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My First Real From Scratch Project


Cyclone

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Jay,

Not yet, for this one I plotted a board out using autocad and printed it 1:1 then glued it to the board and clamped a thick stright edge along each line. Using a Japaniese pull saw I cut the slots. I do however have plans to build a jig that will cut all the slots in one pass. If and when I get around to this I will post it in the tools section.

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If anyone has been following the progress, my appologies for not updating sooner but I have been busy for the past couple of days. My son was born this past friday and he and my wife have been taking up most of my time. I wass however able to get some work done and the update is as follows;

the first pic is of the neck with the head stock drilled for the tuners and the mahogany binding glued on.

headstockdrilledwithbinding.jpg

The second pic is of the neck glued onto the body.

neckbodyglued.jpg

I think that the next thing that I will do is to prelocate the pickups and electronics cavities prior to gluing on the top. Everyone please feel free to comment.

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First of all Cyclone, "Congatulations on the birth of your son !" I hope mother and son are both doing well.

Secondly, its looking very clean so far. Did you do a wood binding on the sides of the fret board ? Or is that just a trick of the light/camera angle ? I can't tell from the pics. I like the look of it. It is a nice contrast to the blond Maple fingerboard.

(on edit) I went back and looked at your last post and I see you said it was a Mahogany binding. Looks good !

Edited by Fender4me
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First of all Cyclone, "Congatulations on the birth of your son !" I hope mother and son are both doing well.

Fender4me,

Thanks for the well wishes. My wife and son are both doing fine, however I now know what sleep depervation is all about.

On another note, I have had a chance to start the shaping on the neck back contour. The first pic is of the neck to back join.

necktobodyshape.jpg

the second pic is of the hole neck.

neckshaped.jpg

the contour is close to a slightly oversized wizard neck. I hope to be fiished with the shaping by tomorrow, however I will probably have to route the side binding off and re do it. As I was shaping the contour I got a little too aggressive with one of my files and gouged right side. Oh well live and learn. If any one has any questions or comments please feel free to post.

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Everyone thanks for the well wishes. My wife and son are both still doing fine and oddly enough my wife has been so busy taking care of my son that she has not complained about me working on the guitar in most of my free time.

For the update:

I have managed to make a pup template and route them into the core of the body. I figured that I could do it this way so that if i messed something up I could fix it before I glued the top on. I had to route the binding on the neck off because I accidently cut into it when shaping the neck. It was no big deal, I just hate to redo work. I guess that I will just chalk it up to a learning experience. I was able to glue the Bookmatched top down last night. Today I should be able to route the excess off and start carving the back and top. As soon as I get the top routed to shape I will post some more pics.

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I had a chance to get the top glued on and routed to shape in addition to routing the pup cavities.

topglued.jpg

My next step is to carve the back and then the front. As soon as I get the back done I will post an update.

On another note, I brought the guitar to a local music store to compare it to a PRS as it has an undoutable resemblance. Believe it or not it is the exact same shape as a PRS only about 1/4 inch bigger. I was devistated when I saw this because I had drawn this out almost entirely free hand and thought that I had created something that was my own. Oh well I guess its like I said a few posts back ,"there is only so much that can be done with a piece of wood". If I get another chance I will take a pic of the two together and post it.

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genbloke & Maiden,

Thanks for the complements and comments. I havent quite finished with the shaping and carving as of yet and I probably wont be until I put the clear on and then I will probably still question myself and its shape. However I have been able to start and almost finish the carve of the top as can be seen in the pic below.

topcarved.jpg

I welcome all comments but please be gentle, this is my first time.

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  • 5 months later...

Its been a while since I have last posted. We have had alot going on around the house and I have barley had time to work on the guitar. For all intrested my little boy is now just over 6 mos old, doing fine and growing like a weed. Back to the guitar. since I last posted I have located the controls, control cavity, and inlayed the neck with ebony block inlay that I cut and trimed from a slab of ebony I got from a friend. The next thing that I have to do is locate and recess the bridge. I have to recess the bridge because I didnt put quite enough angle in the neck. Oh well I guess we live and learn. Shown below is a picture of my current progress. All comments are welcome.

inlaydone.jpg

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It's looking good, I like the ebony blocks. You're in the same situation with the recessed bridge as I was with my last project. I ended up using a thicker top than I had planned on and didn't think to recalculate the neck angle. Only difference is that I recessed the bridge after I finished and assembled the body. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess. Here's a pic of the heel on that guitar incase you're still looking for inspiration.

backbody.jpg

The top carve is very symetric, as is the back carve. My compliments on that. I was wondering, though, if the back carve was supposed to be so much different from the front. In the pic you posted, it looks like the carve flows a bit better on the top than the back.

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Lookin' good! I'd flow the neck/body transition a little more, and like thegarageman said, smooth out the back carve some. Have it be a more smooth transition from edge to center. On my own electrics, I like to carve the back so you can't really see a clear 'recurve' like you do on the top. Just make it all flow smoothly. The arch isn't as high on the back, but the kind of carving is still similar. The last one I did, hopefully you can see where everything flows by the reflection in the finish:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~mvalente/guitarpics4..._finished09.jpg

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