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After watching Chris Paulick's tutorial on swapping tuner buttons on Grover Statites, I had an idea - make some myself. Perfect opportunity to use the new sander and various little scraps.

Here goes:

Cut yourself some blanks, I did 1/4 x 9/16 x13/16, though the Statites are 1/4 x 1/2 x 3/4, I wanted a bigger button.


Also, cut 4 pieces of 1/2" baltic birch and 2 pieces of 3/4" hardwood at 2" x 4".


Route a centered dado 7/32 deep - just light of the 1/4" thickness of the blanks in each piece of hardwood. One will be 9/16 wide to match the blank height, and one at 13/16 to match the width. I did this with a 1/4" bit in the router table, rotating the piece 180 degrees so that my groove stayed dead center, and adjusting the fence till I got my width right.

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Gabriel Regalbuto
Carlsbad, California
Freedom 35!

Next, layout arcs and pivot holes on the baltic birch.
I scribed a center line on both pieces.

On one piece mark 1" from each end, and 13/16" from each end, and trace an arc with 1" radius so it is just tangent to the edge.

On the other, mark 1" and 9/16" from one end and trace the 1" arc, and mark 1.5" and 1/4" from the other end, tracing a 1.5" arc tangent to the edge.

Stack the two layed out pieces on the two extra pieces and secure with double stick tape. On both pieces, I also marked and drilled a couple of holes for the carriage bolts and wing nuts to hold the whole thing together. Drill, and rough the arcs on the bandsaw.

Next, drill a couple of pivot holes on a board mounted on your sander 1" and 1.5" from the sanding surface and then clean up the arcs on your jig.

Go ahead and separate the four pieces, but mark them so you know how they are supposed to line up.

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Gabriel Regalbuto
Carlsbad, California
Freedom 35!

Woops, forgot to snap photos of the next step... I'll attach photos of the clompleted pieces.

Cut one 3/4" chunk from your 13/16" dadoed board, one 9/16" chunk, and one 1/2" chunk. Set the half inch piece aside. You'll be attaching the two remaining pieces to the plywood with the 1" and 1.5" arcs.

The 3/4" piece goes with the 1.5" arc. Orient the dado vertically, with the slot exactly 1/4" back from the middle of the arc.
The 9/16" piece goes with the 1" arc. Orient the dado on top, with the piece flush with the arc, extending 9/16" back. Glue these pieces in place and add a stop on the horizontal dado. Add a shim on the vertical dado so that the blank, when seated, sits proud of the top of the dado.


Cut two 13/16" pieces from the 9/16" dadoed board, and attach them 13/16" back from each end on the other plywood piece like you prepared earlier. Add stops like you did on the first piece. For these, they will interfere with the pivot hole, so I made space with a forstener bit and a file.

Trim the hardwood pieces on your bandsaw, and take them to your sander and sand 'em up.



With the 1/2" chunk of the 13/16" dadoed board that you set aside earlier, make yourself a drilling jig, and drill the #29 holes in your blanks.

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Gabriel Regalbuto
Carlsbad, California
Freedom 35!

Next, (could have done this earlier) counterbore for the carriage bolts.
Glue some sandpaper to the mating plywood pieces.
Load up a blank and sand away!

I did the sides, the top and bottom, and the edges - in that order. I your tolerances are tight, you could do it in any order, but that is what made sense to me. After machining, I put a towel, folded a few times on the bench to soften the curves, and sanded with 220, 320, and then some white scotch brite pad. I may micro-mesh before I install.

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Gabriel Regalbuto
Carlsbad, California
Freedom 35!

bro, thats so awesome! thanks for putting that together for us.

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sweat the small stuff.

Gabriel,

Great tutorial. I've done this by hand but your jigs will be a big help.

Thanks again.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Nice Gabe! That's one of those things I would never have even thought of doing because I thought it would be too much of a pain. You've made it pretty simple.

Now I just need a tute on how to get the old buttons off.

Thanks,
Danny

It was Chris' video tutorial on getting them off which inspired me:

http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=21684

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Gabriel Regalbuto
Carlsbad, California
Freedom 35!

Chris and Gabriel, forever in your debt. Nice work. Impressive.

How about you making me some buttons? Grin.....

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Thank you very much for sharing, I look forward to learning here at OLF

That's cool. I just stumbled upon this looking for another tutorial. I also started working on a button jig. I see I have some simular ideas as you. Good job and thanks for sharing.

Thanks, Gabriel!

Looks well thought-out. After the jigs are made up, I can see spending an afternoon and easily cranking out enough buttons for a dozen guitars.

Please let us know if you ever take on the challenge of designing jigs to make a version of the "contour" buttons for Gotoh 510s!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Sanding the buttons in the jig and then finish sanding by hand took me about 40 minutes for a set. I'm not really a production run kind of guy, but next time I'll make up a few sets of blanks, drilled. All of the set-up is in getting the pieces the right size and centering the drilling jig. Once that is done, the shaping is straight forward and down-right boring, except, of course, for watching the shiny button emerge from the little scrap of wood.

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Gabriel Regalbuto
Carlsbad, California
Freedom 35!