crafty

I'm not sure why my text isn't showing up for me, but I managed to finish it in time for Christmas! The kiddo loves it and jamming with Dad on his own guitar now. I'm particularly proud of my fretwork on this one, so much better.

Well, I can't believe I actually forgot to post pictures of the finished guitar, but I did finish it in time for Christmas! The kiddo loves it and he loves trying to jam on it. I think it's a gift he'll have to grow into, but he loves having his own guitar to play with Dad.

I drilled out the control cavity and recessed the mounting hardware on the surface of the guitar. I'm using a long-shaft pot for volume control so I'll still have a good half inch of material between the top and body of the pot.

I've also shaped the back of the neck on my father in law's disc sander and drilled all the holes for mounting the rest of the hardware and input jack. I should finish sanding this week and will stain and finish the guitar next week.

The only thing I messed up on was not tracing the neck shape onto a template before I went to shape the neck. I might want to make some more of these in the future and that would have sped things up to have a master template for the neck too. Oh well. I still have the fretboard template that has the overall taper.

Welp, Christmas 2018 came and went and I didn't have the time to finish the project. But that's okay. My son is a year older and less likely to smash the thing to pieces now. We found out in January that my Dad has cancer and we've spent the last year focused on his health and getting through treatment, which has gone extremely well and his prognosis is good. My wife was also laid off that same month, so it's taken a bit longer to purchase the last round of parts. But I started working on the guitar again in September and we're back on track to have it finished by 12/25. Here are some progress pics:

Here is the basic neck cutout and slotted fretboard against the body template:

Here is the body and neck fit together. The router table took a big chunk of wood out of the body and I had to profile it with the spindle sander:

Here is the slotted fretboard with dot inlays:

Side inlays:

Fretted neck using my fret caul in the drill press + CA glue:

Here is the neck mounted on the body:

Size comparison with my full-sized LP:

And here is the progress on the body to this morning. Rounded off the edges and routed the pickup cavity:

Fender uses 22-3/4 with 20 frets on the Mini Strat. I'm building an LP for my three-year-old with a 19 in. scale and 22 frets, but the nut width will still be standard LP with 1-11/16 string spread. It would be nice if there were more narrow-spaced bridge options for little guitars.

I got the neck blank joined and the fretboard slotted to 19 in. and radiused to 12 in. over the weekend. Now I need to work on shaping the neck. My fret dots should be on the way from LMII, hopefully they'll arrive sometime this week.

I have started on a new project I hope to have finished in time for Christmas. It's a toddler-sized LP Special for my son, who's three:

• Scale length - 19 in.
• Body and neck wood - African Mahoghany
• Fretboard - Sapele
• Bridge - Wraparound chrome
• Pickup - cheap zebra humbucker from eBay
• Truss rod - 12.5 inch dual action
• Tuners - black Grover copies left over from the bari project
• Finish - something fun. Maybe a blue or orange dye with a polyurethane clear coat for durability.
• Frets - Fender medium jumbo. I learned my lesson to buy pre-radiused frets. They cost the same.
• Body size - 8 x 11.5. The shape was actually based on an LP-shaped picture frame my wife gave me years ago. It was perfect for this.

Below is my initial sketch and fretboard layout. I will probably adjust the body joint to the 16th fret instead of the 17th, and the bridge is definitely not where the line is on the drawing. Fretboard will probably only have 22 frets instead of the pictured 24. More progress pics to come soon.

Very nice entries this month, wonderful work indeed.

On 9/21/2018 at 5:05 PM, mistermikev said:

good point re tension... will do.  speaking of wheel bearings... these spin fine... but starting to hear a little noise when they turn.  how hare is it to replace bearings and do you recommend sizing and buying better quality or just go with the craftsman?

You know, sometimes Sears Parts has the best price, sometimes not. Good quality bearings should last a long time, and that's one thing I haven't had to replace yet. I know you need snap ring pliers to remove the wheels, but I don't know if the bearings are pressed in or not. If they are pressed, you'll either need a hydraulic press to remove and replace them, or just replace the whole wheel. Someone on youtube has probably done it before.

You're welcome. I'm sure you'll get good service out of it. The little things on a bandsaw will annoy the crap out of you, but once they're set up they are usually great. One other tip--make sure to release the tension on the blade when you're not using it. It will help the blades last longer and save the wheel bearings. Mine does not have a quick release lever, so I have to manually twist the knob every time.

It's basically a Rikon unit with an underpowered motor. I have the 10 inch version and I'm on my second motor and belt in ten years. The first motor failed on my first project cutting out a pine tele body and the first belt dry rotted last year. If the motor goes kaput, consider upgrading to a 1.5 or 1.75 hp unit that's on the Rikon version. Otherwise, the mechanicals are sound and the build quality seems good. My brother in law has a 17 inch Laguna and he can never seem to get it to run right, but my Craftsman tracks well and cuts straight. I even used it to cut a scarf joint on my new guitar.

51 minutes ago, Mr Natural said:

nice job- thanks for sharing all the pics.

