Yew-topped SG-style Guitar

[Bizman62]

The upper photo is a perfect match with the text! You tell it's the most pleasing and satisfying job and the twilighty warm hue of the image perfectly accompanies what you're saying. The plane handle is just waiting for one's hand to nurture the wood with a properly sharpened blade...

[Andyjr1515]

It didn't take terribly long to cut but - because the neck incorporates the neck angle which means you need to know exactly where the body is going to join - it took an age to draw, calculate, check, recheck and check again!

But the side profile of the neck blank is now cut:

And, hang it, let's have the first mock-up 

[ScottR]

You know, I had mentally pictured the layout going 180 degrees differently on that yew. That is going to be gorgeous.

Sometimes when I've got a book match where the good stuff wants to land outside the body, I stack the two halves face to face and trim back the edge that is going to be joined. You don't lose your book match and you get more of the juicy stuff in where you want it.

SR

[Andyjr1515]

14 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Sometimes when I've got a book match where the good stuff wants to land outside the body, I stack the two halves face to face and trim back the edge that is going to be joined. You don't lose your book match and you get more of the juicy stuff in where you want it.

Yes - that's a good tip, @ScottR  I do the same thing with veneers, because the nice bits are ALWAYS in the wrong place 

[Andyjr1515]

16 minutes ago, ScottR said:

You know, I had mentally pictured the layout going 180 degrees differently on that yew

Yes - when I bought the wood, I thought that too.  But when I put the paper template over, it just didn't work - when the major bout was right, the tips of the horns were then right in the fragile, knotty wood.  I might even have problems with the smooth curves of that main bout, but at least it's got half a chance of not falling to pieces 

Having worked with Yew before, I also know that those subtle, plainer areas at the two horns will turn spectacular as the chamfer carve cuts through the grain 

[Andyjr1515]

Lots of squaring up, etc, today.  This is clearly essential because the neck squareness will affect the squareness of the top, which will, in turn, affect the fit of the back wings.

Again, I find a hand plane as good as anything to take teeny amounts off the main faces to ensure they are completely square to each other:

Once that was done, I needed to pop a 0.5mm extra depth in the trussrod slot.  Then I was able to cut my notch in the neck blank for the top to slot into:

So basically, the top of the notched face (incorporating the neck angle) will sit flush with the two rear wings:

And then the joined yew top will lie on top of that, leaving the top face flush with the top of the neck.

And, talking of the yew top, I also squared up the gluing joints of that - and it's glued and clamped as I type

And that means that the main components are getting close to assembly

[ScottR]

I'm looking at the last picture and wondering, now why did he cut that to shape before gluing the halves together? It's surely easier to clamp when all the edges are parallel.......oh! they never were, were they.

Never mind.

SR

[Andyjr1515]

And so, I present early mock-up No 2 

This is all going very fast.  Better get my skates on and see if I can get hold of some ebony and stuff for the fretboard if the suppliers aren't already in lockdown!

[ADFinlayson]

Looking good Andy. I’ve had a delivery from Maderas Barber recently and I’ve got a parcel on the way from G&W (apparently coming on Monday) so you shouldn’t have too much trouble Getting hold of a fretboard. You might want to order some more wood while you’re at it as you’re clearly flying through this one 

[Andyjr1515]

There are tools that don't get used very often but when they do, boy are they useful!

Take the Stanley No.80 Scraper Plane, for example.  I think this was around £15 from ebay a few years ago:


My task was to remove the bookmatch band-saw dints, tearout and chatter. 
 I didn't want to use a powered sander because of the potential harmful dust, ditto with hand sanding (and it would take a full isolation period of time to do it!), hand-scraping better but hurts my arthritic hands and some of those dints are quite deep; normal planes a no-go because of digging in an tearout.  

But the No 80 is absolutely perfect.  Decent surface removal but no tearout at all.

Once it was almost there, I wiped over with a damp cloth to spot the dints that still showed.  Great way of seeing the sort of colour this is going to be, too

Can't wait to see what those grain lines are going to do once I start carving the chamfers 

 

[Andyjr1515]

3 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

I’ve had a delivery from Maderas Barber recently and I’ve got a parcel on the way from G&W (apparently coming on Monday) so you shouldn’t have too much trouble Getting hold of a fretboard. You might want to order some more wood while you’re at it as you’re clearly flying through this one

I spoke to David Dyke this morning and they are still operating for the basic stuff.  So fretboard blank is on the way - and a piece of AAA sitka spruce soundboard material for a VERY interesting project waiting in the wings 

 

[ScottR]

1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

 

Can't wait to see what those grain lines are going to do once I start carving the chamfers 

 

Yew've got that yew looking mighty tasty! Some areas look like actual flames.

SR

[Andyjr1515]

In all of my previous neck through builds, I have glued the rear wings to the neck, sorted the cable channels, etc, and then added the top.  This sort of thing:



The big disadvantage - particularly with the equipment (and skills!) I have, I find it very difficult to get the gluing area completely flat.  And it does need to be completely flat, otherwise the edges of the top are liable to end up with gaps.

So this time, I'm going to do it the other way round - glue the top to the neck blank and then add the prepared wings.

So first, I needed to add the demarcation stripe between the top and the back.  I'm using standard maple veneer:


Although it's only 0.6mm thick, it does show through well and is one of those things that always adds a bit of extra class to any build.  The back wings to through-neck joint will have the same feature.



