gpcustomguitars Posted September 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 14, 2012 All went well, I've cut off the protruding portion of the neck lams (and broke my #$%^& bandsaw blade - poor welding obviously, came clean apart at the seam). By gpguitars at 2012-09-13 By gpguitars at 2012-09-13 By gpguitars at 2012-09-14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted September 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2012 While sorting the junk around the shop I found a few of these, all rosewood and all the same scale - any ideas other than just glueing them all together into one? On outter sides and the middle a lam of something else? Can't just throw them away, I'm a packrat... What do you guys do with your offcuts? By gpguitars at 2012-09-17 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted September 17, 2012 Report Share Posted September 17, 2012 Those could quite happily be made into inlays or whatever. The problem is always organised storage when it comes to scrap! You might want to complain to the manufacturer about the blade. Was it the one that came with the saw or one from a supplier? I always get replacements if the weld failed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted September 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2012 I kinda want to use the slots since they are already there, so I'm thinking about adding a few triangle shaped cherry lams in between theese rosewood strips and getting one weird fretboard. Perhaps it's just too much work to justifie it... I'm curently very fond of bass players since they seem to have a very open mind regarding the design, so weird is good. I used to keep every little bit of wood, but nowadays I just use them firewood if they are too small to say, bookmatch a headstock face out of it. This blade I bought some time ago, and it did the same then - came apart at the weld, so I gave it to be re-welded, and it did the same again, but after a lot of sawing. It's cheaply made, perhaps the alloy is wrong somehow...I got a source for some german-made blades now, so that will probably be a good solution. Good thing I don't have any sawing planed that I can't do with an jig saw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted September 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 20, 2012 Got the new blade, 1790 x 9.5, by the color of it I think (hope) it's not as ...good as the previous one. Anyway, all alone at work today, nothing at all to do, so I took my Dremel with me, and routed out the fretboard markers. They are all 3 x 6 mm, and will be plugged with walnut to be cut off fm the sides of the neck. I'll try to align the inlay grain with the neck. Only the 12th is 7 x 6mm, and I'll inlay the inlay with a 3 x 6 mm piece of rosewood later. The Allman Bros have provided the soundtrack, coffee is hot, and it's raining like it'll never stop... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted September 20, 2012 Report Share Posted September 20, 2012 Allman bros are good rainy day music. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted September 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 24, 2012 A small update, inlays (still 12th to do), tapper, some shaping, deciding on neck/body join place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted September 26, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 26, 2012 Inlaying my "GP" logo, and inlaying the 12th fretboard marker, I'll glue in a piece of rosewood this afternoon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted September 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 27, 2012 And the 12th done! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted September 27, 2012 Report Share Posted September 27, 2012 I'm looking forward to seeing how the inlays "reveal" when you radius the fingerboard. The Rosewood dust could contaminate the Maple part of the inlays however, so bear this in mind. Scraping the inlays with a burr turned on a craft knife blade might help with this somewhat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted September 27, 2012 Report Share Posted September 27, 2012 I'm looking forward to seeing the gp logo fit into that route......I can't get my head around it so far. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted September 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 27, 2012 Yes, I will have to scrape it clean after the sanding, rosewood will color it, but I'm hoping it will look as I have planned. BTW, it's actually walnut offcuts from tapering the neck, so if the glue line is not too visible, it'll look like I had left these little stumps on the neck blank prior to glueing on the fretboard. I forgot to say that it's a heavily modified GP, and in cyrillic leters, too. The pic shows just the first step of the rout, had to change the bit after that to something smaller. It's supposed to be this: and my friend wants me to fill it with black epoxy. I wanted to inlay a piece of MOP... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted September 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2012 After changing the bit, and with a help of the exacto knife, it's done. Will fill it this afternoon. I have to tape over it first with some masking tape and cut it trough, so not to mess up the surrounding wood too much. Should look nice, although I would have preferred MOP to black epoxy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted September 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2012 Filling went fine, and then I trued up the alu-fences for the bridge, and using a spacer I made before, glued 2 of them in, third was too fiddly at the time. Will do it today, and can't wait to see how the logo will look when sanded/scraped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted September 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2012 I'm not very fond of this method, but it worked. We decided on the position of the bridge, and that settled the location of the neck, so we have a first real mockup! Also we wiped the body with some water, and the figure is very nice, but I didn't take a pic of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted October 8, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 8, 2012 Finally had some time to do something...radiused the fboard, scraped the inlays with turned craft knife blade (thanks, Prostheta!), had to redo the 12th, since he decided it forms a letter "U", and he opted for 2 parallel lines instead and thicknessed the headstock somewhat, I might be shaping the face tomorrow. Last but not least, glued in the last alu-piece of the bridge. I have to shape the bridge very slowly, because the alu parts easily get very hot and that could unglue them... I kinda hate my job right now, so I might get a lot more time to work on guitars very soon... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie H 72 Posted October 9, 2012 Report Share Posted October 9, 2012 Love the creativity here. its looking really cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted October 9, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2012 Thanks Charlie! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted October 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2012 Another small update - drilled the tuner holes, pilot, 14mm halfway, recessed the washers, tidyed up with dremel, and drilled trough with 14mm. Then some rough shaping on my homemade sander in the drill press. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted October 13, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2012 I had a lot of fun today! Headstock done, frets in, neck shaping tommorrow I hope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted October 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 14, 2012 I've managed to roughly shape the neck today, still need to fine tune it, so I brought it home to look at it for a while. I always find something more to do if I look at it at home...and I can't take a good photo whatever I try. Cameras hate me... Anyway, I plan to oil the headstock face up to the glue line, and to spray the rest. The nut is supposed to be aluminum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie H 72 Posted October 15, 2012 Report Share Posted October 15, 2012 Good progress! The headstock really cleaned up nicely. if you're spraying the rest, why not the headstock? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted October 15, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2012 Well, I made the headstock out of the body offcut, to have it match the grain and color. Body is radiused, and so is the headstock, and I will finish the body in oil/wax, so I want to match that on the headstock, too. But I don't really like oiled necks, especially with lighter colored woods, because it darkens over time because of dirt, so everything but the headstock face up to the glue line will be sprayed. I will probably not polish it after final wet sanding, so it looks more like the rest of the guitar surface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted October 21, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2012 A few new pics. My friend came to see the bass, and I just had to take this pic I made the template for the neck, and started the pup one, and went about 15mm deep. Not shown in the pics is today's work, angled the template and routed some more with handheld router. Still some 2mm to go, but all is fine so far. I made the neck angle to suit the bridge, but didn't think to measure it, I think it's about 2 degrees at most. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted November 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2012 I've started finishing the neck, did some shaping on the bridge, routed the electronics cavity, and made the pup template. I have a feeling I have a lot of sanding in my near future... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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