Prostheta Posted October 18, 2017 Report Share Posted October 18, 2017 That's a nicer headstock design than the Wolfgang. In my opinion, the Wolfgang shape looks as though it is desperately trying to look different and unique. It just looks poor. This turns it into something else entirely. Hats off! Or hat, since you don't wear more than one at once. I don't have a hat on. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted October 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 It will all be slimmed a touch at the nut end, but this is broadly how it looks prior to finish-shaping: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 Your Camphor burl looks quite different to the stuff I had a few years back. Same "look" but different colouration.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 37 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said: It will all be slimmed a touch at the nut end, but this is broadly how it looks prior to finish-shaping: Mmmmmm, that looks good enough to eat. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoltar Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 That's looking fantastic Andy , you've really got the best out of that burl. Don't want to divert any attention from Andy's cool guitar, but I'd love to see how that Camphor ended up, Prostheta. Looks like gold filigree! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted October 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 3 hours ago, Prostheta said: Your Camphor burl looks quite different to the stuff I had a few years back. Same "look" but different colouration.... I think yours is Camphor camphor, @Prostheta , like that I used on my single cut bass build: The new build is Camphor Laurel - I'm pretty sure the 'camphor' bit is simply that it smells a little bit like proper camphor. Of course, I may well be talking out of my a**e Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted October 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 2 hours ago, Zoltar said: Don't want to divert any attention from Andy's cool guitar, but I'd love to see how that Camphor ended up, Prostheta. Looks like gold filigree! Divert away I'd like to see that too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted October 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 Neck carve is pretty much finished. Bit of a tweak to do on the volute, but I reckon it's time to start fretting.... Here's how it's ended up: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted October 21, 2017 Report Share Posted October 21, 2017 You're getting better and better with every build, Andy. It's great seeing how you're comfortable with the work and improving at a steady rate. Keep it up! In fact, I'll see what I can do to encourage that.... How's the balance with that ginormous swimming pool rout? I've never done them that big myself but visually it feels "tippy in the lap" if that makes sense? Without the chambering in the top half, I imagine that such a rout would feel weird for playing sat down. Factoring all the chambering in, I bet that'll be a reactive and snappy-sounding lil' fiddle! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted October 21, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2017 4 hours ago, Prostheta said: You're getting better and better with every build, Andy. It's great seeing how you're comfortable with the work and improving at a steady rate. Keep it up! In fact, I'll see what I can do to encourage that.... How's the balance with that ginormous swimming pool rout? I've never done them that big myself but visually it feels "tippy in the lap" if that makes sense? Without the chambering in the top half, I imagine that such a rout would feel weird for playing sat down. Factoring all the chambering in, I bet that'll be a reactive and snappy-sounding lil' fiddle! Thanks for your encouraging words, Carl Like aways, there are many 'oh...whoops' moments along the way (just had one, in fact) but, so far, none that are irretrievable Balance SHOULD be OK. Certainly on the strap it will be fine because the top button is decently far forward. On the lap is a bit of an unknown but I think it should be OK. Once I've drilled the tuner holes and done a dry-fit I'll have a better idea. If it's rubbish, I can always change my name, leave the country and take up crochet.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted October 21, 2017 Report Share Posted October 21, 2017 Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted November 1, 2017 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2017 Well, the retrievable 'oops' moment I referred to above was to do with the figured ebony. Probably because of the very grain orientation that is producing the figuring, it is VERY brittle. I quite often use ebony and this is most definitely the most brittle I've used to date. Anyway, not really thinking, I used my usual tools and the usual way and 'ping' - off went a piece of the edge of the fretboard. No problem, I thought - haven't finished finalising the width so I'll just lose that in the final sanding...and then I went a tad too far Cutting a long story short, I fretted it up using spheroidal fret ends to maximise the usable width: But I wasn't happy with it I fitted some trial strings just to make sure I wasn't happy with it And I really wasn't happy with it. Lined up BEAUTIFULLY, but you know those annoying guitars where you lose the top E over the side of the fretboard? Luckily, the final shaping of the neck profile hadn't been completed and the fretboard was still relatively vertical-sided. So - awkward with a through neck but not impossible - I decided to bind the fretboard to give me that extra width. So all those frets had to come out Here it is with the binding gluing up: And now 14 of the 22 frets are back in (it's a slow job because I'm securing them with a tiny bead of titebond and ensuring that sets before moving onto the next. You can see the wenge binding here: ...and in the meantime, I sorted the trussrod cover (don't worry - the headstock profile isn't finish sanded yet): ...and sorted the heel carve (likewise ref the finish sanding): So with some tidy-up jobs over the weekend, next week should see the finishing started (if that's not a blatant contradiction in terms ) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted November 1, 2017 Report Share Posted November 1, 2017 Erk, that had to be a slightly awkward time. Rim clamps find their uses, it has to be said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted November 1, 2017 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2017 1 hour ago, Prostheta said: Erk, that had to be a slightly awkward time. Rim clamps find their uses, it has to be said. It was definitely one of those 'how the hell am I going sort this?' moments Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted November 1, 2017 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2017 Also, the finished article is going to be much better for it...should have fitted binding in the first place. Ho hum! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Natural Posted November 2, 2017 Report Share Posted November 2, 2017 nice recovery 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pan_kara Posted November 2, 2017 Report Share Posted November 2, 2017 wow nice save. I absolutely hate narrow fingerboards. I also had to save myself with binding last time, but that was before frets went in (error when cutting fingerboard taper). I'm not sure what I'd have done if I discovered this after fretting ... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted November 2, 2017 Report Share Posted November 2, 2017 The binding looks nice Andy, great save. Was making a new nut with slightly narrower string spacing ever an option you considered? SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted November 2, 2017 Author Report Share Posted November 2, 2017 1 hour ago, pan_kara said: wow nice save. I absolutely hate narrow fingerboards. I also had to save myself with binding last time, but that was before frets went in (error when cutting fingerboard taper). I'm not sure what I'd have done if I discovered this after fretting ... My 'unconventional' way of building (while probably contributing to the problem in the first place ) probably helped me here. I don't do the final, final, final neck shape until the frets are on and it's actually strung up (yes- I know. Madness ). But I can then tell EXACTLY how it is going to feel and play and I do the final adjustments with a cabinet scraper and sanding block on the fly. As such, the haunches were still a little squarer than they would eventually be, giving me the wiggle room to chamfer in the bottom of the binding without having to compromise the final profile shape. If it wasn't for that I couldn't have done it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted November 2, 2017 Author Report Share Posted November 2, 2017 16 minutes ago, ScottR said: The binding looks nice Andy, great save. Was making a new nut with slightly narrower string spacing ever an option you considered? SR I'd already gone to the narrowest nut I would generally regard as OK (33.5mm string spacing). A different ( and not particularly non-standard) bridge certainly would have fixed it but Tim, the intended owner, very specifically wanted the Schaller Hannes - which the whole thing has been built around, to be honest - so it would have been a real bummer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pan_kara Posted November 2, 2017 Report Share Posted November 2, 2017 Actually not madness for me, I also like to tweak the neck profile late in the game, I'm not sure I ever did this with strings on but I could have. But I see how this saved you on this occasion. oh and for the record - I absolutely hate narrow nut spacing 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted November 3, 2017 Author Report Share Posted November 3, 2017 A quick mock up to make sure everything is where it should be - and this is with the wider 35mm spacing nut: This is fine. It feels much better to play too... The binding blends in fine. Clearly the frets are not yet levelled and recrowned so there's a bit of tidying up at the fret ends but the hand-done de-nibbing (pincers and file) seems to have worked OK I know it's tempting fate, but the plan is that the basic build finishes today and I can start the final filling, sanding and finishing at the weekend Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted November 3, 2017 Report Share Posted November 3, 2017 23 hours ago, pan_kara said: oh and for the record - I absolutely hate narrow nut spacing I used to, and compensated by building wide neck guitars. After some time...and getting more comfortable with guitars--I'm not a player by any stretch or the imagination--I picked up one of my older builds and found the narrower neck to be more comfortable, and I no longer muted adjoining strings by accident (at least not very often). Two caveats: I have stumpy hands and short stumpy fingers, and my narrower neck are still pretty much Gibson standard width, so the narrow spacing that felt more comfortable to me probably isn't all that terribly narrow. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pan_kara Posted November 3, 2017 Report Share Posted November 3, 2017 I'm actually going back and forth a lot between narrow and wide(-ish). In the end it's probably a matter of getting used to, at least to some extent. It so happens that my most preferred 36.5mm E-e spacing is modeled after a guitar that I'm playing since '96 or so... A 7-string that I frequently play has 41.2mm spacing B-e, so E-e that's 34.4 - I suffer any time I have to play clean arpeggiated chords in the open positions. Hell, my Strat copy has 35.3mm and that's already annoying. .. just googled "graphtech gibson" - if their 6010 nut is representative of "gibson standard" then that says 36.2mm. So yea - that's what I'd consider perfectly normal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted November 3, 2017 Report Share Posted November 3, 2017 I have absolutely no idea what my hands will be comfortable with at the moment! I've been played acoustic since my Line6 rack modeller died (bootloop, known condition of deadness if re-flashing doesn't help) which is now in the region of months. That means I've played guitar only, with a wider Gibson-y spacing. I play 13s as well. I'm sure that I'll grab a guitar neck once I can afford a replacement "amplifier" and crush it with my newly-trained mighty paws. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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