How about a "modernistic" '58 V ?

[Blackdog]

The advantage of glueing to the table is that squeezeout doesn't drip down the sides of the headstock. Ask me how I figured this one out. ;-)

Pure genius !

[Blackdog]

One final installment before the holidays…

Sides were sanded clean of all routing marks.

And the roundover was done on all the edges. For this I used a 3/16" (4.75mm) radius roundover bit, because by the time you finish the sanding you end up with something closer to 6mm anyway. If you start with a 6mm the rounding may become too pronounced in the end.

Now I'll be gone for some days, have fun and make a lot of sawdust in the meantime !

[Prostheta]

The advantage of glueing to the table is that squeezeout doesn't drip down the sides of the headstock. Ask me how I figured this one out. ;-)

Pure genius !

The focus was more meant to be on inferring how I originally found out how not to orient it in glueup ;-)

I learn.

[Blackdog]

The advantage of glueing to the table is that squeezeout doesn't drip down the sides of the headstock. Ask me how I figured this one out. ;-)

Pure genius !

The focus was more meant to be on inferring how I originally found out how not to orient it in glueup ;-)

I learn.

I know ! Isn't that the way we all learn ?

[Prostheta]

I guess so, however sharing these low points are always useful. I certainly sidestepped a few thanks to other people describing their methods and mistakes. Sometimes it's the little things that you miss which cause the biggest PITAs.

[Blackdog]

Happy New Year everyone !

Hope you had a great time during the Holidays Season !

I will try to resume the posting here. Things are getting busy at my day job, so it may be a bit intermittent.

After the body work I showed you already, the shaping of the neck begun.

I do a rough neck shaping, removing as much wood as possible but leaving a couple of mm of the edges untouched. This is to retain the taper on the fretboard gluing surface unmolested. Once the fretboard is glued in place, more wood is removed from the neck sides and the curve merges with the fretboard. But in the first shaping is when most of the wood support is removed and I leave it like that for some weeks to see if the neck remains flat or if there is any movement that needs to be corrected.

These days I do most of the shaping with rasps, to remove the bulk of the wood, and then coarse (60-80) sandpaper for the "finer" shaping. Finally scrapers and finer sandpaper round up the process.

I did a preliminary merging of the neck heel with the body shoulders after this, just to have a feeling of what it will look like.

[Blackdog]

Before the fretboard could be glued in place I needed to get the inlay on the headstock sorted out. The fretboard would get in the way when I had to use the dremel routing base.

No fancy inlays this time, just the Blackdog Feathers Logo on the headstock.

This first step is to glue the pieces in place using some cellulose sanding sealer (easy to unglue later).

Then I scribe with a scalpel around the pieces to have very clear marks for the routing. I use a Dremel with the StewMac routing base and inlay bits to make the recesses and glued the pearl pieces in place with epoxy mixed with cocobolo dust:

And, once set, everything is sanded down flush.

Once the inlay was done, I enlarged the tuner holes accordingly and did a quick fit check:

[Blackdog]

The geometry between the pickguard, the control cavity and the tailpiece is a bit critical. I bought the tailpiece from a parts vendor in Germany (Crazyparts.de, Crox guitars in the UK also sell the same one), it is supposedly "vintage correct". The same vendors also sell the pickguards, but I opted to make my own according to my plans to be sure that everything will fit properly.

I made the template, and this is the result. The bevels were cut using the same template and a 45* bevel cutting bit.

I also bought some vintage-white/black/white pick guard material that I have just received. This material will be more correct for a 58 V, so I made another one.

[Prostheta]

That's really turning out well. I do sort of thing that the truss rod cover looks a bit out of place, however I've sure that once the headcap is finished it will tie up better.

[Blackdog]

That's really turning out well. I do sort of thing that the truss rod cover looks a bit out of place, however I've sure that once the headcap is finished it will tie up better.

I know what you mean. I have mixed feelings about it too.

I'll see how the head plate looks under lacquer first. It should darken significantly. But if the TRC looks too out of place I can always make another one in cocobolo, probably abandoning the bell shape too. That will always be a sure bet.

