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Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 10:47 am
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fhopkins wrote:
If Ceri has to make a living you can bet it's one of the worlds best jobs.

Yeah well: I had to quit the job in the helium gas factory. I wasn't prepared to be spoken to in that tone...

Erm... - C


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Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 11:05 am
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Ceri wrote:
fhopkins wrote:
If Ceri has to make a living you can bet it's one of the worlds best jobs.

Yeah well: I had to quit the job in the helium gas factory. I wasn't prepared to be spoken to in that tone...

Erm... - C


:lol: You are something else sir!!

I hear you Nikinija!! :)


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Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 11:55 am
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nikininja wrote:
Guy's I'd love to tell you about Ceri's recent act of kindness. Unfortunately this is not the place to go into details.

Let's just say the man is on a par with the better class of 1st millenium saints.

The good Samaritan did not pass by on the other side of the road.


Now that's a way to open a Pandora's Box of questions....

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Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 1:29 pm
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Quote:
Ceri wrote:
fhopkins wrote:
If Ceri has to make a living you can bet it's one of the worlds best jobs.

Yeah well: I had to quit the job in the helium gas factory. I wasn't prepared to be spoken to in that tone...Erm... - C

Not used to the Donald Duck atmosphere :?:

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Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 4:00 am
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zzdoc wrote:
Quote:
Ceri wrote:
fhopkins wrote:
If Ceri has to make a living you can bet it's one of the worlds best jobs.

Yeah well: I had to quit the job in the helium gas factory. I wasn't prepared to be spoken to in that tone...Erm... - C

Not used to the Donald Duck atmosphere :?:

'Zactly...

Also, I used to work as a mime. It's only now I can talk about it...

Cheers - C

PS Niki is making a lot out of exactly nothing. Pay no attention to him... :lol:


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Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:38 am
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Wow! Great work. I can't wait for the next episode.

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Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 3:04 pm
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hows it coming along ceri?


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Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 5:18 pm
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Tanner1994 wrote:
hows it coming along ceri?


I feel your pain. I was supposed to get my new gold fender tuning machines last Tuesday... Wednesday goes by... Called Guitar Center up, they hadn't been delivered because my card didn't go through...but I used in store credit!!!! I called the store up and they overnighted my tuners. Got them Friday and now the hardware on my strat is all gold!

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Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 6:35 pm
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DetroitBlues wrote:
Tanner1994 wrote:
hows it coming along ceri?


I feel your pain. I was supposed to get my new gold fender tuning machines last Tuesday... Wednesday goes by... Called Guitar Center up, they hadn't been delivered because my card didn't go through...but I used in store credit!!!! I called the store up and they overnighted my tuners. Got them Friday and now the hardware on my strat is all gold!


Neat! :D

Oh and gentlemen - I feel your pain also! Not apparent to the eye, but I'm yet again away from home at present (that's a regular thing I'm afraid) and can't get on with one or two other little surprises I have up my sleeve for this thread yet.

However, I do understand the need for entertainment here. So I shall try and put together a small diversion for you all tomorrow to keep everyone happy while the lacquer dries.

Howzat? Toon in tomorrow...

Cheers - C


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Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 6:41 pm
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I'm on standby!! :wink:


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Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:30 pm
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Ok I'm betting Ceri's going to show us what he's made for his lady wife.

I reckon its some kind of sculpted archway like the one that guy with the nose made in the film 'meet the parents'.

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Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:44 pm
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Nikininja that's just spookey, Meet The Parents in on the Telly right now!
Sorry Ceri, didn't mean to hijack the thread.

Later,
John.E


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Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 9:06 pm
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nikininja wrote:
Ok I'm betting Ceri's going to show us what he's made for his lady wife.

Would you mind re-working the syntax on this? I would rather remain politically correct by not pursuing it further than my request :wink: 8)

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Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:55 pm
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Me I am just confused :?

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Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 9:15 am
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:lol: Haha - the Missus just got a small carved wooden box with my heart in it - nothing that would cause any difficulties on this "family friendly" website... :D

Anyhow, while we're all waiting...

A few Forum users old enough to remember the early days of this thread might recall this exchange:
russianracehorse wrote:
Ceri, here's a nice line drawing of a phoenix that might look good on one of your custom-etched neck plates:

Image
Ceri wrote:
To Russianracehorse: that is a neat phoenix picture - that would make a cool design. We'd love to see that coin you did if you care to post it?

Ceri, your wish is my command. This is the coin I designed for the 2003 Dining Out of the 352d Information Operations Squadron, Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii:

Image

Everyone who attended the event got one. It was a great party! 8)


Well now. Since the Burnt Strat turned out to be getting a contoured heel there is unfortunately no use for a neckplate on this guitar. However, I think RussianRacehorse's idea is a cool one - so why don't we pass the time by making one to his design anyhow? It might go nicely with those coins of his...

(Apologies to old-timers round here who may have seen me do this before. But there will be those to whom it is something new, so...)

First we need some sheet metal. For technical reasons to do with acids (more on that later) I am using some zinc plate, which I just happen to have around the place. Here are a couple of little pieces that will do nicely:
Image

First we need to polish them up to remove those "mill lines" on the surface: any household metal polish is fine for that. Then we need to degrease the surface. For that we use acetic acid and French chalk (lemon juice and talcum powder are alternative sources for those). We just use that as a mixture to firmly polish the surface, then cleaning off with methylated/denatured spirit, which has anti-grease properties:
Image

Here the plate on the left has been polished and de-greased. Hopefully you can see the difference:
Image

Next, we shall apply a thin layer of wax to the plates. For this I am using a special "hard ball" wax designed for printmakers. It has appropriate properties for this, including a blackened appearance which helps us to see what we're doing. To spread a thin layer evenly I am working on a cast steel hotplate heated to 70C / 160F, as that nice magnetic surface thermometer shows. And I am manipulating the wax with a leather covered "dabber". All of this could easily be improvised:
Image

In principle that is good enough, but it will help us to see what we are doing in a minute if we blacken the surface of that wax further. We can do that by "smoking" it. Some people use a bundle of wax tapers for this; I am using a simple old-fashioned household candle. We play the flame across the inverted surface of the plate, simultaneously baking it a bit harder (which helps) and darkening it. The plate is held upside-down in my extremely glamorous hi-tech jig built from the finest MDF just for the purpose:
Image

Now. We can work with this hardened steel "etching needle" you see here - or any handy sharp pointed tool. Some people like to use dentist tools for this; others simply stick a pin in the end of a bit of wood dowel. Mine is of course the Rolls-Royce option.

I used the needle to scribe round a spare neckplate to create an outline through the wax. The blackening makes it easy to see what we're doing:
Image

As you can see from the electric light, that was actually last night. However, I didn't find the light good enough for the work to follow, so waited for daylight this morning to continue. On with the design - you can see I've printed out RussianRacehorse's phoenix motif several times at slightly different sizes on paper to find something that fits nicely onto a neckplate:
Image

There are clever methods for transferring drawings to the wax surface, but frankly for something as simple as this we may as well just draw free-hand:
Image

Can't see that a photo of my hand drawing helps any - but here it is anyhow:
Image

A little while later, here is the finished design. To be absolutely clear, we've used the steel needle to draw through the wax, exposing the bare metal where the lines are. That becomes significant in a minute:
Image

Before the next stage we just need to cover any metal that we don't want exposed, such as drawing mistakes and also the exposed edges of the plate. Different possibilities for this: here I am using a varnish originally designed for coating olde-worlde straw hats, so it is simply called, "straw hat varnish". This stuff has been made up specially with a black dye in it, to make it easy to see what we're doing:
Image

Now then. The key to this entire process is acid. Here I am using nitric acid, though hydrochloric is another possibility. Where I live and probably where you do too those are not controlled substances - but the suppliers do tend to make it hard to buy them, to cut down on nefarious use. Still, you can get this stuff if you try. Be careful with it - it is nasty:
Image

The acid in the black bottle is as it comes from the supplier. In the other bottle you can see some that I have mixed 1:7 with water to make it less fierce to use. It has gone slightly blue because I have previously used it with copper plate. We put it into some suitable receptacle - so this is your honest-to-goodness acid bath! In goes the metal plate:
Image

We're doing this outside. Not only is the acid very aggressive to any surface it touches, the fumes are also very unpleasant. In a laboratory you'd use a fume cabinet with appropriate extraction equipment. Alternatively I have seen colleges that have dedicated acid rooms - over the course of time any metal fixtures in those rooms become corroded and disfigured - and what the acid does to metal it does much faster to the soft tissues of our bodies, such as airways and lungs. That damage is irreversible, so we take safely here very seriously.

After just a couple of minutes the acid has visibly started attacking the metal plate where it can reach it through the lines we've drawn in the wax. A side effect of that chemical process is the production of gas bubbles where the acid is biting:
Image

Where those bubbles form the acid is no longer in proper contact with the metal and it's biting action is inhibited. Therefore we want to remove the bubbles periodically. So happens that bird feathers are particularly resistant to acid and so make useful tools to brush the bubbles away. Therefore, this action is known as "feathering". As you'd expect, I am using a nice hawk feather - nothing low-rent round here...:
Image

With acid of this strength I'd normally expect to give a total of 15 minutes biting time to get the result I'm looking for here. However, today it is only a couple of degrees above freezing outdoors where I am, so I've extended that to 20 minutes - temperature affects the speed of the process. Here is the plate after it is removed from the nitric acid and the chemical reaction stopped by washing in cold water:
Image

Looks a little rough, but don't worry. Now we simply clean the wax off using white spirit:
Image

And here's what it looks like. I've put that reflection there deliberately so's you get an idea of the surface of the metal as well as the bitten lines:
Image

That's OK, but frankly the design doesn't show as nicely as we might wish. So the next stage is to fill those lines with something to make them stand out better. Some sort of dark coloring would be nice for this, and I happen to have the very thing - this very sticky oil-based printer's ink:
Image

If I was doing this for the Pyrocaster I might be tempted to use red ink to match the body. Alternatively, there are many other colors to choose from:
Image

However, I shall simply use the black, for maximum visual clarity. We take a spatula and smear the ink thickly all over the surface of the plate, getting it thoroughly into the acid-bitten lines. This is halfway through that process:
Image

This particular ink is designed for this very use: it is especially sticky - far more so than regular oil paint. That means that it adheres tenaciously in those grooves on the plate so that we can wipe it away from the surface while leaving it behind in the lines. A pad of muslin is particularly good for this as it grabs the ink off the surface nicely but doesn't press down into the lines too easily. Vigorous circular motions with a very light pressure - in another context this is known as "wiping" the plate:
Image

And when that is done it looks like this:
Image

That ink is very gloopy and takes several days to dry. So we shall now wait before trimming the edges down, drilling out the screw holes, chasing the sides and giving the thing a final polish up.

So I'll show you the completed neckplate in two or three days.

There ya go. Easy, huh? Hopefully we'll now see the Forum fill up with guys making their own custom neckplate. Our imagination is our only limitation...

Cheers - C


Last edited by Ceri on Sun Feb 14, 2010 9:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

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