jnewman Posted February 28, 2005 Report Share Posted February 28, 2005 I figured I'd go ahead and start a thread over here in the actual project forum since I've sort of gotten started. I came up with my design about a week ago, and here it is: The white is rock maple, the darkened area is black walnut (I left the fretboard off of the drawing so that I could see the neck structure). I have two lovely black walnut boards and a very nice rock maple board (about 10 bd. feet of walnut and 10 of maple) - way more than I need, but I wanted to start really from scratch with just lumber. At present, I'm still trying to decide on what to use for my fretboard - I started out wanting Pau Ferro, began to consider Paduak and Bloodwood, but think that I've decided on using Mesquite if I can find a good piece when I go home to Texas over spring break. It's a pretty heavy hardwood and is very stable, strong, and hard, so it should be perfect for a fretboard. It's also really pretty (I have some mesquite furniture), and I think the color would be a nice middle ground between the walnut and maple and really bring it together (although I may need to use a touch of red stain on the rest of the wood so that the red in the mesquite doesn't overpower it). I'm planning on making the cavity cover from laminated maple veneer, which'll be a nice contrast in the middle of the lower walnut wing. I also go the idea recently of trying my hand at winding my own humbuckers for it - so I'll probably be doing that as well, using Alnico V and winding just at (or slightly under) PAF resistance - I don't want this guitar to be bright, and if it comes out well, I mostly plan on playing blues and classic rock with it. It's going to use (as is obvious from the drawing) a tune-o-matic bridge and stop bar, and something like the Gotoh version of the Schaller M6 tuners - I don't really like locking ones. Oh, and Schaller straplocks, which have always been and will always be on every nice guitar I own. I may switch the knobs around - something like a concentric pot for volume of both bots and a 3-way switch where one of them is now. I hope to get started later this week, but I'm leaving town in about a week (the aforementioned spring break trip home to Texas) and won't be back for almost two weeks, so there'll be a big empty space for a while. I'll be taking pictures and carefuly documenting my progress in this thread throughout the course of my building - this being my first guitar build (although I have prior woodworking experience), I hope to be able to show things from a little bit different perspective that might be helpful to others just getting started in guitar building. Anyway, I guess that's all for now. Jimmy Newman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skibum5545 Posted February 28, 2005 Report Share Posted February 28, 2005 I like the look of mesquite in general, but I'm not sure how I feel about it with walnut and maple. The two woods you're using have a very rich, clean look, and I often don't like the look of a warmer wood (like mesquite or mahogany) with them. My vote would be for (like you suggested) pau ferro, but a nice piece of birdseye maple would be stunning too. Just my two cents! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlGeeEater Posted February 28, 2005 Report Share Posted February 28, 2005 I like the headstock. I cant stand fender headstocks. I also like the TOM and the humbuckers. Then again, i hate regular strats, but if it had all LP hardware id be the best guitar ever pictures pictures pictures! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted February 28, 2005 Report Share Posted February 28, 2005 That looks very cool! I'm really liking walnut these days. I think the mesquite would also bring something different to the design, if you can find a piece that blends nicely. I'd also reduce the number of knobs if possible; the 4 on my LP are too many IMO, kind of annoying actually. Did you draw the pickups too small? Not to scale? BTW, the traditional strat headstock is supposed to be a take-off on a treble clef. But this headstock works much better with the neck-through lams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted February 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 28, 2005 (edited) I like the look of mesquite in general, but I'm not sure how I feel about it with walnut and maple. The two woods you're using have a very rich, clean look, and I often don't like the look of a warmer wood (like mesquite or mahogany) with them. My vote would be for (like you suggested) pau ferro, but a nice piece of birdseye maple would be stunning too. Just my two cents! ← Yeah, I'm really just thinking about things out loud right now on the fretboard - every time I look up I see a new wood that I fixate on for a few minutes (almost none that are actually new to me, just ones I get reminded of). As much as I love the way maple fretboards look (and I do, especially birdseye), I don't think I want to do it on this guitar - I don't really like lacquered fretboards and I don't want it to start looking like EC's strat on the Layla album cover . I like the headstock. I cant stand fender headstocks. I also like the TOM and the humbuckers. Then again, i hate regular strats, but if it had all LP hardware id be the best guitar ever tongue.gif pictures pictures pictures! smile.gif The title of the thread is sort of a misnomer - I'm not actually going for anything like a normal strat . It's just that to me a stratocaster shaped body and fender profile neck fit like a glove - I can't imagine a more comfortable guitar, so that's the body shape I'm sticking with for now. I want a warm, crunchy humbucker sound for blues, though, so that's why the heavy walnut and the neck through and the humbuckers and the TOM . All I have so far is way too much wood (two or three guitars' worth), some paper cutouts I