Round 2: Etna And Flying V

[Prostheta]

It's a weird discipline, where you get more excited the less things appear to fit within your conceptual model. Thankfully you managed to temper that off with the relatively (arf) straightforward guitar building habit ;-)

[pan_kara]

it does keep me (relatively) sane, actually

Edited October 28, 2013 by pan_kara

[Prostheta]

That is until you start conversing with yourself on the side of your workpiece. It has to be said that this is probably the polar (arf) opposite to the kind of work that goes on where you work.

Nice idea about the fingerboard locating holes. Never seen that specific way of doing it before. Nice.

Hey, next time my wife and I are in France we might have to try and coincide it with a CERN open visit day and say hello. Please tell me you have an excellent whisky bar there.

[pan_kara]

That is until you start conversing with yourself on the side of your workpiece. It has to be said that this is probably the polar (arf) opposite to the kind of work that goes on where you work.

you haven't seen the discussions that people have with others (or themselves) in comment sections in the code that we write

Nice idea about the fingerboard locating holes. Never seen that specific way of doing it before. Nice.

Thanks. I'm somehow not convinced by the usual way of drilling through the fret slots. Though I might need to do that sometime but on these builds I was lucky enough that I had room to use this method of mine.

Hey, next time my wife and I are in France we might have to try and coincide it with a CERN open visit day and say hello. Please tell me you have an excellent whisky bar there.

Drop me a line any time you're near Geneva. I'm an official guide, I can show you around. No need to try to hit any special open days or anything

[Prostheta]

Sweet! Sounds great. I don't think it will be in the very near future however as we are currently buckling down with various very important work projects. You'll understand why very soon I think.

On the subject of pinning through fret slots, I had an issue with this exact same issue. Clamping pressure caused the pins to lean over because they don't have sufficient retaining power to prevent the board skating. Thinking of making a specific board clamping jig thanks to this screwup.

[pan_kara]

Well this was my fingerboard glue-up number 5 or 6 so I have very little experience.. I'm trying to find a method that works for me. On another neck I was doing now I had the heel already routed to size so I used pipe clamps on both sides and that kept the neck from slipping sideways at the heel.. I clamped a wood block to the headstock to limit forward movement. And this was enough to get the fingerboard where I wanted.

I think in the future I'll be trying to always have ~2 cm of wood left over past the heel so I can do the above trick.

About CERN - the time to visit is before now and early 2015. After that the LHC starts up again and there's no more going underground.

Anyway - progress has been slow lately, for Etna I'm a bit stuck on the body since I want to test an idea I have on scrap and this involves the whole front of the guitar, for the neck I'm ordering inlay dots for fingerboard work is on hold. The flying V is slowly advancing, I did the 12th fret inlay - this is my current design:

first take the template and drill the 4, 5 and 7mm holes

superglue, insert dots (white mother of pearl in this case), wait, sand flat

[pan_kara]

Moving on. The neck for Etna:

routed the headstock to template:

new zealand paua dots

installed

Now I have to prepare the fretboard and slots on both guitars and I can put the frets in. The V in fact is almost ready, the board is already oiled and polished, I just need to chamfer the fret slots. On Etna I'll be starting with the radius.

[ScottR]

I'm a fan of that fret marker pattern you've got there. It would make a nice signature design element for you.

SR

[pan_kara]

Thanks, Scott. That was my plan in fact, at least until I come up with something different. Two guitars with it are already in the wild:

 

a cheap RG refinish with a veneer and a fretboard swap that I did for a friend:

 

 

and one I build for another friend as a first (in parallel with the nylon string)

 

[pan_kara]

In the time it takes me between slotting a fretboard and putting frets in some people build two guitars.. but here's anyway my trickle update. Drilled and routed pickup cavities for the V

I always make the same mistake when routing headstocks and I go too fast (or in the wrong direction).

