Body Redesign

[avengers63]

Anyone remember this?

It's almost time to rework the whole thing. The body has a number of issues: no balance, impossible to sit & play, and it's made of plywood. I have some 2" jatoba coming in this week, some of which will be used to make this body with. (I'm also getting 10"x1" sapele, 8"x2" zebrawood, 4"x2.5" mahogany, and 17"x1" mahogany, but that's another story! ) I wanted to use the jatoba because it's dense & heavy. I figured that'd help with the balance. The weight shouldn't be a problem due to the lack of size.

Also, I have some veners in stock: walnut, rosewood, fiddleback ash, lyptus, cherry, ribboned sapele, maple, and one or two others I can't think of right now. Many of these are large enough to cover the face of this body. I have some banding material as well: 36" strips of maple, something medium-brown, and something dyed black.

Here are my thoughts.

1) Paint it yellow, just like the current body is.

2) Cover the face & headstock with a veneer (probably rosewood) and bind the whole thing with the maple banding.

My gut says that the little body & single pup doesn't lend itself well to a pretty wood surface. My craftsmanship says this is entirely possible, so go for it. But, just because a thing can be done does not mean it should be done. But it'd be pretty! But it doesn't really fit the style. But it'd be really fun to make. But then I have the diamondplate p/g for nothing. But I can sell the p/g with the old body.

Can you tell I'm torn?

I don't have any qualms about painting over the wood at all. Jatoba may look nice, but it wasn't bought for the grain. It'd be someting entirely different were I suggesting to paint over the zebrawood.

Nothing is stopping me from making 2 bodies. The veneered one would have a square edge, the other rounded. It's my intention to make multiple bodies anyway and try to sell them on eBay. I really don't want to make the veneered one and then fall in love with it. I already know I love the basic shape in yellow. I don't want two little ones! If I love it, I'll have to have them both.

I'm rambling now. I should stop typing my inner dialogue and let y'all give me some feedback.

[Bygde]

Sure I remember this axe! Who could forget? Sounds like a good idea to make the body heavier. Will it be the same shape? Anyways...keep it yellow! Will be far, far cooler with the body design/size to have an "eyepiercing" colour like yellow. About balance, you could put the strap on the headstock instead. Probably won't look very good, but I reckon the balance will be much better (or maybe it is strapped to the headstock?).

[avengers63]

For shape, balance, and seated playing, I'll be adding some small body horns. The trebel-side curve will be a bit more pronounced and extended so it will sit on my thigh. The bass-side will get extended a bit for strap-attached balancing. Overall, though, I'll be trying to do as little as possible to the body.

[avengers63]

I finally have some work done on the redesign. Well, I've been working on the body design, but until now there's been nothing to talk about or to show. I homed in on the mods to the body and did some planning and drawing, and this is what I came up with.

I gut the template out od hardboard last night and sanded around a couple of rough spots. The paper drawing is still attached to the face of the template. If you look close, you can see the various lines & placements I made in red pencil.

This picture right here is the template with a neck laying on it, just to get a sense of perspective.

As I mentioned in the first post, I'll be making th body from jatoba. In fact, it's this piece right here. DANG that stuff is heavy! I hope it doesn't dork up my tools. And yes, that's my new toy it's resting on: a 13" Ryobi thickness planar. I'm all giddy like a school girl waiting to use it.

[avengers63]

I was working on this for about an hour and a half tonight. I got the jatoba piece cut off, planed, and the basic shape bandsawn. I cut about 1/8" from the outline. I then attached the template to the rough shape and set out to router the edges with my new pattern cutting bit and the router table.

The router ate every corner on the piece. Both of the semi-abrupt curves where the bridge is have major tearout. One horn has severe tearout, the other was ripped completely off the body!

I was feeding tn the right direction and taking as small of a bite as I could, but it just didn't matter. The router totally killed the body blank.

Do you think it was the jatoba being particularly nasty to work with, or would you suspect it might be something else? If it's the jatoba, I have some mahogany and sapele I can switch to and leave that stuff for other projects. I may just switch woods regardless.

Needless to say, I'm pretty hacked off right now.

[Mickguard]

Heh, and people make fun of my guitars

For the seated position, why not build a detachable leg support? It'll raise the whole guitar into a more comfortable position, without requiring a more extreme guitar change. The whole problem with this type of cut-down shape is there's no long enough lower bout to keep the guitar properly positioned.

(Edit: oops, I didn't see the part where the router tore up the blank! Well, look at this as an opportunity to complete rethink this body shape.... )

[jmrentis]

I'm curious to see what other people have to say about their work with Jatoba. I bought a piece for a neck lamination and cavity cover lam, and part of the piece worked fine with little trouble, though still harder and more brittle than most other woods I've touched, but the other part of the piece was tough to work with, the only time I could scrap or plane the stuff, was just after sharpening my blades to the best of my ability and even that would only last a short time before it started tearing and chipping some.

