Stripy Double Cut With An F-Hole

[psikoT]

6 hours ago, ScottR said:

I was a little surprised that the layers were not visible on the honed part of the blade. I assume that's normal....

SR

That's because the etching is done before the sharpening, I believe... got addicted to watch videos from blacksmiths in youtube. Really fascinating stuff, some Damascus knives are made with more than 1000 layers. 

Forgot to say... that handle you made is gorgeous.

[ScottR]

Thank you kind sir.

I followed the link @Norris posted and read that:

"Etching is the moment the signature ‘Damascus’ markings become visible, as a solution of acid salts reveals the pattern and as the story of its making."

I never realized that. I always assumed the folding and layering left the visible patterns. I suppose this means that the markings could all be sanded off (which I also did not realize) and likewise the honed edge could be etched again and the markings would become visible again.

I doubt that would be good for the razor sharp edge I put on it though.

SR

[ScottR]

I found a few hours to do a bit of work before hitting the road for the holidays. I finished flattening the gluing surface of the top. The interlocked figure of zebrawood tears out during planing not matter which direction you go--with the grain.I was able to counter that by using a very sharp iron and planing across the grain in very thin passes. I used the side of my plane to verify flatness.

After fine tuning the body wood the same way, I clamped the two parts together....so theyed get used to the idea of being mated whilst they wait till the time arrives to be permanently joined.

Happiness is a new bandsaw blade.Mine did come in and properly set up, it sliced through my ebony board like butter. Really hard butter.

I'm off for the holidays shortly...Happy Holidays everyone!

SR

[ScottR]

I got back from holiday traveling in time to get a little more done. It was a good trip but brutally cold in the Kansas city area, and pretty damn cold here when I got back to Houston too. I had to fire up my little space heater and keep the garage door shut. I hope that doesn't harsh the mojo.....all of my builds get done in the open doorway of my garage normally.

I flattened and slotted that slice of ebony.

Next I routed the truss rod slot, taking special care to make it my customary hair off-center.

I wipe a thin coat of Vaseline on the threads and top edge of the truss rod and then run a strip of scotch tape across the channel. This keeps the tape from sticking to the rod and the glue from getting into the channel. I trim the tape back close to the edge too. I use fine brads as locating pins outside the cut line of the neck.

Add a strip of blue tape to keep the nut bed free of glue and it's ready to clamp up.

SR

[ScottR]

Out of the clamps and on to the drill press for tuner holes. I like to drill mine while there is still excess wood on the back side instead of drilling into a scrap base to prevent tea-rout on the back side.

Now, on to the band saw to cut to shape.

SR

[ScottR]

Next, we clean up and square up the sides and tenon.

And on to the rabid beaver.

Sadly, it got dark before he could finish his meal. He'll need to make a new reservation for next weekend.

SR

[ScottR]

Rabid beaver came back and finished his meal.

And then he cleaned up after himself.

SR

[ScottR]

That center stripe of Katalox is super hard....and looks like a slice of steak.

SR

[ScottR]

Once the headstock carve is done it's time to add fret locator dots and side dots, and then radius and polish the fretboard.

I can't remember ever having as much trouble fretting as this board gave me. I set the depth guide and dressed the slots several times as I radiused and polished the board in the hopes that I could keep it pristine, while fretting. I apparently wallowed out the ends of several slots and they wouldn't grip the tangs. I had to pull several frets and fill the slots with CA, level and re-polish the board and re-cut the slots to get them to hold the tangs. other frets didn't want to go in deep enough, even though I repeatedly checked the slot depth. Finally I set the depth just a tad deeper and life got much easier.

I ran out of daylight before I could get any fret dressing done, so that will be on the agenda next weekend.

SR

[gpcustomguitars]

Nice clean work as usual! Hope the frets won't give you any more trouble. Could you perhaps explain a bit more your procedure for going from chiseling to smooth when carving? You probably explained it at some point, but can't remember where...

[Mr Natural]

12 hours ago, ScottR said:

That center stripe of Katalox is super hard....and looks like a slice of steak.

medium rare I would say-leaning towards medium?

Being unfamiliar with Katalox-is that darker edge where the glue line is natural or caused by oxidation prior to gluing? from the pictures it almost looks like you have 2 additional laminations of a dark brown wood in there. 

cranking it out Scotty!

[ScottR]

7 hours ago, gpcustomguitars said:

Nice clean work as usual! Hope the frets won't give you any more trouble. Could you perhaps explain a bit more your procedure for going from chiseling to smooth when carving? You probably explained it at some point, but can't remember where...

80  grit sandpaper....on a variety of shaped blocks and wrapped around dowels of various diameters. Actually a dremel with a sanding drum attachment on a flex shaft gets most of the chisel marks out, then the sanding blocks and also some scraping with utility knife blades. And a caliper is used to gauge the thickness.

SR

[ScottR]

1 hour ago, Mr Natural said:

medium rare I would say-leaning towards medium?

Being unfamiliar with Katalox-is that darker edge where the glue line is natural or caused by oxidation prior to gluing? from the pictures it almost looks like you have 2 additional laminations of a dark brown wood in there. 

cranking it out Scotty!

