avengers63

Thanks! I share most of my thoughts in the process in hopes that it'll either help someone or that someone who knows better will steer me back on track. This isn't my first rodeo. When I started woodworking and lutherie >10 years ago, I murdered a lot of innocent lumber being overconfident - thinking I knew more than I did. THAT'S why I use cheap crap for the R&D pieces. I can - and do - fuck it up royally without losing anything of value.

It's hot and humid in St Louis today. But I'll be taking a shower before I go to work tonight, so I might as well get a little sweaty in the shop first. The center block is shaped up as good as it needs to be. Not going for a perfect fit around the cutaway this time. I'm confident that I CAN get it perfect, it's just not necessary for the learning curve box. I'm trying something a little different for the kerfing this time. I'm making small blocks +/- 1/2" square which are as tall as the body is thick. I'm making them from the cutoff of the center block, so everything is all the same height. To match the inside curve of the box, I'm holding sandpaper to the inside where they'll be glued and sanding the curve into them. They're all number-coded with the gluing placement so they don't get mixed up. The left half of the spread clamp is in place as a precaution, and to hold the sides steady. It just seems like a good idea. They might look a little spread out. That's cuz I can't do them all at once. Not enough room for the clamps.

If you're going to use plywood, make sure it's the "A grade" stuff. The lower the grade, the crappier laminates and more voids you run into. Voids are the absolute last thing you want to deal with here. Or you already know all this seeing as you work with it every day.

There was a time I wanted to pretend that I actually knew what I was doing. Now, I look back and can see how plain it was that I was only fooling myself. I was wanting to impress y'all who were here when I started building. I'm soooooo past that now. There just doesn't seem to be any reason for pretense. And maybe my "warts and all" approach can help someone not be afraid to just go for it, like our new member thaumgarrett.

It seems you were dead-on the whole time and I just didn't care enough to listen. My apologies, revered sir. Today I worked on the re-enforcing block for the point of the cutaway. It was a lot easier than I was anticipating. Just figure out the angle, transfer it to a suitable piece, cut and smooth it with a disk sander. The curve extending around the horn was just as easy. Jam the block in to the corner, trace the curve, then cut & finesse sand it into shape. I had to cut off the corner of the mold so I had a flat surface to clamp against. I also figured out the wood for the center block: 3 pieces of leftover 2x4, planed flat and glued together. Again, tone and proper timbers are NOT a consideration for this initial build of the box. I just need to figure out the build process.

Well thank you very much. I'm glad someone is getting some positivity from this dumpster fire. I have to look at it like this: I have no more than a cursory idea what I'm doing. I went into this expecting to screw this up six ways to Sunday, and I've not been proven wrong yet. This whole thing is just documenting my working through the absurdly steep learning curve. I honestly don't care how jacked up the box ends up. I'll be happy if I can bolt the neck on, plug it in, and play it. The NEXT body, however...... It oughta be sweet.

The pine side re-bent as well as I could have hoped. Now I gotta do some work on the gluing form. The trebel shoulder is in the way of the cutaway block I had to re-position the threaded rod also. So I put the sides into the form... all spread-clamped into place... everything's all nice and even... got the bottom block glued on and in the clamps... working on cutting away the excess at the neck and cutaway areas... put the cutaway into place so I can finally get some exact dimensions for the bracing block that foes into the tip of the cutaway... ...and the whole fucking thing cracks right along the soft bits in-between the hard grain. The body does the same right at the joint, at mold-height. I'm guessing it's because the soft growth between the grain on pine is a hellofalot more fragile than in the woods we normally use. So I just threw in the towel for today. Seems like this is how thick it wants be. I'll cut it off flush next time I work on it. For now, it's time to walk away.

You may be on to something here. This is one of the few steps in the build process where I KNOW what the results will be. I've perfected it through experience and trial & error so that the results are quick, easy, and predictable. So yeah... that's prolly it.

The replacement side, out of the bender, compared to the first one. After much debate, I put the pine side back into the bender with the "more water/more heat" plan. It'll prolly destroy itself. Cuz that's how these sides have been going. In better and more predictable progress, we have a truss rod channel, and that rabbit got his ears. Am I the only one who finds it incredibly satisfying to route for the truss rod?

I agree 100%. You should see the ridiculous pile of cutoffs I saved, or the stacks of this pieces that might be useful for a scrollsaw project someday. I'm just pleased that the piece that was nearly destroyed in the planer wasn't a TOTAL waste.

