Some Kind Of Kh-2

[TripleFan]

A few weeks ago I started my latest build.

Because I´m mainly playing in a Metallica tribute band at the moment I wanted to build an appropriate guitar - namely the ESP KH-2.

However, the idea was to replicate the essential design features of the ESP but not so much to do a true copy.

Specs:

shape: Ibanez RG

body: alder

scale: 25,5" neckthrough

neck: maple/wenge

fretboard: wenge

headstock: 6 inline reversed with Volute

frets: 24 stainless steel extra jumbo

trem: LoPro Edge with Toplok III

tuners: Boston Schaller style

pickups: undecided

electronics: Schaller SF103, 1Vol, 2Tone

finish: seethrough black with matte clear coat

My take

The ESP KH-2

As said it´s not meant to be true to the original but very much along the lines of my Ibanez RG570 and RG520. I simply like the Ibby body shape and the ultra thin necks.

At the moment I´m a bit undecided regarding the pickups.

I have a pair of EMG 60/81 lying here which would be a good place to start when aiming for ´tallicas sound. I fear however that a 81 in the bridge in combination with a alder/maple neckthru could get overly harsh and shrill.

On the other hand I have a set of SD Blackouts ready. But I think those would also work better in a darker sounding wood.

Alternatively I could always choose passive pickups which could be pushed by an onboard preamp if neccesary (I´ll route and wire the guitar for actives anyway).

This time I´ll take care to show the individual steps of what I do and how I do it. Hopefully this makes the thread more interesting and entertaining than my last ones.

[TripleFan]

OK, this is what I started with - some maple, alder and wenge waiting to become a guitar.

To get started with the neck I had a carpenter ripping the maple neck blank in three pieces.

I put the center stripe on a fixture. Nothing elaborate - just some pieces of MDF. However since those were made on a big saw in a home improvement center they´re reasonably straight and have tight enough tolerances to be used as base for the fixture.

With a face-milling bit I planed the center stripe. After the first pass I realized that the blank gave in in the middle because it wasn´t shimed enough. This was corrected before the second pass.

Further I used a collet extension which produced that much vibrations that the depth stop of the router came loose. This resulted in a bad gouge.

I briefly sanded the maple center stripe and the wenge stringer with 120 grit and glued them up.

While these were drying I planed and thicknessed the two outer maple pieces. I thicknessed them both in one setting to achieve identical thickness of both pieces. This time I also used more shims to get rid of the darn collet extension.

I then added one piece of maple and wenge after another every two hours.

After 24 hours drying I finally got this:

[TripleFan]

I then tried to true up the front and back of the neck blank. I used straight pieces of MDF and various spacers for this.

In the end the result was everything but satisfactory. The faces were far from being true to the sides.

I decided that it wasn´t worth to try it again and waste any more material. So I went to a carpenter once again. Within five minutes the faces and sides were straight and true. As an additional bonus I also got the alder wings planed and trued.

A few days later I visited a friend and used his bandsaw to roughly cut out the neck.

Presumably the offcuts are big enough for another neck blank and the headstock for this one.

[Fowl2338]

Can't wait to see it when its done!

I know you don't want to do a true copy, but the Ouija graphic would be preeeeetty sweet.

[zyonsdream]

Can't wait to see it when its done!

I know you don't want to do a true copy, but the Ouija graphic would be preeeeetty sweet.

I like the mummy better and you can get both decals on evilbay too.

[TripleFan]

It´s funny you mention the Ouija. I like this one very much and if I ever come across a decal set for a white one I might possibly snag it for a future project.

But for this one i want to keep the neckthrough construction with its wenge stringers visible. At the same time I don´t want it to jump out at you. Therefore I´ll try to dye it black and clear it matte. A very understated and toned down metal machine.

I won´t replicate the stickers of the original KH-2. My girlfriend has access to a lot of warning decals as she works in a chemistry lab. This way I hope to catch the vibe of the KH-2´s decals but somehow make it my own.

