A Few New Projects

[thegarehanman]

I'm just about to get started on a few new projects, so I figured I'd clue you guys in.

I'm in the middle of modding an ibanez explorer style guitar for a friend, I'll post pics of that when it's done. There's nothing too interesting going on with it though, other than the fireburst finish, so I don't think I'll be taking pictures of the progress.

I'll be building a solidbody guitar, a bass, and hopefully and acoustic guitar(only determining factore there is when the wood comes).

The guitar:

This will have a swamp ash back finished naturally with some rust colored veneer accent curves running throughout. Tank top profile. The neck and fretboard will be from one piece of cocobolo. The top will be a flamed, spalted, maple billet dyed burnt umber(or sprayed with transparent poly if the spalt doesn't accept stain evenly). Usual ebony peghead veneer and backstrapping, bla, bla, bla. I'm not sure what will happen with the inlays on this one, I haven't felt moved to put anything in particular on it at this point. The plan is to fully bind it with cocobolo and cake the purfling on all around, as usual. I'll be handwinding the pickups for this one. It'll get two hot P90 style pickups with coco covers. I'm also planning on putting a sustaniac system in it with the driver hidden under a matching p90 cover. Electronics will be a volume pot, neck/series/parrallel/bridge rotary selector, a temporary off kill button, a pot to conrol the sustainer, and a switch to select sustainer modes. There are other details, of course, but there's no need to wind myself at this point.

The bass will be simular to the tank top profile, but slightly larger to balance it better. 5 strings. The neck will be flamed black limba with a figured ebony fretboard. The body will be a very porous swamp ash blank that I have. The swamp ash back will be finished in a very thin coat of eggshell black poly, to maintain a natural vibe while still coloring the wood. The top will be quilted spalted maple with the edges bursted to black, but the center left natural. I'm thinking of doing some sort of inlay with black/white granite recon stone on this one, but the design is up in the air at this point. Faux binding on the body and ebony binding on the neck. The electronics will be a SD musicman style 2 coil pickup(with a cover made from an offcut of the top) with the 4 knob preamp. I'll be running 18v on this for some added headroom. Black hardware.

The acoustic I'm planning right now will have cocobolo sides, back, and neck. Ebony fretboard and treatments and a spruce top. I don't have any of this wood on hand yet, so I don't know when I'll be starting. I have a few ideas for soundhole placement that I want to experiment with and I'm going to give the crossdrilled bracing method a go. I'm planning to use a fairly traditional x brace pattern on the top and a double x brace on the back. I really like the fexibility of a bolt on neck, but I'm very attached to the appearance of a spanish heel, so I'm undecided on that matter at the moment.

I'll post some more pics when I start butchering all that lumber.

[WezV]

I look forward to seeing the progress on these!!

[Daniel Sorbera]

I want to see the acoutic! Are you using englemen spruce for that nice white color aganit the coco?

I LOVE coco acoustics. I can't wait to see this one done.

[thegarehanman]

I told rich what kind of sound I was going for and let him determine what type of top wood to use. I'm don't remember what he had recomended. The cocobolo sides and neck was primarily a cosmetic choice, although I've been intrigued by rw necks recently. However, I figured I should be a responsible luthier and choose the top wood based on the voice I'm aiming for, which will be a boomy, bassy one. For the time being, I'm planning to make it a 10 string, with the E & A strings being singles and the DGBE strings being doubled. It'll be good for my style, which stems from a jazz backround. The only unique thing about it will be the soundhole(s), to be honest. I plan to have a soundhole near the upper bass bout and another on the side of the guitar in the same general vacinity. I'm hoping to be able to connect the two and give it a curvy almost amebic look. Myka's convinced that I can pull it off without compromising the sound if I brace it well and chose the size and location of the hole(s) wisely. With that assurance in mind, I plan to give it a stab. Now let's see if I can get some work done tonight. I'd be happy just to start hacking up that piece of cocobolo pictured, although it pains me to touch a saw to such pricey wood.

On a side note, I ordered some socket head bolts from boltdepot which I had hoped would work for my polepieces. I ordered size 0's and 1's. They arrived today. Fortunately, the 1's are almost exactly the size I need. I'll be building a p90 style pickup with a slightly different profile and 2 polepieces per string rather than 1. In case you're wondering, that was mostly a cosmetic decision.

peace,

russ

[thegarehanman]

I've got the laminated neck for the bass gluing up at the moment and the coco for the guitar neck is scarfed. The bass body blank is glued together, and the guitar blank is somewhat in the process of being glued together(you'll see what I mean below). Also, the wood for the acoustic should be on its way soon.