I am curious though- with the small body and longer scale- any neck dive issues? how is the balance with a strap? I like smaller bodies but have found some basses and guitars I have played to be plagued by neck dive

Thanks! The guitar is slightly unbalanced, but with the strap it isn't bad at all. I left a pretty good chunk of wood on the heel end to compensate for the longer scale and give a little more beef on the body. The body is about the size of an SG, but much thicker.

2 minutes ago, ScottR said:

I wondered if you were going to keep the trapezoidal neck carve,,,,,I see you did. Is that new for this guitar or something you've come to prefer?

SR

It's something new. The sides of the neck have a good amount of curve, but I liked the feel of the flat back as I was shaping it, so I thought I'd just go with it. It's completely different to anything I have now and very thick with the 1/4 inch fretboard. My Kyser capo barely fits around the neck.

2 hours ago, ShatnersBassoon said:

Nice work. I like that you have chosen your own body shape, gives it a unique look. I’ve been curious about Baritones for a while, especially seeing as a lot of what I play is in altered tunings.

Thanks! I was curious as well and I have plenty of standard guitars. It really does sound nice and boomy and I like the string tension on the longer scale. If I build another, I’ll probably scale up the body a little so it doesn’t feel so small.

4 hours ago, Muzz said:

 

Same thing happened here, except everything reacts to it or leaves an imprint, even cloth or carpet if it let it sit for more than an hour. I removed the foam on one of my wall hangers and just hung it there by the tuners. Maybe in another month it’ll be okay. The foam has never reacted to my nitro LP, but the LP was already a year old when I bought it. Next time I’m using two-pack.

Final guitar after full wet sanding to 3000 grit and polishing using 3M and Meguiar's products:

I used Rustoleum rattle can lacquer. I will probably not use this again as it still hasn't cured very well, but it did take to wet sanding fairly nicely:

Body shaping and routing:

Truss rod routing and neck shaping:

This was built in my garage over the last year using basic power tools, small band saw and bench top drill press and router table.

Specs:

• Basswood body, maple neck with rosewood fretboard, markers made from maple scraps from neck
• Hand carved body bevels and neck
• Glued in neck, tenon under neck pickup, scarf joint with volute.
• 13 degree headstock angle with Planet Waves trimlok tuners
• 28 inch baritone scale, 24 jumbo frets
• Dual action truss rod w/heel adjust
• 1-11/16 string spacing at nut, Graph Tech nut
• DiMarzio D-Sonic neck and bridge pickups, f-spaced. Screwed directly to body.
• 3 way toggle, 500k tone, and 500k volume
• Top load bridge
• Dunlop Straplocks
• My own design, inspired by EBMM Petrucci model for elbow relief, very small body overall
• Lacquer finish

Here are the initial sketches and scarf joint work.

Midnight Special - so named because between work and family, I could only work on it at midnight!

Long time member, only second guitar I've built from scratch, mostly modded/repaired guitars for friends and myself to this point. This was built in my garage over the last year using basic power tools, small band saw and bench top drill press and router table.

Specs:

• Basswood body, maple neck with rosewood fretboard, markers made from maple scraps from neck
• Hand carved body bevels and neck
• Glued in neck, tenon under neck pickup, scarf joint with volute.
• 13 degree headstock angle with Planet Waves trimlok tuners
• 28 inch baritone scale, 24 jumbo frets
• Dual action truss rod w/heel adjust
• 1-11/16 string spacing at nut, Graph Tech nut
• DiMarzio D-Sonic neck and bridge pickups, f-spaced. Screwed directly to body.
• 3 way toggle, 500k tone, and 500k volume
• Top load bridge
• Dunlop Straplocks
• My own design, inspired by EBMM Petrucci model for elbow relief, very small body overall
• Lacquer finish

Thanks for looking!

Link to build thread

Thanks for your kind words, Scott. This was a fun one to build. If I had started a build thread, I probably would've crashed the server posting pictures of all the mistakes I made, including wet sanding through the back and having to refinish the guitar! It was a good experience and I'm looking forward to my next project. Take care.

This is my first entry in GOTM and my first full build. I've named it American Beauty.

I was originally building this guitar with the idea that I'd use some old pine I had laying around from a waterbed, and build it on the cheap. I spent less than $150 on the entire build, just because if I messed something up I wouldn't be out much money. I wanted a pine Tele since the Classic Vibe came out a few years ago, so here it is.

Specs:

- Pine body with 3/8 Birdseye Maple top, faux binding, Nitro finish

- Maple neck, medium jumbo frets, Nitro finish

- Standard 25.5 inch scale, Gotoh tuners

- Random pickups, bridge, and controls found on eBay: $25 total

- Back and top are actually stained the same color. Used a water based dye and diluted the top color.

- Buffed steel wool finish

Thanks for looking! It's been fun lurking around the last few years. Burned up my bandsaw motor halfway through the build and had to replace it too!

Restoration is right. When I put DiMarzio's in my '04 LP, the polepieces didn't line up under the string spacing for the bridge pickup because Gibson started using Asian-spaced bridges. It doesn't really change the sound or looks from more than 1 ft. away.