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Blonde Glamour Shots...Something old, something new, something blonde, something blue!


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4 minutes ago, Mr Natural said:

great progress mike- you certainly have caught the build bug havent you. 

I have.  I have so many ideas in my head right now... compound radius top, fully archtop build from 1 piece body... THERE'S NO TIME MAN!!!   thank you for noticing!

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42 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

I have.  I have so many ideas in my head right now... compound radius top, fully archtop build from 1 piece body... THERE'S NO TIME MAN!!!   thank you for noticing!

Totally agree with that, I have loads of ideas, even got the wood in for them, just not the time to execute!

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2 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

Totally agree with that, I have loads of ideas, even got the wood in for them, just not the time to execute!

me too... have all sorts of beautiful flamed maple, wenge, tons of mahog.. some birdseye that is probably 5A (the current birdseye neck was one end of the board that had almost no "eyes" comparatively, so I figured I'd uses it for something that would get an overlay), flamed mahog top, birdseye top, some quilt tops, figured redwood... yet I find myself thinking of picking up some 2" x 13" x 11' ash.  having so much fun and thank you to members here who have encouraged my addiction.

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so... did my belly curve tonight... it's a big'un at 1 1/8" deep... but i have a big belly so it's just my size!

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put in my steps...DSCN2223.thumb.JPG.831e0f62c6c286f8d564e65e56e2fcc2.JPG

worked it with a card scraper...DSCN2224.thumb.JPG.c90374b98f4e8012eb6281c428d34ced.JPG

and sanded it up with the osc.  DSCN2225.thumb.JPG.1751b9dbef30b343eaf3c904296bc4c5.JPG

it feels like a pair of orthepedic shoes.  sits more angled than a typical strat and I love it... with the guitar on one hip this giant body feels super thin and sleek.  DSCN2226.thumb.JPG.c3265a566c353e21ca1c9bbfe4430883.JPG

earlier this morning with the two sisters together...

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got my final set of pickups on the way... and there is some alnico 2 in there (yes 2!). 

set neck will be higher output A5 9.5k/A5 8.6k  in bridge pos and A5 5.6k/A2 5.6k in the neck two...

bolt will get A5 8.6k/A5 7.4k in the bridge and A5 5.6 / A2 5.6 in the neck

should probably just put the set neck next to my marshal and the bolt next to my fender but I'm splitting hairs!

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39 minutes ago, ScottR said:

You are making the rest of us look lazy.:D

It's fun watching you get so excited about this new lust, and then doing such a nice job satisfying it.

SR

thank you sir!  couldn't help myself if I tried - all I think about all day!  thank you on the 'nice job'... I'm realizing now that I'm at a point where I need to slow down a bit because if I make a mistake at this point - way too much invested!

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I hear you.

Be aware that mistake recovery is a big part of this game, and doing that well is a valuable part of the process. I'd say all of have had to fix some big booboos and the ability do so invisibly is a critical part of the skill set.

That being said, mistake prevention is an even better skill, and mistake recovery is not something you really want to practice...at least not on live builds.:P

SR

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8 minutes ago, ScottR said:

I hear you.

Be aware that mistake recovery is a big part of this game, and doing that well is a valuable part of the process. I'd say all of have had to fix some big booboos and the ability do so invisibly is a critical part of the skill set.

That being said, mistake prevention is an even better skill, and mistake recovery is not something you really want to practice...at least not on live builds.:P

SR

well said.  I make plenty of little mistakes.  for instance, I kept telling myself "make sure you don't cut the belly cut BEFORE you do binding and roundover the top!!! - you will cut it too thin to ride a bearing along the edge"... doh, walked right into that despite reminding myself constantly.  no problem, just have to 'manually' guide my router for that 1" section of top.  It's the catastrophic one's I'd like to avoid... not because I don't think I'll be able to fix it... but because I know that fixing things often takes 3x the time than just doing it carefully in the first place!  it's like a real life game of shoots and ladders!

I'm certain I'll have plenty of opportunities to get good at fixing mistakes on my nitro finish... so hoping I can make up for the time in advance!  (want to get on to my next build - jk)

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so the last week and a half - kind of stalled up at the binding process...

on my rosewood binding... I've actually got it bent around the entire guitar now, but I need to build some forms to apply pressure while i glue it up so... here's a shot of how it started:

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here's one of the pieces bent around the body:

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had my set neck entirely bound with white binding twice.  Once I applied my roundover... it got so thin that the line between body and binding was blurry so I stripped it back and tried it again via scraper and file... but didn't like that either so I pulled it all and have decided I'm going to try something different - leaving it square but offset a little bit from the roundover.  Here's an earlier shot of the guitar with binding before I did the roundover:

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here is a mock up of what it's going to look like when I rebind it:

To do this I'm going to have to dye the body first.  I can't have ca glue preventing dye... and once the binding is on I won't be able to do any sanding near it.  If a little glue seeps out onto the body after it's dyed - it'll be fine as it will just darken it a hair and be a little 'shiny'. 

