Finalizing My Plans

[Pott]

Well I have yet to get 'the book' but I figured I could start planning without it and see how it'd look from there. The project will be a neck through, 24 frets, 25.5" scale guitar. For the designs, I can't chose between a Mockingbird or a soloist style axe with ESP's headstock (inspired by ESP's M series and Rhoads65's Weapon of Mass Destruction). The Mockingbird would be painted naturally, the soloist all in black.

I'll be using grade B wood from luthiersupply. Has anyone got experience with it? Would grade B just not look as good as grade AA, but sound the same, or is it less resonant too?

Anyhoo either way, the specs would be

Maple neck with a striped of walnut in the middle

Mahogany wings

2 humbuckers

2 volume controls, 1 tone control, a 5 way megaswitch

TOM string through bridge

Both shapes are fairly easy to to shape I believe, though of course the Mockingbird will be harder due to its shape. I'm not too affraid of it though. I'm going to order a template (50 bucks but well... needed I guess) since I don't know anyone in Edinburgh with either guitars and I suck with a pencil.

Here's a list of (basic steps) I'll take:

1) buy the bridge, check the height etc...

2) draw a real life plan of the guitar (or a half scale, if I don't have room) and figure out the neck angle for a string height of 1.75mm.

3) assemble the 5 pieces (3 pieces for the neck and 2 for the wings) without gluing, draw the shapes

4) plane the neck down for its proper angle, check if I'll have enough room for a non scarf neck joint

5) shape the wings

6) use the neck's straight edge to route the truss rod channel (tight but fit), cut the neck to its nut/butt width (I'd take the measurements from my Charvel's necks)

7) do the same to the fingerboard (which will be preslotted, I'm lazy and I want to be able to play it )

8) get the neck ready for the headstock shaping, rough cutting of it

9) put the special thingy on top of the truss rod, glue the fingerboard on, fine cut the neck to its proper dimensions, do a rough backshaping of it, drill the neck's sidedots holes drilled, put the sidedots onget

10) assemble the wings to the body

11) finish the body: heel, forearm and belly contours, fine cutting, neck backshape and bevelling the edges a bit.

12) take care of the electronics cavity at the back (smaller as possible, but with comfortable room for wiring etc...)

13) triple check everything before drilling anything else, take the measurements again, route the pickup holes, drill the holes for the TOM and strings, controls, etc...

14) triple check everything

15) fretting it

16) string it up, wire it, try, put the hardware (tuners, nut...) on it and play it (eh just for fun and to make myself happy)

17) strip it down, cover up the fingerboard and frets properly

18) spray clear coat, primer, sealer, paint, or whatever has to be sprayed first, let it dry however long it takes, repeat until it's painted using the proper steps

19) check for accumulated paint in the holes, fix if problems

20) shielding, hardware, wiring, pickups, tuners, etc...

21) play it!

And here are the questions... Is it better to paint the neck and headstock before or after having put on the nut? I'm thinking that if you do it before, you can cover up the neck's edge and paint UNDER the nut too, cleaning up a bit the area. If you do it after you can cover up the nut and yeah... I see no difference, maybe there just isn't any...

I didn't mention stuff like drilling tuner holes because it goes in the headstock prep for me. But I didn't forget. When I do a proper big plan on a paper list which will be pinned everywhere where I live, it'll be there and there'll be about 40 steps or so

If you see anything totally wrong, feel free to tell If you have any suggestions, also feel free. Thanks!

[Mattia]

Well, looks OK, but re-do the plans once you've read through the book. You're thinking things through step by step, so that's a very good thing.

Few things:

1) Draw full size. Paper is cheap, and it's easier to draw full size than fiddle with scaling. Scaling only adds another place for things to go wrong. Besides, you'll probably want to make a template out of MDF or Ply or something, and full-scale? Good.

2)I'm assuming you're gluing the neck blank prior to shaping and routing, right?

3)I prefer to glue fingerboard (tapered properly), then do the headstock, then taper the neck, but I realize that may be a minority opinion here.

4) Do your control cavity routing after you round over the edges, but before finishing all the other shaping. Also, I'd drill the control holes through all the way first, then route the cavity around them. Don't want to futz with a router when everything else is finish-sanded.

Other than that, you'll figure it out as you go along. Don't get too lost by trying to slavishly follow a big long list, but think about what you do when, and if what you're doing will make something else you want to do more difficult or not.

Few other points: the nut goes on LAST, during setup. After finishing. You need to be able to remove the nut easily, because it will, eventually, need replacing. So post-finishing. Held in place with a dot of white glue, little else.