For the replacement side, I found a piece of (I think) sapele lying around in the scroll saw pile. It was just a touch over 5.5" wide. I decided that I didn't like the waist bend in the remaining side, and that splitting this piece in two for a thickness of 2.75" would be fine. Then I started to plane them sown to thickness. Three passes into the process... OK... no problem. It's still a viable length. I'll just have to be careful when bending it. To no great surprise, the planer had other ideas. typical On the good side, the remainder of the destroyed piece found new life as a pinstripe between the fretboard and neck. So THAT'S in the clamps and the remaining side is spending the night in the mold after bending it. I'll just have to cut down the other side to match the width when they're both in the construction form.

This couldn't have bent better. I took it out of the press 2 days ago and let it rest. It held it's shape beautifully. Its5nice when so.ething not only goes to plan, but exceeds expectations.

I decided to bend the piece for the cutaway today. When I started looking hard at what I have, I saw the bending mold (left) is the same size as the gluing for insert (right) This left no room around the form for the thickness of the wood, spring steel, and heating blanket. I also fiddled with it, trying to figure out how exactly I was gonna bend the whole thing around the form without burning the prints off my fingers. The short answer is there isn't one. An hour later and I have the other piece of the jig. I REALLY watered the piece down well. I figured this deep a bend, like the waist of the sides, will take longer and might need more steam. Here's hoping.... I gotta make some feet for it for the next time. And speaking of the deep bend in the waist of the sides.... It cracked all the way through. I kinda saw this coming. Next time I work on it, I'll be finding a big enough piece of scrap to plane down and use for another side. Oh well. THAT'S why I used crap wood for the trial run.

I finally got off my lazy ass and oiled the walnut-cherry neck for the lattice acoustic today.

Have you started making pickups again too? You know I'm jonesing for a HSS set with rail magnets...

Substitute what she for what...... Huh? I'm clearly missing something.

On a more productive note.... I found a good-sized piece of thin chechen to use as a scarf-highlight. I decided to put ash veneer in between. A pinstripe highlight always looks great. First piece of the back getting glued up... And more bad news. Because of course there has to be more obstacles to overcome. The first side I bent... the one that cracked a bit in the waist... it kinda un-bent itself. So here's something that's prolly highly inadvisable, but I'm doing it anyway cuz fuck it and let's see what happens... I'm re-bending it. I mean, it'll either take or it won't. Might as well give it a shot.

And after it's all said & done, I'm just considering an idea and exploring what it might look like and what might be involved in doing it. Sometimes I come up with a theme - hummingbirds, for example - and just get into the creative thought process... look for inspiration is what others have done. I also have an artistic hard-on for Alphonse Mucha. I'd get off on making a wood portrait of one of his many vertical pieces and using an art nouveau theme throughout the entire thing. Right now, the main problem is that I don't know what I really wanna do with this one. The mental focus is on working out the process of making a, ES-style jazz-like ax, not the visual theme. BUT..... My built speed has slowed down to SUCH a crawl that I don't want to "waste" an opportunity to explore a possible avenue of inlay creativity. And I have sooooooo many themes I've thought about when daydreaming at work... they're all screaming to get out and be realized. I should REALLY move my scrollsaw station into the basement so I can work on it through winter, too.

What would give you the idea that I'm wanting to rush through things? I just can't afford the shell blanks and have to use alternative materials. Unless you were thinking that I was saying "I can just use these stickers." I was saying I'm capable of replicating the stickers as real inlays.

If I had the money for the inlay material, I know without a doubt I could pull off some sick shit like this... No doubt whatsoever. And even though these are stickers, this is do-able too. but those are both gonna be hella-expensive for the raw materials. There's no way I can make it happen with real shell.

I can DEFINITELY make the inlays and put them in well. Affording all the shell blanks.... that's the hard part. I've used plastic pen blanks before, and they've all worked well except the white pearl. It's a bit transparent.

Interesting that you should make this suggestion today and mention the Byrdland. While i was driving my route this morning, I was thinking about the Byrdland name, and my mind went to a hummingbird theme for the inlays.

So the vend on the waist scorched and cracked a little. I was concerned about this possibility. I'll be thinning down the other side a bit before i try and bend it. I'll still be using this piece. This is the learning curve box. I'll just reenforce the inside of the curve. Maybe it won't be totally horrible.

SHIT. And I thought I was working so hard during the glue-up for that NOT to happen. Well, short of trying to sand it down, which seems sketchy to me, this is what it is now. So y'all should know me by now... What the hell. Let's see what happens, My gut says there is enough under the wood (spring steel & heating blanket) to keep it from going variegated. In other news, I slotted the fretboard to 25.5" scale and made the scarf cut. I though about it for a few minutes and decided to at least do a mid-grade pimping out of the neck, so I stopped there to decide what to do. Bare minimum is a 1/8" accent stripe in the scarf. Maybe a matching pinstripe under the fretboard. Lots of options there... like a 3-5 layer veneer sandwich. It'll prolly be a bound fretboard. And do I wanna make my own inlays again? Some fancied-up theme again? I love this hobby.