icedfirefly Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Man, the shape of your headstock is sooooo perfect... I was planning on doing a similar shape, since the only headstock that i like is the Ibanez one, but wanted to change the tip of it, and yours look pretty close to what i had in my mind! Anyway, i`m still so far from doing a neck that i have more than enough time to desing some ideas for the headstock. And the wood for the top of the body it`s insanely good!!!! if i red right, it`s eucaliptus? my old neiborhood was full of them... Cheers!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Is that frost I see on your fingertips? SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted July 13, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Man, the shape of your headstock is sooooo perfect... I was planning on doing a similar shape, since the only headstock that i like is the Ibanez one, but wanted to change the tip of it, and yours look pretty close to what i had in my mind! Anyway, i`m still so far from doing a neck that i have more than enough time to desing some ideas for the headstock. And the wood for the top of the body it`s insanely good!!!! if i red right, it`s eucaliptus? my old neiborhood was full of them... Cheers!! Thanks. Surprised to hear that you have eucalyptus growing locally. It's not normally used for anything more than hardware store-supplied building materials down here, but big burl slabs are fairly easy to come by. Is that frost I see on your fingertips? SR I hereby declare myself to be the "Chapped Chap". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted July 26, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 26, 2015 Headstock bound: But is it art?: Lining up the neck pocket: A little bit of tape applied to the side pieces after the neck has been removed ensures a super snug fit when the router is run through: Check fit of the pickups: Used a bit of spare time to start on the doppelganger. This one is getting Lace Alumitones. No need for a battery compartment, hence I can put in an extra chamber where I would normally put the battery box at the bottom of the body: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted July 26, 2015 Report Share Posted July 26, 2015 That's a big chunk of acrylic right there. What's that, 8-10mm thick, 50cm square? I've been pricing up sheet stock here for our germinating laser-cutting business and as a one-to-few use template, that's a big bit of cash right there. How was that made anyway? It looks like you had it CNCed rather than laser? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted July 26, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 26, 2015 All the acrylic I get are offcuts from the local waste recycling centre; throw-away pieces that probably originally came from a glazier. That piece was about 300x600x10 when I bought it. Paid probably $20 for it at the time. Any time I go to the recycling depot I check to see what perspex offcuts are available and grab some if there's some useful sizes. No CNC here (yet). All I do is make up some guide templates using thin MDF or plywood, score the template pattern onto the perspex sheet with a scribe, cut and rasp away 99% of the shapes and finish off with the router+pattern bit+original MDF template. Provided I don't ask the router to work the acrylic too hard it shapes just as easy as timber, although the "shavings" become statically charged and end up sticking all over me. If you look back up the page where the neck is clamped into the red vise, under the workbench you can see the plywood guide template I made up to create the clear perspex master template for the body chambers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted July 27, 2015 Report Share Posted July 27, 2015 But is it art?: Indeed it is. Everytime I see nice neat rows of Irwins, I think of the marching hammers from "The Wall". I was admiring your workbench and noticed that template. I didn't notice that it was plywood though; I thought it was acrylic with the masking still on. And lest it gets lost in all the details, this build is going to be killer! SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted July 27, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2015 Cheers Scott. Gerald Scarfe's artwork on The Wall is a classic. The marching Irwins is a good analogy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted August 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2015 Baby steps this week. Headstock cap and binding channels on neck no. 2 underway: The real reason behind my lack of progress - new tool day. Picked up a baby CNC machine from one of the numerous ebay Chinese sellers. This one has a usable bed of 200mm x 300mm. Mechanically it seems surprsingly robust. Electronics-wise it's pretty rudimentary. The controller board only has a parallel port interface which limits the connectivity somewhat, but the board has a number of unterminated solder pads for things like limit switches and control outputs. Spent the best part of a day retrofitting software control of the spindle. Next task - installing limit switches to the axes so that I don't do anything stoopit, like mash the gantry through the end stops. It may be small in size, but for what I'm planning for it (control cavity covers, smaller routing templates, headstock inlays, trussrod covers etc) it will fit the bill nicely. Test milling the logo into a pseudo headstock cap: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted August 3, 2015 Report Share Posted August 3, 2015 New toys! Ohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboy! SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
verhoevenc Posted August 3, 2015 Report Share Posted August 3, 2015 That's one nice piece for "test" work!Side note: Be careful, looks like your last letter might get covered by the tuner's washer.Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted August 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2015 I'm still experimenting with it at this stage, so mistakes and tweaks will be expected for a while before I commit to some real cuts. In retrospect I could have lifted the text up about 1mm - the "A" is bang on the centreline, but the tail of the "g" dips lower, so the net effect is that the complete block of text looks like it's sitting low on the headstock. Spacing of the letters could also tighten up a bit to save some horizontal realestate. Need better cutters too. The ones that came with the unit are fine for learning the ropes, but far from ideal for inlay work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted August 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 12, 2015 Doesn't look like much yet: But that'll work: Time to start making something real. A control cavity cover seems like a good start: Success! Just need to trim off the four little tabs on the edges that held the piece in place while cutting. Kinda reminds me of breaking the pieces off the packaging frame