JimF Posted July 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2018 Hey mate! I certainly did get it from a Chinese eBay seller. Took a risk but it seems pretty good! Andy - thanks! Hopefully the fretboard and neck wood choices will pay off! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woden Posted July 19, 2018 Report Share Posted July 19, 2018 Hey, bud! I've had three tops now and they always show up well packaged. No issues at all as they always live up to the pictures. Am definitely going back for more as I try and build a portfolio of work. Can't afford premium prices yet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted July 27, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2018 Well its been a frustrating week. My progress has been as follows: Thickness guitar body -> confirm body is perfectly flat, smooth & level -> look away for 5 seconds -> body has warped. Now I'm not sure if its the current heatwave/humidity here in the UK, the wood itself, or some other hidden reason. I'm pretty sure I'll be scrapping this body. It's already almost down to 30mm and that's much thinner than I wanted. Life's too short to mess around so I guess this will be going to the wood carving pile. So I'm on the lookout for a pre-thicknessed body blank! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted July 30, 2018 Report Share Posted July 30, 2018 I would put money on it being the weather. Even the best pre-thicknessed blank will start playing games on you if the local environment it is being stored/worked in isn't good. It's 29,1°C and 60% humidity indoors right now here in Finland. That puts the EMC at a hair over 10%. Way too much. If I had air conditioning I'd try and keep moisture down nearer 40-45% in this heat. Perversely it's not hot enough for this kind of humidity! Nice quick cheat chart here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_moisture_content Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted August 22, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2018 Recently routed the neck shape, truss rod channel, and rough cut the headstock. Pleased with the results and pleased with how my budget router is performing. A little off centre, but who's checking! Ended up buying another body blank, glued and planed to thickness, so all that needs to be done is routing. Went for black walnut and bought blind, was pleasantly surprised when it arrived. I think I'll end up using the side with the lighter flash, and use that at the bottom/bridge end of the guitar. The other side is relatively interesting, but the colouring between the two pieces is too different, and also the interesting swirls will end up being lost when the shape is cutout. Very pleased with this body blank, and I am planning to do an oil finish, no stain or anything. With this whole build, I've tried to remain philosophical about the whole thing: yes I've chosen some tricky woods for a first build BUT I have woodworking experience, as does my father, and he is a skilled engineering consultant. The philosophical approach helped me when the first body blank went wrong, as I just kept in mind that my goal was to make a guitar, NOT to make a guitar with those particular pieces of wood; and anything wrong that happens is part of the learning curve, and part of my journey towards reaching the goal of finishing the project. If at one point we have some disasterous event, then that was always going to happen, and its a learning opportunity. Which brings me neatly onto my next set of photos, entitled "Tearout Tuesday": It can be safely said that I don't like Padauk as a wood to work with. It seems to be unpredictable whereas my experience with the Wenge is that it is hard hard hard hard, it seems consistent. This Padauk will cut beautifully, and then have massive tearout. I'm not making a full tribute Blackmachine replica guitar so modifying the headstock shape slightly was always on the cards as the piece I scarfed onto the neck wasn't long enough. This just means it will take longer. I'm not discouraged, just a little frustrated. Most likely its occurred with interlocking grain and on radiuses where I perhaps should have gone in the opposite direction. Like I said, its all a learning experienced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted August 22, 2018 Report Share Posted August 22, 2018 hey jimf... take some time to grieve the tearout... and then get back to work! Looking good so far! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted August 22, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2018 Thanks! That's the plan. Not sure whether to fine tune it this weekend or wait until the neck is more complete (i.e. fretboard on and fretted). To be honest I don't think I can bear looking at it! I'll be sorting that shortly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted August 23, 2018 Report Share Posted August 23, 2018 That tearout happened because of unsupported/short grain. I take it that you were routing from the neck towards the outer corner of the headstock at that point? Whilst some woods are more prone to it than others, it's generally more a function of how the grain you're presenting to the router cutter wants to play. If the force required to split open the wood along the grain is smaller than the force required to cleanly allow the cutter to make it's cut through the wood (one of dozens per second), then you'll get tearout. The way to reduce this is to know why it does it and re-balance the numbers in your favour. It looks like you were taking a full-depth cut, which is certainly not making it any easier.....often though, the length of your cutter can force your arm as to the minimum depth of cut that you can make. Personally, I dislike the common inch cutter length bits as these are a usual suspect for making life harder than it needs to be. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted August 23, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2018 Yep! Nail on head there. I didn’t want to take a full depth cut, but the nature of the bearing cutter and thickness of my template kind of forced my hand there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted August 23, 2018 Report Share Posted August 23, 2018 Agh, yeah that's not good. For what it's worth, a shorter bit will be pricier yet still cheaper than a wasted workpiece. Keep your eyes open! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted August 24, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2018 (edited) Edited August 24, 2018 by JimF 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted August 24, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2018 Managed to get it salvaged! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted August 25, 2018 Report Share Posted August 25, 2018 17 hours ago, JimF said: Managed to get it salvaged! And it looks very good! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted August 27, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 27, 2018 More progress. As I'm extremely pleased with the walnut blank I have, and don't want to have to do any more thicknessing, problem solving etc, I've decided to do a practice body to make sure I'm fully comfortable with routing this before I attack the walnut. Pretty pleased with the results on the warped tulip poplar blank! A few cheeky mock ups with the neck blank to remind me what it is I'm making I just need to decide which side of the blank to have as the face. A B I was leaning towards B, but now i'm thinking that A, whilst not having the lighter flash, will actually take on more character when oiled (from experience). I may even invert A so I get that lovely flamey section in the control area, but that knot may make routing the lower horn tricky... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted August 27, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 27, 2018 Just to clarify, the poplar blank above will be going in the bin, its only approx 30mm thick, and not got a great surface finish. I'll just use it for routing practice (cavities etc), the walnut is a full body blank and will be cut & routed shortly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted August 27, 2018 Report Share Posted August 27, 2018 Bear in mind the same routing problems as with the headstock on that Walnut. It'll throw bits out! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bokchoi77 Posted August 27, 2018 Report Share Posted August 27, 2018 I like the look of the woods on this one, keen to see how it turns out. You could always make a ghetto axe out of the practice body rather than bin it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted August 27, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 27, 2018 Thanks! I'm sure to go super careful with this body and also avoid having any highly figured bits near the edges. I'll probably shelve this body until I end up with a piece to add to it, or a spare neck! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted August 27, 2018 Report Share Posted August 27, 2018 just throwing my vote out for side A. vnice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted September 11, 2018 Author Report Share Posted September 11, 2018 Pictures are self explanatory really: I tackled the neck, added the truss rod, fretboard and glued all together, flush trimmed it to suit the neck, then made a start on the body. Rough cut to shape (in the end I decided to go for Side B, but inverted), did a few passes with the router then stopped for the night. The next day my Dad was round, and he is Mr Precision (time served engineer) so got him to assist with the inlays, hence why the body is stopped mid progress! The fretboard inlays have a dab of superglue, and the side markers are held in by optimism and wishful thinking. Pics! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norris Posted September 12, 2018 Report Share Posted September 12, 2018 You could probably rough cut it a lot closer to your line. That would save a lot of time, have less wear on your router bit and reduce the risk of tearout through making fewer router passes. Very nice progress though! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted September 12, 2018 Author Report Share Posted September 12, 2018 Thanks! that had crossed my mind but on the practice body I ended up running too close and nicking the body in several places so was playing it safe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted September 16, 2018 Report Share Posted September 16, 2018 Bummer about the modded headstock out of necessity, but that's progressing nicely by all accounts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guitar Goomba Posted September 17, 2018 Report Share Posted September 17, 2018 Looking really good so far. I think it will be a beautiful axe when complete. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF Posted December 4, 2018 Author Report Share Posted December 4, 2018 (edited) As per the title, slow progress, but progress nonetheless. I've made a point with this project that whenever I start getting impatient or slightly frustrated, or tired, I stop. This is when I make mistakes (learned this the hard way from knifemaking). As a result of this its meant that I've been literally weeks without doing anything. A new job in October hasn't helped either. BUT its starting to look even more like a guitar, and I'm over the moon. I was never sure about the padauk in the neck since switching to a walnut body but now its oxidised more to a rich brown rather than a disco orange I'm falling in love with it. Very pleased with myself haha! Now for pics! Edited December 4, 2018 by JimF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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