Muzz

In cutting out the neck template I tried a new way of lining up a straight edge to run my router template bit along. I was going for 43 mm at the top and 56.5 mm at the bottom. I often find that when putting a straight edge on wood marked with a line, I cover up the pencil line and can't see where I am, so I placed blue tape triangles with the point right where I want to cut.

Then lined the straight edge up with the points.

Top end

bottom

The painting process on a Frankenstein is great fun, I painted up a premade body a few years back for a friend, so satisfying pulling the tape off and seeing the design appear.

Headstock veneer

Making the headstock template, straight lines cut first,

Rasp and sandpaper to take out the curves

20 frets! That's the new thing I have learnt today

My New Year's resolution was to cover one of my walls with hook, and myself with loop, and I'm sticking to it. Amazingly that MNC fuels my dust collector as well

Always good to have lots of grunt, I finished flattening the bottom of the fretboard

Made some fuel for my sanding machine, mac n cheese

and introduced these two to each other

Yep, the white binding is going to look schmicko against the blue top,

On 5/8/2021 at 6:10 PM, Prostheta said:

I've not tried one yet, however I have access to the battery version of the Makita RP0700 at work. I've just not used it since the weight of the battery at the top is the most immediate cause for concern. Those small base routers are tippy as it stands, never mind with a huge 5,0Ah battery bolted on top! I can't compared the brushed 240V version to the brushless 18V version really, however I'd be wanting to know the "apparent HP" (this can be meaningless if you think about it) of the motor. They're trimmers when it comes down to it, so being able to work hardwood at any level is more of a fringe benefit than a feature of this type of router. I'd go for the corded version every time, even with its single-locking collet and terrible spindle lock.

You have confirmed my thoughts that routers for guitar making are better off with AC rather than DC power 

I flattened the top of the headstock region today using a roll sheet of sand paper on a piece of 8 mm thick glass to get perfect flatness, a technique suggested to me by a forum member.

The back still needs done, you can see the ridges at the sides where Plenty O' Fish 400 decided it was retirement time

Here is the scratch plate and guts of the guitar

I am probably going to swap the neck pick up for another rails humbucker

So cool to see that f hole cut by hand, real craftsmanship

On 5/2/2021 at 5:23 PM, Prostheta said:

I had both of those routers! The one thing I dislike the most about plunge routers is the high centre of gravity, and that POF1200 was pretty tippy at best. I'd recommend making a sub-base for it, even if that reduces the overall cutting depth. The POF400 was useful for small things like pickup cavities and neck pockets, but has a tiny base that makes it terrible unstable also. Sub-bases are the way to go for stability. and keeping their depth stops in good working condition is a must.

FWIW, the best upgrade to that POF400 would be a palm router like a Bosch Colt, Makita RP0900 or DeWalt D26200. These have more stable rear bearing mounts (even though they're still retained a plastic housing) so runout and vibration in the cut is better. I'd even go as far as saying that they'd replace most tasks that the bigger POF1400 can do short of real driving work that needs the motor's grunt. I made do with my Makita RP0900 for a long time and still do. The plunge and fixed bases are gold. It's not to say that the Bosch green routers can't do good work - they can - but they do need you to make careful choices and be 100% in control at all times. Not that this isn't the same for all tools, but hey.

Q. How many routers does a guitar maker need?

A. Just one more  I am looking at those mid size routers and they look good, has anyone tried a lithium battery router? Is there enough grunt?

This one arrived at the click and collect store on Friday, the Plenty O' Fish 1200

I'll get used to it on the practise neck first, meanwhile lots of sanding has been done on the maple neck and a bit more to go.

First wing on

19 hours ago, mistermikev said:

until I saw the model on the bosch I thought you were eluding to "piece of fudge".  I have no idea what's going on in here... but now there is documented proof I read it.  

also... you must seriously abuse your router?  perhaps you hold it with grip of death (like we all should).

17 hours ago, Prostheta said:

A grip of death is often applying force in the wrong direction, which reduces finer motor control (literally) where its required. If your router has opportunity to bite more than you can control, you're pretty much in freehand territory where anything and everything can go wrong. I've thought about how best to describe the muscle memory and thought processes of using a router for various tasks, and I keep coming back to "you need to get the experience to learn it" which isn't ideal. Sort of like saying that winning at Russian roulette is to keep pulling the trigger until you're good at it.

One important aspect is whether you should be applying a different methodology; hand > router > cutter > workpiece or hand > workpiece > cutter > router. The redistribution of forces and balance change control totally.

Yes, I like to shave small amounts of wood per pass and feel the router glide over the wood like a felt-footed pointer on a Ouji board, while mainataining a firm but non-tensed grip. For my old router the bolt on the clamp handle is made of soft pot metal (it should have been made out of hardened steel) it simply wore out, quite amazing that it lasted 13 years really. The router was a lovely gift from my family that brought me much joy, I will take a photo of it to keep the memory and then it will go to the great toolshed in the sky. I have this on order 

While that is on it's way I experimented on the practise neck with a glue I have not tried before

the clamp police paid me a visit and issued me a ticket, I went to Bunnings in the afternoon to atone and bought two new F clamps

and contemplated this rough old piece of rosewood for the fretboard, it has some nice majenta colour in it

I got a lot of flattening done on it

nearly there, you can see the area that is not yet making contact with the sandpaper, it's about the thickness of copy paper at this stage

Hahaha get trout of here, you guys are krilling me 

Fantastic start, and lovely grain pattern

15 hours ago, Prostheta said:

"POFS", as in....super?