[Prostheta]

Exactly. Once the darker lines of the headcap go under the finish, the cover is going to tie up the colour and gloss. I'd be tempted to age the plastic with tea if it were the only bit of plastic on there. Easy to do compared to a huge pickguard!

[Blackdog]

Exactly. Once the darker lines of the headcap go under the finish, the cover is going to tie up the colour and gloss. I'd be tempted to age the plastic with tea if it were the only bit of plastic on there. Easy to do compared to a huge pickguard!

The pick guard (if I end up using the white one, likely scenario) is actually parchment white. So maybe a bit of ageing of the white part of the TRC would make it match better. I'll see when the time comes...

[Blackdog]

So, carrying on with the story.

To glue the fretboard in place I use pins to achieve a positive quick positioning and also to avoid slippage when clamping.

As you know, working with hot hide glue is a bit of a pain. You have to be real quick.

Basically, I drill small, shallow holes on the back of the fretboard (one close to the nut and another close to the end) and insert short pins cut from nails. Then I position the fretboard over the neck where I want it and press down to mark the position of the pins and drill the equivalent holes on the neck. Then check that the fretboard is properly aligned when the pins insert in their respective holes. This process is not terribly accurate, and the fretboard may not end up perfectly aligned. If that happens, I drill new holes, move the pins and try again.

The fretboard is thoroughly cleaned and glued to the neck using hot hide glue. I warm up the space around with a heater-blower. This also slightly warm the gluing surfaces up. Usually my wife also helps with a heat gun at the low setting and from a little distance while I spread the glue on both surfaces.

I use a long radiusing block with some foam padding as a caul, and clamp everything evenly and "reasonably" tight to squeeze the excess glue out. That fancy bronze colored thing at the left is my glue pot

With the fretboard set the final shaping of the neck can take place. I'm leaving this one slightly rounded for a fat '58 kind of feel. Front to back, the thickness is the same I used for the '59 LP necks (0.89" at 1st fret, .98" at 12th), but the shoulders are a bit more rounded. I have noticed that on the original Gibsons of the late 50s the necks had a tendency to be more crude-shaped on the cheaper models. I based the profile I used on the 59 LPs on a the neck of a real 59 LP Custom that was a delight to play. But the necks of some vintage Juniors and Specials felt like a tree in comparison. It's amazing how the actual profile affects the feel, even when the actual thickness is about the same.

(By the way, all these pictures are from the archive. The guitar woodwork is finished by now, and I have assembled it to check fitness of all the parts and specifically to test the feel of the neck. It's not really THAT fat, I'm happy to say that it is very comfortable to play.)

With the neck in place, I use a laser level to project the fretboard side lines on the top and determine the true centerline of the neck. The tailpiece and bridge will be aligned to this, and pretty much always there's a slight difference with the body centerline. In this case I found that the error at the bridge position is about 1mm, which I consider pretty good.

After this the frets got leveled and crowned. I didn't bother polishing the frets at this stage.

Coming up next (when I find a bit of time…) is the positioning of the tailpiece. That one was interesting.

[Blackdog]

Before gluing the neck I needed to drill the through-body holes for the strings. Doing all this drilling is a lot easier if I only need to move around the body.

First step is finding the correct position of the tailpiece on the body top. I already knew where my actual centerline was, but doublechecking for the ouside strings' path was more accurate.

Using again the laser level I simulated the path of the two E strings, from the nut to the tailpiece. The pickguard also needs to be in place to find the optimal longitudinal position of the tailpiece, so that everything fits together nicely.

With the tailpiece correctly positioned I clearly marked the center of the three tailpiece mounting holes that I would then use for template alignment.

Using the actual tailpiece I made a template for the string holes with oversized (but centerered) holes at the mounting screws positions.

I positioned the template on the top (fixed with some double sided tape) visually aligning the large holes with the markings I made on the body, being careful not to be thrown off by parallax.

Then drilled through the template the 1/8" holes to a depth of around 20mm.

[Blackdog]

The key for drilling through-body holes that are correctly aligned at both sides is to drill in two steps to avoid the drill bit deviations due to different wood grain densities. Limba is rather soft and the risk is lower than what it would be on maple or even mahogany. But still, I like the ferrules on the back to line up nicely.

