First Build Rebuild Redux

[curtisa]

While waiting for some parts to come in for my next madcap idea, I've come to the realisation that I'm getting to the point where I need to thin out my guitar collection a bit. I have now reached the point where I have more builds than wall hooks and stands, and some of my early projects aren't really getting played anymore, so it's time to let a few go to free up some space and, with any luck, some cash to fund the next project.

The trouble is that, as I was learning as I went along, my first few instruments aren't really so crash hot in terms of quality. They sound fine and play reasonably OK, but I'd hate to just give them away for nothing or, worse, trash them after all the work that went into them. If possible I'd like to be able to at least recoup the cost of the expensive components - the tuners, bridges and pickups.

So to make them a little more sale-able, I've decided to fix up some of the really naff mistakes and oversights on a few of the builds to at least make them a bit more presentable. Along the way perhaps I can also add a few extra strings to my bow.

So, rebuild project numero uno is the following:

This was the first instrument I made from scratch, with the exception of the pre-slotted birdseye maple fret board. At this distance it doesn't look that bad. Up close the faults are a bit more obvious though.

Poorly dressed fret ends, tangs poking out from the edge of the board with bits of metal swarf still attached. The maple board has shrunk slightly making it look and feel worse:

Poorly seated frets, a product of my over-adventurous desire to install stainless steel jumbo fretwire on my first fretting attempt without  sufficiently pre-radiusing the wire enough to match the board before hammering in:

Shoddy inlay work, inlays off-centre, obvious use of filler around edges. The big block inlays were by necessity, as the pre-slotted board also came with black dots installed. The problem was that the original fret markers were not inline with the centre of the board, the dots gradually creeping towards the treble side as they went up. So to hide this imperfection I replaced the dots with big blocks of tortoiseshell plastic...badly:

Because the plastic inlays are slightly transparent, the original dots sometimes showed through where the cavity wasn't cut quite deep enough to erase what was there before. The circle outline of the 12th fret treble side dot is clearly visible through this one:

This one's a doozy. The shadow of the original dot marker is visible as two half-moons of filler around the middle of the block where the replacement inlay wasn't wide enough to hide the evidence:

[curtisa]

The other issue with the neck is that the profile is all over the place. The thickness at the 1st and 12th isn't actually too bad for a 7 string - 21mm and 22.5mm respectively. Not too dissimilar to the neck on my Ibanez RG7620, on which I probably based the dimensions when I built it:

But the taper towards the heel is far too gradual to be comfortable when playing up high. It just gets too chunky over a long distance and could easily do with some more aggressive contouring:

The profiles at the 1st and 12th also illustrate the slightly overweight tendency that the neck has. The first fret actually isn't too bad, but the 12th has a very flat back and slightly asymmetric lean to one side that feels quite odd:

 

[curtisa]

So my shopping list now stands at:

1. Refret the board. I won't go to the hassle of stainless steel again and stick with jumbo nickel silver.
2. While the frets are out, re-inlay the board. As the plastic block inlays are all over the place, my only recourse is to cut the old out and replace with oversize blocks to hide the dud edges. With some of the inlays being so far off-centre that they are butted up against one fret edge, for consistency all the new blocks will have to extend to underneath each fret.
3. Re-carve the neck profile to make it a bit more player friendly.
4. Add the Afterimage logo to the headstock to give it a final dressing up and fill in the obvious gap. around the tuners.

