Once I get onto something, I tend to forget about some other things. It isn't like I stop eating. I can't stop eating. I love it. But I neglect things like books I'm reading or posting around. Just found out I haven't done anything in 8 days. That's a lot! But then, I tend to have some very inspired weeks and post every single day. Maybe even more than 7 posts a week. I guess that compensates the deal.
Two weeks ago, I went to the workshop to finish some work on bindings for a cuatro and get some tools. New tools made of wood and other things. This is the kind of thing called a jig in woodworking. It is a pretty sweet deal to make a tool out of a piece of wood. The idea is there and you try to get it into the physical realm. Adjustments and other neat details go in hand.
The first item is something used to get fan struts into their specific measures. Cuatros have small bodies so struts have to be thinned out. This jig helps you get a piece of wood into 4 x 4 cm (height and width). The long dimension is usually varied according to the fan's display. These are some baby steps into going independent of my teacher's workshop. This is my mid-term goal as a luthier.
This second item is a circle cutter. I had one my teacher had given me. It was cool, but it had only 1 measure. That doesn't work for every instrument. Not even for every cuatro since I have to take into consideration making instruments for children. So I had seen this kind of cutter and went with the idea. I told him how it was supposed to be made and long story short, we were looking for every piece to make it. This is a kind of fancy tool because we ended up taking a piece of mahogany that was doing nothing and shaping it into this tool. Once it was done, he remarked that this was even more practical than his. It is certainly easier to adjust to any radius, you just need to draw the circles first. A tool like this is needed to step into some ornament crafts. Rosettes are the thing that I have in mind. I've been dying to start making some of my own and now I got the tool to get them into the sound board.