RestorationAD

On to the SG. 

Going to be aggressive on this one.

Inside horns are done with Large Dragon Rasp.

Time to carve. Now I will tell you ahead of time I took a lot of pictures.

First up is 5" grinder. I like concave carves so using the grinder makes it easy to maintain the curve in the carve. It makes an unholy mess of the shop...

Drilling out the wiring before I forget. This is really easy before you attach the neck. It is really hard after.

The bridge pickup to cavity path on the SG was pretty hard to drill I need to work on the design more.

Now the S9 on the other hand is easy. I have built so many of them and the design has been refined until it works.

Once the lips are drilled chuck the body bit in the Press and repeat the procedure to drill the body of the ferrules.

When you are finished chuck the 1/8" drill bit in and finish drilling the 1/8" string holes from the back.

When finished you should have perfectly aligned ferrules.

Use a short 1/8" drill bit. The longer the bit the more chance of wobble. 

Securely attach a scrap of MDF to your drill press table and drill a shallow 1/8" hole in it.  Find an 1/8" x .5" rod to use as a guide pin. I have nylon pins I ordered from McMaster Carr for this kind of stuff.

Pull the guide pin out for now. Later we will use an 1/8" guide pin later to line up the ferrule holes on the back of the guitar.

Drill your bridge holes about .5" deep from the top.

Now chuck the drill bit you are going to use for the lip of the ferrule in the Drill Press.

Put the guide pin in the hole and make sure nothing has moved.

Flip your body over and put the guide pin in the first 1/8" bridge hole.

Set your depth stop where you need to and drill the lip.

Repeat until all the lips are drilled

On the SG I did not use the CNC to place the bridge. Basically because it is an ABM and I don't have it modeled in CAD (too lazy). So I am going to go over how I set a bridge without the CNC. I have covered this before but that thread is long... this is new.

Draw lines for each side of the neck by placing a 36" ruler on each side of the neck and making a pencil line.

Mark the scale (24.75") length on each side line. 

Connect the marks to give you the scale mark. (This is not where the bridge goes.)

Use a center ruler to mark find the  center and make marks. Connect those marks for a center line. (min was dead on the original so yeah I could have just done it with the CNC)

Now "know your bridge" time. I set the E bridge all the way forward then a few turns back. I want to be able to adjust the bridge forward or back from the scale line to set the intonation.

Use your calipers to measure the break point on the saddle to the front of  the bridge. This is how far in front of the scale line to set the ABM bridge. (I think mine was like .278")

Use double sided tape and position the bridge inside the pencil lines.

Then use a center finding drill bit to drill all the holes.

Next up setting up the drill press

Oh well. Maple is awesome too. And I can still use macassar, bocote, and ziricote as long as I am careful.... 

I mentioned in another thread that I can no longer work on Padauk. I used so much of it at Guitar Logistics with poor dust collection it now irritates my skin and causes congestion in my sinuses.  So be careful with dust collection. By the time I equipped my shop with proper dust collection it was too late for Padauk and Morado (Bolivian rosewood).

My break from building has not helped and not too long ago I had to completely clean out my shop of dust.

Pterocarpus soyauxii (Padauk): can cause irritation of the skin, allergic contact dermatitis ⁹, and sensitization. Cross-sensitivity has occured with use of ziricote, bocote, pao ferro, cocobolo, and Macassar ebony when sensitivity has been developed to related quinones. ⁶

I really love padauk... too bad I have become allergic to the dust.

17 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Right, well I should dedicate the 5-string bass with EVO wire and brass all round to you simply out of spite then!

Lemmy had some brass bits on his bass. Brass is ok. Gold is right out.

17 hours ago, curtisa said:

Brass gets a patina. Gold gets spandex.

Proper Response!

11 hours ago, curtisa said:

Coulda sworn in a past life I saw you mention that you'd never use stainless steel frets.

Looking RADalicious.

Ehhh... I had two tubes of good SS wire laying around and only one tube of good Nickel. I am saving the nickel for the next 2 guitars which are more important than these.

I frigging hate SS frets. I hate it kills my tools. I hate it hurts my hands to trim. I hate it takes forever to properly level and crown.  Not a fan of how it affects the tone of a guitar.

Still I managed to figure out how to adjust my pickups to smooth out the brightness from the SS frets. And I like how I never have to touch them again after all the above is done.

8 hours ago, Prostheta said:

I think you mean gold hardware. 

Right, 

Gold Hardware is right out. Never never never use gold hardware. It sucks. It tarnishes. It looks gaudy. It causes Spandexitous and other awkward side effects like "Writing power ballads", "Ace Frehely open mouth solo disease", and "CC Deville cornball riffs" to name a few.

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

You got quite a bit done for only a few hours.

I really like the grain on the dark fretboard; tell me what wood that is again?

SR

Macassar Ebony from the scrap bin at local wood shop  ha ha ha... scrap ebony. $12.00 for a board big enough to make 4 fretboards. This is the 2nd 

19 minutes ago, Mr Natural said:

diggin that little side dot template do dad you got there. Very cool. simple yet effective. 

Works well when the fretboard is flat. 

Only had a few  hours the past two weeks but I am ready to start carving necks soon.

Next up the maple...

And you can see my special side cutters I have modified to make it easier to flush cut the higher frets.

and the chip from the SS fretwire.

Fretting. Again forgot how much work went into this. I am using Stainless Steel frets so it is even more "fun"

Forgot to campher the slots... 

And pressed in

I had forgotten how much work this was. 

Time to do the fretboards.

To properly line up the tuners I made a quick template.

Installed looks like this

Pro-Tip: Sperzel Tuners are reversible. Never spend money on left handed or 3+3 sperzel sets. 

If you take a standard right handed 6 inline set you can make a staggered/graduated 3+3 set. 

Drill the tuners. For normal tuners I use a 3/8" bit and then a Stew Mac 10mm reamer to properly fit them.

And I recess the front because I like the way it looks and voodoo 

Side dots before I forget.

Tied up with non guitar projects. Might be MIA for another week