First Build, Doublecut

[mwcarl]

I'm about 2 months into my first guitar build, a doublecut-like design with a 25.5" scale length, 22 frets. It's been a long time since I did any woodwork, basically since grade 9 (that's 12 years ago), so I'm doing a lot of (re)learning. The body is two-piece spruce with a 1/2" flamed maple carved two-piece bookmatched top in a two humbucker configuration. Not a really highly figured piece, but it should look alright. The neck is maple, with a pre-made and radiused rosewood fretboard and indeterminate inlays. Still not decided on bolt-on or set neck, but I think I've accommodated so that I still have the option to do either at this point. I don't have photos of the whole process, but I'll post what I've got here.

The spruce back hand planed, joined and ready to cut. Hand planing is a lot of work, but satisfying.

After cutting body shape with a jigsaw. Frustrating since the cut isn't perfectly vertical and required lots of cleanup afterwards.

The maple top joined and ready to glue onto the spruce back. The control cavity was cut using a jigsaw as well, using pilot holes drilled with a drill press.

Body after top glued onto back and cut to the body shape. The maple was wetted to show figure.

Carving the top using small hand tools. I'm really pleased with how easy it was and how much control I had. Progress was slow, but the result speaks for itself. Was cleaned up afterwards using a scraper and a palm sander.

Carve mostly finished and cleaned up. The carve is somewhat subtle, but should be more noticeable after finishing.

I guess I didn't take any photos of the neck progress, but here it is with the body. The headstock uses a scarf joint, which was a huge pain to do, I think I would try and avoid it next time if at all possible. The headstock angle ended up being about 13 degrees, I couldn't do it very accurately. The headstock is laminated with a 1/8" flamed maple veneer. I actually screwed up and the headstock was too small, so I had to extend it, which is a bit dangerous, but none of the tuning pegs are in the extension. The extension isn't nearly as seamless as I had hoped, but it appears reasonably robust and shouldn't break off without a large amount of force. Very difficult to do perfect, I'll have to be better in the planning process next time.

[mwcarl]

Here is the current state of the build. The neck has been cut to size, routed for the truss rod and the headstock has been shaped. The back of the neck has yet to be shaped. The body has been routed for the pickups and holes drilled for the controls. The top has been carved to slightly inset the controls. There will be two volume pots, and a single tone pot, all with amber speed knobs. The other two controls are a pickup switch and a small switch for coil splitting (maybe). A control cavity cover has been cut out of black walnut. I've tried to show the carve a bit better.

The control cavity cover will be attached to the body with small magnets. To remove the cover I've cut a small notch in the body and a lip on the control cover so it can be removed with ease, but shouldn't come off unintentionally.

The back has a body cut (done with a spokeshave) to make playing a bit more comfortable. I'll probably make it a little bigger than it is right now. It is slightly hard to see in the photo.

I haven't yet figured out what neck angle I need. I'm using a Gotoh Tune-O-Matic bridge with a stoptail, so I assuming I'll need some kind of neck angle. I may recess the bridge to avoid that, but still undecided.

As for finishing, I'm currently thinking some kind of pseudo-natural finish. A brown/subtle colour stain, and Tru-Oil finish. The back of the body will likely be darker. I've done a small test piece to get a rough idea of the finishing process.

Anyone have a good idea what order to do the inlays? As in, before/after fretboard is applied to neck, before/after neck shaping, before/after fretting, etc... If anyone can see obvious problems with the way things are going to work, I'd appreciate that too.

Anyway just thought I'd put something up since this site has helped me, and I enjoy looking at other builds either finished or in progress. Thanks for looking!

[chops1983]

Nice work carl its looking great for a first build. Mate, neck angle is very easy, you have two options. Rout your neck pocket with angle or put the angle on your heel. To me it looks like a bolt-on neck so i would rout your neck angle into your neck pocket. My advice is this. Grab a pencil,eraser, a nice long ruler if you got it and a piece of paper and draw a side on view of your guitar. It's discussed in Perry's neck angle thread here that way you will get a full understanding of the angle you need and what is going on. Just remember when your drawing it out to include your fret height line off you fretboard and to set your T-O-M to around the halfway mark on its posts so you will have adjustment.

Once you have worked out your angle and how much the back of the pocket is higher than the front i just pack the back of my MDF template so that the gap at the back of the pocket is the required distance so when you rout, the neck pocket is sloped. If your having any problems i can draw it out some illustrations for you to help you visualise it, otherwise just trawl the forums, there will be heaps of info on this.

Chad.

[mwcarl]

Thanks Chad, I'm not too worried about how to figure out and do a neck angle, that seems fairly straightforward to me. That thread is helpful though. I've gone through Melvyn Hiscock's book which was very helpful. One of the problems with my design is that the stoptail is going to be reasonably close to the bottom of the guitar because of the cutout. There is more than enough room, it just might look a bit odd.

[Buter]

Dude, screw the stoptail!

Get some string ferrules and run the strings through the body. You can drill your holes to follow the curve of the bottom cutout.

