Guitarnut - Evh Wolfgang Build

[guitarnut]

With the profiling done, I redrew my layout and I set up to resaw the lower portion of the blank, leaving the top at just over 3/4" thick. I'll have to cut the rest freehand.

A blurry shot but the results of my freehand cutting of the rest of the blank.

[guitarnut]

I spent a bit of time thinning out the headstock and working on getting it flat.

The preliminary results.

Compared to the original "scooped" headstock.

Ready for the truss rod and fretboard.

Peace,

Mark

[Reinhold]

Nice neck there, love the speedloader too, but that looks like a normal Floyd to me because of the nut.

Edited April 3, 2010 by Reinhold

[guitarnut]

Nice neck there, love the speedloader too, but that looks like a normal Floyd to me because of the nut.

Hmm. Even though the nut was bought separately, you're right. The bridge was listed as "Fast Load" on eBay. I wonder what the seller means by that. If it's not a SpeedLoader, then how is it fastre to load than a standard FR? I'll need to clarify that wilth the seller. Doesn't matter really, but his feedback may be on the line. That's deceptive at best.

Peace,

Mark

[guitarnut]

I decided to go ahead and cut the headstock detail. It was pretty easy. I didn't have a pattern so I just eyeballed the first one and then traced it onto the second.

I roughed them out on the bandsaw and then hand finished them with a rasp and sandpaper. I still need to "round out" the bottom of the curves.

[Our Souls inc.]

yeah... definitely not a speedloader. If by fastloader he means "single -locking" , then yes , thats deceptive. I loathe the single lockers....

Absolutley beautiful copy work , you definitley get what you're going for. I am envious of your selection of wood-working tools.....

[Buzzedd]

You remade the entire neck to stay true to the build. Man that's a tuff one, but I think I would have done that too.

So you won't be needing that other neck ey? I'm visiting some family in southern Indiana tomorrow,

so just leave that out on the porch and I'll get it in the morning. HA!!

Bill

[guitarnut]

Moving back to the body while I wait for a truss rod, I routed the pickup cavities. I wanted to go with the more current route, but I don't have a template and I don't have a humbucker backplate that I can modify. So, I went with the standard route.

I placed the routing template and made some starter holes for the router bit.

I mat nee to take these a bit deeper later.

Now it's time to figure out the carve. The standard top is .500". Mine is .0125" thicker. With Dave's (fletch) help, I was able to find out that the binding at the neck pocket will be .500" or 12.7mm tall, shortening to .250" or 6.35mm around the rest of the guitar.

I set the neck in place and marked the exposed part of the side and transferred the line down the side of the neck. Now I'm able to mark the height of the carve at the neck pocket to leave a parallel line along the neck once the top is carved.

[guitarnut]

After doing this on both sides of the neck, I made a mark on the upper and lower horns at .250" and connected the marks from the neck pocket...the .250" line continues around the guitar. Now, I just need to figure out where the carve starts in relationship to the Floyd Rose off the back edge and I'll be gopod to go. I need to study Dave's pics some more.

Looking at this pic from the side of Dave's guitar, it looks like the high spot is in the middle of the bridge...about where the whammy bar is located. And it makes a transition over about 3" to a .500" ledge at the binding. It makes for quite a little bubble in the carve there at the end of the top compared to my Les Paul which starts to roll off behind the stop tail piece and drops for about 4.625" to the same .500" ledge at the binding.

[guitarnut]

I decided to start on the carve this evening. I have my version of The Sawdust Generator that I saw online...apologies, but I forget the name of the guy I got the idea from.

I haven't used it since my first carve, some 18 months ago. It sets up on my Shopsmith...I added a second carriage and trunion to give me a stable work surface.

It's basically a support for the router and a "tongue" that limits the travel of the body. The bit overhangs it and and the body is fed thru end to end.

After the first pass.

Setting up for the second pass. The tongue moves back and the bit height is adjusted.

Here it is after 3 passes...all I'm going to do on this one.

[guitarnut]

I started working the ridges down with an Ibex plane. Before I started planing, I ran a pencil along the crease of each level...when the pencil lines are gone, I know I'm at the right depth.

Here it is with the first 2 levels carved down.

The next area I worked was to blend the the neck pocket level into the rest of the top...remember, the binding here is almost twice as tall as the rest of the guitar.

Then I started blending in the rest of the top. At this stage, I let the plane flow with the shape of the body. With a sharp plane, you can move in any direction...going cross grain is not an issue at this stage. And letting the plane "flow" with the shape means that the result will always compliment the shape of the body...unless you spend too much time in one area and gouge it.

[guitarnut]

I took this shot without a flash to try and show the contour...it's blurred a bit but you can see the shape of the carve.

The neck pocket areas are nicely blended into the lower levels.

The roughed in carve. Dave has more pics for me so I'm going to take a break and study what he's shot and posted.

Peace,

Mark

[mattharris75]

Here it is after 3 passes...all I'm going to do on this one.

Looking good. How did you manage to route all that figured maple without getting any tearout?

[guitarnut]

Here it is after 3 passes...all I'm going to do on this one.

Looking good. How did you manage to route all that figured maple without getting any tearout?

I was holding my tongue just right.

Seriously, I used a super sharp bit, and took small bites. My feed rate was somewhere around slow enough to avoid tearout but not slow enough to cause burning.

Basically, I got lucky.

Mark

[guitarnut]

I spent some time going over the body with a scraper. The carve is pretty even. I had to plane a couple of spots but overall, I'm happy with it.

It's hard to see but it's a pretty agressive carve. You can see the depth of the carve with the template set on top.

Time to get the tremolo cavities routed. Normally I would have done this sooner but I didn't want to deal with the openings during the carve. Here, I've marke a 1/2" hole that I'll drill all the way thru the body.

