Ovangkol LP rebuild

[komodo]

This looks really really sweet! Even with the traditional F-hole, and natural wood it just looks metal to me. Then again, most things look metal to me and have ever since 1981 when I heard Iron Maiden Killers. Probably well before that.

[ScottR]

That maple top keeps trying to make me think it's spruce. That's a pretty unique piece you have there.

SR

[ADFinlayson]

37 minutes ago, komodo said:

This looks really really sweet! Even with the traditional F-hole, and natural wood it just looks metal to me. Then again, most things look metal to me and have ever since 1981 when I heard Iron Maiden Killers. Probably well before that.

Yep, f-hole or not, this guitar will still be playing metal and tuned to drop C

[ADFinlayson]

37 minutes ago, ScottR said:

That maple top keeps trying to make me think it's spruce. That's a pretty unique piece you have there.

SR

It was only £40 too

[ADFinlayson]

Suppler came up good with a replacement blank and ibe started working on it. This wood is so hard that it laughed at my bandsaw, took well over an hour to rough out. 

Go the headstock angle planed to 11° and routed the truss rod channel. This wood is also a nightmare to plane

Got a Gabon ebony fretboard and headstock cap for this one. I thicknessed the cap down to 2mm and got it stuck on tonight 

Annoyingly the cap was a bit on the small side so I had to get it perfectly centred against the neck with locator pins so there is enough material to cover the headstock shape

[mistermikev]

2 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Got a Gabon ebony fretboard and headstock cap for this one. I thicknessed the cap down to 2mm and got it stuck on tonight 

 

is it just me or does your truss rod look a little off center (jk)!

that's some interesting neck wood.  it'd purty.  rock on.

[ADFinlayson]

21 hours ago, mistermikev said:

is it just me or does your truss rod look a little off center (jk)!

that's some interesting neck wood.  it'd purty.  rock on.

Well observed sir. The blank is about 20mm wider than required and one side looked a bit more quarter sawn than the other so I moved everything over a bit.

got the neck and headstock shape roughed out this eve then routed the taper, the glue up for the cap was good and I really like the look of ebony on Ovangkol, I was contemplating going for flamed maple on the headstock and staining to match the body but I’m glad I’m matching the fretboard.

Neck fits in the tenon after a bit of fettling with a scraper, it’s a very tight fit but I don’t want to fettle any more until I’ve routed the pickup cavity. I’ve also got to plane a break angle into the top, which I’ll do once I’ve got the fretboard on.

 

[ADFinlayson]

I feel like I got a fair bit done on this one today. Was woken up at an ungodly hour by the tiny human so I got my headstock taper shaped, truss rod access drilled and fretboard glued on before porridge

Then tonight I got the clamps off and got it trimmed and routed flush.

Then I got the pickup cavities routed once I’d confirmed the location of the end of the fretboard I could route the pickup cavities.

then I got the break angle planed into the top of the body. Body I started, I drew a pencil line along the tenon at the top of the body, compared that line to the fretboard with the protractor which told me that the break angle in the bottom of the pocket is 4.5° which is too much for me, the bridge was too high in its previous iteration. So I stuck a 6mm sheet of ply at the bridge position and planed down the front.

Drew a new pencil line which was 2.5° against the fretboard which is more like it, 2.5° is plenty for a tom or wraparound bridge if the fretboard sits 1mm up from the body. I don’t really want to route the bottom of the pocket again as there isn’t that much wood there so I’m thinking of putting an angle into the bottom of the tenon to undo the other 2°

so i need to plane a 1° angle between the pickup routes, then I need to blend the new flat area into the existing carve, once I’ve got the body finalised, I can trim down the tenon. 

Starting to look like a guitar again

[mistermikev]

looking really great.  nice work.  that top looks to be quartersawn?  lots of fleck?  never seen that in a top before.  very unique.  rock on.

[ADFinlayson]

8 hours ago, mistermikev said:

looking really great.  nice work.  that top looks to be quartersawn?  lots of fleck?  never seen that in a top before.  very unique.  rock on.

I am no expert but I believe you are right about it being quarter sawn, there are none of the obvious grain patterns like what I can see on the V or any of my previous maple builds. But I'm sort of hoping the fleck doesn't show up too much under stain, I'm not that keen on it.

