Kenny

well, i was reading this thread and thought i would put in my two cents

im a guitarist of 6 years, and decided to start building guitars about...1.5 years ago. ive build 1 1/2 guitars (an acoustic referb) and in the process of my third

my first guitar was not half bad (except the fretboard, which was bad) i reccomend getting all the resources you can on fretting, get a bunch of fretwire, unradiused boards (maybe 2 or 3) and do a few fret jobs before your first real one. this is by far the most difficult and most crucial part of building a guitar. back to my first one. from a woodworking standpoint (i had no experiance) it was beautiful, near flawless. from a guitarists standpoint. it needed a lot of help, and it was all in the fretboard area

as far as woods go,make sure the wood you get is dried, and after that have fun, take your time. and FOR GODS SAKE DO A PRACTICE FRETBOARD OR 2 building guitars for me looks like it will be a life long passion, partially because it is so difficult, but so gratifying to see somethign you build plug in and play

hope this helps

Kenny

i think it gives it that "uniqueness" but not the kind when people say, your router jumped? its ok, its custom right?

i mean it lookslike it was intentionally done...as a subtle statement saying "F*CK YOU CONVENTION! who said all my dots have to be the same?! im making this f*cking guitar and ill do it my way!"

just my take

i love this project by the way, been following it

did i hear GOTM?

well i got some part a/b wood bleach yesterday at rockler. klean-strip i believe

ill post pics and give you guys results when the woods bleached

little more progress and a set back

i did a rough cut for the top today, looking HOT (the figure is so much better in person, it moves mcuh more and isnt as spread apart as it appears)

this is the backof the top

front of the top, underneath there are no checks and beautiful figure!

setback, i originally was going to make a 6 string and was going to use that neck blank, when gluing on extensions it became clear that the extensions i cut had warped (becuase they were so thin) i had to scrap that blank and am going to amke a new one

cool, did you get any drying of the wood, or small cracking accour?

redwoods a fairly pourus softwood, so i'm concerned.

well, im trying to achieve this.

that is a redwood top, and my problem is, on my practice runs, im getting lots of red undertones(from the wood)

has anyone had experiance bleaching wood (preferably peroxide bleach)

any other suggestions?

(PLEASE HELP!)

Kenny

EDIT: i used the search and came up with no real good info, *mostly bleach selection* im really curious to see what Drak has to say here, he seems to be soemwhat of an expert in the field of finishing

haha, we will see

i got black stain today, so im gonna try a few different finishing scheduals. what do you guys think of the inlay deisgn?

new update

i finilised the inlays and finished slotting the board. and sliced my finger and got 11 stitches after severing the nerve

heres a pic of the board

the last inlays look like they are 2 big because thier height and angle i think i did an ok job

opinions?

Kenny

Zeb

i was very intrested when you began to post this thread

i myself am 17, and have no formal training whatsoever.

i really admire that you are so passionate about something at your age, because its very hard to go from the planning stage to the doing stage

if you intrested in designing on the computer i could give you a GREAT easy to use computer design program with lots of CAD aspects its called acdsee canvas v11

(enables you to get completly perfectly accurate templates of fretboards, body shapes, ect...your imaginations the limit. and i see you like creating your own designs, this could be a great tool to help you do that better)

just PM me

also another word. i was slotting a fanned fretboard, and was so anxious to get it done, i was off by .5mm on one fret, i filled it, didnt put enough hardner and needed to scrap the whole board. im since taking no precations and learned to put the time into doing it right the first time. but its great to mess up to, becuase thats how you learn not what to do and thats what really matters

GREAT NEWS! lots of progress on this project

heres a little background. im 17 and i rely (right now atleast) on my schools facilites to do my woodworking, there was a fire and it was rendered unusable. BUT i was so graciously willed almost an entire woodshop. delta planer, jet table saw, jig saw, mider saw, chisles, belt sander, ect. im gonna get the 14" laguna bandsaw and dust collector.

besides the point though. i now have a way to work on my wood! this is what i did

i cut the bindings to size and got freboard material (more on that later)

bindings and fretboard blank

made up a taper jig for my table saw, that was posted a while back, I HAVE FEEDBACK (but ill get to that in sequence)

Taper Jig

Then i continued on to print out my cad plans, check scale yada yada, no adjustment needed, anyways ehres all that, and the 1st attempt slotted and tapered

Heres that mess

the problem with this board was that cutting along a straight edge my saw appeared square but actually angled out of my view for the first 3 frets, mixed epoxy for one of them, turned out fine, then mixed for the next two, then i guess didnt put enough hardner becuase well...anyways

Attempt 2 i was out of decent maple, so i decided to go down to Th&H and pick up some new hard maple. i found a board i was very content with, and squared it, planed it to thickness (it was a 1/2 inch board dont worry!) now, the thing with my fence is that i have a 30" fence on my jet contracters table saw. for the jig to work correctly it needs a 40+ inch fence. So i made a rough extension, and witha lot of what looked like mickey mouse adjustments i got it to work nicely.

Heres the new board tapered (i like this grain pattern better. simpler)

now time to review the taper jig. the theory can be read here my fence is pretty straight, but as i mentioned a 54" fence would work much better this was the only problem i had with this jig, i always had a small segment at the end of the board that was, well...not tapered. i think its becuase the front of my fence isnt actually supposed to be used as a fence, but i have no clue TBH other than the end, I LOVE this technique of tapering, and will do ONLY this from now on. i highly recomend it, its extreamly accurate. mine was accurate to .5mm

Here are those two little nubby ends i was talking about i didnt have this problem on the first fretboard i did, but this is really my 3rd attempt so i was able to compenstate as shown by the template positioning

I learned my lesson. what i did guarentees accuracy. i spent about 5 mins and a magnifying glass this time to see when the fibers were COMPLETLY gone and it was exactly on the black line (i might use glossy paper next time) and use a very fat precision groung straight edge. now on cad i set the weight of my lines to be .23 *the same as the kerf on my saw* (the stew mac saw to be precise) (works like a charm btw) so i could use the lines as an accurate benchmark. i pushed the saw perfectly parallell *or close to it* against the straight edge, then placed another thick straight edge on the other side, sandwiching the saw inbetween. measuring and rechecking for accuracy, this way guarentees me a slot perpendicular to the plane of the fretboard.

Shown here (this is kinda a bad pic becuase you cant see how paralell the saw is to the 2 straight edges)

here is the end result of that process

its not possible to see in the picture, but the wood on either side of what was behind the nut was near perfectly level with the straight edges (more like straight sides :-p)

anyways less talk right? i doubt anyone actually got this far in reading, if you did congrats!!!!, were almost done here...

so i decided, i wanted to route the cavities for the slanted ebony trapeziod inlays before i continued slotting, becuase i didnt want another catostrphic melt down. so i set out to make the inlays

i have lots of progress pics on the jigsaw and sander. it got progressibly more and more difficult the thinner the trapz got so i eventually just said hell, ill sand it down by hand. and thats exactly what im going to do. i got the first 3 inlays to final shape tonight and i have work early tomorrow, so heres the last pics

these look funny becuase they are ment to be slanted, but the grain will run paralell to the grain on the FB.

thats all for today, im going to glue the bookmatched top tomorrow, add the last 2 laminates to my neck blank *it was originally for a 6 string* and then fill a surface crack in one of the ebony bindings....

thoughts? comments?

Kenny

thats intresting

a 1string fretted standing bass?

one way i was thinking about doing mine was to do this. get my body to its rough shape, flat sand the back. make sure the front is pretty level (if your doing a carvetop, do this before you carve the top )

then get a bandsaw, and resaw a maybe 1/8" peice off the back of the guitar. (works well for through necks ) then get rid of the bandsaw marks on the new back of the guitar, and you are free to cut out your cover

its an idea though

DAM i just read what was adressed in that link

near the same idea :-p

i guess i dont have all the good ones!

i love this! the inlay compliments the body very well.

are you going to do any finish on the body?

btw i LOVE the figure on that cherry!

stewmacs vice sounds very similar to that, in being able to hold tapered objects with 2 independant sqivel heads and stuff

much less expensive too

i saw a vid of dan erliwine holding multiple guitars up just by the neck with that vice.

(cant imagine that was too great for the guitars tho )

ahh, its a bass

that clears things up

why such a long scale length on the low e?

well, yeap, i went to tropical exotic hardwoods of latin america!

and it took all of 30 mins :-p

they had a pretty nice selection

i was disapointed in thier stock of "regular" wood though

but thats what th&H is for right?

Verhoevenc - oops, didnt know it was common. ohwell

BINDINGS HOOO!!! (thundercats immitation)

well, i was wondering if there was such a thing really, becuase at many peoples sugestions i went to an exotics wood store here in sandiego and saw AMAZING peices of wood

giant peices of brazilian rosewood, the most figured cocbolo ive seen

but also hige wide long slabs of ebony gaboon (with a nice pracetag to match!)

i was mostly browsing, but did get some cutoff for bindings (found in a pile for turning, $2.50 a lb ) (this peice is 34'x1"x1")

and when i got home, i noticed there was an intense flame pattern!

just wondering if anyone else has seen curly ebony gaboon

(sorry for the bad pic, but the figure, as anyone whose taken pictures of curly woods knows, is always better in person!)

i wonder where the rest of the board this came off of is

Kenny

i like it, but whats on the horns?

metalhead

well, im glad you asked, becuase im currently building a 7 string guitar, and i want to help you

so heres what im after, a more modern feel, mixed with a lespaul, here are the specs (sorry they are in mm, more accurate)(also its a fanned fretboard, actually easier to cut than regular boards)

IF YOU WANT FULLSCALE PLANS DONT READ ON!, just PM me

48.72mm at nut

27" scale length so my with at the end of the fretboard will be slightly larger if your doing a shorter scale. i could calcuate it if you want

but my with at end of board is 67.43mm

my string spacing at nut is 3.5 in on both sides

i use stew mac wide graphtech saddles (11.13mm wide)

with a 66.78mm string spacing

heres the link http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Nuts,_saddles/...le_Saddles.html #1871

heres a link to a bunch of calculators i use if this is useful

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=34455

also, the guitar im building is fanned fret (heres me buildsite)

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=34198

+1 building is getting the wood and doing it from scratch!

i find it would be much more gratifying doing it that way, but if you dont have acess to the equipment then you could buy and assmeble parts

www.stewmac.com has good stuff

fwiw i do all my shopping there

hope this helps

Kenny

well, i have 2 options on this build

set neck or neck thru

(maple/bubina/maple/bubina/maple) lamination

i would have to add a little wood to do the headstock though for a thruneck

im also going for more of a smooth sound on this guitar. the body is a walnut/mahagony lamination (only 1/4" of walnut) then will have a redwood top

what do you guys think?

stewmac sells individual tunning keys

here

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tuners/Guitar,..._6-In-Line.html

and here are another alternative

http://www.hipshotproducts.com/cart.php?m=...t_list&c=27

hope this helps

Kenny

By the way, i really like this build. VERY cool!

this is a very pretty guitar!!

i love the red

why is it your last?

i like the contrast there!

cant wait to see more pics..