David's PRS and Matt's Tele

[ADFinlayson]

I made myself a very crude jig to route the back of the neck closer to the dimensions that I want to carve from, got the neck taper to about 22mm including the thickness of the 6mm fretboard, about 21mm by the time I've radiused the board and down to about 20mm by the time I've carved the neck, touch wood.

routed the binding channel, there is a hairline of ebony still there, not sure whether to sand it off the a straight bar or just leave it. The binding is going to be maple and ebony with ebony on the outside anyway so it probs won't be visible.

I also did a bit more carving of the top which I apparently forgot to photograph, pretty sure my previous faux pas has been rectified. Then I was going to plane in the break angle with the no7 like I normally do, then I had an epiphany - Had to work out the distance and angle to get my shim the right thickness to create the correct break angle in the top given that the pivot point would be on the back of the body not that scale position, but it worked like a charm. 

For the record this is no quicker than using a hand plane, it did involve 10 minutes of just feeding it through the sander, but it certainly is more precise and removes any risk of tear out of figured tops.

Now that I've got the angle in, I'll get the neck pocket routed before I carve the rest of the top. I was originally going to use the angle grinder but I've started down the road of gouges now so I guess I'll carry that on. I might switch to the orbital sander with a heavy disc instead pf thumb planes and scrapes though.

There has been a fair bit of movement in the walnut for Matt's tele, especially the top - glad I decide to leave it a while. I also decided to unclamp it, it's well oversized at the moment and the last thing I want is for it to split while fighting clamping pressure. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I needed the clamps to glue on Imrie's top.

[Prostheta]

That's exactly how I advocate dialling in the neck and pickup planes. Zero tearout, plus you get a very good read on progress with each pass. It can require a lot of capacity if you use a sled. How was it, calculating the shim size/placement? 

[ADFinlayson]

5 hours ago, Prostheta said:

That's exactly how I advocate dialling in the neck and pickup planes. Zero tearout, plus you get a very good read on progress with each pass. It can require a lot of capacity if you use a sled. How was it, calculating the shim size/placement? 

The bed of the drum sander is just about wide enough to get a double cut/strat style body through sideways so no need for a sled of any kind, I haven't yet made an adjustable angled router sled yet anyway because I avoided using a router for these jobs - I don't particularly like using routers and avoid where I can.

The angle/shim size was easy to calculate in this case - The shim would normally go at the bridge position which is about halfway up the body and about 6mm high to create a 2-2.5º break angle when using a hand plane, so in order to maintain the same angle with the pivot being twice the distance away, I just had to double the height of the shim and place it at the very front of the neck pocket.

[Prostheta]

It's one of those tasks that you can do in many different ways, especially the calculations. It gives me opportunity to dig out my trig. Equally, it can be done in CAD or by ascertaining the rise required by distance.

Shame that you're considering splitting that Walnut. It might be necessary though, looking at the radius of the rings. How dry is it?

[ADFinlayson]

17 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

It's one of those tasks that you can do in many different ways, especially the calculations. It gives me opportunity to dig out my trig. Equally, it can be done in CAD or by ascertaining the rise required by distance.

Shame that you're considering splitting that Walnut. It might be necessary though, looking at the radius of the rings. How dry is it?

The walnut is already split bud, look at the posts on page 1. Also I think you might be looking at the walnut blank above in the pile, the body in question are the 2 pieces below it and they're pretty much quarter sawn by the look of the endgrain. 

That walnut blank above is earmarked for a suhr modern carve style guitar which I'll be starting later in the year. It's going to have a carved maple top so I'm not planning to split it but it will need to be thicknessed down to about 30mm. The only thing I will need to consider with that in terms of stability - is whether to take material from the convex side of the grain pattern or the concave side. 

[Prostheta]

Ah, bummer and yes....I was. Pieces that have the pith in them will split since it's got the tightest growth rings and less consolidation compared to the heartwood. A slab with the pith does yield vertical growth rings either side though, so yeah. Split it and lose the pith. It does nothing for the job and will present only heartache, pain and much shouting at thin air.

