Free ‘give aways’ – some amended resources

It’s nice to receive feedback on something, even when it’s pointing out one’s own omissions or short-comings!

One of my guitar students was saying (or complaining. . . !) the other day about my free neck diagram PDFs… Although said pupil used them a lot and was very thankful for them, they didn’t really meet her needs very well. Being a beginner to the guitar, she really only plays things on the instrument that are located at the very top of the neck, well within the first five frets (and, to be honest, mainly in the first three frets)

To have a diagram that goes all the way up to 24 frets is therefore next to useless – she only fills things in on the uppermost portion (rendering that particular chart full) and only has three more available charts on that page. What is more, to fit the complete length of the 24 fret version on the page, the diagrams (through necessity) are rather small.

Oh, and the devices I had used to indicate the fret board numbers were too dark and made reading and writing on the lines hard….!

So, rather than being discouraged I have now produced the following set of diagrams, both showing just the top-most portion of the neck up to and including the fifth fret. The first has as total of 16 of these diagrams on one page (surely enough for any burgeoning student!) and one with single, yet massive, example

I have also reduced the intensity of the fret board marker device. . .

Guitar First Positionx16

Guitar First Position Single

Click the links below to download the PDF files:

Guitar First Position x16 >>

Guitar First Position Single >>

Iteration is always part of any design process (ask my excellent designer friend AK about this!) and I now feel well and truly iterated-out!

Hope people find the new sheets useful – comments and feedback always appreciated.

I am now off for tea and a hot bun in the UK snow!

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Free template – 120 degrees!

Here’s a little template that I use all the time in The Shed…

120 degree template

It’s really useful for welding legs / support structures together – I used it in the making of the legs for my Heavy Metal Flute stand for example, to make sure the legs were arranged at just the right angle.

Click here to download the 120º template >>

Here’s my preferred way of using the template:

1. Print it out on a sheet of A4 (or any size that suits)
2. Spray Mount this (or use sellotape etc, whatever works best for you!) onto a flat board, sheet of metal, bench surface etc.
3. Find a way of fixing the items you want to join together, directly onto to the template. I tend to use largish metal ‘U” staples to fix round items (banging the staples astride the items into the surface of the supporting board), or using heavy weights to hold the bits and pieces down (I have made my own set of weights by filling a old tin cans (of a variety of sizes) with concrete)
4. Then, with the items held firmly down to the template, simply weld away!
5. The template obviously gets destroyed in the process, but who cares – simply print another one out!

I’ve also got a 90°  template that is also really useful – if anyone has a need for one at a specific set of angles, let me know and I’ll knock one up for you!

90 degree template >>

90 degree template

Hope they are of use? Although they are PDFs, they should be editable in most illustration programs such as Adobe Illustrator etc.

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