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The Fool Guy's First


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Great work so far. You should be very proud.

I'd like you to know you are doing WAY better than I did on my first build and I'm sure many others will say the same goes for them also!

Every guitar you build you'll get better and better leaning from your mistakes and improving techniques etc - you're starting off strong so there'll be some wicked instruments in your future!

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  • 10 months later...

Well, it's been a while...

Life's been getting in the way of my guitar building this year, but most of the jobs are now finished so I can finally get back to it. Have this build and my tele build which I plan to finish this year, as well as making a start on a few more...

Managed to find a few minutes to get a little done this weekend.

Put my Axminster plug cutters to work for the first time to fix the bodges with the tuner and neck insert holes

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The plug cutters worked really well so that's a relief :)

Will invest in a flushcut saw to get these trimmed off and will re-drill them soon. Will have to think about how to keep the neck steady when drilling as it's alreeady radiused and fretted

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Original plan is for a deep red, similar to Gibson's 'wine red'. The stains I have are not the best tho so will have to play around with that one.

Neat trick I learned for "stains".... oil paints make AMAZING coloring for wood. I learned it from a guy that builds violins up here, and its cheap too ;)

You just take some oil paint, rub it in with your hand, and let it sit for a moment, then wipe it off. Its completely translucent, similar to alcohol and water based dyes.

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Artist's oil paints do work just like oil based stains and are fairly similar in makeup.....I've used some that way myself. If I remember correctly, artist's oils colors use linseed oil as the base which is also part of the makeup of Tru-oil so they should be compatable. Like always test first. Bear in mind that the non-polimerized linseed oil in the paint takes about a week to cure, so you're going to need to wait a bit between the stain and the clear or you colors may rewet and run.

SR

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  • 3 weeks later...

Got a bit more done on this one. The rogue tuner hole has been plugged and re-drilled, as have the holes for the neck inserts.

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Put the inserts in, a bit messy but should do the trick. Will have to practice this before doing it again.

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I decided to use my dremel to rout the switch channel, not the best idea, slipped and made a rather messy channel :-[. Will have to find a way to tidy this up. Probably glue a chip in or sawdust.

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Back when I shaped the end of the fretboard I cut into the headstock a little so it's slightly thinner right by the fretboard. Am thinking to thin out the rest of the headstock and add two veneers, maple with wenge underneath, and either cut the bottom of the headstock at an angle or carve it to show off the wenge. I picked up a couple of sample veneers which are large enough but are only 0.6mm thick, not sure if this will be thick enough for what I have in mind. :-\

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Had Friday off work so with kids at school and wife at work I finally managed to spend some time with this one.

Finally got the ferrules in for the neck bolts. One of the holes needs deepening a little.

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Neck's on!

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Positioning the bridge.

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Action shot...

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Had to adjust the tremolo rout as it was stopping the bridge from sitting on its posts properly.

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Might need to increase the depth of the tremolo route, not sure how thick the cavity covers will be yet.

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Bridge. Mmmmmm... Shiny.

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There's a cock-up. You can see the bottom of the tremolo rout. I'll never see it while playing and this is supposed to be a practice build, so I don't think I'll bother fixing it.

I eased the round over a bit with a file and sandpaper, added a very slight cutaway where the guitar sits on your leg, but you can't really see it in this photo.

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Need to rout recesses for the cavity covers, fix the switch channel, and the neck pocket needs deepening by a mm or 2. Then the body is ready for finish sanding :)

Will do some finish testing during the week if I get time, although natural wood is growing on me.

The bridge is quite large and I'd originally planned on using chrome pickup rings, but with chrome pickup covers it might be a bit too much chrome, so may have to rethink that.

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There's a cock-up. You can see the bottom of the tremolo rout. I'll never see it while playing and this is supposed to be a practice build, so I don't think I'll bother fixing it.

You should totally fix that cavity so that you don't have a gap under the bridge. Your guitar is looking great so it's worth spending a little bit of time on it. With that grain the fix will be nearly invisible. Good luck with it :)

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Got a little bit more done this weekend.

Routed the recesses for the control and tremeloo cavity covers. Made templates out of plastic for the control recess so had to prop them up so as not to cut too deep, worked fine though...

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Did the tremelo rout with a straight edge rather than a template, again worked fine.

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That's the good bit out of the way.

Made an attempt at repairing the bodges on the switch channel and tremelo rout...

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Well, it worked but it looks **** basically (no photos yet, will take some tonight). There's a very clear dark line at the glue join for the tremelo rout, which may or may not look worse than having the hole there. The bit I glued in for the switch channel looked ok when I stuck it in but after bringing it down flush the grain was in the other direction :(

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No more work done on this yet, but I did put it together for a quick mock-up.

Too much chrome?

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Also tried it with black pickup mounts...

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...which I think looks better...

Machine heads still not perfect but much better than it was...

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Decided on a different option. Have just ordered a 5mm wenge headstock veneer, which should be big enough to make two pickup mounts and a cover for the f**ked switch channel. Just have to try not to break it cutting the pickup mounts

Also have a couple of waterslide decals on their way.

Was originally going to call them Firewood Guitars, even had a cool(ish) logo but have since discovered that there is already a Firewood Guitars so I guess I was a bit late on that one...

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Actually managed to find an hour or so to get a the covers and pickup rings sorted.

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Covers in place...

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These are just put in place. They're still a little bit oversized and need to be sanded down to fit.

Pickup rings didn't go so well...

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Unfortunately, they both broke when I was sawing out the middle. The wenge is only 3 or 4mm thick so I kind of expected this would happen. Luckily I have one more piece of wenge, so cut it in half and laminated it with the grain going in opposite directions. Should just about be big enough for two rings if I'm carefull.

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Will have to wait until next weekend to get them cut out.

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