Then, because I am weird and I use the top as my routing template for the back (although I may well not use a router on this one at all), I filed and sanded the tooling marks off the edge and brought it to its final shape and then glued and clamped it onto the neck:


Next job will be preparing the backs.

Stay safe and thanks for looking 

[Bizman62]

9 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Although it's only 0.6mm thick, it does show through well and is one of those things that always adds a bit of extra class to any build. 

I've found that essential between woods that are of the same colour or value. Low or no contrast where there's a change is just two pieces of wood stuck together. A contrasting line makes the change look like planned, something that a great mind has thoroughly pondered upon.

[Andyjr1515]

So I now have a top glued to the neck.

  
Quick check that everything is still square - both on the neck/top assembly and the mahogany.

And an orientation of the grain:


The upper back - that doesn't have any cable routs or control chamber stuff - then is cut to a 4mm oversize shape, a strip of maple is glued to the join face and then the 'you can't have too many clamps' ritual


Note the side clamps to secure the join with the neck, the central blue clamp and caul to get the side fully home and then the smaller clamps and curved protective cauls to ensure that the side joins are fully gap-free.

That's enough for today.  It's Saturday.  A weekend Gin beckons...    Wonder what's on for tomorrow - or, given the lockdown, pretty much the same  

[Bizman62]

44 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

A weekend Gin beckons...    Wonder what's on for tomorrow

A hangover? Don't do anything delicate with trembling hands! Playing mandolin is acceptable.

[Andyjr1515]

And to the other rear wing.  This is the one that has the control chamber and the pickup routs incorporated.  Note also the maple veneer acting as the demarcation:


This particular piece of Sapele was a little bit cupped and so the clamping was going to be particularly important.

I first used a couple of sash clamps to hold the joint with the neck tightly.  Clearly, it is important not to crush the 'hoop' left by the removal of the control chamber material and so, here, the sash clamp was fixed from the inside of the chamber to the outside of the other half.

So I could get maximum clamping force, I also cut shaped cauls from the offcut to be able to clamp all round the edges and with some hefty ply cauls underneath to protect the yew top:

It's going to start looking like a guitar soon

 

[Andyjr1515]

And now it does look more like a guitar

I'm pleased with the joins - certainly, with many hints and tips from the good and knowledgeable folks here over the years, I'm getting a bit better at it!

It's like this pretty much all the way round.  And see what I mean about 0.6mm of maple still being fully visible.


So now it looks more like a guitar.  The next step is to make it look more like an SG.  The chamfer carves start tomorrow...

[Andyjr1515]

And so to the carve.

First is to mark it out.  This was scaled up from a fairly flat-on photo:


Now the top is glued to the back, there is little to no chance of, say, a whole knot becoming dislodged.  However, the brittleness and variability of the wood was going to take some patient, steady work.  The thing I always think kills a DIY SG-style is when the faces are rounded and the chamfer edges aren't crisp.  There are a number of ways of maintaining that but, for what it's worth, these are my main tools for the job:

Spokeshave with a very sharp blade and set for quite a light cut for the rough-cut external curves, curved medium micro-plane for the rough-cut internal curves, flat and freshly re-burred cabinet scraper to smooth and flatten off the faces.  For carves like this, I have in the past used just a scraper, but with this timber, even a teeny scraper burr has a tendency to dig in.

For the horn cutaway, pretty much just the micro-plane, but being careful to cut down for the upper edges and up from the lower edges to ensure no chipping along the all-important edges:



Grateful for a sunny dry day for this - too many poisonous particles flying around to do in the cramped cellar.  Mind you, haven't heard the neighbours moving around for a while...

And the first rough carve is done.  Here it is lightly dampened to show more closely how the finished figuring is starting to develop: 


And while I was doing this, a parcel arrived from one of my trusted timber suppliers.  Sounds like we might have an ebony fretboard blank

As always, thanks for looking and for the encouraging comments and suggestions.  Always much appreciated

 

[mistermikev]

wow, feels like I stepped away for 3 seconds and blammo - looking beautiful.  that top is really coming to life.  looks like a mars dust storm.

[ADFinlayson]

Looking gorgeous, is that a half round microplane you've got there? I got a couple of flat microplanes for xmas the medium and the fine, they're pretty much my favourite neck carving tools now and I want to get hold of a couple of round ones too. 

At this rate you're going to have this one finished before lockdown ends, I hope you've got another build planned  

[ScottR]

That top is stunning Andy.

How are you planning to finish it? (Apologies if you've already said since I didn't bother to go back and check).

SR

[Andyjr1515]

48 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

is that a half round microplane you've got there? I got a couple of flat microplanes for xmas the medium and the fine, they're pretty much my favourite neck carving tools now and I want to get hold of a couple of round ones too.

Yes - it is. 

I have a coarse, medium and fine one.  Generally, I use the medium one.  The coarse one is a bit too rough on most woods and the fine one, great for finishing off, tends to flatten a touch rather than cut for decent wood removal.

[Andyjr1515]

44 minutes ago, ScottR said:

How are you planning to finish it?

For the body, standard old-fashioned household polyurethane varnish (Ronseal Hardglaze in the UK), Scott.  I will brush it on with an artist's fan brush.  It should come out similar to the yew-topped own-design here which was finished with the same varnish:

 

[ADFinlayson]

4 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Yes - it is. 

I have a coarse, medium and fine one.  Generally, I use the medium one.  The coarse one is a bit too rough on most woods and the fine one, great for finishing off, tends to flatten a touch rather than cut for decent wood removal.

perhaps the course one can be demoted to the kitchen to grate something over your Bolognese