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Prcknow vol. 2


Gogzs

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's an update and rough timeline of what I'm going to do Soon™ 

cS5xoUg.jpeg

So what's new? BODY CONTOURS! :D The guitar is getting thinner around all edges, specially horns/belly cutout and arm rest... it's also tapering towards the bottom. As it's stands now, that's all the purpleheart that will be poking on the front side. The bottom strandberg-like cut out is also in it's final form. All the curves are now curved out as well, no more weird shapes when you run your hand along the edges. 

Audio jack was also made a tiny bit bigger so it can take even the more chunky cables with metal sleeves. After all that, the fretboard got thicknessed, radiused and glued onto the neck at well. Truss rod works properly, no rattling... super happy how it looks and feels considering it's bamboo.

Left to do: shape the neck, hammer frets in, dress and level them, drill tuner holes, make the electronics cavity cover, recess the bridge and varnish the guitar with Minwax satin finish. I hope I get everything but the finish done by saturday, so I can string it up and see it everything is fine and dandy. 

I'm getting anxious, I can't wait for this build to be done :D

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Body work wise, very little is now left to be done (well, besides hammering in and dressing the frets). Carved the neck with one of those saw rasps + roughly sanded with a sanding block + 80 grit sandpaper. Such a fun and rewarding build step.

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I will carve the heel joint a little more, so the olive is a nice flowing curve from horn to horn. otherwise the neck is done. Got it to ibanez wizard neck thickness. Can't wait to brush it up with fine grit sandpaper and give it a satin finish.

As for the headstock joint/volute, due to the way it's laminated, I managed to get this: 

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I had a rough idea in my head how I'd want the volute to turn out, but this ended up better than I had it in my head :D The edges should get a bit sharper and be better defined once I sand it with finer grit, but shape wise, that's it :) 

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  • 1 month later...

A little update on why there haven't been any updates on this. Basically, I put the bridge and the tuners in and put some strings in to see if everything is aligned, and how far away the strings are from the fretboard, to see if I need to recess in the bridge a little more. I also put in one pickup to see if I have enough adjustment room on that side...

So while the strings were up, I decided to put the rest of the electronics in as well, and try to play it fretless. It's so much fun, I've been doing exactly that almost every day for the past 3 weeks, and I can't get myself to taking it apart again and finishing it properly. 

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As far as the front side goes, I'm really happy how it turned out... there will be some light sanding around the audio jack hole to take out the "edge" and make it all flow a bit nicer. And the pot knobs will be different, I won't use these for sure.

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While gluing together the backside, the last piece of olive slipped a little so there's a visible gap that I filled with olive sanding dust and CA glue, it's nice and smooth, but it is visible and kinda frustrating, but it is what it is. Once I make the electronics cover etc. we will see how much of it will bother me. Otherwise insanely happy how everything else turned out. 

dIrrmci.jpg

And my favorite part, the neck/scarf joint and the subtle volute. Absolutely love how the bamboo looks and feels after fine sanding and 2 coats of satin minwax finish. Probably the best feeling neck I have ever had in my hand. I can't wait to finish this, but I also can't make myself take it apart to finish, because playing it fretless is such a joy... 

So yeah, that's it, I will take it apart on friday and see how far I can take it over the weekend, and hopefully next week it'll be done.

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4 hours ago, Gogzs said:

he last piece of olive slipped a little so there's a visible gap

Without the arrow I wouldn't have noticed it on the picture. It looks so similar to the stripes on the neck! So if that really starts to bug you, "simply" take an alignable saw or router and open the seam, then glue in a purple veneer. The tool of my choice would be a circular saw with a fret slot cutting blade as that would easily be guided along a fence. A Dremel router with a 0.5 mm bit might also work.

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39 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Without the arrow I wouldn't have noticed it on the picture. It looks so similar to the stripes on the neck! So if that really starts to bug you, "simply" take an alignable saw or router and open the seam, then glue in a purple veneer. The tool of my choice would be a circular saw with a fret slot cutting blade as that would easily be guided along a fence. A Dremel router with a 0.5 mm bit might also work.