Result:

Thankfully I ripped off a big piece that was easy to find - and to glue back on. After the fix:

[pan_kara]

The Etna neck is about to get frets in, radiused to 14' and with several coats of Danish Oil, here's the start of the oiling and side dots:

I did the tuner holes for both guitars, here's pics from the V. It so happen that I read RAD's post about the StewMac tuner hole reamer when I was about to place an order for some stuff to I decided to get the thing and I absolutely love it. So for now my process is:

start with 2mm holes that I have drilled already in the headstock shape mdf templates I used for routing the shapes - these are already visible in the earlier photos.

Then I follow up with an 8mm brad-point bit centered on the hole, BUT with a jig that keeps the tuners in line with the headstock edge:

And finally the stewmac tool from the back self-piloting on the 8mm hole and creating the final shape from the back:

Tuners and lock nut test fit:

[pan_kara]

Reading my own messages in wood I remembered to drill the wiring channels and test fit the pickups - the choice here will be the Bumblefoot combo of the ToneZone and the Chopper.

The frets are being pressed in - what a joy this is over the hammer... and the neighbor downstairs didn't come over to complain about the noise this time

[pan_kara]

Some wood porn for a change - Madinter are now selling sets of 4 B&W ebony fingerboards. I couldn't resist and I ordered one. This stuff just looks stunning:

[pan_kara]

I routed the neck pocket for Etna and chiseled out the corners. After test fitting the neck I could double-check the bridge location and start drilling the holes. Using the supplied template from Schaller for that

I tried this already on another body that I'll be using to compare the "sound" of the Hannes against another cheapo bridge. The fact that you use a metal block for the string anchor instead of single ferrules makes drilling the string thru holes more forgiving than usual.

I pressed the frets in, this time it didn't go so well.. I messed up with the slot depth for some reason and some frets didnt go all the way in, I had to take them out and deepen the slots.

I got the Stewmac fret slot cleaning "hook", I used to use the fretting saw to clean slots but somehow I never managed to do a fretboard without the saw jumping out of the slot at least once and scratching a polished and oiled fingerboard... well this time I learned that the hook in turn - while I can do a better job of keeping it in the slots - is more narrow than the slots, so it cleans the bottom ok, but not the sides. As a concequence, all the layers of oil I've been putting on have made the slots a bit too narrow and the frets were hard to get in there...

So in the end I had to anyway go over the board with the saw. I masked each slot with tape in case my saw slipped again and this time managed to get it right. The whole thing took me 2 hours or so instead of the expected 15 minutes.. oh well. I have to re-thing my fretboard making process a bit I guess.

Here she is with the frets in:

I need to drill the holes for the bridge and the neck screws and I'll be able to do a quick test with strings on. I did one on the V already - since the wood around the bridge will disappear I just screwed down a temporary bridge with 2 screws and made sure all the alignment is ok:

I began the neck and neck-headstock transition shaping

And glued on the wings - first one:

and the second one:

Now its time for the hand saw

[willliam_q]

Looks great so far! I would not like to be the man cutting that with a handsaw. If you allowed 15 mins for fretting I think I'd be allowing a full day for cutting the body by hand!

Just on a side note. Did you get any chipping when lifting the frets out again? I've the same issue where a few slots aren't deep enough. I'm afraid to pull the frets as when I was installing them my ebony fret board was starting to chip in some places. The frets are currently holding any chips down so they are invisible. When prepping the fretboard for my frets I beveled the edges with the intention of making the frets easier to lift out.

[pan_kara]

Thanks, man! The handsaw.. I'm using it on the V build since its mostly straight lines and I like the idea of using a tool having seemingly nothing to do with guitar building I'll see how it goes, I'm planning to make the two outer rough cuts with it.

The frets - I got almost no chipping in the bloodwood, I could see some wood lift slightly from the frets coming out, but this was basically limited to the region under the fret so looks like I was lucky - and careful, using tape and flush-ground pliers. Since the frets were not fully seated I could relatively easily get the pliers under the fret and work it upwards.

After the frets are back in I'm unable to find any trace of this in the fingerboard.

[willliam_q]

Ok thanks. Makes sense that if not fully seated they should lift out easy enough. I will have to give this a try later in the week.