Wood grade: if it's structurally sound (which you can safely assume it is), the higher grades are pretty much purely cosmetic. In fact, there's an argument to be made that plain, boring, quartered, unfigured wood sounds better than crazy quilted flamed stuff, simply because it's got regular, even grain, not a bunch of crazy internal funkyness potentially adding a fair degree of damping to it all. So don't worry about tone.

[Pott]

Dank u wel!

I wanted to do the very rough shaping with the neck unglued (smaller = easier to find a place where to do this. I'll live in a flat with limited space) but not go as far as the heel and headstock.

The routing will be done before I glue the neck in, as I'll use the squared edges of the neck as a routing edge for the router. Then I'd just cut it to the proper dimensions, do a very rough shaping of the back and then glue it. I guess it doens't matter that much if you glue on the fingerboard before or after right?

What does tapering mean..?

[ByronBlack]

Dank u wel!

I wanted to do the very rough shaping with the neck unglued (smaller = easier to find a place where to do this. I'll live in a flat with limited space) but not go as far as the heel and headstock.

The routing will be done before I glue the neck in, as I'll use the squared edges of the neck as a routing edge for the router. Then I'd just cut it to the proper dimensions, do a very rough shaping of the back and then glue it. I guess it doens't matter that much if you glue on the fingerboard before or after right?

What does tapering mean..?

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Tapering is basically cutting an angle into your fingerboard and neck. e.g it will be wider at the body end tapering to a narrower width at the nut.

[Mattia]

Minor correction to previous: headstock, glue tapered 'board, taper neck.

Tapering simply refers to the 'taper' of the neck, from narrow at the nut to wider at the heel. Can also refer to tapering the back (thinner at the nut, thicker at the heel) prior to neck carving.

Re: fingerboard, do what you want. I've been gluing my fingerboards on after the neck's in place. Doesn't really matter hugely one way or the other. Just make sure all the slot are routed first.

[Pott]

Alright... I guess I have all I need to make a first eff up and then try again!

Another question: it's possible to get a non angled neck with a TOM I guess, if I recess the TOM. With a router and a good plan, this shouldn't be too hard right? I route to small circles wide enough to accep the inserts, about 5mm deep (determined by the diagram I'll do), then drill for the inserts and install the TOM normally? Is this a hard operation with a router?

How do you get on angling a neck through if you do not recess the TOM? This probably is in the book but I may not be able to get it unless I find it in a library (unlikely...). My vision of the thing is that you see what amount of thickness you have left between the neck and the wings, angle the neck portion down to the proper angle and then sand down the body portion flat to the wing's thickness? That means though that if the neck/center section is already thicknessed to the body wings and I angle down the neck portion, the action will be even higher doesn't it? Should I then make sure I have a thicker center section?

[Mattia]

Alright... I guess I have all I need to make a first eff up and then try again!

Another question: it's possible to get a non angled neck with a TOM I guess, if I recess the TOM. With a router and a good plan, this shouldn't be too hard right? I route to small circles wide enough to accep the inserts, about 5mm deep (determined by the diagram I'll do), then drill for the inserts and install the TOM normally? Is this a hard operation with a router?

How do you get on angling a neck through if you do not recess the TOM? This probably is in the book but I may not be able to get it unless I find it in a library (unlikely...). My vision of the thing is that you see what amount of thickness you have left between the neck and the wings, angle the neck portion down to the proper angle and then sand down the body portion flat to the wing's thickness? That means though that if the neck/center section is already thicknessed to the body wings and I angle down the neck portion, the action will be even higher doesn't it? Should I then make sure I have a thicker center section?

←

Seriously, buy a copy of the book. It's very much worth the cash. Amazon UK should have it as well, and shipping within the UK should be free.

You can recess the TOM, though; simply make a tempalte for the shape of the bridge, route a slot that the entire thing can sit in, nice and low. Also consider you might want to not use a stop tailpiece, but run the strings down through the body to make sure you've got adequate downward pressure (if the tailpiece is too high, you won't). Thing is, if you want your bottom of fingerboard flush with the top, it'll have to be very, very low. See a strat for example; it's got a low bridge, but you still have the neck proud of the body.

As to angling a neck through, yes, you want an oversized/thickness centre section/neck blank. You glue the wings on at an angle, and plane the excess off the neck blank on the front and back.

[Marzocchi705]

If your in edinburgh there are plenty of guitar stores that will have a soloist and mockingbird and im sure theyl let you draw round/take measurements of them.