[Bizman62]

I can confirm that. A few years ago I managed to get the stem of a large poplar, 70 cm in diameter. It stood in my yard for half a year, waiting for me to find someone who'd have the equiment to saw it. When I finally cut it with a chainsaw, the pith the thickness of a broomstick dropped off. Should that have happened during making a one piece body out of it... Well, let's keep this family friendly.

[ADFinlayson]

Done a bit of work on the Tele neck: It's been flattened and I've drawn a load of lines on it.. 

I cut an offcut from the body on the bandsaw to about  8mm then sanded it down to 1/4" then I used a 1/4" router bit and fence to to route a channel all the way through the neck blank.. This is very much a faux skunk stripe, for decoration only. Matt originally wanted 2 walnut contrast stripes going all up the neck, but I said he would have them visible in the headstock and I wouldnt be able to use the body walnut because it wasn't long enough. But he was also talking a fair bit about keeping as much as possible true to the original guitar, so I suggested a skunk stripe. 

I cut it just slightly under the length of the channel thinking it would be a PITA to get both ends perfectly with a 1/4" radius on each end. It was a PITA to get one end perfectly at 1/4" radius  

The fit was so that I could push it in with my fingers, which I was concerned might not be tight enough, but when I glued the sides, I had to tap it through with a hammer, so I'm not too concerned about fit now. I also cut another small square of walnut, glued and tapped it in at the other end and it worked to push the main piece right to the end of the channel at the nut end which will hopefully result in a neat glue joint. We'll see though because I'm making this all up as I go along  

The joint doesn't look perfect from the front, but I'm not too worried about that as it looks spot on from the back which is where it will be visible. 

BTW, this is a right-handed neck and will have a reverse strat headstock - just incase there is any confusion over which side is which...

Once it's dry and Ive trimmed it all back down, the plan is to route the truss rod channel through the skunk stripe. But I am still undecided upon whether I'm going to do a wheel rod with the adjust must at the bottom or use a standard truss rod with the adjustment at the nut. A wheel will look neater I think, but he want's 22 frets so there is some more complexity around fretboard overhang, the wheel going parsed the back of the neck pocket, butting it all up nicely to the neck humbucker ring, and he want's walnut binding. 

[mistermikev]

ooh ee... walnut binding eh?  ambitious... I like it. so with that headstock are you doing tele deluxe then?  looking like a lot of cool stuff going on here - good on ya.

[willliam_q]

I think there would still a bit of meat left on a 22fret neck to put a truss rod wheel in but would need to be calculated.  Might mean moving the neck pickup a hair closer to the bridge.

nice job on the skunk stripe.  I found the what worked well for me to put the end round over for me was to use a chisel to make the rough form.  Then use a long narrow strip of sandpaper pulled over the roundover to form it, with lots of test fitting. 

I also found mine was an easy fit without glue but when I put it together it looks perfect.

[ADFinlayson]

59 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

ooh ee... walnut binding eh?  ambitious... I like it. so with that headstock are you doing tele deluxe then?  looking like a lot of cool stuff going on here - good on ya.

I guess it's duluxe of sorts, he's having a fender wide range neck pickup. Then the bridge is going to have a seymour duncan hotrail with a pushpull coil split which will be mounted into a Babics bridge, I've never heard of them before but it looks pretty cool, shame about the logo though.

 

So I'll be using the neck pocket and the bridge pickup route from the tele templates, but I'll place the humbucker route to suit once the neck is made using one of my other templates. I won't have the bridge in my hands until Sunday so I'm not sure if I need to do anything regarding break angle yet or what to do about neck pocket depth. It's not having a scratch plate so I'm conscious that fretboard sitting high above the body might look a bit weird.

23 minutes ago, willliam_q said:

I think there would still a bit of meat left on a 22fret neck to put a truss rod wheel in but would need to be calculated.  Might mean moving the neck pickup a hair closer to the bridge.

nice job on the skunk stripe.  I found the what worked well for me to put the end round over for me was to use a chisel to make the rough form.  Then use a long narrow strip of sandpaper pulled over the roundover to form it, with lots of test fitting. 

