asm Posted September 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 (edited) sounds good. make sure you get a pic of the wood first. ive seen some people trying to sell the cheap redish EI rosewood full of sap for high prices. what you want is the stuff that looks like ebony! bigD, when you make a chamber do you chamber both body and top or would just the body chambered be thick enough? also, how much should be chambered and in any specific placing? Please keep an eye on the back to back posting Edited September 1, 2004 by litchfield Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skibum5545 Posted September 1, 2004 Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 I'd just do it like a semihollow: wood for the edges, the pickups, the bridge and the neck, and that's it. Heck, even throw in an F hole if you want! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted September 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 that sounds pretty reasonable. but think about all that expensive ebony i'll be routing away. i dont think i could do it maybe a cavity or two for this one though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skibum5545 Posted September 1, 2004 Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 Yeah, but wouldn't it be more wasted if you used all that expensive ebony to hurt your tone? Perhaps, you could bandsaw it out and add a rosewood back if it matters -that- much to you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted September 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 14, 2004 (edited) allright. now were rolling, this thing is starting to come together... heres the bolivian rosewood top, the top pink mark is the body outline, just trying to make the grain line up as good with the body lines as possible. also there is the matching headstock laminate. macassar ebony body and an extra headstock laminate material. good thing i made this as you will see later. "waste" of the body is trimmed away with the bandsaw. trick is to use a small, high teeth per inch blade so you can make a clean cut and the small blade is easier to make curves with. ebony body trimmed top trimmed out. the neck pocket area was left untouched so i can have a nice flat surface to put my neck pocket template flat on. ebony headstock trimmed rosewood headstock trimmed and thats the neck heel block in the bottom of the pic lookin good! heres how the neck is gonna be layed out. the extra space on the left is for the heel/tenon joint. neck block has been glued up using titebond. coming up next is planing of neck blank... Edited December 10, 2004 by asm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted September 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 14, 2004 (edited) pushing this thin of a board thru a planer is on the edge of sketchy. but i dont have a jointer or a big enough hand plane. so i just took light passes and was patient.. glue joint looks alot better than i thought it would, sanded down real nice, so far so good. width is planed down, i marked on the board where i felt the high spots were, so when the marks got planed off i knew it was getting real near flat so i didnt accidentally take to much off. next up is the scarf joint. i wish i could have had a solid block to carve out of, but it was expenisve enough allready. marked 13 degrees on the board, and then made a 13 degree angle fence on the base of the circular saw. i chose the circular saw because i thought the thickness of the blade would flex the least and i would be moving the blade instead of the material so maybe i could get a higher tolerance.... WRONG. here comes the problems i even had a adjacent fence to hold a large amount of pressure so nothing would move. *** somethign obviously wasnt straight. what am i gonna do now. :cry: (this is after being sanded a bit so it looked ALOT worse than this. if thats possible Edited December 10, 2004 by asm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted September 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 14, 2004 (edited) allright. i might make this work. good thing i cut the extra headstock blank cause i thought i could use the lam's later. so i got the idea of just using the thickness of it for the whole headstock... cut as same angle (20 degrees, yeh thats a bit steep) as the other angle since they werent perefectly flat i decided to use Smiths All Wood Epoxy from LMII so all the gaps and stuff would be filled nicely and dry fast, it mixes to a 1:1 ratio ebony dust was added to try to darken the glue line. spread out on the joint. its so hard to put a good amount of pressure down on an angled joint, it wanted to slip all around but i got it near as possible. used as many clamps as i could so hopefully press down all the not flat edges so the glue would be less obvious. *missing a pic here* i sanded down the excess of the headstock joint and it looks suprising good. sweet. glue joint isnt bad at all. looks like you laid a single black hair on the seam. and being ebony. its hardly noticible. looks like i might have saved this one :fingers crossed: ++++++++++++++++++++++ now lets get to the routing. i didnt want to tape the template to the blank like some do, due to the fact that i just about had a heart attack with the scarf joint ordeal. so im bolting it on. way i did this was like this: template was screwed down reversed and