Shirtman's Set Neck

[sdshirtman]

I've been contemplating what to do for my next build for a few months now. I've gone back and forth between doing another bolt on and doing a set neck. I haven't done a set neck yet so thats reason enough for me to do one. I thought about doing a gibson type tenon but decided that a simpler prs type joint would be easier to do and just as effective.

I'm using the same general design shape I used on my last build with a few refinements. One being a slightly slimmer body so it will fit into a standard case. I'm using a one piece chunk of sapele for the body and neck and a piece of maple I picked up cheap for the top.

Since I'm changing the design slightly and doing a set neck I need some new templates or course.

Because the Sapele is so dense and heavy I'm chambering this for weight relief.

[sdshirtman]

I started this on Friday and it progressed quickly. I cant resaw on my 14" bandsaw so I split the to halfway on my table saw.


Then I cut the rest with my pullsaw.


I glued the top about a month ago and since then it bowed a bit so I had to level it.






I picked up a shop vac and a vortex dust collector before I started this. Money well spent.




Heres the body slab. It weighs in at 11lbs here.


And now weighs in at 3.5 lbs.

[psikoT]

have you rounded the edges before glueing the top?

[eddiewarlock]

making a set neck guitar it's not anymore difficult than a bolt on one. At least if you use the PRS method. I reckon the Gibson mortise and tenon method it's way more difficult, and in my humble experience, i don't see any added advantages.

Sucks about rouding the edges on that one mate! You still can solve it by planing it, but it'll be thinner...it's up to you.

[ScottR]

I'm looking forward to seeing your magic with this one John. I'm not convinced the edges have been rounded or if we just seeing a trick of lighting. If you did, you could also just narrow the body a little and route the edges in to square it back up. Or cut a binding channel into it.

I'm wondering if you cut your chambers before you worked out the details of the back carve you have been talking about trying....

SR

[psikoT]

I'm not convinced the edges have been rounded or if we just seeing a trick of lighting.

Yes, I think I was wrong about that... now it looks more a pencil line for me

[westhemann]

I reckon the Gibson mortise and tenon method it's way more difficult, and in my humble experience, i don't see any added advantages.

I did it twice,and it takes more work.Only advantage I found is cosmetic,because it allows you to keep the body wood on the cutaway side of the neck

[sdshirtman]

making a set neck guitar it's not anymore difficult than a bolt on one. At least if you use the PRS method. I reckon the Gibson mortise and tenon method it's way more difficult, and in my humble experience, i don't see any added advantages.

Sucks about rouding the edges on that one mate! You still can solve it by planing it, but it'll be thinner...it's up to you.

I agree. I thought it might be a little more challenging to do the gibson mortise which is a bonus as far as the educational standpoint, but I plan on doing a nice contour/transition on the heel so this works for me.

I'm looking forward to seeing your magic with this one John. I'm not convinced the edges have been rounded or if we just seeing a trick of lighting. If you did, you could also just narrow the body a little and route the edges in to square it back up. Or cut a binding channel into it.

I'm wondering if you cut your chambers before you worked out the details of the back carve you have been talking about trying....

SR

I havent rounded the edges yet. I usually do that after I route the outside of the body. But you nailed it as far as doing the back carve. I was a little over zealous in my progress and went about 1/2" too deep on my chambers and really screwed myself. There's plenty of room for rounded edges but not for the full contour on the back like I wanted. (can you tell I was gearing up to do your cavity cover method scott?). I left 3/8" on the back and there's just not enough meat left to do what I had planned.

Here is a little sketch I did to see if I could even do I belly cut on the back.

As you can see it could be done if shallow, but my design has already been comprimised early on in the game.

I was seriously thinking of just giving this to the fire gods but I went ahead and glued up the top Saturday and will start off with doing limited contours. If I mangle it I'll just start over. Sapele is cheap near me so I'm only out a day of work and about $60 in wood.

I'll be able to do a one piece neck on this one with out any ears.

The part that really sucks is that I might waste a nice one piece body that was perfectly matched to the neck.

