It Has Begun!

[nerosrevenge]

Well it seems that perhaps I did this in reverse (seeing as I posted the drawings for my second guitar before I even started my first one, yup it's addictive!)

So anyway...I spent some time tonight making some sawdust and a whole bunch of noise, and I have some pics!

Here's the breakdown:

Fairly straightforward single cut solid body design. I was hoping to build this one out of recycled/scrap material, so far I have been successful.

Neck - leftover hardwood flooring (Maple and Jatoba)

Fretboard - Camatillo (member of the Rosewood family) I have had that peice for a few years now left over from another non-guitar related project.

Body - Still searching for a peice of wood for the body, seems the Mahogany Fairy doesn't frequent this part of Canada!

Top - I was considering Flame Maple, but since this is my first build, I thought it better to keep it simple so really that means that I haven't managed to salvage a piece for that either!

Hardware - Schaller 455 bridge GOLD w/GOLD locking tuners.

PUPS - Seymour Duncan P90's

Still need:

Pots, nut (Bone preferably), more free time!

Ok now the pics:

The neck gluing up (used every clamp that I had!)

and here's the Fretboard (say it with me "Camatillo")

That's all for now! I hope to get back to work on it soon. I'll post pics!

Cheers,

STV.

Edited September 1, 2007 by nerosrevenge

[jmrentis]

Beautiful looking fretboard my friend! I have been seeing more and more of that wood and while I never really thought much of it, I am definitely starting to like some of it for instance that piece is very nice. It was kinda funny seeing the neck laminates with the notches from the flooring. I had to laugh a little, but I think if its perfectly useable its a genius idea as it saves a lot of work.

I actually have a similar neck in progress, maple and jatoba, though its just a 3 piece, jatoba sandwiched in maple. I gotta say that jatoba isn't the easiest wood to do anything with, but it looks nice and is very strong, especially for necks.

Also, to protect from a glue mess all over you can use something like wax paper, instead of plastic bags/tarps etc. Just throwing that out because I find it easier to work around for some reason.

Well nice stuff, this will be a cool project! Hopefully, you come across something nice for the body wood and top. Wish you luck and keep the progress pics coming! J

PS: Have you considered having a volute on your neck? It would add some strength to the weak area of the neck and they look really cool, IMO. If you don't know the word, use the search button at the top of this page because there are a bunch of threads about them, its hard to explain what they are clearly. I was just thinking with such a thick blank you could easily have a nice volute. My blank was very close to that in size and if I had my bandsaw when I cut it, I could have gotten 3 necks out of it, instead of two. Though the last piece could be used, but I would need to thicken the heel a bit.

[WezV]

and here's the Fretboard (say it with me "Camatillo")

Ca-ma.... ca-mel ......... CAMELTOE!!! Is that close enough i always did have issues with long words

[Prostheta]

[nerosrevenge]

Well I was hoping to make some more sawdust tonight but that wasn't possible (that's what happens when you have a 10 day old baby!! )

I did however manage to get the templates for the body and headstock marked, hope to cut them tomorrow.

Here are the pics:

Here are the cutouts from the drawings:

Here is the MDF marked ready to cut:

Not allot, but progress still!

Cheers!

STV.

[Hector]

Well I was hoping to make some more sawdust tonight but that wasn't possible (that's what happens when you have a 10 day old baby!! )

I did however manage to get the templates for the body and headstock marked, hope to cut them tomorrow.

Here are the pics:

Here are the cutouts from the drawings:

Here is the MDF marked ready to cut:

Not allot, but progress still!

Cheers!

STV.

in the area where the neck meets the body (upper side) why did you choose to change the natural flow of the curves and make it 90º with the neck?

Edited September 1, 2007 by Hector

[Rick500]

Congrats on the little one!

I love the fretboard blank... and I can't think of a better use for leftover flooring.

[jmrentis]

in the area where the neck meets the body (upper side) why did you choose to change the natural flow of the curves and make it 90º with the neck?

Is it different? I don't see a difference between the drawing and template, but I've been known to be blind on occasion so don't mind me. I just didn't see what you meant. In the drawing the neck looks perpendicular to the top of the body as well. Maybe the fretlines made it look otherwise or something, but they look the same to me.

Neros: Its looking good so far! Might sound stupid, but I find that templates are fairly important and take up a lot of time. It seems each day I am making new templates for something. Which reminds me I need to go make another on for making the shallow route for the cavity cover recess and neck/fretboard taper.

I find it helpful to have templates for everything, cavities, covers, headstocks, body, chambering, neck/fretboard tapers, and so on. Just wanted to mention this for all those times the little one and lady are sleeping and you have spare time to build. I run into similar problems because I am up really late, so my hours of heavy machinery are limited, so I find other things to do, like scraping, hand planes, gluing stuff and more. Best of luck with the project, I bet it will turn out great. J

PS: What Rick said, congrats!!!

Edited September 1, 2007 by jmrentis

[nerosrevenge]

I guess I as just trying not to make it too LP-ish. I thought of blending the curves to form sort of an "S" but I wasn't fussy on it, that really the only reason.

Thank you all for the congrats!

[nerosrevenge]

It was a productive night tonight!

I managed to get the templates for the body, neck, fretboard, and headstock cut and sanded. Also cut the neck, glued and clamped it!

Here are the pics:

Neck gluing:

Template mock up:

Also, drew up the headstock logo today at work (it was slow today), tell me what you all think:

I was going for something vintage looking (sort of like the Gibson logo so people form a distance would be like "huh does that say Gibson?") Richey was my late Grandfather's nickname. He passed away before I was born. He was a skilled Hawaiian guitar played and an excellent craftsman (used to make gun stocks for competitive shooters). I thought this would be a fitting tribute.

