Chuck_Chill-Out

On 6/7/2020 at 7:49 AM, Norris said:

Nice save

Is there anything else supporting the headless "head"? Through dowels, screws? I hope the end grain join doesn't come apart 

Two screws. It appears to be secure. Trust me, if it comes apart, I will post it on here. 

Done! ProjectGuitar, allow me to introduce Ichabod. A friend suggested the name since it is headless and it stuck. 

This was definitely a learning experience. The action is lower than before, so playing is much easier.

I was stringing this up, when I snapped the E string. From talking to someone who used one of these before, they said to look for sharp edges on the nut. Sure enough, the edge where the strings go through the nut had sharp edges.Break out the small files and smooth out the edges and restring. 

The next item on the list was to rout a pocket for the bridge and a secondary pocket for access to the tuners.Not a bad fit. I had to move the straplock pin. Also, I realized that I needed to deepen the area to adjust the tuners. No pic, but it was done.

I found that the only headless bridge I could afford from FleaBay was the wonderful and ever so popular OVERLORD OF MUSIC bridge and nut. Luckily, a former coworker has a machine shop in his garage and offered to measure and machine the parts out of brass and steel at cost. Until I get them, I decided to go ahead with the build.

First thing was to fix the neck. I had to slice off this spur and re-glue it to the neck.

 Obligatory clamp shot.

This was the chip taken out. Apologies for the out of order picture.

I had to trim this down. Part of me was more nervous converting this than when I was building.

Okay, last December, I was showing a family member my fisrt build, a fretless bass when disaster struck. Okay, that is a little dramatic, but the headstock bumped against our couch and snapped. Now, I was the one who bumped it, so I could blame no one but myself. I went through the 12 stages of grief in 2 minutes, lingering on Anger for a time, mainly at myself.

After calming down (and all family left), my wife said she wanted me to rebuild the headstock and hang it on the wall, since I took so much time building it.

Investigating the break, I realized that I had a design flaw with too little wood at the neck-headstock transition. It was going to beak at some point, I also started to research headless conversion kits, because I really wanted to make this thing playable.

Okay, Swim league is FINALLY done! Daughter swam her heart out and did well this year. Maybe I can get more shop time, now.

I drilled through the heel of the neck, then through the body. I tried to fond a carriage bolt thin enough and long enough, but could not, at least not around the area (especially with the limited time I've had). I did find a regular bolt to fit. This is the neck glued up and clamped. I will add the nuts to the bolt and tighten it to help secure it. Actually, I will need my daughter's assistance - my hand will not fit in the sound hole.

5 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Now that's peculiar! To me it looks like there's no end grain in the heel, instead it looks like end grain under the fretboard! How has that neck been built, I can't believe the grain would be that way all the length?!?

How about using a step bolt (had to look at the dictionary, I mean the one with a round head with no groove and a square tenon) for securing the neck? That would look decent even without hiding and tightening the nut afterwards would be easy from the inside.

I will definitely look into that. To be honest, I never heard of one. Thanks for the information!

On 7/2/2019 at 1:51 AM, Bizman62 said:

How on Earth has that neck been attached to the body? Glue only in an end grain joint???

Yep! That's how it was attached. 

I am planning on drilling through the heel of the neck and the body, and moving the strap nut to hide the bolt.

Oh, and glue.

I started by squeezing Titebond II under the fretboard and clamping it down. Uh, I should have taken a picture, but I never thought I would see glue squeeze out from some of the frets.

Hello, everyone. It has been a while since I was here. I haven't had any time to work on anything since my accident in April, with recovery, work and announcing for my daughter's swim team. A friend of mine came to me with her 5 year old daughter's guitar. They got it for 5 bucks at a yard sale and she would play it daily. It fell off her bed and the neck snapped off. I thought it was going to be a quick fix, but not to be. The fretboard was coming off, and the tuning pegs were missing some screws. To me, the biggest issue is that the fret at the break is missing. I will have fun working on this (no power tools needed...)

8 hours ago, mistermikev said:

I actually read your story - I think over at talkbass or perhaps tdpri?  I had reiterated it here at the time as we all need reminders of how quickly things can go south... even when you are fully concentrating.  It def sharpened me.

I very much appreciate you sharing your story because who knows how many accidents it has and will prevent. 

If you don't mind me asking... would you elaborate on what exactly happened?  I don't have a jointer, but I think in the interest of prevention it would be helpful. 

I think I read over there, that you are pretty well recovered, and able to play?  If so - I'm very glad, if not - here's to your speedy recovery.

 

I was using a jointer to smooth out a piece of cherry. The wood kicked back and as I readjusted it, I focused on my right hand instead of my left, which was closest to the point of operation. My finger drifted off of the wood and laid alongside it, pushed the moveable guard away from the blades, and shaved off the tip. 

I should have used a planer. My hands would never have been close to the blades on it. 

