Prcknow vol. 2

[Gogzs]

The wood (and grass) finally arrived. I still have to tweak things in my working area, some stuff during my first build was super impractical, so it made me work even slower than I would have anyway. I will sort that out on sunday, and start cutting and gluing on monday. 

First build for scale comparison... and from left to right:
Longest boards (one light and two dark boards) are bamboo. The one on the right is purpleheart, and the pieces in front are olive tree. I also have purpleheart veneer that is not in the picture.

I plan to build one dark bamboo/purpleheart with golden hardware, and one light bamboo, purpleheart and olive with black hardware.

Rough plans: thin body, specially around the edges like last time. Dark one will be with a floyd rose, HSS pickup arrangement, light one will have a fixed bridge also HSS configuration, but probably active pickups. 

I plan to use bamboo for the fretboards as well  will upload some rough design plans by sunday. This will be one slow thread with the potential for both, real awesomeness or complete havoc. We will se if the first "Prcknow RS" was just beginners luck, or if there is real potential in me  whatever it ends up being, I plan to have just as much fun as last time!

[mistermikev]

guitar there looks great... love the stylings.  excited to see some purpleheart... it is fastly becoming my absolute fav wood.  that 'swirly' wood there is lovely too.  

hss - right on.  I need to do a hss... such a great combo don't know why it sort of fell out of popularity.  

looking fwd to it!!

[Gogzs]

Here is the roughest plan of the black/purple build with golden hardware, created entirely in paint, so excuse that haha. It will be a necktrough, and the core will be made from 5 laminated strips of dark bamboo with purpleheart veneer in-between the bamboo stripes. 

The "wings" will be a purpleheart core laminated in-between two dark bamboo pieces. I suck at designing stuff, so the shape will be finalized once I start using tools on solid wood, but the drawing is pretty close to what I have in my head. And it makes complete sense in my head haha, we will see how that will work out  

Finish will be satin all around, no shiny surfaces besides the gold hardware. Pickups will be black. And I plan to use that gold evo fretwire.  

Since I have a limited amount of clamps, I have to get this glued up first, so I'm not in a rush to sketch out the second one. But it will be more among the lines of the first build, and less glam rock ballades. I have to sort out the work area, didn't have time today, but sometimes next week I shall start cutting the bamboo and assembling the necktrough core. 

[mistermikev]

the fact that you created that in paint... kind of bumps it up a notch for me!  lol.  nice work.  i hope those purple areas are meant to be purpleheart reveals.

think you might want to mock up your tuners because it looks (to my untrained eye) like you'd need a bit more real estate to get the machines on there w/o issues but i could have no idea what I'm talking about (full disclaimer)

nice job on the design.

[Bizman62]

11 hours ago, Gogzs said:

created entirely in paint, so excuse that

That's no excuse and your artwork shows it. Actually the shape reminds me of the cartoons of late 1950's and early 1960's - Pink Panther, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear or longer movies like The Sleeping Beauty or The Sword in the Stone; and I finally remembered The Truth About Mother Goose. You know the style where the perspective can be a bit wonky and the edges a tad sharp... Very interesting!

[Gogzs]

18 hours ago, mistermikev said:

the fact that you created that in paint... kind of bumps it up a notch for me!  lol.  nice work.  i hope those purple areas are meant to be purpleheart reveals.

think you might want to mock up your tuners because it looks (to my untrained eye) like you'd need a bit more real estate to get the machines on there w/o issues but i could have no idea what I'm talking about (full disclaimer)

nice job on the design.

Yeah, the purple areas are where the purpleheart reveals itself (arm rest contour, belly cut out etc...)

As far as the headstock goes, I absolutely love the looks of the headstock on my first build, and I'll do exactly the same, so everything will fit, might tweak it a little, but to the naked eye, it should be like this:

@Bizman62 ah I grew up on those cartoons even tho I grew up in the 90s. The kind of cartoon where all the "actionable" stuff is slightly differently colored to the static stuff... if there's a closet with 4 drawers, you know what drawer the character will open because that drawer has a bit different outline and color  

[Bizman62]

Hehe, the headstock continues the cartoonish line!

[Gogzs]

So yeah, this thread has been going slow. I finally finished setting up my work area, I now had some additional shelves and roughly 7 more square meters usable on the attic, so some things should be much easier to do than last time. And I'll be tripping over my own feet way less now.

I also glued some test pieces together to see how bamboo glues on bamboo and how it glues to the purpleheart veneers. And it went awesome. All the test pieces I had glued couldn't be broken where it was glued. So there we have it, bamboo, even tho it's grass, can be glued like wood.

This is dark bamboo glued to light bamboo with purpleheart veneer in between. The red arrow shows the side that will be the backside of the guitar, and the blue arrow shows the front/back edge... I'm actually getting really excited about these builds, the bamboo feels so solid, I'm fairly confident it will be even a good fretboard material

Edited January 17, 2021 by Gogzs

[mistermikev]

Fascinating stuff.  no intention of using bamboo anytime soon (I imagine the splinters are deadly) but good to know and fascinating in general.  thanks for sharing.

