ScottR Posted October 21, 2018 Report Share Posted October 21, 2018 When I finished the Domestic Singlecut, I did a little traveling and then I came home and cleaned the garage....a little. Then I did some yard work and then put off a bunch more....and generally wandered around like a lost soul because I was not working on a build. I kept noticing a glued up mess that I'd made during the Stripy Doublecut build. I had bookmatched some Zebra wood and the lower bearings on my blade had loosened up and I had some terrible blade wander. I glued the thing up anyway, and then decided there was no way I was going to use it on that build. So to stop the wandering around I pulled it out and leveled both sides. Between the horrible cuts and the cupping, I lost more than a third of the thickness. But it was still a little thicker than a drop top and that made me think it might work for a tele. Except I don't like to do pure replicas. I decided this would have a tele silhouette, and my own contours and stuff. So I cut a body out of some leftover ash. And I remembered really likeing the feel of the osage orange in the neck of the domestic singlecut, so I got some of that and some katalox to make a neck out of. I now I have a build to work on and make me happy! I did not take my usual pile of lumber and prep work pics, so we start with an ash body and the zebrano top....and neck lumber. I cut up and prepped the neck lumber and can provide this proof of clamps picture. I sliced off a piece of leftover ebony and trued it up and cut some fret slots in it. while the neck was in the clamps. And then I trued up the neck bland and cut the headstock angle. And cleaned that up and routed a truss rod slot. SR 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted October 21, 2018 Report Share Posted October 21, 2018 looks like the makings for a very nice build. cudos! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted October 21, 2018 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2018 I stuck the offcut form the neck angle under the headstock to give somewhat parallel surfaces to hold clamps and stuck some cut off brads in to hold the headstock cap in place during glue up. Proof of clamps. Added some brads for the fretboard too. Note the trussrod is covered with a trimmed strip of scotch tape. I see I didn't give a proof of fretboard shot....but here's proof of clamping it. While that glue was drying I trimmed the zebrano to a tele shape and finished truing up the gluing surface. There was a lot of work involved with this, so I did some thinking. And experimenting. What I learned was one way to avoid chipping while planing interlocking wood like zebrano is to wet the top and plane across the grain. And it works. And now you are caught up to where I'm at in this build. And I'm happy as a clam. SR 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted October 21, 2018 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2018 5 minutes ago, mistermikev said: looks like the makings for a very nice build. cudos! Thanks. At the very least, I'm having fun. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted October 21, 2018 Report Share Posted October 21, 2018 I hear ya... I'm finding that building guitars is about as bad as building saltwater coral tanks. You spend equal parts of money and time just staring at what you've done! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
komodo Posted October 22, 2018 Report Share Posted October 22, 2018 Nice! Seems the Tele bug is going around. How are you going to deck it out hardware and electronics-wise? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted October 22, 2018 Author Report Share Posted October 22, 2018 I'm going with a mix of tele and not quite tele stuff: Gotoh locking tuners in my headstock, a hipshot bridge, Klein '58 PAFs, and the normal tele control plate set up and electro socket jack plate. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
komodo Posted October 22, 2018 Report Share Posted October 22, 2018 NICE. That is going to sound amazing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2.5itim Posted October 22, 2018 Report Share Posted October 22, 2018 Awesome! Can’t wait to see the progress on this. I hate planing zebrawood and always have a fit with it so I will have to remember that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted October 24, 2018 Report Share Posted October 24, 2018 Interesting tip ref the planing, @ScottR ! I'll give it a go next time I'm tackling a difficult wood like that... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted October 28, 2018 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2018 I like to drill the tuner holes before cuttint the headstock to shape, so that everything I do to it cleans it up. Sanding the headstock cap will clean up the top of the drill holes and cutting it to shape will clean of the bottom of the drill holes. Then I cut the neck out of that chunk of laminated wood. And did some carving on it.... SR 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted October 29, 2018 Report Share Posted October 29, 2018 9 hours ago, ScottR said: I like to drill the tuner holes before cuttint the headstock to shape, so that everything I do to it cleans it up. Sanding the headstock cap will clean up the top of the drill holes and cutting it to shape will clean of the bottom of the drill holes. Then I cut the neck out of that chunk of laminated wood. And did some carving on it.... SR Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes I can feel another intricately carved volute coming on! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted November 6, 2018 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2018 On 10/29/2018 at 2:59 AM, Andyjr1515 said: Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes I can feel another intricately carved volute coming on! While I'm not quite ready to carve my logo into the volute, I did clean it up a considerable amount. SR 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted November 6, 2018 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2018 And I got the fretboard radiused and dotted on the face and sides and even polished up a bit. My camera takes very nice pictures but sometimes the angle and focal length makes things like taper completely disappear. I believe that is called operator error. SR 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted November 6, 2018 Report Share Posted November 6, 2018 7 hours ago, ScottR said: While I'm not quite ready to carve my logo into the volute, I did clean it up a considerable amount. SR The curves are gorgeous. Recently visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Cut this off at the 12th fret, stick it upright on a plinth and you'd have a crowd around it Not that I'm necessarily suggesting you do that... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norris Posted November 6, 2018 Report Share Posted November 6, 2018 8 hours ago, ScottR said: Wow - that's some gorgeous shine! Is that your micromesh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted November 6, 2018 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2018 5 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said: The curves are gorgeous. Recently visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Cut this off at the 12th fret, stick it upright on a plinth and you'd have a crowd around it Thanks Andy. This particular headstock wanted to modify what I normally do at the upper end. When the wood speaks to me I try to listen, as it usually knows what it is talking about. This time it certainly did. I'm really pleased with the way that came out and will by adopting that modification in future builds. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted November 6, 2018 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2018 5 hours ago, Norris said: Wow - that's some gorgeous shine! Is that your micromesh? Indeed. That stuff really makes bare wood look amazing. It doesn't take long either. After running through the grits up to 400 with my regular 3M sandpaper, I went through the micromesh grits, averaging less than 5 minutes each. It is truly fine stuff! SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted November 7, 2018 Report Share Posted November 7, 2018 not sure if you did that little 'bendback' on the end of your headstock on the last one... if you did i missed it. that is a really nice touch and full disclosure I'm so doing that on my next build! excellent idea. really is a nice touch and probably strengthens the stock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted November 7, 2018 Author Report Share Posted November 7, 2018 3 hours ago, mistermikev said: not sure if you did that little 'bendback' on the end of your headstock on the last one... if you did i missed it. that is a really nice touch and full disclosure I'm so doing that on my next build! excellent idea. really is a nice touch and probably strengthens the stock. I normally add a curve or hooked end at the top that has a recurve on the underside. It ends up looking a bit lit a whale tail. This is definitely more elegant. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted November 7, 2018 Report Share Posted November 7, 2018 first time I noticed. very nice touch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beltjones Posted November 11, 2018 Report Share Posted November 11, 2018 This is amazing work. You have probably posted it before, but can you put up a link to this micromesh? Is this it? https://www.amazon.com/Micro-Mesh-Assortment-Pack-18-Pieces/dp/B00HJC156U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541904148&sr=8-1&keywords=micromesh+sanding Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted November 11, 2018 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2018 This is what I usually get. https://www.amazon.com/MICRO-MESH-SANDING-SHEETS-WOODWORKERS/dp/B000H6JDCS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1541974293&sr=8-3&keywords=micro+mesh+sandpaper I lot of people like the pads too. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted November 11, 2018 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2018 I did some fretting this weekend. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted November 11, 2018 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2018 Neck carving too. SR 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.