on the opposite side so i had screw hole to screw hole on the GLUE seam rather than top and bottom of body. i clamped the template to the body so it would move, then tapped 2 holes thru template and about half way in the body. since the thickest part of the carved top is in the middle, i put the two holes in the middle so there wasnt any chance of sanding thru and hitting the hole later. after tapping the holes i used little 1/4" stainless or steel screws. tried brass but almost stripped them in the body. make sure to use a hard metal like stainless and a nice sharp edged phillips screwdriver. no power tools. last thing you want to do is suck the screw down with a power driver and put a huge crack down your body or top blank. thus reason for tapping first. i put a little liquid soap on the screw thread so it would cause less friction and go in smoother. i used screws like this: so i could get a nice flat top and would suck down in the material and be easy to get even. so after tapping i picked a larger drill bit and tapped the same hole just a bit so the head would sit down flat. after screwing down if you feel any raised area, you can sand it with a large file. so now you can put your template on a router table and not worry about it moving or not being flat. made a little saftey hand guard. since the bit is 1 1/2" template bit i didnt feel like loosing 3 of my fingers. great, i was going real slow with the cutting, taking off about 1/32" in each pass. just barely shaving it off. but with this ebony it has some KILLER grain patterns and can really sneak up on you quickly. even going so slow i had some grain come up that was being pushed into the opposite direction of the router bit rotation. it started flaking off and then it grabbed a hard piece of grain, pulled it up and into the bit before i could react. so this happens.... not as bad as it looks. thanks to guitarbuildingtemplates.com patterns being shady as crap . looks like ill be sanding the top and body alot to get them even. so i think i can sand this out. Edited December 10, 2004 by asm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skibum5545 Posted September 14, 2004 Report Share Posted September 14, 2004 (edited) [edit] ignore this post. I caught asm in the middle of his edit/explanation process, and my question was soon after answered. This also explains asm's following post.[/edit] Edited September 14, 2004 by skibum5545 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted September 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 14, 2004 (edited) holdon killer. just trying to organize these pics, descriptions of each coming right up edit: allright there you go. descriptions for each pic. whew... feel free to comment. Edited September 14, 2004 by asm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted September 14, 2004 Report Share Posted September 14, 2004 not as bad as it looks. thanks to guitarbuildingtemplates.com patterns being shady as crap I don't think the templates are too blame, tricky wood and maybe some other causes, the templates are as good as you can get. Proven by Guitarfrenzy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted September 15, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 15, 2004 (edited) they were cut out on a laser cutter, but if his cad tracings were off then it throws problems. looks like all the laser stuff is right on cut. but if you try and place the top and bottom templates together, theres about a 2mm difference in sizes on spots around it. that, and the nut isnt straightly drawn edit: nooo, i know the templates didnt cause the wood to be easily tearable, i was just saying since it tore, and the templates have differences between them, that it shouldnt be a problem cause i was gonna have to retouch-match them anyways. Edited September 15, 2004 by asm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lex Luthier Posted September 15, 2004 Report Share Posted September 15, 2004 Having the grain bust out with the router has happened to me evertime I do it that way. That's why I bought an oscilating spindle sander, and will now just sand to the final profile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted September 15, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 15, 2004 good idea, next time, in the rough areas im just gonna hand sand. lesson learned. i knew it was a nasty area to route. so i was just taking slivers off in each pass with a brand new bit. still messed up though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest AlexVDL Posted September 15, 2004 Report Share Posted September 15, 2004 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted September 15, 2004 Report Share Posted September 15, 2004 Having the grain bust out with the router has happened to me evertime I do it that way. That's why I bought an oscilating spindle sander, and will now just sand to the final profile. yeap this is a great idea and that's the way I wil ldo mine, but I won't use the oscillating one, I am trying to get the robosander that Guitarfrenzy used for his strat, I like the idea of being able to use the template as a guide all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay5 Posted September 17, 2004 Report Share Posted September 17, 2004 You really dont need to buy a robosander. Just build a guide the same size as the sanding drum and attach it to your drill