Likewise I´ll try a different take on the fretboard inlays. I simply cant´t stand the skulls and crossbones. I´ll use simple dot markers (haven´t decided if I´ll use 2mm side dots or 4mm MOP dots) and cover them up with small warning decals. This way it will blend in with the "artwork" on the body. If the stickers won´t stay on the fretboard I still have the dot markers underneath to maintain orientation.

OK, back to the work at hand.

I taped some scrap pieces to the back of the neck and planed them level with the body portion of the neck. This way I created a support of the freestanding part of the neck for the next construction steps.

Then I used a router jig to scarf the neck and headstock to 14 degrees.

Because the headstock piece isn´t wide enough for the intended shape I had to glue two small pieces to it. Luckily I had some scraps left I could use for this. I also recessed the longer side to avoid hitting the volute area.

After the glue had dried and the joints were sanded I made a dry run and aligned neck and headstock and located them with screws. Then I took it all apart once again slapped on some glue, reassembled the whole lot and set it with clamps and cauls.

To finish it off I slightly releveled the neck face by approx. 0,2mm. Unfortunately the guide bushings of my router are pretty worn. Surface trimming like that leaves a pronounced stairstep pattern. The height of the workpiece is OK and front and back are parallel to each other but the router bit seems slightly angled to the work area which produces said stairstep pattern.

Additionally it seems the sides are not completely true to the face / the back because while at the moment the neck has a height of 53mm the sides get out of trueness by as much as ±0,3mm.

Right now I don´t know what to make out of this. I´m not sure if this poses a problem and if so what to do.

Anyway, this is what it looks like for now.

[TripleFan]

I decided to use wenge for the fretboard to match the neck stringers.

I started thicknessing the board with the router. I replaced my old router with the worn guides with a new one so everything went fine.

Well at least until I tried to lift the fretboard from the doublesided tape. This was when the brittle wenge board nearly splitted in half along the grain! Fragile SOB...!

Well, after I took my time swearing I opened up the crack by careful bending, applied some glue with a toothpick and some more careful flexing. Finally I clamped it.

After it had dried and I cleaned it up with a scraper and a chisel it didn´t look half bad.

To remedy the last traces of my mishap I thicknessed the board once again - but this time I used less doublesided tape!

I´m quite happy with the result. The board´s thickness is 6,0 - 6,1mm now. When I radius the board it will finally be thinned down to 5,5mm.

[SD83]

It took me a while to realise I was reading the same thread, different language as half an hour ago... maaaan, I'm tired Anyway: the neck blank looks great, can't wait to see it shaped. Nice choice of "inspiration" also, and aiming for a Metallica-sound is always good. The only thing that confuses me is that on your pictures, your Wenge looks very different than the pieces I worked with.

[TripleFan]

Same here: it took me a while until I realized that I know your guitar from the gearbuilder.de board.

I finally made some progress on the fretboard.

Because I design all my guitars with the help of a CAD system it´s very easy to extract a drawing of the fretboard with all the dot markers, fret slots and most important the center line.

After I triple checked all the fret positions with a precision rule and a magnifier I cut out the front view of the board and taped it to the soon-to-be fretboard. Then I extended the center line and the edges from the paper to the wood.

First I drilled the fret markers with a 2mm drill. This is quite easy since the positions of the dots is determined by the paper template and I don´t have to mark them seperately.

I also roughed out the taper of the fretboard with a scroll saw. I didn´t cut to final width this time. This way I have a safety margin if the wood chips when I cut the fret slots. Because I roughed the taper out before cutting the slots I have two unslotted leftovers which I could use for a fretboard binding later on.

After that I started slotting the board. I used a leftover from an old neck as guide for the fret slotting saw. I thicknessed the piece to 21mm. This way I should achieve a uniform slot depth when the part that holds the blade starts to ride on the guide block - at least in theory. Well the depth of the slots didn´t come out completely uniform. It´s alright but far from perfect. It´s no biggie however since I plan to nip the fret tangs and fill the slots with wood dust and CA.