[mistermikev]

1 hour ago, ADFinlayson said:

I am no expert but I believe you are right about it being quarter sawn, there are none of the obvious grain patterns like what I can see on the V or any of my previous maple builds. But I'm sort of hoping the fleck doesn't show up too much under stain, I'm not that keen on it.

really?  I think that is the most beautiful pattern.  IMO it's just beautiful.  almost a checkerboard pattern and it tends to sort of 'sparkle'.  ah, "one mans trash"...  . 

[ADFinlayson]

haha well, if it turns out looking good under finish then I shall bow to your wisdom and buy more tops like this

I had another really proactive evening on this build. Started off by finishing the carve, then put a radius into the fret board. I did it all with hand planes this time and went for a compound radius. I was shooting for 9 1/2" - 12 1/2" but ended up with 9 1/2 - 14" but I was happy with that.

Then I marked and cut some fret slots. This is the first time I've slotted an already radiused board. Used my incra protractor to do it all, used it's centre rule to mark out a centre line, then stick my fret ruler on and mark out slots, then used the potractor again to draw fret slot lines at the marks, then checked each side against the fret rule before marking out each one with a scalpel. The marking out too a little longer than my previous method but the actual slotting was way quicker. I used my new miniature saw with 0.3mm kerf to start the slots off. It's so fine that it cuts through ebony really easily unlike my fret saw. Then I came back with the fret saw and finished the slots. had the whole lot done in under an hour.

Then I did some inlay, I was going to inlay a Gaboon viper at the 12th, being in keeping as gaboon ebony board ovangkol both come from the same region of Africa, had my trace of the shape and some mop ready, then it occurred to me that the last build had a aztec style snake, so that would be 2 guitars with snakes, and I don't even like snakes So I thought screw it, we're going with dots. so we have 4mm green abalone dots on the face and 2mm of the same on the side.

Then I got on with fretting. This is my first go with stainless steel, and it's true what they say, stainless steel is a pita. I dug around in the toolbox for a pair of cutters, and the just didnt touch the wire, sat there open mouthed like my dog when he picks up and offcut that's too bit for him to chew. So I went back to my Hosco end cutters which are getting through it but gradually turning to chocolate. Even filing the ends flush took forever.

One thing I am taking as a positive is that my brass deadblow hammer get the seated fine but did absolutely no damage to the crowns which I'm hoping is going to mean less levelling in crowning, we'll see.

I got just over halfway through before it got a bit late for banging around so I'll get the rest finishing in the morning. It's starting to look the part though

Final thing, I can't get rid of that annoying line between the pickups. My first thought was that it's glue on the surface, or that it's a bad joint, but it's not glue, it's some sort of disfigurement in the wood that goes all the way down one side and it's visible from the pickup route, which is why I'm fairly sure it's not glue. Whatever it is, I'm hoping it will take stain.

 

[komodo]

Boy you sure did a beautiful job on that top.

[ADFinlayson]

Not in a rush to install stainless steel again, just filing flush and bevelling took an age. Very happy with the end result though

[komodo]

Totally agree, it's one of my least favorite parts, Those look fat, like if you have a light touch it would almost play like it's scalloped.

[ADFinlayson]

21 minutes ago, komodo said:

Totally agree, it's one of my least favorite parts, Those look fat, like if you have a light touch it would almost play like it's scalloped.

They may look bigger than they are, only a medium jumbo, closest size in stainless that I was able to find to prs wire 

[ScottR]

18 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

I had another really proactive evening on this build.

Man, you are blazing right through this build. The dust doesn't even have time to settle.

I experienced the same thing the first time I used stainless steel frets, but I've never looked back. I love they way they wear--actually the way they do not wear. They stay silky smooth way longer than anything else. In my book that is well worth the extra effort. I use a dremel with a cut-off wheel to cut them. I just mark the wire, clamp the tang in a vise and use the wheel to cut the fret. You can even use another dremel with a stone  and do a rough pre-bevel while it's in the vise and save some of that labor before pressing the fret in. I like to use a rough and then fine diamond card from a knife sharpening kit--they are mounted in a handle--for flushing and beveling the ends after fretting.

Your top is looking great. Love the carve. I've had dark edges on boards that look like glue lines too. That's the nature of wood. Unless you dye it black it will probably still be visible to you. It's in a good location though. It will look like a string shadow once you string it up....and nobody but you will ever notice it.

