cut plywood and rip two-by-fours. So the sleds are vital to making accurate cuts with a lowly site saw.

Also I have to mention that the whole slot / wedge thing works fantastic. And I've never really seen that before. I just came up with it messing around in Sketchup. Most people use toggle clamps. You might think the wedges don't provide enough force to hold the piece from slipping while pushing it into a whirling blade but with two wedges in a slot, the upper wedge makes flat contact and grips pretty well. And the slots work equally well with the sled to either side. Anyway food for thought.

 

[boji]

Very nice woodwook, stain turned out beautiful. Cool idea with the jig too! It's true I wouldn't think one wedge would hold the angle, but if it does, it does!

I'm limited to a cheap band saw and old delta rip saw as well. Here's a scrapwood case for a circuitbent casio that I put off to build the mixer. It'll be wrapped in a kitschy cloth pattern and urethaned eventually: