Quick Update

Well as I'm sure you have noticed by now, my backlog of posts has been used up. At this point I have a backlog of post titles, but I have yet to write the actual posts.

Bottleneck Slides

At the beginning of the summer, I decided to take up yet another hobby; luckily this time though, it is related to others I have, not too time consuming, and best of all, cheap: making guitar slides out of wine bottle necks. All it takes is a bottle scorer and wine bottles. I got my scorer at Hobby Lobby, but it is also available on Amazon.

It's simple to use as long as you actually follow the directions. I actually did it a bit differently than the directions specified, but I still employed the same principles.
First, a little bit of science and clarification: whenever somebody talks about "cutting" glass, it is almost guaranteed that they are not actually cutting it. More often than not, it is actually controlled breaking: the way "cutting" glass works is by making a very fine score; the finer the score, the cleaner the "cut" or separation. When cutting a pane of glass for something like a window, a line is usually scribed along a straightedge, and the excess piece is carefully tapped until it cleanly breaks off. Bottlenecks are a little different though: since they are round, you obviously can't use a straightedge, and tapping the glass (though sometimes used) will almost always end with an at least somewhat jagged edge. What is needed then, is a way to score the glass, and make it want to crack, but in a more controlled manner.
Solving the problem of how to score the glass is fairly simple; all you need is a way to make a straight score on a pivot, which is the purpose of the bottle scorer.
Actually getting the glass to break cleanly is a little trickier. Enter thermal shock: a way to break the glass without hitting it.
Basically, thermal shock will often cause stuff to crack due to uneven heating, and glass is especially susceptible to it. All that is needed is a source of high temperature, and a source of low temperature. These can range from candles to burning string soaked with lighter fluid to blowtorches to hot water from tap, likewise sticking stuff in a freezer to ice to cold water from the tap. I used the combination of a hot water kettle and cold water from the tap.
Now that I've explained the basic science behind it, here's the process:
The first step is to line the scorer up perpendicular to the glass. Next I went around once with the scorer, going as lightly as possible while still making a score. The next step is to run it under boiling water and cold water over the score until it finally breaks. At this point, all it needs is some sanding of the edges to break the very sharp corners.

I think the rest of the bottle looks really cool, and I always feel like it has to be good for "something," but I haven't quite figured out what that something is yet.

Here is the finished product:

Bottleneck Slide Rack

Earlier this summer, I decided to start yet another hobby that I will get into in a later post, but for now I'll just leave this picture here:

I already have, and will make, quite a few of these, so I need a good place to store them. Seeing the holes in the middle made me think of racks that you might find in a music store, so I decided to build my own. My first step was completely designing and planning it out in Google Sketchup. I didn't really have a specific idea of what I wanted, I just started trying things. I started by thinking a step might add some aesthetic appeal, and would also allow me to see the slides in the back. Once I had that dialed in, I decided to have the number of shafts one less in front. Once again, not only did it add some aesthetic interest, it also made it easier to see all the slides.
The first step was getting the wood to the proper dimensions: I started with some pine that came from an old bed frame, and cut it to the dimensions, followed by planing it down to the proper thickness. After that, I needed to put the step in the block. I had originally planned on using a dado stack, but since we got our new SawStop, our old (but perfectly good) 6" dado stack won't work with it; instead, we need an 8" stack. Since spending around $200 on a new stack is not my top priority right now, I decided to use the router table outfitted with a straight bit. This worked perfectly fine, and was at least as easy. The next thing I needed to do was drill the holes for the shafts, and of course cut the shafts themselves.
To drill the holes, I chucked a forstner bit into my drill press and clamped a piece of MDF. To the table to act as a makeshift fence. I then marked out the center point of all of the holes, and started drilling. The fence was set so the drill press would drill with the center 3/4" in from the edge. And the depth stop to drill 1/4" deep. This was nice because all I had to do to drill the front and back was flip it around and adjust the depth stop. I ran into a little trouble after resetting for the lower level: since I didn't tighten the depth stop properly, I almost drilled straight through the board. Luckily, I realized what was happening in time to stop plunging. To fix it, I plugged the hole, and once the glue was dry, I re-drilled the hole.

To make the shafts, I bought a piece of 5/8" dowel rod, and cut 15 pieces to 2 1/4". Obviously, cutting 15 pieces to exactly 2 1/4" freehand would be pretty much impossible, so I I made a jig. All I did was drill a 5/8" hole 2 1/4" deep, then I cut out a chunk so I could push it out. I then just used my Japanese handsaw to cut right along the edge, and then I just popped it out and slid in the dowel again.
The next step is extremely straightforward, all I had to do now was glue the shafts in place. All I did was put some glue in each hole, spread it around a little bit, and tap the shafts in. I didn't bother clamping it off two reasons: first off, it would be nearly impossible, and second, I just don't think it really needs it, since it isn't exactly going to be load bearing.

I plan to put a finish on it at some point, so you might see this rack return at some point, but it is ready for use.

What I Would Do Differently

The only thing I might have done differently was make an extra base to ease the clamping. I ran into some trouble with getting all the shafts straight, so a way to align them would have been helpful.