Here is a mock up for this one. I was thinking of doing plastic binding and a lemon burst with a TOM to keep cost down.

[eddiewarlock]

Sapele is cheap and god, if you find it quartersawn is soooo good looking. Are you gonna use sapele for the neck as well?

[ScottR]

The back carve is what has kept me away from chambering so far. I am considering some for this current build, but it would be minimal, just some shallow chambers on either side of the neck tenon.

SR

[Prostheta]

I'm really looking forward to seeing this one now you have the benefit of some great experience on your side!

re: Gibson set neck heels.
I love Gibson style heels for many reasons. One of which is the fact they require a great degree of careful planning, marking up and accurate work to execute well. That of itself helps counter my tendency to fly ahead with my work which normally results in stupid errors, working out-of-order and complicating my work unnecessarily. For that reason, they introduce a degree of calm collectedness to a build. For me anyway. The second reason is that they require very specific angles to be calculated out and marked up so as to create a seamless flush fit. My first Explorer build (the white one) was truly the reason why I learnt to mark up with a knife, drill down my tolerances and appreciate the virtues of clean sharp mirror-polished chisels.

[sdshirtman]

Thank you and I hear ya Prostheta. Challenges, planning and accuracy appeal to me and you've had me seriously rethinking my joint and contemplating a departure from my plan, but I'm going to continue on my chosen course. I do want to try it and gain the experience but there will be more builds down the road to try the gibson tenon on.

I've done a little work on this so I have a weekend update with lots of pictures.

The body is nice and routed down now. There was a slightest hair of tearout on the side but nothing remarkable and I was able to hide it with a little simple sanding.

.

With that done it was onto getting the cavity cover made so I could contour the back. Thanks for the idea Scott.

heres how I went about it. I thinned down a piece that matched the body closely down to 3/8 thick and shaped accordingly.

Now I had to get it dead center so I could clamp it down and drill for the machine screw inserts. I was going to use some tooth picks wedged into the gaps to keep it centered but it became a major hassle and i ended up just eyeballing it.

Then I used my master template to mark where the cavity was so I could plot out where to drill.

Then I clamped it down and drilled my holes just a hair shy of the 3/8" that the cover was. That way the brad tipped bit I was using would score a nice accurate mark inside the cavity for me use when drilling for the inserts.

The inserts were threaded in using a drill press and a threaded blank like I did the inserts on my last neck. With the relatively soft sapele I didn't even have to use a wrench. I just turned the collar with a little pressure and they went right in. When everything was installed it all lined up pretty nicely.

Continued on next post.

[sdshirtman]

Because of the depth of the weight relief chambers I did I have very little room for error here so I started by marking just how deep I could cut by marking a line the depth of my chambers on the side and one an inch in from the edges. Connecting these two should leave me 3/16th of meat which I think will be plenty for a mild contour.



This is the first time I've had a chance to use my new surform's and now I get whats so cool about them. With some mild pressure it just eats away wood with ease. Back off the pressure a little bit and you gain quite a lot of control. Awesome little tool.



I did that bevel around the entire body bringing myself within the 3/16ths I allowed myself then marked out where my cavities were hiding under the wood using the template I used to cut them just as a guide to let me know they were there and not get carried away.

So after about 3 hours of shaping and sanding I wound up with this. Like I said a few posts ago its not what I originally intended but it will have to work as I cant go any deeper or risk going through to one of the weight relief chambers.



The contour was really hard to capture.


I took these a little later on the day with some shadows and it shows a little better. I'm still up in the air regarding the round over radius on the back edges. I might go back and round it off to a 3/8ths radius but I cant really do it with a router at this point and would have to do by hand which will mean mondo sanding to make it look right. But theres plenty of meat on that part if I do.





So I'm pretty stoked I'll be able to save this one piece body. Here it is with a little naptha to show the color. I think I'm just going to finish the back as is with no stain.


And last of all a shot of the side of this thing. The piece I used for the top had some crazy deep figuring on it but it was orientated the wrong way for a traditional flame top. It doesn't really show much on the top but the sides of this thing are awesomely flame-o-rific. Because of the less than ideal thickness of the top I plan on binding the sides but this figuring really makes me with I could just to a faux style binding on the sides.