thingies in an Airfix kit: Oh, and this happened: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted August 13, 2015 Report Share Posted August 13, 2015 Excellent! The new toy is working out nicely then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted August 13, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2015 Seems to be. Had a bit of a struggle trying to get the axes to move smoothly until I adjusted some of the power management settings in BIOS. Getting used to Linux hasn't been too difficult so far. By and large it behaves pretty much as Windows does. Using LinuxCNC (formerly EMC2) to drive the mill. The machine came shipped with the demo of Mach3 but I couldn't get it to pick up my parallel port. LinuxCNC seemed to work straight away once the stepper config was set up (notwithstanding performance tweaking of the PC) so I've made the move to Ubuntu for the CAD/CAM/CNC side of things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted August 30, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 30, 2015 After an extended hiatus due to work and other commitments, I've finally been able to get things restarted on these.With the CNC I can now make covers and cavities that match perfectly. Taking the drawing file for the cover and shrinking the outline by the diameter of the endmill (minus a bit) it's dead easy to make up a routing template to match the cover:Sadly the rest of my progress has been less than impressive. The sister of the first guitar is proving to be an evil twin. Having drilled the side dots in the second neck, I wasn't happy with the alignment, so I decided to remove the binding and re-attach a fresh strip to allow me to start the side dots again. While the binding was off I thought I'd quickly clean out the fret slots and doublecheck the radius of the board. Lo and behold, the radius at the edges where the binding was attached was too small (maybe I rushed the initial radius job?). No problem, says I. I'll just run the radius block up the fretboard again to fix the radius and reset the depth of the fretslots afterwards. The fretboard is plenty thick enough to cope with losing 0.5mm up the middle.Curse no. 1: managed to sand through several of the fretmarkers, so had to drill out about 6 of them and refit new ones.With the radius corrected, fret slots recut to correct depth and a fresh piece of binding applied the neck is ready to be fitted to the body and a neck pocket cut. Time for the pocket jig:Curse no. 2: 1mm gap on the treble side of the pocket after the routing was complete. Neck now slops from side to side in a big way. No idea why I didn't pick up that the neck was loose in the jig while setting it up. Luckily was able to find an offcut of myrtle top to line the pocket with and recut the pocket to the correct size. There's still a slight discrepancy where some of the black flecks get cut off at the glue line, but I should be able to hide them with some careful application of black ink:Curse no. 3: While handling the neck I notice a "papery" sound while touching the new binding strip at certain points along the fretboard. Glue hasn't taken on the new binding. Binding has to come off again and fresh glue applied. Neck binding is now drying for a third time. At least it fits in the neck pocket properlyHere's where things stand after battling with it all weekend. I can hear the one on the left laughing at me: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted August 30, 2015 Report Share Posted August 30, 2015 The important thing is that you knew they could be recovered and did so perfectly. Thankfully it was on the treble side and not the one you look at all of the time. What happened with the fretmarkers? Not sunk deeply enough or too thin to hold the radius? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted August 30, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 30, 2015 I tried to be clever and used the offcuts from every alternate fretmarker I'd made. Those offcut markers were too shallow to survive being sanded a second time around. Clever = not so clever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted August 30, 2015 Report Share Posted August 30, 2015 Gretzky is denied! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted August 30, 2015 Report Share Posted August 30, 2015 Nice save Andrew. I think we all are destined to have a build with demon possessed wood at some point.Maybe some dryads cross over to the dark side.....SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted August 31, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2015 I'm a bit concerned that body No. 1 is picking up some bad vibes from No. 2. The big epoxy fill on the top hasn't dried clear. I'm hoping that most of it will be removed during the top carving process, but if not I think I'm going to have to dig out the opaque epoxy and refill it with black-dyed epoxy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted August 31, 2015 Report Share Posted August 31, 2015 Is it still cold in your shop? It may need to warm up a bit to clear out. You probably should separate them though. Evil wood spirits have a long reach.SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted September 4, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2015 Temperature is definitely starting to warm up down here, so I'll have to start blaming the wood demons or my general ineptitude for any future problems! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted September 5, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 5, 2015 Continuing the usage of the CNC, I made a quick drilling template for the bridge out of of some scrap 2mm perspex from a cheap picture frame:And then over to the drill press to set out the through-body string ferrules. The nice thing about these ABM saddles is that you can string them as through-body or top-loading. I'm leaving my options open at the moment and fitting the bodies out for both alternatives:Counterboring the ferrules with the Stewmac peghead reamer for a flush fit look:Curses continue on the Evil Twin. Forgot to route the wiring channels for the pickups before gluing the top up. Had to drill with a long bit through one of the chambers for the neck pickup, and then fish around with a piece of wire until I could pass it through the two holes at either end. Will leave the wire in place for now so I can use it as a draw wire when fitting the pickup leads:Roughing out the heel comfort carve: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted September 5, 2015 Report Share Posted September 5, 2015 I think that this is where a lot of people fail to grasp the usefulness of CNC to the home maker; the ability to make workholding jigs, layout templates and all manner of small items that work as part of the larger process. With that CNC you could really step up the game with your Floyd Rose templating system too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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