So I applied the same technique usually applied for Telecasters, after all, it's exactly the same problem. So this part is probably old news for the Tele-builders out there.

After drilling roughly half way from the top with a 3.2mm drill bit and using the template I set up a base on the drill press with a 3mm diameter pin slightly shorter than the drilled holes. Fixed the base with the pin accurately aligned with the same 3.2mm drill bit I used before.

Set the drill press so that with the chuck in the upper position there is more than enough clearance to slip the body between the pin and the drill bit, and set the drill depth stop so that the tip of the drill bit ends up just short of the top of the pin.

Then, positioned the body face down, inserting the pin in the existing string holes on the top and drilled from the back.

Then repeated the same process with the larger drill bit for the ferrules' recess, with a depth stop set to leave the ferrules flush with the back. The end result is perfectly aligned holes on both sides.

Just did a quick check with the tailpiece mounted on the top using the mounting screws, and with the pick guard in place, and it all fits nicely.

[ScottR]

That fancy bronze colored thing at the left is my glue pot

Hide glue fondue.

This has been going brilliantly as usual, Luis. Your vintage accurate stuff is a delight, but I'm also a big fan of your own creative designs. Have you done any of those since we last saw you?

SR

[Prostheta]

Very wise precautions about the HHG. I've noted a lot of people that use it who report bad experiences neglect to have a warm working environment. At the very least, you can be confident that the HHG "sucks" the pieces together a bit as it crystallises. Worst comes to the worst, you could reactivate the glue with a heat mat or steam iron but this is academic. You nailed it.

Oh yes, take care not to shine that laser at the CCD on your camera. Ask me how I know.

[Blackdog]

That fancy bronze colored thing at the left is my glue pot

Hide glue fondue.

This has been going brilliantly as usual, Luis. Your vintage accurate stuff is a delight, but I'm also a big fan of your own creative designs. Have you done any of those since we last saw you?

SR

Thanks, Scott.

I have a couple of designs I'm working on, but haven't finished any of the Blackdogs lately.

Right now I'm also working on a LP Custom for a (very patient) friend, but got a bit hooked with this V when I found that piece of Korina.

The "new" designs I'm working on are a fully hollow BD Doublecut, a concept alike the PRS Hollowbody, i.e. carved top and back, in- and outside, on a normal sized body, and sound holes.

I've already developed the blueprints and designed the templates for the internal carving of the top/back, but still need to make them.

The other design that I have in the pipeline is pretty much the same as the BD Singlecut, but with a twist. The original BD SC is more along the lines of a PRS, with a thicker top, thinner body and 25" scale. In the end it does not feel or sound like a Les Paul, why should it ?

So the "new" one (I call it BD SCLP) is the Singlecut but with all those elements that make the Les Paul feel and sound: thicker mahogany back, thinner hard maple top, shorter scale with the R18 fret spacing, 17* headstock angle, new headstock design and LP-ish type of electronics and hardware. The idea is to achieve a Les Paul in disguise. Blueprints are ready, proper woods are available, I just need to start. The hard maple top is not going to be bookmatched so it is likely to end up as a Goldtop, it has some flame, though, and will look nice on the exposed sides of the top (faux-binding).

[Blackdog]

Very wise precautions about the HHG. I've noted a lot of people that use it who report bad experiences neglect to have a warm working environment. At the very least, you can be confident that the HHG "sucks" the pieces together a bit as it crystallises. Worst comes to the worst, you could reactivate the glue with a heat mat or steam iron but this is academic. You nailed it.

Oh yes, take care not to shine that laser at the CCD on your camera. Ask me how I know.

Yes, HHG can be tricky !

I had my experience with a badly glued fretboard and I learned my lesson. Fortunately the glue joint can be undone fairly easily, without damaging the parts. And I like the fact that it cristalizes when dry and does not remain rubbery like the modern glues do.

That is why I keep using HHG for the most critical joints even on my designs: fretboard to neck, and neck to body. For all the minor joints I use good old Titebond.

