My Inaugural Guitar Construction.

[sdshirtman]

OK so I introduced myself and posted the beginning of this build in the guitar and bass chat area but it should have been posted here. So that being said I'll continue this build here.

The beginning was started here :Begining

I stopped for a week or so to pick up and read "build your own guitar" by Hiscock. Great book and I'm glad I stopped my build until I read it. I'm still referring to it as well as searching through this site. Speaking of this site I've spent an inordinate amount of time reading through the threads here. Some of you guys have some absolutely beautiful builds and serious talent.

Anyways, moving forward I'm having some second thoughts about some of my design aspects. One of which is how I plan on doing a bolt on neck to a prs style body shape. I havent really seen it done too much. I really like the way my Ibanez S series is bolted on so that's what I incorporated into my plans. I figure in the long run doing it this way might keep me out of too much trouble as opposed to a set neck. Then again after seeing how cool some of these PRS builds have come out I want to do it the set neck way. But I've already started so I'll just have to wait I guess. This first build is supposed to be simple learning process with mistakes mixed in.

I've been trying to take good pictures but have missed a few opportunities because I've been into what I'm doing.

So here they are and not necessarily in order.

Here are the printed plans. I took them to Fed Ex and had them printed out after several failed attempts to tile them on my printer. They were always off my a percent or two. I think it cost me 7 dollars.

The second sheet was for me to cut out for my templates.

My first 1/4' templates finished.

My final body and neck templates. I still have to do my pickup and cavity templates.

[sdshirtman]

Here is my mahogany body blank.

I'm doing a laminate neck and dont have a band saw yet so I cut each piece out before I glued it.

Gluing this up for the first time was interesting. The pieces started slipping pretty badly and I had to clamp on the ends to keep em straight.

Thats 50 lbs of lead shot dive weights stacked on top in a lame attempt to control the slipping.

I have a big picture gap here but it came out pretty solid. I used a ryobi hand plane to even it out and then switched to a hand held for most of the rest.

The headstock was thinned using a Japanese pullsaw which worked great. I have a 2x4 I planed flat and used that as a large sanding block with some 60 grit on top to straighten out the neck before I routed it.

Here is the result.

I got my truss rod in and did a test route on a piece of scrap.

It occurred to me that I glued on the wings of the headstock and trimmed the sides of the neck a bit prematurely which just created more work for me down the road as far as routing the truss pocket. Lesson learned. I wont do that again. A simple temporary fence on my workmate was the answer.

It wasn't perfect but I'm OK with the result.

Edited July 7, 2010 by sdshirtman

[sdshirtman]

Test fit on the truss. You can see here where I munched the headstock with the drill boring the pilot hole of the truss. Most likely I'm going to veneer this anyways.

I routed the truss just a hair lower then I needed to so that I could place a small strip over it and I wouldnt have to worry about getting any glue in the truss cavity when installing the fretboard. Steps that were probably unnecessary, but I did it anyways.

I'll post some more tomorrow. Its pretty late and I have to get up and work sometime tomorrow.

[Johnny Foreigner]

looking really good. very clean work for a first build.

looking forward to watching this progress.

[Drak]

I get the feeling it won't be long before you'll be teaching -us- a thing or two in the near future, your build skills look excellent and it looks like you have the ability to tool yourself up pretty quickly, that's an excellent combination for quality builds.

And your progress pic skills are excellent as well, I'm enjoying your thread very much so far.

I see a lot of talent there.

[sdshirtman]

Thanks for the encouraging words Drak. I'm not sure about the teaching but you never know. Right now it seems I'm making mistakes left and right. I'm going to list them here as a warning to others so they replicate the same flounders.

I'm using an ebony fretboard on my first build because I just love ebony fretboards. I figure I've spent enough money on this that an extra 15 bucks isnt going to kill me.

I decided to dye my ebony fretboard before I glued it up so I wouldnt risk any bleeding onto the maple.

Not pictured here was the routing of the neck template. I did a few test routs and experienced some burning. I figured out I was trying to rout too much wood and wasn't being aggressive enough when I did push the wood through the router. In the end the final rout left only an eighth inch section of burn in the headstock and I can sand that out.

Fast forward to that morning. I glued up my fretboard at 1 AM the night of July fourth so I could work on it the next day. My wife warned me not to because I had a pretty thick wine buzz from the days festivities but I insisted I was coherent enough to pull it off and moved forward. I used my radius block as a caul to help clamp it. I also taped off the sides to avoid any glue squeeze out getting on the sides of the maple. This was redundant since I still have some sanding to do on the sides. I allowed myself about an eighth inch wiggle room on my template to compensate for sanding and imperfections later.

The next afternoon I unclamped it. I was satisfied with the bond but there were a few issues. First issue was that I should have put some tape on the face of the fretboard. There were a few marks left on the fretboard from the residual spray glue on the sanding block. But nothing that wont come out when I resand it after installing the fret markers. I might have to re-dye the top a tad though.

