NorthStar 8-string headless

[SwedishLuthier]

The Myka neck pocket jigg that Chris built and still have on sale. Great tool!

Neck pocket routed

A good fit

[SwedishLuthier]

Now how to locate the holes in the body to match the holes already drilled in the neck. The tool:

In the threaded bushing

Press the neck down in the neck pocket and you got some nice markings

[SwedishLuthier]

I drill the holes first from the top to back with small pilot drills

Then drill from the back with the appropriate brill bit to fit my bushings

And of cause use a bigger bit to make room for the screws. All four of them in place

[SwedishLuthier]

This is a bit of a "magic" moment for me every time I can attach the neck to the body for the first time. Its like it's becoming an instrument in that moment.

Looking very strange with that "head". Let's remedy that. I glue on the template

A bit of band sawing, sanding and mocking up with the nut blank and we have this

Now it looks much better

[SwedishLuthier]

Lastly a bit of work on the neck. I thinned it out to final thickness and taper with the Wagner Safe-T and some different thickness blocks under the neck to create the right taper (sorry, no in progress pics of that...)

And cleaned up with some sanding

Printed the template for the EndurNeck on paper and taped it to the neck

And had the shape transferred to the wood

as this is *very* different from what I normally do I will have to reinvent my methods here.

[Sancho Marino]

This is a great looking build man, very cool to see so much of your process.

Thanks for sharing!

[SwedishLuthier]

Thanks again!

Next up is the back of the neck profiling, but first I need to angel the head part so that the string locks doesn't get too hard to engage

I make a makeshift protection for the nut shelf

clamp the neck blank up, and have a go at it with rasps and files

and this is what you get (mockup with nut)

[SwedishLuthier]

Two boring picks of neck shaping, simple before

and after shots

Instead of my usual use of spokes shaves and shoeshine sanding motion I hade to use rasps and files and sanding blocks and make sure I followed the lines. Quite hard as the surfaces are to be smooth and that the angle along the neck changes with the S-curve. I got it accurate in the end.

Test-mounted the string locks and the neck is more or less ready for finish sanding (apart from fretting of cause)

[SwedishLuthier]

Measuring for the bridge(s). If you think it is hard to get the string ferrules on a tele in a straight and nice line you should try this. I had to plug and re-drill several of the holes. There is 0.5mm clearance between each tuning machine and if it is a tad off the tuner parts will grabb each other and make it impossible to tune accurately. And it will look all wonky.

Most of the base parts screwed in place

And test fitting everything

Next up is rounding over the edges, cutting the recess under the tuners, the belly-cut, the hand-cut and the arm-curt (lotsa cuts here...)

[SwedishLuthier]

Got the edges rounded over today, despite a 1.5 h power loss due to a massive thunderstorm.

And no, that was not the bit I used...

Router a relief area under the tuner parts of the bridges. Most users of this type of tuner simply cut away a part of the body. With this solution you can maintain a bit of "normal" look and still have full access to the tuners

I ended up using a round nose bit with a non-matching bearing so I had to adjust the template a bit to match. Ended up with a pretty smottoh area that is smoothed further with 80-grip paper here.

BTW I probably had one of the fancier templates as I used of-cuts from the top. Masur Birch template, not bad!

Rasped away to make for easier access for the left hand

Belly-cut marked

And cut, lots of rasping today. This surface is also smoothed with 80-grit paper

And the arm-cut done in the same way

The idea is that the darker cedar will be visible at the arm-cut, the "hand-cut" and the relief cut under the tuners. It will look quite interesting, I think.

Next up is the control cavity and most of the heavy "body building" is done

[ScottR]

It will look quite interesting, I think.

I think so too.

SR

[KnightroExpress]

Awesome! Are you going to do any additional sculpting in the tuner cutaway area?

[SwedishLuthier]

Not any planned. The idea is to have the "original" body shape that I usually do, softly rounded over and then have a few cut outs made with quite sharp and crisp lines, like something that can't be seen in the pictures, the arm cut is a very gentle roll rather than an angled surface. the edges of that roll will meet the round over with a crisp (not very sharp, that would defeat the purpose with the soft rolled arm cut...) edge. The same thing with the hand cut-out. The lines that are meeting the rounded edges will have crisp lines. I'll have to wait and see how it looks and feels with the hardware mounted to make the final decisions thou.

[SwedishLuthier]

I have made a set of templates to make the control cavity and the cover more accurate.

Start with marking the position for the holes on the front

Drill ALLTHE THREE HOLES right through the body!!! I can't believe I missed one. No biggie, but it is typically me to do so when I'm taking pictures to dokument the build...

With the body flipped over, put the template to the back and center it in the holes with something the same size as the holes

Put double stick tape on the main template and slide that over the first template

Perfectly centered

Pull out the first template and rout a recess the depth of the cover material

[SwedishLuthier]

Now a twist I have never seen with anybody else. A third template that slides down inside the main template

Like so

Drilling out the bulk first

Routing out material until the template isn't needed anymore

And finishing the recess to the right depth

Whipping out the same third template again, placing it were the cover will go

This template also has holes to help locate were to drill for the fastening screws

[SwedishLuthier]

A new template for the actual cover

I'll save you the use of Google translate. "Utsidan" means "this side out". Helps to avoid making things backwards/inside out.