made off of my existing strat (they look funny because of the angle - they're right), and the drawing I posted at the top. I'm going to try to get at least the neck blank together this week, but then I'm going to be gone for two weeks and there won't be any progress . Anyway, here's the wood and cutouts: Jimmy Newman Edited February 28, 2005 by jnewman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted February 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 28, 2005 (edited) Since that picture was kind of fuzzy, here's a nice picture of about a 5"x8" section of the walnut dampened to show the grain: It doesn't really get dark like that along the edge, but when I used my flash there was too much glare - so this picture was just taken with lamplight, and it's uneven (I cast a shadow). It's not quite that red, but it's close - that's what the yellow light you get from normal lightbulbs does. There IS more red in it than usual for walnut, though, and it really shows through with the grain wet. If anyone cares, that's the spot about eight inches in from the close end of the left walnut board . Edited February 28, 2005 by jnewman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mushy the shroom Posted February 28, 2005 Report Share Posted February 28, 2005 Looks nice... walnut and maple are my favorite combination of woods (kind-of a "family tradition"). My dad built a staircase with maple and walnut, and a nice coffee table. I should tell you that Danish Oil mixed with Polyurethane makes for a really nice finish to darken and enhance those woods. It's not a hard finish, but if you added some sanding sealer above it, and some lacquer, I'm sure it would sparkle. Anyway, good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted February 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 28, 2005 Looks nice... walnut and maple are my favorite combination of woods (kind-of a "family tradition"). My dad built a staircase with maple and walnut, and a nice coffee table. I should tell you that Danish Oil mixed with Polyurethane makes for a really nice finish to darken and enhance those woods. It's not a hard finish, but if you added some sanding sealer above it, and some lacquer, I'm sure it would sparkle. Anyway, good luck! ← I'm going to be doing some kind of oil finish, although I'm not sure which one. I've been looking at the Sutherland Welles brand Murdoch "hard sealer" and "table top" tung oil/resin finish. It's pretty fancy stuff and I've heard good things about it - it's available in the Garrett Wade tool catalog, among other places. I don't want to do any lacquer because I'd prefer not to have lacquer on the neck and the neck's going to blend smoothly enough into the body that a line where the lacquer stopped would look really silly . That looks very cool! I'm really liking walnut these days. I think the mesquite would also bring something different to the design, if you can find a piece that blends nicely. I'd also reduce the number of knobs if possible; the 4 on my LP are too many IMO, kind of annoying actually. Did you draw the pickups too small? Not to scale? BTW, the traditional strat headstock is supposed to be a take-off on a treble clef. But this headstock works much better with the neck-through lams. It's entirely possible the humbuckers aren't drawn quite to scale on that drawing - I didn't really have any reference, so I just sort of drew them in. Now that you mention it, they do look way too small. We'll see about fretboard choice... maybe it'll be a surprise for everyone . I've been thinking about it, and I might go to one volume pot and a concentric tone pot (so I get independent tone for each pickup). I think I'm going to get the body together and really look at it and see what I think looks best, but that'll be a while. I actually really like the standard strat headstock, but I've always thought that really wildly asymmetrical headstocks looked a little silly with those perfectly straight wood lines going up the middle - that's why I drew up that little mostly symmetrical headstock. I didn't realize until I'd already drawn up the whole guitar that the headstock looks a lot like the Warmoth Variax, but I like it so it's what I'm doing. I can't wait to get started on the real work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted April 2, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2005 You guys thought I'd never get started, but... here we go! Starting with the boards that are pictured further up, this is my progress so far (note: the discolorations are glue mess that'll come off with the sanding I need to do anyway): Neck lams cut with table saw: Neck lams being glued together: One of the wings being glued: The neck and two wings, glued individually but not put together: And finally, the wings rough-shaped with the bandsaw (but still not glued to the neck-through): I changed the design a bit so there'd be less maple - I decided I didn't want the maple to brighen the sound too much, and didn't want little slivers of maple along the outside of the neck. It took me about three hours yesterday to cut everthing (to rectangular pieces) and glue them together, and about two and a half hours early this afternoon to get all the edges that still need to be glued (the wings aren't attached yet) perfectly flat and the wings rough-shaped. I'm making a trip to home depot as soon as I finish this post to get some things that aren't available in my dorm's woodshop, where I'm doing this. For the rest of this weekend, I plan to get the part of the neck-through that's actually the neck thinned down to about an inch, the wings glued to the neck-through, and the body mostly shaped. I can't do a whole lot more than that because most of my hardware won't be here until the middle of this week. However - it's already starting to look like a guitar! I'm really happy so far, it's been way