holzon

The sticky finish of the neck ended up being a dirt magnet, so I took the plunge to reshape and refinish it. The neck actually feels like a sweet guitar now and less of a shovel. I put a couple of coats of matte acrylic lacquer spray on top of the white wash, which seems to have done the trick, smoooooth! Lesson learned: if it feels sticky, it will make stuff stick! Another fun accident was putting buckles into the back of the pot wen I finally figured It was time to fix it with a nut. Those things look solid, but apparently not... So I have some re-soldering to do, the pot is more like a kill switch at the moment. ;-)

Holzaxt Helluvacaster 7 This is my first build, the original idea was to make a somewhat more metal Telecaster. Did the parts requiring power tools up at our summerhouse, the rest is mostly done in my living room and apartment patio. I've always thought that more is more, so there's a lot of experiments in this, such as flat fretboard, zero fret, 26 inch, 7-string. It plays and sounds far above my expectations, but I will thin out the neck a bit more in the future when I get the time. Specs: Scale: 26" Body: Swamp ash, stained ebony, hard wax oil Neck: One-piece Maple, C-profile, flat radius, bolt-on, double-action truss-rod, white-washed Bridge: Hipshot Fixed 7 0.125" black Tuners: Gotoh Rock Solid cosmo black Pickup: Seymour Duncan Black Winter Frets: zero fret + 24 frets + minifrets, Wagner extra jumbo Nut: Graph Tech Controls: Single knob for volume Build thread: Cheers, Jens

Eureka! Sticky finish of neck was fixed by a light rub of chalk.

Thanks for the encouraging words SL! Lo and behold, it plays! Finishing up the mounting of the last hardware went pretty smoothly, ugly soldering that I conveniently hid with lots of tape... One problem I had not anticipated was the high E tuning peg being higher than the zero fret, doh! I solved it by winding on more turns of string than I usually do, phew! The pegs I bought also might have been for a regular head side, they go in reverse now which is kind of interesting ;-) Balance is great, pure luck I guess. One high fret on high E string, will give it a good bang later. Frets could have used some more polishing, there are some scratches that catch here and there. Kind of an experiment to see if it would be noticeable. It was! :-D Neck ended up a bit thick, since I was a bit scared of everything coming apart once stringing it up. I'm thinking of shaving some wood off later this summer if I get the time. The finish of the neck is still a bit sticky, even after sanding, so we'll see what happens there after playing it for a bit more. I went for Electrocution-safe, no ground to strings or bridge. Ended up super-silent, so I'm happy that still worked out good. Anyway, here are pics! Trying to nudge in the high fret

We have thus arrived at the epic moment of the neck being ready to be mounted to the body! I seriously think the fret work has been the most painful part of the entire build. I would like to thank my wife and friends for understanding and support during the last two weeks of being non-communicably bent over my work bench, furiosly grinding frets. I will never, ever, ever say that a guitar is expensive again. I would probably be willing to part from this guitar for say, $8000, just counting the ridiculous work hours I've put into it. Next up is mounting neck, and then putting on the rest of the hardware and solder. Getting closer to the critical point of stringing this baby up! Any bets on if it will be playable? Will the neck hold? Will the headstock hold? The suspense is killing me.

Herdins tak- och panelvitt, standard white. The plan was to put hard wax oil on top, but when trying it the oil ended up as a yellow sticky goo on top of the white wash instead of entering the wood. Saw yesterday that Osmo has white pigment hard wax oil, so that would probably be my next pick for experiments :-D

It's water based. I tried sponging on some water a couple of hours ago on part of the side, didn't seem to do anything unfortunately. Who the hell looks at the side of a guitar anyway! :-D Thanks, happy you liked em, happy I made em too, I think they do add something to this otherwise kind of blocky guitar :-) Now I've got tingles in my right hand after sawing up the fret slots again. Stupid bastard to put whitewash in them in the first place... A bit worried I might be widening them too

Weather has been terrible for getting anything done, but I managed to squeeze in some work in the few hours of non-rain here and there. First up is my jig(?) for planing the fretboard. My most excellent €5 pizza-stone serves double work here as a plane surface, after a serious discussion with my 6-year old that we would still be able to make pizza on it. Next up was staining the neck a bit whiter, because Swedes put this goo on any wood they can. The final touch and feel is a bit more wet than I would like, but I'm thinking of giving it a very slight polish or sanding. Next up was staining the body in Ebenholtz black. I had to dilute the stain quite a lot to get the kind of see-through I was looking for. I'm going to put on hard wax oil too, so it will probably end up a bit darker in appearance I speculate. Next up is putting on the hard wax oil on the body, and setting up the neck. I have to find a new bucket of oil first though, the one I got had a tiny note saying 'New Formula! Not useable with stain'. Doh! Question if anyone is good at staining: The back came out lighter than the front, so I washed it down again quickly, but it did leave stain borders on the edge of the guitar. What happens if you just put on water on the edges, does it blur out the edges, our do I risk messing up the staining? It's not that obvious, so one option is leaving it.

