Custom Guitar Build - First time build

[Bizman62]

26 minutes ago, Armaan said:

what software do you guys use for the illustrations?

I'm using good old Windows Paint. Quick and dirty.

For designing I use a pencil. That's hardware, I suppose...

[Gogzs]

Yeah, one of the reasons why I'm blending in the edges marked with red on the bridge recess is to have it a little bit easier when replacing strings (the string holes are on the bottom) and it will for sure help reaching intonation screws as well

As far as software goes, paint haha

[Armaan]

21 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

I'm using good old Windows Paint. Quick and dirty.

For designing I use a pencil. That's hardware, I suppose...

20 hours ago, Gogzs said:

As far as software goes, paint haha

Haha I guess good old paint works  

I spent some time working on the neck today and realised one of my maple pieces is slightly bent at one end. I will not be able to correct the bend - there isn’t enough material. If the other pieces are straight, would it be okay if this one piece has 1-1.5mm bend and I use it for my neck lam? I’ve seen posts where some recommend perfect flat surfaces for gluing and some say that bends can be sorted with well clamped glue joints. 
 

its a relatively thin piece (8.5mm) and the rest of the pieces will be flat. Hoping a well clamped glue joint will sort it out. Thoughts?

[Bizman62]

The rule of thumb with bent wood is, if you can pinch the joint shut between your thumb and forefinger, you can glue it. If not, it will cause issues.

Also, if the piece of wood is bent because it has been laying on a flat surface without any airflow from underneath, turning it upside down on that same surface may slowly bend it back.

[Armaan]

21 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

The rule of thumb with bent wood is, if you can pinch the joint shut between your thumb and forefinger, you can glue it. If not, it will cause issues.

Also, if the piece of wood is bent because it has been laying on a flat surface without any airflow from underneath, turning it upside down on that same surface may slowly bend it back.

Got it - the joint could easily be pinched shut with the thumb and index finger, so it should be fine. I placed that piece in the middle i.e. the 3rd piece in the 5 piece neck, so that it is nicely sandwiched. 

[Armaan]

Update - 3 of the neck pieces were bent across multiple surfaces, which made 90 degree angles challenging to achieve. I managed by first planing one surface flat using a hand plane. To ensure it was flat, I used the edge of a meter ruler for reference and checked if light could pass through. Using this flat surface for reference, I planed the other surfaces parallel/perpendicular to this surface. I also tapered the walnut pieces so that the neck would follow the fretboard taper. 

After planing, my walnut pieces turned out to be 3mm thinner than I needed them to be. I revised my drawings and planned for thicker maple pieces to compensate. 

One maple piece was also slightly bent after planing (you can see it in one of the images), but I followed the rule @Bizman62 suggested – I checked that whether it the joint could be pinched together between the index finger and the thumb.

I lined up the pieces and stuck them using a local synthetic resin adhesive. I clamped them and plan to 24 hours for the glue to fully cure. I think I used too much glue - there was considerable squeeze-out which was a pain to clean. But I thought it better to have more than less glue.

[Bizman62]

28 minutes ago, Armaan said:

. I think I used too much glue - there was considerable squeeze-out which was a pain to clean. But I thought it better to have more than less glue.

There's a couple of issues with too much glue, none of which is critical. First, you'll have to use more clamping power to squeeze the excess glue out, which leads to second, there's a lot of squeeze-out to clean. And third, a pool of glue makes the wood strips surf on the waves rather than stay aligned.

[Armaan]

9 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

There's a couple of issues with too much glue, none of which is critical. First, you'll have to use more clamping power to squeeze the excess glue out, which leads to second, there's a lot of squeeze-out to clean. And third, a pool of glue makes the wood strips surf on the waves rather than stay aligned.

Yeah. The pieces did slide a bit once I applied the clamps - I used a mallet to align them. The glue I used had a 10minute working time, so I had the time to make adjustments.

I will probably use 25% less glue the next time.

[Armaan]

Headstock angle scarf joint at 15 degrees:

- I plan to make a 15 degree cut where the nut ends. To be safe, I will cut 1-2mm away from the actual line and sand it down later to the actual line after the joint is completed.

- The surface marked as “A” in the drawing will be at least the length of my headstock.

- I will cut at the green line before gluing the joint to get the headstock thickness I want.

Is there anything I'm doing wrong or do you have any suggestions for how to go about this?

I hope the tapered laminate lines will match up once I make the joint. I noticed that the neck bent slightly towards the thin part of the neck, as the clamps were applied from one side for easy access. This was a dumb rookie mistake .

Is there any way to fix this? The glue has cured for 12 hours by now, so I'm not sure much can be done at this point. Help! 

[Gogzs]

By the size of the core, I'd say you have plenty of room for error, left/right and up/down. So the bent shouldn't be a problem, one you get it out of the clamps, flatten it again. As far as the headstock joint goes, looks good to me. I personally prefer when the headstock is glued on top, like:

So, method 1, but both work equally good. Just make sure you have all the room you need on the headstock, once it's cut, that's it  

[Armaan]

14 minutes ago, Gogzs said:

By the size of the core, I'd say you have plenty of room for error, left/right and up/down. So the bent shouldn't be a problem, one you get it out of the clamps, flatten it again. As far as the headstock joint goes, looks good to me. I personally prefer when the headstock is glued on top, like:

So, method 1, but both work equally good. Just make sure you have all the room you need on the headstock, once it's cut, that's it  

Thanks! Method 1 will probably make a better joint as there will be more surface area for gluing. Also, It will get additional strength from the fretboard that will be glued on top of it, which will not be the case in Method 2. Method 1 it is!

As far as the bend is concerned, I do have enough margin for reducing thickness - so I should be fine. The bend is prominent on the side at which I have 15cm of excess material, so when I chop that off the problem will also reduce. Just pissed off at the rookie error - only way to learn I guess .

[Bizman62]

I've always used method#3 with laminated necks/headstocks, both with neck-thrus and bolt-on/set necks:

I simply cut the excess off. The laminated headstock angle is most likely the strongest construction of the three.

 

[Armaan]

2 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

I've always used method#3 with laminated necks/headstocks, both with neck-thrus and bolt-on/set necks:

I simply cut the excess off. The laminated headstock angle is most likely the strongest construction of the three.

Yeah, I wanted to do this, but I only had 2" slats of wood to work with (before planing and correcting bends). So I had to go with a scarf joint.

Although I did read that a scarf joint can be stronger than a single piece, if it aligns the headstock with longer grain - Its from this link -  https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/builders-bench/38624-what-purpose-scarf-joint.html

See below one image from the link which demonstrates this.

 

 

 

[Armaan]

Fretboard design:

I sharpened the ends of the fretboard – I thought it would go well with the aggressive design of the guitar. Instead of the fretboard ending at the nut, I am now planning to have it continue for about 6mm (#1) or 8mm (#2) beyond the nut. I’m leaning towards #2 

 

The side view would be as follows. The 6.5mm fretboard falls to 2mm under the nut and then tapers at a 15 degree angle to meet the angled headstock created by the scarf joint. 

 

What do you guys think? 

[Bizman62]

1 hour ago, Armaan said:

Although I did read that a scarf joint can be stronger than a single piece, if it aligns the headstock with longer grain

That's very true. There's the magic words "single piece". A laminated block isn't a single piece when you think about grain direction. Although the laminates basically usually are aligned by the grain direction, there's minor variations so instead of a single growth ring there's many of them, not to mention the film of glue which has no direction, between each veneer. Really, the invisible layer of glue really solidifies the structure!

Your plans for the scarf joint look OK.

[Armaan]

On 6/10/2021 at 12:16 AM, Bizman62 said:

That's very true. There's the magic words "single piece". A laminated block isn't a single piece when you think about grain direction. Although the laminates basically usually are aligned by the grain direction, there's minor variations so instead of a single growth ring there's many of them, not to mention the film of glue which has no direction, between each veneer. Really, the invisible layer of glue really solidifies the structure!

Your plans for the scarf joint look OK.

Makes sense! The scarf joint was quite hard to get right. I used a hand saw to make the 15 degree angle cut, which resulted in some bursts and an uneven surface. Took some careful chiseling and sanding, as it was important for the surfaces to match perfectly for a strong joint. Gluing the joint was also annoying as the joint kept sliding with the clamping pressure.

Definitely the most stressful part so far, but I think it has come out okay. 

    

[Armaan]

Truss Rod and Nut:

I am planning to use this truss rod that I have, but it’s a little rusted as you can see from the image. Is that a big problem? Would some rust treatment be enough?

Should I wrap the truss rod in electrician’s tape or cling wrap before installing it? Would this help prevent any rattling sounds or help in preventing glue from reaching the truss rod mechanics?

I have a bone nut and a horn nut. The horn nut is significantly lighter than the bone nut and the bone feels sturdier. But the horn nut is black and it would go better with the walnut. Is a horn nut strong enough? Alternatively, maybe I can paint the bone nut black if the horn nut is strong enough.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be great. Thanks!

[curtisa]

3 hours ago, Armaan said:

Should I wrap the truss rod in electrician’s tape or cling wrap before installing it? Would this help prevent any rattling sounds or help in preventing glue from reaching the truss rod mechanics?

Probably a good idea. If you can get your hands on some heatshrink tubing it would be better still, but electrical tape would be good enough. I wouldn't worry too much about the rust unless it's particularly severe, in which case you're probably better off buying a new rod. Maybe put a few turns on the nut to test that the rod is working OK and not likely to fail in use.

I'm not personally familiar with horn as a nut material, but I think I've seen it mentioned elsewhere as being used. Maybe do a couple of test slots in each and see how hard they appear to be when filed, or polish up one edge to see how it behaves when sanded at high grits? I wouldn't paint the bone nut black, as over time it will inevitably end up with paint chips on it and will require touching up.

[mattharris75]

As far as scarf joints slipping when gluing, if you have enough extra width to your neck blank you can drill some registration pins in to prevent movement when you clamp. Looks like you were pretty tight on this blank, but for future reference...

I've also used pieces of binding tape stretched across the joint to help with movement too. Better than nothing.

My personal preference is to put the scarf into the headstock and use an overlay and backstrap, which gives you plenty of room to put your registration pins outside of the headstock area. But there's a lot of good ways to skin this cat, it comes down to what makes sense in your head and what you think you can most effectively execute. Looks like you got it worked out!

[curtisa]

Another approach to clamping the scarf if you have plenty of excess to play with (as you appear to have in this case) is to use the wedge-shaped offcut from the end of the neck blank and using that as a clamping caul underneath the neck. The two angled surfaces end up cancelling themselves out and you end up with two parallel surfaces to secure the clamps against without them slipping apart so easily.

[Bizman62]

On 6/11/2021 at 9:17 PM, Armaan said:

Gluing the joint was also annoying as the joint kept sliding with the clamping pressure.

Aside the abovementioned tricks, spreading some salt on the glue can help.

As for the horn nut, Jerry Rosa builds deer antler nuts and saddles and prefers them over bone.

[mattharris75]

1 hour ago, Bizman62 said:

Aside the abovementioned tricks, spreading some salt on the glue can help.

 

I had never heard of this trick until I watched one of @ADFinlayson build videos. I may have to give it a try!

[Armaan]

On 6/12/2021 at 3:50 AM, curtisa said:

I wouldn't worry too much about the rust unless it's particularly severe, in which case you're probably better off buying a new rod. 

I'm not personally familiar with horn as a nut material, but I think I've seen it mentioned elsewhere as being used. Maybe do a couple of test slots in each and see how hard they appear to be when filed, or polish up one edge to see how it behaves when sanded at high grits? 

I decided to get a new truss rod - it did not seem like it was good quality and I don't want to take a chance with it. I'll test out the horn nut and see if it works well. If not, I can always replace it later with the bone nut.

[Armaan]

On 6/12/2021 at 5:01 AM, mattharris75 said:

As far as scarf joints slipping when gluing, if you have enough extra width to your neck blank you can drill some registration pins in to prevent movement when you clamp. Looks like you were pretty tight on this blank, but for future reference...

I've also used pieces of binding tape stretched across the joint to help with movement too. Better than nothing.

Yes, I didn't have the room on this one for the registration pins - that's because I cut off the excess first, which I can avoid on the next one.

I used some rubber bands to hold the joint in place and that seemed to help a bit.

[Armaan]

10 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Aside the abovementioned tricks, spreading some salt on the glue can help.

As for the horn nut, Jerry Rosa builds deer antler nuts and saddles and prefers them over bone.

Yes! I've seen some people recommend this in some build videos on youtube too - will use it when I glue the fretboard to the neck! 

I think the one I have is a buffalo horn - I'll check with the supplier.