Real men use power tools
We planed and planed. Eventually I even got into it and managed to get those little spirals of wood to come off my side panel:
FInally though, I gave in. The wood had to be shaved down to between 2 and 2.5mm over the entire length before we would be able to bend it to the required shape without breaking it. At my current rate of progress I would be there till Christmas (I will still be trying to build the thing by then, but I hope to have got past the stage of planing.)
So we brought out the Random Orbital Sander
G.M went first. The sander produces a tremendous noise and vast quantities of dust – so you know that you are doing something useful. It produces so much dust that we had to strap a vacuum cleaner to it to make it possible to breathe. When you are using the sander your hands vibrate so much that when you stop and touch something that is still, you feel like you are not really touching it.
After many afternoons attempting to stop anyone hearing or seeing anything through the dust, the sides of our guitars were thin enough for us to move on to the next stage – the bender.
