whoofnagle

Here is a follow up entry from Joe Driskill.

Diablo

Senior Member

Registered: Jan 2002

Location: Fort Worth, Texas

Posts: 220

I don't think I would ever want to do this without a CNC. Not for time savings at all but for its accuracy and possibilities that it provides. I have a HUGE Haas. My upper horn was ½” longer so I had to go with a really big one. $109K just for the basic tool. It took five years to pay for. It sits a lot of the time since I do so much handwork. I named it Slacker for this reason. When it is doing something though, there is nothing else like it. Nothing comes off of it ready to go without a lot of sanding or, in the case of metal, buffing and plating. Here’s kind of what I do with each thing.

Fretboards- cut locating holes on the bottom, vacuum it to the next fixture, cut perimeter and arch with a ¾” Ball endmill. Time: 40 minutes.

Fretslots- .020” endmill cuts fretslots. Tiny little thing which breaks easily if pushed too hard. Time: about 38 minutes.

Inlay- Totally depends on inlays. Almost all of them are custom in some way. Time: anywhere from a few minutes with simple dots to days with more elaborate inlays. One took about 12 hours just to cut the pearl and untold hours to program. The wolf guitars took an unbelievable amount of time to program and cut. I couldn’t even estimate how long they took. We’ll just say about 4 hours for a mid range difficult inlay which is all ready programmed and only has to be cut and inlaid.

Necks- rough cut to approximate size and then put on Haas. It takes 3 fixtures and a ton of steps with all kinds of tools to cut necks. Total time: about 1:30 hours I guess.

Bodies- three fixtures and some off an on back into the machine after gluing stuff . Time: about 3:30 hours total machining time.

Metal parts- I make my own pickup rings, stop tails, and trems. This is like getting a sex change to switch from wood to metal. Every little spec of wood and dust has to be cleaned out and the machine wiped down. Then coolant has to go in it and be all hooked up and the air disconnected. I made vise jaws for everything. There are about 16 or so sets of vise jaws to cut different metal parts. Big hassle! Each one has to be put in and then located with dial indicators. Trems- time about 4 hours probably. I don’t even know on the other stuff but it’s not quick.

Components- knobs and back plates- probably about 20 minutes machining time.

Hand work:

Fretboards- tons of sanding and stuff after tweezers put the inlays in. Lots of sanding and buffing of the fretboards. Before going into the Haas, they are run through a widebelt sander to roughly size them. Then the inlays go in. The frets are stainless steel and both epoxied and pressed into the fretboard. They are then clamped up in aluminum press plates with the radius machined into the plate. This is clamped up and let to cure for about 10 hours. Then the fretboard is glued onto the neck using epoxy. Again the plates clamp this on and it cures. No moisture is ever introduced to the neck since epoxy is used. That all takes about 4-6 hours of actual work and lots of curing time.

The neck is then sanded to shape as it is cut way oversized by the CNC. I make my own carbon fiber and it has to be put in. Then the side dots are drilled and installed and the tuner holes are drilled with a drill jig. Then the neck goes back into the CNC for the tongue angle. Lots of handwork on the necks! Total hand time on necks: 10-15 hours including the making of carbon fiber and cutting it. Probably way more time if I consider that.

Curing the UV finish: This only takes about 10 minutes total in the CNC UV booth.

Body:

Lots of sanding and looking at it. Taking pictures, photoshoping it to find stuff, etc. Resawing it and stickering it in front of fans to get it good and dry. Running it through the sander and gluing it onto the CNC’d parts. Vacuum bagging it to dry, etc.

When it comes off of the CNC, it has tearout and is pretty rough. Hours of sanding and perfecting the parts. Then fitting the neck. Total body time: 10-20 hours at least. That’s probably extremely conservative.

Components: hours of buffing and cleaning to get it ready to plate. I look like a chimney sweep when I’m done. All black gunk on your clothes and face. Carbon fiber and wood for back plates is incredibly time consuming. I hate that part. Probably about 15+ hours on metal. It is actually way more but I can’t even estimate it.

Finish: OMG! Don’t even know as they are all different in their challenges. Sanding, blisters on every finger, dying, sealing, spraying, UV oven, sand more, spray more, bla, bla. 30 hours easily total. The UV finish is so hard it takes 5+ hours of sanding and buffing alone. Then you go through somewhere. Do it again. I am now using Chromaclear for the top coat as it buffs much easier and looks fantastic. Still, it is very finicky on temperature and humidity whereas the UV polyester doesn’t care about any thing other than how hard it can make itself to buff.

Carbon Fiber- At least 4 hours of actual hands on work to saturate the fibers with epoxy. This is done twice to ensure saturation. Then it’s vacuum bagged for 10 hours each time. It sits for a few days on the form that makes it. Then you have to cover up with as much protective clothing as possible to keep the dreaded carbon fiber dust off of you and cut it with a grinder blade in the table saw. It is cut into strips that will go into the neck. Lots of carbon fiber in the necks all strategically placed. These are epoxied into the necks. Total time for carbon fiber. ???????? Lots of hideous time. Say 10 hours average.