I've reached a bit of an asthetic dilema. I've been cutting up the body blank for the guitar body and laminating in some dyed veneers. You'll see where I've done so already. I've penciled on the lines for the proposed rest of the veneers. I can't decide if I should stop with 5 lines or conitnue with the rest I"d planned. Part of me feels like adding more lines would take away from the current flow between the body's profile and the veneer lines. The other part of me feels like a few more strips of veneer would liven up the back. Ignore the glue and stray pencil marks, I'm waiting to sand the blank flat again until I have all of the strips of veneer laminated in. Any thoughts?

peace,

russ

[onelastgoodbye]

I'd at least do the outer laminations in a different colour, like wenge or ebony. You'll have a continuation of your design, yet break it up visually, which would make it look more interesting, and minimize the connotation to a cobweb or boat deck.

Now what would be really cool is if you would carve out those two outer areas.Nothing radical, just like a faint belly carve. That would really make those center laminations pop.

my 2 eurocents,

Tim

[thegarehanman]

ah, not my cup of tea. thanks though.

[thegarehanman]

Just got back from visiting the folks and thought I'd post some pictures. Not much progress to speak of, but I'm not hurried. The acoustic wood showed up, compliments of rich. He did an amazing job of picking out the wood for this.

Here are the coco and limba necks scarfed. The coco neck has had the profile cutout. I'm waiting on some hardware before I cut the profile on the bass neck because I'll be mounting the tuners sideways, like on a classical guitar. Consequently, I can't say what the headstock thickness needs to be until I have the tuners on hand. The last thumbnail is the coco neck stock for the acoustic.

For the top of the guitar and bass, I'm planning on radiusing the tops of the blanks and then gluing on the drop tops. The idea is to have the feel of a carved top, but with a little less traditional look.

Here's the guitar blank after I routed it a bit to make shaping it easier.

Here's the guitar blank after about 20 minutes with a surform.

Here's a pic of the side set and a piece of the back set for the acoustic.

Finally, here's the template that the p90's i'll be winding will be based off of. I use the female template to route out the interior of the cover. It was too difficult for me to make an accurate female template, so I made a male template and cast a female template using that.

peace,

russ

[thegarehanman]

Finished the pickup covers, bobbins, and sustainer cover today. Some wire and magnets are in the mail, so they should be finished soon.

The pickups assembled. The one with the logo is to cover the sustainiac sustainer. You can't tell from this angle, but the rg logo isn't inlayed. I cut the rg out of the cover and glued a piece of maple veneer into the cover. It gives it a nice, recessed look.

The bobbins alone.

The covers alone. The insides are coated with CA in hopes of stabalizing the covers a little.

peace,

russ

[Maurits]

Those pickup covers look very cool. These should be some beautiful guitars.

[Drak]

Extremely cool. You are the man.

[Daniel Sorbera]

Those pickups are one of the best ideas I've ever seen on a guitar. Give yourself an extra beer, you earned it

[thegarehanman]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the support. To be honest, the idea for the rg comes from alan's(skelf's) custom made pickups. I think armstrong or lollar makes his. They're encased in epoxy and have his logo stamped into them. This is just the logical extension of that method with wood, rather than epoxy.

peace,

russ

[thegarehanman]

I've been really strapped for time lately between sophomore year and a research job that I'm loving. Anyhow, I got the fretboard for the electric guitar done. However, I'm completely dissatisfied with how the centers of the dots came out, so I've ordered a new ebony fretboard so I can make a second attempt. This board will get scrapped, but this picture will show you what I'm aiming for. I would have taken a picture of my bending jig for the acoustic(it's pretty much the same as rich's), but my camera's starting to crap out, probably because my housemate threw it onto the sofa. That said, I might not be able to update with photos until I get a new camera, unless this one starts working again.

Oh, and the pictured fretboard would have gotten cocobolo binding(the piece that's pictured next to the board) had I liked it and finished it.

peace,

russ

Edited December 6, 2006 by thegarehanman

[Jalien21]

woah. how'd you make that fretboard, again...? if it's getting scrapped, my bar is set a lot lower than yours....

[thegarehanman]

put briefly...I used a template to route the ebony board to size. I then routed off .08" from the edges for binding. I then routed a recess around the edge of the board for the maple purfling. Then I cut out the cocobolo inlays and bound the edges of the coco with maple. I inlayed that coco into the ebony. Then I drilled the holes for the copper tubing and glued the copper into the holes. After that I filled the copper with dust and epoxy. That's what made me disatisfied. It just didn't look close enough to the coco and ebony. Next time I'll make some coco and ebony dots and plug the copper with those. I would just make a circular cut in the board, but that's easier said than done. The copper tube deforms too easily when you try to cut teeth into it and drill the ebony.

peace,

russ

Edited October 2, 2006 by thegarehanman

[verhoevenc]

hmmmm... how did I miss this until now? strange. Good to see you uplaoded pictures of the boards. Shame they didn't make the cut. I was gunna ask why you inlaid the coco instead of the ebony, since there seemed to be more coco coverage than ebony... but then it dawned on me that with the way you did it you could cover any routingt mistakes with black epoxy and dust... whereas the other way around would have hard the glue between the maple and the coco...a nd thus any mistakes would have stood out. Either way, good work with the inlay! Hope the dots turn out better round #2.