Time to get busy. Use of a soldering iron to warm up the frets and make removal a bit more gentle on the board and minimise chipping. The end nippers are only lifting the fret up by the pinching action of the jaws coming together only. No levering or pulling:

By walking the soldering iron and nippers along the length of each one, the frets can be gently eased out with minimal fuss and damage:

The worst of the damage was at the 12th. With the new inlays extending to nearly all the way to the slot, the damage will be easily hidden by the crown of the fret:

After about 30 minutes of work the frets are all out and we're ready to move to the next step:

 

[curtisa]

The nut will need to come out when the frets get leveled and re-crowned, so may as well get it over with. Just a gentle tap with a block of wood is enough to pop it out (good thing I followed everyone's advice and just secured it with a tiny dot of glue):

Probably worth checking the radius and flatness of the board while the frets are out, so with the trussrod slackened off we check the board at the 1st, 12th and 24th (or thereabouts) with a 16" radius caul from the fret press:

Not too bad, although a bit of a dip on the bass side at the 24th. The real issue is when we check the board with the straightedge:

Big gap through the middle. I could tighten the trussrod to get more backbow, but on checking the thickness of the fretboard it actually looks thicker at the nut than at the 12th, so it's obviously been radiused with a dirty big bow in the middle. At the time I think I made my own radius block that was only 6" long, so it's quite likely that the block was an odd shape and/or I got a bit frisky while sanding. And leveling the frets will be easier if the fretboard is straighter to begin with, so after 30 minutes on the big 16" aluminium radius beam we end up with this:

Much better.

[curtisa]

Next task is to remove the old inlays and cut new pockets for replacements. The CNC will be used for the heavy lifting, and to ensure I can get watertight inlay edges - really important on a pale fret board like maple, as hiding edges with filler stands out like crazy (as evidenced by my earlier attempts). Unlike the edges of pale inlay on a dark board, which is much easier to hide with a dark filler.

Obviously the whole neck needs to go under the cutter in one piece, so a cradle needs to be made up to hold things steady - just a plywood plate to screw the neck onto at the heel, and a bracket at the other end to keep the nut end level and prevent side-to-side racking. The baseplate can then be screwed to the CNC bed:

A good excuse to upgrade the so-so plastic inlays to something a bit more schmancy - some scraps of Tiger Myrtle (keep your scraps, you never know when you'll need them):

And cut the matching block inlays to fit the pockets:

Also a good excuse to slightly redesign the 12th and 24th inlays with a few more art-deco shapes and patterns:

Test fit each one before gluing. Some minor fettling required to get each one to sit snugly, but nothing that can't be sorted with a bit of patience, sandpaper and an Xacto knife. Wood on wood means I can use regular PVA. I was also a bit hesitant to use CA or epoxy in case it wicked into the end grain of each block inlay and caused visible staining:

At the end of day one we're left with:

More later.

 

[ScottR]

Nice work. I find myself in a  similar position in reference to guitars versus hangers and stands. Good luck creating room for new builds.

SR

[Pariahrob]

Great idea but I bet you'll be less willing to let it go now!

love the revised inlays too. Think it's going to look great once done. Looking forward to seeing it get its second wind. 

[curtisa]

7 hours ago, ScottR said:

Nice work. I find myself in a  similar position in reference to guitars versus hangers and stands. Good luck creating room for new builds.

Thanks Scott. I suspect the biggest challenge won't be doing the fixes and repairs, but finding buyers for them when they're finished.

[curtisa]

6 hours ago, Pariahrob said:

Great idea but I bet you'll be less willing to let it go now!

love the revised inlays too. Think it's going to look great once done. Looking forward to seeing it get its second wind. 

Cheers Rob. I'm pretty much decided I'll let this one go and I have more than enough examples of 7 stringers to replace it with, so I don't reckon there's much chance I'll suddenly get attached to it.

[ScottR]

16 hours ago, curtisa said:

Thanks Scott. I suspect the biggest challenge won't be doing the fixes and repairs, but finding buyers for them when they're finished.

Yep, that's the way I see it too. I'll be watching how you do with great interest.

SR

[curtisa]

Here's hoping my self-taught "skillz" can extend to refretting work 

[curtisa]

After leveling with the radius beam at 120 grit, we're left with this;

Big improvement on what used to be there (at least in my very humble, vanishingly-tiny and insignificant opinion).

