'58 Twins

[killemall8]

what kind of wood are those fretboards?

Look at the post right above yours.

[Vinny]

Very, very cool John. You rock. -Vinny

[eddiewarlock]

what kind of wood are those fretboards?

Look at the post right above yours.

I had to ask because it looks a lot like a local wood i use for fretboards, although after it's being oiled it looks like ebony. It's a bitch to slot, it's a bitch to radius and it's even worse of a bitch to fret it. But i have no other choice than keep using it. Oh and to make it worse, no one knows it's name.

[avengers63]

Gluing on the bass fretboard.

Guitar fretboard radiused to 220 grit.

As of right now, both necks are tapered. Next time I can work on them, I'll be doing the neck pockets.

[avengers63]

So here's the thing.....

The string spacing on the guitar headstock is pretty narrow. I'm going to add a "nut" right behind the zero-fret. It'll be more of a string-spacing guide than anything. I'll be fashioning it from either wenfe or limba. The limba will stand out like a sore thumb, but it'll match the woods. The wenge will blend in much better, but won't grain-match.

Which would you go with?

[ScottR]

So here's the thing.....

The string spacing on the guitar headstock is pretty narrow. I'm going to add a "nut" right behind the zero-fret. It'll be more of a string-spacing guide than anything. I'll be fashioning it from either wenfe or limba. The limba will stand out like a sore thumb, but it'll match the woods. The wenge will blend in much better, but won't grain-match.

Which would you go with?

Neither. I'd go with the ebonized neck wood and let it visualy tie back to that.

SR

[avengers63]

Neither. I'd go with the ebonized neck wood and let it visualy tie back to that.

You have the projects crossed up. The Iceman has the ebonized neck. The twins are wenge/limba.

[ScottR]

Neither. I'd go with the ebonized neck wood and let it visualy tie back to that.

You have the projects crossed up. The Iceman has the ebonized neck. The twins are wenge/limba.

Doh!

In that case, I'd go with the limba to balance your pinstripe theme.

SR

[avengers63]

Wenge pickup rings for the V.

[Vinny]

Nice pick up rings John, were they hand made or machine made? Did you make the design/template yourself? -Vinny

[avengers63]

Handmade from Spoke's design.

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...p+ring+tutorial

I tweaked it slightly for use with a miter saw instead of a table saw.

[avengers63]

Pickguards & cavity routing

[avengers63]

I changed the V over to a bolt-on. I got the neck route just a hair too wide - just enough for it NOT to hold in without support and to have an ounce of play. I'd rather not glue in shims and re-rout because I'm fearful of them showing. I'd rather change the plans than to have it look like I was trying to patch it up.

Because they're supposed to be twins, I'm giving serious consideration to having the bass become a bolt-on as well. The tenon is really long - only an inch or two from the pup - and it fits like a glove so a set neck is still completely feasible. BUT.... then they wouldn't be twins. Bolting it in wouldn't be the worst thing in the world and in my opinion would be largely cosmetic. If I don't bolt it in, I'll always look at it as a fault rather than a feature, mainly because of the 'twins' thing. Oh well.

This is one reason I keep an open mind with my builds. Things happen. You need to be able to adapt rather than blow it up.

On a different note, I started the finishing process on the V. The Explorer will be starting later this afternoon. I'm doing them both in lacquer. No particular reason; I just haven't used it in a while. For the grainfill, I'm sanding back at 220 grit between coats. I'm only brushing on one coat per day, so it should be dry enough to sand back even though it's not dry & cured.

I did some experimentation with colors on some scrap. The original '58s are slightly orange. i experimented with some yellow & orange dyes and some amber shellac. I hit the various shades with lacquer, oil based poly, water-based poly, and clear shellac. I came to the conclusion that the darker color is from age, not some added colors. The newer korina re-issues aren't dark like the originals, so this backs up my conclusion. I believe that were the originals colored, the re-issues would be as well.

I'm still waiting for some pearl dots to come in before I can finish up the necks. They'll simply be polished up to 12,000 and oiled.

[DC Ross]

No sense in changing your plan. To reiterate what you said, to fix a sloppy neck route just get some scrap body wood, about 1/8" thick and just slightly wider and longer than the route (one for each side) and glue them in, then reroute the pocket.

*It will be virtually invisible, since there will only be a sliver left of the plug/shim after rerouting.* I admit that I'd done this more than once before upgrading my neck pocket routing technique & jig. I have some pics if you'd like to see.

Edited April 1, 2010 by DC Ross

[ihocky2]

I really like the explorer. They both look great, but that one just speaks to me. The recess for the bridge really adds a nice dimension to it.

[WezV]

No sense in changing your plan. To reiterate what you said, to fix a sloppy neck route just get some scrap body wood, about 1/8" thick and just slightly wider and longer than the route (one for each side) and glue them in, then reroute the pocket.

