chops1983

Hey Wez, Yeah i thought it was the most straight forward way aswell, didn't take all that long and it got the job done. I have been thinking about it recently and the other way would be to use the template as a flat base for the router to sit on and keep lowering the router bit in steps around the contour and then clean up and finish with a chisel. The benefits would be the router has the guide that routs the perfect 1.5mm groove into the guitar and all you would have to worry about then is the depth around the perimeter. If i do another body like this i will give this method a shot. So my parts for the necks and the bindings have arrived and work has commenced. I didn't get as much done as i would have liked this w/e, had to balance out the building with some quality time with my wife. I tend to disappear when the building starts A couple of teasers of the bindings on the flame maple body. I haven't scraped the whole body yet, just this side. I wanted to get started on the necks and scraping bindings is a job that can be done after work with a beer. Onto the necks, they're getting 4mm hex head hotrod trussrods from stewmac. I decided that if i was going to have the adjustment at the heal a slothead would be harder to adjust than a allen key. The trussrods are both laid out and both necks are marked out with the stopping points of the truss rod groove. ..........

Hey Ryan, I used maple in a ebony board with this inlay. It did get a whiska of ebony dust ingrained, but after polishing up the fretboard to 2000 grit paper, i used some metho and a rag and gave the maple a real good scrub. Then with a cotton bud finished just the maple with some tung oil. I think 3 coats in all. Playing will render the maple a little dirty but when i change my strings i always give my fretboards a good scrubbing with a toothbrush and some instrument polish and finished with a wipe of lemon oil. This usually brings it back to being fairly clean like in this pic. Wes has basically covered the other issues above and a bit of practice with some scrap is great advice. Try Prostheta's idea with some CA glue aswell i reckon he could be onto something and it might save you finishing it. Hope this has helped. Chad.

They look great Guitar2005, one could almost mistake this for my thread Im interested in how much of these you hollowed out? If you have any pics maybe you can put them up for us? Chad.

A guitar's education can not begin too early. Just like with children, you need teach them to love music while still in the womb. SR Sorry i haven't got back to you sooner, been in the city on the weekend and celebrating my 3rd anniversary with my wife. I kind of cheated with the routing at the contour, i didn't rout at all but used a 12mm chiesel to cut the groove. I routed all the flat section first going as far into the contour as i could. I then used the corner of the chiesel and my finger as a guide to mark the top and how far in the binding groove had to go in and the bottom of the groove is where the top and body glue line is. Slowly,slowly chieseling a section at a time. The results are great, some tearout on the figured grain as i was chiseling down but this will get covered by the binding. Ill get some pics up when i get the chance, I have a few busy days ahead. Chad.

Looks like his routed grooves with a cove rounded bottom bit and then routed at 90 degrees with a v shaped bit. Can you explain the theory behind this for us? Cool build though. The headstock could be a little clunky but the build is top notch!

Binding rout done, you can get the idea of what it will look like from the burn marks. Time for new bit i reckon. Wet top... and last shot of the two chilling in the music room on the couch. So far the log tells me this body has had 10.5 hours of working time to get it to here. As far as construction time goes it will probably be another hour or 2 for binding to be glued and scraped. Anyway these will lay for a few days while i wait for parts. Chad.

Body basically done. Pre binding rout. Im not sure if im gonna do a belly carve, a kind of like the boxy Tele look from the back.

The top bending begins! I grabbed a beer as per Drak's thread and the iron from the laundry and headed to the shed. It turned out to be a pretty simple process really but i was bloody nervous about it. I clamped a caul about 12mm back from the line of the bend to brace the top and heated up the iron to "cotton" with the steam on. The iron has a built in spritzer so i had that avenue covered. Spritz the top, run the iron over the bend and repeat until the timber warms up. I always kept it wet so i didn't scorch the top. With one clamp in the middle i started turning a little at a time while spritzing and heating and clamped all the way to the timber. The heat and water worked so well i could clamp it down with my own strength. I released the clamp and the timber sprang back enough for the glue to be squeezed in, alot of glue, bloody glue everywhere and repeated the bending, this time bending with 3 clamps, 2 on the bend and 1 in the middle. All up 5 clamps along the edge did the trick. It all happened so quick you can still see my beer with the cap still on. haha Happy with the results. ..........

So this body is basically all done, just waiting on the bindings to rock up with all the neck supplies probably by the end of next week. Preparing for the bend i decided i wanted some relief cuts as this is the first time ive ever bent any timber and i had no clue what to expect. Centrelines lined up and marked the body edge. Relief cuts routered with the dremel and an 3mm bit. Cuts are 3mm deep and finish 12mm from the edge of the guitar. You'll notice a few extra dowel holes cause im an idiot and made the hole to big, then it was off a whiska, oh well third times the charm! Cut the cauls to glue the whole top apart from the bend area. As per Drak's tutorial in his afterburner thread, i taped off the bend area so it stayed glue free. and glued the top on in the morning, it stayed in clamps for 8 hours until..........

Very cool Drak! That top reminds me of mine but richer colours. I like the black S/C's but the gold isn't quite there...what about a black cover h/b bridge p/up with gold slugs? Can ya even get gold slugs? hmmmm.....Looking good anyway! Chad.

Hey Shad, The other option is to use a dremel in it's base with a small router bit. Clamp a guide to the guitar and run it along that. Should get nice results. Here is a LINK to a pic of the same thing on my last build. Post #61 you can see a front shot and a closeup of the cavity. Chad.

That Tele Looks Hot! Well done on the overhaul. Keep the Pearloid pickguard i reckon it gives the guitar texture(is that the word im looking for?). What i really wanna know though, is who tapes up the singers nipples before the show? Chad.

The last shots for today are of the arm contour carve. Started shaping.... Cleaned up with some sandpaper. I checked the contour with my cabinet scraper to make sure it's flat. and rounded off the sharp line where the bend will be. I may round it some more but ill think about it. So far 3hrs and 20mins have been spent to get to this stage. Maple top is in the clamps and ill hopefully get the first stage of the top glued to the body tomorrow. Chad.

Body profiled. Next was to rout wiring channels. I decided that i didn't want to rout the channel down the glueline. As a carpenter by trade we are told to stagger all joints in anything we build so i figured it would be better for the top to have glue support along the joint. Any thoughts? I also routed the groove to the bridge p/up area because i may put in a middle p/up and if thats the case the channel will be good for all the pickups. Just a photo of the wiring rout setup. .......

Thanks IPA, Tele's are very cool, so simple. Leo was either a genius or just a fluke.... Laminate trimmers are really cool little routers, they aren't designed to plunge but you can if your careful. I happened to see a half size plunge router the other day at the tool shop, it would be perfect for p/up routs and truss rod channels. If only we had a never ending bank account! So today i started the alder tele. Alder is such a nice timber to work with. Easy to sand, rout, glue etc. I won't give the full details tonight just a montage of todays progress. Body marked. Rough cut.... I had great results routing today, i really thought about what was happening and why i was tearing out. So the changes i made: I only cut 2/3rds of the depth at a time and only running with the grain, therefore i need to flip the template and rout from the back also. End grain i sand as close to the line as possible before routing. I always touch the work piece against the router bit with cutting direction momentum instead of moving the guitar body straight into the bit and then in the cutting direction. I stay focused and keep a good grip on the body These are all things im sure you all do but im just a slow learner. A pic of the router setup. Here is a pic of a joint test i decided to try. I was reading one of RAD's threads and he had a problem with a weak joint, so to test it he smashed it against the ground until it broke, so i had an offcut of the alder and decided to have a crack Great success!!!

Hey Shad, It's great to see a 21 year old shaping his future and obviously living your dream career, your guitars are great and i wish you all the best! Looking forward to seeing more of your creations around these parts in the future. Chad.

Scott, Excellent execution as per usual and that carve on the headstock looks great! Bit of a signature for you. I heard on the radio the other day that Gary passed I don't have much of his music but i know he is revered for his guitar work. RIP. Chad.

Well it's funny you say that, i just recently stumbled upon preebs 59 burst thread on the tele forum from a link on PG and just finished his 2 p/up non trussrod esquire build. That man is a true master of his craft down to the most minute detail and seems like a great guy. He was a bit of an inspiration to get back in the shed and build. I felt a bit flat after the finishing of that last guitar...rubbing back that top 6 times kinda took it out of me But thanks very much for bringing up Preeb in one of my threads, im no where near the same skill or detail but it means alot! Well, make hay while the sun shines. If i get the contract up north progress will halt immediately, but i may even think of buying necks for these if it does. I'm gonna start a log for the alder body just to see how many hours it will take. I figure this body took maybe 20 hours but its hard to say as im making templates, thinking out the process order etc. Don't wanna make mistakes or miss anything. Totally agree, looks to be VERY well executed so far, and damn I love that top! The top, binding, f-hole, it all looks very 'comprehensive' in nature, well-thought out in advance. I love builds that show that kind of forward thinking, the guitar always looks better when it's well-thought out. Guitars really mirror what's going on in your head, if you're a frazzle-brain, the guitar will show that in the end. If your brain is working like a well-oiled machine, the guitar will show that too, and I see that here. That is going to be a sure-fire looker when you're done. Thanks Drak and Scott! You could say they're well thought out, all the sleepless nights when i wake up and im laying in bed thinking of finishing,top bending,wiring etc. Last night was a classic example, spent 2 hours thinking of how to bend that top and what finish im gonna use for it and its only for building guitars. Im never awake worried about work or whatever... It has been very enjoyable so far building from a detailed plan where everything is thought out. Anyway back to the shed, thanks for the comments and stopping by. Chad.

Next up drilling the bridge fixing holes and string through holes. I used my master template for this, double checked the printed measurements, all good. Then drilled out the correct size holes through the template on the drill press. Layed the template on the body and used a cordless with the correct sized bits just to mark the top. Flipped the body over and lined up the template and marked with the cordless. On the drill press, drill through half the body from the front and flip and drill from the back linking up the holes. Worked great and the holes were dead straight. Next i enlarge the holes for the ferrules to the required 8mm. Done! Drilled the p/up wire access holes to the cavity and jack hole and this body is all done! Just needs finish sanding, but that can wait until the other body is done! There was one last thing that flew under the radar, the slot for adjusting the truss rod. I am going to use the slotted head rods that get adjusted from the heel so i needed to make the channel for adjusting. I just marked it out by measurement and drilled the middle out and cleaned it up with a chisel. Half way through i thought maybe i should have used a headstock adjusting trussrod just in case i decide not to use a pickguard but it's a neat job so even if i don't it will still look fine. Now its all done! So far still no work and im waiting to hear about this contract so tomorrow i have a date with some alder and some maple! Chad.

Once im certain its spot on i mark either side of the neck template so i can lay my straight edge on for routing. The longer these marks the better as it will be more precise when lining up the straight edge. I didn't take any photos but the process is the same as making the neck template. Line up the straight edge to the line and flush cut with the router. The curves in the end of the pocket were done by hand with a round file until the neck template fits in. Hog out the cavities with the forstner bit. Now i clamp up the template lining centrepoints and the body shape and rout the cavities to the required depths starting from the shallowest cavities. All done. You will notice i had to add an extra piece of MDF to the neck p/up and neck pocket routes because my router bit was to long to route to the correct depth. I would have used a thicker piece of MDF had i have noticed, but it wouldn't of mattered as i had no thicker MDF stock anyway. .........

Hey man thanks! The top should look great and im glad i took the advice earlier in the thread and sand that tearout out. Happy with how the binding went. This is my third guitar with binding so i understand the process pretty well now. I like that look, it's very classy almost abit metal, shredder type of feel. I think binding the edge in black would look ace but how the hell would you rout the binding channel once the forearm contour gets bent. hmmmm.... 2 part poly is absolutely crystal clear, when i used it for that last guitar i was very impressed with the clarity. I have some left but ive heard it has a shelf life of a year, ive had it probably 15 months. Ill have to test it though if i go ahead with it. Decisions,decisions...... Thanks for posting up those pics mate. So today i didn't get as much done as what i thought, had a 2 hour break in the middle of the day and went to the beach with the wifey and worked on the tan and caught up with the gossip..... Started the day with routing the roundover on the back. The plans called for a 3.2mm roundover. Here she is. Then i set out to make a template for the neck pocket and p/up routs. I always find this part of the build the hardest, it isn't physically hard but it has to be spot on otherwise it will cause all sorts of issues if its not. So I started by drawing a nice long straight line down my piece of MDF. Traced out the body template lining up the centre line. Then i measured the length of the pocket from the edge of the template to the back of the pocket along the centreline and marked it. I placed the neck in position lining up the centrelines. I felt this method really took out the guess work of sighting a straight centreline. I triple check myself with this method. First is the centreline, second i mark the width at the nut and measure both sides to the centreline and third i mark the bridge fixing line back from the back of the neck pocket and square off a line from the centrepoint. Run a straight edge down the neck and mark a line following the taper on both sides, the distance from the lines either side of centre should be both exactly the same. ........

Nice. What kind of machine is that? It is just a small router called a trimmer as opposed to a plunge router. Designed for cabinet makers for routing edges and laminex flush to a benchtop. This device comes with the tool and can be set to rout a groove for binding etc or use any straight cutting bit for flush cutting. Just means i don't have to buy a specified bit for binding from stewmac.

Nice work CD,always a few hiccups in a first build. Im loving all the aussie timbers you got going. Where about's in oz are you mate?

Once i finish the binding all the way around, i go back to the start and peel a section of tape and start scraping the binding flush to the top and sides. This takes a little elbow grease but is satisfying at the end result. Last pic for tonight is of the body wiped down with a damp rag. Gives an idea of the colour when finished. Tomorrow i will rout the p/up cavities and neck pocket and start on the alder body! Chad.

Just a little bit of work today. Pulled the body out of the clamps this morning and flushcut the top with the router. Time for binding. Being a laminate trimmer the tool comes with this handy guide bearing for routing perfect binding channels. A quick zip around the body..... and shes all ready for the binding. this is a relatively simple process, you glue then you tape and so forth. I do pre bend the plastic binding around the template for tight curves though with a hairdryer. Here it is all bound. ......