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Semi hollow LP-profile neck-thru


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Hi guys, yet another crimsoneer here...

This one is my current build, #4½. The neck is regular maple with a cherry-walnut-cherry stripe and 0.55 mm veneers of flamed birch for contrast. The base of the body is torrefied Estonian alder, the top flamed ovangkol. And the fingerboard is of merbau. The neck woods are from a flooring/parquet factory outlet, the alder from the sauna department of a local hardware chain. The top is the only wood meant for guitar building.

For the process, there's a bunch of templates for us to use provided by the master luthier of the course along with some made by ourselves. They're mostly for drawing outlines, too thin for routing. We have access to some quite large machines and the hand tools of a woodworking classroom, all less loved...

Enough talking, here's a summary of the Saturdays of this winter and part of last spring:

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The primary reason was to add darkness in the f-holes. The lighter coloured alder shining through the f-holes on the darker ovangkol top might have reduced the contrast. It was just later that I remembered having a bottle of shielding paint.

You're partially right about sealing, too. In my thinking the paint may act as a balancing  counterforce to the surface which is going to be oiled. For the very same reason there's brown paper glued on the bottom side of laminated kitchen table boards. One might think that if the laminate really wanted to warp the paper could not hold against it but it does.

 

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Well, actually I remembered you telling that you've found a new place to show your work. First I tried to google for Ash Finlayson Guitar Forum but when that failed I searched for Guitar Building Forum and then your name within... So thank you very much, Sir Ashley!

There's still two Saturdays in April for me to get this project finished at least to the level where I can start oiling which I can do at home so hopefully she will get playable for summer.

 

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Found a couple of images in my phone from gluing the wings on. You may notice a resemblance with the partially painted spacer block and the neck, that's because I used the offcut from under the neck there.

liimaus (2) (Medium).jpg

Note the extra at both ends of the body. It's easier to carve the heel to match the body wings than add wood to it. The clamp padding is some jute based stiff foamy plastic I salvaged from the trash bin of the town carpenters sharing the same premises!

liimaus (3) (Medium).jpg

Edited by Bizman62
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Thank you for your kind words.

I'm not a great LP fan either other than the body proportions. The upper bout is smaller than that of a Gretsh DuoJet although they look quite similar at first glance. Subtle changes here and there can make a big difference.

A French curve is a magnificent tool for designing F holes and such, isn't it? As you can see from the images, the original design drawn on the masking tape evolved a bit during the process. Looking at the drawings for a week made me rip off those tapes and cut a new cardboard template with the current shape..

Edited by Bizman62
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Not much done today. I noticed a tearout at the corner of the neck pickup cavity so I decided to sand the top. Again... Last time I got to 320 grit including a couple passes with a grain raising wet towel. Starting from 80 and going up there - well, you know how long it takes! Drilled the holes for tuners and after thicknessing the headstock to some 15 mm attached the two E tuners to find the location for the bridge using old strings. After some fiddling I managed to mark the location for the studs, but then:  There was no 11.5 mm drill bit in the house! I spent a good hour fumbling through all possible locations until I finally drove to the nearby hardware store to buy one. Actually I bought a set of 25 bits from 1 to 13 mm with 0.5 mm increments for 26.90 since a single 11.5 mm bit was 18.70! All that hassle and expense for two holes!

Next weekend is Easter so it'll be two weeks until I can continue unless the weather allows me to do some sanding outside and even apply some oil. I've found an idea for the headstock but it requires tools I don't have so that has to be left for the next course.

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2 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

No pics?

No, but you can imagine those eight holes, can't you? Or Photoshop them on the previous images...

Maybe I should take her outside and use a proper camera instead of this 1.3 megapixel piece of excrement of my Nokia 6230i...

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Alright, did a little mockup to see how she would look like... And noticed a couple of missing splinters. More sanding to be expected 😩

635546399_Mockup(3)(Medium).thumb.jpeg.4e87a7370ba0913325f91d9377f8bfa4.jpeg

Obviously the saddle is still missing, also waiting for some magnets to replace the double sided tape to hold the truss rod end cover. And the headstock still is in a very sketchy state.

1260656541_Mockup(4)(Medium).thumb.jpeg.f18c2ce189e6035bb7a1cc33c3c0731a.jpeg

 

Edited by Bizman62
Text was missing.
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2 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

What fretboard wood is that?

That's merbau from the parquet factory outlet. One of the boards I found there was a 7 mm thick quarter sawn piece with a hole in the middle. Plenty enough for eight fretboards! I let our Master slot them using his machinery in all three common scales.

And the truss rod cover is indeed an offcut from the headstock. Hence the tiny missing piece of birch veneer on the upper stripe.

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It was a lovely warm day here so since I didn't have any work left in the early afternoon I beat the carpets and hoovered... And since it still was warm and sunny on our porch, I took the guitar and a sanding block out. No images but you know how to sand by hand so use your imagination!

I also found a sketch I once drew for other purposes, here's how I cut the neck blank and measured the neck break angle:

Thrunek.thumb.JPG.f40f75e8b73a9d172d6123b934ef123b.JPG

 

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2 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

It was a lovely warm day here so since I didn't have any work left in the early afternoon I beat the carpets and hoovered... And since it still was warm and sunny on our porch, I took the guitar and a sanding block out. No images but you know how to sand by hand so use your imagination!

I also found a sketch I once drew for other purposes, here's how I cut the neck blank and measured the neck break angle:

Thrunek.thumb.JPG.f40f75e8b73a9d172d6123b934ef123b.JPG

 

See that's where you and I are two very different people.. I sand the guitar, then hoover the house :D 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Last course for the spring. I managed to get the headstock shaped and the frets leveled. When it's sunny and I have some time to spare, I'll sand it and start the oiling process. Here's how the headstock came out:

headstock.thumb.JPG.9e70d8cf8b3c8dae694a7a62af729646.JPG

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  • 4 months later...
On 4/27/2019 at 5:29 PM, Bizman62 said:

When it's sunny and I have some time to spare, I'll sand it and start the oiling process.

Well... There was quite some sunny days but the only guitar related thing I did was to reshape the neck of El Pish. This one stayed in the bag all summer long until today when the course started again. Course? Well, for most of us it's therapy but in the booklet it says Guitar Building Course, with the aim of building a bolt on T or S type...

Anyhow, today I spent most of the day sanding, damping, sanding, damping until finally I was all fed up with the sanding and opened the bottle of Crimson Penetrating Guitar Finishing Oil. She became alive:

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Edited by Bizman62
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9 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

So if you've started the course again, does that mean there is a new build in the pipeline? :D 

Finishing this one will take a while and I'll have to skip a couple of Saturdays due to real life issues like a gathering with the "boys" - all older than you, that is - and a trip with my wife.

But... I have several ready cut merbau fretboards for various guitar scale lengths and some hardware, maybe even some wood for a neck or two or even a neck-thru. The parquet factory outlet is now permanently closed so I'll have to find other inexpensive sources for wood.

A bass would be nice, too, and I already have the truss rod for it and a fistful of string ferrules.

Let's see...

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