Cthulhu

[komodo]

[ScottR]

Are your eyes vibrating yet?

SR

[komodo]

2 hours ago, ScottR said:

Are your eyes vibrating yet?

SR

I quite enjoy it. Tomorrow my shipment of new blades should arrive, all Swiss, roundback Grobet. This should increase production by 582%. I'll probably saw right through all of the pearl, glue down another set and do a second Cthulhu, then continue on through the bench and most of my tool tabletops, through the wall into the living room, up the stairs, out the roof and into the woods. The trees will keep me busy for awhile.

[ScottR]

11 minutes ago, komodo said:

I quite enjoy it. Tomorrow my shipment of new blades should arrive, all Swiss, roundback Grobet. This should increase production by 582%. I'll probably saw right through all of the pearl, glue down another set and do a second Cthulhu, then continue on through the bench and most of my tool tabletops, through the wall into the living room, up the stairs, out the roof and into the woods. The trees will keep me busy for awhile.

That's awesome!

SR

[komodo]

[ScottR]

How many of those do you cut at one sitting?

SR

[Bizman62]

46 minutes ago, ScottR said:

How many of those do you cut at one sitting?

Exactly! Every day there seems to be new bits and pieces worth half a dozen frets!

[marcelguitars]

That is so beautifull, whow.

Can't wait to see the final result!

[komodo]

@marcelguitars Thanks! It's gonna be awhile, lol.

I'm pretty sure I've taken a picture each session and posted it. The first day I did three larger ones, the next I think I did some straighter ones but then a curly one or two also. If I have more time, or am doing straight ones I can do quite a bit. There isn't a ton left to do, but they are fussier and will take the small blades - which means slower and more blade breaking. I'm glad I saved them for now though, as I'm in a groove. But my thoughts are flooded with "now I have to excavate the board" ACK!

[komodo]

Made a little ramp jig to do a multiscale compound scarf. The ramps are 10 degrees, and the treble side is raised up 1/4” higher which makes the scarf follow the angle of the nut. It got rough on the end as I didn’t take into consideration that as you go deeper, the sled starts farther back. Because the whole jig wasn’t long enough, the sled dropped off at the end cut. Easy clean up, then I’ll glue the head plate on with West Systems. 

I head scratched over clamping, decided a couple screws into the waste wood on the sides was solid and easy.

[komodo]

Compound scarf complete.

I measured and planned and measured and planned and STILL almost messed it up. This all came from one cocobolo board. It looked and measured like it was enough, and I have a full scale plan. Once you make the scarf cut to take the headstock area, that’s it. So I measured that a ton to account for the amount of surface area added to the neck and taken from the headstock face. I thought I had extra on the headstock and neck butt end, but ended up JUST enough and slightly short on the headstock. Maybe 1/2”. I can either change the headstock shape slightly or graft on a tiny piece (probably do this), but holy cow.

Cocobolo is Dalbergia retusa, a true rosewood. The dust is not forgiving, 100% mask, 100% of the time. Even then, people work it for years, and all of the sudden - BAM - sensitivity to it. I’ve used it for years and I’m good so far! There won’t be tons of it to even use any more.

[mistermikev]

it's not nearly as impressive if you do that on accident huh?  asking for a friend. 

seriously tho... that took some doin'.

[komodo]

I just read what I wrote and it hardly makes sense.

The board was a fixed length. Normally, I would make one scarf cut with a tablesaw, flip it over and glue it down to make the neck.

Here, because of the compound scarf, I cut off what I needed for the head then ripped that to thickness (the yellow area). The red area is tossed. Then the neck went into the scarf jig and cut the compound angle. The head was then glued on, and the final cut (blue line) got rid of the waste. That cut extends the neck face up to the nut. The two little blue lines show where the nut would be, and how far the head plate had to be to keep the neck thickness. I thought I had a final head stock face length calculated, but was still short.  The compound scarf complicated everything. If the board had been longer, there would’ve been no issue.

[Prostheta]

That makes sense to me anyway. Even a slight facing operation on the fingerboard gluing face can lose you several mm from the headstock face length. Economical stock use on compound scarfs is a challenge at best, setup for disaster at worst. Sometimes wasting excess is better than wasting all through errors creeping up on ya.