That’s just some of the work. There are many more hours of total hand work doing the frets and setting it all up. CNC just makes deadly accurate parts and makes things possible that I couldn’t do other wise. It opens the doors to a lot of stuff that you just couldn’t do any other way. It definitely isn’t a cookie cutter thing like some people want you to believe. It makes things more time consuming in a lot of cases just because you know that you could do something with it so you do. Hope this helps.

Here is a link to an interesting thread. SOme of you here might enjoy reading this.

CNC vs Handmade

Bill

You'll be fine. The only big name 22 fret necks I've seen without the overhang are G&Ls and some Peaveys. Everyone has been doing strat heels the same way for quite a long time, since replacement necks first came out in the 70's. I don't know what made you guys start to overanalyze this one. The only possible thing you might notice is that on some strats, depending on the neck depth, the pickguard has to be cut away to accomodate the 22nd fret. So you might see a little strip of paint there where the 22nd fret extension used to be. But if the guard went under the fretboard exstension then you won't even notice. Or a new pickguard would fix that.

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So I can use either a 21 or 22 by what your are saying. That is cool. I just asked because I had never thought about it.

Bill

It is a fender strat body. The owner sold the neck seperately, but the pics he sent me had 22 frets I believe. I will have to check tonight.

Bill

82DeanZ, you are correct that if it is an overhang that it would likely work.  I didn't even think of that.  However, he is talking about putting a 21 fret neck where there was a 22 fret neck before, so there may not have been an overhang on it because the guitar was produced with a 22 fret neck, and would likely have the bridge placed accordingly.  I'm really not sure though, whoofnagle is going to have to let us know. 

However, if there is no overhang, the number of frets is of paramount importance.  A 21 fret neck will have a measurement of approximately 18.25" from the nut to the heel (assuming about 1/4" of wood after the 21st fret) while a 24 fret neck will be around 19.375" from nut to heel(with that same 1/4" of extra wood).  That is a 1.125" difference between the two.  Assuming it's an existing guitar and the bridge is in a fixed position in relation to the neck pocket, only a neck with the same number of frets as the original will work.

Now this doesn't mean that you cannot have a 24 fret neck with a 25.5" scale.  It's just that the number of frets has to be taken into account when deciding where to place the bridge.  On an existing guitar that cannot have its bridge moved, you are stuck with whatever number of frets it was designed with, unless of course you have a fretboard overhang.

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Yes, the original neck was 22 frets. I saw a 21 fret neck that I liked, but did not know if this was just changing the overhang or did this actually change the distance to the bridge.

Looks like the 22 is what I need. Hell, maybe I will get over my fear of building a neck and give it a shot!

Bill

Quick question:

Can I swap a 22 fret strat neck for a 21 fret neck? Was looking for a replacement neck for a strat body that I have that used to have a 22 fret neck.

Thanks,

Bill

Not knowing which Hipshot bridge you are looking at, I would say that the screw holes will not line up and the string holes probly won't but they might be close. Doesn't help much, does it?

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No it doesn't, but my question was all that specific either. My bad!

However, your answer is correct. I was able to get a look at the hipshot bridge I had in mind and the hole placement did not match. Oh well, maybe a P90 in the neck.

Thanks Doc,

Bill

I have a body that has been sitting here for a while where I had already attached a standard tele bridge plate. However, I never got around to routing for the single coil pup.

That being said - I all of a sudden had the desire o use a set of P90's in the body, but that would mean a new bridge. Having never seen a hipshot bridge - does anyone know if the mounting holes and string through holes match uo with those of a standard allparts tele bridge plate?

Thanks,

Bill

I know that people use shellac in many ways when finishing a guitar - such as french polishing or as a sanding sealer.

I have just finished using spray on shellac as the sealer for my blue tele. It seemed to work very well. I put several coats on the maple top and sides and then sanded the top nice and smooth with 400 grit. Also, I have just finished spraying the mahogany back as well - waiting for it to set up before lightly sanding smooth with 400.

I was then planning on using defts nitro (gloss finish) on the body and top, but why can't I just continue building more coats of the shellac and use that as the finish - no nitro?

Again I know I can build up shellac through french polishing, but could I do the same with the spray can? I mean use it to build the clear coat instead of nitro? HAs anyone tried this, or is it a waste of time and effort?

Any thoughts?

Bill

Thanks for the link. I will try and clean up the edges a little. Most likely I will do some light touch up with 320/ 400 grit paper and then go back and add more sealer.

Like another thread- when I was spraying the sides the mahag. seemed to coat much faster than the maple. You could see where the maple wassucking up the sealer. Some areas were nice and covered wile others still needed more. Hopefully I will post new pictures next week.

Bill

If you dont post pics, i think youl have an army of angry project guitar members storming the castle

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Or maybe he is doing nothing - these guitars are being built in his own little dream world

We want pics!!

Bill

Looks nice, even colour, and as Jehle noted, nice cleanwood working.