The slots also seem a bit narrow. More in the range of 0,5mm than 0,6mm. I´ll probably have to widen them a bit.

After I pealed off the remains of the paper template the board already looked rather OK except for one slot where I didn´t butt the saw against the guide block good enough.

Fortunately I realized my mistake after the first few strokes so the false slot isn´t too deep.

I packed the wrong slot with wood dust and put CA over it.

However this also wasn´t a complete success. The CA ran under the protective tape and made a general mess and it also took unusual long to harden.

Looks like I´ll have to revisit this one if it doesn´t look any better after radiusing the board. Hopefully the fret will hide this mess.

Finally I started to bring the board down to its final width. I started with joining the pencil lines I extented to the wood in the beginning.

When doing long straight cuts like these I usually use a straight piece of transparent acrylic. Because the piece I use is rather big I have a straight guiding edge and enough support for the router all in one - what looks messed up in the picture is the protective foil not the guide edge.

I taped the the acrylic to the fretboard so that the straight edge lines up with the center of the pencil line - at least that´s what I try to do. I clamp the whole lot to the bench and cut the board flush with the acrylic.

Finally I cut the overhang past the nut and the 24th fret.

I´m quite pleased with the result so far. The accuracy of the board´s width is within 0,2mm at the nut and the last fret and the position of the fret slots is within ±0,25mm.

[jmrentis]

Its pretty close to being covered by the fret, I think at worst it'll just look like a shadow under the fret if its not covered completely. However, I would make extra certain that you've got that entire cut completely filled and solid because when you press a fret in there if it wasn't filled well it might just snap off that little divider between the slots. I know its not deep, but the tang will be pushing in that depth range. Yea filling with dust is tricky, it never comes out perfect because it always comes out darker than the original wood. If you really shine up that board it might be much less noticeable because it'll probably darken as you move up through grits, like the difference between rough sanded ebony and highly polished.

On a side note, I've been thinking of trying to do fills with lighter materials, like instead of filling with dust from that wood, find a similar color, but lighter wood and use dust from that to fill, since the dust darkens are you fill, it might negate the difference you normally see. Something I've been meaning to try anyway.

Anyhow, cool looking project, keep the progress pics coming. Its always enjoyable to see all the steps involved. That wenge fingerboard is really cool looking, that is going to be a very nice looking neck. I need to push myself to work in some wenge into an upcoming project, it always looks great. Very nice and best of luck. J

PS: A little trick that works pretty well that I got from Dan Erlewine, try electrical tape to protect the fretboard from CA. Tried it when I used some glue fretting and it worked pretty good. What thickness did you use in glue? I might have tried to pack the dust and very slowly dribble some thin CA in there, might be easier to control in that particular situation. Either way I think it won't be noticeable much if at all when you're done.

[TripleFan]

Thanks jmrentis for your comments.

I actually packed the wrong slot with wenge dust and wicked in some waterthin CA as you suggested. I´ll keep the trick with the electrical tape and lighter colored dust in mind for the next time.

But it´s not so bad. The wrong slot is very shallow. The board will lose another 0.5mm thickness during radiusing. I think this will remove most of the wrong slot and the remains will be hidden by the fret.

OK, after finishing the fretboard for the moment I got back to the neck.

I started to mark the trussrod location and the through holes for the lock nut. I drilled these with a 4mm drill. Next I flipped the neck over and flatened the area where the holes emerge taking care that I don´t harm the volute. Then I countersunk the holes with a generic 9mm drill bit. What I wanted to achive is that the drill centers over the 4mm holes due to its conical shape. The flatened area should help the drill bit to bite. Later when I´m shaping the volute I can use a regular wood drill bit to bring the countersunks to their final depth while also producing a nice flat ground.