It definitely seemed tough on the tools and on me and I think apart of my problem was the grain direction of the part I had trouble with. With it being such a hard wood and kinda brittle from what I saw, I can't imagine it would be very friendly in doing any type of profiling like round overs or beading with a router. In my neck lam it worked fine because the most of the real blade work I did was from the spokeshave and handplane, which actually cut it alright when I made 100% sure that blade was as sharp as I could manage. I don't think the mahogany would be as much of a problem as Jatoba, though I think any profiling like this can be prone to tear out for guitars. J

Edited June 13, 2008 by jmrentis

[Joel Rainville]

The router ate every corner on the piece. Both of the semi-abrupt curves where the bridge is have major tearout. One horn has severe tearout, the other was ripped completely off the body!

I was feeding tn the right direction and taking as small of a bite as I could, but it just didn't matter. The router totally killed the body blank.

I've had problems with brittle woods on the router table. Even mahogany can easily chip off with your run of the mill pattern/flush-trim bit. The first bit I bought years ago for guitar making was your standard 1/2" diameter, 2 flute straight bit. It was problematic with pretty much anything other than alder. Mahogany and swamp ash would tear out and chip off pretty badly. Getting the edges closer to the template on the spindle sander before attacking it on the router table would help, but was still very touchy and prone to chipping.

I solved this by buying a better and bigger, 3/4" diameter, 4 flutes, 2" cutting length :

It takes smaller bites, which makes it much easier to work with brittle woods. For Jatoba, I think I'd go and buy an up-shear bit, like this :

http://www.carbide.com/catalog/SearchRBDet...upID=0201.01.03

or even better, this, but it gets pricey :

http://www.carbide.com/catalog/RBits-SS-SC-flush-spiral.cfm

Edited June 13, 2008 by Joel Rainville

[avengers63]

I'm wondering something now: All of you who do pointy guitars... what do you do to keep this from happening? The ends of those things HAVE to be more succeptable to this than mine was. Just to add to the confusion, it was the thicker trebel-side horn that was ripped off.

What I'm contemplating at this point is just using the jatoba for the core and attaching some mahogany wings. The only reason I wanted the jatoba in the first place was for the weight. I don't want to completely scrap the whole idea of jatoba just yet.

On a good, note, the new planar works like a dream, and the jatoba looks really nice once it's cleaned up. I'll like the looks of it on some other projects. Yea... some nice, flat, square, non-routered woodworking pieces.

[zyonsdream]

alot of times when I get to the points I actually do them by hand. I rough most of it down and then file and sane the last inch or so by hand. Keeps from chipping the tips off.

[carousel182]

^ I dont do pointy guitars, but when I do other things that require pointy routed objects I do them by hand or cut them extremely close to the line then route. I cut extremely close to the line most of the time anyway because I don't want to risk tearout by taking too much wood off with the router.

[Daniel Sorbera]

If I'm worried about a spot (ie the end of a horn with figured brittle wood) I'll use the spindal sander in that area.

[Joel Rainville]

I'm wondering something now: All of you who do pointy guitars... what do you do to keep this from happening?

This is also a good option :

Microplane® Rotary Shapers & Follower Kit

[avengers63]

God bless you, sir! Thank you very much. I will be ordering these posthaste. When they come in, I'll let y'all know how they work.

[Joel Rainville]

God bless you, sir! Thank you very much. I will be ordering these posthaste. When they come in, I'll let y'all know how they work.

A few notes from a fellow guitar builder about those Microplane Rotary Shapers :

I haven't had too much trouble with them at all, once I got used to them. The biggest issue is that the drill press isn't really designed to take horizontal force, so if you push hard into the press, your cuts might be a little less than perfect.

I wrap a few layers of electrical tape around the roller, so I don't get too close to the finished cut line. The router bit does the final finishing cuts, but for the most part it is prety light work at that point. I don't have a roto sander, but that looks like it would definately finish the job.

I only use these for the outline of the body, they won't help anywhere else. Really dense wood (Rock maple or Black Walnut) cuts much slower and I found that reducing the speed of the press helps (I initially thought that increasing it would work better).

I do alot of work late at night, and these things don't make much noise at all. I think that this is probably their biggest advantage.

They look a little flimsy, but I haven't gone through any blades yet (I've probably cut between 12 and 20 bodies with them so far), I haven't had any problems with them clogging up either.

Edited June 14, 2008 by Joel Rainville

[zyonsdream]

I use them too and they can be very aggressive. I have a very large production style drill press so I don't see very much flex when pushing but really, as aggressive as these things are, you should not have to push hard. It is possible to flex the metal sleeve as it's very thin. It works great on end grain and I also have to agree with the assessment that it's best not to go to your finished size. The end guide is far from precise.

