The Lancaster

[Prostheta]

If you've not seen it already, I uploaded a complete CAD plan of a superstrattish guitar a few months back. I decided to pick it up today since I have templates, and it's also being used as the basis for photography on a bunch of tutorials!

Let's recap....

 

So this is the plan as it stands. Pretty straightforward I think. I'll probably make one or two alterations here and there, but you wouldn't expect any less of me....

The body was cut a while back as part of an article on jigsaws. I hate those things. The blank was two pieces of black Alder. I got the wood in raw boards from a local mill and they'd been air dried for years. Since putting the blank together its been sat indoors for months. It should be good stuff to work with. It smells great!

 

Obviously, there's a lot of excess there which would benefit being trimmed with a bandsaw. Thankfully, not in any crucial areas with large amounts of unsupported grain which would cause blowout. I decided to run with it, since I've got a good feel for Alder and my cutters are always in good condition. Or at least, usually are....

The body template was printed out onto a sheet of 1/4" plywood, bandsawn to shape and hand-sanded (well, with blocks anyway) up to the lines. The perimeter was checked for smoothness where important. The straight lines around the heel were sanded with paper on a block run 90° to have assurance of good edges.

The template was a bit thin for my liking, however I didn't have much opportunity to copy it up to thicker stock this week. The first cut with my 12mm diameter 15mm long template cutter was the most difficult.

 

After this first cut at the minimum depth possible, I plunged to full depth which took about another 5-6mm. The template was then removed and the final pass took another 1/4". Finally I chucked up a bottom-bearing flush trim cutter and took off the last 7-8mm from the other side.

Next, the edges are cleaned up with 100 grit paper to remove any scorching (I guess I need to replace that short router cutter now) and fuzzies. Zero tearout though, so perhaps that cutter isn't quite dead yet.

 

I'm going for budget gear on this build. No-name import Bigsby B5 copy, Wilkinson roller bridge and Irongear Blues Engines. Not sure about tuners at this stage, however I'll more than likely stick with the reversed 6-in-line. Something nice and slick will work in the nut slot and the obligatory zero fret as per usual will make an appearance....!

I'm wondering what to do with the neck. I could make it a single piece of flamed birch or add in some fun time laminations. Maybe a Birch-Bubinga-Sapele-Bubinga-Birch combo?

Going to make a nice vintage compression rod for this though. You wait till you see the jig for that one. 

[a2k]

Good to hear the body came out tear-out free! I've taken to removing just a little bit at a time with the router - it takes longer, but things go so much more smoothly (pun intended). How is alder to work with in general?

Both neck ideas sound good. A single piece of flame birch would be really striking, but so would the 5 piece/3 wood laminate. What's the fretboard going to be?

I'll be following along with this one. I've got it in my head to make a series of toy basses (I mean guitars) after I finish my current build. I'm especially interested in seeing how you figure out and route the pocket for the neck angle. 

[KnightroExpress]

I like the single piece of flame birch idea, but I know the multilam would look nice as well. 

[Prostheta]

@KnightroExpress Birch needs babying like anything, especially when it's figured. The trees grow far smaller than Maple, and when it's kiln-dried you should expect all kinds of internal tensions to be built into it. Once it's done tantruming, it's very stable just like Maple. It just needs checking at every stage before and after every operation. Laminating is an attractive proposition, definitely. It makes for a very musical, predictable and durable neck.

@a2k Alder is soft and of low caloric value, so it burns very very easily. It can blow out like any wood, however it cuts like butter if you use sharp tools and don't expect too much. It's one of the few woods that I'd consider making a deep initial pass on like that with a hand router. For other woods I'd put the work off until I could make a thicker template, or perhaps drop on a tight guide bushing and reduce the outline as much as possible before the final pass. My template isn't thick enough for a guide bushing's collar to run against, so I made a judgement call. I'd say that there was a 10-20% chance of blowout, and Alder grows on trees here.

I'll probably use whatever I have on hand for the fingerboard. I have a piece of Ebony with a wormhole in it that I can fill or inlay. Maybe some Rosewood. I even have Oak, more flame Birch. I guess the decision is based on whether I am wanting to go for a "character" colour scheme (such as alluding to Lancaster bomber camo colours) or simply something clean and striking in its simplicity through contrast.

[Prostheta]

Unsure on what to do with the finish in terms of colour. The hardware will be chrome, and I am thinking of a very dark green. Not drab or emerald, but a super dark night green with a metallic or pearl in there. Time for me to go spent some time in the colour chips of the local paint yeoman.