press table.Here is a plan for what Im talking about http://woodmagazine.com/wood/story.jhtml?s...ry/data/372.xml By the way, they (Wood Magazine) have a mag out currently called 101 Workshop Projects that is full of great jigs, tools and storage soluthions. I would HIGHLY recomend picking up a copy. Its a great magazine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted September 17, 2004 Report Share Posted September 17, 2004 You really dont need to buy a robosander. Just build a guide the same size as the sanding drum and attach it to your drill press table.Here is a plan for what Im talking about http://woodmagazine.com/wood/story.jhtml?s...ry/data/372.xml By the way, they (Wood Magazine) have a mag out currently called 101 Workshop Projects that is full of great jigs, tools and storage soluthions. I would HIGHLY recomend picking up a copy. Its a great magazine. Thanks for that link, I was toying with the Idea of making a guide but was thinking too complicated, that's pretty neat. I will consider it with a change, that 1/4" dowel will be steel or aluminum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveq Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 I'm really looking forward to hearing how you like this one when it is finished. There seems to be a large group of people who dislike bright sounding guitars but I'm not one of them. I like bright. I'm finishing up my second all maple guitar now. The weight is really the only drawback but it's nothing that I can't handle. Concerning the templates - I couldn't tell but did you get the thin plywood templates? I got mine from the same place but they were badly warped. I screwed them down to some mdf and re-cut them and no longer use the thin plywood originals. Is it possible that yours were warped/cupped also? I give you lots of credit for your choice of wood and look forward to seeing how it turns out. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted September 20, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 thanks buddy. its great to have some good input like that. my main mission on this guitar was not trying to get A+ tone in every aspect or be 100% proper weight or playablility. im not to much of a hardcore guitarist as i dont have to much time to practice. so its almost more enjoyable to build it than it is to play it *ouch, that sounds bad*. so i just am trying some stuff ive never seen people do before (you'll see as it progresses ) and not worry on to much of the basic guitar stuff. experimental in alot of ways, we will see how it goes. about the templates. they are pretty flat for the most part. i think where alex was saying that the wood moved in the laser cutter, but all the lines were precise, just off axis. i dont think the nut line is flat, which may cause some problems, cause when i hold a rule or a square flat with the centerline of the neck/headstock and then one on the nut, its not a perfect 45 angle. the only other problem i have with them is that when you hold the top and body templates. you cant get them flush on either side, one wants to stick past the other about 3/16" tops. no matter how you position it, so i dont know. thx again. your comments are much appreciated. to bad i dont get to work on it much now as im out of state/ in school from the woodshop im using. but hopefully i'll get to work on it some this weekend and update with some pics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devon Headen Posted November 2, 2004 Report Share Posted November 2, 2004 Got any updates, yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Jabsco Posted November 4, 2004 Report Share Posted November 4, 2004 Hows the project going asm? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted November 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 ive been in college these last 8 weeks. the woodshop i use is 4hrs away, so i cant work on anything here, no space anyways : ( ill be back to work on her in 2 weeks. cant wait. gonna be rusty starting back, but oh well. just wait till i start work on my prototype bridge. will definately turn some heads with this thing, been working on the idea for weeks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devon Headen Posted November 13, 2004 Report Share Posted November 13, 2004 Can't wait to see it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thirdstone Posted November 14, 2004 Report Share Posted November 14, 2004 Nice wood I hope you don`t intend covering it with ebony.How thick is the completed body going to be? 44mm (metric ) is about the right thickness.We have become so accustomed to this thickness because of Fender that anything thinner just feels wrong.I know, Ive made one at 38mm and you can realy tell. Chambering won`t effect the brightness so much but I would recommend you do it to reduce the weight. Be carefull when chambering on the upper side as you have to leave wood for the rib contour.If you do chamber then you also have to cap it with around a 1/4 inch laminate so its realy depends on your resourses . Good Luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thirdstone Posted November 14, 2004 Report Share Posted November 14, 2004 sorry didn`t read all the threds. Looking good .A maple cap would look great IMHO.Watch the body thickness . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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