Mike.Mara Posted April 10, 2017 Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 OK... Here we go! This is my first build, although I have been doing woodwork for years so I've got a little bit of experience with the tools and techniques used in luthiery. I've always loved baritone guitars, my love of them probably started with the band Staind although as I later found out, many of the bands I listened to when I was younger used baritones and even some I do now. I always wanted an Ibanez MMM1 because of my love for Staind and it's just a beautiful guitar IMO. But alas, I never did get around to being able to afford one when in production and most of the used ones are pretty beaten up, so I decided to make my own baritone, originally with the intention of an MMM1 clone... But it quickly changed into something that bears no resemblance! The design ended up being something I designed myself, although I'm pretty sure I was heavily influenced by other makers over the years of lusting after sooo many guitars. So I decided to go with an african mahogany back since I had it already for the MMM1, A curly maple top since I had a billet laying around for about 8 years and it needed using, a maple and black walnut 5 piece neck, and a maple fretboard with a dogs paw inlay on the 12th fret. (Because my best friend and beloved member of my family Taz passed away, She was a collie/corgi mix and never failed to make everything better no matter how bad things seemed. Being a collie/corgi mix, she ALWAYS shed her fluff and when I pulled the mahogany blank down from where it was stored, it was literally covered in fur! So I glued the blank up and left some of the fur in the joint so it's just another reminder of her.) Anyways... Enough rambling on... On with the pictures! Part one: The plan... I have a CNC so I decided to design in CAD so I could make templates for this build, I always wanted my first build to be done by hand so I'm not using the CNC for anything but templates and the fretboard. (I did try to make and slot a fretboard by hand, but as it turns out... I'm just not that good with a handsaw.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 Part two: The body! Ready for the bandsaw... The centreline ended up being off... Not sure how. Starting the cutout! Rough-cut done! Template on! Started routing! Finished routing the body back... Marked out cavities. Router thicknessing the top... Notice the water damage, While storing this about 7 years ago my garage roof leaked... It's been drying out ever since in billet form until I cut the top on the bandsaw and jointed by hand... I don't have a thickness planer or jointer, just a router, hand planes and elbow grease... Beautiful figure... Will end up being turquoise, it was going to be purple but after a project for my partner looked sooo beautiful in turquoise, they convinced me that colour was the way to go... The back and top meet!!! And a mistake... I was in a rush to get the top routed before going out with my partner and in-laws... Forgot to check the lock on my router aaaannndd... It slipped. Fortunately it was on the lower hip so I just sanded the body to a slightly different shape there, so crisis avoided... We carry on! Not a bad joint for a guy with no thicknesser or jointer hey! Forstner bit relief for routing... Routed out neck pickup and pocket... Little bit of shaping and this is as far as the body has gotten so far... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Mike.Mara Posted April 10, 2017 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 Part three: The neck! This was a real pain in the... You know what! It was all done with a Stanley No.7 and a bandsaw. (Apart from the headstock angle... That was my No.4.) Neck side: Truss rod slot cut... In hindsight I probably should have moved the nut slot back so it wasn't directly in line with the nut... Next time I'll try to remember that... It looks like that planing was done badly... I thought so too, but it's straight as... Well my straight edge... It just has a really funky grain and figuring to it that makes it look wobbly. Neck rough cut... So close to test fitting... (And yes the body is like me... A little overweight, but I'm working on it ) I got so carried away with the rest I forgot to take pictures, But one more... Where the neck and body met on the first day, sorry about the quality but... It really is starting to look like a guitar now!!! Low lighting makes everything look kinda yellow but hey... It was a long neck making day and the sun had disappeared by the time I got this taken. There's a LOT more to do, more shaping, more routing and every woodworkers favourite past time... Sanding. But this is it so far, Thank you for taking the time to look at this project! Mike. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted April 10, 2017 Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 Hi Mike and a warm welcome! Some impressive woodworking skills on show here . Watching with great interest. I hadn't realised that Staind used baritones. Was it a baritone used on 'It's been a while' ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted April 10, 2017 Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 Likewise, welcome Mike. And like Andy says, this may be your first guitar, but it is obviously not your first day in the wood shop. Good looking build you've got going there. And I like the tribute to your dog. 12 hours ago, Mike.Mara said: never failed to make everything better They do indeed... SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 8 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said: Hi Mike and a warm welcome! Some impressive woodworking skills on show here . Watching with great interest. I hadn't realised that Staind used baritones. Was it a baritone used on 'It's been a while' ? Thank you for the welcome and the complement! There was indeed multiple baritone tracks on 'It's Been A While' as well as standard acoustic. If memory serves, it's Eb for the acoustic and Drop Db on the top five strings with a low Ab on top. (Ab,Db,Ab,Db,Gb,Bb). (As with most songs on Break The Cycle, but it differs on some tracks with some really odd tunings) Mike. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 21 minutes ago, ScottR said: Likewise, welcome Mike. And like Andy says, this may be your first guitar, but it is obviously not your first day in the wood shop. Good looking build you've got going there. And I like the tribute to your dog. They do indeed... SR Thank you, It is indeed not my first day in the shop lol... I think my clothes are more dust than fabric at this point in my life! Taz was an awesome dog, so good natured and loving, she would literally scream and slam into everything with excitement when you got home! That was one of the hardest things to get used to not being there anymore, but I have her paw print tattooed on my hand so she'll always be with me, and 2 years later we're still finding her fur everywhere. (I think she's trying to make sure we never forget, not that we could!) I have multiples of this guitar designed in different scale lengths, I was thinking about calling this "run" (For lack of a better word... And considering it's my first build maybe a tad optimistic) Taz. Mike. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 11, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 Part four... The fretboard... Man this was a pain... I assumed it would be faster but I was in the garage until past midnight after starting about 6PM lol. Part of this was the uber thin bit I was using, I was unsure of how hard I could push it so I stayed VERY conservative at 0.25MM depth of cut and around 150-300MM a minute for the most part. As I was doing the inlay at past midnight and my router is loud I decided to ramp it up to 750MM a minute, I sacrificed a tiny bit of accuracy but the bit coped just fine so next time it'll go faster. The roughing/levelling passes... This took a while as I had a piece of stock about 10MM thick that had to be levelled and thicknessed both sides. The finishing pass/Radius... This went well with only light sanding needed to get rid of the mill marks. (I used a 0.6MM step over per pass.) The finished radius: I decided to go with 12" as I like my Ibanez guitars fretboards, but I'm not a shredder and with the extra scale length I figured an almost flat fretboard would be uncomfortable for me to play but I also didn't want to stray too far from what I'm used to. Unfortunately this was the closest to quarter-sawn I had so It'll have to do. You can barely see the mill marks which was good for me though as I really dislike sanding... Inlay and fret slotting! The inlay took forever... If I recall correctly it was about an hour and 20 minutes! (I was going really slow as it was my first go with a tiny bit and I didn't want to mess it up after all the work to get to this point... I now know I can go alot faster...) The fret slots also took over an hour. The inlay: This was after midnight so I went as fast as I could bare to... Fully expecting to snap a bit and have to do this the next day at a more reasonable time, But to my surprise it took the 750MM a minute extremely well! And after planing the excess off of the back and sanding the inlays free... They were a pain to get free and being so thin and delicate I was sure I'd break one. But I took my time and all went well! The fretboard and neck... Just to see if all lined up well, and it did! No idea what finish to use on the fretboard to stop my finger-grime destroying the pristine maple yet though... Needs to be tough and non-yellowing as I'd like the maple to stay maple-y as long as possible. Any suggestions? Finished inlay! You can see a ever so slight gap in the inlay (Filled with dust and CA glue) due to the loss of accuracy from the extra speed on the CNC... Sawing those slots was scary to say the least after the inlay was in, Not something I want to do again, or at least not in the same way! (I forgot to clean the dust from the slots after sanding the inlay flush and turns out black walnut dust and CA glue make a damned hard mix...) Anyway... Turns out my CNC isn't quite calibrated properly... Instead of 28" (711.20MM) the scale length is 710.00MM or 27.95blahblahblah". I can work with that, 1.2MM isn't enough for me to worry about, the frets are all perfect in that scale. Now to glue it on... (Not sure yet if I'll use standard yellow glue or polyurethane...) Thanks, Mike. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 Sweet. Go with the yellow glue. If your polyurethane glue is like the best seller over here--Gorilla glue --it's pretty useless for building guitars. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 11, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 16 minutes ago, ScottR said: Sweet. Go with the yellow glue. If your polyurethane glue is like the best seller over here--Gorilla glue --it's pretty useless for building guitars. SR Thanks, Just in time too! I was just getting things together to glue up! It's Titebond polyurethane... Seems to do a good job but saying that I wouldn't know about a stressed joint like on the fingerboard. Better play it safe than be sorry huh! The rest is all yellow glue so might as well stick with that, just takes longer to cure. Thanks, Mike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 It won't hurt you to clamp that fretboard up and put away for the night. It sounds like you stayed up way too late working on it last night. Every controlled test I've seen or read about has Gorilla glue coming in dead last for bond strength. I presume Titebond polyurethane would be similar. Titebond I, on the other hand is brilliant stuff. II and III actually come out marginally stronger, but they are water proof and that makes clean up problematic. It wants to stay in the pores and block dyes, and oils which is not so good for finishing. As you probably learned long ago.... SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 11, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 23 minutes ago, ScottR said: It won't hurt you to clamp that fretboard up and put away for the night. It sounds like you stayed up way too late working on it last night. Yeah I should really be patient... It's only an 18 hour difference and I know how this glue works, I'm using Titebond I btw! I would Imagine Titebond polyurethane is better than Gorilla... Maybe only marginally though as I have used the Titebond polyurethane with success, BUT your joints have to be PERFECT or you end up with a thin, weak, bubbly layer which takes little effort to break. Plus the amount of dampening on the second piece required for curing can be a tricky thing to get right... Too much, it cures to fast and is brittle... Too little and it's weak. I've got it down to a pretty decent level, But you're right, the yellow stuff is the right stuff for the job, I don't know what I was thinking. That could've been a bad time... Thanks for the yellow vs. polyurethane reasoning you may very well have stopped me making a huge mistake! Plus on reflection I don't think the polyurethane takes stain/oil very well either... And I may be going for an oiled finish lol. Seriously, thank you! Mike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 The dampening on the second piece is one of the strikes against polyurethane as introducing additional moisture into a neck component is something we don't want to do. some use epoxy on neck components for that reason. I used to do just that, but had an epoxy joint fail once and now go with Titebond for it all. BTW I and others around here have tested The titebond bonds after only a few hours of clamp up and found it plenty strong enough to handle normal woodworking handling. It is not fully cured, but nearly so and joints don't close any tighter by staying under pressure longer, nor do they fail under typical workshop activity. Carry on! SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 11, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 1 hour ago, ScottR said: The dampening on the second piece is one of the strikes against polyurethane as introducing additional moisture into a neck component is something we don't want to do. some use epoxy on neck components for that reason. I used to do just that, but had an epoxy joint fail once and now go with Titebond for it all. BTW I and others around here have tested The titebond bonds after only a few hours of clamp up and found it plenty strong enough to handle normal woodworking handling. It is not fully cured, but nearly so and joints don't close any tighter by staying under pressure longer, nor do they fail under typical workshop activity. Carry on! SR Thanks... I may have messed up anyways, I won't be sure until tomorrow, but my joint was fine under finger pressure, then when clamped suddenly there was a gap, less than a mm and only in one place... Not sure if it's going to be a problem yet but I'm worried it will be and I'll have to start over. I'll test it out tomorrow night after the 24 hours by adusting the truss rod and seeing what happens... Really hope it's not as bad as it seems now since I do have pencil lines which could be making