Double cut

[henrim]

I'm not quite ready with the design of the clam shell guitar (named Bivalve) I'm planning, so instead of focusing on that, I took my single cut template and made it double. I think I said at some point that I wont be doing set-necks any more, so obviously this is going to be a set-neck. Essentially the same costruction as my padouk top single cut (my fav). Set-neck and a drop-top.

- Basswood body
- Imbuia drop-top
- Khaya set-neck
- One humbucker (bridge)

Other than that, we'll see where it goes.

[henrim]

Squared the khaya blank and cut a truss rod channel. Sawed headstock angle. Glued body and leveled it ready for neck pocket routing. Once that is routed I saw the body shape and do whatever drilling there is to be done.

[henrim]

As much as like routers, I hate setting them up. Decided to plane this one instead. Angle is there but I have to decide how deep I want to go.

[henrim]

All blocked out. Next some trimming and then I guess I have to do some decision making. What fretboard material to use and all that.

[henrim]

There are probably as many (or more) ways to do every single step in guitar building process as there are builders. There are many bad examples shared especially by YouTubers who are better in talking than woodworking. And then there are many good ways.

Anyhow my preferred method for peg holes is to use a forstner bit or a wood drill and set the drill press to a depth where the tip of the bit comes barely through and then drill the rest from the other side. Perfect holes, no tear out. Ever.

[Bizman62]

That's a good method. I used that sort of extended with my current build: As the tuner pegs are thicker on the bottom side than the tubular top screws I drilled the holes accordingly.

[henrim]

I have had this Proxxon FET mini table saw for years and thought many times I should use it for fret slotting. I just never did bother building a sledge. But now I did. 

I had a 80mm diameter blade that is 0,5mm thick. Unfortunately the way the teeth are set on that blade it actually cuts about 1 mm wide.

I found a 50 mm carbide blade that cuts 0,55 mm wide. Rather expensive for its size. Anyway, I bought one and dimensioned the sled accordingly. 

I made a crude angle adjustment to the fence rather than gluing it in wrong angle and then trying to find ways to true it. Should be ok.

With this sledge I could cut maybe 5 mm deep. But I don’t want to cut the slots unnecessarily deep so I set the blade to cut 2 mm. After I have radiused the board I use a hand saw with depth stop to take it to the correct depth. This way I get radius on the slots. Or that’s the plan. So far I have only made test cuts. 

Edited May 26, 2023 by henrim

[henrim]

Btw, while shopping for the blade I happened to notice that this saw now costs about twice the amount I paid years ago. It’s a nice mini table saw but I wouldn’t likely pay the price they are going for today.

[henrim]

Ok. I slotted a Blackwood Tek board. Sawing was much more pleasant experience than with a hand saw. Didn’t take but a few minutes.

Cuts are clean and slots parallel. The only thing that didn’t go quite as planned was that the board was not perfectly aligned. So the slots were not exactly square to the board. It could be that the board was not perfectly taped to the template or the sledge wasn’t in right angle after all. Not much but enough that it had to be fixed. So a little bit of hand planing was needed to bring everything square again. Not a biggie but something I would have liked to avoid. 

[avengers63]

That mini-tablesaw and jig are very similar to what I have. I would suggest that it's well worth the effort to make it a little more complex to ensure everything is absolutely dead-on. Straight fret slots are nothing to take any chances with.

[Bizman62]

19 hours ago, henrim said:

The only thing that didn’t go quite as planned was that the board was not perfectly aligned. So the slots were not exactly square to the board.

Well... you'd have to double check that the slots are square to the centerline in any case and cut the excess off. Not that big of a deal.

[henrim]

5 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Well... you'd have to double check that the slots are square to the centerline in any case and cut the excess off. Not that big of a deal.

Squared and tapered. Not a big deal but for the next board I need to do some test cuts and not just trust my measurements

[henrim]

Starting to look like a guitar. The top is not yet glued and is about 5mm oversize to every direction, so it looks huge compared to the single cut body beside it.

Anyhow, the fundamentals are there. Just radiused the fretboard. I think I now prefer doing radius after the board is glued in place. 

This will get the same bridge as the sc. As I have a spare. And I have a set of matching satin chrome tuners too. Unfortunately I don’t have satin chrome studs for the bridge. I’ll have to see if I can get them from somewhere. Schaller doesn’t seem to offer that finish currently. Or if I can’t find them I have to figure out some makeshift way.

[henrim]

15 hours ago, henrim said:

Unfortunately I don’t have satin chrome studs for the bridge. I’ll have to see if I can get them from somewhere. Schaller doesn’t seem to offer that finish currently.

To Schaller's credit I got a really quick reply from them. Unfortunately they cannot help with the 455 bridge studs. 

Just made a quick test, and a regular chromed stud wiped with scotch pad gives an acceptable result. Silver paint would probably be even closer but I reckon it wouldn't last too long on these pieces.

I'll have to machine the stud collars a bit as they are 7,35 mm, while the slots in the bridge are 7 mm. Or mill the slots on the bridge but I guess I'll fix the studs.

[mistermikev]

On 5/17/2023 at 1:23 PM, henrim said:

All blocked out. Next some trimming and then I guess I have to do some decision making. What fretboard material to use and all that.

I appreciate your dedication to "unique construction" methods.  for me, that stands out as bravery among luthiers - so many things can go wrong and end up taking so much time. 

Seems doing your own shape is the first thing we think of in terms of 'originality', and seems sometimes that originality in construction is often overlooked by many.  All this is to say: bravo.

[henrim]

I was going to wind my own pickup but don’t feel like experimenting, so DAX it is.

[henrim]

I wanted to use CTS push/pull pots so I could have series/parallel switch and what not options. But they are so huge that I may not be able to carve the body as much as I want to.

Idea was to have series/parallel switch on the volume pot and maybe two different tone caps on the tone pot. But maybe I have to forget about that now and just use regular Alphas instead.

Also, made this little board that can be stuffed into the cavity for testing capacitor sizes. 

[nakedzen]

Nicely done! I don't think I've seen a set through neck done here before. In fact, there aren't that many manufacturers apart from ESP that do those either.

[henrim]

Neck was glued yesterday and now the top is clamped.

[avengers63]

On 5/31/2023 at 9:56 AM, henrim said:

I was going to wind my own pickup but don’t feel like experimenting, so DAX it is.

 

I upgraded an entry level Jackson recently. I put a X2N in the bridge and DAX in the neck. That neck chugs like a monster! It's my new favorite pup for metal rhythm. I expect your DAX bridge to do just as well for lead.

[henrim]

Brainfart of the day. So these studs were 7,35 mm (19/64” maybe) and the slots on the bridge are 7 mm. I put the pieces in lathe and turned them precisely to 7 mm. Tight and precise. Too tight, obviously. if you have ever fitted a bearing to an axle you know. Yeah, back to lathe and turned them to 6,5 mm. That is a lot of clearance but that’s what the original Schaller studs are (measured from the other guitar). Alles gut now.

[henrim]

I did the pickup pocket with two forstner bits and chisel as I didn’t have a suitable router template. And I guess I didn’t feel like making one. Which I will regret the next time I want this type of pocket. Also drilled the potentiometer holes through the top.
 

A little bit intimidating job was to drill the holes for inserts into the top wood. Did it twice of course, because I first drilled 4mm holes which are fine on softer woods but I felt uneasy driving inserts into them on imbuia. Which is quite hard wood. I went to 4,5 mm as the 4,2 mm bit was broken. Good reminder to get a new one. I put the inserts in with CA glue. Which I will likely regret and redo with epoxy once they break loose.

[henrim]

Glueing up something to turn the knobs off. I won’t be turning them before Monday though because tomorrow me and the kid are going to Tampere to see Iron MaidenKid who wasn’t even born when I first joined this site!

[henrim]

I did actually have some time this morning to turn the stock for pot knobs. Also started to make some shavings on the back side.

[henrim]

Neck and back roughly shaped. Neck is close but I need to decide whether to continue with the back to the the point I was going for, or if I actually want to leave it thicker.