After that I put the fretboard in place. I affixed it with two small nails in each the last fret and the lock nut area. I chose the lock nut shelf instead of the first fret because the lock nut is directly above the peak of the volute which gives me a little more meat to work with without worrying about breaking through.

Additionally I rough cut the headstock and routed it to shape. This was a bit scary because the headstock doesn´t provide very much place for the router to rest on.

Then I started routing the trussrod channel. I use my trusty jig for this because it works as a fence over the whole length and I don´t have to worry about hitting the headstock with the edge guide.

I used a straight router bit for a flat ground where the anchor pieces of the trussrod go. This poses no problem because these are in the reinforced areas of the volute and the neck-body transition.

The rest of the channel is routed with a radiused bit to reduce the notch effect.

Unfortunately I totally screwed up the trussrod access on the headstock. On the one hand its width is uneven and one wall touches the hole for the lock nut. Next time I´ll use a 8mm router bit instead of trying to achive the same by moving a 6mm bit.

On the other hand I routed too far into the headstock instead of lowering the bit within the channel area. Because of this the front wall of the access area is pretty jagged.

At least the fretboard hides most of it and for the rest is taken care of by the trussrod cover.

http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff206/T...m/P1040459m.jpg

http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff206/T...m/P1040461m.jpg

[wood is good]

KH2??? Looks just like a basic RG to me.

Nice looking neck woods!

[westhemann]

I fear however that a 81 in the bridge in combination with a alder/maple neckthru could get overly harsh and shrill.

I just noticed this...FYI the TRUE KH1 (the very first one made by the custom shop and the ones kirk still plays) are all maple thru neck with alder wings...with an 81 at the bridge...

So is my Demmelition Jackson V...

So is Jeff Hanneman's Jackson strat...

So I think you are safe..

[WezV]

+1 maple neck throughs do not sound like solid maple guitars. i know some people think the wings make no difference but its just not true!

and even solid maple guitars can be quite fun if you choose the wood carefully and match it with decent electronics. depends what you are playing really - what else will do for 80's metal?

[Zeljac]

nice, nice...

can't wait for finished result !

[TripleFan]

Maybe I should change the thread title, haha

Yeah, I know it´s no real copy of the KH-2. I just took several design features of the ESP like the the control layout, reverse headstock and the maple/alder neckthru construction (a combination you don´t find on any Ibanez) and transfered it to the RG shape.

Thanks WezV and Westhemann for your heads up about the pickups and the wood combination. I´m aware that the alder wings will influence the maple sound of the neck somewhat. But if I´m not completely mistaken alder is rather bright in itself as is the EMG81 hence my fear the guitar could be too bright. I think I´ll give it a try. Nothing easier than changing the pickups if I really should dislike the sound. I´m really curious however since I´m used to mahogany guitars played through my Mesa rack. We´ll see...

Thanks Zeljac, so do I...

[westhemann]

Alder is not really that bright...more "crisp"

Just give a listen to Slayer "reign in blood"

The dark,dusky tones are by King with his mahogany guitars...the fluid,sweet tones are Hanneman with his alder and maple super strat...you can really tell when they swap leads back and forth...hanneman has the kick ass lead tone...

[TripleFan]

Somehow I seem to have misplaced my copy of Slayers "RIB" but I get what you´re saying. Normally I favor darker guitars into a more middy/bright amp. On the other hand I have a mahog Epi LP Goth with an alder top and I like it´s sound especially for its snap. I´ll give the combination of maple/alder/EMGs a try anyhow and see where it takes me.

Back to the work.

Next I drilled the holes for the tuners. I marked the locations, center punched them, shimed the headstock and drilled with a 10mm drill bit. I asked my girlfriend to lend me a helping hand because holding the neckthru blank, aligning the drill and finally drilling is pretty awkward for one person.

I didn´t drill the holes completely through because when thicknessing the headstock in the next step I`ll expose them anyway and avoid tearout at the same time.

To thickness the headstock I taped it to a flat work surface face down. Then I clamped two wooden strips to the neck and the surface. This keeps the neck flat and square and prevents any movement.

