First build - "Birthmark"

[Asdrael]

Yeah, I was surprised. If anyone is wondering, I was using 90W at 8mm/s for cutting and it was still too slow and making burn marks. I think the engraving worked great though (10mm/s at 10W basically did a clean 1mm deep line).

There is quite a bit of scraps lying around, I guess I'll spend an evening optimizing parameters for thicker material at some point. Most people stick to 3-5mm MDF but it's too weak to support a router, I'd rather go for 10mm.

[Asdrael]

More progress! And a fix

 

First order of the day was to route out the cavity cover recess. Easy enough with a lasered template, I just had to transfer it to a thick enough scrap so my template copier could route out only 2.5mm deep.

Looking clean

Close enough, given that I still have some sanding to do. The tallest pot will still have room to spare, even if my body is very thin.

 

Now, I had to fix the ferrule holes. I went with @Bizman62 recommendation and made plugs. It took a bit to find 8mm diameter plug drills but Amazon came to the rescue.

I prepared a 8mm plug which seemed to fix nicely - not that snug, I could push it down with some strength but no need for a hammer. Of course, made from swamp ash with the same grain direction. It was now just a matter of checking thicknesses and depth and made what was needed: 3 plugs of 3, 4 and 5mm for bring all ferrule holes back to 10-10.5 mm deep.

Easy, but I did it with the belt sander. A flat bottom to glue them was all I needed.

I wanted to glue them in, just in case, and to be able to drill the string holes through.

A few drops of Titebond:

Position the plug:

Push it down using a 6mm diameter plug:

Hold it for a couple of minutes, done. Since their use will be to compensate for compression only, I wasn't too worried about getting a perfect joint clamped for hours.

All three done!

Close enough.

I left this to dry on the side and move on to more rosewood, as I wanted to get the cavity cover and the truss rod access cover out of the way to. Those were to be flush and 3mm thick respectively. So I started with a "resaw" of a piece of rosewood I liked the grain of.

That works! Now I just had to shape it. I used a belt sander mostly, with 240 grit. It didn't take long, just a lot of back and forth to make it fit perfectly how I wanted. I managed, so I am happy about it. I think the grain complements the swamp ash very nicely too.

One thing I don't like at all is fiddling around to put the cavity cover back on when you need it. Always rubs me the wrong way. So I "beveled" the underside of the cover to help it slide in.

Just had to do some holes next:

Those were easy enough (2mm wide), but I want to use inserts here so I just had to widen to 4mm on the body.

Also, woops. Almost went through to the input jack hole. No metal will ever poke through so that's what... our dirty little secret #37?

 

And now, truss rod cavity cover! I had a rough outline from one of mine and just freehanded it on the belt sander. I wanted to see how good I could make it. I just drew a centerline and tried to have both sides symmetrical. This one gets a bevel on the top face as I think it slims down the shape nicely.

 

From then on, I drilled the string through holes back (3mm with a large guiding hole, and the glue held so yay easy enough) and then... there was no choice. I had to sand the body. No pictures because... well you know, not that inspiring. Currently the body is sitting sanded at 240 grit, next time I will do 320, 400 and 600. Then it's tru-oil time. Same for the truss rod / cavity covers. I will also have to start soldering the electronics, which shouldn't be a big deal but I literally haven't soldered in 25 years, so I am hoping I won't just make a big blob.

 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Asdrael

[Bizman62]

Well done with the plugs!

And well done with all the rest, as I've said before the famous German accuracy is very highly present in this build.  Wish I could achieve that level of neatness.

[Asdrael]

Thanks. Now watch me fuck up the very last step or the classic - let the neck fall down right before assembly, or whatever critically stupid like that

[henrim]

Sorry if I missed it, but how are you going to finish the body?

If you lacquer it, or coat it with some sort of polyurethane stuff, you may want to have a bit more clearance on the cavity cover.

On the other hand, if you’re going to finish that swamp ash with oils or waxes or whatever, I want you to know that every time you touch the body with something, there will be a mark on the surface. Or deeper. If you are fine with that then you are fine:)

[Asdrael]

Thanks for the insight! The initial idea behind the build was "just wood with electronics in it". So all oil (tru-oil) - meaning the cover should still fit perfectly fine once everything is finished. I am also perfectly ok with the body getting its dings and dongs, it won't hurt playability. As long as the neck remains in shape, I'll be happy. I take good care of my instruments, I am a bedroom guitarist anyway.

I am still not 100% sure how I will actually apply the oil, I get that's a rabbit hole in itself... so it will probably be just me rubbing oil. Not wet sanding or anything. I want to feel the grain (and be able to go back and fix stuff easily).

 

[Asdrael]

Neck finish is done!

(The date of the heel is when the actual work was finished on it, not counting finishing.)

