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The Zenith - A semi hollow electric based on my mandola design


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12 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

That's the kind of creativity I like! Do with what you have instead of spending time and money for a tool you only need once. 👍

No doubt! I love jigs as much as the next guy, and if I was making 20 of the same thing I'd jig it to death. But when doing one-offs most of the time it's not necessary or efficient.

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Sunday afternoon progress.

Shaped the headstock, drilled the tuner holes, and tapered the neck. The headstock to neck transition needs a little cleaning up, and a little scraping is needed in the tenon area, but it's close.

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Note that the truss rod is intentionally not flush here, I was just testing to make sure that the headstock overlay was in the right spot to get the rod into the neck. But the route is so tight I was concerned I would have trouble getting it back out if I pushed it all the way in...

Next up, the fretboard!

 

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Thanks guys!

Plenty of progress today. I got the fretboard glued on, here's this build's obligatory 'all the clamps' picture:

PXL_20210412_223131205.thumb.jpg.5442577da3bbc22738a64bbcf5a65b13.jpg

 

Then I got the fretboard routed flush with the neck and went ahead and knocked out the first carving session. Looking solid so far, think it's going to be nice.

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And a quick glamour shot of how the neck and the body will look together:

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I haven't mentioned it, but the tenon will be visible all the way to the bridge pickup. I've done the exposed tenon look on a couple of other builds and I really love it when there is a cool neck laminate that compliments the top well.

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Well, had my second covid vaccine shot this week, and it wiped me out for a few days. But some progress has been going on regardless. I made a maple/walnut laminated truss rod cover with a 'Z' carved into it and decided that it didn't work at all, so that idea is scrapped. Moving on...

I completed the carving of the neck. I will probably sand everything up through a fairly high grit before I actually set the neck, but the shape is more or less complete. Other than the heel area, obviously, which will have to wait until it is glued in.

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And I polished up the wenge fretboard with micro mesh papers. Wenge is one of those woods that has a bit of a 'whoa!' factor when you polish it. Not the best picture, but it gives you an idea.

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Next up is fretting the neck and carving the body.

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I'm quite a fan of wenge!

So, decided to just make a simple truss rod cover. The original idea ended up looking out of character with the build, this looks much cleaner.

 

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And then I got a start on the carve. Since the horn/cutaway is the most involved part that's where I started. Here's a picture of the test piece along with the real deal. You can see an area where I departed significantly from the test carve. I decided to keep the point tall to match the style of the mandola rather than the more 'Carl Thompson' look of the test. It ends up changing the look of the whole thing quite a bit. I figured I'd try it as I could always easily change it. I'm going to sleep on it for a day or two...

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I'll probably have a little time to work on the rest of the top tomorrow.

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On 4/17/2021 at 8:37 AM, mattharris75 said:

Well, had my second covid vaccine shot this week, and it wiped me out for a few days.

Moderna?

The wife and I get our second shot next week. We've got tickets to see Mike Zito and Ana Popovic and of course they scheduled the second shot for the day before that show.

I hope it doesn't screw that show up for me.....

SR

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2 hours ago, ScottR said:

Moderna?

The wife and I get our second shot next week. We've got tickets to see Mike Zito and Ana Popovic and of course they scheduled the second shot for the day before that show.

I hope it doesn't screw that show up for me.....

SR

Pfizer. The day after the shot was the worst for me. Headache, zero energy. I felt a lot better by dinner time that night, but was still dragging. It seems everybody's reaction is different. My parents and sister had nothing other than a slightly sore arm. My wife was wiped out at least as bad, or worse, than I was.

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I had mild fatigue and headache with the first shot. Supposedly if one has a reaction it is worse with the second shot and worse still if you've already had covid, which I have. On the other hand reactions are supposedly milder if you are old.....so I've got that going for me.

SR

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I've taken to leaving a little bigger gap and roll the edges slightly. This was to create enough space for removal after the finish was applied (something I've always had to go back and work on), but I discovered it also hides minor variances in the gap.

SR

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Scott, I think that's going to work out. The eased edge gives the cover plate a nice organic look too. 

I got about 3/4 finished with the back tonight before my hand started giving out. The horn area will be quite similar to the way it is on the front, except for the transition into the heel. The rest of the back has more of an over-square roundover, it's about twice as wide as it is tall. So not nearly as much carving as the top, but I think it looks nice.

PXL_20210423_032400415.thumb.jpg.fc8b4d813cfe53fd7d3914a0b33c89fa.jpg

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A single picture to sum up today's progress. Finished the carve on the back, installed the side dots, and fretted the neck (except the last 3 frets because apparently I'm not smart enough to calculate how much fret wire I'd need...) So, time to spend another 10 bucks in shipping getting 6 bucks worth of fret wire from StewMac. 🤣

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Once I get that fret wire in I'll finish that up, scrape the side of the neck smooth, and work on getting the neck set. 

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5 hours ago, mattharris75 said:

apparently I'm not smart enough to calculate how much fret wire I'd need

You're not the only one... On my current build I started from the last frets and only had half the length needed for the first fret. Agreed, I destroyed that much when adjusting the fret bender but the real reason was that the wire was cut to posting lengths, leaving an unusable short piece from each. I should've used the wire from my 1 kg roll but it was locked in the class workshop which was closed due to 'rona restrictions.

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