mattharris75

Let us know how you like that Rikon, Scott. I've got that same Craftsman saw, and I'm sick of it. Build is looking great, per usual!

Very slowly... Because I'm working on stuff like this at the same time.

It's been a busy year, and I haven't had much time to think about this build. But I have managed to get 8 coats of Tru Oil on her. She'll get finished one of these days...

Time to start thinking about my first acoustic guitar build.I think I've got a theme going here. This one will utilize the same basic body profile and other 'family' cues that I've used in my previous Zenith titled builds. This build will likely be even slower than is typical for me, as, well, life is just busy right now. Not to mention I'll have to buy/build more jigs and tools than normal for this one. But I wanted to go ahead and start the thread to have a place to keep things updated. So here is the initial design. It's small bodied, with a double x braced top. I'm currently considering doing laminated sides as well. Interior walnut that is kerfed all the way through . It's an interesting technique that I've seen. Most solid laminated sides require vacuum bagging as part of the process, and I don't plan on going there. Here's the basic plan: I've already made the neck blank for it. A 7 piece laminate of walnut, flamed maple, and cherry: The back and sides will be Ovangkol: The top will be western red cedar. This particular top has some pretty wide pink stripes that I like. I've also got a second top that is a bit more uniform, with more dark streaks, if I change my mind: As far as binding, fretboard, headplate, etc, I haven't decided yet. I'll play it by ear a bit, give it some thought, and see how things look as I progress. Excited to add some new skills and try some new things with this one!

I have been doing stuff, I promise. Pre-finish installation of the pots, the bridge, the tuners. Roughing out the nut. Re-sanding and danish oil filled a couple of scratches on the top. But I, admittedly, have been working on my next build too.

Congrats! Now I want to build a Uke!

It sucks that that happened, but at least you're at the point in the process where you get to make something even better than you had, making it exactly the way you want it!

Did you ever get this thing finished, Mike? Would love to see some finished pics if so!

So, the flu knocked me out for a week. Apparently the vaccine didn't work so well this year... Back to work the last day or two and managed to get all the knobs completely finished. I have to say, I'm pretty fired up about these. They're not exactly a difficult thing (though of course they're more involved than one would initially think), but the fact that everything went to plan and there were no hang ups, well, that's an unusual thing in a project! I ended up chucking them all up in the drill press and polishing them with micro mesh papers while they were spinning, all the way to 12,000 grit. Then just a light shot of Tru Oil, also while spinning. Honestly I polished most of it off. These things are as smooth as anything I've ever made, just crazy smooth! And they're going to look great on the bass!

Yeah, you could start with it round and do the drilling operations afterward or start with it square, do the drilling operations, and then make it round. Either method is perfectly legitimate. But to me this seemed to be the easiest method with my tools.

Thanks guys! So, I had never made a knob before. Did some research, watched some videos, etc, and figured out a procedure that I thought would work for me. So, to make sure I didn't screw things up I came up with a plan: Step 1, use a 5/8" forstner to recess a 4mm deep hole in the blank so that the nut and washer clear the knob. Then, step 2, drill the 9mm hole into the blank using that center point from the forstner bit. I didn't take a pic of that. Thanks to Amazon, though, I spent the week dead in the water after this step, as I was waiting for the aluminum tubing to arrive. Finally, 5 days after it was supposed to be delivered, it arrived this afternoon. Since I couldn't proceed with the other steps I drilled the 1/8" hole for the brass indicator tubing and went ahead and epoxied them in in with black tinted epoxy. So, now that the aluminum tubing is here I cut a piece of the 6mm ID and 9mm OD tube to fit and pounded it down into the center of the knob, and hit it with a little CA glue. Then I drilled from the side with the 3.2mm drill bit for the M4 grub screw, which I then tapped. I then rough sanded off the corners of the blank with the disk sander and then chucked it up onto a 5.5mm drill bit on the drill press, using the m4 grub screw to hold it in place. I used my sanding block to shape it with 80 grit, making sure to measure frequently with the calipers so it stayed square. You can also see the aluminum tubing inserted here: Then just took it up through 320 grit and wet sanded it with 400 and a bit of Tru Oil while it was spinning on the makeshift lathe. I'll do at least one more coat of oil once this is dry, but here's the first one more or less finished:

This is The Zenith. A semi-hollow whose design I based on my acoustic guitar bodied mandola that I built awhile back. The body and neck are flamed maple and black walnut. The fretboard, headplate/backstrap, and knobs are wenge. The finish is Original Tried & True Oil. Scale length is 24.75". It has Golden Age overwound humbuckers, a Hipshot Baby Grand bridge, and Planet Waves locking tuners. Here is a link to the build thread: Zenith Guitar

Thanks guys. The whole bass has had two sand and slurry sessions. I'll wait a couple of weeks and then start the Tru Oil. Here's a pic with a little more natural light. Lots of little things to do in the meantime. Aligning and drilling the holes for the bridge, as well as pre-drilling for all the other hardware. But the fun project that I'll be working on is making a set of knobs. I glued up up some laminates, a mini version of the body blank, and cut them into squares. I had to order a few things, grub screws, 6mm ID aluminum tubing, etc. But this should be fun. I'm also going to inlay some brass tubing in the top and fill that with black epoxy to use as a directional indicator. Here's a blank compared with an offcut from the body.

Looking great! What's the radius on your radius dishes for your top and back? Been planning an acoustic guild and am doing some data gathering...

First grainfilling session on the top is done. This is the sanding with danish oil slurry method.