That's around 8 thin coats of tru oil (wipe on / 2 minutes / wipe off). Which ended up a bit sticky to my taste and a bit too glossy. Gave it a decent rub with 0000 steel wool, and it ended up right where I wanted it in terms of looks and feel. The flame can be seen under the right light - it's a nice but not very contrasted pattern. AA quality, which is what I paid for. Happy with it. The rosewood is actually much darker than it looks (the fretboard is almost black, a few shades darker than the headstock) which is once again exactly what I wanted. We just have so much sun today (30°C what the actual fuck) that it looks brighter.

 

 

[Asdrael]

Managed to sneak out of the house on Germany Unity Day to get some more stuff done once the kids were in bed.

Summary of what I did:

 

Yep, sanding. 320, 400, 600, 600 after raising the grain. I also sanded the cavity cover (after making it perfectly flush) and the truss rod cover to 2000 grit because I can (and I was waiting on the water to dry from the body).

I rushed home to be able to give the front and sides of the body the first tru-oil coat.

I think it looks great. I tried on scraps beforehand and I'm going with a very easy method: After the final sanding, I just brushed off the excess dust but didn't clean the pores with naphta or anything. I also didn't fill with anything. I just... applied a thin coat of tru-oil. Wipe on, wait a few minutes, wipe off. The plan is to do it around 10 times and then assess the situation. It's possible I will knock down the gloss and stickiness at the end with steel wool, time will tell.

[mistermikev]

rosewood w rosewood... a winning combo in my book.  that'll look sharp w that body.  I hope you'll do something on the body to echo that rosewood... rosewood knobs, rosewood veneer over pickup bobbins... could buy some emg style plastic covers and then laminate rosewood on them... that'd look sharp.  just a thought.  carry on.

[Asdrael]

Well, not much going on. I am half way in the planned Tru-Oil coats for the body and so far, so good. I decided against the wet sanding approach as I wanted to keep it as fool proof as possible. Wipe on a thin layer with a clean rag, wait a minute, wipe off with paper towel, wait 24 hours (I'm doing one side every 12 hours actually). I am somewhat polishing each coat with a paper towel before reapplying, it seems to help get a smoother surface and doesn't seem to remove any material.

5 coats in, there is some gloss. The wood texture is still very noticable to the eye and the touch, which is exactly what I wanted. I am pondering stopping there and rub it with steel wool as I want a mat, not a gloss finish, but I am afraid the thickness of the finish will be too low to protect the body at least marginally against my radioactive sweat (literally radioactive sometimes, I work with radioactive material).

My score sheet:

 

Definitely not the most interesting part of the build, sorry. Can't wait to have it done, put it in our 25°C / 35% humidity cellar for a week to get it real dry and assemble the guitar.

 

I am also starting to plan for building a miter box for fret slotting. Since I can make templates with a laser cutter, I figured I could custom make a miter box and save enough money to buy nut files. I have 25€ or material approximately already invested. If there is any interest, maybe I'll publish my WIP plans and do a tutorial on it.

Anyhow, not a lot going on, so going to play with my new toys:

[Asdrael]

On 10/4/2023 at 4:37 AM, mistermikev said:

rosewood w rosewood... a winning combo in my book.  that'll look sharp w that body.  I hope you'll do something on the body to echo that rosewood... rosewood knobs, rosewood veneer over pickup bobbins... could buy some emg style plastic covers and then laminate rosewood on them... that'd look sharp.  just a thought.  carry on.

I thought about that. The cavity cover will be rosewood, but the lathe to potentially make knobs isn't functional currently. I am against the pickups covered with rosewood (for now) as I already have black covered pickups that look sharp. I may in the future get some other pickups done by Elysian pickups, then they would be rosewood covered.

[Bizman62]

10 hours ago, Asdrael said:

save enough money to buy nut files.

If you really want to save you buy a set of steel feeler gauges for a fiver and roughen the edge. The one below has served me and a bunch of fellow builders for a decade already.

Roughening the edges is simple. The tools needed is a small vise to hold one blade at a time, a coarse double cut file and a small metal saw. You only need to work the slanted tip, the last 3-4 cm of each. Start by filing a round V working from tip towards the handle to make the tool cut when pushed. Half a dozen strokes each side is enough. Unlike normal filing you're trying to create a grooved surface. That already can cut slots to bone! When the shape is right take the metal saw and use it sideways as a scraper to make deeper grooves. Again, I do this at a 45° angle both along the V side and towards the handle for making it cut when pushed.

You don't need all the thicknesses, just choose the ones for standard string gauges.

That can also be used for fine tuning the nut slots. Simply wrap some fine wet'n'dry sandpaper over a thinner gauge blade to polish the slots.

[Asdrael]

Good call, I could do that. I have a preslotted nut for this build that I was to sand down to get the proper height on e and E but I think it's a 16" radius where I have a 17" fretboard. So not perfect but might be close enough knowing how I setup my guitars.

