Walnut Vela build

[ADFinlayson]

Hi, haven't been on in a while, hope every one is good and enjoying the summer. 

I've just started a new build for my friend Dave, he's been following my builds since I started and occasionally asked me about some outlandish builds - multiscale, baritone, 7 string, semihollow and I've said no for the last 2 years but I've finally agreed to his build after reigning him in to something I'm more comfortable doing. 

So it's a PRS Vela shape, semi hollow and a core style carve top instead of the contoured body. It's also 24 instead of 22 frets and he want's 25.5" scale. Walnut top, black limba body, maple neck and ebony fretboard. He's got some bare knuckles to go into it, a high gain humbucker sized p90 in the neck and a polymath (whatever that is) for the bridge. It's having hipshot tuners and a hipshot bridge. I haven't done a carve top with a low-profile bridge like that before so I need to consider break angle. 

First up, I made a template a couple of weeks ago. This isn't necessarily accurate to the exact vela shape. I've just offset the custom 24 design and tweaked it a bit by eye as that's pretty much all the Vela looks like to my eyes - he likes it.

Something else worth noting at this point. I'm not making a custom neck template for this, I'm just using the custom 24 neck taper, In the past I have found that one can increase the scale length by .5" without issue with similar string spacing. 

Here are the blanks after glue up. This is a 2 piece maple neck I made up from a one piece Croatian blank that was a long way form quarter sawn and it had a good bit of twist in it. Jointing that was my first go with the new (to me) planer/thicknesser I got in 2020, so it's been glued up a couple of years and I bandsawed the profile out about a month ago.

A closer look at the top

Here is the top rough cut with a bit of spirits on it. I'm also working on a carve top version of Specials I've been building recently. 

I've had this bit of walnut for nearly 3 years and I've been waiting for a chance to get a gouge into it but it turned out to be a right nasty piece of work so and I brought in the big guns

After roughing in the carve I put about half my usual break angle in using the drum sander, seems about right. I thicknessed and slotted the ebony board at some point this week too.

Then I got to working on chambering the top. I used the drill press with a pin to drill a load of holes leaving about 5mm thickness. 

Then I started chipping away at everything that was with a gouge and thumb plane 

Also used the dreml to get into the really awkward spots. Fed up with saw fingers from all that carving so I'll come back to it later. 

On to the neck. I planed up the top and the headstock face on the planer. I thought I might have a bit of tear out but it wen pretty well

Then I apparently forgot to photograph a few steps. so this is where it's at. 

I think I'll get the h-hole cut next.

[Bizman62]

I really like the shape! Never heard about the Vela before but I wish I had slanted my two-horned LP Jr. similarly...

And the wood... Both strongly figured and striped at the same time! Guess he wants it painted?

[ADFinlayson]

16 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

I really like the shape! Never heard about the Vela before but I wish I had slanted my two-horned LP Jr. similarly...

And the wood... Both strongly figured and striped at the same time! Guess he wants it painted?

Yeah I really like the shape too. I never really bothered with Velas when I used to be into PRS because they only ever came with 22 frets and I wasn't a huge fan of the pickups. It makes me think of a not quite so offset version of the Crimson Scion. 

Fortunately he doesn't want it painted. It will be high gloss clear on the body and oiled neck. Looking forward to grainfilling without having to worry about keeping binding clean. 

[mistermikev]

first off the tops... ooh la la.  very nice.  should be an outstanding looking guitar.  

interesting idea to put an angle on a flat top bridge.  I guess if you are maintaining a slope for the neck pickup that might be required?  Either way I'm sure it will add comfort.  25.5 scale... the devil's scale lol.  surprising how much dif a half inch can make in terms of feel.  

man... you crank out some guitars.  I admire that - your work ethic is impressive.  I think if I tried to go faster I'd just make that many more mistakes - it's a skill unto itself.  take a bow.

[ADFinlayson]

4 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

first off the tops... ooh la la.  very nice.  should be an outstanding looking guitar.  

interesting idea to put an angle on a flat top bridge.  I guess if you are maintaining a slope for the neck pickup that might be required?  Either way I'm sure it will add comfort.  25.5 scale... the devil's scale lol.  surprising how much dif a half inch can make in terms of feel.  

man... you crank out some guitars.  I admire that - your work ethic is impressive.  I think if I tried to go faster I'd just make that many more mistakes - it's a skill unto itself.  take a bow.

Thanks Mike. I've put in a slight angle, in the region on 1º 

My rationale for putting the angle in is if you look at a tele or strat without the scratch plate, the fretboard actually sits quite a up way up off the body (I noticed that on the walnut tele I did at the start of the year) and it looks a bit weird to me. So I figured with a slight angle I can bring that fretboard a tad closer to the body. Also Dave likes to deck his action to the point where it's barely playable to me, so I just want to be sure that I can get the action really low. 

Cut the f-hole tonight and did the pot recesses. I need to do another mini one between the switch/tone (which is actually going to be a second volume) because he want's a mini toggle to split the bridge pup.

 

[mistermikev]

right on.  1deg ain't much... but I bet it'll feel kinda nice.  yes, tele neck is typically 1/8" above body level + fretboard... so it sticks up 3/8" on a normal build.  that said... no rules.  my last it is about 1/8" higher than that... it's like walking a tightrope!  kind of nice tho in it's own way.  

dave/action... I am exactly the sm way.  i like them laying on the frets, the lower the better.  that said every once in a while i pickup a guitar that higher or just the action has changed due to temp/humid... kind of nice to play it a bit higher sometimes.  

anywho... I'll shut up now.

[ADFinlayson]

A bit more action on this one. I've routed a chamber, did some stepping down in depth to account for the belly carve on the back, then tided up with a thumb plane and sanding. It's not going to be a very deep chamber, but I warned him that would be the case if he has the belly carve.

Glued an ebony veneer on to the back fo the headstock, no reason other than I thought it would look cool but it was a bit of a pain to clamp down

I cut my logo out of a walnut offcut from the top, I saw on a stewmac YT video about flooding wood inlay material with fine superglue to help prevent splitting, seemed to work,

And that's it inlayed, a bit more sanding to do on the headstock but it's starting to look the part. 

I also got 24 steel girders installed. I'm using stewmacs jumbo wire this time - I don't know if it's just me but they seemed to go in way to easy for SS, They were a pig to cut to length like you'd expect but they just seemed to comply a bit more than the Jescar SS wire I've used in the past, anyone else noticed stewmac wire being softer? 

Then today I spent the after noon making a load of spool clamps, I've been meaning to for a while so I picked up some carriage bolds, wing nuts and washers from screwfix, and used my black limba offcuts from this body, which I backed with some 5mm cork, cut them out with a hole saw and they work really well. I opted to go for 200mm bolts so that I could use them to glew up the next acoustic too.

This was a dry run, still a bit more work to do before I close her up. In an ideal world I could do with 2 or 3 more, but the metal work came in packs of 10 so I only got 20. 

That's all for now. 

[ADFinlayson]

Crikey I haven't updated this one in ages. I'm working on level and buffing

I started with the medium buff but I think I missed a few 800 scratches with the 1200 so I need to go back and do some more sanding

Pinstripe came out really nicely

Hopefully I've got all the parts I need so I can get on with assembly this weekend. It's taking ages to get anything shipped at the moment. Southern Europe seem to take weeks to dispatch anything and our postal service is on strike again. 

[mistermikev]

noice.  looking pretty good.  that buffer seems to do quite a nice job.  

[ADFinlayson]

13 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

noice.  looking pretty good.  that buffer seems to do quite a nice job.  

yeah it's a real time saver, at least it would if I was better at locating scratches!

[mistermikev]

5 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

yeah it's a real time saver, at least it would if I was better at locating scratches!

right on.  that is an item on my "when I've got too much money hanging round" list lol.  looks like it makes for some great results tho.  keep doin' what yer doin'!

[Bizman62]

2 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Southern Europe seem to take weeks to dispatch anything and our postal service is on strike again.

Guess it's Southern Europe, or something in the transport. I just ordered a spare part from Portugal and they apologized for potential delays. It departed from Lisboa on Monday evening, departed from Porto late Tuesday evening and is now in transit somewhere in the Netherlands. Looking forward to get it next week before Wednesday which isn't too bad.

Not only the buffer, you seem to do a nice job yourself! The pinstripe is simply classy, almost aristocrat.

[ADFinlayson]

6 hours ago, mistermikev said:

right on.  that is an item on my "when I've got too much money hanging round" list lol.  looks like it makes for some great results tho.  keep doin' what yer doin'!

yeah it's great, my only gripe with it is the amount of space it requires and space around it to work safely so I've got it on casters which are a bit giddy so I end up wheeling it out and clamping the base to the leg of my workbench. Apart from that rather picky niggle, it's a massive time saver.

[ADFinlayson]

4 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Guess it's Southern Europe, or something in the transport. I just ordered a spare part from Portugal and they apologized for potential delays. It departed from Lisboa on Monday evening, departed from Porto late Tuesday evening and is now in transit somewhere in the Netherlands. Looking forward to get it next week before Wednesday which isn't too bad.

Not only the buffer, you seem to do a nice job yourself! The pinstripe is simply classy, almost aristocrat.

It often takes weeks when they transport anything over land from southern europe, I normally go with the cheaper option which is lorry all they way here and it does take an absolute age for goods to get to Calais. The thing with the likes of Maderas Barber, Madinter and G&W though is it often takes them weeks just to pack and dispatch the products. I know people harp on about brexit and the extra border checks, but an extra few hours at Dover is nothing when it takes them a fortnight to do a 15 hour drive with no border checks

Anyway thank you, yeah the pinstripe is cool and I'll be doing it again for sure. Not only do I like the look but it also masks a dodgy glue joint should one occur  

I stuck some all in one swirl remover on my spare buff which did a masterful job and everything is now super shiny and she is getting used to her new shoes. It's tuned to drop B with 12-60 gauge strings so I think it's technically a bass. 

[Bizman62]

7 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

The thing with the likes of Maderas Barber, Madinter and G&W though is it often takes them weeks just to pack and dispatch the products.

Huh? In my experience it takes them about two weeks from order to delivery, the last few days being wasted here in Finland. Well, at least that's true for the first two, have never tried G&W.

[ADFinlayson]

Needs a control cover and intonation doing, and it's done

[ScottR]

That is gorgeous. Beautiful piece of timber and lovely craftsmanship.

SR

[JGTay]

Congrats on GOTM.

[Bizman62]

Congrats, a tough fight and a win well earned.

[ScottR]

Very well done Ash! Congrats.

SR

[mistermikev]

yes... congrats!!

[ADFinlayson]

Thanks very much chaps. I got it back off Dave and took it to the London Guitar Show with me last weekend, it was tied as most popular with the orange on in the middle.

[ADFinlayson]

Dave just shared a music video he recently used the Vela in. WARNING: It's quite metal. 

 

[mistermikev]

congrats on goty.  couldn't happen to a nicer guy nor a nicer build.

[ADFinlayson]

1 hour ago, mistermikev said:

congrats on goty.  couldn't happen to a nicer guy nor a nicer build.

Thanks dude!