I drilled this hole on the drill press to make sure it went straight thru the body.

I'll use it on the back to register the template for the back cavity. The 2 larger holes are for the control cavities that will be finished up later.

[guitarnut]

Back on the front, I have the template in place and ready to route. I taped a thin strip of wood under the end of the template to level it out where the carve is farthest from the template.

The depth I need is 1.125" plus the thickness of the template for a total of 1.280". I like to mark it on a scrap block and keep it handy to check my progress. I would normally remove the template after a few passes but I need the flat surface to finish this route so it stays for the whole step.

You can just see the line at the template level...I'm at depth.

Here, I've fl;ipped the body and used the 1/2" hole and the centerline of the guitar to place the rear template.

With the spring cavity down to 3/4", I've added a block to guide the bit past this area to continue routong the tremolo block area. I'll take it down untill it meets the route from the front.

[guitarnut]

The finished trem cavity.

I got my first look at the guitar with the FR in place.

After adding a 1/8" radius to the edge, I started opening up the control cavities with a flush trim bit. I used a piece of scrap screwed to the workbench, thru the trem cavity, to help stablize the body while it's laying on the carve. A clamp on one corner counters it.

All done except for the cover recesses. I need to make a thicker template...even a router bit with a 3/8" cut depth cuts too deep with a thin template.

Here's a look at it so far. I took this without a flash to show some detail of the carve. It still needs some work but it's catching light and shadow nicely.

[guitarnut]

A couple of shots with some goodies in place. I actually only have one SD humbucker, I just Photoshoped one from another shot into these.

I'm still going to use the neck with the angled headstock, I just put tis one in since it has a finished end on it.

Peace,

Mark

[SJE-Guitars]

Well sorry I didn't see this thread before - new job, new country etc. I've been rather busy. Although since I own an original Peavey Wolfgang - if I recall rightly it's around 16 years or so old now - totally original US made from the first production run.

Anyway I a few things - which you've probably work out now - but hey:

1) The StewMac spoke wheel is about half the size of the Wolfgang truss rod.

2) Shaller Mini Tuners using the 40:1 ratio are the original tuners

3) The Floyd Rose has a D-Tuna on it - for quick drop D tuning (actually an excellent tool)

4) The neck and fretboard were original Birdseye Maple

5) The angle on the headstock is 10 degrees (iirc)

6) The Floyd is setup at EVHs preferred non floating - which is mine as well - I can't stand floating floyd roses and was one of the reason behind me buying it! The recess for the rear of the Floyd has a small amount of foam padding so it doesn't damage the wood.

7) 15 inch fretboard radius

Oh the headstock you are doing is the new EVH version.

If you need know anything more let me know.

[guitarnut]

On the way to getting bridge located and mounted, I drilled the ferrukle and screw holes for the neck. I can usually clamp the neck in place and get 3 of the four. I mark and drill them, them screw the neck down before marking the 4th.

I tacked a 1.625" nut with 2 dabs of Weldon cement. Then I strung up the E and e strings and set the bridge in place, with it just hanging by string tension.

This is a very roomy neck...check out the space between the edges and the strings! This bridge has 2.125" overall spacing which is wider than the poles on the humbucker. I'm guessing that with a neck that's a full 3/16th wider than a Fender at the heel, EVH's branded FR bridge probably has wider string spacing as well.

I didn't route the recess for the FR because I wasn't 100% confident in the neck angle I had chosen. From the look of things, I won't need to recess the bridge...might even have to bump it up a touch after the fretboard is on. It's hard to tel even from this pic becausew the strings are taped down to the fretboard at the nut to keep them in place...making them angle down too much...looks good for now.

With the bridge located and centered, I drilled the holes for the pivot inserts.

[guitarnut]

I tapped the inserts in and threaded in the posts.

I reinstalled the bridge and it looks pretty good. But I may have to roll the edges of the fretboard a bit to make the spacing look like it belongs...man that's roomy!

[guitarnut]

I got started on my pickup winder this evening. It's very simple in it's design and I know there are better ways to do this but I really just want something that will spin the bobbin and count the turns. Scatter winding is the goal here...no fancy traversing or auto shut off.

I bought a sewing machine motor and foot controller. It seems to have far more power than I need...I'll have to put a physical limiter on the foot controller to avoid an accident.

I started by cutting a piece of aluminum bar stock and drilling for the motor shaft as well as set screws on both sides...probably only needed one but I wanted to keep it balanced.

Here's a test run of the plate attached to the motor...this file played on my machine in Win Media and Quicktime. Apologies if there are issues, I don't have a way to comvert to mp4 or Quicktime until I get into the office tomorrow.

Test Run

I also found a free app that use the serial pot on a computer to counts triggers and thus, revolutions. You can download it here I used the counter.zip file to be sure I had all of the runtime files needed to run the program.

The trigger for it is very simple. Just a 9-pin male connector, a switch and a piece of 2 conductor wire. That's it! The wire is soldered to pins 9 and 4 and the switch is attached to the other end of the wire. Doesn't matter wich wire goed to which pole, you just need to close the circuit to trigger a count.

Here's a count to 50....it warns you when you hit your wrap target.

Counter

Now I just need to package it all up and do some tests.

Peace,

Mark

[supplebanana]

i thought you were building a guitar not an aeroplane ?

[Cam]

I'm suprised at how well the non bookmatched top worked out.

It's also good to see someone building a pickup winder the same way I'm trying to so that I can see how everything fits together.

[Metalhead28]

This build is great, I love Wolfgangs.

Is it just me, or does the bridge look closer to the back end of the guitar than one would expect? Doesn't look bad or anything, I just wonder if it is a modified design.