Then again my birthday and Christmas are coming so...

 

[henrim]

I have a set of 10-46 Hosco's. I usually set my guitars to 10-52 strings so the wound strings are a bit thicker than the files. Fret files don't do anything that can't be done with regular needle files, feeler gauges, guitar strings or what ever combination of them. Anyway I like the files as you can file a nut to ballpark with them. But you still need other means to finish the nut. That said, as a newly converted I can testify that a zero fret is a no-brainer. With that, you still need a nut but it's just a spacer so it doesn't need to be perfectly filed.  

Edited October 9, 2023 by henrim
clarification

[Crusader]

On 9/29/2023 at 3:29 PM, Asdrael said:

I knew I saw this somewhere, was looking for it the other day. Countersinking the ferrules to be flush; I didn't know it was a thing when doing mine

[mistermikev]

On 10/8/2023 at 12:52 PM, Asdrael said:

I thought about that. The cavity cover will be rosewood, but the lathe to potentially make knobs isn't functional currently. I am against the pickups covered with rosewood (for now) as I already have black covered pickups that look sharp. I may in the future get some other pickups done by Elysian pickups, then they would be rosewood covered.

you prob already know this... but you can buy rosewood knobs online, and you can make them with a drill press pretty easy... not that I'm an expert.  all that said... u r the captain of your own ship... but I suggest things, it's what I do lol.

[Asdrael]

1 hour ago, mistermikev said:

you prob already know this... but you can buy rosewood knobs online, and you can make them with a drill press pretty easy... not that I'm an expert.  all that said... u r the captain of your own ship... but I suggest things, it's what I do lol.

True, I could buy. But in that case, since it's my first project, I would like to avoid buying finished wood things and go with as much experience as I can. If the lathe is fixed, I might actually go for a rosewood / maple / rosewood sandwich knob. And with a drill press, I guess there is indeed a way... I'll have to think about that one. Thanks for the suggestion!

[mistermikev]

Just now, Asdrael said:

True, I could buy. But in that case, since it's my first project, I would like to avoid buying finished wood things and go with as much experience as I can. If the lathe is fixed, I might actually go for a rosewood / maple / rosewood sandwich knob. And with a drill press, I guess there is indeed a way... I'll have to think about that one. Thanks for the suggestion!

np, hope it helps.

[Bizman62]

A drill press (or a lathe) is not the only way to make cylindrical objects. Once I lathed the plug for the Strat truss rod entry with a handheld cordless drill after rough carving with a knife. For my wired old drill I have an adapter to replace the front handle, with a fastener screw so you can attach it to a table. IIRC they used to sell a similar fastener with a centering pin for a makeshift lathe!

This might be interesting as well:

 

[henrim]

There are always ways to do turning without a lathe. You can do it with a table saw if you have to. But lathe is a lathe, if you can use one, use one.

[Asdrael]

You guys I swore I was done with the woodwork for this one and now I am planning a laminated wooden tone knob even if I never use tone wtf is wrong with me

[Professor Woozle]

There are base plates you can get for woodturning that you fit an electric hand drill into - that's perhaps the cheapest and easiest route to having a lathe. It's what I've got and although not as good as a proper woodturning lathe, it does the job. You _might_ get away with using regular chisels and gouges but I'd recommend getting proper turning ones, the edge angles are different.

[henrim]

4 minutes ago, Professor Woozle said:

a proper woodturning lathe

The funny thing is, I have a proper wood turning lathe but I rather turn small scale stuff like knobs in metal lathe. Precision and repeatability is so much better. Or easier to achieve. It lacks the speed you would normally want for wood turning but its fine for small hardwood objects. 

[Bizman62]

5 hours ago, Professor Woozle said:

There are base plates you can get for woodturning that you fit an electric hand drill into - that's perhaps the cheapest and easiest route to having a lathe.

Such a base would be easy to make from leftover pieces and some plywood. Making the length adjustable is the most challenging part. Plenty of YouTube videos about making a drill powered lathe. Of course a real lathe is much more powerful but for making small objects like a couple of knobs buying a lathe is overkill. A headless bolt fastened into the center hole and into the chuck can work wonders. A well faceted piece doesn't require any chisels, just some sandpaper of various grits.

The holder I mentioned in my earlier post seems to be called a 'drill (bench) clamp', mine is similar to this:

[Professor Woozle]

A quick search online turned up this one -  https://www.instructables.com/Homemade-Lathe-for-Drill-Press/ , I like the idea of using an angle adapter to avoid bearing stress. So yes, easy enough to make if you think it worth the time, or look out for one second hand like I did - I've got the B&D one at the bottom of this page - http://www.lathes.co.uk/black-and-decker/