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Testing... guitar in progress


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Sorry to dig this thread up from the dead, but I had a couple questions as I am about to do precisely what you just did.

First, what was your reason for doing the angled headstock as you did, as opposed to a scarf joint?

Second, how did you know what size to make the volute, or did you just make it extra large and sand/carve it to final shape once the laminates were glued?

Third (and final, for the moment anyway), you mentioned a glue press for the next one. What exactly is this, and how might it help: that is to say, what is the failure mode with gluing one layer at a time that would be eliminated with this glue press?

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Sorry to dig this thread up from the dead, but I had a couple questions as I am about to do precisely what you just did.

First, what was your reason for doing the angled headstock as you did, as opposed to a scarf joint?

Second, how did you know what size to make the volute, or did  you just make it extra large and sand/carve it to final shape once the laminates were glued?

Third (and final, for the moment anyway), you mentioned a glue press for the next one. What exactly is this, and how might it help: that is to say, what is the failure mode with gluing one layer at a time that would be eliminated with this glue press?

No, I'm glad you dug it up. I've been meaning to post some progress - just inlaying dots on the fretboard, but still cool.

Anyway, I scarfed the butt end instead of the neck because I thought it would be less noticeable and I didn't want to interrupt the cool tiger grain of the wood which just happened to be heaviest where a neck scarf would be.

Yes, I eyeballed the volute on the large side and carved to final. It's actually not as far up the headstock as my SG and it kind of crowds your hand near the nut, but for my first build I'll take it! B)

Another member gave me the idea of the glue press. When I remember his name I'll let you know. He emailed me some pics which I have at work and I'll post asap. It's basically a 2X6 screwed to a table with some L-brackets. Put down some wax paper, line up all your laminates at once and clamp them face down and against the 2X6. I guess it distributes the clamping pressure evenly across the length of the piece. I did mine one layer at a time because any more than that and they started sliding around on me. I have nothing but time anyway. :D

Edited by toddler68
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I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say you scarfed the butt end. I thought the purpose of a scarf joint was to have the headstock angled, but still have the grain continue through the headstock? Why would you need to do a scarf joint at the butt end?

:D  :D

My wood wasn't long enough or wide enough (I can't believe I just said that B) ) to get 2 full profiles out of it, so I had to overlap them. The headstock angle cut off the bottom of the adjacent profile.So the pieces in red were left over and ended up becoming the butt. :D

I did this for all the laminates. I don't know if that was the best way to do it, but I remember seeing someone else do it in a similar fashion - it seemed to be the least waste of wood. I hope this makes sense. If not, maybe someone else has a better way of explaining it.

woodcut3.jpg

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Beautiful work.

Do you have much woodworking experience?  I'm really impressed with the quality of your carpentry, coupled with a tasty original design - please tell me this isn't your first woodwork, as well as you first guitar!

Wow! Thanks for the compliments. 'Tasty' is perhaps the best compliment I've ever received!

Nope. Not my first woodwork. I have mostly done small projects - TV table, shelves, book cases and things like that and I am a nervous whittler at times. But this is my first guitar. It seems like I work on it in 1 hour increments, after work and in between dinner, wife, kids, etc. I know it's going to take forever, but at least I don't get bored with it.

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  • 4 weeks later...

No new progress but for the sake of chronology, I am reposting this in my original thread:

Here is my progress so far. It's not much, but I'm to the point that I want some opinions about the maple cap.

I routed the electronics cavity.

elec_cutout2.jpg

The cap glued on. It's 1/2 inch thick and I did a shallow transition - like an Ibanez S and left a 3/16 inch natural binding. The problem is that it doesn't seem to show the carve at all. It's not outrageous or anything, but I wondered how I might accentuate it. Any suggestions?

topcarve2.jpg

Top wet

topwet.jpg

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I think the cap looks like some scary guy looking pissed off. Just stare at the middle of the guitar were all the brown is, youll see.

O-Ya I can see that you know I think that's realy cool I love that top and I have never seen one like it before very nice design, it's got that beautiful MEAN look to it keep us posted!! B)

!!METAL MATT!! :D

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@toddler68

how thick did you do the bubinga, maple and padouk laminates??? i want to build a 7 piece neck myself and i'm not sure about the thickness. thanks for your help.

It's actually maple, paduak and walnut. The paduak and walnut were about 1/4 inch thick and the thin maple in between were just under 1/8 inch. I'd probably go a little thinner on the walnut next time, just to add a little more interest.

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do you know about a finish yet? definitely something transpeant , but what color, or are you going with an oil finish? hmmmmm, so many choices and it's not even mine, its pretty just thinking about all the possibilities **goes off mumbling something about red bursts and dyes**

Yeah, I discussed this on another thread. I think I'm going with something in the amber/orange range - possibly a light burst. I was thinking about tung oil, but now I'm leaning towards shellac. I've also seen something called urethane oil that Woodcraft sells. Looks interesting. Here's the link: Urethane oil

Here's also an example of the look I'm after: sunburst300.jpg

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I got a great start on my top carving this week. Thanks to Gigabyte for the orbital sander recommendation. It worked quite well and only took about an hour.

Because I already tried to carve by hand, I didn't have a square edge to route a rebate around the perimeter of the guitar. So, I had to cob together a fixture to hold my router above the table and run the guitar under it (carefully of course).

You can probably see a couple dings where I wasn't so careful. I decided to go to sleep soon thereafter to avoid any more 'mistakes'.

Here's the fixture:

router1.jpg

Closeup of the fixture and the rebate:

router2.jpg

Resulting partial rebate:

rebate1.jpg

After about an hour with 100 grit on the random orbit:

carve2.jpg

carve1.jpg

I am quite pleased! :D

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