Yesterday I decided that I needed to free up my router table, table saw, and band saw. They were each set up for bridge work after I'd done a couple test pieces in cedar. My actual bridge will be rosewood. Now, while I have length and width figured out, I don't know the height for sure. I decided that if I just leave it tall I can bring it down later during fitting. I have a suspected height but final fretboard thickness and any top shaping will play into it later. That said, I grabbed my rosewood and went to work. I ended up using a rotary rasp bit instead of a router bit just because I liked the shape. I also used a 1/8" piece of hardboard clamped to the router table making a "zero clearance" insert. This is nice because the work piece is pretty small and the test pieces wanted to hang up or drop into the larger hole around the router bit.
Next step was get ready to trim cut the body pieces against the pattern piece. Went to swap router bits and the collet locking lever broke off, the screw holding it had snapped. I took the router motor out of the grip section (after unmounting it from the router table). I then used a bit extractor (basically a left handed drill bit run with the drill in reverse). Wasn't sure it would work but it finally bit and spun out the broken screw. Then off to one of my "buckets of bolts". You do have one of those, right? Dug to the bottom and found an identical screw except it was slotted head rather than Phillips, no worries though. Put the router back together and mounted it back in the table. Rather than routing I decided to trim a little closer to the line on the band saw and save the routing for tomorrow. Also vacuumed up a LOT of sawdust that had been missed by my limited dust collection. I'll feel better starting the routing fresh that way.
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