12 hours ago, Drak said:

Just for laughs, I looked up 'POF acronym'.

It gave me Plenty of Fish, a dating website

These certainly cheered me up, and in the interests of keeping the forum family friendly, lets just go with when I realised my router's clamp handle had become as useful as a one legged man in a butt kicking competition, I yelled at it oh you plenty of fish super  interestingly another meaning of POF is probability of failure, I wonder if the POF 1200 is three times more likely to fail than the POF 400.

What a beautiful guitar, Queensland Maple is a lovely timber to make necks out of, the three different timbers here make a great combination.

I did end up getting a small step though in the pieces for an entirely different reason. , At first, with the exception of the tiny chip in the corner of that piece on the left, everything was going great

Until the bit stopped making contact with the wood, the clamp handle that holds the depth of the plunge had reached the level of stripping on its bolt where it gave up holding the router down on its springs and the springs won the fight, the router rose up on the springs and I was routing air. This is the culprit with stripped threads,

The same thing happened about 13 years ago, now if I could go back in time I would and I woul buy three replacement handles for $5 each on EBay when Bosch were still making them, instead of the one that I did. The router is called a POF

I called that router something that has the acronym POF but I added another word at the end. 

On 4/25/2021 at 5:48 PM, Prostheta said:

Very nice! I've had a few router bits the last couple of years where the bearing or cutter are slightly off-size, resulting in a small lip. Obviously this is more of an issue if you have to ride the bearing on a previous cut which causes cumulative error. 

It's good to get a bit where the roller perfectly matches the blade, this one has been holding its shape for a while now, that's an important point about being careful using the roller on a cut you have made yourself. You can see a 2 mm section in the photo above at the top of the scarf where I used the first cut surface as a roller guide to reach the portion that the bit didn't reach on the first rout depth and small irregularities in the cut can get magnified this way as well, but I think I got away with it this time,

Then I had to thickness thewood to make the wings, without a thicknesser. I taped a pice of pine down and then taped my 20 mm thick rock maple pieces to it. 

Double sided tape is thick and spongey and those pieces would habe wobbled under the router blade like that so they were stabilised by pieces of pine taped on either side and then two more pieces of scrap clamped on to stop the whole complex from wobbling.

Sled on the top of the rails

and I took 3 mm off the top before a mechanical failure occured

Today I double sided taped the headstock region to a flat edge and top offcut 

and ran along the edge with this bit

It sqaured off all right

Looking good and sounding phat, awesome tone  

Fantastic and positive use of the old skate board decks and the guitar looks so cool

17 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Well hello to you too.

G'Day Mate, for you and everyone here on the forum who has carved pieces of wood, joined them together, added strings  and played a tune on the result here is another view of the Rubber of Affirmation, and for those of you who haven't take the affirmation anyway and add, "you can do it"   

Glued up the scarf joint in the rock maple, next step is flattening and squaring off some of the headstock sides and making the wings.

14 hours ago, Drak said:

Funny Marauder story.

PS, I like how Deryck has that single bridge HB moved northward a little for more thick balls tone. Funny his other guitarist has what appears to be a barden equipped Strat, Barden's not really known for being Metallica-approved pickups, generally, tho they do take gain really well.

Anyway, I bought three of the original (Bill Lawrence designed) Marauder bridge pickups about 10-15 years ago. My lazy ass left them in the pickup drawer as I never got around to making a pickguard cutout router template for them. So they just languished for all those years. I just finally made the template a few days ago as I needed to make one for my old Kay Speedbump pickups too. So after all these years I can finally use those old (and very cool) Marauder pickups.

I wasted no time, one is going in my new Oak Tele build in the neck. They all still have the shrink-wrap on the tops. Totally stoked to Finally get one of these in a guitar.

Can't wait to see your Marauder Come Back to Li

Cool telies, they are binging the mojo, the Marauder pick up is going to sound phat in there, and those pick ups have a great look to them. 

I have this in the bridge posi,

Yes, DW's Marauder looks like it has a custom pick guard with the humbucker added, his mother gave him that guitar as his first electric. Yes some single space humbucker rails (like the one above) can give a massive output for passive pickups and get close to the Metallica, pushing the preamp sound. The advantage with them is they will clean up nicely when they are turned down with the guitar volume, unlike EMG actives.

13 hours ago, Prostheta said:

I made an Oak Tele with a Walnut neck for a friend in Espoo a while back....the body was shockingly heavy, and I thought it wouldn't sound good. As it turns out, the tone on that was unreal. JB in the bridge, custom Rautia Tele neck with 4-way switching. Epicly huge sounding, a treat with the right verbs and ambience.

Such a great surprise when you don't know what your guitar is going to sound like and you plug it in and boom

Finished my plan today