The other issue was that I had some hairline gaps on the left side. They look pretty bad in these pictures because I haven't planed the fretboard flush with the maple.

When I did I only had maybe a half inch of very thin gaps left. But they were still there.

I fixed this by filling the small gaps with the ebony dust I collected when cutting down and sanding my fretboard prior to gluing.

I'm glad I saved my dust. I found a tip here to just fill it with the dust and run a small bead of cyanate over it. It sucked right in and filled it beautifully.

Save your ebony dust!

Here is the final result.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the way things are going but I still have some things I'd do differently. One is that I cut off the excess 4" of wood by the 22nd fret prematurely and now I wish it was still there so I could use it to clamp to my workbench while I shape the back of the neck.

Speaking of carving the back of the neck. I have a question for you guys. How much wood should I leave on the neck between the back and the trussrod?

I picture myself finishing this thing and stringing it up for the first time and watching the truss burst through the back of the neck the first time I make and adjustment. I really dont want that to happen.

Any advice on this would be valued.

I'm up to date so thats about it for now. I'm stalled until Friday when my stuff comes in from Stewmac. I had to order more fretwire as the 4" I ordered was going to be 2 or 3 frets short. Again I'm learning valuable lessons here. But thats the whole purpose of this first build. I also ordered a neck support caul for when I do the fretwork. Its cheap and I figured it would be good to have. I also ordered a 12" radius fret press insert for the fret press they sell. I plan on just using it to set over the frets when I install them to spread out the force hammer blows when seating the frets. Make sense?

I also completely forgot to order my pearl fret markers first time around with SM which should arrive Friday. Installing those is my next step before I do frets I think. I'm still debating on if I should install them traditionally down the center, do them to the side like I designed or just do the 12th fret on the face with full side markers. I'll have to make a decision soon. I'm leaning on the traditional layout.

I didnt order a crowning file although I wanted to as well as the safety planer so I could make a peg head veneer out of some scrap mahogany. But thats more then I can afford at the moment and there are more important tools to acquire in the mean time. Plus there is an ebay auction with one right now for just that. I might have to dust off my ebay sniping software. I'm also still searching for a used drill press and need to purchase at least one good forsner bit. A band saw would be nice too but I don't really have room for it right now. For this one I plan on using my hand held jigsaw.

Thanks for looks and again and advice of the thickness between the back of the neck and the truss would be appreciated.

Edited July 7, 2010 by sdshirtman

[guitarnut]

The build is coming along very nicely. Very clean work so far.

On the thickness of the neck, I usually take mine down to .875" or roughly 22mm total thickness. Minus the fretboard (.250") and truss rod route (.4375"), that leaves .1875" or about 4.5mm between the back of the neck and the truss rod. It might be slightly less depending on how much I worked the fretboard.

Mine have all been single piece maple with a laminated fretboard. I would think a laminated neck like yours is going to offer more resistance to the truss rod so you may need a bit more meat behind it. There are plenty of guys here using laminated necks...you should get an answer soon.

Peace,

Mark

[sdshirtman]

Thanks Guitarnut. I did some measuring today and I think I can leave 4.5mm reasonably easily. If anyone else would like to chime in here I'd like to hear when anyone else has to say on the subject.

A little more progress was made today. I cut my body blank and got it ready to glue up. A simple task if you own a jointer. But I dont. I figured I could use my table saw to get a straight enough edge to glue up but after reading through some post here and I little real world trial and error I realized I couldn't. I tried to flatten out the edges to be bonded by using my planed 2.4 with 60 grit on it but it didnt work well. It sanded flat but not flat enough. I'm sure all the experienced builders reading this probably find that amusing.

Here is the wood I'm using for the body. Its a crazy grain pattern and I like it.

I got to really try out my newly acquired planer today. It worked great and I didnt have any problems.

So back to making my gluing surfaces suitably flat without a jointer. I thought I could use the 2x4 sanding black I planed with 60 grit on it to sand the sides flat. It didnt work well. I could rock the edges a small amount plus I could see slights gaps with a light in the back.

The flattest thing I have in my garage shop is my 9/16" thick plate glass I use to glue wetsand paper on for sharpening my chisels and gouges.

Its dead flat so I cleaned the back and stuck some 120 grit sandpaper to it and clamped it into my workmate and started slowly sanding the edges.

