mattharris75 Posted March 24, 2007 Report Share Posted March 24, 2007 Well, a few months ago I had grand ideas of a semi-hollow guitar using an expensive Koa top and high end hardware. As I've learned and read over the past couple of months I've come to the decision that my first build should be something a bit simpler and a lot cheaper! Also, at the time I was considering buying a pre-made neck. Many people encouraged me to try to build the neck myself. So, I've decided to go ahead and try that. Got to learn sometime. I've got 2 sets of full sized body plans designed in photoshop (just have to decide which one to go with) and a strat style neck plan I drew up in Solid Edge. Rather than buy expensive wood, I noticed a while back that my father-in-law (Who has done a little wood work in his time, and has a pretty nice shop that I am fortunate enough to have access to) had a big pile of old hardwood timbers sitting in his basement that came off an old edition to their family owned business. I wasn't sure what they were, they were very rough and beaten up. A few weeks ago he cut off a piece of one of them and planed it down, and as it turned out he had a large pile of reclaimed walnut. I managed to sweet talk him into letting me pick out a board or two to make a guitar body with and the other night we cut, planed, and joined enough wood for a 2 piece top and 3 piece back. So with that done I've started gluing this bad boy together. This morning I glued the top, hopefully by next weekend I'll have the whole body glued. I don't know that the grain on this would be considered particularly perfect, but I think it's pretty interesting. I managed to get the light streaks lined up in the middle against each other, which I think looks pretty cool. And there is a nice looking blacker streak on the bottom piece of wood. I think it should make for a pretty interesting guitar top. What do you guys think? And here's a different angle that shows off the grain a little bit differently. Oh, and yes, that is a coaster that i'm clamping around on one end. It was convenient and my wife didn't put up too much of a struggle. Walnut top gluing 2 Once I get it all glued together I'll start working on the MDF template. (Guess I'll have to make a decision on which body shape to go with soon. ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PTU 7's. Posted March 24, 2007 Report Share Posted March 24, 2007 It's going nice. I think that a quilted maple there it's going to look awsome! Keep working, seems to be a good guitar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuntinDoug Posted March 24, 2007 Report Share Posted March 24, 2007 Looking good so far. Those long clamps look like Harbor Freight specials I have a dozen or so of them myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted March 24, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2007 Those long clamps look like Harbor Freight specials I have a dozen or so of them myself. For 5 bucks a piece you can't beat them. I'm probably going to have to go back and get a couple more clamps, maybe a deep throated C clamp, and a few others for joining the front and back. I've got 4 quick clamps that were too small for this but will work for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmarlin Posted March 24, 2007 Report Share Posted March 24, 2007 I have those clamps also I buy all my clamps from there now. I was in there a few weeks ago and they had a sale going on, I picked up several 5" C clamps for $1.99 each. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 25, 2007 Report Share Posted March 25, 2007 Looking great, very nice start. Be careful with cheapy C clamps, take a good look at them before you buy them. One I bought from harbor freight had the bottom threading drilled wrong, so the clamp wont clamp flat, it slants a little. Which is completely useless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted March 25, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2007 (edited) Looking great, very nice start. Be careful with cheapy C clamps, take a good look at them before you buy them. One I bought from harbor freight had the bottom threading drilled wrong, so the clamp wont clamp flat, it slants a little. Which is completely useless. Good point. I just got 2/3's of the bottom glued up this afternoon so I'll be going to get more clamps within the next few days. I'll make sure I look them all over before I get them. Also, I've decided on a body shape. It's a familiar one to a lot of folks on here. Body Shape (In this image I used an actual picture that I took of my walnut top, to scale, to get an idea of what the grain will look like with the body shape.) Thanks Alan! Edited March 25, 2007 by mattharris75 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElysianGuitars Posted March 26, 2007 Report Share Posted March 26, 2007 ugh top mounted jack... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted March 26, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2007 ugh top mounted jack... Yeah, I put the top mounted jack in the drawing because I thought it weould be something a little different for this style of guitar (along with the pickguard), and i'm not trying to do an exact copy of a Skelf. But I'm not dead set on it yet. It's just a concept. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted March 29, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2007 Got some more work done tonight. I printed out my pattern yesterday and cut it out. Tonight I bandsawed and belt sanded it out of 1/4" MDF. The MDF cut so nicely, it was a joy to work with. I can see why it is so ideal for patterns. Still need to hand sand a few corners. And as you can see in the pic, I changed the shape on the back slightly just to add a little more wood in. I also cut down the width of the top and bottom body pieces and planed them down so they are ready to be glued together. The bottom piece was 3 separate pieces of walnut, and they ended up with a few minor alignment problems. There was still a little bit of bow to 2 of the 3 pieces. The planer took care of that and i'll be gluing up the top and back tomorrow! I'm pleasantly surprised so far that everything has pretty much gone as planned. I know that i'm not exactly deep into it yet, and issues are bound to come up, but since this is my first project like this there was a considerable amount of fear and trepidation. It feels good to finally jump in with both feet! Also, I am rethinking my plan of using a pickguard. I just like the way the wood looks so much it would be a shame to cover it up! I still think that the pickguard shape would look really cool on here, so i'm debating which way to go with it. Anyway, here's the results of the evenings work. A pic of the template sitting on top of the planed top and bottom pieces of the body. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim_ado Posted March 29, 2007 Report Share Posted March 29, 2007 to be honest i seriously think it would look better with a side jack and no scratch plate at all the shape might have been copyed from skelf...and it was made with out all that stuff for a reason and that is it looks better with out it if u wanted to make it a bit more "original" then u should have made ur our design not bagging on ur guitar i just think the look of the wood would suit it whole lot more whith out scratch plate and top-jack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted March 29, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2007 (edited) to be honest i seriously think it would look better with a side jack and no scratch plate at all the shape might have been copyed from skelf...and it was made with out all that stuff for a reason and that is it looks better with out it if u wanted to make it a bit more "original" then u should have made ur our design not bagging on ur guitar i just think the look of the wood would suit it whole lot more whith out scratch plate and top-jack If I go without the pickguard i'll definately do a side jack. The strat style jack was just in there as a concept to see how it looked. I wasn't set on it to begin with. Just trying to think a little 'outside the box' with regards to this style of guitar. In fact I had pretty much decided to do a side jack regardless of whether or not I use a pickguard. But it's always fun to experiment with different looks and ideas when you are at the planning stage of a build and it doesn't cost you anything. However, as far as saying 'you should have made your own design' if you wanted to be original, I think that's a load of hogwash. Just because a particular guitar was designed one way originally doesn't mean it is required to stay that way or that that is neccessarily even the 'best' way. Designs are refined and changed all the time, and often by their original owner. It's not always a matter of being better or worse, sometimes it's just a choice to be 'different'. Look at the guy who posted the double cutaway telecaster with the interesting pickguard design yesterday. That's not the way a tele was originally designed, but it sure is cool nonetheless. For as long as Gibsons and Fenders, etc have been around people have been altering their original designs. Often to great effect. But the point is, people doing things a little bit different is what generates new and interesting ideas. Alan makes great guitars, one of my absolute favorite designs (That's why i'm making one like his rather than a strat copy or something of that nature) but just because he did it one way and it looks great doesn't mean it's the only way to do it that will look good. Anyway, not trying to be a jerk. I just think people can sometimes be a little too callous and heavy handed with their statements with regards to peoples ideas. I'll get off my soapbox now. Maybe i'll just do the control cavity in the back and set it up not to have a pickguard, then make one when I get to that stage and try it out and see how it looks. That way I can have the option of going either way with it. Edited March 29, 2007 by mattharris75 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGGR Posted March 29, 2007 Report Share Posted March 29, 2007 Maybe i'll just do the control cavity in the back and set it up not to have a pickguard, then make one when I get to that stage and try it out and see how it looks. That way I can have the option of going either way with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted April 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 Well, I got the top and bottom of the body blank glued up and