Started a T-type

[Bizman62]

While waiting for the thru-neck to settle I started a Tele-ish build since I had all the hardware and some spare wood. True to my nature the neck is a multi-laminate one - or was?

So I managed to glue up a nice square block with walnut in the middle and maple on the sides, with cherry stripes and 0.5 mm birch stripes to accentuate the contrast where needed. I also managed to glue on a fretboard, pre-slotted by our tutor - I let him cut half a dozen of them since I had that nice quarter sawn 7 mm blank of Merbau. I also managed to saw half of the block away from the bottom, yes I know it would have been easier before attaching the headstock wings but it went without issues.

So far so good, so I started to shape the neck. This time I decided to try the facet method, starting by thicknessing the neck and then drawing tapered straight lines and taking material off between certain lines. It's amazing how fast the neck started to feel nice! I then took a sanding block to flatten the back of the neck as it was a little bumpy due to sloppy thicknessing. That's when I noticed a nick right in the middle of the opposite side of the first fret. At first I thought it was "just" a softer spot in the walnut. To my horror my finger nail went through, revealing the nut of the dual action truss rod! I've always had some difficulty with that part, the cavity for the thicker end always seems to be too shallow raising the rod proud at that end. It's not the chrome nut, I suppose, but rather the small part right after it. Anyhow, I chiseled the bottom of the cavity to make the rod drop nicely in and went too deep at that very section. Had I noticed that I could easily have made the fretboard thinner as it still is a 7 mm square edged block. Let's see if i can fix that. The first option is to make a 4 cm long skunk stripe out of either maple or merbau as those would blend to the wood choices elsewhere. If that fails, filling the gap with epoxy putty should work. For the latter I guess the grey stuff I have would be look too dull, black being more suitable. Let's see!

[ADFinlayson]

I’ve never done what you describe but I often worry about doing it, for that reason I never tend to make my fretboards thicker than 5mm now, thinner fretboard means more material under the truss rod. Also the nuts on those aliexpress truss rods are huge and IMO require too deep a route.

while a skunk stripe would hide the split, that isn’t going to increase the amount of wood behind the nut will it? Also how will you route that channel without hitting the truss rod? Sounds like a dangerous game 

[willliam_q]

A skunk stripe should be the best bet.  Will you chisel out the remainder of the Cavity in order to fill it?  Could be risky trying to use a router to do it.

when putting the skunk stripe in you could round over the side going against the nut barrel concave so it almost wraps around the nut.  This might provide for a better fit and more gluing surface at the sides against the neck

[Bizman62]

I'm definitely NOT going to route there! Routing on a rounded surface would require supporting rails on the sides which wouldn't be too much of an effort but routing so you won't hit the nut is beyond my skill level. Careful chiseling is the route to success.

So far I've exposed the entire nut with a small utility knife - a sharp tipped X-acto would be even better but I don't have one. Yet.

It seems that the cavity was carved too deep so it might be possible to make a stripe with the inside carved to a snugly fitting groove. The nut itself doesn't move as the hex screw is inside it so the tightest fit would pose no issues.

So either the fix will be epoxy putty or a block of wood looking like either of those:

If the block works it will look like this, with the groove inside and rounded ends:

 

 

[willliam_q]

Yes, that’s exactly how I think I would do it too

[ADFinlayson]

That’s a good idea, a little cove bit would  do the trick there and allow you to tap the filler piece in a little further for some more glueing surface. 

[willliam_q]

Yep a cove bit  could work, or you could drill into the maple or whatever you use before you cut it and then cut down the hole in half to get the same effect 

[Bizman62]

So I carved the walnut away down to the birch and should have done a cleaner job. There's gaps at the ends but some super glue and dust will take care of those. The plug is shaped according the drawing in a previous post. I could get the sides down about 5 mm and since the bottom of the plug is curved the fitting is tight and there's hopefully enough material to resist the truss rod end from pushing through.

As you can see I applied some lighter fluid on the other end of the patch to accentuate the contrast to the cherry and reveal the flames of the maple. It's from an offcut of the top of my first build, had two pieces the size of my palm left for purposes like this.

[ADFinlayson]

Good job rescuing that!

[Bizman62]

12 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

Good job rescuing that!

Thanks, it went surprisingly well. It seems that I only had carved the channel too deep at the nut end, by eyeballing it looked like a good 2 to 3 mm clearance despite the neck being only about 20 mm thick. And I haven't radiused the fretboard yet, another mm may fall off from the upper side...

[Bizman62]

Oh, and for the record: As you can imagine holding a piece of that size for thicknessing against a HUGE belt sander is impossible by hand, you'd either get a manicure down to your knuckles or send the tiny piece on a flight to Eternity and Beyond. But whaddayaknow, the good old Masking Tape and Super Glue Trick came to rescue again. It's hard to believe that attaching that tiny bit on an inch wide piece of melamine covered chipboard would hold it in place when pressed against the light speed rolling 60 grit belt but it did. Well, it might have been 80... The ends were then rounded freehand against the roller end of the sander.

