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My Second Build Attempt


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That looks pretty nasty. What was that? Arthroscopy? Been playing Ker-plunk with pencils again? :D

Looking forward to seeing that Maple show its face!

Arthroscopy is correct. They went in to repair a torn miniscus that showed on an MRI I had done. When they got in there they didnt find any tears. Just some severe bone bruising and some arthritic stuff they cleaned up. My ACL is fine so I dont know what that means now because they didnt fix the root problem. I go in tomorrow for my post op. I just hope I dont hear something like he's going back in. Wish me luck.

Ha ha ha, I got flashbacks looking at those sutures! I got both my knees done, didn't slowed me down a bit after the 2nd day I was out at Itaewon, Korea playing pool with a cane! Nice guitars, hurry up and recover so you can finish them!

Ouch! I couldn't imagine having both knees done at one time.

Well done on your first binding jobs, man. They look totally pro.

Thank you. That makes me feel good as I'm far from a pro.

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I'm going crazy not being able to do anything so I did some low impact tinkering over the last few days.

As I've mentioned previously in this thread my neck pocket is now very loose and there is a lot of slop.

After some inspection and measuring of my neck pocket template I've narrowed the root of the problem down. When sanding my neck after the carve I took just a little too much of the sides.

I'm almost to the point where I want to instal my bridge studs but don't want to do so until this problem is fixed. I'm able to stick a .008 feeler gauge in the pocket with the neck in there so I'm going to need a side neck ship around that size. The problem for me is getting a piece of veneer that thin. I found a few places that I can get it online but its expensive and I only need about 6 square inches. So I set out to see how thin of a piece of veneer I could make.

I started out with a piece of maple about an eighth of an inch thick by about 14" long and 1'5" tall. The plan is to use my spindle sander and a fence and just sand it down though a fence I clamped on there. I'm using a 120 grit drum to start with. After running it through a few times I got it down to about .027. then changed out the sanding drum to a 220 grit piece.

To move my fence closer to the drum I just used a rubber mallet and gave it a gentle tap in between sandings. I got to the point where I was sticking a feeler gauge between the fence and the drum.

An oscillating spindle sander was never meant to deal with tolerances this close. What ever size feeler gauge I would use would usually come out 6 or 7 thousandths fatter than what the gauge was.

Here I'm using a .012 gauge and it came out quite a bit thicker.

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I kept stepping this down getting the piece thinner and thinner to the point where I could hardly get it through the gap.

When at about .015 I adjusted again and tried to run it through there again and it just exploded!

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The good part was I was able to run about 4 inches of material through it before it did and thats really all I needed for the shim.

I was shooting for .008 but .009 will have to do. I was actually really impressed that I was able to get it that far.

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From there it was just a matter of gluing it in place.

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I really didnt even want to be having to deal with this but its fixed now. I can now pick up the guitar with the neck with just a dry fit.

I'm not real stoked about the thin stripe of maple right next to the walnut binding but oh well. Function over fashion.

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Just thought I'd share some fiddling around. Maybe this will come in handy for someone sometime.

Edited by sdshirtman
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X'D

Just kidding you! It looks like there is a slight ding just beyond the curve of the left hand side of the pocket in the last photo. I think you are being perfectly clinical and planned with your builds. Always good to so a builder who is in control rather than flying into the wind and hoping like some.

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  • 1 month later...

Well its been a while but the knee is healing up pretty good and Im able to walk and stand on it so its game on again.

I wanted some pickup covers to match the walnut binding on these. I could just order some of these but most places I've seen dont stock walnut and they dont come with a slant at the heights I want. That and they want like forty bucks a set. So heres how I went about it.

First I cut down a piece of 1/2" walnut to the proper size on the table saw then set a 3 degree angle on my router sled so I could plane these down to the heights and angle I wanted.

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There's going to be a lot of waste on the thinner one but I wanted them to come from the same piece and match so oh well.

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Taking small bites it took 3 different adjustments to get them to the thickness I wanted.

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I dint take pictures but from there I cut them down to size using a Japanese pull saw and a miter box because I like the way the pull saw leaves a nice smooth cut on the sides.

Next step I traced out the cutout using a plastic pickup ring I have lying around. Then I drew circles in the corners so I could center my holes accurately.