Edited July 9, 2010 by sdshirtman

[MuffinPunch]

Looks like youve gotten yourself a pretty nice setup there, and your build is coming along very nicely. Regarding neck thickness: Im new to building as well so I generally design my guitars to the spec of a commercial guitar that I like. More specifically, I model my necks after an Ibanez wizard profile by making gauges of the back of neck at the 1st, and 12th frets. Although I dont know the exact truss rod that Ibanez use, I believe its relatively safe to bet that its a double action rod with dimensions very close to those of most "aftermarket" rods you can buy, though StewMacs Hot Rod (which it appears you are using) is slightly more narrow and deeper than the 1/4" wide rods I recently installed in my San Dimas necks. I may really be touting my ignorance here, and I would actually really appreciate being corrected if Im wrong, but I use that assumption to determine whether or not the thickness behind the rod will be sufficient to hold up to the pressure of an adjustment. I really hadnt asked myself the same question before now. Embarrassingly, I will now have to reevaluate my current builds to make sure that I dont run into the problem you inquired about.

[sdshirtman]

I think this solution was a little out of the norm but it worked great so I moved on to gluing it up.

We'll see what we have tomorrow.

My fret markers and wire should arrive tomorrow along with some other stew mac goodies that should let me start working on the neck again.

I hope to get most of that done and get the body cut out this weekend. I'm thinking I should get my neck pocket and neck angle down before I start contouring the back of my neck.

[ScottR]

That is actually a good solution to not having a jointer and you are not alone in having done that. You very nearly built a shooting board--just missing the 90 degree fence. Well done.

SR

[sdshirtman]

Thanks for the input MuffinPunch. Determining the thickness I can leave behind the truss and the neck pocket/angle are going to be the only things that worry me at this point of the build I think.

I did get to to some more work but I didnt take very good pictures. The body was cut out with a hand held jig saw today and routed clean. I only had very small 1/2 inch section of tear out while doing the bottom half of the body routing. I think it will fill no problem.

I got my fret wire & markers in today. I installed the side markers this evening. I did a couple practice runs with drilling the holes on a scrap piece then got to installing them on the neck. Everything went smooth until one of them popped out of the tweezers I was using and vanished.

This was a problem as I ordered 11 of them to make sure I had an extra one in case I lost one and had already lost one somehow earlier in the day. It was either try and find it or wait until I could order another and have it delivered. So I decided to get on my hands and knees and search the garage floor with a flashlight. After 15 minutes of this I was about to give up and then suddenly found it. It was one of those hell yes moments. Its the little things that make you happy sometimes.

I'm sure this is old hat to some of you experienced builders but I'm pretty stoked doing it for the first time.

Its starting to look kinda like a guitar now.

Thats about it for now. If anyone else can chime in on the neck carve question I'd be grateful.

Edited July 10, 2010 by sdshirtman

[guitarnut]

Thats about it for now. If anyone else can chime in on the neck carve question I'd be grateful.

Looking good!

You may want to start a thread with the question about neck thickness...unless the more experienced builders are following this thread, you may not get a wide response here.

Peace,

Mark

[MuffinPunch]

It may be worth it to just browse around the forum and ask specific questions about others' builds. PMs or replies, whatever. Restoration AD makes some pretty thin necks, He would probably have a good idea, and he's always helpful.

[Mors Phagist]

I routed the truss just a hair lower then I needed to so that I could place a small strip over it and I wouldnt have to worry about getting any glue in the truss cavity when installing the fretboard. Steps that were probably unnecessary, but I did it anyways

Its not usually necessary for a wooden strip to be put into the truss rod rout, I would've suggested using a thin piece of tape, Scotch or Masking, to cover it to prevent glue from seeping in.

Thanks Guitarnut. I did some measuring today and I think I can leave 4.5mm reasonably easily. If anyone else would like to chime in here I'd like to hear when anyone else has to say on the subject.

On a current Seven string neck Im making, after I had it carved, the thinnest part of the neck was 10/16ths. And the truss rout has to be at least 7/16ths. So I have 3/16ths of clearance on the neck, or .1875 Inches.

So basically what guitar nut just said.

Saying if the 3/16ths works for me, Im going to progressively make my necks thinner and thinner untill it is impossible to do so.

Good work on the build, hope to see it finished.

[guitarnut]

Its not usually necessary for a wooden strip to be put into the truss rod rout, I would've suggested using a thin piece of tape, Scotch or Masking, to cover it to prevent glue from seeping in.

Yep, that's right. Cutting a deeper channel sets the TR deeper into the neck reducing the amount of material you can safely remove during the carve.

I place a strip of tape over the channel while spreading glue. I then remove it before clamping the fretboard...the glue is squeezed up to the edge of the channel with clamp pressure.

Peace,

Mark

[sdshirtman]

Thanks for the info on the truss and cave question. One of those things I'm learning about. I debated buying the hot rod truss or the double action rod from LMI when I started assembling material for this build. Next build I'll use the LMI truss because its a 1/16th thinner. Its not much but better then not I guess. I've done some measuring and I think I'm going to mimic the neck carve on my Les Paul. A thicker neck is more comfortable for me to play anyways.

