JPF Home Page Forums Creative Arts Forums Visual Arts and Photography Forum Building an electric sitar

Took a bit of a computer break, finished the dog ramp, and did a few more things on this project.

There was still too many surface cracks in the back of the body, so I used a spatula to press wood filler into the cracks.


I set the body aside, and started work on the sympathetic neck. After a few coats of TruOil, I wet sanded it, then buffed and waxed it.


I used the same drill bit (turned by hand) to clean out the gunk in each of the holes.


Then began tapping the brass bridges into each of the holes. I cleaned up each bridge with steel wool first.


Here's a view of all 12 brass bridges installed.


Next, I used a file to level the tops of all of the bridges. Note that this is a "posed" shot. The handle of the file would surely get in the way moving across all the bridges this way. I removed the handle to do the job correctly.


Lots of brass dust after leveling them all.


The brass bridges are not finished - they still need a string-groove notch in each one, but that's a job for later. Next it was time to install the zither tuning pins. I used the zither tuning tool to "screw" each pin into the holes


And all the tuning pins are installed.


I set the sympathetic neck aside, and went back to the body. The black binding just arrived, and now it's time to add it. I gather the supplies I need.


Here's a posed closeup using the dremel router cutting the channel for the binding. I held the body in the vice so I would have free hands to do this.
[img]http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/rockndrtom/route4binding.jpg[/img]

You can see in this photo that the tool just doesn't work in tight curved areas.
[img]http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/rockndrtom/tightcurves.jpg[/img]

For these areas, I clean out the channel with an exacto knife.
[img]http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/rockndrtom/xactobladetrim.jpg[/img]