Aelita

[Professor Woozle]

5 hours ago, avengers63 said:

Bloodwood is the best. It smells like Christmas cookies. I've encountered a couple that smell like cat piss. IIRC, Spanish cedar was one of them. And then there's poplar. It sometimes gives me dry heaves.

Try African Blackwood sometime, that smells of chocolate.

[Crusader]

On 2/7/2023 at 6:36 AM, avengers63 said:

The blank is supposed to be African mahogany. That's how it was labeled at Rockler. BUT... when I was cutting & planning it, it let off a somewhat acrid medicinal odor. I don't remember African mahogany smelling like this, but it's also been quite some time since I've worked with it

 

To me that looks like Meranti which is from Malaysia. We use it in Australia extensively for doors, door frames, skirting and so forth. This is a length of architrave. I wish I had a bigger piece to demonstrate how much it looks alike. Having said that though, I've never seen Meranti in big chunks like that, I think the biggest we get is about 130x40mm

 

[avengers63]

I've seen some brands use meranti on their lower end guitars. I hadn't heard of it before they started using it. It's reported to have a mahogany-like tone. All I can testify to is that it was labeled as African mahogany, but it doesn't smell like it. I'm confident that Rockler named it exactly what their lumber mill sold it to them as. 

Whatever it is, it's what this body is made of, and enough to make another. 

[avengers63]

So here is where everything has completely gone to hell.

Several weeks ago, I made a couple of neck templates for 1-piece, dropdown, Fender-style necks. One was a banana, the other pointy.  Well, I screwed them up. The heel is too narrow by over 1/4". I honestly don't know how it happened. The base I used was my old neck taper template that has been working perfectly for as long as I've been doing this. I even used IT as the template to route the new templates for the shaft. 

What this means is that the necks I prepped for the Aelita, Kelly, StraTeleCaster, and 2 others are unusable. I'm honestly more aggravated over the wasted lumber than having to make the templates and necks again. 

So if you heard me cussing, that's why.

On the good side, I sold the old bandsaw, table saw, and a tool stand. Wifey let me go to Rockler & Woodcraft today and get some more lumber to replace what I demolished.

 

quartersawn beli that will make 2 fretboards, quartersawn white oak that will make 2 necks, flatsawn maple for at least 2 necks, and a piece of bloodwood flooring that will be planed down to be a fretboard. I got all of these from "dumpster diving" in their cutoffs bin. The prices aren't special (except for the $3.50 bloodwood), but I'm also not buying a huge piece of lumber when I only need it 30ish inches long.

 

 

Then there's the spanish cedar and black limba. THESE and the QSWO are what I was pissed about losing. 

And now I'm bound and determined to make the replacements even better than the originals. I will not be defeated by my own foolishness. Stalled, but not defeated.

[avengers63]

It's been a busy couple of days for me out in the garage. We had neck deconstruction, making new templates, laying out the three new necks, routing the truss rods, cutting out the new necks & routing to the templates, picking out new fretboard woods, milling the f/b blanks, routing the radius, and slotting. 

I particularly like milling lumber. I can't esplain it, but re-sawing, planing, and jointing are satisfying to me. Some folks here like doing wiring, some like finishing. I like milling and shaping.

 

First up is the deconstruction....

 

Template layout tools of the trade...

 

This is how far off the old templates were...

 

New necks. 

 

 

Top to bottom: quartersawn white oak reverse banana for the Aelita, Spanish cedar for the Jackson Kelly, and big-head maple for the StraTeleCaster

Next are the new fretboards...

 

Left to right: bloodwood, mahogany, maple, beli, hickory, tzalam, and some unknown cutoff I found at Woodcraft. I'm disappointed at how featureless the tzalam is, but pleased with how much character hickory has.

[avengers63]

NECK PROGRESS

QSWO reverse banana neck with hickory fretboard.

As this whole thing is an oddball, I decided to go with comically large dots made from dark red powdered stone. I WANT to say I'm using the stone inlay because it's already on-hand and I don't have to pay for more dots. I want to say it, but I can't lie to myself like that. Dots are cheap, and this whole hobby is predicated on disposable income. No, the stone inlay is the new toy and I wanna play with it.

I went with the dark red because that'll tie in with the red tortoise pickguard.

 

[Bizman62]

9 hours ago, avengers63 said:

I decided to go with comically large dots

Thanks for that phrase! Now I can justify having used 10 mm dots for my last two ones - the shirt buttons and the nerve wreckingly misaligned laminated plugs.

[avengers63]

Let's rough out three neck profiles...

 

Since I put the fretboards on first, I need to stabilize it in the clamps. The f/b is already radiused, so clamping it off to the side wants to twist the headstock to that side. Obviously, this will monkey up everything in the router jig. A simple 1/4" riser, fretboard cutoff, takes care of that!

 

Top to bottom: maple StraTeleCaster, QSWO Aelita, Spanish cedar Kelly. There's not a name brand company anywhere that would accept a maple neck with a dark mineral streak like this. Me? I think it gives the wood character. My old art teacher drilled it into my head: variety creates interest.