[Andyjr1515]

This is going to be worth following

[Gogzs]

9 hours ago, mistermikev said:

Fascinating stuff.  no intention of using bamboo anytime soon (I imagine the splinters are deadly) but good to know and fascinating in general.  thanks for sharing.

Well, considering my first build ever, and first proper project working with wood, involved wenge... I don't see things going any worse than that haha. From the wood db for wenge:

Very splintery—care must be used when handling unfinished wood with bare hands, as splinters have an increased risk of infection.
Also, Wenge splinters tend to take longer to heal and  are more likely to go septic (get infected) than splinters from other woods.

Bamboo will be an upgrade in regards of not getting septic wounds  all jokes aside tho, I do use protection when handling it, should be ok.  

[mistermikev]

3 hours ago, Gogzs said:

Well, considering my first build ever, and first proper project working with wood, involved wenge... I don't see things going any worse than that haha. From the wood db for wenge:

Very splintery—care must be used when handling unfinished wood with bare hands, as splinters have an increased risk of infection.
Also, Wenge splinters tend to take longer to heal and  are more likely to go septic (get infected) than splinters from other woods.

Bamboo will be an upgrade in regards of not getting septic wounds  all jokes aside tho, I do use protection when handling it, should be ok.  

yeah, wenge is not fun - I love it but dang it can hurt!  So can oak!!  when I was young I was sanding a big cabinet by hand with a piece of loose sandpaper... unknown to me that was a big hidden split on one of the edges... slid my hand right into it... got a big splinter that went through 3 fingers.  this was oak... got most of the splinter out... but the numerous little splinters festered and I can tell you it was very painful!  

I imagine bamboo can be very sharp.  also very beautiful.  should be some cool colors in that.

[Gogzs]

So here is what I got done today. First I cut the purpleheart into fitting pieces. The big chunk I had was cut in exactly half, one half will be used for these two builds. The second half will be used sometimes in the future. After cutting it in half, I had to resaw it, but since I don't have a band saw, I ran it lengthwise through the table saw and finished the rest with the hand saw. Here's the result:

I also plained them flat with my router, so they are ready for what's coming to them, and this is it:

These will be the wings for the black/purple/gold one I designed in paint. It's all ready to be glued together, and seeing it like this, I like it even more than I liked it when it was just in my head  

This will be the wings for the other build. It's the olive + purpleheart, and the necktrough part will be light bamboo + purpleheart veneer. Since I ordered the wrong amount of dark bamboo (I'm missing one more board) I will be putting in a lot of work on this "second" build in the next days, while waiting for another dark bamboo board. 

And one more thing got done today, I started gluing the necktrough part of the dark build. Here is a sheet of purpleheart veneer inbetween two stripes of dark bamboo. I miss one additional sandwich like this, and then make the final sandwitch that will consist of B|B|b|B|B (big B is 17mm thick bamboo stripe, small b is 10mm thick bamboo stripe, the vertical lines are purpleheart veneers). 

Ignore the roughness, it's a bit like that around the edges when it comes out of the table saw, but when I glue it all together, I will go over it with the router so we will see if the purpleheart is actually noticeable inbetween the bamboo.

So yeah, that's it for the first proper update. Two parallel builds, and I'm already having twice as much fun as I had last time. But I see so many potential pitfalls this time around, because... bamboo, haha. But if it works out, these should be two rather lovely builds   

[Bizman62]

Contrasting and accentuating stripes are just so classy!

[Gogzs]

So this is how far I came. since I'm still waiting for one more board of dark bamboo, I got going with the light build.

Neck core all glued up and did a pass with the router to get it roughly flat. Also cut the purpleheart for both wings and flattened the sides so it's ready to glue on. I just need to rout the trussrod slot before I glue on the wings.

Made a template from plywood, a bit rough around the edges, but the shape is roughly there. After the sides are glued on, I'll cover the top with olive slices (6mm thick, will plaster the top and bottom). 

Small sample how the olive and bamboo should look when I varnish them. Looks good, can't wait to get this done.

And scarf joint done as well, put a layer of purpleheart veneer in-between. Should be lovely once the neck takes shape. I need to remove 6-7 mm off of the headstock, it's 21mm thick atm.

All in all, I love the looks and feel of the bamboo, I'm really looking forward to the additional board of dark bamboo arriving, so I can continue on the dark build as well.

 

 

[mistermikev]

love me some purple heart.   looks gggrrrrrreat (tony the tiger).

[Gogzs]

1 hour ago, mistermikev said:

love me some purple heart.   looks gggrrrrrreat (tony the tiger).

