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pshupe

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Everything posted by pshupe

  1. Drilled for tuners. I bought a tuner hole drilling jig but frankly it's just as easy and possibly easier to just drill on my drill press. Pretty straight forward. So I will stay on the neck and look at cutting the tenon. This is the most complicated part of this build. I did some CAD drawings to figure out bridge height etc. It's tricky because it has a tenon like an LP but a flat top like a JR. So there either needs to be a ramp under the fret board or the body has to be sanded so that is where the ramp exists. I figured I'd split the difference and go with a small ramp under the fret board and sand a bit of a ramp into the body. I actually think this is what they did on the Futura and then moved the neck join location to minimize the thickness of the ramp for the Explorer. Here are the cad files and then how I will cut the tenon and angle on my CNC machine. So I constructed an angled ramp on my CNC machine and cut the tenon to the right depth. This kept a bit of mahogony as a ramp joined to the tenon, which I decided not to use in the end but it looked pretty cool. and test fit on my korina body. then glued up the fret board. I took the ramp of the sides first and will use a cut off to slide under the fret board when I glue the neck on. Glued up with hot hide glue. Gotta be vintage correct. Cheers Peter.
  2. So the fret board is pretty much done. I'll turn my attention back to the neck. I saved some of the cut offs from the neck rough shaping and cut up some ears to try and match grain. Found a nice set that matched and glued them on - Took the clamps off and planed the ears to match the surface of the head stock. The joints are tight and the grain matches quite well. I thicknessed the head stock to close to final dimensions then used a plywood template to get the shape. First I drilled some holes straight through so I could sit the head stock flat on my bandsaw table. then put on the template and sand as close as I can to the edge on my oscillating sander. I want to reduce the possibility of tear out with this procedure. onto the router table with a template bit - Cheers Peter.
  3. Moving on to frets. My fret bender doesn't really work very well so I decided to print out a few radii on a piece of paper and see which one worked the best for a slightly over bent fret wire. I printed out 11" 10" and 9". Bent a few pieces and a little less than 10" radius seemed to be about the correct bend. I use my drill press to press in the frets. I wicked some CA glue under the fret tangs and clamped with my radius beam, which was probably unnecessary but the result was pretty nice. sanded the ends of the frets close to the board edge then filed flat with a bastard file. Cheers Peter
  4. Drilled for dots - had to put my reading glasses on to find those tiny marks. got out a sheet of cellulose nitrate and punched out some dots and glued in - sanded flush - The board was a little thick so I flipped it over stick it to my radius beam and fed it through my thickness sander. Took off about 1.2mm down to final vintage thickness. Finish sanded to a fairly high grrit and a little acetone over the inlays to shine them up. Nice fancy BRW fret board ready for frets - Cheers Peter.
  5. So I used a fret board template that I created to layout the board. It's 1/8" stainless steel and has indexing pin holes in it so I can drill small dowels holes to locate the board on the neck, and in the CNC machine. A friend of mine has a thickness planer with 12" radius knives in it but I was concerned about tear out with the crazy grain on this board. Also since it was client supplied brazilian rosewood I didn't want to have to call him and say hey I just blew your board apart in my planer. So I went hand tool route. I have a jig I made up with an 18" aluminum sanding beam. I also double face tape my walnut planer push stick to use as a handle. I started with 60 grit, which makes short work of radiusing. I marked with yellow pencil and when the marks are all gone I'm done and can move up grits. A little bit later and - Down through some finer grits and then checked radius - Looks good. I put it in the CNC machine to cut the taper, cut the slots with a 0.023" diameter end mill and also marked the location of the dots. I had to mark the holes with a yellow pencil because the bit was very tiny. I'll use a brad point bit to drill for the dot inlays. Cheers Peter.
  6. It's also a lot quicker and not as finiky. The 3/16" kerf blade ain't cheap but it sure is worth it when doing a bunch all at once. Cheers Peter.
  7. So I cut the head stock angle after rough cutting the neck with a jig on my table saw. then the truss rod slot - I have a table saw blade with a 3/16" kerf - I drilled for the anchor, and truss rod access, and rough shaped the neck. He wanted vintage correct so I will use a one way truss rod. I cut up some hard maple strips . Cheers Peter.
