{"id":263,"date":"2011-04-05T03:36:39","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T03:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/bass\/?p=263"},"modified":"2016-12-06T16:26:17","modified_gmt":"2016-12-06T16:26:17","slug":"three-failures-and-an-espresso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/music\/?p=263","title":{"rendered":"Three failures and an espresso"},"content":{"rendered":"

We worked very hard this last weekend to wrap things up, but improvised plans can sometimes go bad.\u00a0 Our inexperience slowed our progress.\u00a0 Paul was excited to begin, and started by using the hand coping saw and fine blade to cut out the back panel from the zebrawood and padauk wood stripes we had previously glued.\u00a0 Paul did all the work, cutting, sanding, and forming while I wrote text for a DOE exascale software plan.<\/p>\n

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Cutting the zebra wood for what will be the back panel for the electronics<\/p><\/div>\n

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Feeling good, it was time for what we thought was the big challenge…. attaching the neck.\u00a0 We drove the screws into the holes we had drilled until they tweaked out the other side.\u00a0 With a clamp, we put the neck into position and then started carefully giving each screw a few turns before moving to the next.\u00a0 Round and round we went, with each screw moving in easily except for one… which required an unnerving amount of torque.\u00a0 After making such progress, we decided against opening it back up and adding the hide glue, so we suddenly looked up at each other and declared the neck a success.\u00a0 We wouldn’t know about the “action”, and if the strings were too close or too far from the frets until we could put in the pickups, mount the bridge, and string the guitar.\u00a0 We could feel how close were to jazz base riffs.<\/p>\n

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Paul prepares to attach the neck<\/p><\/div>\n

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Flying high -- neck attached!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Unfortunately, that’s exactly when disaster struck…<\/p>\n

While attaching the bridge one of the screws just sheared off.\u00a0 I didn’t think I was turning very hard, but they were very thin screws.\u00a0 Paul and I sat dumbfounded, trying to work a plan.\u00a0 With a little ingenuity, I was able to grip the remaining bit and screw it out.\u00a0 I told Paul I would head to Home Depot after a bit and look for a replacement screw, but in the mean time, we could attach the bridge with the 4 remaining screws.<\/p>\n

Snap.\u00a0 This time, the screw broke off flush, nothing to grab.\u00a0 Paul had lost all patience.\u00a0 I was certain I had not turned very hard at all.\u00a0 I took deep breaths and Paul went down stairs to beat on the drum set.\u00a0 I bought some dremel bits at Home Depot and a few cobalt drill bits as well as some replacement screws.<\/p>\n

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Back at home, the dremel whined, sputtered, and chewed it’s way irregularly through the screw and the wood.\u00a0 The hole was bigger, and I grabbed an even larger drill bit and widened the remaining 4 holes.\u00a0 I then tested the new screws in the new holes.<\/p>\n

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SNAP!\u00a0 Yes again, without much effort, the screw broke off in the same hole.\u00a0 Paul was shattered.\u00a0 I rested my forehead on the floor and sighed and finally went to work trying to route and groove and drill the broken screw from the hole.\u00a0 The metal glowed red from the friction and the blackened wood smoked as I stabbed at the hole with a fine engraving tip spinning with a high-pitched whine.<\/p>\n

Finally, I drilled out all the holes again and put a drop of oil into each hole.\u00a0 Cautiously, I managed to put the screws into the dense hardwoods and the bridge was secure.\u00a0 But not without a toll on our enthusiasm.\u00a0 We felt defeated, even if ultimately we had won.<\/p>\n

We tried to solder in the components but had no fire.\u00a0 The schematics looked daunting and didn’t match what we had pulled off Paul’s old guitar.\u00a0 Paul said it first… “Maybe we can just finish it tomorrow”.\u00a0 But I was heading off to SanFran Monday morning.\u00a0 Nevertheless, we could not continue, our heads were throbbing, and we could not think about the schematic for soldering it all together a moment longer.<\/p>\n

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Beth and I went on Date Night, while Paul and Emily caught up with homework they had procrastinated for the week of Spring Break.<\/p>\n

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After our relaxing dinner I sipped on an espresso.\u00a0 Back home, everyone went to bed early.\u00a0 By 10:30 the clan was asleep…. but schematics, potentiometers, and capacitors were dancing in my thoughts, luring me downstairs.\u00a0 With a fresh look at the wires I soldered it all together and cautiously strung the lowest note onto the guitar and plugged it into the amp.\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 I adjusted the volume.\u00a0 A beautiful low Whaaaaaa jumped from the speaker.\u00a0 It worked!\u00a0 I stashed the guitar and went to bed.<\/p>\n

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In the morning I showed the work to Paul, who could not understand how I had figured out the wiring.\u00a0 He quickly strung the remaining 3 strings and was playing music while Beth warned him not to miss the bus.<\/p>\n

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By next weekend we will be done.\u00a0 All that remains is the back panel, the knobs, and the hardware to attach the shoulder strap.\u00a0 Whoohoo.<\/p>\n

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Disaster, a broken screw for the bridge plate<\/p><\/div>\n

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Electronics assembled and strung. It plays and looks beautiful<\/p><\/div>\n

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We worked very hard this last weekend to wrap things up, but improvised plans can sometimes go bad.\u00a0 Our inexperience slowed our progress.\u00a0 Paul was excited to begin, and started by using the hand coping saw and fine blade<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/music\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/music\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/music\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/music\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/music\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/music\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":699,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/music\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/music\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/music\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/music\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}