too long since I've actually made something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orgmorg Posted April 3, 2005 Report Share Posted April 3, 2005 At present, I'm still trying to decide on what to use for my fretboard - I started out wanting Pau Ferro, began to consider Paduak and Bloodwood, but think that I've decided on using Mesquite if I can find a good piece when I go home to Texas over spring break. It's a pretty heavy hardwood and is very stable, strong, and hard, so it should be perfect for a fretboard. I have used mesquite on fingerboards before, it is really nice. I like the idea of using woods from the US, as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted April 4, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 Well, I've got the body contoured and rough sanded, now I basically have to wait for my hardware to get here (should be here tomorrow, according to tracking info) to continue. Lots of time with the sanding drum and orbital sander and here's where we are now: Front: Back: The contours are slightly different from a strat in ways that make it more comfortable for me, and the body's done being shaped. I obviously haven't done anything on the neck yet, but that's waiting for me to get the trussrod in and the fretboard slotted and installed. Once I have that, everything should really start coming together. Oh, also, I couldn't find a suitable piece of mesquite, so I'm trying to decide between an indian rosewood fretboard and a figured katalox fretboard (both of which I have as untapered, unradiused, unslotted blanks). I'm kind of leaning towards the rosewood as I feel like a figured fretboard on a plain wood guitar would look kind of silly, but I'm not entirely sure yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 I love your work so far, but why that ugly heel? If you are making a strat neck thru why not take the ugliest thing that a strat has, the heel out. Look at Perrys superstrat, or at Carvin's DC guitars, so much better playability and fret access. Another thing how thick is your fretboard going to be, looks like your body is flush with the neck, and that will let the string get too low and they might interfere with the pups or worst yet have the bridge be too high and make your action too high. I hope you can understand what I mean, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 Could always recess the TOM. Otherwise, looks good so far. Do I detect a bit of unevenness at the edges? A roundover bit could have been your friend there. So far, though, I'm getting rather jealous. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Sorbera Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 maiden, he said that he hasent done anything with shaping the neck yet. So I guess Hee's gonna shape the heel later. greg, What he means is you need to make the fingerboard thicker because the neck is flush with the body. Usually you need to make the neck stick up some from the body to get a "normal" fingerboard thickness. The problem with making the fingerboard thick is than to make the neck comfterable you have to make the back of the neck real than as the fingerboard is too thick. So that means it might comethrough and hit the trussrod channel or it might have strgenth issues or something else bad. You DONT want to recess the bridge and pickups to match that low finger board. Trust me . I did this and my strings are less than 1/8" off the body and whille it's still playable and it looks really cool it does make it harder to play and harder to adjust things and such. Than you would have to have a thicker body to be able to rout the pickup cavitys lower... Basicly it's something you dont wanna do. I planned it out be fore I started building and found that it's a no win situation if the neck is flush with the body before you put the fingerboard in. I hope this makes sense. I dont really want to read it again to make sure it does Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 It makes sense, but you're wrong. The neck, as it stands, does not have a fingerboard, but one will be added. This will have a thickness (likely) of 1/4". Since the neck is straight (ie. no angle), it won't be able to work with a plain mounted TOM. The TOM will have to be recessed in order to get any sort of playable action whatsoever. Just like how... Godin... does it. The alternative is to make the fingerboard very proud of the body, which isn't completely unknown; however, that would require either a fingerboard of bizarre thickness or some sort of extra material between the laminated neck and the fingerboard, which strikes me as not something one would want to do. Plus, as you've pointed out, it'd require making the back of the neck far too thin unless a baseball bat grip is what he's after. So yes, recessing the TOM is the preferred option in the absence of a neck angle. Alternatively, if the parts haven't been ordered yet, he could just get a hardtail strat bridge instead of a TOM. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CudBucket Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 Looks nice. It looks like you've tapered your neck-thru piece. Is that right? If so, how'd ya do it? Thanks. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marzocchi705 Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 Greg, if you look at a bolt on neck you can still see some of the neck wood above the face of the body, that is what Godin was meaning. (at least i think) This thing is looking killer, its making me want to build one next instead of the JEM project i have in the works, see ava for more details, coming soon to a thread near you!! Id say go with the figured FB, it add intrest, i personaly hate it when you see a guitar with a flame maple FB and flame maple top, its far too busy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted April 4, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 I love your work so far, but why that ugly heel? maiden, he said that he hasent done anything with shaping the neck yet. So I guess Hee's gonna shape the heel later. Yep - I haven't done ANYTHING on the neck yet, the heel's going to be a very smooth curve from the neck into the body, the way nice neck-through basses are made. Do I detect a bit of unevenness at the edges? A roundover bit could have been your friend there. I actually did use a roundover bit on the edges, you're probably looking at where the belly and arm rest contours are - the edges aren't quite as rounded there (because I couldn't come up with a way to use a roundover bit on a 3D curve like that), I may take them out a little bit more once I do all the routing and so on and start finish sanding. About the fingerboard/bridge height - I ordered a schaller roller tune-o-matic that I got today. The fretboard blanks I have are a bit thicker-than-normal, and I'm going to recess the bridge just a hair (an eighth to a quarter of an inch, which should be plenty). I just really want a TOM on this thing, and don't want a neck angle, so that's what I have to do . CudBucket - I know I said I was going to taper the bits in the neck-through piece, but I decided it was more trouble than it was worth and they're straight (the camera angle may be making them look tapered). I actually have done one thing to the neck, I gave the neck itself it's taper, and I did that very carefully with a straight edge and the drum sander. I'm liking this so far, and it's going a lot faster than I thought it would. I've done 12-15 hours of work so far (not sure exactly, I haven't been keeping track). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay5 Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 1/8" should be plenty of recess, especially on the schaller which is realitively low profile as it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddiewarlock Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 i love how your guitar looks, but one thing: i don't think it'll work with a tune o matic since you don't have ANY neck angle, you can always go ahead and try, but i don't think even recessing it will make it have a low action unless you recess the hell out of it, I hope to be wrong on this cuz it is beautiful, good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 Eddie the TOM will work, but the only thing that realy concerns me is the height of the fretboard. You can recess the TOM so much, and I think that 1/4" is almost too much, since the Es intonation screws will begin to sink into the wood. I suggest you do some nice measurements and consider adding a maple laminate or any other wood, Like you I don't like angle in my necks, but you need a bit more than 1/4" with a recessed TOM, I had about 1/4" on this guitar and I had to place a shim in the front of the neck heel in order to get proper action and be able to intonate the guitars E strings. Green So is up to you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 Greg, if you look at a bolt on neck you can still see some of the neck wood above the face of the body, that is what Godin was meaning. (at least i think) ← The way the guitar is made, the neckwood is already level with the body, meaning that the only wood you'll be able to see above the face of the body is the fretboard wood. It won't be enough to avoid recessing the TOM. If the neckwood was already proud of the body, it'd be possible, and there are lots of guitars out there that do this. I find it a bit ugly-looking, but it's possible. However, the builder has already indicated that he'll be recessing the TOM, so he's already aware of the issue and is compensating accordingly. Personally, I really like the look of recessed TOM. Some people see it as a workaround, but I think it actually ends up looking pretty cool, too. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marzocchi705 Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 Ok, i seem to be misunderstood, on all of the bolt ons and setnecks ive seen without a TOM, there is about 1-2mm of neck wood proud of the body. thats not high enough not to need to resess a TOM tho. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 Personally, I really like the look of recessed TOM. Some people see it as a workaround, but I think it actually ends up looking pretty cool, too. Greg ← I'm with you here 100%, I love the look and feel of a recessed TOM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted April 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 Well, I've actually done a lot more, although I don't have any pictures yet. The face of the neck wasn't perfectly flat (I've never been able to sand things flat), so your friend and mine the hand plane got together to make things better - and once I got started, I realized I could just use the plane to add a bit of neck angle. So It has about a degree of neck angle, and a fingerboard that's not quite 3/8" thick. I think I'm going to route out a small "bathtub" area for the bridge and stop bar to sit in - I've been thinking it might look cool, and I never rest my hand on the body of the guitar, so it wouldn't cause me any problems. Anyway, after adding that little neck angle, I routed the truss rod slot and installed it (lmii double-action - GREAT truss rod), then slotted the fretboard and glued it on over the truss rod slot. Then I radiused the fretboard and got a good bit of the neck shaping done. There's just a little more on that. So let's see, still to do: shape neck heel (mostly all that's left to do on the neck), put the frets in, make and install the nut, add wings to the headstock, shape headstock, drill tuner holes and install them, install bridge and stopbar, route pickup holes, route conrol cavity, and install electronics. Oh... and the jack . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.