  8. The person I built the first Futura sent me the wood to make the guitar. He sent me a huge one piece blank of black limba for the body, a piece of honduran mahogany for a one piece neck, and a flat sawn piece of brazilian rosewood for the fret board. Here is the body blank. neck blank. I forgot to take a picture of it before I rough cut the shape - and the fret board blank - Cheers Peter.
  9. Thanks. I'll start off from the beginning of the build. The neck joint is very interesting and clearly something that was probably a little complicated for a quick production run. Although I think the Explorers were very similar, meaning they didn't change that part much. Here is the original patent drawing from 1957 The Futura was the prototype to the Explorer. After a little research here is what I found. It showed up at the NAMM show in 1957. There is good story about one of the prototypes that surfaced in the mid '70s. Kurt Linhof was a guitar collector and seller of vintage guitars. He was driving to a guitar shop in Texas and drove by a house where there was a guitar on the front porch. The owner was a blues musician, Ponty "Guitar" Gonzales, who was using the guitar as art work and used to drive around with it in the window of his Cadillac. It turned out to be one of the 4 - 6 prototypes created. I believe it was the only one made with a korina body and mahogany neck. The others were all mahogany or all korina ( FYI - korina is also known as white limba).Here is a picture of the guitar as found by Kurt and Ponty is holding it. Here is the CAD file I created from this and a bunch of other sources to hopefully get close to the original design intent. Cheers Peter
  10. I just finished up a build for a friend that was based on the prototype of the Explorer, which along with the Flying V and the Moderne were introduced as new designs in 1958. These modernistic guitars were a bit of a flop and never really took off. They didn't even produce "for sale": Modernes and produced a limited number of Explorers and Flying Vs in 1958 - 1960. Here are a couple of pics of the one I just finished - These actually used wood that I had made a test body and neck for a Futura I built a couple of years ago. The person sent me some wood he had been saving and I didn't want to "mess up" his prized wood, so I made a body and neck to work out the kinks. This was more of a kit build as I did not do any finish on the guitar but had everything else setup. Here is how that build turned out - If there is interest I could post up a thread with pics throughout the build process. I have documented both entire builds, pretty much. I have posted them on other forums. Cheers Peter.
  11. Finished up my Norway maple SG. I cut this tree down on my neighbour's yard about 5 yrs ago and was pleasantly suprised to find it was figured wood. I've completely finished it now but still have to take some final glamour shots. I' also just finishing up a replica of a 1957 Gibson Futura build. This was the guitar that was the prototype for the Explorer. I'm just working on setup and frets now. Should be done very soon. Cheers Peter.
  12. Oddly enough I bought plans from Australia Luthier Supplies about 5 years ago but they do not sell them any more. It looks like you have a good handle on them though. I was just looking for them and can't find them. I made my own though. I've built 3 or so of the old 360 model. One 6 string and a couple of 12s. Here are some drawings I did for the 360 Rose Morris. I was building this for an Engineer in California so I did a lot of CAD drawings to show him exactly what was going on. I still have a neck that I will be using for a 12 string 660. Cheers Peter.
  13. That looks really uncomfortable to play? You might want to consider a belly and arm carve. LOL Cheers Peter.
  14. I didn't see a thread about this here yet? If there is already one here please bump and the mods can delete this one. But here goes. This is what is on my workbench. A new batch of stainless steel fret slotting and inlay, and head stock templates. A bunch of common ones and a couple of one offs . Cheers Peter.
  15. I've duplicated that first post. Can a moderator delete that post? Thanks. Cheers Peter.
  16. Sorry for the formatting I just cut and pasted from another forum. Please let me know if this is too annoying and I will delete and redo it. Is there a way to change the background colour? I tried changing the font to dark but it keeps the background as dark? Cheers Peter.