Chris

[thegarehanman]

Here are a few pics I snapped tonight. I have to scrap the pickup bobbins and covers I made because they're a bit too narrow to fit enough magnet wire on. So I've worked out some new dimensions in solidworks and should get started on the second batch soon. Pete's been really helpfull with getting me images of the sustainiac sustainer without the cover, so I know what I have to do for the sustainer cover. I've got some picture of my new sidebending jig as well, but I'm going to organize those into an album and put them in rich's acoustic thread.

Here's some 1/8" ebony bent to conform to the volute on the back of the headstock. It's not glued on yet. Let me tell you .125" ebony is some mean stuff to bend. I should have used .08." I'll probably be able to stand on the headstock when it's done though, haha.

Here's the control cavity. I routed it all the way through the blank before veneering the top. This way, the knobs will come out perpendicular to the curved top, like on a les paul. That smaller compartment is for a battery.

Here's the first of 4 layers of veneer that will adorn the top of this guitar. Next is a plain maple veneer, then another rust colored veneer, then a flamed maple/rust pattern will top it off. I insured a tight fit between the veneer and blank by pulling many pieces masking tape tight over the top, across the curve. I sure do wish I had a vacuum bagging setup.

peace,

russ

Edited November 2, 2006 by thegarehanman

[travismoore]

Looking good =)

[scottyd]

You never cease to amaze me Russ. The body blank with the veneers is ultra cool!

[thegarehanman]

Thanks scott. If you plan on trying the veneer lines on a body blank yourself, I found that a nice, sharp(read: new), resaw blade(I used 3/4") does the job on those long curved cuts just fine. The trick is that you cannot sand your cut, it's gotta be really clean right off the saw. If you sand it, you run the risk of the two pieces not mating up correctly.

Speaking of sharp tools, looks like it's about time for me to break out a new template bit. There are more burns in that cavity than I remember last night...guess it was a bit late to be in the shop.

peace,

russ

[Setch]

Speaking of sharp tools, looks like it's about time for me to break out a new template bit. There are more burns in that cavity than I remember last night...guess it was a bit late to be in the shop.

peace,

russ

No need to get a new bit (you don't get a new plane iron each time it gets blunt...), just sharpen the cutter with a small diamond hone. I use DMT mini-sharp sharpeners, or dia-sharp hones to touch up the egdes of my cutters whenever I notice a decline in quality - usually burning or tearout, or just having to apply more force to move the router over the workpiece.

Usually the 25 micron (red) is fine, but sometimes I'll use the 45 micron (blue) if the bit is really blunt, or the 9 micron (green) if I want a super sharp cut.

[thegarehanman]

A router bit sharpening stone? Genious!

Honestly, I had no clue such a thing existed. I just keep a few extra bits on hand.

I have an update...I glued on the next layer of veneer onto the body blank. This went south really fast. Long story short, it needs to be sanded off and I'm building a vacuum bagging setup ala joewoodworker.com . One step forward, two steps back.

peace,

russ

Edited October 8, 2006 by thegarehanman

[thegarehanman]

Hey guys, I haven't had the opportunity to do a whole lot of work, and my digital camera decided to be 100% broken as of a few days ago, so I need to get a new one eventually. Anyhow, I wanted to post a picture of a simple neck roughing out jig I made today. I remember a while back, myka put up some pictures of his fairly elaborate(and very effective, I should say) jig for roughing out neck carves. Well, I didn't feel like going through quite that much trouble, so I made this little attachment for my router table, akin to what acoustic/hollowbody builders use for routing for binding on their bodies. The idea was just to provide enough clearance to get the headstock wings out of the way.

Pardon the camera phone quality pic.

And on a completely different note, I've slightly redesigned the pickups I'm making for this(internally and externally) in an effort to make them a bit more rugged and allow for more windings. And in the aim of having more consistent results from pickup to pickup, I'm having the baseplates machined "off site" and the bobbins will be moulded in house. Once it's all said and done, I'll have a nice big stack of custom pickup guts so that I can play around with wire guages and number of windings, to get the voice just so.

peace,

russ

Edited November 15, 2006 by thegarehanman

[thegarehanman]

Sweet! I just won a 6cfm refurbished vacuum pump on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...p;rd=1&rd=1

It should make a fine heart for the vacuum bagging setup I'm organizing a la joe woodworker. This will really open up a lot of possibilities. One thing that's got me excited is the idea of doing embossed logos in tolex on rectangular plywood cases.

My sidebending jig is tweaked and ready to roll. I still have to build some radius dishes and a mould. I'm pretty excited, let me tell you. Still no new camera though . Soon, I promise. Good times. Back into the belly of the shop after a pleasant band practise...