everything went well there. The glue set up a bit faster than I expected. Perhaps because of the heat? Also managed to finish hand sanding the template so that it was nice and smooth. This evening I had a little time in the father-in-laws shop to work on the build. Managed to get the body rough cut. It went fairly smoothly. I found that taking my time was the most important thing. I managed to get it quite close, within 1/8th to 1/16th. You can see the red sharpie line in the picture that shows where the inside of the template went to. I figured if I got to the edge of that line I would leave myself a fairly easy job when it came to finishing the outside of the body. Which brings me to the first dilemma of the build. Do I route the edge using a pattern bit or use a robosander? I'm not sure which way I'm going to go with that yet. In the meantime I need to firm up my neck design. Since I decided to do a laminate neck rather than building it out of a 1" strat style blank that frees me up a little bit. I need to make the modifications in CAD and hopefully next weekend i'll have a chance to go pick up some maple for the neck. The nearest hardwood store that i've found is about 45 minutes away, which makes it tough to go on a weekday. Anyway, so far so good. I'm pleasantly surprised how well things have gone so far. I know that I'm still in the infancy stage of the build, but cutting out the body makes you feel like you have finally done something significant after spending so much time preparing the blank and template. Enough talk, here's the pic: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGman Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 Nice shape, looking good, your shape is similar to a 5 string bass i'm building, sorta like skelf's basses, but with similar horns to your guitar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supernova9 Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 Well, I got the top and bottom of the body blank glued up and everything went well there. The glue set up a bit faster than I expected. Perhaps because of the heat? Also managed to finish hand sanding the template so that it was nice and smooth. This evening I had a little time in the father-in-laws shop to work on the build. Managed to get the body rough cut. It went fairly smoothly. I found that taking my time was the most important thing. I managed to get it quite close, within 1/8th to 1/16th. You can see the red sharpie line in the picture that shows where the inside of the template went to. I figured if I got to the edge of that line I would leave myself a fairly easy job when it came to finishing the outside of the body. Which brings me to the first dilemma of the build. Do I route the edge using a pattern bit or use a robosander? I'm not sure which way I'm going to go with that yet. In the meantime I need to firm up my neck design. Since I decided to do a laminate neck rather than building it out of a 1" strat style blank that frees me up a little bit. I need to make the modifications in CAD and hopefully next weekend i'll have a chance to go pick up some maple for the neck. The nearest hardwood store that i've found is about 45 minutes away, which makes it tough to go on a weekday. Anyway, so far so good. I'm pleasantly surprised how well things have gone so far. I know that I'm still in the infancy stage of the build, but cutting out the body makes you feel like you have finally done something significant after spending so much time preparing the blank and template. If you're 1/8" to 1/16" from your final size, use a router to do the final shaping. When you're that close there's far less risk of tearout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted April 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 (edited) Nice shape, looking good, your shape is similar to a 5 string bass i'm building, sorta like skelf's basses, but with similar horns to your guitar. Thanks. Yeah, I actually copied Skelf's shape straight up. I ended up making it slightly fuller in the back once I went to make the template, but it's a pretty minor difference. If you're 1/8" to 1/16" from your final size, use a router to do the final shaping. When you're that close there's far less risk of tearout. Thanks for the advice. Tearout was my biggest concern with going that route. Yeah, i'm only the width of a sharpie line from the finished shape. Maybe i'll give it a go. Edited April 1, 2007 by mattharris75 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted April 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 8, 2007 So, I made some serious sawdust tonight. I managed to get a 3' x 7" 5/4 hard maple board this morning at the hardwood center. I planed and ripped board and found a piece of walnut that would work and did the same to it. So now I have my neck wood ready to be laminated: So that went smashingly, and up to this point everything had exceeded my expectations in terms of how smooth and wonderfully it was all going. But this was the moment of truth. I double side taped my template back onto my body, broke open my shiny new 1/2" pattern bit and with fear and trepidation, went to work finishing the outline of the body. This by far was the most difficult part of the build so far. I was tense the entire time. When I