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cut my control holes:

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planed down some mahog for my cavity covers:

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here they are rough cut:DSCN2238.thumb.JPG.5a3559c728c2948071b64e0d30be477b.JPGDSCN2232.thumb.JPG.8fda89d02299f4cb0e134a771307d326.JPGDSCN2236.thumb.JPG.b8cf8e1505185791e789ef108ebef160.JPG

and here they are installed - haven't sanded them flush yet... DSCN2238.thumb.JPG.5a3559c728c2948071b64e0d30be477b.JPG

 

 

 

 

got my tuners installed, got my cavities covered in shielding paint, and my trem mounted... did my mop logo on the set neck:

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lots to do yet... here is my todo list:

bolt: shielding paint on the control cavity, make forms for glueing binding and glue up binding, need a new nut... the bone nut just looks bad to me, after binding is installed need to roundover the top then cut the belly relief, install the trem claw, drill top jack, drill strap locks, finish sand the fretboard add frets and level, dye everything brown (note to self hit the truss cavity) and sand it back, add brown grain filler, hit it with some tru oil, then tape off and finish in champagne frost, print out the logo and add white/clear it, build a preamp, install electronics!

set neck: shielding paint the control cavity, add an angle piece to back of headstock (long story), dye the fretboard (nts hit the truss cavity), make faux truss cover and add binding, tape off body and dye it, bend the binding and carefully install it (note to self break one edge!), install trem claw, drill top jack, drill strap locks, install frets and level, hit everything with true oil, build preamp, install electronics!

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5 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Stunning, and intensely documented! I've never seen builds this detailed more than once in a blue moon.  I love that rail router table. There's so much you can achieve with that and a little imagination. 

thank you sir!  the rail table turned out quite nice.  I've got ideas of how I might try a compound radius next, but can imagine getting a lot of mileage out of it as is too!

3 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Both builds are looking very good indeed :)

Thank you sir!  Thank you again for all your input!

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1 hour ago, ADFinlayson said:

I was wondering what the point of your crazy under-top neck tenon was, now I understand! Both of these are looking slick, but the rosewood is my favourite. Have you decided what colour these are going to be yet? 

thank you sir.  yes, couple points to that in my mind: 1) upper fret access and 2) mounting my two neck pickups on the neck itself.  This was an idea I came up with on my own but have since seen that ed roman does it on a few models.  The theory there is that the neck pickups should gain some brightness from the maple as opposed to the darkness of the mahog. 

afa color... should be pretty close to the pictures.  The set neck I'm going blue but I think I'm going to shoot for a more 'baby blue'.  The bolt version I'm going to dye all a brown that matches the rosewood, then sand back.  Then I'm going to apply tru oil, then the top is going to get mohawk 'champagne frost' - should come pretty close to matching the off white inlays.  Then I'll do nitro.

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28 minutes ago, ScottR said:

It is a good place isn't it?

SR

the best. you get a lot of credit in my book for being so quick to answer questions/offer support.  thank you for that.

5 minutes ago, Lwguitar said:

I love the traditional Fender shape but with the 3x3 tuner layout! That’s pretty cool.

what kind of preamp are you building?

thanks re 3x3.  turned out pretty good!  Not crazy about the bigger sperzel buttons, I'd like to find some smaller white replacements but no such luck so far.  Functionally it works great - no issue with interference from the "ball end" that is close to the g string so... pretty pleased!

I'm building a clone of a blade for one, and a clone of a fat control for the other.  I did layouts such that they will mount right on a dpdt.  unfortunately I couldn't find pcb mount push/pulls so... will have to do a little trickery to make them mount on the one's I got. 

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so not a lot of updates lately as working on all details... not much dif to show.  trying out stains, wasn't happy so ordered dif color...

worked on my pcb for mid boosters... worked on my binding and closing up some gaps... got my frets for the set neck nipped (dremel stone cylendar is amazing on these... will not use anything else going fwd.  cleaned em up with a needle file but wasn't much to clean)

here's my pcb process... print out on white paper, tape down some press-n-peel blue, print out again...

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iron at low temp and with a white piece of paper over and pine board under... after about 7mins the black shows thru the blue and a little more work on the edges to even it out and get a clear image and done.

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peel off carefully after setting on kitchen solid surface to cool... few spots to touch up with a etch pen and voilla

 

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note to self... always tape up the bottom of the bag you use to etch... or your etchant will leak out and into the pan and you'll be pissed.  also don't use a tight bag as this doesn't allow the etchant to pool on the top.  follow these rules and it won't take 6hrs to etch!  after etching below:

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since I couldn't find any pcb mount push pulls this time... just went with good ole burns... needed to put some resistors in parallel to get down to 50k and this works great as I needed lead to mount to the pcb like panel mount - hard to see but there are two vishay resistors under the legs of the pot here:

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and here's how it mounts:

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my faux truss cover came out nice - I made it radius... just one problem: I put such a thick ebony overlay on my headstock that there isn't much clearance to get it between the strings and headstock... so I probably won't be able to use it.  no worries: I'm flexible!