*It will be virtually invisible, since there will only be a sliver left of the plug/shim after rerouting.* I admit that I'd done this more than once before upgrading my neck pocket routing technique & jig. I have some pics if you'd like to see.

even if you didnt want to go that far, which isnt too hard and is easily hid where it is,

still not sure it makes sense to change the bass plan because of a mistake on the guitar - they already have differences anyway. should be cool either way though

[Johnny Foreigner]

No sense in changing your plan. To reiterate what you said, to fix a sloppy neck route just get some scrap body wood, about 1/8" thick and just slightly wider and longer than the route (one for each side) and glue them in, then reroute the pocket.

*It will be virtually invisible, since there will only be a sliver left of the plug/shim after rerouting.* I admit that I'd done this more than once before upgrading my neck pocket routing technique & jig. I have some pics if you'd like to see.

with apologies for thread hijacking, how essential is it that you be able to lift the entire guitar by the neck before gluing? mine isn't there by the tiniest fraction (barely barely visible to the human eye) and I was hoping some glue expansion would somewhat fill the gap.

[avengers63]

I appreciate the responses and attempts to help. I really do.

I know it wouldn't be that hard to glue in limba shims and that they'd be nearly invisible. Almost isn't good enough for me anymore. If I were painting them, I'd probably have gone ahead and done it because they'd be completely invisible. Since that isn't the case, and it'd be glaring at me every time I saw it, the decision was made to go bolt-on.

As I said before, these are supposed to be fraternal twins, as identical as humanly possible given the different shapes and instruments. The choice to make the bass a bolt-on is 100% cosmetic. It is very important to me maintain the overall theme.

I honestly don't see this as a bad thing. Plans often change mid-stream. The important thing in my mind is that the quality level will still be where I want it to be.

HOCKEY: I'm glad you like it. Thanks.

[Our Souls inc.]

John , as the father of two sets of twins I can honestly say - you can make em as different as you'd like. Unless you were doing two guitars of the same scale length , etc or two basses , they're different anyway so just roll with their differences. The similarities still say 'twins' no matter what.

Both sets of mine are boy/girl. We still get the question all the time "are they twins?" to which we always smile and say 'yes' to.

You'll probably get that same question a lot when people see the builds ...

Good stuff however you roll , just wanted to impose my opinion on you.

[MuffinPunch]

Dont know how I missed this build. They are really turning out amazing. Great work as usual John. I do agree with whats been said about it not really being necessary to change plans for both guitars because of a negligible mistake on one of them. They will both turn out really well no matter what. However, I also appreciate and respect your reasoning for doing so. Being something of a perfectionist myself, I have been guilty on more than one occasion of making a similar decision based on something my peers disagreed with. And I really understand the concept of 'theme'. If your building them for yourself than it is important for YOU to be completely satisfied with the results, especially since you are obviously capable of doing so.

Edited April 2, 2010 by MuffinPunch

[Muzz]

No sense in changing your plan. To reiterate what you said, to fix a sloppy neck route just get some scrap body wood, about 1/8" thick and just slightly wider and longer than the route (one for each side) and glue them in, then reroute the pocket.

*It will be virtually invisible, since there will only be a sliver left of the plug/shim after rerouting.* I admit that I'd done this more than once before upgrading my neck pocket routing technique & jig. I have some pics if you'd like to see.

with apologies for thread hijacking, how essential is it that you be able to lift the entire guitar by the neck before gluing? mine isn't there by the tiniest fraction (barely barely visible to the human eye) and I was hoping some glue expansion would somewhat fill the gap.

Hard to tell without seeing, but I would go with PVA if the surfaces touch together OK, if you have enough surface like that to hold the joint, just mix some saw dust with PVA for the bits where there is some space, if you are not sure consider a space filling glue, why not post a pic.

[avengers63]

I decided to give one of those Asian sellers on eBay a shot. I've seen too many reports about the full inlays being junk, but I didn't figure there was too much risk in trying some dots. Here's the auction I won. Even if only half of them were usable, I'd still get my $8 worth, so I was gambling it'd be worth it in the end.

As expected, the quality is kinda shoddy. The thickness is uneven across the lot, some of them aren't totally round, and most have some kind of uneven-ness on one face that resembles saw marks. Still, more than half have been usable so far, so I'm calling this one a win.

That's the long way of saying that my dot inlays came in and I got both necks inlaid. Tomorrow I should be able to get both fretboards polished & fretted. Wednesday should see the necks getting shaped.

As for the bodies, I'm still working on the lacquer/sandback for grainfill. It's taking longer than I thought it would.

[avengers63]

I gave very serious consideration to using some horn a buddy gave me for the guitar string guide, but I decided to use wenge instead. I call it a string guide instead of a nut on purpose. It isn't a proper nut as there is a zero-fret. this is simply widening the string spacing from what the headpiece offers to what I want it to be.

Anyway....

And now that that's done and ready to glue in, I can do the frets.

We have yet another win for the super-high-tech fretting aide I call "block of wood with a slot cut in it to hold the fret-press insert". The name's a bit clunky, but it's pretty descriptive.

[DC Ross]

We have yet another win for the super-high-tech fretting aide I call "block of wood with a slot cut in it to hold the fret-press insert". The name's a bit clunky, but it's pretty descriptive.

Oh, you mean the "BOWWASCIITHTFPI"?

[avengers63]

BOWWASCIITHTFPI - that's it exactly.