I also found mine was an easy fit without glue but when I put it together it looks perfect.

My method was pretty similar, I put a few facets in with a sharp chisel then used a file to round it over until it looked correct. I starting off trying to shape it on the spindle sander, but it turned out too brutal for that job.

[mistermikev]

2 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

I guess it's duluxe of sorts, he's having a fender wide range neck pickup. Then the bridge is going to have a seymour duncan hotrail with a pushpull coil split which will be mounted into a Babics bridge, I've never heard of them before but it looks pretty cool, shame about the logo though.

 

 

when you said true to original above I thought like you were going to make a deluxe (or something) with the pickguard pickups and all.  Sounds like a cool variation.

I have a babicz FCH on one of my parts casters... it is pretty impressive.  the cam height adjustment is really a great idea albeit a little cumbersome.

rock on.

[ScottR]

I've used 3 or 4 Babicz bridges now. Pretty solid stuff. I love they way they lock down after you've done all your intonation adjustments.

SR

[ADFinlayson]

2 hours ago, ScottR said:

I've used 3 or 4 Babicz bridges now. Pretty solid stuff. I love they way they lock down after you've done all your intonation adjustments.

SR

Glad to hear he's bought a decent bridge, they're pricey enough  

3 hours ago, mistermikev said:

when you said true to original above I thought like you were going to make a deluxe (or something) with the pickguard pickups and all.  Sounds like a cool variation.

I have a babicz FCH on one of my parts casters... it is pretty impressive.  the cam height adjustment is really a great idea albeit a little cumbersome.

rock on.

Yes the true to the original comments were sporadic and conflicting in places. There was talk of a scratch plate at one point, but I pulled rank - scratch plate over the walnut would be sacrilege IMO.

I went out to the garage this evening to trim the skunk stripe flush. One thing left to another and the neck is shaped and ready for a fretboard and tuner holes. As you can see, I made a decision on which truss rod to use. You can probably see that I had a little wobble with the fence while routing the truss rod channel, fortunately it happened during the first pass so only about 1mm deep, even more fortunately this didn't happen while routing the skunk stripe, or it would have been new neck blank time.

Skunk stripe came out really well, couldn't be happier with it. Though I am planning to use a plug cutter to make a little walnut down to drill and glue into the heel end of the stripe to tidy up the the little filler piece I tapped in. It should look like a faux truss rod anchor plug to go with my faux skunk stripe

Routing the headstock shape was pretty scary, in fact I used the bobbin sander first to get it to a hair from the final shape before touching it with the router. and I didn't route the very bottom of heel either, I just shaped that with the bobbin sander to avoid tear out.

Need to figure out how I'm going to do the fretboard/binding etc now as the truss rod wheel is going to make things awkward. I don't really want to slot/shape the fretboard prior to glueing because I don't have a visible centre line at the heel end like I do on my PRS style builds. But I think I'm probably going to have to get it at least cut to the correct length with the little truss rod recess cut prior to glueing. Any advice in that department would greatly appreciated.

[mistermikev]

17 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

Yes the true to the original comments were sporadic and conflicting in places. There was talk of a scratch plate at one point, but I pulled rank - scratch plate over the walnut would be sacrilege IMO.

 

Need to figure out how I'm going to do the fretboard/binding etc now as the truss rod wheel is going to make things awkward. I don't really want to slot/shape the fretboard prior to glueing because I don't have a visible centre line at the heel end like I do on my PRS style builds. But I think I'm probably going to have to get it at least cut to the correct length with the little truss rod recess cut prior to glueing. Any advice in that department would greatly appreciated.

I hear ya... I think good instincts.  On the other hand I keep ending up in this loop where I won't cover a beautiful piece of wood... but then I don't want to build with something not pretty just so I can use a pickguard.  it's a viscous cycle!

advice... why not put it thru the fretboard? 

edit - ah... binding bit bearing will hit the truss wheel... got it.  if it were me... I'd make an exact copy of your neck template, then take your binding bit and run it on bottom of the orig with the copy below it, then a straight bit to cut the rest off.  now you've got a copy that is exactly less your binding channel width.  just did that recently several times!  anywho, that's what I come up with.