Removing the bulk with the band saw and routing flush to the template on the router table. Those small plastic chips really stick to anything in the shop!

The same template also has holes to help align the screw holes

A very nice fit

[SwedishLuthier]

Got the jack hole drilled

Marked and routed for the pickups

Sometimes it can be really hard to see whats going on...

So everything is done. Now I just need to finish the sanding process and get to the finish phase.

That picture is taken outside as I brought the body out to sand it. We have excellent weather for a change (OK had so for more than a week now) and I can't be inside all day working. We had 30C (≈85F) today and have had in that range for the last ten days. Great for building up a tan, disaster for work morale.

[SwedishLuthier]

So with another week of temperatures of 33C (91F) here hasn't been much work done. I finally forced myself to do a bit anyway. The final sanding is done and I have started to apply the Tru-Oil on the body. With these temperatures the fist couple of coats cures faster than I can ally the oil! Got a few coats on the back

and the front

Finish sanded the fretboard

A drop of tung oil or two to reveal the fantastic color of the wood

and had the frets tapped in (no pics of the frets trimmed, sorry)

Now I have to finish sanding the neck, starting to apply the oil on the rest of the neck and wait for the magnets for the pickups to arrive. We are shooting for a tad weaker PAF style pickups and I only had big enough ceramic magnets for 8-string, no A5. Got a bunch of those made and on their way to me right now.

[Stu.]

This is a very interesting build. I don't thnk I could handle playing it, but the wood choices are fantastic and there's a lot of great workmanship on show!

[Prostheta]

It's been like that here too Peter. Here in Pori we hit the countries highest temp record for the year. Not entirely surprised either! 32,8°C on Monday and it's not far off today.

What flush cut side nippers are you using? I went to replace my old pair which had chipped out too much from stainless only to find out how expensive they are now. Could do with shopping around.

[RestorationAD]

It's been like that here too Peter. Here in Pori we hit the countries highest temp record for the year. Not entirely surprised either! 32,8°C on Monday and it's not far off today.

What flush cut side nippers are you using? I went to replace my old pair which had chipped out too much from stainless only to find out how expensive they are now. Could do with shopping around.

I am using Ideal 8" WireMan Diagonal Cutting Pliers w/ Angled Head ground flush and polished. They are the only pliers I have that can cut SS without chipping or dulling.

[SwedishLuthier]

Nice tip there Brett. I have to check them out. I will soon need a new pair as my old Stewmac cutters are, as Carl's apparently, pretty messed up after using them on SS. How do you prevent changing the hardening of them when grinding them? Cooling them periodically? or do they benefit from a bit of tempering (I think its called tempering...).

[Prostheta]

I doubt that messing with the temper of a certain set of cutters would yield much advantage unless you know the steel used to make the tool well. FWIW, tempering (bringing up to temperature and letting cool on their own) makes them tougher if somewhat softer. Quenching (heating to cherry red and dropping into oil, water, etc.) makes them harder but more prone to chipping. This is pretty much what ABM have been doing with that knife edge you've been discussing.

Both of your Stewmac cuttters are likely rebranded Normex tools with the price doubled. I was using Stanley end cutters (the bigger 190mm pair I think) with the face ground flush. If would highly recommend being careful not to let the steel overheat. It might be possible to do this on a Tormek wheel but there's a lot of steel to remove! Not grinding the face flush with the cutting edges (leave about 1mm or so of the front bevel) maintains a larger cutting angle. Grinding them "too flush" reduces this angle and makes chipping likely. Ask me how I know :-)

I might buy some compound action cutters rather than the simple scissor action. My hands get tired and painful after tang nipping and all of those kinds of jobs. They don't appear to be a current product though, so I should probably snag some ASAP. These are my old pair:

http://www.stanleytools.com/default.asp?CATEGORY=FATMAX&TYPE=PRODUCT&PARTNUMBER=89-875&SDesc=6-1%2F2%22+FATMAX%26%23174%3B+End+Cutting+Pliers

[RestorationAD]

Nice tip there Brett. I have to check them out. I will soon need a new pair as my old Stewmac cutters are, as Carl's apparently, pretty messed up after using them on SS. How do you prevent changing the hardening of them when grinding them? Cooling them periodically? or do they benefit from a bit of tempering (I think its called tempering...).

I did the first pair with the grinder and belt sander trying to be very careful not to heat them too much (dousing them in water while working).

No they do not benefit from getting too hot. If they turn blue while you are grinding it is too late you have lost...

+1 what Carl said about making them too flush. Mine are very close to flush but still miss by a thousandth in hopes of retaining the cutting edge strength.

I also cut the head of mine down considerably so that the actual cut is not much more than the full depth of a fret. This makes sure you are cutting as close to the pivot as you can making it easier on your hands and less prone to twisting/chipping/mangling the fret.

[Prostheta]

The ugly tools always end up being the keepers.