However, you need to tidy up the natural binding, or you'll kick yourself later.  IMO even width, clean, crisp, binding (real or faux) is a must on a nice guitar.  If you settle, it'll bug you for ever.  It's slow and painful to do, but it's the details which make or break a top notch guitar.

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Yeah - I know, It looks like a taped a little high in a few areas and some stain got through in others. I tried to make sure I sprayed enough sealer on the binding prior, but oh well. What is the best way to clean these types of mistakes?

Here is another view of the binding:

binding

Email them pics here Drak.....I'll host them for you!!!

We need us some PICS brother!!!

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Please do Drak - this sounds sick.

Bill

Here is a pick of my first attempt at doing a blue guitar. I think it turned out okay.

Pic turned out small : here is the link

Blue top

Bill

What kind of neck are you going to put with the spruce top? Are you building a set neck or purchaing a bolt on neck?

It's not a Spruce top, it's a Spruce body. Probably a Warmoth all Paduak neck I have here. Either that or a Mahogony/Ebony neck. The Mahogony/Ebony neck has nice trapezoid inlays, the Paduak just has dots. I think trap inlays look nicer with Gibby type instruments,, but I think the Paduak will have a mre biting tone. I could be wrong...we'll see...Both are bolt on necks, but the truss adjustment is at the top, so I might very well glue it on and comfort-shape around the heel.

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Cool - I thought you mainly used Warmoth, but I did not realize you could glue the neck. I did not think it would be strong enough.

Again - I can't wait to see the pics.

Bill

Drak,

What kind of neck are you going to put with the spruce top? Are you building a set neck or purchaing a bolt on neck?

It sounds like a nice project. Can't wait for pics.

Bill

I was at Lowes looking for some deft sanding sealer when I saw shellac in a spray can. I know that people use shellac as sealears on guitars.

Has anyone used it from the spray can? If so how did it turn out?

I need to seal the sides and binding before staining the top (Myka's tutorial).

Bill

NNOOOOOOO!!!!

I'm crying here!!! I loved that blue guitar, I started reading the first post, and I was under the impression of a redo of the carve and a toned down blue stain job.

But seriously, as alwaysnice job, I don't like burst so I won't comment too much, but they are turning better and better, I think this one turned out better than the one on the LP.

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Maiden,

You crack me up. I too like the look of a good blue. However, that burst came out really well.

Bill

(I'm pretty suspicious of those overprices boutique pickups...)

I wouldn't be. I have two seymour duncan vintage P-90s in my first guitar that were like $70 each. and It couldn't be more worth it!

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I have a Jason Lollar p90 in my LP Jr. It was around 70 - 80. Absolutely worth the money.

Bill

Yeah - they are sweet. Ron is an amazing builder. I love looking at that gallery. Makes me drool every time.

Bill

Clean work Marcus. Looks great. I think I would do 6 in-line myself. Have you tested the burst colors on an extra piece of the Limba. It's kinda hard to visualize how that would look. Keep up the good work!

Peace, Rich

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Here is a link to a limba guitar that has been given a "brazillian burst" - there are several others in this gallery if you want to see more views.

Bursted Limba

The whole gallery

By the way - it looks great so far.

Bill

I will see if I can get it today.

Thanks,

Bill

I am in the process of finishing a guitar body and had a few quetions. The guitar has a mahagony body with a maple top. My original plan was to grain fill the mahagony (this has been done), then I was going to apply a water based dye to the top - following myka's tutorial (I plan on using Defts sanding sealer to help create a natural binding).

This is wher my questions comes in to play- Once the dye has been added to the top:

Can I then apply a Tung Oil finish to the whole guitar?

Can I apply sanding sealer to the top in hopes of keeping the tung oil out of the water dye?

Bill

Thanks to all the responses.

Maiden - thanks for the point - I must have missed it when I was fliiping through the threads.

The color sample I linked is using blue and black water based dyes. I do not have any spray equipment - so I plan on using Myka's method of wiping the dye on the top. I also, plan on going with the faux binding look. This leads to my next questions:

Maiden - Is that a faux finish? If so - what technique did you use to ensure that the blue did not run on the sides?

I am thinking of brushing some shellac on the binding area before masking it (taping).

or

Is it possible just to spray Deft sanding sealer prior to taping the sides - to minimize having to sand-off excess blue on the faux binding?

Bill

Last summer/fall I started working on my first tele style guitar. Due to various reasons, kid, school, work, etc., I have progressed very slowly.

I am finally, about ready to get to the finishing of the body. The specs are as follows:

1. Tele style body

2. Color - I want to do blue - and yes Maiden I wil make sure I do the black sand back and then blue - by the way your GOTM is beautiful.

Here is my first test piece Blue

3. Neck - Warmoth maple/rosewood

Now I have two questions:

1. The neck pocket is cut to a depth of 5/8" just like the warmoth site says. However - when the neck is installed and strung -I really have to increase the height of the saddles much more than I would like. In fact, I still get a bit of fret buzz. Have others had to go much deeper than 5/8". I am using a WD bridge.

2. When sanding back - what grit - just use 220 or start at say 120 and go to 220?

I hope to get cranking again this weekend.

Thanks,

Bill H.