Well thats it for today. The next installment will most likely be hacking into that one piece neck. Till then thanks for looking.

[ScottR]

Nice job on the back carve, that looks sweet. I do believe I'm going to go the machine hex head and insert route on my cover this time as well, I like that. The thing about back carves like yours is different radius amounts can be used depending on what looks best with the carve in that area. I'd do it with sandpaper.....maybe even start with that surform.

It looks like we're going to be working in parallel.

SR

[sdshirtman]

This ones moving along at decent pace although I haven't been talking that many pics.

I got my neck angle cut. I had to change the angle from 14 degrees to 12.5 because of material constraints.

Truss channel done. Last build I glued a piece of wood over the channel after I routed and installed. This time I tried to work around that.

I also decided that rather than use hand tools I'd throw it on the drill press for the recess around the truss nut. Measured several times and went at it.

You can never measure enough. About 1/2 inch from completing this recess I met some resistance. Thinking it was the bit at a weird angle I kept going. Then I realized my chuck had been chewing into the headstock and left some nasty marks about 1/4 deep.

Live and learn. I plugged it with a piece of scrap. It will be hidden with a laminate and binding. Still humbling though.

A lot of this stuff is just repetitive and mimicking my last build so I wont post the pics but here is the truss installed. I think I'm going to streamline this up and skip the filler strip this time. Been there done that and I dont see a huge benefit besides looking nice to me.

I got a little ahead of myself and roughed out the neck thickness.

Me wearing the neck pocket. I'd be lost without my workmate.

I was going to set up the router to get a super accurate cut on the neck tenon then decided to just cut the damn thing with a pull saw.

And here's where it sets after a full saturday of work.

Besides the top carve I'm kind of stuck now. I could do the recesses for the pup ears I suppose. I've been avoiding it due to funds but I have to order parts and binding now. I had the budget until my daughter had to have all four of her wisdom teeth removed last week. You can take a guess at what that cost. Even with insurance.

Anyways.

After some research I think I'm going to get the cream binding from Allparts. From what I've read the stew mac cream is kind of pink.

I'm thinking of doing a multi ply binding of Cream /Blk/Crm/Blk/crm. The only place I can find an example on a lemon burst is on a 335.

What do you guys think? I was going to laminate the smaller strips before installing but I've heard its easier to bend around curves if you install all layers at the same time. Any tips on the multi ply?

[Prostheta]

The inner cream might be redundant against a light top plus a black lam on the inside edge is a nice way to ensure a clean line after scraping your paint.

[eddiewarlock]

Looks good mate! if you're stuck at this point, you can always work on the fretboard.

That truss rod install is damn clean.

[FireFly]

Looks like a very comfey guitar in the works!

[sdshirtman]

Looks like a very comfey guitar in the works!

Thanks. I'm hoping.

The inner cream might be redundant against a light top plus a black lam on the inside edge is a nice way to ensure a clean line after scraping your paint.

I can see it both ways but I tend to agree with you. Here is one of the few examples I can find.

http://www.electricguitardiscount.com/images/12624_Gibson_Custom_CS-356_Lemonburst_CS103593_3.jpg

Looks good mate! if you're stuck at this point, you can always work on the fretboard.

That truss rod install is damn clean.

Didnt get the fretboard in till this last Friday so that option was out. . Still waiting on binding from allparts so it looks like the fretboard will have to wait till next weekend.

[sdshirtman]

More progress this weekend.

Saturday started out with a trip down to Exotic Hardwoods in Carlsbad CA. If you live close enough to visit there I highly recommend it. Here is a sample shot of one of the ends of the isles they have. Sick stuff.

I went down to see if I could find another special piece of cocobolo for the fretboard and headplate for this one as I want to save the piece I have for a different build. They had two fairly large boxes of fingerboards. One cocobolo and the other was what they called Mexican kingwood.

So I sat there for an hour on the floor and went through every single piece. It was really hard to see the pieces clearly because they were all rough sawn and coated in waxy stuff but I finally narrowed it down to these pieces.

