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Black Limba Flying V


Stu.

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I see your point re u r at the point of finishing the neck on the guitar.  I would like to point out that that headstock is still the pointiest pointy headstock I've ever seen at any point in time. 

back of the neck is so pretty.  Nice work.  can't wait to see this thing together.

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  • 1 month later...

I managed to make progress this weekend! It's slow, thanks to work and life. The neck looks more like a neck now. I ended up having to pull and re-seat one of the frets, which left a couple of tiny chips. Hopefully I'll find a way to make those disappear.

47554788442_2b707d95ec_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

The neck carve is super rough and way too thick right now, but it's a start.

46883698164_eaaf36a993_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

 

Also, my dad found a pair of my grandfather's planes; a Stanley/Bailey 4 and a Stanley/Bailey 4 1/2. They've been added to my collection:

47554788212_6a5f932ee3_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

40641317123_92650203eb_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

This is after partially restoring the 4:

33730606578_8f0f827551_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

 

I picked up some nice padauk for a neck and body last weekend, to go with the ovangkol fingerboard and Iommi cross inlays:

32665451977_5ceeecfe27_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

I booked an appointment to visit Exotic Hardwoods near Leek. Their stock is pretty amazing, and I almost walked away with a beautiful spalted maple top.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/15/2019 at 12:16 AM, mistermikev said:

beautiful wood.  that is going to be an interesting one.  what material for the cross inlays?  looks very gothic, nice work.

They're just cut from celluloid sheet. I'll glue them in with epoxy this time, because I learnt that they don't like CA glue the hard way 😂 The fingerboard was a fun thing to start whilst I'm away from my tools.

 

This weekend went pretty well! After a rare moment of clarity, I finally decided on a nice method for cutting the angled neck pocket; I wanted something stable, which I could execute in a slow and careful manner. In the past I've cut the pocket straight, and then tried to bodge the angle into the bottom of the tenon. That's pretty horrible though!

 

I made a close template and a pair of 3° wedges. I used to the template to cut a shallow rebate in (enough to run a bearing along, and then used the wedges to support the router whilst I cut the pocket angle in. It seemed to work pretty well!

46809319605_4433a30f74_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

40759256843_bd0e732661_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47672803312_457c7aa412_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

40759257393_82e63c124b_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47672803202_36328651c9_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47725859791_73dea515f3_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

40759257553_3b540f4c1c_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47672803532_4727cdb438_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47725859921_2326e99f7e_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

 

Yay!

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2 hours ago, Stu. said:

They're just cut from celluloid sheet. I'll glue them in with epoxy this time, because I learnt that they don't like CA glue the hard way 😂 The fingerboard was a fun thing to start whilst I'm away from my tools.

 

This weekend went pretty well! After a rare moment of clarity, I finally decided on a nice method for cutting the angled neck pocket; I wanted something stable, which I could execute in a slow and careful manner. In the past I've cut the pocket straight, and then tried to bodge the angle into the bottom of the tenon. That's pretty horrible though!

 

I made a close template and a pair of 3° wedges. I used to the template to cut a shallow rebate in (enough to run a bearing along, and then used the wedges to support the router whilst I cut the pocket angle in. It seemed to work pretty well!

46809319605_4433a30f74_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

40759256843_bd0e732661_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47672803312_457c7aa412_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

40759257393_82e63c124b_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47672803202_36328651c9_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47725859791_73dea515f3_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

40759257553_3b540f4c1c_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47672803532_4727cdb438_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47725859921_2326e99f7e_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

 

Yay!

some pretty solid stuff there.  looking like a 10+

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  • 2 weeks later...

More progress around the half-marathon this weekend!

Drilled some holes:

40868690093_94f21d5c15_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

Tested the holes:

40868690083_fd4d998cb3_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

Routed a bridge pickup cavity:

40868689703_6002f587d3_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

Routed a neck pickup cavity:

40868689753_808de0b06e_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

Realised the neck pickup is about 2mm away from where it should be:

46919025505_60cdfca20a_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

 

I think the tidiest way to fix this will be to make some wooden pickup rings and make them a little wider than the plastic ones. The plastic looks crap anyway.