This is my first time for Katalox too.  It is also called Mexican royal ebony. The board I bought was a deep dark almost black brown. So I'm assuming that the inner color is the color of fresh cut wood and it oxidizes dark. It kind of reminds me of purple heart. The dark line is the color of the wood surface.

SR

[Stu.]

Super neat work as usual! I'm enjoying the step-by-step presentation too. It's always nice to see the method!

[ScottR]

Cheers Stu!

Thanks, and glad you are enjoying it.

SR

[ScottR]

Next up is dressing the frets.

Huh. the camera shows that I need to put a little more work into this....

Then I had a nice time carving the neck.

And got a start on carving my logo into the volute, but it got too dark to finish.

Something to look forward to next weekend I suppose.

SR

[KnightroExpress]

Looking great as usual Scott! That katalox is a lot like the first neck I did- the lighter bit will oxidize, as you suspect.

[ScottR]

1 hour ago, KnightroExpress said:

Looking great as usual Scott! That katalox is a lot like the first neck I did- the lighter bit will oxidize, as you suspect.

Thanks, and it already has. Sanding brings back a nice purplish medium rare slice of steak look, but then it slowly works back to medium, then medium well.....I got to get it off the fire.

SR

[Andyjr1515]

As normal, @ScottR , your headstock and volute carve is breathtakingly good.  

I've suffered issues from time to time fretting boards - and sometimes difficult to pin down just what might be different!  Any clues on yours?  The wood itself looks perfectly 'normal'.

Nice job on the radius and polishing, by the way.

[psikoT]

Yeah, I also want frets like those... tell us the secret, please.

[ScottR]

7 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I've suffered issues from time to time fretting boards - and sometimes difficult to pin down just what might be different!  Any clues on yours?  The wood itself looks perfectly 'normal'.

In this case I was trying to keep the slot depth very close to only a gnat's whisker deeper than the tang depth. So during the process of radiusing and polishing the board I'd run the fret saw back through the slots. the board is already glued to the neck at this point so I do that freehand. When the saw is moving from the front edge to the center the teeth come free of the slot in relation to the back edge.

This is where I get in trouble.

I typically nick the edges of a few slots as the blade rides the center crown of the board and comes back down into the slot. That tends to widen the slot a little. Down here in Texas we call that wallering the slot out. Waller it out too much and the tangs won't grip. That never happens to me....but this time it did. I believe I was cutting the slot depth too fine and the repeated touch ups with the fret saw widened a couple slots too much. If I would have just set the depth a tad deeper, I could have touched them up once and been good to go.

SR

[ScottR]

3 hours ago, psikoT said:

Yeah, I also want frets like those... tell us the secret, please.

I probably dress frets the same way everyone does at least for the first steps.

• Seat the frets and file a bevel into the ends.
• Level the frets. I've been doing this with 400 grit paper glued to the face of my long plane. Mark a stripe across the crown of all the frets and then level to insure all fret crowns are on the same plane.
• Us a crowning tool to crown each fret. A marker stripe across the crown of each fret is useful here as well. Ideally, you'd like to leave a narrow stripe right down the center of each fret. I use the crowning tool to roll down the bevel off the fret ends and start the doming of the ends.
• Now I take a fret dressing file and round back the sharp little ends of the frets where they contact the edge of the fret board.
• I have a ceramic triangle stone with a triangular slot in it for sharpening fish hooks. I use 220 sandpaper fitted over that slot and run it the length of each fret like a crowning tool to polish the shoulders of each fret and dress up the crown a bit. Continue with 320 grit and 400.
• Once they have been polished up to 400, I get out my micromesh and the foam block that comes with it. I wrap the micromesh around the foam block and tilt the block so that one edge runs over the frets at a 45 degree angle. I run this up and down the fretboard. The foam block conforms to the radius of the fret board and the pointed edge of the block polishes up the edge up the fret from the base of the board to the crown. Running up the board gets one side of the frets and back down the board gets the other. I also run the block down the side of the fretboard at an angle which helps form the dome and polishes the ends as well.. repeating this through all the meshes leaves you with a nice polish and crown.
• While carving the neck and then sanding it, I also run the edge of the harder block with normal sandpaper at an angle over the fret ends which also adds to the doming of the ends.

Clear as mud, eh?

SR

[psikoT]

51 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Now I take a fret dressing file and round back the sharp little ends of the frets where they contact the edge of the fret board

Here is where I fail... there's always a small triangle left from the corner stuck to the fretboard... If I want to get rid of it, then the file pass through the tape and makes a mark in the wood, even if the file is flat in that side. Really annoying.

Thanks for the detailed explanation btw, I'll try next time.  

 

[ScottR]

I leave those marks too...

I get most of them out by rounding the fretboard edges a little more afterwards.

SR

[meatloaf]

I must say @ScottR I just love your carving, I have tried it in the past but found it to be a steep learning curve, have you a natural talent or is it just years of practice.or perhaps some other secret.