As the End of Semester 1 Approaches...

As we near Turkey Day next week, I think it really started to hit a few of us that we really only have a few more weeks until Christmas break and, ultimately the end of the 1st semester. If there is one thing that is said often at Southeast Tech it would have to be: "Wow, it went by so fast!"

In both Advanced Repair and Advanced Finishing classes things are really starting to get serious. With only a few weeks left, we've got A LOT of buffing to do, aiming to get that "Colling's" buff, as Brian says, on each project board. As far as repairs go--there's just A LOT of guitars that need repairing out there!

In CAD/CNC, the router is constantly running and making that high-pitched buzz we've all grown so accustomed to (whether in Second Year or not, to be sure!) as templates and outside molds are cut out.

Finally, in archtop class, things are sort of all over the place...as expected when there are violins, mandolins, and archtop guitars being built all in one room. Final arches are being planed and scraped, margins are being trimmed and corners cut, and things just keep picking up as we near the half-way point in our build.

-Luke

First week of November

A lot has been going on in the Guitar Development & Production program this past month. One worthy note: we're officially halfway through the semester and it really doesn't seem like things are going to lose momentum.

In repairs class, besides doing the normal and, believe me, random repair projects, we've started to hand-bend guitar sides. This used to be the way the students used to bend them, before we had bending blankets and bending molds. Here is an example of a bridge plate that was made smaller than the bridge and the pressure of the strings forced the top to bend up and crack it.

In CAD/CNC we are all starting to, or already have, cut out our templates, bending molds, etc. Turns out, a CNC machine can be pretty loud!

Wood chips are flying down in the violin room on Tuesday and Thursday nights as most of us are in the process of rough arching our archtops, mandolins, or violins. After being rough arched, or anyone putting a margin on their instrument instead of binding, it is "spot" glued, or temporarily glued, together. It is not even close to being ready to do the final gluing, but it still is really cool to see the instrument come together as a whole.


Finally, in Advanced Finishing class, we have found the true potential of UV Finishes. Since they have such a high solids content, a project can be sprayed in as little as two coats, cured, and ready to be buffed in only a matter of hours! I would take a picture of the process but I think my camera might blow up!  Maybe not, but since the UV light is so powerful we have to cover every part of our body and wear gloves and UV-special masks.

-Luke