Hi all,

I haven't been on in a while. Life (12 year old daughter who swims 10 months out of the year) and work has cut into my build time. I had some time in April, so I decided to work on some cherry for the neck-through bass I am building. I was using a wood jointer for 20 minutes, and for a brief instant, I took my attention off of my left hand on the wood,... and took off 2/3-rds of my left pinkie. Yep, in a few seconds, it was gone.

I was using the wrong tool for the job, I should have used a planer, plus I was not using push sticks. Ironically, I am a safety manager (imagine the grief I received at work). Please, please, PLEASE watch what you are doing.

Amazingly, the hand surgeon is a builder also (he showed me his walnut burl topped telecaster at my surgical consult), so he empathized with me, and left as much of the tip of my finger as possible. I received the go ahead last week to start using it for playing, and it is slow going.

This was a life lesson for me. Let my mistake be a reminder for ya.

Keep building and playing.

Cheers,
Chuck.

17 hours ago, Prostheta said:

 

I'm not trying to make this difficult, but maybe shed a bit of application to this rather than just providing an answer without any opportunity for taking the reasoning onboard....

Look at the orthodox cuts first, and where they would best start from and where they transition into cutting against unsupported grain. To get you started using hand routing as the method (reverse the direction methodology for table routing), consider the piece on the right. Start at the outermost part at the bottom right (near the table edge) and move anti-clockwise through the waist until a little before the next outermost part. You can see that this bit has short distances from edge to edge through the grain (short grain) which is most liable to fracture and blow out. You do all of these cuts first, and the rest can be climb cut (if you're only the smallest most manageable cuts).

Try drawing it out with start and end points. It helps. I usually draw onto my workpieces.

Final tip, when you bring your router into an orthodox cut, have it moving in that direction as you move it towards the wood itself. If you bring it in parallel, it will likely grab and blow out the edge. I know that most of this will be more or less known to you, but a lot of people ask these same questions or read threads looking for people with the same issue as themselves.

Really glad that you recovered the nail splinter from the wood. Those can ruin your day.

Prostheta, I think I understand. I will mark out what I think I am understanding, then post on here. On the part on the left, I need to be careful of the point on the lower half, due to the tight grain, correct?

Needless to say, I will be testing out on scrap wood.

On a serious note, Pros I did run a magnet over the pieces...found a small sliver of a nail in one. Thanks for the reminder...I thought I caught all of them earlier.

Oh, an Poutine is very tasty.

Okay, been away for a while, but now am back. My family took a trip to Niagara Falls, Canada and enjoyed it. 

That's my daughter in front of the falls.

Now that we are back and trying to get some semblance of normalcy, I am able to get back to work. I have a little more shaping to do, but I have a question. Prostheta, I believe a long while ago, you had a post about routing the proper direction on edges to reduce tearout?

I had a little time this evening in the shop, so I used my father's small band saw to rough cut the wings.

Rough. Cut.

Very rough, lol!

I think I need to invest in a spindle sander, or turn my arms into Popeye's...

Well, my daughter's swim meets are over, so I think I will have a few hours a week to work.

I went to my friend's wood shop to plane down the hemlock, and Pros, I am being safe.

22 hours ago, ScottR said:

Cheers Chuck!

I polish my fretboards......and pretty much everything else really, all the way through the micromesh grits up to 12000. I think 12000 would equate to about 3000-3500 in 3M type wet or dry sand paper.

SR

Thanks, Scott. Now I know ANOTHER item I must purchase.  That is one thing I really am working on with my build, the elimination of tool marks and scratches. I love seeing wood glow and shine. 

Scott, after picking up my jaw from the floor AGAIN  I wanted to ask you to what grit do you sand your fretboards? I sanded my persimmon to 1000 grit and had a slight polished finish, but nothing like what you have, 

But Pros, I heard the dust makes my tea taste better! Joking, of course. I have my respirator on when I am working with it and will be diligent in cleaning up. 

Hmm...maybe that's why they were giving it away?

Thanks for the info on the checking. 

I have started my second build, a 5-string fanned fret bass.

Neck-through maple and walnut
Wings are 200 year old hemlock.
Passive pickups

I cut a section of the hemlock for the wings because the hemlock beam happened to be on the bench.

Quick question to the wood experts here. I looked at the edge where I cut the hemlock and noticed cracks on the surface, but they do not go deep into the wood. Now, the wood is 3 inches thick and I will be reducing it to 1.75 inches. Should the cracks be something to be concerned with?

Hello, better builders than I,

I was given (yes, given) two Hemlock beams from a store that was built in the 1800's. I am planning on using it for the wings of my next build, but the amount of wood here had me thinking: can Hemlock be a good wood for sides in an acoustic guitar? I have not tried to build an acoustic yet, but I was given a Yamaha acoustic guitar years ago that had the back smashed in, the sides are bowed out, but the neck is in great shape.

Thanks Much,
Chuck

6 hours ago, killemall8 said:

That is the one that ended up red. I thought i had posted some pics of it.

 

You ,may have and I was just blindsided by your work. I've never seen wood grain like that, and that is amazing!