I managed to find some material for the nut. I will be using Whitetail Deer Antler (it's like bone right?!), has anyone else tried this yet? Oh and I scored a nice peice of walnut (yup, flooring) for the headstock veneer.

Not doing to bad so far eh?

Bye for now,

STV.

[nerosrevenge]

Here are the recent update pics.

Since I don't have any wood for the body yet, I figured I might as well get as far as I can on the neck. So here it is shaped and sanded.

In retrospect I should have routed the truss rod channel before cutting the taper in the neck, now I guess I will have to attach straight edge or something to get that done. All in all I am pleased with it.

Cheers!

Edited September 6, 2007 by nerosrevenge

[Stewey]

Yep, it looks like you've made life hard for yourself by tapering and carving before doing the other stuff.

I really like the logo, looks professional and retro.

[erikbojerik]

Nice work so far. Indeed, I cut the truss rod channel while everything's still square and true.

You could improve a bit on the neck lamination by sandwiching the whole works between a pair of 2" aluminum or steel angles (applying your clamps to those), just to assure that your lams follow a known straight line.

[mattharris75]

The neck looks great, very clean. I love the headstock shape. What tools did you use to shape the neck?

[nerosrevenge]

This neck was definitely a learning experience. There are several things I will do differently next go'round.

mattharris75 - I used a rotary rasp tool (similar to a fortum tool) to get the rough shape. The balance I did with a round file and then sandpaper (100-400 grit).

I order to keep the neck radius consistent, I made a half-round template, then rubbed the inside with a pencil so that when it was passed over the neck, the low/high spots are easier to spot.

Thanks for the comments!

STV.

[Maiden69]

It is turning pretty nice, on the next one I would suggest carrying the neck tenon into the neck pup cavity, the more area you glue the stronger the joint. Look at Doug's site for more into detail.

http://www.soulmateguitars.com/Installing%...0Set%20Neck.htm

I thionk that your will be strong enough but I like more wood into the body. I think it will make it more ?stable?

Edited September 8, 2007 by Maiden69

[nerosrevenge]

Maiden69 - thanks for the tip, I will check out that link.

I put the headstock veneer on tonight. I decided not to use the walnut, it clashed too much with the fingerboard. So instead I used some flame maple veneer that I had:

The headstock will ultimately have a carve around the edge (similar to an Ovation) I hope to get that done after the weekend.

Cheers!

STV.

[nerosrevenge]

Here is tonight's progress:

- Headstock carved and sanded.

- Truss rod cover laminated and cut to shape (still need to route the edge).

Here is the headstock rough carved:

and here it is sanded with the truss rod cover in place:

I am wondering if anyone has experience using poplar for the body? It's not my first choice but I have a whack of it laying around so if I can put it to use why not?!

Cheers!

STV.

[GregP]

I say why not. I trust members who feel that it's a bit "vanilla", but plenty of guitars have been made with it. If your pickups and neck have enough character, I would think (judging only by what I've read) that it should be plenty fine.

I love your headstock. Have you confirmed that the tuners will work properly with that bevelled edge? It looks so danged awesome.

[CrazyManAndy]

Poplar will work. I've read that it is tonally similar to Alder. I don't see any reason why you couldn't use it, other than it doesn't look very nice.

Oh, and that headstock is the nuts! Nice job!

CMA

Edited September 11, 2007 by CrazyManAndy

[jmrentis]

What are your plans for the poplar? I think you decided to skip using a figured top for this guitar, is that still the plan? Will the body just be the single piece of poplar? I was just curious what you plan on doing for finish and all that. Doing a solid color would totally negate the whole poplar is unsightly thing, you could even get fancy and do a cool burst of some sort. Bursts tend to work extremely well with that body shape! Thanks for sharing the pics, its coming a lot beautifully! Really digging that headstock and the truss cover is very cool as well, nice stuff. This is going to be one cool project. Keep up the good work and progress. J

Edited September 11, 2007 by jmrentis

[nerosrevenge]

Thank you everyone for all of your comments. I am having a blast with this project!

GregP - I measured the tuners and they'll work. I'll be adding those soon.

jmrentis - I had been considering using some poplar that I have laying around to make a laminate body, but I just can't bring myself to do it! The neck turned out so nice, and I really do have my heart set on a figured top with mahogany body, so I'm holding out. I guess we'll see what comes my way!

STV.

[nerosrevenge]

Well I got lucky (or less lazy!) I finally went out to the garage and raided my Father's scrap wood stash and came up with enough mahogany to get the body started! It will be made up of several different pieces (not ideal, but keeps with whole "recycled" theme of this project).

I will post pics soon.

Cheers!

STV.

[GregP]

awesome. One of my favourite projects to follow along with in a long time. Part of me prefers that you went for the scrap mahogany. ;-)

Is it sufficiently dry? Mahogany is pretty stable, and more experienced voices may prevail over me here, but my concern with going to the 'scrap pile' is that you won't be using sufficiently dried wood... is it a concern when it's mahogany?

[nerosrevenge]

Fortunately the scrap pile is located in the shop . The wood is very stable and is left over from a furniture project my Dad did some time ago so I should be ok.

Here is a shot of the first set of boards gluing up:

There will be two of these sets glued one on top of the other. I cut and glued the wood in such a way that the joints are staggered, and the different grains will support one another. As I said earlier not ideal but it will work!

STV.