Oh, and thanks for the tip ! I never thought the laser could do any damage to the camera...

[ScottR]

Those two designs will do nicely! I'm looking forward to them.

SR

[Blackdog]

Those two designs will do nicely! I'm looking forward to them.

SR

I will resume one or both of these sometime soon. I'll make a thread here so I can share it with you guys. I think the Hollowbody will be more interesting, because from the building point of view the other one is just a Les Paul….

[Blackdog]

Continuing with the tale of the V...

Nut Setting.

For the nut I had a choice of materials. I have the usual Graphtech Tusq that I have successfully used in most of my builds. I have some nylon blanks that would have been "vintage correct". I have bone blanks which are usally considered quite good. And I have a couple of blanks of "allegedly" real mammooth ivory that I got for free some time ago… What can I say, it looks just like bone to me, but decided to give one of these a try.

Thicknessed and inserted in the neck slot I scribed the outline of the fretboard on the nut with a scalpel.

Roughly saped the nut with files and sandpaper and finally adjusted the ends to the fretboard sides.

Glued in place with a bit of CA glue.

There's something between CA glue and mammoths… It grabs this material like there's no tomorrow ! I was lucky that I dropped the nut in the slot in just the right spot, because there was no merging to reset the position at all, it just went solid the moment it made contact !

Now about the anti-slip rubber pad….

The V shape is notoriously uncomfortable (make that outright impossible) to play while sitting down. It just slips off your lap. The clever guys at Gibson back in 58 noticed the problem on the first prototypes and came up with an equally clever solution for that.

They went straight to the factory warehouse and took some ribbed rubber floormat material and glued a piece on the side that supposedly sits on the lap !

Then end result: It still slips ! So players willing to play the V while sitting down just straddle the guitar over the right leg and that more or less makes it playable… Like uncle Warren does here:

This feature was replicated on the re-issues of '83, and it's also found on the modern Historic Collection ones. Even the Tokai copies of the '80s had it !

It's clear that the looks of a proper '58 Flying V would not be complete without the anti-slip rubber atrocity on there.

So a man ought to do what a man ought to do…. off I went to a car-stuff store nearby and bought me some rubber floormat material, ribbed on one side with the "vintage correct" pitch of 9 ribs per inch. Yeah baby ! You have to be thorough with these things ! For around 4 euros I got enough rubber for maybe 20 of these….

The anti-slip pad sits in a recess on the body side, so a template had to be made. The little fence on the template has been carefully located to align with the guitar body and center the recess on the side accurately.

Used the template to mark the back of the rubber material and cut a test piece of the pad with a cutter and scissors, and I got lucky: it matched the template really well.

[Blackdog]

I did a test run of the recess on a pice of mahogany with a very shallow (1/8" cutting lenght) template router bit to find the proper depth that will keep just the ribbing of the rubber portruding.

Everything went well, so on to the actual guitar body (template held in place with some double sided tape):

And we have the anti-slip rubber atrocity sorted out.

The thing will be glued over the finish. I'll definitely keep the gluing reversible, I reserve the right to eventually replace it with something more elegant down the road.

[verhoevenc]

Why the foam on the radius block for gluing? Is this purely cause you already have frets in the board? Or because you've found it helps create a nice tight joint at the edge?

Loos great. Always amazed at how clean your work is!

Chris

[Blackdog]

Why the foam on the radius block for gluing? Is this purely cause you already have frets in the board? Or because you've found it helps create a nice tight joint at the edge?

Loos great. Always amazed at how clean your work is!

Chris

Hey Chris !

Thanks for the nice words.

In this particular case the foam is needed because the frets are already installed.

But even if there are no frets, I would still use the foam as it will indeed provide a more even pressure all the way to the edges.

Besides, this long radius block is far from perfect, I made it myself with a slanted table and the safe-T-planer. So the radius surface is not exactly circular but very slightly elliptic and not perfectly finished either.

I used it in the past for the coarse wood removal of the fretboards, then for the finer radiusing I would switch to the Stewmac 8" blocks.

Today I only use this block as a caul, for coarse radiusing I use the router jig I've shown some posts back.