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Then they get thrown on the jig saw and connect the dots.

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Next I use some 320 adhesive sandpaper stuck to a drill bit and a small chunk of wood to even everything up. This part took me the longest to do at a few hours.

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Next I marked and drilled the holes for the screws and added the countersinks. I still have to grain fill these before I clear coat them but they are essentially finished. It took me about 4 lazy hours to get these done and the total cost was 7 bucks for the walnut and I still have enough for two more.

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Very nice! I'm often thinking of methods to make external radii (such as those on the outside of your rings) on a disc sander both for wood and metal. I have a couple of ideas for jigs with adjustable radius but these'll have to stay theoretical until I get permanent workshop space again I guess. So happy you didn't resort to routing the outside shape....a sure fire crash course in swearing and breaking things close to hand which generally should not be broken. :D

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Very nice! I'm often thinking of methods to make external radii (such as those on the outside of your rings) on a disc sander both for wood and metal. I have a couple of ideas for jigs with adjustable radius but these'll have to stay theoretical until I get permanent workshop space again I guess. So happy you didn't resort to routing the outside shape....a sure fire crash course in swearing and breaking things close to hand which generally should not be broken. :D

I went through the tribulation of making a small sanding jig for the outside corner radius for these rings before I started. I drilled a 1/4 hole in a block of wood then cut 2/3rds of it away with with a band saw and put adhesive sandpaper on the inside radius. It worked but it ended up being easier and faster to just sand the radius by hand.

Edited by sdshirtman
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Oh, I can't agree more. We spend more time building jigs and modifying things to do specific jobs when simple tools often get it done in a fraction of the time. For myself, this is the greater part of the enjoyment of building things with the added bonus of repeatability added in there for good measure. I designed a relatively simple table router jig to cut the inside and outside Vs for both the neck and wings of a Firebird/Thunderbird. Whilst nothing amazing in terms of engineering it reduces a difficult task to one tasking a couple of minutes with a high degree of accuracy.

Clever Jigs = Engaged Smug Mode

You can't tell me that your router sled jig for thicknessing your stock for the rings didn't make you feel this way out when "merely" sanding them would achieve the same end? Smugness is not a crime I tell thee!

Edited by Prostheta
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In reality all you needed was to make 1 jig for all of them, and I would had gone 1 step further and just buy a flat metal pick up ring from StewMac and use it as a routing-sanding template. I would leave it over size, rout the inside, then use a Robo Sander and clean the outside.

Coulda done that if I had a smaller diameter pattern bit. That and its my first rodeo doing a set of these.

I'm approaching the end of the build precess on these. I realize some of this is backwards so bear with me.

I drilled for the Electrosocket Jack I'm putting in these. I had to make a choice weather to mount flush or not so I did some tests and decided flush was the cleaner more aesthetic way to go.

First off to mount this thing for accuracy and to keep any unexpected things from happening.

I'm really digging the flexibility of my newly acquired press.

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I loaded up the 1" forstener and set depth to 1.5mm for the lip of the jack.

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Then while still leaving everything clamped up I switched to a 7/8th bit and drilled the rest through.

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And mission accomplished. My first time doing this and I'm happy.

The next steps are out of order but here goes.

I was really worried about locating and drilling the bridge studs. My last attempt on my first build went terribly wrong and I ended up plugging and re drilling. So this time I did more research and decided this would be my best method and the most straight forward for accuracy without guessing.

First off was to measure out where I thought it should sit by doubling the distance from the 12th fret and mark it on both sides. Because of aesthetics of the bridge I'm using I didnt want to slant it so I'll have to temporarily mount it. I made a crude stop piece from some MDF and put some soft leather on the side that would come in contact with the body so I wouldn't mar it. Next was to temporarily string the high and low e strings up so I could check intonation and get a better idea of where to place it.

I had to add almost 3/8ths length to get it to intanate properly.

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I shimmed the bridge to height and used some dowel locaters to mark exactly where to drill.

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I'll note here that I'm using tone pros locking studs and their website say to use either a 27/64ths, 7/16ths or a 11mm bit for these. I tried all three and one was too lose, one too tight and the 11mm was just right. I drilled and pounded in the inserts and realized I didn't drill for a ground wire so one of these was coming back out. DOH! All fixed now though.