  17. So a friend of mine got his hands on a really nice plank of Brazilian rosewood and I have been tasked to take this one board and get as many fret boards as I can out of it. The board is 75" long, by 5" wide and 3/4" thick. Looks like I shoould be able to get 16 boards total out of this piece if it is quite straight and flat. So I figured the best way was to cut it into 4 equal lengths, and cutting the oversized outlines, and jointing and then re-sawing. Let's see how that works out. So here is one of the 1/4s of the board. I marked out a nest set of boards and will cut on the band saw. Here are the nested layout. Looks pretty good. I should have enough all around. I figured I'd joint each side as I will be re-sawing down the middle so the jointed faces will be the under sides of the fret boards. If I can re-saw them thick enough I might joint the other side depending on visual appeal. After jointing both sides they were still quite thick. Shouldn't have a problem re-sawing. I marked a center line and setup the band saw to, hopefully, cut right in half. Worked out well and they were more than thick enough. They look kind of cool book matched. Throw it through the thickness sander to take them down close to finish thickness. The CNC machine will thickness them perfectly. I shot a little video and sped it up about 20X - CLICK HERE FOR CRAZY FAST VIDEO I've actually now cut 8 boards and might be doing another 8. These are spectacular boards. Hopefully I can get some for myself. ?? They are actually a nice chocolate brown colour. Cheers Peter.
  18. Sorry for not responding to this post. I have a friend that has a boat load of Korina and even the exotic wood places have it priced quite reasonably in comparison to Honduran Mahogany and other exotics. Regarding the acetone wipe. I have done this on a few builds normally with rosewood fret boards. It seems to not affect the inlay much other than it melts it slightly into the pocket. It fills slight gaps and shines up the inlay a bit as well. But on the Ziricote it really took the brownish hue out of the wood and stained the inlay a golden colour, which after the fact I really liked. It was a little shocking in first light though. Regards Peter,
  19. Thank you. Despite the quick nature of the postings here it has been a long build and I am very happy with the results. Except for a few little things. Some that I can change and others I cannot. I am not happy with the Lyre Maestro vibrolo I purchased. I'm not sure if it is just a cheap knock off or it is the way that all of these time of vibrolos work. My bridge is intentionally quite low, which is the way I like it on my guitars. The spring on the vibrolo is quite high and there isn't much break angle. I am a fan of Derek Trucks and have seen his signature SG with a stop tail being added instead of the spring vibrolo. He kept the frame and stainless cover and I will be doing the same with this build. So I have to drill into a freshly buffed guitar. Wish me luck! I marked out where I wanted the tailpiece to go and dismantled my tremolo leaving the frame and cover just like DT. Then placed some painters tape across where the tailpiece will sit and then meticulously measured the center to center and marked with a sharp pencil and then used an awl to mark the hole locations. I will use a relatively new brad point drill bit. I want to make sure I do not chip the finish as I drill. The brad point works well for this but I also "burnished" the tape down to the finish well also. The holes drilled well without chipping and I used a large counter sink to chamfer the edges so the finish doesn't crack when I press in the bushings. I also drilled a 1/8" diameter hole from the stud hole into the control cavity for the ground wire. I used my drill press and an upside down large diameter drill bit to press in the bushings after adding the ground wire. The pressed in easily and may consider a smaller diameter hole next time. The white limba is a pretty softwood and I am used to pressing into hard maple, so that could be the difference. All strung up and ready to rock. That wasn't that hard. I still have to take some glamour shots but I like the look and it will definitely function a lot better now. Cheers Peter.
  20. So It's all wired up and functioning. This is usually the time where I wish I didn't spend so much time building because my practicing suffers. Here is what it looks like with it all setup. I still have to finish my back cover plate but other than that I'll call this one done. Cheers Peter.
  21. Thank you. This was one thing I struggled with when I first started. I forget who explained it to me but once explained it was a bit of an epiphany, which hopefully I can pass along. Another important tip is if you find you have wet sanded and there are only a few shiny spots and they look deep. The best thing is to drop fill them. If you try to sand out a couple of really deep spots chances are you will sand through. I also use a yellow coloured terry cloth when wet sanding and wipe off quickly. If you see any colour on the cloth stop immediately. Most times the colour is quite thin but it could save you sanding through and having to redo the finish. Cheers Peter.
  22. Thanks. I am actually just finishing this build off. I'll try and get some "glamour shots" up at some point. Cheers Peter.
