Jam's DC

[Akula]

On 7/16/2022 at 8:27 PM, komodo said:

On that control cavity oops, couldn't you just route down .5 mil and then run the whole damn shebang through the planer and take off a .5 mil? It'd save weight!

That is one solution. I don't own a thickness planer, however, and the top of the guitar is already carved and thus not flat. I could do it with a hand planer, this is true. However, I think I'll just route the entire shelf down another half a mil and install a steel gasket - it'll be a real nice "click" when the cavity cover drops home. This is a classic example of turning a mistake into a feature, something I've had practice at only due to the frequency of my mistakes.

 

Anyways, a week ago I cut twenty four stainless steel frets to size and put them in the block. I bevelled the fret slots, and polished the fretboard up to high grit and wiped on a good coat of Danish oil. Then I cleaned up the workshop, isolated the power, locked down and bolted the doors.

 

I've buggered off to Italy for a few weeks! Time to meet the wife's family and just get out of rainy cold Sydney for a little bit. When I get back I'll be checking everything is still straight and true, then doing the frets and carving the neck. This build has really come along in the last few weeks - there's nothing like a deadline to get stuff done.

 

Here's a shot of the guitar wetted with metho, so I had some pretty photos to show off to the family abroad:

 

And, just for fun, here's the real Italian countryside

 

See y'all in a few weeks

 - Jam

[mistermikev]

thats-a one a-spicy meat-a-ball.  I love the guitar, nice top, clean work.

that said I honestly wish I could stop seeing your avatar... i'm gonna level w you... it makes me think you are a not nice person... I'm not even sure why... cause you seem like a nice person.  it might be about me... r u making fun of me w your avatar?  hehe "I will not be mocked"

[komodo]

10 hours ago, mistermikev said:

thats-a one a-spicy meat-a-ball.  I love the guitar, nice top, clean work.

that said I honestly wish I could stop seeing your avatar... i'm gonna level w you... it makes me think you are a not nice person... I'm not even sure why... cause you seem like a nice person.  it might be about me... r u making fun of me w your avatar?  hehe "I will not be mocked"

LOL. It looks like Gary Bucy. 

[mistermikev]

7 hours ago, komodo said:

LOL. It looks like Gary Bucy. 

hehe, does a bit.

[ScottR]

My goodness!

I've been out a touch a lot this summer--crazy busy--but do get back in and check on things. You went and built a guitar....mostly.... while I wasn't looking. Beautifully too!

This is a huge advance in your technique, since you first started, and the thread is damn good too! You're gonna love this when it's done! Got your pickups picked out yet?

And you've started signing off with -Jam.

Cheers-

SR

[Akula]

On 7/26/2022 at 5:16 AM, komodo said:

It looks like Gary Bucy.

Yep, that's me! 

 

On 7/25/2022 at 6:51 PM, mistermikev said:

that said I honestly wish I could stop seeing your avatar... i'm gonna level w you... it makes me think you are a not nice person... I'm not even sure why... cause you seem like a nice person.

Glad I seem like a nice person! The way I see it, I'd rather be scary-looking but actually a good person. The real scary thing is when somebody looks nice but they're not! Haha. Anyways, I'll think about changing the avatar, but I don't think I have many flattering photos of myself...

 

On 7/29/2022 at 10:59 PM, ScottR said:

This is a huge advance in your technique, since you first started, and the thread is damn good too! You're gonna love this when it's done! Got your pickups picked out yet?

And you've started signing off with -Jam.

Thanks, Scott! Two years ago I restarted building, on a trestle table in my back yard. Now I've built a workshop, and I've got a few clients lined up for commissioned builds next year, so I figured I'd build one last instrument for myself for practice, and get the craftsmanship up. Glad you like it.

Pickups are going to be EMG 81/60, but I'm installing shielding and a ground wire so it'll be ready to accept standard passive humbuckers in the future. 

And yep, Jam is the name! Akula is a silly old username I chose when I was a teenager, signed up on this very forum well over a decade ago. I'm tempted to change my username to Jam, but then nobody would recognise the name... maybe that's a good idea actually!

 

 

I've got a to-do list for when I get back to Australia. Starting with frets, I've got to nip all the tangs and install the frets, then carve the neck. After that, we're onto some littler jobs such as installing binding, making cavity covers, cutting and installing a headstock veneer, etc. Let's hope I don't get slammed with busy work as soon as I get off the plane.

 

 - Jam

[mistermikev]

it's not so much the face... but the look on the face...it's mocking me even now!  hehe was just a joke... it would be a mistake to ever take me seriously hehe.

[ScottR]

3 hours ago, Akula said:

Akula is a silly old username I chose when I was a teenager, signed up on this very forum well over a decade ago.

I remember when you came in as Akula! There are probably not so many of us crusty old participants left...but it's good to run across the old codgers when you trip over them.

SR

[Bizman62]

11 hours ago, Akula said:

Akula is a silly old username I chose when I was a teenager

I can't see anything silly in that username. Before I googled for it a minute ago it sounded to me like 'Akela' who is the wise leader of the wof pack in the Jungle Book as well as the leader of the Cub Scouts Cub Packs. Now I know that 'Akula' means 'Shark' in Russian and aside a Russian submarine there's some top shelf items sharing that model name.

As per your avatar... On another forum I'm active in there's pictures of celebrities to choose from unless you care enough to prepare and upload an avatar of your own. I'd rather look at your ugly mug than connect your posts to the face of, say, Mr. Trump. That face of yours makes my imagination run! Like you've come to see how the finish on your build has cured only to see that instead of a shiny surface you see a twisted and cracled wreck covered with mould, smelling like rafflesia.

[Akula]

I'm back!

 

I spent the first morning back putting frets in. With a hammer. At 7am, because jetlag sucks. Luckily there's construction works all over my suburb, which helped mask the noise. I really hope they've finished jackhammering the roads by the time I get around to applying finish - there's dust everywhere.

 

I borrowed a technique I've seen several people use, most recently on Instagram from ShockTheFox - shape the fret ends before installing them. I only did one end of each fret, the logic being that it would be easy for me to cock up the lengths and end up with a wonky edge, so the plan was to line up the nice end with the fretboard edge then flush up the other side after hammering in. It worked, but my nippers aren't sharp enough to cut stainless steel frets without crushing them somewhat, so I had to file the protruding end down before doing the bevel. Lots of work.

 

There's still some work to be done, but my fretwork is reserved for rainy quiet evenings. Can't be wasting a perfectly sunny day.

 

Carved the neck with my tried and tested method of rasps, files, then sanding. One day I shall acquire a spokeshave and learn another skill, but this way has always turned out well for me, even though it is quite dusty.

 

The profile of this neck is a fair copy of a guitar I built with a pre-made neck about twelve years ago, seen blurried in the background. Lacking a contour gauge, I first made the basic angles along the length of the neck and then "broke" them, checking against the master regularly. The major variation is that I wanted a volute on this guitar. I've struggled with carving volutes, but this time I marked everything out first and went slow with a small set of round files. The back face of the headstock still needs some attention, but the curves are all there and feeling good under the hand. Heel isn't shaped yet, I'll bring out the grinder for that one.

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

Had some more time today in between shifts - no rest for the wicked - so I went about fixing the bad electronics cavity shelf routing I did a month or so back. First I copied the template onto some thicker stock. The poor result on my first attempt was due to the template being 4mm acrylic clamped to the body with plywood spacers to achieve the shallow depth. A 2kg router on a flimsy template cause it to bend in places, giving me an uneven depth, so this time round I gave the machine something to really ride on.

 

Much better. Uniform depth all the way around, but this makes for a 6mm thickness for the back cover. I'm combating this by making a 1.5mm steel gasket to drop into the shelf, which the cover will snap into with magnets on both pieces. Should make for a very satisfying sound and feel - and the cover itself will be a laminate of steel sheets and Tassie Blackwood from the top. I glued up some steel with epoxy so I've got some blanks to shape tomorrow.

 

Another odd job was to inlay the knobs with abalone dots. The knobs are a little worn, I really should've bought new ones specially for this build.

 

The original plan was to stain the headstock black, but after seeing the Blackwood top in the flesh I reckoned I needed a matching headstock. Just to set the scene, I have a 10" bandsaw equipped with a 6TPI blade, which isn't the ideal setup for making veneer. I cut a rectangle from the top offcut, then resawed the 16mm stock into two 7mm pieces. This way, if I mess it up, I get another go at it. Which is handy, because I'm taking it straight over to a router-on-rails.  Risky? That's me.

 

I'm planning on taking this down as thin as possible, because my headstock is weighing in at 14mm as is, and taking material away from that will be a pain in the ass now it's shaped. Why oh why didn't I do this step while the neck blank was still a square stick of timber? Anyways, the Blackwood gets taped down to the bench, and the runners are sacrificial. I blew out a corner, as you can see, but I've still got plenty of room to fit the shape.

 

Hell yeah.

 

After a solid hit on one face with the sander, I achieved less than a mil. That's about as low as I dare to go. The funny thing is, lacking a thickness sander, I was forced to explore this wildly unorthodox method, and looking back I very much doubt I could've done this with a thicknesser without destroying the workpiece. 

 

I rough-shaped it with a sharp knife, and glued 'er up. I don't dare get out the router for final shaping, so I imagine I'll take it down to the required shape with a dremel and a sanding drum, finishing up by hand sanding. This thing is so fragile, I nearly snapped it in half getting it off the double-sided tape in the routing phase. Anyway, now I know it works, I'll be using the same technique on the other half of the resawed stock for use on the cavity cover, although that will be more like 3mm and much more robust.

 

I'm still trying to figure out which timezone I'm in, but if I can wake up before midday tomorrow I'll be heading straight back out for more sawdust-creating shenanigans. 

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

I decided to cut away some material from that oversized headstock cap with my coping saw and immediately regretted it as I snapped off a nice big splinter, right off the bat. Bollocks. So I glued it back on, but that meant I couldn't spend my precious hour today shaping it. Maybe next week.

 

I cut my steel laminates to a rough shape with the jigsaw, ready for fine tuning with files. If you look closely, you'll see this one's bent slightly and has been hammered back into a flat. This is due to the blade binding while cutting, resulting in 600W of power slamming the workpiece against the bench. Needless to say, I didn't have a very productive hour in the shed this evening.

 

Now, I've hammered it flat, and once it's got a timber face glued on it'll be just fine. But the gasket piece which will live on the "shelf" inside the cavity, well that's going to be a very delicate piece to machine, since it's essentially a ring. I've held off on that one, because I want to get a set of brand-new blades for this job. When the time comes, I'll stick it down to a sheet of sacrificial plywood before cutting.

 

Binding channels are getting close to the top of my to-do list. I built myself a gramil a few months ago, but I have yet to source a decent blade for it, so I'm thinking about crafting one from a scalpel or x-acto blade. Beyond that, there will be chisels. Routers are kind of out of the question because of the top carve. How do you guys go about creating binding channels?

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

Got that headstock veneer shaped today. No more chances with saw blades, I just took it down with sandpaper. That step near the headstock is gonna get rounded over into a tiny Fender-style roll.

 

 

Neck heel transition. As with all of my major carving jobs, I'll rough out the most part of it, then come back to it the next day. This avoids issues such as removing too much material, especially easy to do with a grinder, and gives a fresh set of eyes in the morning. Also did a carve behind the lower horn, because at first touch the higher fret access was still a little too cramped. That will get a bit deeper, too, but as you can tell by the sides the entire body is still in rough-shaping mode.

 

 

The volute and back of the headstock, however, are pretty much done. The main length of the neck got sanded free of rasp and file marks, too.

 

 

Cleaned up the pickup bays with a sharp chisel. After the bridge gets it's final position, I'll possibly have to widen one side to line up directly under the strings, but as per the current measurements it should be dead-on.

 

 

Tools down. Tonight's the first night I'll have a chance at more than 4hrs sleep since I got back to Sydney nine days ago. 

 

 

The steel parts are still under construction. I spoke to a friend at work today about my issues with machining metal parts, and he has kindly agreed to give me his old bench grinder in return for me setting up a few of his guitars. I think that's a very generous deal. I'll still have to cut out the inside shape to good precision with the jigsaw, but at least cleaning up the outside of the gasket will be easier to get bang-on. 

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

Bridge placement is important, right? Right. I measured many times throughout the build, and my bridge ended up off the centreline by about half a mil. Not great, but I can live with it. The right spot was picked out with two threads strung from the nut to the outside saddles.

 

Due to my lack of a drill press, which in turn is due to my 7m² workshop, I am constantly infuriated by processes such as drilling through two inches of solid hardwood in a straight line. I picked up this DrillMate last year, and it performs pretty damn well for what it's worth, but there's always room for wobble due to it's construction. A machine like this was never meant for surgical precision, but it is possible to "lean" in the same direction every time and get a passable result. 

I'm going to start exploring the idea of wedging a drill press into my tiny shed. Moving forward, it'll help out with a bunch of things, and for the jobs I have lined up for next year I need to be able to rely on my tools to guarantee quality. 

 

Last time I did a guitar with binding was on a tiny budget at the beginning of 2020. What a year that was. I had no tools and no money, and I think I ended up cutting the channels by hand with a scalpel blade - not fun! Now I've got a fairly well-stocked shop, I decided to craft myself a gramil, otherwise known as a marking gauge. 

Originally, I attached a scalpel blade to the end of the bar, but really you want the blade to be about a third of the way down instead of on the end. I took a 35mm wood screw and ground the end to a fine point, and sent that through a hole. In terms of ingenuity, you've now got built-in depth adjustment! However, the flattened and sharpened screw point just wasn't sharp enough to cut through timber neatly, and it ended up ripping a rebate instead of cutting. It still works great as a marking gauge, so I'll keep it, but I had to explore different options for my binding.

 

I did as @Bizman62 said about twenty posts ago, and found myself a bearing. I got one that measures 9mm diameter, and slapped it on the bottom of a 12mm router bit, which should give me a 1.5mm rebate.

 

This is a test cut on a piece of scrap, so the bearing was obviously riding on a rough and unfinished edge, but the concept works! And it was far cheaper than StewMac.

Now my issue is this - the top is already carved, and even if it were not, the binding should follow the curve of the top in the vertical dimension. With a big router riding on a carved top, not only will the cut be slanted inwards, but it'll be uneven as measured from the edge of the body. Look at it like this - I've figured out how to make a cut 1.5mm rebated from the vertical edge, now how do I make sure that cut is exactly 6mm from the horizontal edge?

 

As it stands, I'm feeling like I'll route the rebate to a depth shallower than the binding requires, then use the marking gauge to mark up a 6mm depth on the sides of the body. I'll then finish the cut with a chisel.

 

 - Jam

[Bizman62]

On 8/27/2022 at 4:23 PM, Akula said:

With a big router riding on a carved top, not only will the cut be slanted inwards, but it'll be uneven as measured from the edge of the body. Look at it like this - I've figured out how to make a cut 1.5mm rebated from the vertical edge, now how do I make sure that cut is exactly 6mm from the horizontal edge?

There's several designs for tools that do that, both for routers and dremel type tools. Also, both designs are commercially available but relatively easy to make by oneself.

The router version has a base plate small enough to ride on the edge and some sort of a mechanism keeping it vertical - an up and down sliding shelf should be easy to build but I've also heard about a mechanism having been built of a swiveling table lamp.

[Akula]

On 8/29/2022 at 12:28 AM, Bizman62 said:

There's several designs for tools that do that, both for routers and dremel type tools. Also, both designs are commercially available but relatively easy to make by oneself.

The router version has a base plate small enough to ride on the edge and some sort of a mechanism keeping it vertical - an up and down sliding shelf should be easy to build but I've also heard about a mechanism having been built of a swiveling table lamp.

I saw some of those jigs available for purchase, but they racked up in the hundreds of dollars. I'm sure I could make one, and I'm sure I probably will in due time, but I'm not sure whether I have that time right now. I'm still pondering this one. 

 

In the spirit of trying new tools and techniques, I briefly considered buying some forstner bits to drill the output jack hole, having before had some ugly incidents involving spade bits. Until I get a drill press, though, I can't see myself using forstners. So I drilled a big hole with the spade bit, with the workpiece clamped down and wedged into the corner of the shop and a strong arm. 

 

Pilot hole is a must-have for this technique, as is slowly running the bit backwards as it breaches the surface to avoid tear-out. I don't think any force on this earth could prevent tear-out on the other side, though, so I stopped shy of the main electronics cavity and used a normal drill bit to complete the tunnel.

 

Sacrificial timber in the cavity made for some tearout-free pot and switch holes. I got my acrylic circle template out once more and took the recessed dishes down another few mil, Plowed through a bit more of the cavity ceiling as well, as I realised the 3-way switch needed a thinner material to grab onto.

 

Then I turned my efforts to these steel plates of mine. My new second-hand bench grinder made it easy to whittle the cover down to size, and I marked up the gasket ring on a second sheet.

 

Carefully cut it out with the jigsaw and a new blade, and cleaned up the outside edges with the grinder, and hey we've got a winner! I'll need to pretty-up the inside edges, probably a dremel job, and then paint and install it. I'll screw it down into the timber and get some magnets in there.

 

 - Jam

Edited August 30, 2022 by Akula
cat jumped on my keyboard half-way through posting. Bad cat.

[Nicco]

How come you're using steel for the cover plate? I've not seen that before

[Akula]

13 hours ago, Nicco said:

How come you're using steel for the cover plate? I've not seen that before

Several reasons of various importance. First, I made the shelf a touch too deep into the timber and needed to make up some thickness. Second, the steel will provide some strength to a multi-piece timber cover. The gasket is something nice to mount the magnets into. Then the weight of the steel cover and the tactile "snap" as it goes into the gasket is just going to feel great. 

I had steel laying around, and this is a personal build, so I figured I'd try something new, basically.

 

 - Jam

[Nicco]

Yeah nice. All solid reasons! Ha ha. Looking great, btw

[Akula]

1 hour ago, Nicco said:

Yeah nice. All solid reasons! Ha ha. Looking great, btw

Thanks dude!

 

One other reason for the steel plate is EMI shielding. Just thought of that one now.

 

Hoping to have a few shorter working days over this weekend. Super keen to get this thing moved over into the finishing phase.

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

On 8/31/2022 at 1:44 PM, Akula said:

Hoping to have a few shorter working days over this weekend.

That didn't happen. It seems every major band in the world had a two-year mandatory hiatus from touring, and now they all want to get back on the road again! I'm gonna be busy for the next year non-stop.

 

I got on with binding channels today, but it needs more work before the glue-up, so I'll keep those photos and that discussion until it's done. I also stabbed a precise hole in my index finger with a dead-sharp chisel while doing it, which put me in a sort of a mood for the rest of the day. 

 

So instead I'll post a nice photo of my truss rod cover.

 

Got it cut out of steel and shaped on the grinder. Note the Strat-style step behind the nut; I made a channel to accept the cover, which keeps it from slipping side to side. There's also a wedge of maple to be glued to the underside of the cover itself, which fits perfectly into the truss rod channel. Add three magnets, and I'll have a cover which should be firmly stuck to the headstock with no rattle but also easily peeled off with a guitar pick. Having failed with decals in the past, I'm exploring getting this piece laser-engraved with my logo - "Jam Guitars".

 

More tomorrow.

 

 - Jam

[ScottR]

On 9/5/2022 at 9:44 AM, Akula said:

I also stabbed a precise hole in my index finger with a dead-sharp chisel while doing it, which put me in a sort of a mood for the rest of the day. 

I can't tell you how many times I've done that. Well maybe I can if I count the scars on my left hand.....

SR

[ADFinlayson]

easy to do, I had a few stitches last year from trying to catch a chisel, at least you know it's sharp enough for woodworking.

[komodo]

Only semi-related but while we're at it... a couple days ago I tried to twist the spray nozzle on my pressure washer while I was using it to orient the spray pattern. Of course I know  how much pressure is there, but still don't really equate it with a table saw blade or anything. Sort of like how a weed eater/string trimmer can bounce off your shoe so you don't have that fear of death, but still wonder if it could cut your arm off.

Turns out that a pressure washer can quite efficiently (and quickly) leave a large jagged wound, like a drunken squirrel may have done.

[Akula]

Well, in a way, I'm glad it's not just me. I was doing a paring cut across the grain at the end of the bass horn when the wood let go and the chisel went whack right through my finger. Dumb move - first cut after re-sharpening and I had my whole weight behind it. I screamed like Homer Simpson.

No point building guitars if we haven't got fingers left to play them with afterwards, right?

 

Anyways. I finally got the binding channels cut, installed the binding, and sanded it down flush. I've got a few hours of sanding and random tidying-up jobs left to do before I start with the oil and top coats, so I'll get those done before posting about them. But the guitar's in a good place, which therefore puts me in a good place to start working on the next projects in the pipeline as soon as I start finishing. Happy days.

 

 - Jam