Before I get too stuck into finishing the radius on the board by sanding through the grits I'll head back to the CNC and quickly cut a new logo for the headstock. Another rapid fire jig required to hold the neck in place - just a couple of threaded inserts underneath two of the tuner holes in a piece of MDF with big bolts passing through. A little piece of masking tape with a pencil mark to indicate where I want the logo to begin:

Note the missing 3rd string tuner washer. I nearly lost it on the workshop floor when it fell off while putting the jig together, and I didn't notice it until I took this photo. Luckily managed to find it. The rest of the washers were removed shortly afterwards and bagged up in a ziplock bag for safekeeping.

Then off to mix up some black-tinted epoxy and make a mess. This gets scraped level once the epoxy sets leaving behind the black infilled logo in the maple. Usually takes two applications to fill any remaining pin holes in the epoxy that usually form as air bubbles:

[Andyjr1515]

Beautiful work, Andrew.  

Gosh - if I took on sorting properly my early builds I'm pretty sure it would take longer than the projection from my present age to the average life-expectancy of a non-smoking-but-every-other-vice-you-care-to-mention male born in the fifties!

 

 

[curtisa]

Needs must. And I must have a need to make room for new projects. I figure if I can learn a few new skills along the way, it has to be a win. The wife may disagree, though.

[ScottR]

Nice tight fit on the inlays. It is interesting to be able to see exactly what the fret tangs do. You did a nice clean job of removing the frets...and no burn marks either.

SR

[curtisa]

19 hours ago, ScottR said:

You did a nice clean job of removing the frets...and no burn marks either.

There was one fret which left a bit of a skid mark on the treble side, but any evidence has since been obliterated with the board being re-radiused.

Back on to the neck, the heel has been reshaped to eliminate the beefy transition and the overall profile tidied up to remove any unevenness. There were a couple of lumps at various points that I've managed to level out, and narrowing down the sides has improved the overall slenderness of the neck without sacrificing thickness:

The difference in heel transition is best illustrated here, with these obligatory before and after shots:

And the black epoxy has also been scraped level and the logo finalised, ready to be re-sealed under clear.:

[curtisa]

Now that the inlays and neck profile have been sorted it's time to move on to the refretting. Break out the DIY fretbender doodad and put a few lengths of jumbo fretwire through, and trim off 24 ready for pressing. Useful tip: measure and cut starting from the 24th fret and work your way back to the 1st. That way, if you mess up the measurement of one of the upper frets and accidentally cut it too short, you can reuse it on a shorter fret lower down the neck instead of throwing it away:

Undercutting the tangs on the DIY tang cutter, Just a set of cheap nibblers with a groove cut into the baseplate to accept the edge of the fretwire:

Before we go any further, just need to quickly run the fretsaw through each of the existing slots to clear out any residual gunk and allow sufficent depth for each fret tang to seat fully:

Then it's off to the fret press to drive them all in. The neck is resting in a cradle lined with an old T-shirt to prevent marring up the back of the neck (yet another DIY creation):

Once done, a few drops of superglue are wicked into the end of each slot from both sides and the 16" radius beam gets reused as a clamping caul. Let it set overnight before proceeding further:

[curtisa]

Resuming proceedings on the next day, the caul comes off and masking tape goes on. Each strip gets butted hard up against each fret. The last thing I want is the freboard getting damaged in any way while I'm leveling and crowning:

Eventually as the gaps between frets get narrower, a single strip of masking tape becomes too wide to fit, so we cut the overhang off with a scalpel fitted with a fresh blade. Useful tip: as the gaps get narrower further up the neck, use the masking tape offcut on the highest frets and work your way from both ends of the neck:

Useful tip: Can't remember where I stole this from originally, but once all the fret gaps are taped up, trim off the overhang at the sides to about 10mm and wrap the edges along the full length of the neck with a strip of masking tape (reason behind this will become apparent later on):