  23. On to wet sanding. I've done this a few times now and I think I have the concept down quite well. My first couple of attempts didn't go well so I will describe my process. I hope this is helpful to some newbies as I struggled with the concept but have pretty much got an idiot proof workflow now, which I need! So the basic concept is that the guitar before wet sanding and buffing is very shiny but not flat. In order to get a mirror like finish your surface has to be flat. Here is an image of what the finish looks like before wet sanding and then about half way through our first grit. I started wet sanding with 400 grit. This is quite aggresive and makes quick work of the level sanding process but you have to be really careful because you do not want to sand all the way through the finish. I have done that in the past and if you sand through the colour it's almost impossible to touch up and you have to start over. Not good! I knew I had a fairly flat finish to start so I wasn't too concerned about sanding through but was careful anyway. Here is the back mostly level sanded with one of the wings not done yet. You can see how it is shiny but bumpy. The matte side is flat but not shiny because I flattened it with 400 grit paper which puts tiny scratches in the finish and makes it look cloudy or matte. You basically sand until you cannot see any shiny spots left. then I finish up wet sanding and move up a grit. Here is the back finished to 400 When I finish a grit I make sure the scratches all run one direction. Then when I move up a grit I sand 90 degrees to that direction and when I cannot see anymore of the old scratches I know I am done and can move up another grit again rotating to 90 degrees. Here is a pic with the 400 scratches - You can see they mostly run 90 degrees to the bottom edge of the picture. and here I am done with 600 grit - I do not see any of the 400 grit scratches and can see finer scratches parallel to the bottom edge of the picture. The finish also looks shinier. I move up through the grits from 400 - 600 - 800 - 1000 - 1200 - 1500 - 2000 then I am ready to go to the buffer. Here is my final wet sanding finished. You can see it is quite shiny and I know it is completely flat. Then on to the buffer, which makes the finish pop - and there we have a fully buffed, flat, and shiny guitar - I also do one final step which is to go into the areas where the buffer could not reach with a polishing compound. I use Mequiars #9. I use a cotton terry cloth by hand and it seems to work well. If you do not have a buffer you can use buffing wheel attachments for a hand drill. Cheers Peter.
  24. Ok - So I drilled all the holes and setup the guitar with all the hardware, so I can make sure everything fits before finishing. I have sanded to 320 grit and it's ready to spray. I want to do a very thin black burst as I think this will look good on this guitar. I've pore filled with timbermate ebony and ready to go into the both. I sprayed a couple of sealer coats of nitro lacquer and then the burst. There is no binding to scrape so I can go straight to clear coats. So I sprayed over 3 days and probably did about 12 coats total. In between days I wet sanded to reduce the orange peel. This is the first time I have done this schedule but I think it works really well. Here is what it looks like after my final clear coats. I am very happy with the results and will wait a couple weeks before I wet sand and buff. So I can move onto fret work. Mask the board and use a flat beam to level the frets. diamond fret file and sharpie to crown and basic dress then on to the nut. Went with bleached bone. Set up again and purchased some new fret slotting files. cut the slots to depth after initial shaping My neck is a little wider than normal because I added binding and overhung the frets, so I notched the saddles as the tailpiece string spacings was a little thinner than what I wanted to go through the bridge. So all set up and ready for wet sanding. Cheers Peter.
  25. So tuner holes now. I drilled 1/16" holes to locate the centers of the tuner holes in my veneer. I laid out the tuners in CAD prior to drilling. I work by myself in a very small shop, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I have to come up with unique ways of holding things when only I only have two hands to work with. I propped up the guitar so the back of the head stock was completely flat with my drill press table and drilled with a brad point bit. I have most of the bushing reamers Stew Mac sells so just had to find what worked for my Kluson banjo tuners. I CNC'd the neck to about the first fret and used the paper template I made for the tuners to mark the transition from head stock to neck carve and used files and rasps to get a nice crisp shape. finished up - I also did a quick mock up of all the hardware. I bought a knock-off Maestro Lyre tremolo and had a couple vintage ABR-1 bridges in my box of goodies. I also had a guy at the other forum wind me some custom mini-humbuckers. Cheers Peter.
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