it look bigger. Just not looking forward to having to get the truss rod out if it's bad. (Nor looking forward to doing it all over again.) Thanks, Mike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 12, 2017 Report Share Posted April 12, 2017 Again, I miss threads until they're well into their progression....! +1 about urethane glues. They truly have no place in guitar-making. Their waterproof properties are useless in this context, they're horribly poisonous (and irritating) plus foam up like a dolphin sucking on a handful of Alka-Seltzers. Or the fountain in Hull city centre when you dump a bottle of washing up liquid into it. Not that I would know, at least about the first one. All very by the numbers stuff, fantastic! No jointer or thicknesser, yet you have a nice CNC kicking around. Stylish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 12, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2017 2 minutes ago, Prostheta said: Their waterproof properties are useless in this context, they're horribly poisonous (and irritating) plus foam up like a dolphin sucking on a handful of Alka-Seltzers. Lol... They are annoying but cure super fast and for some of the stuff I do it's the perfect glue. 5 minutes ago, Prostheta said: All very by the numbers stuff, fantastic! No jointer or thicknesser, yet you have a nice CNC kicking around. Stylish. I wouldn't say it was a nice one lol... It was certainly cheaper than a jointer and thicknesser but the amount of work I had to do to make the kit I bought actually useful was insane! The guy did a terrible engineering job! (To put it in context... I replaced most of the aluminium with plywood parts I made by hand to actually make it accurate enough to function as a CNC should.) Thanks for the complement, hopefully it continues to go well! Mike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 12, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2017 OK... Overnight the gap seems to have closed... Or maybe my mind was just making it look bigger, we're talking maybe 0.1mm of gap now. Still not how I wanted it but the joint seems to be OK except for a maybe 0.25mm gap by the first fret but that appears to be my fault, Like I planed an ever so slight chamfer just at that point somehow. (Maybe I pressed down on the front of the No.7 as I ran off the board...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 12, 2017 Report Share Posted April 12, 2017 1 hour ago, Mike.Mara said: Lol... They are annoying but cure super fast and for some of the stuff I do it's the perfect glue. I wouldn't say it was a nice one lol... It was certainly cheaper than a jointer and thicknesser but the amount of work I had to do to make the kit I bought actually useful was insane! The guy did a terrible engineering job! (To put it in context... I replaced most of the aluminium with plywood parts I made by hand to actually make it accurate enough to function as a CNC should.) Thanks for the complement, hopefully it continues to go well! Mike. The best advice I can give is to make that break from urethane glues ASAP. They're good for outdoor furniture and boatbuilding, so unless you're wanting to paddle up the creek and all that....hahaha I love plywood. I really do. In terms of a material for engineering, it's fantastic to work with and produces great results with little effort. Metals are a totally different artform, especially since the glue makes you go blind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 12, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2017 Just now, Prostheta said: The best advice I can give is to make that break from urethane glues ASAP. They're good for outdoor furniture and boatbuilding, so unless you're wanting to paddle up the creek and all that....hahaha I love plywood. I really do. In terms of a material for engineering, it's fantastic to work with and produces great results with little effort. Metals are a totally different artform, especially since the glue makes you go blind. Wait... Say what about what glue and going blind?! Plywood is a great material, Unfortunately it is flexible which can be good or bad depending on your use. I only use Polyurethane on non-structural applications where I don't want to wait over night before I feel confident working it. I know ScottR said it's a non-issue with Titebond I, but I'm a stickler for following the label on bottles. (I don't know what I was thinking when considering using it for the fretboard... Maybe I forgot the truss rod pushes against it, I have no idea, but I wasn't considering it to be structural at that point... Let alone adding moisture to wood I've had drying out in various stages for the best part of a decade). Mike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 12, 2017 Report Share Posted April 12, 2017 Welding. Proper metal glue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 12, 2017 Report Share Posted April 12, 2017 I love plywood for my jigs and other things. I've even made a camera arm out of it. As soon as you add strengthening fillets, plus use glue and screws, it's solid as anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2017 On 12/04/2017 at 6:18 PM, Prostheta said: Welding. Proper metal glue. Ohh OK lol... Thought you meant some scary in-the-bottle stuff. 