Project Update: The Saga of Big Bertha's Resaw Blade (Cont'd)

Big Bertha's new resaw blade arrived back at Tortuga Early Instruments Worldwide Headquarters last night and I installed it almost immediately. The size turns out to be exactly 129", according to Dan the Blade Man. I missed it by that much. It was only after I installed the new blade that I noticed the teeth were upside down. By upside down, I mean they were pointed upward, rather than downward. It was momentarily confounding - until I thought about it. I took the blade off, held it at 10:00 and 2:00 and gave it a little flip. Voila! The teeth suddenly pointed in the right direction. As you can see below, she really enjoys her new accessory.

I was able to slice up a piece of alder from a firewood pile that had been drying in the shop for the better part of a year. Alder. As far as lutherie and just about anything else I work on goes, it just doesn't hold much appeal for me. The pieces are not large enough to carve out a solid electric guitar body. Maybe I can chop some up and sell them as pen blanks; they do have a little spalting from sitting in the rain for so long. Or maybe I'll just burn them in the fire pit on the back porch this summer. We'll see.

On an unrelated matter, I'd like to explain why I continue to work on tools and machines, rather than the instrument. I am not at all happy with the results I'm achieving with the keyboard. Each natural key top is inconsistently rounded and smoothed. This may very well be a skill - or lack thereof - issue, yet I firmly believe I can use a 1/16" roundover router bit to get consistent, perfectly rounded key tops. I'll be picking up a bit later this week and testing out my idea over the weekend. Barring any strangeness, and I've seen a bit of that, it should work as planned.

Until next time...