Tailcutter 7 string RG

[Neven]

I left it to dry well for a day or so, and then i cleaned it using router and sanding paper.

Here are some pics...

[Prostheta]

Well I'm really sick right now so hey! Your marking up is awesome. One of my favourite things to do. 

[Neven]

And the last post for today...

I started staining wit a mixture of black and a bit of cyan, and washed that away with a rag soaked in homemade alcohol brew

I don't use guitar building dyes, instead I bought a few bottles of Epson printer refill inks. I figured if it stayes on paper, which is made of wood, it will stain the wood itself. And it works quite well.

 

I then added more of cyan, and also did a slight burst

 

And when everything was dry, I soaked a rag in 2K poly (matte) and wiped it on the front, to seal everything, so I can continue to work on the guitar. The darker part on the butt is my reflection in wet lacquer.

 

Here's mockup photo

 

And also one photo of the cleaned edge. Body edge and tha back is not yet going to be lacquered, I still have to do some work on it.

The plan is to leave it natural (if nothing else goes wrong). I'd like to do glossy front and thin satin back/sides, without any grainfilling, but will see how it wil all go from here. 

[Neven]

15 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Well I'm really sick right now so hey! Your marking up is awesome. One of my favourite things to do. 

I don't mind getting sick once in a while

I get to sleep on the couch, away from my wife and my kid, so it usually means a lot of Playstation4 and watching tv shows I usually don't have time for. I watched third season of the Vikings and started Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain on my PS4, so adding that to guitar building in my spare time, I'm quite happy with how Year 2016 started. I feel like i felt 15-20 years ago, so I guess all is well

 

[ScottR]

That veneer top has a very unique look to it.....very organic or something. It is wood after all so that is not astonishing I suppose, but it makes me think of an old tree trunk you happen upon during a walk through an ancient forest. Very cool!

SR

[Muzz]

All looking sensational

[Andyjr1515]

I love the colour.  I've seen printer ink used once before - it is surprisingly effective 

[Neven]

Where were we...?

I didn't post updates in a while, but I wasn't lazy. I waited until I had something to show, didn't bother to post small steps after each occasion.

So, I started the back contour... I'm still gonna make it a bit larger.

 

I started making neck profile. I'm not sure why i don't see more people use this method, because I find it quickest and easiest to get consistent profile. Basically, i take most of the wood away with router on a thicknessing jig, using a 45 degree bit, ending with a profile like this:

 

Then I shim the neck under the nut end, with a 2-3mm shim, and take off the thickness to roughly 21-22 mm at the first fret, and 23-24mm around 17th fret. Picture missing here, but I believe you can visualise it

Then I take the rest off using sharp rasps ant finishing on a belt sander.

Roughly sanded neck looks like this (also showing inserts for neck bolts here)

 

Then I installed frets, cut them to rough size first, pressed them in using my corian radiusing block and a clamp. Again missing mid-process pics here, I just shoot photos here and there to send updates to the next owner, sorry...

I just ground the frets on a stationary disc sander, it allows a lot of control and it takes just 1-2 minutes to ground them to the wood nicely... then I do the bevel freehanded on a belt sander, and then quickly soften the ends up with a 500grit sanding sponge.

Of course there is a lot of sanding and touch-ups left to do, but this is my method to quickly come close to the finish.

 

Here's also headstock shot, with drilled tuner holes. I'll have to repair the stain a bit after I fine sand the edges...

 

And finally, here's a pickguard I came up with...

Since P90 cavities ended up slightly larger than goran likes, and especially because he decided to take off the p90 covers, we had to make a pickguard to make the gaps little less eye-catching. Don't have a mockup shot at the moment, but here's the design:

 

We still might end up doing something about the p90's, because they have a hairline crack in plastic between the poles.

I'm thing about thin wooden bobbin toppers, or something like that. We'll see..

[Neven]

Here's also another project I've been working on at the same time.

Obviously, it is highly influenced by Mayones regius, but still I have changed enough details to make it different.

The biggest diferences are: bolt on instead of neck thru, no bindings, different top shape, different electronics cavity, and so on.

But the outlines are there, and i tried to make the back contours as similar as I could, keeping in mind that I never have seen one in person, and that countours are hard to duplicate by just looking at the photos on internet.

Here are my drawings

 

I have Ash stock enough for 10 bodies maybe, so it was an obvios choice. I picked two blanks that would look nice on the back, and glued them together, and cut to shape afterwards. Front side ain't so pretty, but it will be covered with a top, so it doesn't matter really..

 

I had some 12mm thick bookmatched flame maple for top, 

 

Centerlines got nicely lined up at the neck end, but sadly got a bit off a the rear while clamping.

 

And here's back with rounded edges

[Neven]

Ok, next we have a neck blank made of wenge and maple strips.

I 've cut a scarf joint, and glued wenge headstock with a 6mm maple in between for a visual contrast

 

I used maple top leftovers to make a headstock cap

 

Then I thinned the headstock back to 15mm, and drilled holes for tuners i'm quite happy with how the headstock back grain looks, because I glued ears on both sides. Grain matched quite nicely..

 

[Neven]

Again, missing a pic of neck pocket routing setup.