[willliam_q]

Good job on the repair Biz, that’s definitely not an easy job.  I actually think it adds a bit of a ‘feature’ and looks good,

I’d be wary of superglue and dust against the maple and walnut.  Superglue maybe could darken it too much?  I known I’ve mixed superglue and maple before but never get results I like.  Dunno but I think I might mix dust and wood glue instead to make a filler.

[Bizman62]

12 hours ago, willliam_q said:

Superglue maybe could darken it too much?

I'm aware of that. Then again, darkened maple dust might match with the walnut just fine. The round ends aren't perfect by any measure so one option might also be to carve a groove all around the patch and fill it with any dust and super glue for a dark purfling!

[Bizman62]

Sooo... I may not have mentioned that a few years ago I saw a group felling some pretty big poplar trees in the backyard of a block of flats. I asked if they could get me about one metre of the biggest stem and that's what I got. That was sometime in the late autumn, the freshly fallen sleet had frozen before I got back to get that piece. 70 cm in diameter, 100 in length. I had it standing on my yard for the winter and half of the next summer as well until finally deciding that I can't find anyone with a large saw to cut it. So I took my chainsaw and very roughly cut three quarter sawn planks which I lifted onto the beams of the firewood shed. Now I took two of them to the class and split and planed them. Having that block standing on the ground had invited some fungi in so there was some interesting looking miscoloured flecks, both blue and purple plus a hint of flames. And you can't imagine how lightweight the planks had became after having them stacked with slats in the attic of the class hall for several weeks!

So last Saturday after a two week hiatus I glued the thicker bookmatched planks and sketched the body lines.

And now they informed that due to the corona pandemic the class is suspended for the rest of the spring, starting again in September.

[willliam_q]

Yeah the Corona is making things a bit shit for everyone at the moment.

 

[Bizman62]

They sent a message that all works in progress should be removed from the class facilities. Just before leaving last time I had prepared for routing the neck pocket, as you can tell by the mock up template!

 

However, since it was attached with masking tape and super glue, I decided to remove it before the tape sticks permanently. How do you like the wood?

 

And here's my ultra-high-tech template, plus the hopefully original headstock!

[ScottR]

2 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

How do you like the wood?

In fact, I was admiring it before I read your question. Nice! Is that the poplar?

SR

[Bizman62]

Yepp, that's the poplar indeed, bookmatched on the top. Very, very soft, I just notice the penciled centerline is very deep. I guess this one will be lacquered instead of oiled!

[Bizman62]

Some progress last Saturday. The class started again, hopefully there won't be new restrictions soon! Five hours and I managed to route the neck cavity. Fits like a glove!

[mistermikev]

looking good biz.  that wood - gonna look like a pin striped suit.  rawk on.

[Bizman62]

Some more progress last Saturday: Pickup cavities routed. Had to make the template first and I must say the fitting is snug! Masking tape and super glue was used to keep the template in place and for some odd reason the 3M masking tape ripped some fibres off. Pushed them back in with CA but I may have to plane the body thinner for a better fix unless the radiusing I've planned takes care of the issue.

[killemall8]

Ive found that its much cleaner and easier to make the corners of a neck pocket a 1/2 radius, and it will match your bearing bit.

[Bizman62]

13 hours ago, killemall8 said:

Ive found that its much cleaner and easier to make the corners of a neck pocket a 1/2 radius, and it will match your bearing bit.

That may well be true. However we don't have routing templates for necks. My previous bolt-on neck pocket was routed using a template made by our Master for his commercial builds, intended to be used with a bushing and a 10 mm bit. The neck drawing templates match with the originals which obviously aren't metric so rounding the edges has to be made by eye. That's the reason why I went square and used a makeshift template. Also as the wood is very soft it's easy to chisel the corners after routing. 

[Bizman62]

Some more progress today. Making templates is tedious! However, there's now a countersunk control cavity and I can use the same template for the cover. The smallest holes are for the ferrule block, however I ended up drilling individual holes instead of a single channel simply because there was no suitable router bit. And there was no 8 mm wood drill bit with a center spike so I used the 7 mm one and a regular 8 mm HSS to enlarge the holes - which ended up the row being somewhat slanted! Argh! It can be fixed, though, either by inlaying the block slanted or widening the holes to straighten the line. Or, if there's valid reason to believe the latter would kill sustain because of reduced contact area, plugging and redrilling the holes is an option as well. Opinions?

See how the masking tape rips the wood!

I also thought I'd make the headstock a bit lighter. Should I just cut along the line or make a German carve or bevel?

[killemall8]

10 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

That may well be true. However we don't have routing templates for necks. My previous bolt-on neck pocket was routed using a template made by our Master for his commercial builds, intended to be used with a bushing and a 10 mm bit. The neck drawing templates match with the originals which obviously aren't metric so rounding the edges has to be made by eye. That's the reason why I went square and used a makeshift template. Also as the wood is very soft it's easy to chisel the corners after routing. 

I get that. but you can make one. Only takes a few minutes