Next I taped several boards next to the headstock for the router to ride on.

Had I arranged the strips with a little more forethought they could also have served as a rest for the router or at least as a stop to avoid routing into the neck.

I thicknessed the headstock with my usual surface trimming bit.

Then I started rough shaping the neck and the volute.

Usually I shape the neck at the 1st, 4th, 7th and 12th fret using a ordinary halfround rasp. Then I use the rasp to "join" this points. Cleaning up with a scraper and some sandpaper and that´s it for the moment.

Now I´ll wait a few days to see if the neck moves due to released tension. This shouldn´t be a problem with a laminated neck but I experienced some problems with backbow on my last two necks so this time I´ll give rough shaping the neck before glueing the fretboard a try.

I also shaped the volute with a halfround rasp and sandpaper. Later I´ll use a sanding drum to clean it up. On the neck I left the area between the 1st fret and the peak of the volute flat because this hopefully will spare me some headaches when clamping and glueing the fretboard.

[TripleFan]

The next step was to establish the neck angle.

I read some time ago that Edge trems work best when the guitar features a slight neck angle. This information is backed up by an old installation guide Ibanez released sometime. After all this is also backed up by my Ibanez guitars which also have this slight neck angle. For example my RG7620MBOL replica has a 0.4° neck angle which allows a pretty good action and at the same time puts the knife edges at level with the body.

To replicate these 0.4° on the neck blank I taped several feeler gauges to the backside of the blank in a certain distance to the heel. The blank then rests on the edge of the heel and on the gauges. The height of the stacked gauges and the distance between the heel and the gauges set the angle.

I taped scrap pieces as spacers on both sides of the blank. The whole package rests on a flat work area and gets clamped between two wooden strips. These strips in turn get clamped to the surface and serve as the rest for the router.

Finally an additional strip is clamped on top to stop the router from damaging the area where the fretboard will be (not in the picture).

The whole setup worked like a charm. But just at the beginning of the final pass the depth stop of the router failed once again leaving me with a bad gouge next to the fretboard area.

Additionally at this point I had already dropped the blank to ground chipping a piece of the headstock.

At this point I decided to leave it alone for the moment.

Because the angle was already established on the front and the surface was even except for the gouge I taped the blank face down to the jig and routed the back parallel to the front. Then I flipped the blank over and made a final pass on the frontside (don´t forget the stop block for the fretboard area). Fortunatelly I had a few tenths leeway left.

The front is now finished to size while the back has 1.5mm excess which will be trimmed once the wings are glued on.

What is left of the gouge will be taken care of by the neck pickup cavity. The last remains will then hopefully sand out.

The final pics of the neck angle and the fixed headstock:

[Xanthus]

Looking nice thus far. I'm glad someone else is doing a neck with 1/8" stringers. The wenge looks beautiful! Now I can see where the maple stripes (in my neck) are going to hit the tuners. It was pretty hard to see it, just looking at my block of wood.

[TripleFan]

After almost a year I finally got back to this project.

The next thing I had to do for quite some time was the fretboard radius.

First I had to make two 'skids' for the router. I usually use beech for them because it´s reasonably hard and readily available in your local home improvement store. I cut the strip in two pieces the width of the router base. This piece gets taped to a flat base (a leftover piece of a kitchen counter top in my case) additional strips left and right for the router to rest on. The router is screwed to a piece of plywood with a nail as pivot point and one more piece of beech as spacer. Now I can route the needed radius in several passes.

The finished skids get screwed to the router base, the fretboard is taped to the radius jig and I can route in 5 - 6 passes along the fretboard.

Out of the jig the radius and the surface are already pretty good!

Next I glued in the fret markers. That´s not too spectacular because they´re only boring 2mm plastic dots. Fill the hole with CA, stick the plastic in, snip off, next. After the CA had dried I pared them off with a chisel.