Yikes, those look really neat. No pressure! I guess whichever way I went with this one, you guys would get your laughs, cause something sure will end up a hassle :-D A year after routing the neck, measures and such aren't as clear anymore... I don't suppose you guys write up these kind of stuff in notebooks? ;-)

Yikes, gotta remember to let it rest then... I'm actually going for a flat fretboard just for fun, but I guess the thing will warp all the same. It's 23 mm now, I'll try shaving some more off of it then! I remember reading that somewhere, but what confused me a bit though was sculpting against that fret wire metal ends, it seemed a bit scary. Thanks, targets like that was exactly what I was fishing for :-D I don't think I'm mentally prepared to volute anything :-D I didn't plan for it, so I don't honestly know if there's any wood there to account for it, or do you guys manage to do it out of standard neck blanks? Like said above, the thickness is like 24 mm maybe close to the angle. Thinning out generally + the sides and trying to get a bit more forgiving join will be the plan I guess. Thanks for the quick replies, much appreciated!

Ok, I interpreted the silence of the forum as "Of course stupid, you should sculpt the neck before fretting! sheesh..." I was very happy to have a spokeshave, the rasp didn't do much damage on the hard maple neck. Rasp on the body though to get some bevels on the edges. Next up is sanding neck and body. I have to order a new Graph Tech nut, the one I ordered earlier is too short :-( Questions if anyone has the time: 1. What's the science in fitting a nut to a one piece neck? How deep does the slot need to be? Does it need to be recessed on both sides? I kind of mean if it's good enough if it's supported at the bottom and the side next to the fretboard, but the wood on the other side is removed. 2. I'm scared of removing more wood at the back of the neck/head angle. Ok for a first guitar, or do you recommend I get a smoother join when I'm at it?

Reviving this thread back from the dead! You probably thought that this guitar was fire wood, but I've slowly worked on it during the winter. I found a wood working group, but we're drinking coffee about as much as we're doing actual work I've sculpted a few ergonomic details for the body, like the beer belly shelf and the underarm rest. I mostly aimed for interesting curves, so I will probably not win any real ergonomy awards. Been doing some experiments with how to saw the frets cheaply, and after a few failures I settled for a pretty cheap zona saw. My fret wire tang was really thin and I had to thin out the saw a bit more even though it should be the same width (0.5 mm). After the thinning of the saw, it was a real pain sawing the frets, it really wanted to get stuck in the slits. I had to superglue the handle and wear a gym glove to be able to cope with sawing 30 something slits. I cut out thinner guide slits with one of those table saws at the wood work group. Looks quite good, but we'll see about the precision first later I guess when it's getting setup. Now the question for you experts... Do I bang in frets before sculpting the neck or after for one of these one-piece maple necks?

Thanks! The problem with my truss rod jig is that I needed to move the whole drill press for micro adjustments, and I didn't find a good way to get the neck guaranteed straight. Almost back in civilization, so here are a few more pictures from the build. My time plan to finish a first guitar in two weeks was completely ridiculous in hindsight, so I opted to finish everything that required power tools instead. Shaping, fretting and finishing will be done at home. I didn't have time to clean up the pickup cavity, routing is probably the most difficult part of guitar building! It's like trying to paint but having a small door mounted on the brush, and you can only look through the keyhole. Thinning out the head, a pain to saw through the hard maple... Glueing the head after leveling my rough sawing out... Still kind of wonky, but I blame that on my manual sawing of the 12 degree angle. Planed the body blank, pretty nice figuration, so I'm happy I accidentally got the swamp ash instead of regular ash. Cut out the body shape, a bit scared of sawing so there was quite a lot to file away later. Neck ready for cutting. At the last minute I increased the head width by a cm, which was pure luck, as I later found out my head piece was way undersized when actually measuring the Gotoh tuning machines. Neck cut out. I noticed the wing was a bit thick near the neck, so maybe I should have pulled the head shape further down, but I hope I can sculpt it thinner. I then did routing and drilling of the body, fitting metal groovings in neck, and using bolts through the body, since I like to tinker with my stuff a lot. Here's the rough unshaped, unfinished guitar in all it's glory! Next step is getting it home in one piece, and then finding the time to shape the neck and body.

Raining like crazy today, so I thought I'd try to update the build thread. Internet is crazy slow up here, linking over my iPhone on a very weak connection. First and second day was spent trying to clear up this mess. There used to be a carpenters desk somewhere under there 20 years ago. Also got some help bringing in a newer carpenters table that we sanded and put some hard wax oil on. Did some rough shapes out of plywood with measurements a mix from a Tele CAD drawing, my sketch, and some measurements from the few sevens I had at home. Making sure that I've measured roughly ok, and placing bridge, neck and pickup markings. Routed out a channel for the truss rod with a thick board for support. First time ever with a router, phew! Still after trying on a few scrap pieces, the bloody router piece came loose in the hard maple of course. Didn't screw up the neck completely at least. Don't weep now, but this is the only thing I could come up with to get the neck cut at 12 degrees something. It went surprisingly well, drifted maybe 0.5 cm, but I still have some leveling to do for sure... Another crazy setup, maybe I was just lucky drilling, but I managed to find the truss rod channel at least. After some filing, the truss rod slides in from the head end, and sits very snugly. It's supported on both ends by the heel of the body and the truss rod channel ending quite early up towards the head. Next step is getting the head piece on there, cutting out the main shape of the neck and salvaging a truss rod skunk stripe from the scraps!

Given that this i my first guitar build, I only opted for basic woods, so neck blank is regular american maple. Body being swamp ash is more of a happy accident where the retailer offered me that instead of standard american ash for the same price due to going on vacation the same day. I'll drop by the local wood shop and see if they have any swedish maple or similar that I can get, I'm out of time to have any wood shipped before I leave for vacation/fabrication. I guess the backup plan is to skip fretboard until later, but I guess that halts shaping of the neck and stuff like that too.