[komodo]

Yeah, I thought I had slight excess on the tail end as well as the headstock. Ended up being 1/2" short on the headstock face on  the pointy bit, and maybe 1/8"-1/4" on one corner of the necks butt end (the necks butt ends at an angle, and will be recessed underneath the neck pup). The butt can have a graft that's hidden. I'm considering ways to do a small graft on the headtock tip that is part of the contour or design.

Next step is routing truss channel. It's a spoke wheel and the butt end which I've never done before - so considering ways I can muck that up as well.

In other news - tiny sand through on the back of the Black Queen. It's in an unstained clear ash area, so I'm just going to give the whole thing some overall heavy coats. Then hang while I get back to the cthulhu inlay.

 

[komodo]

Nothing exciting really. I’ve been trying to take my time on smaller stuff, devil is in the details. Routed truss channel, still need to do the fretboard hole for the wheel. 

I’ve made a pickguard I like better than the guitar I’m copying, printed it out and glued it down to a piece of masonite. Protip - arturo fuente cigar box lid is masonite. Lol. I’ll cut that out to get exact fit, then transfer to MDF.

Made a a pup jig using the fencing method (thanks @Prostheta) then spent awhile doing test routes in scrap pine for fitting using a bushing guide. I had two layers on credit card scraps around the pup which ended up being too much, so I taped a layer of card back onto the inner jig surfaces. Real good now. These are Fluence Tosin Abasi model, and I’m super stoked to try them. The result of all of this will be a fighter jet of a guitar that I will not know how to fly .....but hey, fighter jet! And I can’t die playing with it.

I’ve gone in circles in my head about doing this body design. I’ve only built my own designs so far, but had this inlay and an 8-string planned already. Whatever I come up with I won’t like as much, so screw it.

[komodo]

A little farther. 

[ScottR]

That is going to be sexy.!!!!

I got so used to seeing your inlay laid out on the fretboard, that this naked shot sort of stunned me.

SR

[komodo]

Today’s operation went perfectly. The patient is doing just fine.

[Andyjr1515]

I spent some proper time this weekend catching up with this. 

I was fascinated by how you sorted that scarf and so I sat with two pieces of wood in my hands for quite some time, holding them together at various angles, shaking my head and muttering quietly to myself.  After 5 weeks lockdown, MrsAndyjr1515 assumed that I was suffering from Covid 19 cabin fever, hid the knives and locked herself in her bedroom.

Her fears were confirmed when I burst into hysterical laughter and banged on her door shouting "I've got it!  I can see it!  Come out and look! It's genius! Those sharp edges...they are just at the right angle!  Come and look!"

It took sometime to explain it all to the SWAT team.  And I don't think they REALLY understood...

[komodo]

Doesn’t look like a lot, but jeebuz that was a lot of cutting. I think my blade is dull and I used one that was too big (what I had). The ash is 1-3/4” and the coco is hard. The compound scarf helped nothing as I got it to rough width and did the headstock.

Funny thing, Mrs Komodo usually doesn't give two shits about anything I’m building (“looks good” aka ‘that’s what’s been keeping you down there” ), but she likes this one.

[Bizman62]

35 minutes ago, komodo said:

but she likes this one

I can't think of anyone who wouldn't.

[ScottR]

2 hours ago, komodo said:

Funny thing, Mrs Komodo usually doesn't give two shits about anything I’m building (“looks good” aka ‘that’s what’s been keeping you down there” ), but she likes this one

The only predictable things about wives is they're unpredictable.

SR

[komodo]

This design started with an Ibanez signature model with Tosin Abasi. I believe the design was Abasi's, and when Abasi wanted to do versions (6, 7, 8 string, woods, options), Ibanez said not really. Abasi left on good terms with his design and started Abasi Concepts. The versions here, was a custom double cutaway prototype by Vikk guitars for Abasi. Abasi had it for a year and never committed to anything so Vikk got it back and recently auctioned it on Ebay. It's a one off, but that was exactly when I was doing the Cthulhu inlay. My previous two body designs for this guitar ended up being 6 string something elses (the dragon and a bass), and when I saw the double cut proto my heart kinda skipped a beat. So, here we are. 

Differences are: insane inlay, cocobolo neck, slightly different multi-scale (less I believe), a one piece bridge (original is single string bridges), a redesigned pickguard, and slightly different wiring/switching (two minis vs 5-way).

[komodo]

  clamp forest