[Bizman62]

12 hours ago, avengers63 said:

variety creates interest.

That's something I've learned from Ben Crowe. Actually variety was something that had appealed to me from the first memories of seeing bare wood, but I didn't realize it's a thing before seeing some Crimson videos.

[avengers63]

 

I got these two necks done and ready for finish. The StraTele neck is definitely going to get amber shellac for that vintage look. The Aelita (top) might get linseed oil, might get shellac. I haven't decided yet. 

But I had an idea that might or might not have merit. The Aelita is a weird Russian thing from the 70's. The whole thing is oddball. that's one reason I went with oak/hickory for the neck and the oversized dots. Lean into the weird, right? So I thought.... why not do the name on the headstock in the Cyrillic alphabet that they use in Russia?

[Bizman62]

Аэлита

Or, are you going to use the more decorative handwriting style?

[avengers63]

 

Just a roughed-in test to see if I like it. I think I do.

Also, I did an ounce of research to make sure I was using the correct spelling. Aelita was a Russian movie from 1924. From Wiki: "Aelita, also known as Aelita: Queen of Mars, is a 1924 Soviet silent science fiction film. It was based on Alexei Tolstoy's 1923 novel of the same name."

http://pics.imcdb.org/0is204/aelita3ab8.5352.jpg

 

The weird continues to increase! Now I want to see the (presumably) train wreck of a 100 y/o movie that will absolutely NOT hold up.

[avengers63]

 

Final design. I prefer a structured, mathematic, draftsman approach to lettering, and so many more things! Precision, straight lines, and visual balance are extremely satisfying to me. This is probably one reason I'm so drawn no Art Nouveau. The graceful, swooping, organic lines are both beautiful and beyond my natural ability and inclination. Anyway, this is the lettering I'm going to be routing out and packing with the powdered red stone I did the oversized dots with.

[Bizman62]

7 hours ago, avengers63 said:

a structured, mathematic, draftsman approach to lettering,

Despite having seen similar grids around letters in various occasions like the covers of sketch books and such, it took me until now to understand how they work! This day is not wasted, learned something new!

[avengers63]

So I have proof of concept. However, my nearly freehand execution leaves me only one choice - paint the headstock black to match the body.

Folks have previously complimented me on me "warts and all" documentation of when I monkey up the operation. While I appreciated the compliment, that's not why I do it. All I post is the truth. Sometimes, the truth is we've done something wrong. I got cocky and thought I could essentially freehand this. Clearly I was wrong. Now I have to get an acceptable result. This entire "f* it up and figure out how to fix it" is an essential part of the process. Making guitars is hard. We're gonna mess it up, regardless of how long we've been doing it. I feel this is an important lesson  not only to the rookies, but to remind the old heads as well.

[avengers63]

So here we are now after several thick coats of black poly. It needs some cleanup and hasn't been buffed, but it's what needed to be done. If you can't fix the mistake, hide it.

FWIW: I taped around the edge with blue tape, using it as a wall/dam. It makes it soooooooooo much easier in the long run.

[avengers63]

Watching "2 Broke Girls" and polishing up the neck & fretboard prior to oiling. I got some cheap micromesh pads on Amazon. 240-10,000 grit. 2 double sided of pads of each grit. Each side is only good for one pass over the whole neck before it craps out. BUT the pack was only $16. We have a pile of consumables used in every guitar. I figure $4/neck isn't bad for the glass-like polish it gives the wood. In the long run, considering the finish & sandpaper needed for a finished neck, this is cheaper and easier.

 

[avengers63]

So here's the scoop.

About 2 months ago, I went into training for the new job. Everything went exactly according to plan. I'm with a FedEx contractor driving linehaul overnights. I take trailers of packages between hubs from about 7pm-5am, M-F. This leaves -zero- time through the week to get anything done. Lately, weekend overnight temps have been around 70, but with about 70% humidity. It's hard to breathe when the air is that thick. Between that and getting accustomed to the schedule and overnights, not a single thing has been getting done.

So tonight ima try and get some fretwork done in the kitchen. We'll see how it goes.

L-R we have the Aelita, Jackson, church guitar, and the StraTelecaster necks. I'm not done buffing out any of them, but the fretboards are all ready. 

[avengers63]

 

The only thing I was gonna do in the garage tonight is press the frets in. So me being me, I forgot to brace under the 22nd fret and snapped off the end of the FB.  1) It'll glue back on. 2) It's OK of it gets a little wopperjawed. I rarely go past the 15th fret anyway. Seriously - everything past the 17th is just for looks. I'm just not a shredding soloist.

[avengers63]

I managed to spend several hours in front of the television last night dressing the frets on the Aelita & StraTele necks. I haven't messed with the break off on the Kelly neck yet. I'm thinking that tonight I might try and re-buff the bodies and see if that makes things better.