Dig Your Own Hole(s) (part 3)

Not finding time to work on the Marlin seems to be a recurring theme on this project, but I've finally finished the cavities!

The last one was a little awkward to chisel out, as it's so narrow, but it just took some patience and regular clearing out of all the shards and chunks. Here's the result:

Which leaves me with the finished cavities looking like this:

The final weight is 2.41kg, which is pretty good - not quite sure how that adds up with the weight after the previous cavity as it's a little less than expected, but that's a good thing so I'm happy with how it's turned out! It's definitely been worth it.

I've already bought a piece of 3mm plywood from which I'll cut the cavity covers, but the next task will obviously be to create the recesses around the cavities that the covers will fit into. Then once the cavities are covered, it's downhill to painting...

Dig Your Own Hole(s) (part 2)

Finished off the second cavity on Monday evening:

The weight is now down to 2.48kg, so a loss of 130g so far. A decent start, not quite what I had hoped for but pretty good. One more to do, then maybe enlarge them a bit to lose some more!

Dig Your Own Hole(s)

Another instance of me having time to work on the Marlin but then no time to blog about it!

I spent some time last weekend starting on the cavities and actually made quite a bit of progress. The first task with each one was to use the hand drill to remove what I could - quite time-consuming since the drill only takes up to a 6mm bit, but it's the best way to start things off. A piece of masking tape around the bit at a depth of just over 3cm served as an indication of reaching the correct depth, and I made as many holes as I could, a few mm apart, almost up to the planned edges of the cavities. It ended up looking a little like swiss cheese - or perhaps like it'd been attacked by a freakishly-large woodworm!

Then I removed the rest of the wood from the planned cavity using a chisel, which was made much easier with all the holes I'd already made with the drill. The layers of the plywood also helped with making this fairly easy. I managed to just about finish the first cavity, and get about half-way down the larger one before I ran out of time:

Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow to finish off the second cavity and possibly make a start on the third one too. Weight loss so far is OK - I weighed the body after finishing the first cavity and before starting the drilling on the second one, and I'd removed ~50g. Doesn't sound like a lot but it's the smaller of the two so far, and it's almost (if not quite) what I had calculated I would lose from that one. We'll see what it's like once I'm done with the big one!

To Cavity Or Not To Cavity...

I've been considering my plans for making cavities in the body of the Marlin, and done some (fairly approximate) calculations to try to figure out how much weight I can remove that way. I also bought a set of luggage scales in order to finally get an accurate reading on the current weight of the body since the bathroom scales really don't do the job! The result - it weighs 2.66kg.

I then used one of the chunks I sawed off from the body to try to calculate the approximate density of the wood. It weighs approximately 35g, and having immersed it in a jug of water, it's approximately 70cc - so the wood is about 0.5g/cc.

I'd like to remove about 300g, so that's 600cc - but having marked out some possible cavity locations (see pics below), and assuming I go to a depth of 3cm then they'll remove about 460cc, therefore about 230g. Not ideal, and obviously I'll then re-add a little of that weight when I cover the cavities with some thin pieces of wood.

So the question is, is it really worth the hassle for what probably won't be a huge weight gain? It's going to be a pain to do, and it'll certainly be a pain to do well - not just creating the cavities but adding recesses around the edges, cutting and gluing the covers over the recesses.

Well, I've decided it is worth the hassle. It's still pretty heavy so anything I can gain will make a difference, and frankly this project is about the experience as much as anything else, so why not do it now when it doesn't really matter if I mess it up? Nothing ventured nothing gained and all that! I'll do one cavity first and see how close my calculations were, and then I'll have a better idea of what the end result will be - and whether I can do a little less or a little more to achieve what I want.

More on this soon!

Rounding Off The Edges (Part 2)

Finally an update...well, finally I had some time last Sunday to work on the Marlin, and finally today I've had time to write a blog post about it!

I did the shaping of the back edges of the body, to try to match up with what I'd already done on the front. It's not perfect yet but it's almost there, and I can do the rest when I tidy it all up before painting. I also haven't done any extra shaping of the arm or rib cuts yet, but that can come later.

As expected it's still pretty heavy despite what I've removed so far, so I've decided to have a go at making a cavity or two in the body since that's the easiest way to lose a significant chunk of weight now. It's going to be tricky and I might make a horrible mess of it, but that's the point of this project really - it doesn't matter if I screw it up!

I'll try to post again soon (famous last words) about my plans for cavities, but I need to make the plans first!

Rounding Off The Edges

I spent a couple of hours yesterday with a file, rounding off the square edges that the rasping created - reasonably easy going although obviously a fair bit of care required. I'm very happy with the results, in a little over two hours I managed to do all the bits round the front of the body:

The back of the body will have to wait for another day, and clearly it'll all need a bit of tidying up with various grades of sandpaper after that, but the main part of the job (on the front at least) is done. Still finding my way with all this woodworking stuff, but I'm really happy with how it's going so far!

Taking Shape (part 2)

So I've been a bit quiet on the blog for a while - sorry about that!

Life has got in the way a bit lately, but I have managed (in a couple of goes) to finish hacking off the bulk of the wood I needed to lose to achieve the shape I want. It's a slightly odd and unconventional shape, but I like that and I like how it's turned out.

It needs a bit of tidying up obviously as the rasp leaves it pretty rough, and I'll need to shape the edges to recreate the curve that the rest of the body has.

I've also not managed to remove much weight this way, as I kind of expected - it's down to just over 2.6kg (from the original ~2.8kg) but I'd like to lose a bit more. I could try to carve the shape of the body down a bit more, or maybe flatten off the sides all the way round (also removing the need to re-create the curved edges) but I don't think that would remove much weight so might be more hassle than it's worth. I'm now seriously considering creating a cavity or two in the body somewhere, although I haven't yet figured out where to do it without losing either the structural strength or balance of the body. I might also carve down the rib and arm cuts a bit, which won't gain much but might help with the general comfort of playing.

But whatever I do from now, I'm happy to have it looking, shape-wise at least, how I had intended!