finally emerged from the sawdust I had something that resembled a finished guitar shape. But not without a few minor issues. I had a couple of small divots in a few areas, but by in large these will be easily sanded out. The only gut wrenching moment was as I was cutting around the upper horn, suddenly a chunk, which seemed massive at the time, went flying off into the pile of shavings below. I stopped the router immediately and managed to find it and save it. In the following pictures you'll see that i've already gotten it clamped and glued back in. Hopefully that will fix most of it and I can just carefully sand it all out. So, other than a few stubborn areas in the end grain that will require a fair amount of sanding and the one ocurance of tearout the only other problems were in an area where the carve for the belly cut should pretty much take care of them. I was fortunate in that most of the small problems will be coverable with just a little elbow grease and some sandpaper. But all in all, this was a good learning experience with the router. Although, i'm a bit hesitant just thinking about the impending 1/2" roundover. Anyway, here's the pics: Routed body, front Routed body, back So, in the next few days i'll get the neck laminates glued together and print out the patterns for my neck, the design of which is undergoing a few final tweaks, and then get to work on cutting out the templates for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted April 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2007 So tonight I got my neck templates rough cut. I also managed to get the 1/2" roundover done on the body. Wasn't as hard as I feared. Much easier than using the pattern bit, since it was simple to take small passes. I've still got some sanding to do to get the roundover nice and blended in, give it a bit more organic feel, but it looks nice so far. Also, I'm trying to figure out the best way to clean the sawdust out of the huge pores on the walnut. I tried some compressed air, which worked on some of the grain but not all of it. It looks so dull right now with all that sawdust in the grain. Anyway, here's a pic. I plan on cleaning up my neck templates this week and hopefully at least finding time to get the truss rod channel routed this weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted April 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2007 (edited) Belly cut is done. Not sure if i'm going to leave it the way it is or make it a bit larger. But I do like the smooth curves of it. Also did the arm cut, and did a little more sanding and working the roundover into the body a bit. Plenty more to go on that front, obviously. The actual Skelf guitars seem to have fairly subtle arm and belly cuts, and look great. So maybe i'll leave them that way. I'd really like to give it a more organic look, probably should have used a larger than 1/2" roundover. Oh well, live and learn. Edited April 20, 2007 by mattharris75 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted April 21, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 21, 2007 Made some good progress today. Transferred my neck measurements to the laminated neck blank and checked to make sure I didn't screw anything up about 5 times. Then proceeded to cut the truss rod route. I bought the rogue 3/16 bit and it worked great. Then drilled back 3/4" with a 3/8" forstner bit to allow the shank of the spoke wheel to fit. After that I got to the interesting bit, the bandsawing of the neck. I ended up not having any problems, except for the soreness in my back thanks to the tension because I kept expecting to screw up at any minute. Then used the belt sander to clean up the lines. Have a little hand sanding to do one some sections, but it's quite close to being ready to carve the back. Here's a couple of pics: Another view Truss rod channel with spoke wheel hot rod Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted April 22, 2007 Report Share Posted April 22, 2007 Very well executed so far, great work! I scanned over the thread but didn't see what fingerboard you're using, what kind of wood is it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted April 22, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 22, 2007 Very well executed so far, great work! I scanned over the thread but didn't see what fingerboard you're using, what kind of wood is it? Thanks. It's actually just a fender scale pre-slotted/radiused board from stew mac. It's rosewood, but it has a lot more color variation than the rosewood fingerboards I have on several of my purchased guitars. I was really impressed with it when it showed up, really a nice looking piece of wood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geo Posted April 23, 2007 Report Share Posted April 23, 2007 Here's a thought for getting the sawdust out of the pores... a vacuum cleaner with handheld attachment? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattharris75 Posted April 23, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 23, 2007 Thanks, that's basically what I tried. I used my dustbuster with the brush attachment on the end the other night and it worked surprisingly well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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