SR

[ADFinlayson]

6 hours ago, ScottR said:

Man, you are blazing right through this build. The dust doesn't even have time to settle.

I experienced the same thing the first time I used stainless steel frets, but I've never looked back. I love they way they wear--actually the way they do not wear. They stay silky smooth way longer than anything else. In my book that is well worth the extra effort. I use a dremel with a cut-off wheel to cut them. I just mark the wire, clamp the tang in a vise and use the wheel to cut the fret. You can even use another dremel with a stone  and do a rough pre-bevel while it's in the vise and save some of that labor before pressing the fret in. I like to use a rough and then fine diamond card from a knife sharpening kit--they are mounted in a handle--for flushing and beveling the ends after fretting.

Your top is looking great. Love the carve. I've had dark edges on boards that look like glue lines too. That's the nature of wood. Unless you dye it black it will probably still be visible to you. It's in a good location though. It will look like a string shadow once you string it up....and nobody but you will ever notice it.

SR

I don’t think I’ve ever had a guitar with stainless steel frets, so we will see what this one is like! I think you’re right re discolouration if the wood, I remember the plank of maple I used for the blue dc and the V, it had a green/brown streak down one side, which on close inspection looks like what I can see from the pickup route, in which case it should take stain and hide the worst of it.

Todays progress then.. only had an hour after getting the baby down. Started off by putting -2° into the neck tenon. After bandsawing off the excess, I used my little block plane and I’m glad I stopped to check when I did because that angle went in a lot quicker than I anticipated. 

That’s a nickel Schaller Signum I’m using, the posts are recessed into the bridge so it can sit flush on the body.

Next up I drilled machine head holes, I still need to shape the headstock and do a logo inlay. Planning to use abalone style celluloid because I haven’t been able to fine green abalone large enough.

Then I got all the holes for switches and pots drilled. I had to go at it quite heavily with a forstner bit to make the cap thin enough, but anything to reduce weight

 

[ADFinlayson]

Couple of hours on it tonight. Got the headstock shaped 

Carved the neck 

And filed the access carve into the lower horn 

I need to do the headstock inlay, thickness the headstock and do the fretbwork. Then I can think about glueing her up. 

Weighed it earlier, currently 7lb 4oz. Looking like it’s going to be a good weight after all

[mistermikev]

nice and clean and light! 

[ADFinlayson]

Inlay mode this evening. This stuff is Incudo abalone celluloid and it was a doddle to cut. I just hope it sands and finishes well.

Once I finished the inlay cavity, I glued it in with Araldite that I mixed with some black powder paint. 

I also got the headstock thicknessed to 15mm with a fence up against the spindle sander. I’ve found recently that this works best if thicknessing is done after final shaping, it removes any potential tearout from drilling tuner holes or hand filing the headstock shape and leaves a nice sharp edge to the volute.

Ovangkol is a lot of work but it already looks like it was worth it

Next up will be the fretwork so I can get the neck glued on. Then I’m going to let this one sit while I get back on with the V 

[ShatnersBassoon]

Beautiful stuff! My Ovangkol experience was a disaster, but its all part of the learning process! Seriously, the neck was a mess  I will salvage it though, probably make it part of a laminate neck.

[mistermikev]

it's good a! (see what i did there).

[ShatnersBassoon]

11 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

I also got the headstock thicknessed to 15mm with a fence up against the spindle sander. I’ve found recently that this works best if thicknessing is done after final shaping, it removes any potential tearout from drilling tuner holes or hand filing the headstock shape and leaves a nice sharp edge to the volute.

Hmm! I will have to try that! Heard of people doing a similar thing with a belt sander.

[ADFinlayson]

2 minutes ago, ShatnersBassoon said:

Hmm! I will have to try that! Heard of people doing a similar thing with a belt sander.

I've tried using my belt sander in the past, the trouble with my belt sander is there is only one possible radius and it's difficult to keep the headstock square. My spindle sander has interchangeable bobbins so any radius can be achieved for the volute, it's also easy to clamp a square fence to the bed to ensure even thickness to the headstock, see below. That pic is quite old and several guitars ago, I've since learnt that it's better to clamp the fence to the other side so that the sander doesn't try to pull the work in.