Philip Bender
From:
Palmetto FL USA (deceased)
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Posted 15 Dec 2007 3:35 pm Metal working |
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This topic could get very lengthy and complex. Regarding the pans, the tooling required to make those pcs could be single stage parts where they are blanked out of a long coil of sheet metal, stacked up until the required number of parts have been cut out. They then would be put one at a time into a form die, then probably trimmed by another die. This would be very labor intensive, but cheaper on the tooling end. If Fender thought they would be able to sell a large number of guitars, they could go to a multiple stage form die, where they would feed a coil of metal into a progressive die, and finished parts would drop out the exit end of the press. The type of finish on the steel, would dictate how much buffing would be required to get ready for plating. After buffing, the parts would most likely be triple plated with copper, nickel, and chrome to protect the nickel. Gibson solved some of this complexity by using the method seen on the console grandes, routing out a cavity, and install the now familiar steel loop parts with a crackle finish. I needed to make one of those one time after misplacing one of my loop parts from my 1954 guitar. I made this one out of brass, and still have it. This of course not the only way to make these parts, but probably the most logical.
Aloha,
Phil Bender |
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