[Mr Natural]

I too have done the fret slot not deep enough thing- all it takes is one time and you never do it again- good learning lesson.

Great job so far man- keep up the good work.

[ScottR]

After test fitting the neck I could double-check the bridge location and start drilling the holes. Using the supplied template from Schaller for that

pan_kara, below is a comment I lifted from my thread re- the Schaller template. There are some aspects of that bridge and template that need to be carefully considered prior to drilling your mounting holes......

The other thing I noticed is the alignment template in relation to the scale. It has you locating the high E saddle to the scale line with it pretty much in the middle of it's adjustment. The bridge itself is pre-angled to an angle similar to the way you'd set up a TOM. This lengthens the scale for each lower string and I found I needed to shorten the scale for each of them for intonation. Setting up in the middle of the travel effective reduced the amount of useable travel by half, because of the angle. The adjustment screw is not all that long, so for my lowest three strings, the saddles only have a couple of threads of screw holding them to the bridge. The screws really need to be longer. They are small and very fine threaded. I have already found you cannot just walk into even a very good hardware store and expect to find a longer bolt with the same threads.

As always, YMMV, but it's always best to go into something with your eyes wide open.

SR

[pan_kara]

I even got the "fret slot depth gauge" but I couldn't get it to fit in the slots cause they were too tight (from the hook being too narrow)... well after I realized on the first few frets whats happening and used the saw to widen the slots back to nominal width I did check all the remaining slots with a piece of fretwire with the tang ground flat before I pressed the frets in... so I guess lesson learned.

I still don't know what I'll do with a bound fretboard that I'll be fretting soon, the problem will be the same there. I'll try to get in there with my fretting saw I guess, or I'll cut a piece off and make a poor-man's "stewmac refret saw"

Scott - thanks for this. I remember reading this in your build thread and thinking to myself "oh good now I need to remember about this in my Hannes installation"... and what? I forgot. You made it just in time, I just punched the holes yesterday but didnt drill them yet so I'll take a clook at this and maybe bring the bridge forward by a mm or two. Thanks again!

[pan_kara]

It only took 20 or 30 minutes yesterday evening. Straight lines are cool

[RestorationAD]

That is going to be a lot of work to clean up.

I love Vs and like the wood combos you used. Also the great thing is you have enough wood left to build a second V.

[pan_kara]

I was thinking many shallow passes on the router.. unless I handplane it closer to shape first. I anyway need to clean up the front and back since the wings went in at a slight angle.

As for the wood left over.. I realized some time ago that the walnut cut-offs should be good for another V thanks to how wide the central piece is and I love that. I should even be able to glue them along the lines that I was cutting now, making the grain follow the V pattern. I have another ovangkol through neck blank, without the wenge center strip - I plan to do a bloodwood strip and bloodwood fingerboard... There will be a thread next year for sure.

[demonx]

Looking great, classy timber choices.

[pan_kara]

thanks demonx!

back after Christmas holidays - as there was indeed a lot of wood to remove on the V still, I did it like this. First routed a channel from the front in several shallow passes:

then took some wood off with my jigsaw, finally went around it from the back with a long bottom-bearing bit. I'll have to figure out something better next time, maybe more shallow passes from the front.. and I think I'll leave the fingerboard gluing for later on my next neck-thru builds .. dunno yet. I might just make another template with a cutout for the fingerboard.

Anyway, the result:

I got a chamfering bit but I'll probably end up using the handplane here .. waiting for the guy that I'm building this for to CNC the outline of the bridge for me so that I can make routing templates (the one I tried to do myself didn't satisfy me). So it'll be the neck carve, body chamfering, control cavity etc in the meantime

Etna is moving along slowly, I'm still trying out some ideas I have for the front, meanwhile I shifted the bridge holes by 2mm or so following Scott's advice (thanks!), drilled all the neck attachment holes (except the neck ferrule recesses, I realized I don't have a 12mm bit on me) and here's an outer-string test:

from which I learned that I need to dial in some neck angle into the neck pocket, the action is stupidly high with the saddles all the way down at the moment.