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Here it is mounted. Let me say that while I really like the design of this schaller bridge I was disappointed to find that the recesses for the ball ends are slightly too small. They finally popped in with some wrangling but its not what I'd expect on a $140 bridge. I wont go into what it took to remove the strings. I've got an email into the manufacturer. I'll let you know what I hear back.

Here are some previews of it strung up. I roughly intonated it and everything plays fantastic which I'm stoked about because I haven't leveled the fretboard or really done a proper setup.

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Edited by sdshirtman
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I left out the pic of the jack last post.

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Last night I set off to drill for the electronics and do the control recesses. During the design process I decided to use the same control cavity configuration as I did on my first build. In retrospect I with I hadnt as I'm not 100% happy with where I had to place the controls but the volume is where I want it so it will work out in the end.

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The next steps of drilling the recesses were lost because I was into what I was doing. Basically I did the standard method of drilling and using a 1.25" cove router bit in the drill press. I ramped up the speed to 3k RPM.

I'm on the fence about how deep I had to do these. I left myself 5mm of material for the pots and switch. Now that they are done I'm thinking a maybe should have recessed a little bit from the back so they would be a bit more shallow.

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I havent decided on knobs yet but heres a test fit. The edges of the recesses haven't been sanded or blended yet.

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Here they are after softening up the edges with some 320. I'm thinking about taking a little more of the edge off. Opinions anyone before I do?

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I still have to route out the recess for the control cover plate on the back which I should of done long ago. Its going to be a pain in the ass now. That and I need to make a cool truss cover and route for the pickups and I think the build part is finished.

Speaking of routing the pickup cavities, last time I used a 1/2 bit and the corner radiuses were too thick and the pups didn't fit well. I need to go out and secure a smaller pattern bit.

Finishing is coming soon.

Edited by sdshirtman
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At this point, I think I would take off a little more edge. Haonestly, I liked the crispness of the shot with the knobs in place best for this build, because while your curves and carves are nice and flowing, your edges, laminations and lines are all crisp.

And I still say your truss rod access looks better now than it would with any cover.....

.....okay if you come up with a really cool cover, I might back down and say it looks as good without the cover as it does with the cover....but that cover would have to be really good. :D

SR

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At this point, I think I would take off a little more edge. Haonestly, I liked the crispness of the shot with the knobs in place best for this build, because while your curves and carves are nice and flowing, your edges, laminations and lines are all crisp.

And I still say your truss rod access looks better now than it would with any cover.....

.....okay if you come up with a really cool cover, I might back down and say it looks as good without the cover as it does with the cover....but that cover would have to be really good. :D

SR

Your not the first to suggest that but its getting a cover most likely. To me it would seem unfinished without one.

I liked the super crisp lines from the pic with the knobs and the trust rod access to to awesome looking to cover up!I really like the way this is looking, an excellent design

Thanks for the input. I think I'm going to make them both just slightly faded in like the last pic.

THis is a seriously beautiful design and execution. I love the body shape. The uniqueness is just subtile enough that still has a traditional feel - but doesn't look like anything else really. Incredible work with the binding and neck as well. Can't wait to see the finished product!

Admittedly I lifted the inspiration from guitarnut (with his permission). Wasn't it Dali who said "good artist create, great artists steal"? Lol. First time I saw his photoshop thread I fell in love with the general shape. When I emailed him to ask if he would mind if I borrowing the idea he told me he had borrowed the idea himself. Ironic huh? I did make some design changes and tried to make it my own though.

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I'm really digging the flexibility of my newly acquired press.

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That is awesome! I've never even looked to see if mine swivells, I dont think it does. I've been messing about making up stupid angled jigs etc to clamp at crazy angles, (some have ended in failure!) I might have to see if I can get a swivel base!

Guitar looks excellent by the way, very classy. Everything you've done looks tight and executed to perfection.

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Between watching Baltimore and San Francisco lose today I made some truss rod covers.

Its a laminate of walnut and ebony with beveled edges. I havent spent any time sanding or refining them but heres a sneak peek. I'm thinking of mounting them with magnets to keep the clean look. Take that ScottR

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