But, I've got a nice tight fit. I drilled the holes through neck and body, for neck bolts and inserts

 

And finally, I drilled most of electronics cavity using forstner bit on a pillar drill, and I carved the back using rasps and sandpaper.

I left spare ferrules and bolts in the holes, so I dont cut to deep while rasping. I tried to get them flush with the carve.

Before I started doing that, I have to route a few ferrules deeper (various depths)

 

[Prostheta]

Always good having you back! Nothing like patience with your builds, eh? 

[Neven]

Hey guys!

Sorry for such a long break from posting here; I'm so busy at my daily job and I've been working for weekends and almost every holiday since January, so I didn't have much spare time. But the time I had, I rather spent working on guitars then siting at computer.

Not much progress photos to share, but I have better ones - finished guitars

I'll start with my favorite ever, my Regius...

[Neven]

[Neven]

The blue RG on the last photo is the one I made a new neck for...

Finally I have finished it, but I'm still deciding should I refinish it. Maple top is so nicely figured, but the finish got darker and the flame is showing ok on daylight, but when inside, it so dark it almost doesn't show... I'm thinking about lighter shade of blue.

Here are some photos.

 

 

 

[Neven]

[Neven]

And here is the one I made for my friend Goran. It still needs sime fine adjustments, wiring, and cavity covers, but here it is put together for a tryout

You'll probably notice I've put different veneer on the body and headstock, and a different color scheme. I would like it better if we did a burst on the sides, because I had a few spots where stain got sunk deep in the endgrain, but Goran didn't mind it, so we left it like this.

[psikoT]

Wow... they look fantastic! Love the telecaster and the mayoness ones... great job!

[ScottR]

Fascinating pickup configuration on the tele; how have got that switched?

I'm betting it sounds amazing.

SR

[Prostheta]

No worries man. Whenever you check in, you always have something great to show! 

I love the way that Tele is totally oddball. I really want to know how it sounds too.

[Neven]

Well, the Tele is not wired yet, we're waiting for both of us to have the same day off from work, to do some adjustments and wiring.

The basic idea was to have P90s as an independent system, classic LP wiring scheme, except the bridge pickup is moved more towards neck to make place for bridge humbucker, which is wired directly to output jack, no pots or whatever (but we might use one volume for it though, we'll see). Switching between the two circuits will be selected using mini switch, and the big 3way toggle is for the P90s.

It looks simple but building this one was really a challenge, and even though I prepared myself with all kinds of drawings and blueprints, it still gave me a lot of hard times, and I had to do so much tweaking on the way. That's why there were changes of veneers, colors etc. That's why there was veneer in the first place. But it all ended ok, I guess. It is (sort of) a prototype after all, and time will tell if we got it right or not. There's always an option to start a new one

 

[Andyjr1515]

These all look great 

I like the dark top / light back and sides look.  I think it works particularly well with the purple/blue one and the tele-style model

[Neven]

Hey guys,

been a while since my last update...

Been really busy with my regular job, some work at home etc, but I didn't forget to make a mess at my workshop

I started a few builds at a time, so they are all in different stages now, I switch between builds when I get bored, to keep interest in building. I also gave some attention to some older builds and brought them near completion. Altogether, I did a lot of work while I wasn't updating...

I was lazy only at documenting my builds, so my topic still cannot really help as a tutorial to anything, but I still believe a few of you might like to see some photos.

I'll begin with the one I started building last, and finished first, really quickly (if I may say so myself, considering my builds usually go on for few years - but hey, no one's waiting for them anyway).

It is based on a familiar design, but it wouldn't be me if I didn't change some specs to my appeal...

So, I'll call it a LesPaul, even though purist would probably hang me for that.

I did it as a 25,5" scale, 24 frets, a lot gentler curvature of the top, wider nut, laminated and bolted on neck, scarf joint, and so on...

 

I got a board (for at least 4 bodies) of mahogany from my friend after his dad passed, the board was laying in his workshop for some 30 years at least.

I cut a 1 piece for the body, and weight relieved it, and then glued 2 piece bookmatched maple top with some really shy flames.

 

 

 

 

Then, of course, missed taking photos for a while

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2017 by Neven

[Neven]

You can probably notice all the differences made, so I guess I don't have to point them out more.

But if anyone likes to discuss anything or have any questions, I'll be happy to answer.

 

 

Here it is prior to finishing

 

 

 

And for finishing, I masked off natural maple top as a binding, dyed the top with a rag, and shot layers of matte 2K poly until I had a nice flat finsih with closed pores on mahogany. With sanding between layers, of course.

First I put in it some v7/V8 humbuckers with plastic covers, but soon acquired EMGs 60/85. I still plan to change knobs (those speed knobs are really sticking high from the body) and plastic swith plate (to cream); and also have to relocate the high e tuner 2mm closer to the edge (accidentaly hit the back button when drawing tuner locations in CorelDraw, so my tuner hole moved, and I didn't notice it until something seemed off when I was mounting tuners).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Neven]

And here's one of my older builds, I've refinished this one countless times, made a new neck for it last year...

Also my build from scratch, sapele body/maple & sapele neck/wenge fingerboard; EMG 707s, 26,5'' scale...

Always loved JPM Ibby, so after not knowing anymore how to finish this one, it just appeared to me one day - so here it is.

Build pics got lost somewhere these years