Rogflys

I have had this project on my "To Do" list since we bought the house in August. It seems this maple tree had some damage from woodpeckers. The previous owner had it "trimmed back", and was told "it may grow back." Well, it never got any sprouts growing, and parts of it were beginning to look rotten and I wanted the space in the back yard .







So after Christmas Day brunch, my friend Jeff and I got a little restless. It was raining, so we figured a hike was out. Instead we ran by his dad's house and grabbed a chainsaw!


Then, back at my house, Jeff climbed the tree with the chainsaw and started cutting..........



The big chunks hit the ground with a thud and left a few divots. Fortunately none landed on any sprinkler lines.

Be sure to play the video of the tree falling! OK, not that exciting.....

We got it all cut down and into manageable sized pieces in just a couple of hours. And, as you can see, the rain stopped.

I finally got started on the neck. I am using a 1 1/8" thick piece of mahogany. The plexiglass template is used to layout the neck pieces.

There is a bit of waste that I should use for blocking or something on other projects........... Smear a bit of Tightbond on and put it in the clamps. The pieces are cut a fair bit oversize, and the headstock is yet to be cut.

Next I will be routing the channel for the truss rod and beginning work on the fingerboard.

The binding on the edge of the guitar provides two functions. One is for protection of the instrument, the other is gluing surface. It helps to hold the corners of the guitar together.


I got the ledge routed out for the binding last week. I use a Dremel tool with an attachment that controls the depth of cut. At the cutaway the attachment is too big so that I cut by hand with a razor knife.

After the ledge is cut I fit the binding in place to be sure it fits properly. The ledge is trimmed with the razor knife if necessary. I then like to put a light coat of shellac on the instrument. The shellac provides a barrier that will keep the cyanoacrylate (super) glue from discoloring the bare spruce .

The Binding is put in place and held with tape. Thin CA glue is then wiked into the joint, and more tape put on to hold the binding tightly in place.

Tomorrow I will remove the tape.

So my brother sent me a link to a website, http://www.hundredpushups.com/. It is a program to get you to be able to complete 100 consecutive pushups. My brother has been competing (participating) in triathlons and such for the past few years. Not that he is in outstanding shape but doing well I guess. Well, I guess I felt I need to do something so I began the program today. The way the program works is to do an initial test, then based on your performance there are 5 sets of pushups a day, every other day. Based on my performance I started on week three with sets of (14-18-14-14-max). My arms are pretty sore.........

I have been doing hapkido for the last year and a half and feel healthy but would like to feel more fit. I hope to get back riding my mountain bike, we shall see how that goes. But I am going to finish out the pushup program for sure.

I was in the garage working on the archtop guitar today and heard a jet coming. I stepped out to the driveway and a B2 Bomber soon appeared. I ran in the house to get Reed to come have a look. We both thought it was pretty cool, and went back to what we were doing. A couple minutes later, it came back. I was able to grab the camera and get a few quick shots.