[ADFinlayson]

7 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

I hear ya... I think good instincts.  On the other hand I keep ending up in this loop where I won't cover a beautiful piece of wood... but then I don't want to build with something not pretty just so I can use a pickguard.  it's a viscous cycle!

advice... why not put it thru the fretboard?  or cut the slot for the wheel, then put the fretboard on, then use a bit to follow it, then get the rest with a rasp or chisel.  I might be misunderstanding the problem.

I don't think you're miss-understanding the problem, I'm leaning towards cutting the slot for the wheel prior to sticking the fretboard on - the top of the wheel is about flush with the top of the neck so I don't want it to get in the way of the glue up. I think I need to sleep on it. 

[mistermikev]

Just now, ADFinlayson said:

I don't think you're miss-understanding the problem, I'm leaning towards cutting the slot for the wheel prior to sticking the fretboard on - the top of the wheel is about flush with the top of the neck so I don't want it to get in the way of the glue up. I think I need to sleep on it. 

ah, not getting glue on your truss... ok.  when I did mine thru the board I just put a piece of tape over the area to prevent glue from being spread right there... but yours will ooze out.  I would think just putting tape on the outside edges and using a q tip to clean it right away as the glue come out would do it.  then remove tape.  just a thought. 

[ADFinlayson]

7 hours ago, mistermikev said:

ah, not getting glue on your truss... ok.  when I did mine thru the board I just put a piece of tape over the area to prevent glue from being spread right there... but yours will ooze out.  I would think just putting tape on the outside edges and using a q tip to clean it right away as the glue come out would do it.  then remove tape.  just a thought. 

Getting glue on the truss rod isn't what I'm concerned about, clearance of the fretboard over the truss rod wheel preventing the fretboard glueing down properly is the main concern, that's why I'm contemplating pre cutting that part of the fretboard 

[mistermikev]

41 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

Getting glue on the truss rod isn't what I'm concerned about, clearance of the fretboard over the truss rod wheel preventing the fretboard glueing down properly is the main concern, that's why I'm contemplating pre cutting that part of the fretboard 

well, I meant more to prevent glue from oozing out and sitting in a spot behind the wheel that will be hard to sand/remove... but afa fit - just test fit it and if you need to take a dremel sanding wheel to the back side of the fretboard until it doesn't touch?  just a thought.

[ADFinlayson]

Some modest progress on the tele neck. My first effort with the fretboard was a failure - I started off trying to route the little recess of the wheel and I also to it down to final taper. The routing process went badly, the template slipped and I took a hair more off that I wanted to. I went with it anyway and stuck it on using a couple of locator blocks superglued on to the side of the neck (as pictured).

This method actually worked really well, except for the fact that it was executed by a cretin - I didn't realise the clamps weren't properly tight when I knocked the blocks off, so when I did tighten them, I got slippage that I wasn't able to correct, so I pulled the board off before it was too late and walked away - If I hadn't I probably would have thrown it at the wall.

Take 2... This time I started with a fresh fretboard blank at correct thickness, use a router to cut a perfect square end, then I marked my cut lines and just did the recess cuts with my new inlay saw. Much better results and kicking myself for using a power tool for a job that I can to perfectly well with a hand tool.

This time I tapped in a couple of 1mm pin nails to the neck blank, snipped them off just proud and used them as locator pins pressed into the fretboard, clamped down to make sure then glued - something I haven't done since my very first neck build. This was a much more successful glue up. 

Trimming the fretboard flush was not as straight forward as my usual builds given that the fretboard overhangs by about 15mm. So I used the flush trim bit to get close then a hand plane to get the very end of the board true with the rest of it. Then the most tricky part was the binding channel. - I cut the fretboard 1.5mm shorter than the end of the truss rod wheel to stick binding onto the end, so that was easy. But I hat to rebate as much as I could with the guide, then I carefully took the rest of with a sharp chisel. 