Took em home and threw them on the planer to see what I got.

Although beautiful they're not really what I was hoping for. I'm contemplating putting them up for sale here as I can't return em. So this one will be getting an ebony fretboard.

---------------------------------------

Onto the carve. The top on this isn't as thick as I wanted to I'm taking down quite a bit on the edges.

And after some freehand router action we have steps.

This time around I decided to get a little more aggressive taking this down to a shape I wanted so I broke out the grinder with a 60grit wheel. You can screw things up pretty easily with one of these but I've logged in quite a few hours with one in my hand carving tiki's in a previous life so I felt pretty comfortable using it. I'm really glad I did too. I easily probably shaved off 2-3 hours by doing so. I use mine in conjunction with a router speed controller which allows you to ramp it down to a controllable speed. I wouldn't use one without that little gizmo.

Nothing more relaxing than carving old school.

And the results. The recurves have to be dialed in a bit with a scraper but here is the general shape. I skipped the PRS type cutout on the lower horn on this one and I'm liking it better.

Over all it took 4 hours to get here from a flat top vs. 8 or 9 hours last build. Amazing what some good tools and a little bit of past experience will do.

I should have my binding in this week so I hope to get busy with some inlay and my fretboard next week.

Thanks for lookin.

[Prostheta]

Might take you up on those boards. I think shipping will be a complete nightmare though. PM me.

[ScottR]

I could spend hours in a hardwood shop. I love cocobolo and it makes awesome fretboards.......but there is something about an ebony board that is hard to beat. Especially with a figured top and headstock cap. It's something classy looking holding the flashier stuff together. Like a black tie with a tux maybe.

Nothing more relaxing than carving old school.

Amen brother.

Skipping the PRS style cutout on the lower horn does preserve the lines of your design. And they are very nice lines indeed. I wonder if you'll miss it when you play it.

SR

[YetzerHarah]

Watch out for Tropical Exotic Hardwoods if you use credit cards, I had one hell of a time explaining why there was "Tropical Exotic H" on my credit card bill.

[sdshirtman]

I could spend hours in a hardwood shop. I love cocobolo and it makes awesome fretboards.......but there is something about an ebony board that is hard to beat. Especially with a figured top and headstock cap. It's something classy looking holding the flashier stuff together. Like a black tie with a tux maybe.

Nothing more relaxing than carving old school.

Amen brother.

Skipping the PRS style cutout on the lower horn does preserve the lines of your design. And they are very nice lines indeed. I wonder if you'll miss it when you play it.

SR

I havent uses any cocobolo yet but I plan to on one of my next builds. I have that stunner piece I posted somewhere around here and I have another matching piece I cut down into binding. So one of these days.

Watch out for Tropical Exotic Hardwoods if you use credit cards, I had one hell of a time explaining why there was "Tropical Exotic H" on my credit card bill.

Thats funny. Just checked my statement and they left off the "H".

Might take you up on those boards. I think shipping will be a complete nightmare though. PM me.

I'm not sure it would be worth it but PM sent.

[sdshirtman]

Dont have my camera with mebut here's a minor update with the pics I do have at work with me.

I built a very simple sled for my fretsaw blade that I bought last year. This is the first time I've had a chance to try it out. The trickiest part was making the rails fit in the channel and having them tight enough to not have any side to side play and at the same time not be so tight that they don't glide smoothly.

I wasn't thinking about my nut when I cut the truss rod channel and routed all the way past the ledge. Heres my fix.

Took a scrap piece of mahogany and drilled a hole. Cut it in half and started sanding till it fit. I think next time I'm just going to use a gouge again.

Crappy pic but the fretboard is slotted and trimmed for binding.

After a lot of contemplating on whether to do milti-ply binding on the fretboard or not I decided on a single piece of cream. I'm still contemplating whether I should do multi ply on the body or just match the fretboard. Decisions decisions decisions.

Anyways these were taken over a week ago. I worked on the inlay all last weekend and I still dont even have all the routing done. I'll post some pics soon but let me just say now I know why people like do one piece block inlays.