That will look a lot better than putting a straight stoptail very close to a curvy edge. I am a big fan of having the extra string length as well.

Nice job for a first time, mate.

I look forward to more on this one.

Cheers

Buter

[mwcarl]

Just an update, the neck pocket was routed (with almost 3 degree angle), neck shaped, and drilled holes for the various parts. Took the advice and made it string-through, and I'm happy with the way that looks.

Trial with hardware:

Will start doing some inlay and last things before final sanding and finishing.

Edited July 26, 2010 by mwcarl

[Muzz]

Dude, screw the stoptail!

Get some string ferrules and run the strings through the body. You can drill your holes to follow the curve of the bottom cutout.

That will look a lot better than putting a straight stoptail very close to a curvy edge. I am a big fan of having the extra string length as well.

Good advice, great set up for vibrato.

[chops1983]

Hey Carl,

Great to see some more pics. The geet is looking awesome mate. I think taking Buter's advice was a good idea, gives the guitar a more stylish, professional look as opposed to a stoptail IMO. I wish he would give me advice like that.

The only thing i can see that i would change, is the neck pocket sides near the heel, to me they look bulky and uncomfortable. It may not be feasible to shape it so they finish tapered to a point(Did that make sense?). I don't have the guitar in front of me to tell how strong the joint is, but, if its possible i'm sure it will be more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing.

What inlays do you have planned?

Chad.

[mwcarl]

Hey Carl,

Great to see some more pics. The geet is looking awesome mate. I think taking Buter's advice was a good idea, gives the guitar a more stylish, professional look as opposed to a stoptail IMO. I wish he would give me advice like that.

The only thing i can see that i would change, is the neck pocket sides near the heel, to me they look bulky and uncomfortable. It may not be feasible to shape it so they finish tapered to a point(Did that make sense?). I don't have the guitar in front of me to tell how strong the joint is, but, if its possible i'm sure it will be more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing.

What inlays do you have planned?

Chad.

Thanks Chad. I've somewhat tapered the side of the neck pocket on the lower (playing) side. You can see it slightly in this photo as posted above:

The taper isn't really dramatic and may make it slightly harder to play, but I was worried a bit about the integrity of the joint. The area of the joint isn't very big, but I may be worried about nothing. I may try and taper it further. I didn't taper the other side of the neck pocket, since it doesn't appear to hinder playability. Does look less pleasing, but I'd rather have a stronger joint.

As for inlays, I'm going to be doing something more than just dots, but nothing extremely complicated. Not sure on the design yet, so can't say any more than that.

[IPA or death]

Love the body design on this one. It's going to be a beautiful guitar when finished. Keep up the clean work man.

[Jdogg]

I really like the body shape on this one...

very nice...

[mwcarl]

Finished the inlay, only doing a single 12th fret inlay and side dots. Made the design myself, although it's possible I'd based it on something I've seen before. Fret inlay and dots made from mother of pearl, and not perfect but looks alright. Learned some good things for next time. May put in other inlays later into this guitar, but the one might be good enough. Will start finishing soon, final sanding is almost done.

[mwcarl]

The guitar is all stained and now I'm just applying layers of Tru-Oil. I'm looking at about 9 or so for the body and headstock, maybe less for the neck.

Before any staining:

After dark black stain on top:

After sanding back dark black stain (actually bluish so not what I expected):

After staining on top with red, result is purplish (again not what I expected, but looks nice):

After staining back (similar procedure as above but instead of red, brown was used (also not dark black initial stain, but lighter black):

After first couple coats of oil finish, neck set in for show:

Same but back side:

Headstock:

Other views of body, showing masked 'binding':

Next step, figuring out the electronics, fretting, nut and other hardware install.

[Johny]

Great job, that distressed finish looks really cool.

[guitarnut]

This is really looking good. Nice body shape. I'm not sure I like the color yet but maybe the finished product will change my mind.

I see that you changed from stop tailpiece to ferrules. That's a nice look the way they follow the body line. Have you strung out a G or D string to see if will make that distance thru the body and out to the tuner? Seems like a long way to me.

Subscribed and watching this one.

Peace,

Mark

[mwcarl]

Hmm... that's a good point Mark, I'll have to check that when I get home. My headstock is pretty small, but the ferrules are fairly far away. I thought they had to be when I looked at the string angle off the TOM bridge, and didn't take string length into account.

[mwcarl]

Okay so I'm more or less finished, all that's left is to level and finish the frets as well as finish the control cover. I may also replace the pickup rings with ones I make from black walnut and find better looking knobs since the amber doesn't really work for me. The string length turned out to not be a problem, there was a fair amount of extra string. Now for the photos:

Rough fretting done and strung up:

[mwcarl]

As it stands now, wired for two volume, one tone (push pull for coil split), three way switch and killswitch (what else can I do with this DPDT switch?):

[kenggg]

Nice Guitar

[IbanezDudeCK]

The taper from the fretboard to the headstock looks a bit weird and it looks a bit rough around the 'binding' part, but I really like the shape and the brown stain. The top stain is OK, but the aged brown is sweet. Nice inlay too.