I think I'll make a green one.

[ScottR]

I'm so far behind on what everyone is doing. My days at work have gotten super busy, which keeps me from checking in and I've had a project that stemmed from using burl tops on a couple of guitars....my wife said when are you going to make me a table with some of that? So for the better part of the last year and a half I've been doing just that:

SR

[ScottR]

But in my head I've been building a guitar for most of that time, and now I can finally put my hands on some guitar wood.

My last build was "Blackish" and the the top wood was large enough for two tops.

Blackish got the half on the right and this one gets the half on the left.

I cut it to shape and began planing it flat.

SR

[ScottR]

I had some super light weight black limba left over, and prepped it and glued it together to make the body.

The only wood I had to buy for this build was the neck wood. I decided to make a rosewood neck (east India).

And I still have a supply of Macassar ebony and made some of it into a fretboard blank and slotted it. This piece really was grabbing on to the saw so I ran the teeth through some soap for each slot.. It made the cutting much smoother and it smelled like me fresh from the shower.

And we're on the way!

SR

[Andyjr1515]

Excellent!  Can't wait 

[mistermikev]

that top is a lovely place to start.  looking fwd to it!  

[ScottR]

2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Excellent!  Can't wait 

Thanks Andy, but you're going to have to. I'm still about two and a half years from retirement, so unlike you and @MiKro I still only have weekends to work on this.

I am sooo looking forward to being in you guy's shoes....timewise.

SR

[ScottR]

38 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

that top is a lovely place to start.  looking fwd to it!  

Thanks Mike. I gotta say this is making my hands happy!

SR

[MiKro]

3 hours ago, ScottR said:

Thanks Andy, but you're going to have to. I'm still about two and a half years from retirement, so unlike you and @MiKro I still only have weekends to work on this.

I am sooo looking forward to being in you guy's shoes....timewise.

SR

I would have traded places with you Scott many years ago if it meant I did not have the disabilities that I have had then or now.   

MK

[Akula]

12 hours ago, ScottR said:

This piece really was grabbing on to the saw so I ran the teeth through some soap for each slot.. It made the cutting much smoother and it smelled like me fresh from the shower.

That's a genius idea!

[ScottR]

9 hours ago, MiKro said:

I would have traded places with you Scott many years ago if it meant I did not have the disabilities that I have had then or now.   

MK

Cheers Mike!

Thank you no--I think I'll keep rolling the dice on my own infirmity lotto. I already know you've had poor rolls.

Have a scotch and put your feet up unless you're not supposed to... anyway relax and enjoy.

SR

[ScottR]

3 hours ago, Akula said:

That's a genius idea!

Well, it wasn't mine, rather it was actually something I'd heard of here. I will admit that I felt like a genius for recalling it and getting up off my butt and trying it!

SR

[Bizman62]

18 hours ago, ScottR said:

I ran the teeth through some soap

I wonder if candlewax worked as well. Finding a soapbar in a supermarket is nowadays much more challenging than finding a candle! Liquid soap can't be sawn...

[henrim]

1 hour ago, Bizman62 said:

I wonder if candlewax worked as well.

I use paraffin on machine tables and have used it on hand saw blades too. But I would hesitate using it to fret slotting  as I’m afraid that any residue on the slots prevents glue from sticking to the them. For the same reasons I don’t use any lubricant in fret slotting. And that again is the reason I got fed up with sawing slots by hand and made a table saw jig.

But then I’m not sure how big of a problem it is if the glue doesn’t stick to the wood. As after all it’s not there to glue the fret wire to the wood. It is there just to fill any gaps and thus locking the barbs in place.

[avengers63]

16 hours ago, ScottR said:

I still only have weekends to work on this.

 

I'm back to being in that boat. I start a new job today - overnight driver for a FedEx contractor. I don't want to drive overnights, but it's better than going back on the road for 5 days at a time.

[Bizman62]

16 minutes ago, henrim said:

I’m afraid that any residue on the slots prevents glue from sticking

Wouldn't soap leave residue as well? Or can it be washed off, resulting cleaner slots?

Joking aside, there's soap and there's soap. Some soap bars have more grease residue than others so they have similarities with candlewax or rather tallow.

But as you said, worrying about the glue not sticking is irrelevant for the said reasons. And although the saw teeth will be filled with the soap/wax, most of it will come off with the first strokes, mixing with the saw dust. Very little will absorb to the wood. I even suppose that your fingers may apply more grease into the slots! Not to mention that it's perfectly fine to polish the fretboard using oil before hammering the frets in, or that some fingerboard woods are very oily by nature - actually despite wiping the fretboard bottom with acetone before gluing it onto the neck I've never heard about cleaning the slots.

[henrim]

26 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

actually despite wiping the fretboard bottom with acetone before gluing it onto the neck I've never heard about cleaning the slots.

Well, the glue is not doing the same thing in these cases.

Of course you don’t absolutely necessarily need to use glue for installing frets. It is just a safety measure. And it certainly can help if the fret job is not carried out meticulously. I don’t want to knowingly add any waxes, soaps or oils to the slots prior installing frets. But then we all have our own way of thinking what is perfectly fine.

[ScottR]

2 hours ago, henrim said:

I use paraffin on machine tables and have used it on hand saw blades too. But I would hesitate using it to fret slotting  as I’m afraid that any residue on the slots prevents glue from sticking to the them. For the same reasons I don’t use any lubricant in fret slotting. And that again is the reason I got fed up with sawing slots by hand and made a table saw jig.

But then I’m not sure how big of a problem it is if the glue doesn’t stick to the wood. As after all it’s not there to glue the fret wire to the wood. It is there just to fill any gaps and thus locking the barbs in place.

I chose soap over wax because the soap is water soluble and looked to be easier to remove should the need arise, not that I expect it to. I rarely use glue on frets and then mostly to plug the end of a too deep slot with sanding dust.

SR

[ScottR]

2 hours ago, avengers63 said:

 

I'm back to being in that boat. I start a new job today - overnight driver for a FedEx contractor. I don't want to drive overnights, but it's better than going back on the road for 5 days at a time.

Good to hear John, congrats!

SR

[Stu.]

Scott’s back on it and not wasting any time! I can’t wait to see this developing 

[henrim]

14 hours ago, ScottR said:

I chose soap over wax because the soap is water soluble and looked to be easier to remove should the need arise, not that I expect it to. I rarely use glue on frets and then mostly to plug the end of a too deep slot with sanding dust.

SR

Yes, I can’t see much problem if you don’t use glue. I have done new boards with and without glue (re-frets all with glue). Using the methods I have used for the last two fretboards I will keep on using glue, although I’m pretty confident that the methods are precise enough so that the glue is not needed for the process itself. However in my limited experience I have found that the filler helps the frets to stay better in place when there are sudden humidity changes. Of course in the ideal world the instrument wouldn’t be exposed in to such conditions.

I just wanted to flag the potential risks before someone takes lubricant usage as a de-facto method. There are so many bad practices in guitar building world that are taken as go-to practices just because some one did that once on YouTube and others followed. On the other hand many things are done in one way because someone did so 70 years ago and nobody ever dared to question them.

So all in all using lubricant on a saw blade is a tried and working method in many cases. Doing so is fine for fret slots too as long as you acknowledge the potential issues if you choose to use a gap filler substance while installing frets.

[ScottR]

I routed a truss rod channel. This time I routed it just a hair deeper than the rod.

I normally try to be exact, and then end up sanding down the top of the bar to make it flush.

This time I sanded the neck blank down flush to the bar. I used my flat sanding leveling sanding block, This is a base of 3/8" polycarbonite (perspex to the Europeans) glued to an old jack plane with enough weights bound to it to weigh about 5 pounds, You just push it around over the part you are making flat. The weight is enough to make it abrade and the fact that you are not adding pressure keeps everything even and flat.

It works and next I line up the fretboard and drill some pin locators. I've tried toothpicks but they don't hold up. Tiny brads work and they don't damage saw blades much......but they don't do them any good either. This time I've got some bamboo grilling skewers that should be stout enough to hold, and easy on saw blades as well.

SR

[ScottR]

Bamboo pins are in. Also I paint a thin strips of petroleum jelly down the center of the truss rod bar and then cover it with scotch tape that has been trimmed near to the channel.

Glued up using a thick counter top section as a caul.

I'm taking an offcut from the top and bookmatching it to make a headstock plate.

Squaring up the edge that will be glued together for the bookmatch.

SR

 

[ScottR]

I sliced it in half and glued it up.

While the glue is drying , I traced the top on the body wood, cut it out, and leveled the gluing surface.

And then began leveling the gluing surface for the top as well.

SR

[ScottR]

You know how the more you sand a bookmatch, the further away you get from the perfect match? Well it's kind of cool to see the reverse happen from the back side. After leveling the top of headstock plate, I flipped it and started planing from the back so as to preserve the bookmatched surface.  The thinner it got the more bookmatched it looked--from the back.

Always save the offcut from your headstock angle cut.....assuming you make them the way I do. Not that you should.....

Using the offcut, I can cut the proper angle for my nut slot.

Then I pegged it to hold it in the proper place, and again used the offcut as a caul to give me parallel clamping surfaces on the angled headstock.

And somehow I ballsed that up. Even using a nut blank as a spacer, something moved. It had to be during the clamping whilst locating the pins....that were there to keep this from happening!

So, now I get to do my first repair during this build. The little slice I cut off making the nut angle didn't get destroyed. I have to flip it over to keep the angle correct. Since it had been thinned down and was getting close to the bookmatched surface the grain on the back was pretty close to the same as the grain on the front. As I sand it thinner it will get even closer.

SR

[ScottR]

I like to drill my tuner holes before thicknessing the headstock. That way I insure I don't get any tearout where the bit pops through. It's better than a backing board. Also important to make sure your bit is 90 degrees to the surface.

Then It's time to cut to shape,

SR