If you don't hold your work steady it can also grab it and pull it into the blade too....

I was actually using one last night to help with the zebrawood build I've started and they make light work of tough wood but again, I'd bring it close and then use your router for the rest.

[avengers63]

You guys are awesome. Thanks a heap. I found a set on Amazon with the pattern bearings for $32. I'll be ordering them Monday.

With all this in mind, I'm going to try and salvage the body. I'll post some progress pics next week.

[avengers63]

Over the past few days, I've been doing research into working with jatoba. From everything I've read, it's a real PIA to do any shaping with using power tools because it's so dense - there's NO give to it at all. That means it's brittle around the corners and very prone to tearout. Also, because it's such a dense wood, it's very difficult and labor intensive to shape by hand.

Here's the decision I've come to. I'm going to leave the core as jatoba and make mahogany wings. I've chosen mahogany for one reason only: I have it on hand in an appropriate thickness.

This brings up another question about using a core with wings. Is there any tonal reason for a particular width? The whole thing is going to be painted, so aesthetics are not a consideration. My gut feeling was that if the pup and bridge overlaps different woods across the face of the ax, it might effect the tone. So... should I make sure teh jatoba core remains wide enough to have the pup & bridge fully mounted in it alone, or is some mahogany overlap acceptable?

[avengers63]

From a conversation on the Australian board I post on:

Hardness is not a measure of strength. Glass is hard, but definately not strong.

Point well taken, and evidenced by the massive tearout.

I don't see how fixing the bridge in mahogany would have a negative effect on tone?

I know that it wouldn't. I was thinking that mixing the types of wood the bridge and pups are anchored in might blend the tones the two woods help generate in an odd way.

I personally think you're making a huge mistake going with Jatoba for a body core timber. It's hard to work with, it's hard on the tools, it's heavy as hell...

Weight was the entire reason I wanted to use it in the first place. The original design was not balanced. The neck dipped like a bass when it was let go. I was wanting the weight to help with the balance, nothing more.

A thought came to me while typing this post. How many guitars have the strings anchored in two types of wood? If the body is one and the neck another, then they're anchored with two types. Clearly, I'm over-thinking this.

That settles it. Jatoba core and mahogany wings at whatever width works for me.

[Bygde]

I actually found one of these guitars in black in Sweden's version of Ebay! The price was a little too high though

[avengers63]

Yea... it'a a cheap-o plywood piece of junk. Poorly designed and made from the cheapest materials available. Surprisingly, the neck plays OK. It's a little narrow for my hands, but is otherwise fine.

[avengers63]

I was able to spend a small bit of time in the shop last night. After looking at what was left of the jatoba body and the mahogany on hand, figuring out what would be needed to use them both....

It's fixable. I know it is. My fear is that I don't yet have the skills to execute it properly. I'm probably trying to make it happen. At this point, that's not the best plan for me. With that realization, I decided to just make a new blank from mahogany. It's an all-round better choice for me right now. What I need right now is to make a body and gain some skills and confidence. Knock out one or two easy ones, THEN try something harder.

Baby steps.

[avengers63]

I spent about 5 hours in the shop last night. The wife & kids were off doing prep for a big yard sale. I get to do it again today, too. They'll be gone until late in the afternoon. I'm a happy guy.

Last night, I made my first body. Of that 5 hours, probably only 1.5 hours was actually spent with the body itself. The rest was in setting up tools, making jigs & templates, cleanup, and just looking at it & thinking. Things should go much faster next time.

I managed to get all the shaping done as well as the neck cavity, pup route, and control cavity. Unfortunately, I'm at a standstill: I need a bit large enough to drill the holes for the stop tailpiece bushings and for the lone volume knob.

Not that y'all don't already know, but that mahogany works just like butter. It carved, cut, and shapes do easily... I ended up carving the horns slightly. It was more wanting to play with the angle grinder than anything else. It turns out it was the right decision. It added a lot of character to the body.

I can't post any pics until Tuesday. I left the memory stick for my camera at work.

[avengers63]

Everything's all done. In the next couple of days, I'll do the grainfill, then I can get to the paint. Honest - I'll get some pics up by tomorrow morning.

In hindsight, I should have made the body about an inch longer. That's the only real design issue I see at this point. I found out by experience that the heel shouldn't get a 1/2" roundover, but the neck joint shouldn't have any stability issues. I'd like for the screws to be a little further out, but it is what it is. Now I know for next time.

[avengers63]

Test fit of the hardware and the inlay. Instead of getting out the dremmel, I scribed the outline of the inlay deeply with an x-acto, then gently carved it out with a small chisel. I won't be gluing it in until after it's painted. The inlay is some extremely thin Korean inlay material. I'm afraid that 2-3 swipes of sandpaper will go through it. I can clean it up after the paint dries.

So... do we want buffer posts for the other 6 pics, or do I give y'all a bunch of links?