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New build, makin' it up as I go....


ScottR

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6 hours ago, Norris said:

A chap at my class the other night said something along the lines of: the wood contains a guitar, all you've got to do is sand its way out to freedom :)

 

5 hours ago, Prostheta said:

I convince wood into the finished item through coercion.

I prefer the bludgeoning the little devil out of its hiding place with a blunt chisel and a big mallet...

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Maybe they don't do it on purpose, but there are some trees....some pieces of wood that you can look at and see the end product in it staring back out at you. Did you not look at that birch burl and see the gear shift knob in it? 

Or maybe not. Maybe you saw a nice salad bowl in there and said "not so fast you silly chunk of wood--you're going to be a gear shift knob and you're damn well going to like it!<_<

SR

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The fretboard is ready to glue up. I used four finishing nails outside the live area for locators.

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Trimmed them below the surface level of the fretboard and rounded the ends a bit. I used some wax (for seating toilets) inside the trussrod channel to stop rattles and lubricate threads and seal the channel away from glue and lastly to coat the top of the rod so the tape doesn't stick to it.

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I cover the channel and rod with super thin tape and trim it close to the channel. I wiped up excess wax with alcohol.

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And this was inevitable.

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SR

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Time to take the headstock plate out of the clamps and prepare it for gluing up.

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The off-cut from the headstock angle is the same angle as the headstock when flipped around.

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It can be used to cut the proper angle on the edge of the headstock plate, which I then use as a backstop for the nut.

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And again the finishing nails for locators.

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SR

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I dug the bridge out to determine if I needed any neck angle. This will be my first build with no angle, as it turns out.

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Have any of you ever used one of these Babicz bridges?

That off-cut came into play again to get my headstock surface square to the drill press. I'm going to recess the tuner washers this time.......and it may well come back to bite me on the ass. We'll see.

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I finally got to cut the neck out of that heavy block of jatoba I made. That actually finally felt like progress.:)

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I used the handy dandy plane to square up the sides and tenon. It's amazing how well that works. And finally I get to do some really fun stuff:

Carve the headstock! Just in time to stop for this weekend and come inside....

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SR

 

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2 hours ago, psikoT said:

If you have a chance you could get a shot of your gouges, I'd love to see them more in detail. I mean, next time you use them.

Love specially the flat surface, excellent job.

Of, course, I'll put up some shots of the ones I use the most this weekend. Interesting that you like the flat surface best Getting that to the correct uniform thickness is probably biggest part of that carve.

SR

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1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

My oh my....stunning carving....even more stunning result.  That is very impressive... :thumb:

Thanks Andy. There is still some tweaking to be done, but most of it will wait till the neck carve is done so it all blends in together smoothly.

SR

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I got the fretboard dotted, spotted and radiused. And I worked up till i had the worst lighting conditions possible....each day.

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Then I installed frets. That bar of aluminum was suggested in my mandolin book and it makes hammering in frets much easier and neater.

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SR

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