I have some progress pics.

Finished my fret markers. The whole process was smooth.

Sanded the board flat with my radius block and some 220-320-400-600 sandpaper.

I re dyed the fretboard black cause the sanding obviously took off the first coat. I call it superior planning.

Made me some tools for my upcoming first fret job. I did a string winder from the tagged plans here and a makeshift fret press thingy from a stewmac fret press caul because I didnt have a fret hammer yet. That and it seemed it would work just as well and it does.

The string winder worked great. My parts came out to just around 17 bucks.

[sdshirtman]

I did a lot or reading before I attempted my first fret job and I think it went well for my first time. I pretty much just tapped in the fret a little and then I laid the tool with the fret insert over the fret and gently pounded it in. My only problem here was thinking I didnt have the frets properly seated all the way into the board. The ebony board is pretty shiny and combined with the reflective properties of the frets it gave the illusion of the frets being just a few hairs off the board when really they were snug as a bug.

I got this at home depot and ground down the top with an angle grinder. Now I have $10 fret nips.

I also made the fret beveling file from the plans here. I used a file I already had.

[sdshirtman]

I bought an inexpensive 3 sided file and ground off one edge and polished it with ascending grit sandpaper to make a $3 fret dressing file. (was too lazy to do all 3 corners. I'll get to it someday) I practiced my dressing technique on a few frets I practiced putting in before I started. Youtube videos helped me get an idea of how to properly do this part.

The final result.

I had some gaps afterward so I filled them with some epoxy/ebony dust paste.

Sanded it off and was happy with the result.

I finished off the edges with a super fine sanding pad. It polished up the fret edges very nicely. No sharp edges anywhere.

The final polish will happen when the neck is completely finished and I level and re crown the frets.

[sdshirtman]

Come sunday I started making my neck pocket template using the neck itself for accuracy.

Now the next step I didnt document very well cause I was too focused on doing this for the first time to take pictures.

It took a process of about 4 trial and errors to get my template attached firmly and at the correct angle. This picture is before the clamps went on and it got put into my workmate for routing. I ended up putting a layer of masking tape on the inside of the template where the roller bearing would ride as a degree of safety wiggle room I could sand off later if need be. .

Here it is finished.

and the final fit is nice and snug. It looks like a gap in front of the neck but its a shadow from my piss poor lighting on that side of my garage.

Edited July 14, 2010 by sdshirtman

[sdshirtman]

The next thing was to install the neck inserts. The questions arose wether to use stainless or brass.

I did a few test installs on a scrap of maple. I couldnt get them in straight with a screw driver so I took a nut and locked it to the screws and put em in with a phillips screwdriver. It also helped to widen the pilot hole with the next size up drill bit about 1/16th of the way in.

Before I installed them heated them up a bit and dipped em in wax. If you get em hot first the wax flows over the entire insert evenly.

Finished.

I'm waiting to flush install my ferules in the back. I just wanted to check and see that everything was aligned correctly.

You can see the whole fret job here also.

Edited July 14, 2010 by sdshirtman

[sdshirtman]

Now that the inserts are installed I can mount the neck on the piece of maple so that I can clamp it to my bench for carving.

Thats about it so far. I ended up posting all the progress pics I have. My next step is one that I've really been anticipating.

Carving the neck. After thats done theres still lots to do.

[Geo]

Wow, I'm impressed with how clean and methodical you are. This does NOT look like a first project! Great job!

[SwedishLuthier]

Ans it took about up to this:

Before I installed them heated them up a bit and dipped em in wax. If you get em hot first the wax flows over the entire insert evenly.

before you started to teach us "more experienced guys" a trick or two. Heat it up first to get the wax evenly spred! Duh, why didn't I think of that. Thanks mate. And let me give you a tip in return regarding getting the threaded inserts in straight: Use the pillar drill insted of a hand held drill/driver. Clamp the neck to the drill table, lower the chuck and turn it by hand (don't run the drill motor!!!). That way you get a 100% straight installment of the inserts.

[sdshirtman]

Ans it took about up to this:

Before I installed them heated them up a bit and dipped em in wax. If you get em hot first the wax flows over the entire insert evenly.

before you started to teach us "more experienced guys" a trick or two. Heat it up first to get the wax evenly spred! Duh, why didn't I think of that. Thanks mate. And let me give you a tip in return regarding getting the threaded inserts in straight: Use the pillar drill insted of a hand held drill/driver. Clamp the neck to the drill table, lower the chuck and turn it by hand (don't run the drill motor!!!). That way you get a 100% straight installment of the inserts.

Thanks SwedishLuthier. Its funny you mentioned doing it this way. My friend who happens to be an engineer suggested doing it that same exact way. I was just a little to anxious and did it by hand. Now that I hear you say it too I'll be sure to use the tip next build. Thanks for confirming the technique .