Ah yeah, the side that was out in the open is really the purpelest of purples, but the side I cut and plained is even after 3 days in the sun a bit bland and wood colorish... I saw online that heat can bring up the purple out, so I will try with some tiny pieces to see how it goes and decide if I'll risk with the big pieces. 

[mistermikev]

6 minutes ago, Gogzs said:

Ah yeah, the side that was out in the open is really the purpelest of purples, but the side I cut and plained is even after 3 days in the sun a bit bland and wood colorish... I saw online that heat can bring up the purple out, so I will try with some tiny pieces to see how it goes and decide if I'll risk with the big pieces. 

If you watch a lot of pen blank vids... you'll see that it's a common practice to use a heat gun on purpleheart to draw out the oil that turns it purple.  Obviously this should be done after any sanding as that will wipe it away, but I've tried it on some pieces and it def works.  seems like sun will turn it a vibrant pinkish purple(usually), and heat gun will turn it vibrant darker purple.  Either one makes it look better but sun takes too long for me!!

[Gogzs]

I got asked by a few friends there days "How's guitar building going?" so here is how it's going...

So I first draw the centerline, then the outlines, then I mark every fret position with a loooong ruler onto the centerline, I use a 90 degree angle to get all the fret positions perpendicular to the centerline (I start off with a square blank for the fretboard, and the centerline is parallel to the edge). Since my marker is a bit thick and I'm not the most precise, before cutting every slot I take the ruler and check if I go through the middle of the line, a bit before or a bit after... when I'm done with cutting the slots I take the router with a template bit and get the fretboard to dimensions. Since I do all the fret slot cutting by hand without a miter box or anything, it takes me roughly 3 hours to get all this done. 

And then the router slips... yeah, that's how it's going.

[Gogzs]

So these builds have been dragging themselves for a variety of reasons, one of them being a shortage of pickups (at least the ones I wanna put in these two builds). But I finally got hold of a EMG Steve Lukather signature set. They are for the build that was planed to be built second, but oh well, it is what it is. So now that these are here, figuring stuff out. Fretboard for this one is bamboo + a layer of purpleheart veneer going down the middle:

Really happy how it turned out. But now a question. So the pickup set I got is this:

Initial plan was to make it 24 frets, 25.5" scale. But then I'd have to move the neck pickup closer to the middle one, by around 1.4 cm (roughly 0.55 inch). If I make the fretboard 23 frets, then the neck pickup would be just slighly moved  towards the mid pickup, and if I go 22 frets, I can put them in as EMG intended them. 

I know, the more towards the 12th fret, the "softer" the sound etc... but how much of a difference would it really make? I can live with 23 frets but would prefer 24. 22 is not something I'd like to do, but if you convince me, I might just... so yeah, let me know what you think about the neck pickup placement. 

So yeah, this one is going somewhere, the dark one will have to wait a little until I figure out what pickups I'll put in it in the end. 

[Bizman62]

I'd say 1.4 cm doesn't make that big of a difference.

When strummed, the strings move in 8 patterns and within every loop there's another 8 pattern. Basically, on open strings, there's a node (the crossing of one or several eights) right under the 24th fret which just happens to be the place where the neck pickup normally would sit. That node will mute a certain harmonic which affects the tone in a pleasant way. BUT: If you play mostly in the key of, say, G, the node will move towards the bridge!

[curtisa]

It's worth noting that there isn't a magic position for any pickup based purely on resonant nodes and peaks of a string's vibration. Placing a pickup based on a mathematical optimum position of the various harmonics of a string only makes sense if each string only plays one note, as it would for a piano. As soon as you begin fretting notes the relative position of any harmonics and nodes on the string moves in sympathy, which moves them across the face of the pickup which in turn changes the position of the pickup relative to the supposed 'ideal' location.

The only thing you really need to be concerned about is that positioning a pickup closer to the bridge = brighter, and closer to the neck = warmer. The amount of proximity at either end of the spectrum is entirely down to personal preference.

[Gogzs]

Thanks to both of you, I was thinking along those lines as well, just wanted to confirm by folks with more knowledge. I hope I get most of the rough work done by sunday, so next week I can start with varnishing it when the weather turns a bit warmer and less moist. 

[Bizman62]

19 minutes ago, Gogzs said:

wanted to confirm by folks with more knowledge

That's frightening! Always take my posts with a grain of salt, they're often based on something I've seen in the Internet which isn't the most reliable source. Then again, even professionals can change their opinions when they find out their knowledge is based on tradition rather than science.

[Gogzs]

58 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

That's frightening! Always take my posts with a grain of salt, they're often based on something I've seen in the Internet which isn't the most reliable source. Then again, even professionals can change their opinions when they find out their knowledge is based on tradition rather than science.

Well, if it turns out sounding like crap, the three of us will learn something about pickup positions and how a bbq tastes when you use bamboo and purpleheart as firewood... it's all good, that's why we have this forum