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so tonight I was thinking about how I was going to fret my set neck.  I have been using my drill press and a caul... but I can't see how I'll manage getting the neck on there and balancing the body while I press... so decided to take a shot at building a clamp.  twas way easy.  used a graduated titanium bit to drill out the rivets in a harbor freight clamp... nail set to tap out the bent steel holding the caul to the mouting rod (reversable) and had bolts and washers laying round.  just have to build something for the back of the neck.  put a 1/4 channel in the back of some walnut, cut a neck shape out of it... drill a hole... then I just need something soft to lay on top and protect the neck.

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in closing: thanks again to @ADFinlayson, @ScottR, and @Andyjr1515 for help/support/advice regarding gluing on rosewood.  I did boil(almost) water and submerge my rosewood for 30mins and that helped a lot.  I did not use Andy's method of pre-gluing... but am using wood glue, and have channeled him several times as i've reheated the glue to clamp down gaps.  This has totally changed my understanding of wood glue.  I had no idea how easily I could heat it and re-clamp something!  It's like a mulligan!  I'm thankful as it's not perfect but it's working!

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5 hours ago, mistermikev said:

in closing: thanks again to @ADFinlayson, @ScottR, and @Andyjr1515 for help/support/advice regarding gluing on rosewood.  I did boil(almost) water and submerge my rosewood for 30mins and that helped a lot.  I did not use Andy's method of pre-gluing... but am using wood glue, and have channeled him several times as i've reheated the glue to clamp down gaps.  This has totally changed my understanding of wood glue.  I had no idea how easily I could heat it and re-clamp something!  It's like a mulligan!  I'm thankful as it's not perfect but it's working!

 

I'll add my usual contrary-positive information; PVAc glues are thermoplastic for the most part, that much is true. Heating them above the temperature at which they release to alter or re-seat the workpieces degrades the adhesive and its ultimate bond strength. In most cases we're talking about an improvement over a bond that was not satisfactory in the first place; eg. a gappy bond with dry voids or globs of dried glue that have little effective mechanical bonding strength. Add to that, an ultimate bond strength is usually way beyond the demands that an instrument places upon an adhesive anyway, so a better quality of joint bonded with a slightly degraded glue is better than a non-degraded glue in a crappy joint. As with anything, your mileage will vary compared to doing it 100% correctly off the bat; long-term durability would be my primary concern.

I may have missed the point a little, however re-heating a glue joint should be the last resort. Ideally one would heat to part the pieces, clean them up and apply fresh adhesive. You can get around this a lot of the time, but you're working with very few guarantees and chances that things might go the other direction very quickly. The choice depends on whether you actually have any usable choices about what to do in a given circumstance....

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2 hours ago, Prostheta said:

 

I'll add my usual contrary-positive information; PVAc glues are thermoplastic for the most part, that much is true. Heating them above the temperature at which they release to alter or re-seat the workpieces degrades the adhesive and its ultimate bond strength. In most cases we're talking about an improvement over a bond that was not satisfactory in the first place; eg. a gappy bond with dry voids or globs of dried glue that have little effective mechanical bonding strength. Add to that, an ultimate bond strength is usually way beyond the demands that an instrument places upon an adhesive anyway, so a better quality of joint bonded with a slightly degraded glue is better than a non-degraded glue in a crappy joint. As with anything, your mileage will vary compared to doing it 100% correctly off the bat; long-term durability would be my primary concern.

I may have missed the point a little, however re-heating a glue joint should be the last resort. Ideally one would heat to part the pieces, clean them up and apply fresh adhesive. You can get around this a lot of the time, but you're working with very few guarantees and chances that things might go the other direction very quickly. The choice depends on whether you actually have any usable choices about what to do in a given circumstance....

thank you Prostheta.  Your advice makes a lot of sense.  I def would try that on a neck joint.  I 'spose the concern is that down the line the binding could pop back into it's orig position.  fortunately there are many areas that I didn't have to re-heat that will have more strength.  I will take away from this that I probably don't want to do it any more than I have to.  It def does seem to degrade the glue in the sense that it shrinks it so... point well taken and than you again for the wisdom.

 

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For relatively minor things like binding, it isn't a massive consideration. Like you said, neck joints are far more critical and sensitive to issues in the adhesive. Repairs here benefit from aiming high on all counts, much the same as a scarf in a neck.

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9 hours ago, Prostheta said:

For relatively minor things like binding, it isn't a massive consideration. Like you said, neck joints are far more critical and sensitive to issues in the adhesive. Repairs here benefit from aiming high on all counts, much the same as a scarf in a neck.

it's funny, I've seen vids of folks using steam and heat to remove a neck and it always seems so labor intense.  I was really surprised how little effort it took to get the binding heated enough to where it would allow movement.  I hope I don't ever have to repair a neck, but I wouldn't fear it nearly as much having gone thru this experience. 

I've learned a lot doing this rosewood binding... def going to keep a keen eye on the binding thickness if I ever do wood on a strat with a wavy line again!

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