At some point I was close to doing exactly that on both front and back, on both seams. But for now I'll leave it as is and finish it so I can play it properly :) 

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4 hours ago, Armaan said:

What finish are you planning to put on this? Looks great as it is.

Minwax wipe-on poly, but the satin version. I did gloss on the first build on the front, satin on the back (satin necks feel better for me personally). But for this, I feel satin all around is the way to go. 

Edited by Gogzs
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After thinking on it a bit, I've decided that bamboo could be a brilliant idea for neck material. In years past it was often used for fishing rods. Stiff with a loaded flex that wants to return to straight immediately. One of my favorite necks is made with Osage Orange. In years past it was the favorite material for bows made by the Osage Indians who lived in the area I grew up in. Those bows were prized and highly sought after by many of the surrounding tribes for the same reasons bamboo made great fishing rods. Very stiff with a loaded flex that wants to return to straight immediately. Makes for a powerful bow, and a powerful fishing rod and I expect a very playable neck.

SR

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm facing the toughest decision ever. Do I go wild with the fretboard markings or do I play conservative with normal dots.

I had an idea to use the dremel with a fine bit to carve in Roman numericals onto the corresponding fields. They would all be uniformally big so that the number that will mark 24 will be the same size as number 3, and align them that it looks like they are written on the fret they are marking. Something along those lines:

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I cba. to draw them all up in paint, but you get the idea. I would fill the carvings with purple epoxy, trying to get as close as possible to the purpleheart veneer that goes through the middle. 

One idea is to use a fine router bit (thickness of the purpleheart veneer) and make a 2 cm wide slot perpendicular to the purpleheart veneer, in the middle of the fret field and squeeze the veneer into the slots. I'd get something that would resemble a fishbone --|-|-|-|--|--|-|-|-|--|- if you catch my drift. 

As for the sidedots, they will be normal dots filled with purple epoxy. 

Anyone got any better ideas? I really don't wanna ruin this at this stage haha. Both, neck and fretboard feel so damn amazing, it would be a shame if they don't end up looking as amazing as they feel. :D 

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3 hours ago, Gogzs said:

Anyone got any better ideas? I really don't wanna ruin this at this stage

Not an idea, that's something you'll have to figure out by yourself. But here's an idea about testing without damaging: Stickers! There's self adhesive plastic film in all colours, maybe even ready cut Roman letters. It's also easy to cut thin stripes to mimic the fishbone. They'll last long enough for you to pose in front of a mirror or look at the guitar hanging on the wall for a week or three.

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14 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Not an idea, that's something you'll have to figure out by yourself. But here's an idea about testing without damaging: Stickers! There's self adhesive plastic film in all colours, maybe even ready cut Roman letters. It's also easy to cut thin stripes to mimic the fishbone. They'll last long enough for you to pose in front of a mirror or look at the guitar hanging on the wall for a week or three.

In all this overthinking of how to do it, this somehow didn't cross my mind, thanks! :D

Tried Roman numerics out, if I wanna keep them the same size, they are tiny and will be hard to carve with any tools I own and know how to use... but I might be able to pull them off with another technique. 

I will try out a few things over the weekend and report my findings :D

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  • 3 months later...

If anyone wondered what happened to the ambitious bamboo project. Well, sunny days happened, and I wanted to make use of as many of those as I could. Once rainy/snowy days started setting in, I continued with the build. I guess this is the charming thing about doing this for myself, not for anybody else. No deadlines, no obligations etc. :) 

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Here is how far I've come. It got pretty much completed last friday night. Varnish is done (minwax satin, no gloss this time around... felt like satin would suit the raw wood look a bit better), frets are leveled, crowned and polished, pickups set up, action adjusted, strings intonated....

What's missing: possibly truss rod channel cover (not sure if I want a cover), electronics cavity cleanup and proper cover (atm. I have one made from some scrap wood, not even varnished), tone/volume pot knobs (I hate these numbered/labeled knobs), black pickup screws (currently mounted with brass colored screws that don't fit) and possibly thinking about plasti dipping the pickups to get rid of the EMG logos.

But yeah, it's too much fun to play so I'm not sure when I'll get around to stripping it down to finish these tiny details haha. 

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Here is a group photo. Title: guitars I wanted to play but couldn't buy, so I built them.

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