[Prostheta]

It's quite possible that I'll be using this build as the basis for explaining how to incorporate optical fibre and LEDs into a fingerboard.

[Andyjr1515]

Just a quick question ref the earlier post of the body routing, @Prostheta. I rout blanks like you have here - starting with a template and top bearing trimmer bit, then flip it over and use a bottom bearing bit.

But either side there is the conundrum ref tearout - the router is supposed to always cut into the direction of rotation.  But also you are always supposed to rout 'downhill' to the grain.  With these two recommendations being mutually exclusive for 50% of the curves on a guitar, which one gets compromised....or am I missing something?

[Prostheta]

You're correct. It gets to a discussion of physics, unfortunately.

I routed the entire body one direction, no climb cutting. I made this decision consciously based on a number of factors; cutter sharpness, router stability, restraint strength (how you stop the router moving where it tries to) and the amount of material being removed.

Without a long-winded explanation that I haven't yet fully considered, I guess it comes down to familiarity with the tool and material. I know the capacity of the cutter and my ability to restrain the tool. Alder cuts nicely (until it doesn't) and unless the outline near the unsupported grain has a LOT of waste to remove (a big cause of splinters and blowout) it's easy to rout in one simple pass.

There are the only areas of unsupported grain that could have been hairy.

[Prostheta]

It might not seem it, but the large chunk of waste in the cutaway was far less of a problem to rout that it might seem.

[Prostheta]

I also tend to emphasise control of the router by "planting" it down flat using the hand over the workpiece and rotating it in place, rather than moving both hands at once. Rotational movement around say, horns, etc. helps keep the tool stable and controlled. You get more burning because of the tool having a lower feed rate (lowering speed would be an option I guess) however you avoid a lot of the exploding endgrain issues where the cutter or internal workpiece integrity exceeds the restraining force in use. Does that make sense?

Like I said, I haven't yet come up with a good short explanation for this that doesn't simply relate "oh, it's experience". I genuinely think that this can be taught, however not at the expense of the basics. Given opportunity, I would have cut maybe half of that initial pass in any other wood.

[Prostheta]

Some woods are especially fragile, such as coarser ones....Wengé, Oak, etc. where you'd climb cut instead of cutting into ascending grain. Alder is closed and more consistent. Bits that do chunk out glue back in very nicely! It's happened. You choose your fights I guess.

I definitely think that using a tight guide bushing to trim excess off in lieu of a bandsaw is a good option. Anything more than a few mm and it's incitement to blowout.

[Andyjr1515]

9 hours ago, Prostheta said:

You're correct. It gets to a discussion of physics, unfortunately.

I routed the entire body one direction, no climb cutting. I made this decision consciously based on a number of factors; cutter sharpness, router stability, restraint strength (how you stop the router moving where it tries to) and the amount of material being removed.

Without a long-winded explanation that I haven't yet fully considered, I guess it comes down to familiarity with the tool and material. I know the capacity of the cutter and my ability to restrain the tool. Alder cuts nicely (until it doesn't) and unless the outline near the unsupported grain has a LOT of waste to remove (a big cause of splinters and blowout) it's easy to rout in one simple pass.

There are the only areas of unsupported grain that could have been hairy.

That's made me feel better.  That's basically how I do it.  

 I find that the uncontrolability caused by running in the same direction as the bit is much more difficult to manage than running against the grain, even when that is going uphill,  Crucial, though is what you say - minimising the amount to trim by first using a guide bush.

[curtisa]

That's pretty much the reason I use a double bearing (one bearing on top of the cutter, one at the bottom) flush trim bit for that operation. For the first 50% of curves you can cut with the template on top. For the other 50% flip the body upside down, raise the cutter so that the bottom bearing follows the template and finish off the rest. That way you never violate the "route uphill into the grain" rule

[Prostheta]

A cut that large needs balls of steel. A couple of mm from the finished line, I take it?

[curtisa]

As little timber to remove as I can get away with, which is how the router should be used anyway. Given that the bodies I make are sandwiched, the tallest cut I do is far less than the height of the cutter. I'll usually do the back half of the body, which is usually 30mm or less, rough cut the top wood (somewhere around 12-16mm thick) and glue it to the back, and then route the top using the pre-routed back as the template. I'm not game to do a full 40-50mm cut in one go though.

On the plus side I've never had  catastrophic blowout since I switched to that method, even when trying to get the router to go around the flimsiest of corners.

[Prostheta]

Ahhhh....that clarifies things! I'm sure that you've discussed this before, however it makes more sense to me now. Totally, as far as routing as little as possible at any time....they're a shaper and not made for roughing/hogging.