Where I screwed up:

On the outer edge of the fretboard I moved the router in the wrong direction and got major tearout. This calls for a lesson in advanced fill and patch up technics.

Next time I have to remember to move the router in the other direction. Also taping the edge might help.

Later my girlfriend spotted that the 10th fret was out of allignment. I tried to fill the slot with dust and CA and resaw it but messed up big time!

[TripleFan]

Inspired by a thread in a german guitar builder board I decided to mill out the faulty fret and patch it up with a leftover piece of the fretboard.

I taped the fretboard and two support board down. The boards also act as guide for the router bit bearing and are alligned that only the damaged fret is routed out to the depth of the fret slot.

This is the result after routing and the thicknessed patch. You can still see the remains of the wrong fret slot.

This is after I glued the patch in and sawed new fret slots. The grain alligns pretty good. Even on the side you can hardly see that it´s patched. I hope the scratches on the surface will sand out.

Finally I started to route the ledge for the lock nut. I didn´t route the whole area because this would interfere with the holes for the fretboard allignment during glue up. I´ll have to finish this by hand with a saw and a chisel after the fretboard is glued to the neck.

The setup for the router was basically the same like when routing out the damaged fret.

After all I´m still a bit undecided if I should use the board. There are a couple of slots that are off by a few tenths. Time for some measuring I guess...

[TripleFan]

Well, now I can definately scrap the fretboard! But first things first...

I started to glue the fretboard.

To hinder the trussrod rattling I put some foam in the channel.

Before glueing them I trued neck and fretboard on some sandpaper taped to a flat surface. Since the neck settled less than one tenth mm in the last year trueing was done in just a few minutes.

Next I taped two hardwood bars to the neck which act as clamping cauls. This way I can concentrate the force along the outer edge of the board and can at the same time avoid to distort the neck during clamping (as long as the clamping base is flat and even).

Then I put some masking tape on the trussrod, spread glue on the neck and finally clamped down the fretboard. I used a solid aluminium beam with a piece of plywood on top as base. The plywood helps that the hardwood bars don´t fall in the channels of the beam

Additionally I placed a piece of insulation foam under the locking nut ledge to get even pressure in that area..

When I took the neck out of the clamps 24 hours later I sighted along and immediately spotted a backbow. A short investigation showed the reason: the fretboard split down the middle!!!

Now I can look how I get the fu...r off...

This is the second time the board split on me like that!

I wonder: I´ve never seen wenge cut like that when used as a fretboard. Could this actually be the problem; is wenge too fragile to be used as fretboard when cut like that?

[TripleFan]

The last few days I made a replacement fretboard but again ran into trouble. This time the I had severe tearout while tapering the board. It was my own fault however as I tried to take off too much material in one pass.

I think I got it fixed pretty good. There´s hardly any trace seen from the top and the side.

I think I´ll glue it on within the next days. In case it goes wrong once again I´ve already ordered a EIR board.

[TripleFan]

I finally got back to this build.

The old fretboard came off nicely with an iron and a sharp putty. After truing up the surface of the neck and filing down the trussrod a bit everything was set for a second try.

I opted for one of StewMac´s EIR boards. The wenge fretboard I prepared again had some fret slots which where just a hair out of position. I might use it for a bolt-on neck, this way I can throw it out without too much loss if it doesn´t play properly.

The Stewie-fretboard arrived readily slotted with a fender-style nut slot and a 12" radius which I changed into 16" right away. Before I glued the board to the neck I took down the area in front of the nut slot to form the ledge for the lock nut. The area around the fretboard was protected from glue spillout with masking tape.

All went well: the board is even without voids or other irregularities. If something had went wrong I´d been in trouble: the thickness of the neck is already spot on and there´s not enough wood left to remove the board and level it once again.

On the pictures the neck was already cut back to the taper of the fretboard with rasps and files.

Finally I took down the remains of the nut slot with a chisel and drilled the holes for the lock nut from the backside. This is it with the temporarily mounted lock nut: