BC And a COW

[Akula]

Hey,

 

Started two new builds, vastly different in shape, size, and format, but since they're aligned in time I'll be posting them up in the same thread. Hope it doesn't get too confusing. 

 

BC

This was drawn up by a client who envisioned a Beast and a Bich having a strange lovechild. It's spiky, aggressive, and large. Definitely prone to tip damage, but it'll likely dish out as much as it receives. Here's the template.

It's a full mahogany build, neck through and wings, with an ebony fretboard and carbon fibre reinforcement. Client wanted a quilted maple carved top, but given the price of sourcing such a piece of timber in Australia he decided for a solid mahogany body and a painted finish.

 

COW7

The cow! Friend of mine bought himself the Jackson Cow7 a while ago, and liked it a lot except for the blocky neck-heel transition. He's a previous customer of mine, so he commissioned this one as a loose copy of the original - I put my own spin on everything - with the improved features including a nicer heel, JEM-style output jack, and a stained finish. Here's the template:

It's another full mahogany build, but this will be a bolt-on as opposed to neck through. Ebony fretboard, stainless steel frets, and a carbon fibre reinforced scarf jointed neck like the other one.

 

Although the two guitars are different in size, shape, and construction style, I'm building them side by side to test a theory that I learned as a chef - cook in batches, save time. 

 

 - Jam

[ghostdive]

That first one is very cool, I can't wait to see it fully formed!

[woodfab]

very cool!

[Akula]

Thanks! They're both cool concepts, and I was glad to take them on.

 

I'll skip the boring photographs of raw timber and leave you with this lovely picture of my hand plane surrounded by mahogany shavings.

 

I laminated the necks as three-pieces; the COW7 inherited some Black Bean veneer stripes because it was bolt-on, thus the length of my material could fit  giving some aesthetic benefit. The BC build will be solid colour painted, so there would be no benefit.

 

Scarf joints away. Being laminated necks, both scarf joints rely upon total alignment, so I used an old trick where I drill two 1.5mm holes either side of the nut position, and use drill bits as pins to guarantee a perfect line-up. It also has the benefit of stopping that sliding motion while clamping up to glue. 

 

Used an age-old jig to route the truss rod slots on both necks. Carbon fibre reinforcement is new to me, but I figured I could use the same jig to achieve the slots. My 4mm router bit seems to cut at slightly more than 4mm, unfortunately, so when I come to gluing the rods in place I'll have to wedge a sliver of veneer in sideways to get a snug fit.

 

Glued up the headstock ears. Jeez, start a new build and you just wanna get on with it - every beginning step requires a 24hr glue-up in between! It's worth it, though, as it requires us to take our time with the most important parts of the build. One thing I'm wary of, after seeing the many laminations of mahogany making up this headstock, is that it may cause a weakness on the lower tuning machines due to string pull at an angle. I've seen Jacksons with snapped headstock ears, and I'm rather tempted to inlay a carbon fibre rod into the backside of the headstock to staunch it up a little. Thoughts?

 

Here's where I'm at, after tapering the necks, gluing body blanks, then rough-cutting body shapes on the bandsaw. A good ol' stack of guitar on the bench!

 

 - Jam

[Bizman62]

1 hour ago, Akula said:

One thing I'm wary of, after seeing the many laminations of mahogany making up this headstock, is that it may cause a weakness on the lower tuning machines due to string pull at an angle. I've seen Jacksons with snapped headstock ears, and I'm rather tempted to inlay a carbon fibre rod into the backside of the headstock to staunch it up a little. Thoughts?

I've never been a fan of Jackson headstocks and after having learned some things about building guitars and seen the local guitar shop add a string tree to keep the outermost string in the nut slot I dislike them even more.

That said, I must admit there's something in the aesthetics of those - sort of a "bad boy not obeying rules" thing that us home boys both fear and admire...

After this rant, let's return to your question. An inlaid CF rod in the back is one idea but will it withstand the assisted string pull should the guitar fall on its face? I mean, could the rod just drop off because of a shock, a sudden hit?

A headstock veneer on both sides might work, especially if you either use cross-grained veneers or some solid composite/fibreboard that some makers use for headstock veneers.

Another idea is to cut a slot at the end of the headstock and glue in a cross-grain sliver or slat. The slot could relatively easily be cut against a fence with a table saw.

I might be tempted to combine the last with a composite veneer or even laminate on top and paint the edges to match the top.

[Akula]

@Bizman62, you speak words of wisdom. The client hasn't specified a headstock veneer, however, and although I could probably sneak one onto the back face without much ado, I wonder how much strength half a mil of continuous grain would help in a face-drop incident. Really, it all comes down to that - if you drop any guitar hard enough, it's going to eat the brown stuff. I've arrived at the conclusion that I should trust in my glue joins, and in the future owner's ability to store his guitar properly.

 

Speaking of glue-ups, I had to do a 3-piece body to allow for the BC's shape and dimensions. This is gonna be one huge axe! The bass side wings were glued together separately, then the whole thing together the next night. 

 

Ran the pile of blanks through the bandsaw and received a pile of guitar-shaped objects. I did have to resort to the jigsaw for some of the tight curves on the BC shape, simply because I have a rather wide blade on the bandsaw at the moment and was far too lazy to change it out. More to the point, I'd misplaced my gloves, and only a pure maniac would unravel a tied-up bandsaw blade with bare hands. 

 

Shaping day! Pulled my usual trick of screwing the templates down in opportune places such as the tuner positions and pickup areas. Coupled with double sided sticky tape, I find it's a great way to keep the template from slipping without using bulky G-clamps. 

 

That's the BC shaped. This session was kinda like a piece of string.... very long! It took me six passes and nearly five hours of labour to get this one cut out. I figure a superstrat has three really sketchy parts while routing - two horn tips, and the tip of the headstock. This BC has ten such pointy parts to take utmost care with to avoid tearout. 

 

The Cow7 was easy, in contrast. Another benefit to using acrylic templates is that the router base just glides over the top of them, and I'd just purchased a new set of flush-cut bits, too. Beautifully satisfying.

 

 - Jam

[Bizman62]

28 minutes ago, Akula said:

I wonder how much strength half a mil of continuous grain would help in a face-drop incident.

Not much, that's why I suggested a composite headstock veneer (fibreboard, vulcanized fiber) which doesn't have any direction. Rothko&Frost, UK sell that under the brand Luthitec. And it seems hard to find it elsewhere, although it should be a very basic material!

And so I found the same material for interlaces in knife handles from Denmark

And finally, finally I found out what the product actually is! It's vulcanised fibre or Vulcanite, made of cotton or cellulose paper under pressure and used as gasket sheets among many other uses like pickup bobbins. Here's one retailer close to you: https://www.thewoodworks.com.au/shop/spares/wood-composites/composites/fibre-vulcanised-paper-detail. Etsy also has them: https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/595011762/vulcanized-fiber-handle-liner-material-5

[Akula]

I've seen these fibre boards before - I looked into them while building a Warwick-style bass a few years ago. Those German dudes make their own material, mixing maple dust with resin and dye under pressure to make a thin accent stripe in their laminations. 

I love the idea. Why cut down a new tree for aesthetic reasons when you could create it from the waste product of a structural material. Brilliance.

 

My two builds are beyond the point of changing the design brief, but as mentioned before, I appreciate your input greatly. Thank you for the links - I'll be plugging them into the big calculator for future builds. I think it'll save me time, money, and definitely trees.

 

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

Did some pickup routing. First there is swiss cheese, done with a simple twist bit because I have yet to invest in a good set of forstners. These templates are getting rather old and weathered, in fact this particular one is very lucky to have survived my last purge of MDF from the workshop - I won't allow that particular material anymore. I'm visiting family in a week or so, and I'm tempted to hijack my dad's 3D printer to create some new templates as a proof of concept. We had MDF templates, then laser cutting acrylic became an option, and now 3D printing seems, at least in my mind, the way forward for luthiery templates, and possibly indeed for entire parts themselves.

 

Lovely.

 

Carbon fibre reinforcements glued in. I stupidly used a fast-setting epoxy on the first attempt, and used far too much of it, so I pulled it out, scraped the glue off, cleaned up the slot, and tried again with more forethought. It worked, but the slots were routed to exactly the depth required, and the added volume of epoxy made the rods sit proud of the surface just by a fraction. Incredibly frustrating, since I'd planed the neck surfaces flat ready for fretboards already. Oh well, break out the levelling beam with sandpaper. Carbon fibre dust really sucks, by the way! 

 

The Cow7 received it's neck pocket. I've been on a bit of a neck-through spree lately, so I had to think back and remember how to do this.... Clamp the neck in position, three pieces of straight timber clamped around it, remove neck, thus a neck pocket template, right? Right. Well, it worked. 

 

The benefit of having a job which requires both early mornings and late nights is that it completely messes with one's sleeping patterns, thus providing time late at night where power tools would be considered un-neighbourly in which to do quieter jobs such as marking up fretboards. 

 

 - Jam

[Bizman62]

3 hours ago, Akula said:

Clamp the neck in position, three pieces of straight timber clamped around it, remove neck, thus a neck pocket template, right? Right.

Clamp the neck in position... Goddammit! So simple! And I've been using masking tape and super glue for attaching the neck hoping to get it right at first try! I'll still use the tape&glue trick for the template pieces but next time I'll try to remember to clamp the neck.

[Akula]

Cut my fret slots. I should really invest my time in making a fret slotting jig, but for the last half a dozen guitars I've been happy enough just free-handing it, with the saw following the scored lines marked with a sharp knife. My saw, however, has the world's most unergonomic handle, and my fingers went numb by the sixth fret in. Very inconvenient. Then the handle came off from the tang entirely, and I had to hammer it back on.... Hey, there's an idea for a rainy day, make a new handle for my saw, and an acrylic fret slotting jig as well.

 

On the note of jigs, I concocted this travesty to accurately drill string-through holes. It works the same was as the pin in the drill press system used by all, but it allows me to use my Drillmate. The plywood still has some bendiness to it, so I doubt it will see further use. Perhaps another version constructed from steel box section would be more accurate. 

 

This jig worked pretty well, in hindsight. It doesn't allow great visual access to the workpiece, and I managed to slam the chuck into the top a few times. That'll have to be sanded out. 

Here I am marking up the electronics cavity. Last build I did, I just drew up the templates freehand on paper, so this time round I decided to create a standard cavity template with CAD. This design is pretty versatile, I'll be able to use it for both of these builds and probably many more in the future. Transferring the design to plywood in exact measurements proved rather difficult, so I think I'll end up 3d printing the templates.

 

Time to do some carvin', Marvin! I use an angle grinder with an 80-grit flap disc for the most part, tidied up with sanding drums, files, etc. I know the grinder may appear to be a rather oafish way about things, but I can carve a top in about half an hour now. Don't spend too long in one place, keep moving, and let the disc remove material at it's own pace - to push the grinder into the wood just results in burning and scratches a mile deep.

 

Then I'll go to town on it with an orbital detail sander. Same thing, just don't press too hard or you'll scar the timber and probably melt the velcro on the sanding pad. 

 

Last job for the night, gluing up the fretboard on the BC. I would've liked to glue up the COW7 as well, but being such a vital glue join I figured each fretboard could benefit from all the clamps in the shop.

 

 - Jam

[henrim]

Looking great, beautiful workmanship!

I had to look at this picture a while before I got what is going on with the neck  At first I didn't notice there is two bodies on top of each other.

On 1/3/2023 at 12:53 PM, Akula said:

 

[Akula]

3 hours ago, henrim said:

Looking great, beautiful workmanship!

I had to look at this picture a while before I got what is going on with the neck  At first I didn't notice there is two bodies on top of each other.

Thanks!

Ha! That photo freaked me out for a second as well. I could blame the terrible lighting in my workshop, but really I'm just a terrible photographer. I'd ask my partner to take some decent photos, but there's spiders in the shed and she won't go near it 

 

Ok, unclamped the BC fretboard and radiused it with a sanding block. I re-cut the fret slots carefully, then went to about a thousand grit wet sanding. My timber yard have never yet failed to supply me with decent ebony, although I do try and suggest more sustainable Australian hardwoods to people. I used Ironbark on a build earlier this year and it was stunning... But a heavy metal guitar looks less fearsome with a brown fretboard. Anyways, shiny ebony:

 

I started cutting some frets, too. I finally bought a good set of nippers, as opposed to my previous method of sawing fretwire with a hacksaw, but I haven't yet ground the ends flush with the cutting edge. 

My method for fret preparation is to cut each length to exact dimensions determined by laying out the wire across the fretboard. Then I take the piece to the bench grinder and shape the ends to a rough semi-hemispherical shape. Next the tang is nipped and tidied up with a file, and the semi-hemi ends are tidied up with files and sandpaper.

 

Again, my apologies for the awful photography. Need a good camera and a macro lens. 

I'm intrigued to see how much legwork this method saves me - I've always hated shaping fret ends after they're in the fretboard, because I somehow always end up marring the fretboard with the file, even with a safe edge on the file and masking tape on the board. I am a little concerned that by installing frets with a hammer they will move sideways in increments and I'll end up with a wonky line of frets. I'm tempted to make a rudimentary fret press using a caul and a quick-grip clamp. 

 

The COW7 fretboard got glued. Tomorrow I'll repeat the process of tapering and radiusing the fretboard, then begins the fretwork.

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

Cut and shaped the frets... all 48 of them!

 

Instead of fifteen photos and a drawn-out explanation, I made a video. If you've got just over a minute to spare, check it out!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnEkVNmJSTz/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

Whacked the frets in. 

 

Pre-shaping the fret ends is a game changer for me. After installation, I've realised I'll still need to bevel them a touch more in order to get a real smooth feel, which is something I couldn't have done prior to hammering them in. But that'll be fairly easy - the basic shape of the fret ends is there, so a quick touch of the file and they should be good. 

Of course, in the classic tradition of nipping the frets to length after installation, we end up with a dead straight line when looking down the fretboard. This is not the case here, as even tiny discrepancies in length are easily seen, and even if my frets were perfectly accurate in length it doesn't account for the wandering of position while hammering them in. 

In the future I'll be refining this process by computing the length of each fret using a spreadsheet, cutting and shaping to exact size, then I'll install them up against a "fence" clamped to one edge of the fretboard. I'll have to take into account the roll of the fretboard, but I think this is achievable.

 

For standard frets, I'd probably not bother with this whole process, but for stainless steel I reckon it's going to save me time and headaches in the long run. In perspective, it took me average 8 minutes to cut each single fret, shape the ends, nip the tangs, polish the ends, and install. When my process is perfected, all that would be left would be a levelling. Just figure I'd prefer to shape the frets without a delicate piece of ebony in the way, gave it a shot, worked out alright.

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

I travelled to Perth a week ago to visit family, and while I was there I was very impressed with my father's 3d printing setup. He's recently failed at retirement and taken a job managing the manufacturing processes for a startup company, and has thus had to learn CAD and G-code, and he was happy to transfer some of his skills and learnings to me. First on the list was a 3d-printed electronics cavity routing template made from ABS. I've been "designing" in 2d using a free SVG vector graphics program for years, but bumping my drawings over to FreeCad was both a hell of a process and mindblowing. 

 

When I got back to Sydney I copied this template into plywood format and made some electronics cavities happen - pictured here before the "shelf" was routed. Oh and the output jack hole.... Jeez. My first time doing a JEM-style angled output jack installation was a success by a thin margin. Lacking a drill press, or more specifically the space for one, I went freehand with a spade bit. Sketchy doesn't even begin to cover it - I drilled a pilot hole for the spade bit to centre upon, but it required a lot of strong-arm to keep the bit from wandering around. If I were to place a 28mm cylinder inside the hole, I doubt it would reveal itself to be fully circular, but with a touch of dremel sanding I think it'll look great. Won't be doing it again this way, though, that's for sure.

 

Anyways, back to 3d printing. I couldn't seem to find a source for Luminlay in Australia, so I bought some glow-in-the-dark filament and printed them myself. The process can be seen here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnmOE4LJo0X/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

 

I actually went through two different brands of filament to find one that glowed sufficiently. As seen here, two brands have wildly different levels of brightness. I'm still not overwhelmed in confidence with how brightly they'll glow on a dark stage, but I've never used Luminlay either, so I have nothing to gauge against.

 

 - Jam

[Bizman62]

36 minutes ago, Akula said:

I went freehand with a spade bit.

Yikes! That's about the scariest thing I can imagine concerning drilling! I once built a shoe rack out of two boards as sides and round moulding for shelves but if memory serves me right I used a pillar drill sand for my handheld drill

36 minutes ago, Akula said:

I bought some glow-in-the-dark filament and printed them myself

Just out of curiosity: How much difference is there in the thickness of the filament to the printed ones? I recall our "teacher" telling that he uses filament for side dots.

 

[Akula]

On 1/22/2023 at 11:09 PM, Bizman62 said:

Just out of curiosity: How much difference is there in the thickness of the filament to the printed ones?

The filament is 1.75mm, and the printed side dots were a touch over 2mm. The PLA material also seems to change properties and become harder during the printing process, so I'd recommend printing instead of just cutting filament, as you might run into issues with sanding it otherwise. Give it a go, though - 1kg of filament cost me $30AUD, while Luminlay costs $16 for a pack of 12 dots. I'm lucky to have access to a printer, albeit on the other side of the country, but there will no doubt be 3d printing services in your city.

 

I carved both necks in an afternoon with rasps - I need to get myself a spokeshave and learn to use it, because two necks in one day was hard work. I used a contour gauge to copy the profiles as per templates. 

 

The bolt-on neck for the COW got it's threaded inserts, and the heel got drilled for recessed ferrules.

 

And the neck heels were shaped with a grinder and tidied up with sanding drums. Photo taken before the work was done.

 

Tuner holes. The BC's headstock is just huge, and I love it for being so. I've informed the client that I can't be held responsible for any injury to persons caused by irresponsible guitar-wielding... The bassist in his band had better stand clear!

 

Laminated some steel and mahogany for my electronics cavity covers. They will need thicknessing and shaping before getting magnets and final sanding.

 

 - Jam

[woodfab]

Looking good.

[Bizman62]

11 minutes ago, Akula said:

The filament is 1.75mm, and the printed side dots were a touch over 2mm.

A valid point if 2 mm is your goal.

It seems weird that the properties change when printed - after all the filament is made out of pellets that are melted and driven through a nozzle just like when printing. Is there a difference in the temperatures used or is it because of the water v.s. air cooling? Oh well... In my world side dots aren't exposed to much wear so I've been using whatever happens to be available. YMMV.

There's rasps and there's rasps, Iwasaki make some very nice ones and I own a couple of their small ones. But a card scraper is my favourite tool for carving a neck

[Akula]

2 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

It seems weird that the properties change when printed - after all the filament is made out of pellets that are melted and driven through a nozzle just like when printing.

It does indeed. It might be the PLA material, but I noticed a significant change in hardness - I could put a dent in the filament with my thumbnail, but after it was printed I noticed it was much harder. The other limitation of 3d printing for small parts such as inlays is the accuracy of hot plastic slowly setting while another layer is laid on top - hence my photo of all the webbing occurring between parts. My logo has calligraphy text which narrows to a point, so 3d printing is pretty much useless for making inlays. My dad has since sourced a small CNC machine designed for PCB routing, and I'm tempted to ask him to give it a shot with that machine. One machine is subtractive, the other additive, and both have their uses. I won't be CNC-cutting bodies or necks any time soon, though - I have so much to learn about my hand tools!

 

7 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

But a card scraper is my favourite tool for carving a neck

Noted . Cheers for the advice, I'll give it a go!

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

Stained the BC black....

 

...And the COW7 got red.

 

Both guitars got their innards and cavities stained black. Note to self - use paint next time, because stain will travel along the long grain of mahogany and bleed beyond crisp lines. Sanding, re-staining, and re-thinking my life solved the issues.

 

Danish oil. Two coats, then a slurry coat at 400-grit. Spy that sneaky tin of polyurethane in the background.

 

Another slurry coat at 600-grit, this time with a blend of Danish oil and polyurethane. I know Danish is a blend of BLO and poly, so basically I'm just upping the ratio of poly. Gives a great feel, in between smooth oil and the hardness of lacquer. Photo taken while wet.

 

And hanging up the instruments to dry. Got rain coming this week (what a bloody surprise), so I'm glad to have some low humidity at the moment.

 

 - Jam

[Bizman62]

4 hours ago, Akula said:

I know Danish is a blend of BLO and poly, so basically I'm just upping the ratio of poly.

Exactly something I'll do with my current build. With the exception that I've mixed the initial "Danish" from scratch.

[Akula]

A month of dry-time later...

 

Both guitars got a good buffing with wax after the oil/poly had time to cure. I use a power drill with a fairly cheap buffing wheel attachment - my workspace hasn't the real estate required for a full arbour - and the local hardware store provides the product. Terrible photo with a terribly untidy background, but it gives a good impression of the sheen I can achieve.

 

Final assembly in a logical order. First is nut, tuners, and bridge, allowing for string geometry to be set up for the first time. Then I leave the guitar for a good week under tension, before levelling frets and giving them a final dressing and re-crowning. Electronics next, plus knobs and other hardware like strap buttons. 

 

I'll do a few photos here of each build. The Cow7 has been delivered already, and the BC is just hanging on while I fix up some setup issues.

 

 

 

 

I'm planning on a proper photo shoot before I hand over the BC - I'm crap at taking photos, but my partner is absolutely fantastic. Finding time when we're both not working is the hard part!

 

Thanks,

 - Jam

[mistermikev]

pointy guitars aren't my thing at all... but you did a  nice job on that.  love the more reserved 7 string there.  nice build.