New Toy

I am now the proud owner of one of these:



Now to figure it out and set it up...

Update

Just a quick update since I have not posted in so long. What have I been up to?

Well, I am currently on my second week this year of unpaid leave that my company has forced us to take. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I guess it is better than losing my job, but I would obviously rather be working and making money. This week is March Break here for the kids, so between keeping them busy and pet-sitting my brother's golden retriever Charlie while they are in Florida, I haven't really accomplished anything yet. It is only Tuesday, so I guess there is still hope.

Things I want to personally accomplish this week include:

• Getting some work done on the next batch of guitar amps that Todd and I are designing.


• Play around with and learn JavaScript.

Other things on the TODO list:

• Become a rock star.


• Solve the world's energy problems.


• Come up with a unified theory of everything.

I figure if I at least solve the last item, that *should* take care of the second-last one, and perhaps the rest will come naturally. For now, I'm off to make some juicy burgers for dinner. We have to enjoy this beautiful, 14 degree weather while we have it!

Guitar Effects PCB Etching

Tonight I had some free time and since I am taking tomorrow off work to get some other things done I figured I would take a couple hours to polish off a half-bottle of wine and etch some guitar effects PCBs that I have had kicking around for quite some time.

Todd and I had printed out some guitar effects schematics from Tonepad a couple years ago when we etched the PCBs for Model II. Todd recently dug out the press-and-peel and tonight I transferred them and etched the boards. It turned out much better than usual. I think it had something to do with the smoothness of the copper-clad board. This time I wet-sanded it down to 600 grit. I was going to go to 1500 grit but I figured I'd give it a shot at 600. It only took me a few extra minutes to sand the board and I think the results were well worth the extra time.



There are two Ross Compressors and two MXR Phase 45s. Looks like I have a date with a drill press in my near future. In the meantime, I guess I should order some components!

A Busy Night

I had a busy night tonight. Dave came over and we set up Robosaw to finger joint some oak for a bookshelf he is building. It worked great!

Since I had the mess going I figured I would do some more work on the router table I am designing for my new router. I got quite a bit done, and basically just need to somehow mount the linear slides, create some sort of manual adjuster, and build a fixed fence. OK, I guess I have quite a ways to go yet...

Oh yeah! On the weekend Todd and I finished tolexing Coco so I could use the amp for band practice on Saturday. She's looking and sounding pretty darn sweet!



All that is left really is to come up with some nice faceplates to finish it off.

Now if you'll excuse me - I am going to go wash the sawdust out of my eyes, cough up a lungful of powdered MDF, and go to bed.

My New Router Is Here!

So my new router (the wood kind, not the ethernet kind) arrived today and it is a beast! Check it out:


I can't wait to try it out with the new 45 degree lock miter bit I picked up recently. I'm interested in seeing if a lock miter joint is as strong as the finger joints I am currently making with Robosaw. It would sure be a heck of a lot easier. The setup doesn't look too bad either.

The big thing is having a decent router table setup. The new router has above-the-table micro-adjustment, plus above-the-table bit changing - which for the price is awesome. My current router table sucks however, so I need to start shopping for a reasonably priced one that will allow me to use this new router to its full potential.

It's Almost Done

Well, it is another late night and I don't really have the motivation to write much - but Coco is getting closer to being finished. I'll let the pictures do the talking.





And now to get some sleep...

More Amping....Finally!

Todd and I finally got around to getting some more work done on the amp tonight. We have both been extremely busy with summer vacation, travel, and work-work but we are finally getting back to finishing off the current prototype.

We are now tolexing the cabinet and I must say it is going to look pretty sweet when it is done. It is late so I'll be brief - but when it is done there will be more I promise. Here is a teaser of what it looks like so far:



We're calling her Coco.

The Major Woodworking Is Done!

Well, I finished routering all of the edges of the prototype cabinet as well as profiling the sound hole in the speaker baffle. Check it out:



So, all that is left is a good sanding, and then start hiding all the flaws with tolex and grill cloth. ;o)

More Amp Pics

One or two years ago I was taking a lot of photos as we built Model II, I just never got around to putting them anywhere.

Now they are up on my Picasa page. Here is a sample:



This is the cabinet *before* I went and ruined the absolutely gorgeous curly maple with stain. I had this vision of a vibrant yellow amp (and blue for the other one) that still had the wood grain glowing through. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that well. I was happier with mine (the yellow one) rather than Justin's (the blue one) - sorry Justin - but it still wasn't what I envisioned. I think I stained, re-sanded down to bare wood, and re-stained each amp three times and eventually gave up. I think the stain I chose (I went with a water-based product) just isn't the right stuff to use.

More Tube Amping

I spent some more time on the cabinet for the next amp prototype tonight. Here's a pic:



It's a good thing this is a prototype, because there is waaaay too much labor involved in these damn cabinets! Even with Robosaw fighting the good fight, it still takes forever. And I would consider my woodworking skills above average. I definitely need to settle on a design and focus on mass-producing (where mass-produce means > 1) these parts instead of crafting one piece at a time. It doesn't help that the design is still morphing in my head as I go.

While I'm Up

I may as well post about my activities on the weekend as well. I spent the long weekend (finally) working on the next guitar amp. In particular, I took my robotic table saw for its maiden voyage and cut the finger-jointed pieces out for the cabinet. It worked great! There were definitely some lessons learned, and I think I'll have to improve the cycle time for any sort of volume production, but I am happy with the result.



You can see more pictures, and a couple of videos on my Picasa page.