Now I need to figure out if I am going to cut the round section off the nut end and cut extra thick binding to cover the nut/headstock join, or if I'm going to try and bend the binding. Currently I am leaning towards the latter, might look a bit swankier and I've got plenty of walnut to try with in case I mess up.

Fortunately all is not lost with the dead fretboard, It will be ok for a 22 fret gibson/prs style build as long as it has a bound fretboard.

I now have the tuners and bridge in my position so I can get the tuner holes drilled and get rid of the excess thickness from the headstock. Then it's on to inlay which knowing me, I'll put off for a few months while I work on something else. 

[ScottR]

37 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

Then it's on to inlay which knowing me, I'll put off for a few months while I work on something else.

But you do it so well. I don't enjoy it at all, so I envy you your skill.

SR

[mistermikev]

you fretboard strikes me as wearing a turtleneck right now - I don't know why. 

looks like you got her on the run. 

I like the idea of the locator blocks on the sides as I always use pins (I remove after) and there always seems to be a 1/64 deviation due to me clamping the piss out of it to the point where I move the pins.  what did you glue the blocks on w?  I might try 3 blocks but mounted on a piece of mdf used as a bottom clamp protector.  If I made the middle block adjustable I could re-use it.  I like it!  I'm stealing that!

 

[ADFinlayson]

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

But you do it so well. I don't enjoy it at all, so I envy you your skill.

SR

Well that's very nice to hear, especially from a man of your saliva . I don't enjoy it either, nor do I consider myself to be particularly skilled, it's more of a succession of cockups eventually resulting in something that looks half decent in the right light - so I like having done inlay. This inlay is going to be a bit more difficult that previous ones IMO because it's all circles and triangles - I'll sort out a pic when I get home. In fact I'm seriously considering getting myself one of those mini CNCs to have a go at cutting it out that way.

45 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

you fretboard strikes me as wearing a turtleneck right now - I don't know why. 

looks like you got her on the run. 

I like the idea of the locator blocks on the sides as I always use pins (I remove after) and there always seems to be a 1/64 deviation due to me clamping the piss out of it to the point where I move the pins.  what did you glue the blocks on w?  I might try 3 blocks but mounted on a piece of mdf used as a bottom clamp protector.  If I made the middle block adjustable I could re-use it.  I like it!  I'm stealing that!

 

Now that you've said that, I see the turtle neck and I am struggling to unsee it, so thank you 

I used 4 locator blocks, 1 on each side at each each end. I used a blob of super glue and stuck them on at the very bottom of the neck blank (what will be carved away) in case of any tearout when tapping them off with a hammer. If you do it, I recommend superglue accelerator, I didn't use any and I wish I did. 

[mistermikev]

1 minute ago, ADFinlayson said:

Well that's very nice to hear, especially from a man of your saliva . I don't enjoy it either, nor do I consider myself to be particularly skilled, it's more of a succession of cockups eventually resulting in something that looks half decent in the right light - so I like having done inlay. This inlay is going to be a bit more difficult that previous ones IMO because it's all circles and triangles - I'll sort out a pic when I get home. In fact I'm seriously considering getting myself one of those mini CNCs to have a go at cutting it out that way.

Now that you've said that, I see the turtle neck and I am struggling to unsee it, so thank you 

I used 4 locator blocks, 1 on each side at each each end. I used a blob of super glue and stuck them on at the very bottom of the neck blank (what will be carved away) in case of any tearout when tapping them off with a hammer. If you do it, I recommend superglue accelerator, I didn't use any and I wish I did. 

right on.  so it's not just me!

I was suggesting I might build a simple jig based on your idea using 3 blocks... but good to know on the glue.

[ADFinlayson]

6 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

right on.  so it's not just me!

I was suggesting I might build a simple jig based on your idea using 3 blocks... but good to know on the glue.

Yeah I guess a jig could work if you're building fretboards of the same dimensions frequently. My rationale for the blocks this time were that I had already cut the neck and fretboard to final dimensions prior to glueing, so the locator blocks on either side seemed like a good idea. The principle is pretty similar to the cocktail stick method I've employed a few times, but in this case I had not cut the fret slots already so wasn't sure where to drill the wholes in the board.