One final check of straightness and tweak the truss rod if required to get the neck as straight as possible before levelling:

Grab a permanent marker and commence "painting" the tops of the frets. Use a contrasting colour that's easy to see. Red or blue works well. I find black a bit difficult to see under certain lights. The painted fret tops makes it easier to see how the levelling is going:

[curtisa]

Using the levelling beam as a template, cut some 400grit paper into long strips. The paper won't last long working against nickel, so may as well cut the full sheet of paper up. A quick squirt of spray adhesive and we're ready to go:

Neck goes back into the cradle/T-shirt combo and the beam gets run over the frets a few times. The aim of the game is to ensure that the red permanent marker gets rubbed off each fret by the least amount possible:

Change the paper frequently. This is after about a dozen or so strokes. The abrasive is pretty much all gone now:

After four paper changes all the fret tops have been touched at least once:

[curtisa]

Before performing the crowning I re-paint the fret tops with the permanent marker. Some people don't bother with this step, but I find it helps makes things a bit easier to see as I'm going. Once again, the aim of the game is to only use the crowning file to remove as little material as possible. I'm aiming to file so that there is just a weeny bit of a red permanent marker line remaining on the fret top, indicating that I've only reshaped the sides without lowering the height of each fret. I also wear one of those headband torches, so I can put as much light onto this process as possible:

All 24 done:

Fret edges get bevelled now. I do this early as there is a risk that I'll slip and scuff up the fret top. Doing the edging early means that I can polish out any slip-ups with the various sanding grits. Doing it later means that any slip-ups will necessitate going through the polishing process all over:

Then on to polishing. Work my way up through the grits from 600 to 2000, then a final buff with the Dremel before wiping any excess scuzz off with a cloth:

Useful tip: have the neck secured in some way so you don't have to touch it while you're polishing the frets. It tends to be messy work, and any crap on your hands can easily transfer to that pristine timber. Wash yer hands before you handle the neck again:

Useful tip: remember the earlier post where I wrapped the edges of the masking tape up with a long strip on either side of the neck? Here's where it comes in handy - for removing all the small strips of tape in one piece:

Before/after shot. No more popping-uppy frets or sticky-outy edges:

 

[ScottR]

Excellent fretting tutorial Andrew. You gave us many excellent  tips along the way too. 

And aren't old worn out T-shirts some of the most useful things on the planet?

SR

[mattharris75]

Lots of great tips in there. Thanks. 

As far as the head mounted lamps go, I wear one of those literally any time I'm in the shop in the evening (which is most of my shop time, after the kids are in bed). I've got one incandescent light overhead and a four foot fluorescent fixture over the work bench (I need to mount another over the work area, just haven't gotten around to it), and when there's no natural light coming in the head lamp is a life saver.

[curtisa]

10 hours ago, ScottR said:

And aren't old worn out T-shirts some of the most useful things on the planet?

They're life savers, to be sure. The one in those shots got partially "eaten" by my router when I foolishly put the router down on top of it while it was spinning down (not while I was wearing it). It's now got a massive shredded hole in the centre of it to remind me to never do anything stupid like that again.

[curtisa]

9 hours ago, mattharris75 said:

As far as the head mounted lamps go, I wear one of those literally any time I'm in the shop in the evening (which is most of my shop time, after the kids are in bed). I've got one incandescent light overhead and a four foot fluorescent fixture over the work bench (I need to mount another over the work area, just haven't gotten around to it), and when there's no natural light coming in the head lamp is a life saver.

You can never have too much light. I find the lamp on the articulated arm that appears in a few of those pics to be indispensible for getting a bit of light right where I need it and holding it steady.

[Mr Natural]

ditto on the great job comment regarding documentation. it takes a bit of work to remember to snap photos of all the steps and "storyboard it" if you will. 

also- the articulated arm  lights are the best- especially as we get older and need glasses to read/do detail work. my opti-visor is also a live saver. light it up and magnify.