22 hours ago, Prostheta said: I love plywood for my jigs and other things. I've even made a camera arm out of it. As soon as you add strengthening fillets, plus use glue and screws, it's solid as anything. It seems pretty solid, and usually is especially for jigs! But my gantry plates are 1000MM apart so you can tweak the plywood pretty easily, It's worked out well enough for now though... Just need to convert my mini-mill to CNC so I can make some aluminium parts to replace the plywood. Unfortunately my CNC has eccentric nuts to tighten the wheels to the guides and without cranking them nice and snug they tend to loosen relatively quickly, and since you already know, plywood will crush under relatively low force and that would throw my alignment out if I tightened them to the point they stayed put. I suppose I could always make them again with brass or steel threaded inserts to make it crush-proof... Hmmm... That could work, I may have to scutter off and play with CAD to re-design them. The eccentrics could be an issue but I guess I could always epoxy some brass tubing into the plywood... Mike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 14, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 14, 2017 Got some more body work done today, as well as inspecting the fingerboard join which looks to be fine... Bridge pickup finally routed... My drill press couldn't get all the way in there, but my mini mill as it turns out could so I hogged it out before routing. I've had that acrylic pickup template for about 10 years when I first decided I wanted to build a guitar Glad it's finally being used! Not sure why it's taken me so long to get around to building one... Maybe through fear of messing it up and my usual excuse "But I don't have the tool for that". Either way, I'm glad I waited since my woodworking knowledge and skill back then would not have been up to the task! Control cavity routed... I was going to do the plate/cover recess but my bearing guided bit is too long and I couldn't find any scraps thick enough to allow me to build a thick enough template. (I know it's a bit of a mess in there but I wanted to leave enough material to make the top nice and strong so I couldn't take out all the forstner marks... I drop my guitars alot... ) And now some pictures of a some-what dry assembly just to get an idea of the look... Not really happy that I had to go maple on the fretboard but I'm hoping once the dye job is done It'll make the whole thing a bit more cohesive... It's ALOT of maple. Still alot more work to go, There was a fair bit of tear-out when I thicknessed the top with my router plane/sled thingy. And the body is still a little chunky for my taste at 48MM... It's a fair sized chunk of heavy african mahogany and it would kill my shoulder at the moment. It does have a beautiful ribbon figure to it though, Can't see it to well in the photos but after finishing... Shame it'll be hidden at the back. Mike. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted April 14, 2017 Report Share Posted April 14, 2017 Funny thing I learnt the last year or so is that the same species of various "African Mahoganies" (Sapele, Khaya, Utile) vary in weight dependant on local source. My personal preference is Khaya, and the lighter of that stock. I'm finishing up my wife's SG with that and its turned out to be very moderately weighted. Lovely dry "bonk" (arf cough) given the time the wood has been in an indoor environment too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike.Mara Posted April 14, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 14, 2017 14 minutes ago, Prostheta said: Funny thing I learnt the last year or so is that the same species of various "African Mahoganies" (Sapele, Khaya, Utile) vary in weight dependant on local source. My personal preference is Khaya, and the lighter of that stock. I'm finishing up my wife's SG with that and its turned out to be very moderately weighted. Lovely dry "bonk" (arf cough) given the time the wood has been in an indoor environment too. That's interesting, I know quite a few woods are listed as "African mahogany" when they're just mahogany-like. I never even considered the weights. I'm not entirely sure of the exact species of this wood, it was sold as African mahogany from a luthier supplies shop here in the UK so I would hope it's that but it does bare a striking resemblance to ribbon sapele... I don't mind as it has a nice ring to it and as long as a guitar sounds and plays good I'm not too fussed with what it's made of... Although looks are always helpful! Is the SG nicely weighted/balanced too as in no head dive? The one I used to own was horribly heavy and prone to head-banging the floor if you took your eyes off of it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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