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7 hours ago, Stu. said:

Realised the neck pickup is about 2mm away from where it should be:

Does it really matter? Sound vise there's no measurable difference. As I understand, this is not an exact copy so... Then again, wooden rings sure can look nice!

7 hours ago, Stu. said:

The plastic looks crap anyway

I fully agree, you've managed to get the light on the bridge ring so that it accentuates the imperfections of the surface. There's a simple yet surprisingly effective cure, though: Sand them through grits on a flat surface starting with some 32o or 400, going up to 1500 - 2000 grit. If you do it one direction only the result may even mimic the subtle grain pattern of ebony. By experience I can tell that using a coarse paper for the grain effect will only make grooves that look like deep scratches.

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Wooden pup rings would work. I made this same miscalcluation on the blue DC I finished around xmas, I just glued in a little strip of ebony to make the fretboard a few mm longer and filed it to the same radius as the fretboard, end result was pretty seamless.

The V is looking 🤘Limba and V's just works.  

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I would love to see how you make pickup rings... not enough good threads about this so... go for it... that said, if it were me I wouldn't even give this a second thought.  build looks great and doubt anyone would ever notice.  just my 2 cents.

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Have you guys ever seen decorative fingerboard ends like that? The ebony isn't really uniform enough to try covering it up, so I'd have to make it a feature. Wenge pickup rings could be nice!

I also made an impulse decision last night to go heavy on pickups for this one. I've ordered an EMG Het Set in black chrome, because they look awesome and I trust that they sound great. I'm going to use the battery cavity to help with drilling a channel to the jack plate (which will be on the edge of the top wing).

Now I have to decide what to do about a battery cavity or battery box. Most battery boxes look awful, but I love the metal ESP ones; they're bloody expensive and only available from Japan though! Maybe it'll be a cavity and wooden cover job!

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just a thought but a few times I've been told that when you do something other than a flat fretboard end - it looks better to leave some space.  I've done sort of a byrdland end, and an s-style curve and def found that to be true so I could see that working here if you maybe put a triangle point echoing the headstock or something like that.  again, to me it would actually look great w the flat end and a little space, but if you don't like it that's what counts.  just 2 cents.

 

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26 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

I suppose that a little consideration towards the negative space helps make it work, otherwise whatever is next to the fingerboard end needs to be working in unison with it.

i think you were one of the folks who said that to me (regarding leaving space)... so credit where due. 

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I like the idea of bevelling the end of the board to a chevron-style point at the end, but I'm struggling to reconcile the idea of having dead space between the ring and board 🤣 I'll distract myself with other things until I absolutely have to tackle it!

 

This weekend was more productive than I expected! I managed to drill control holes, route the control cavity, battery cavity, and recessed jack area, and I also made matching covers for the rear. There's a recessed Dunlop strap lock button in there too...

 

Edit: The battery cavity is a bit of a cheat, so I can drill a wire hole from the jack to the battery and then pickup route.

47883085771_bc80dfa6d5_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47093726384_69965a0d40_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47831142372_6900e5fae9_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47883085851_ac83c01783_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

I still need to sand the covers flush (after the magnets go in), and you might notice a tiny bit of tear-out in the jack area; that was not my favourite routing job ever.

Edited by Stu.
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I didn't get a huge amount of time this weekend, but this is what I managed to get done:

  • Played with my new toy (Makita ROS to replace my old one),
  • Installed little magnets in the covers and cavity rims,
  • Drilled the wiring holes between cavities (without breaking through the front or rear of the guitar),
  • Prepared ebony/maple/wenge blanks to make humbucker mounting rings out of.

47937248036_fc263f1db5_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47937248511_abc0539d98_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47937227062_89a5f456e7_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47937240943_9522011ece_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47937248121_af004e6007_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47937226742_55058d3bcf_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47937247846_4a2b587c2d_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47937240538_ea9821cb5b_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47937241713_80cf76af64_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47937248906_dd3942fba7_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

47937241678_ab4b8c7170_b.jpgUntitled by S K, on Flickr

 

 

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