Ilikes2shred

Water slide? I'm just using a regular laser-printer transparency paper, like the kind used on overhead projectors.

Hi, I'm just finishing my first build, which i plan to finish using tru-oil. After much testing, I decided to use the transparency idea off the main site for the headstock logo. I just have a few questions though:

Will the tru-oil ever harden over the transparency? From my tests, it didn't seem too..

Can the tru-oil build up significant thickness to get rid of the line around the logo?

If I missed something while searching, feel free to direct me.

Thank you in advance!

you want the 14 degree angle to start after the nut, so that the nut sits on the flat top surface of the neck.

Does that make sense? blink.gif

Yeah, thats how I planned it.

I'll start the fingerboard/binding gluings tonight, so thanks for all the help!

btw, how would I remove the nut without using a solvent for the superglue?

So I just cut the fingerboard off at the nut line, glue it on, and fit the nut directly over the truss rod channel? (I am using a 14 degree angled headstock)

Hi, I'm new to building guitars and am finally at the point of cutting my fretboard taper for my first build.before I do so, I need to understand how the height of the nut works. I measured the distance from the fretboard to the bottom of the strings (at the nut) on two guitars I have, and got about .05 inches. If I mounted the pre-slotted Carvin Graphtech nut directly on the surface of my neck, the bottom of the strings would be about .03 inches of the surface of my fretboard. I know that the height of the strings should depend on the height of the fretwire, and from Melvin Hiscock's book that the slots should be filed until the strings just clear the first fret when fretted at the third, but how do I assure that this will be like that on my guitar since the slots are already cut?

Thanks.

I wasn't sure if I should start a new thread for this but...

In gluing together the neck laminates, do you glue them all at once, or just 1 at a time?

Alright. Well, I downloaded the book, which is very informative, and I went to check out some wood today. I went to a place called Rockler, and they assured me that their wood was kiln dried to 6%. Their prices were decent, so I went ahead and got enough wood for 2 guitars.

guitar 1:

5 piece Maple/mahogany/M/m/M neck

paduak/poplar body

Guitar2:

5 piece maple/walnut/m/w/m neck

paduak/poplar body

Hopefully this wont turn out like the last...

I plan to hang the oak neck on the wall as a reminder that I should pick better wood.

Straight Grain, no defects or odd grain, choose wood that has low volumetric shrinkage and most importantly wood that has low dimensional change at moisture levels between 6-14%(in service moisture contents), also choosing a wood that has closer radial to tangential shrinkage ratios helps

Thanks for the long post. It's just what I needed.

Could anyone give me some examples of these woods that are like this ^^^^^^

or a link would be good.

btw, I just got my fretboard and some other stuff a few hours ago.

If it were my piece, I would chuck it and use a different piece of wood. If it bows that much during shaping, you never know how it will react under string tension and seasonal changes.

That's what I was afraid of. Are you sure that there is no way to salvage it?

Anyway, how do I prevent this from happening again?

Yes, I think so too... but at the lumberyard near me, it was the best that they had, and at that point, I didn't want to order online because I wanted to know exactly what I was getting... I guess I didn't know what I was getting anyway. Next time I plan on choosing anything but oak.

How dry was the wood? How long did it aclimate in your shop prior to use? Do you monitor or control your humidity in your shop? How long ago was the neck ruff profiled?

Well, i remember the lumberyard I bought it from said it was kiln dried, and it was nicely planed and sanded, so I assumed that it was thoroughly dried..... I don't have a shop, just a basement with two workbenches, and no way to control humidity. (this is my first guitar i'm building, and I don't want to invest too much before I know that I can actually make one.)

The neck was ruff profiled about 2-3 weeks ago, and it started to bow after that.

It sounds like it was not dry enough, As Rich asked what were the circumstances of purchase location, humidity from that location to yours, the moisture content of the wood if known, and time to acclimate in your environment?

The place I bought it from is pretty near to me (10 miles?) and seemed to have about the same climate, but I didn't measure the humidity or anything... And I kinda jumped right into it; I only let it sit for about 2 weeks.

What I'm thinking is that the neck bows because of humidity changes-- Here in Pennsylvania, the weather has went from about 20 to 60 to 30 to 60 to 30 to 70 degrees f in the time that i was building this guitar.

So, do I have to completely build a new neck (laminated this time!), or could I really just steam bend it? How long do I have to let it dry after steam bending? Or could I just glue it to my truss rod and fretboard, so the truss rod keeps it straight? (the neck can easily be bend out of that bow. I barely even have to push...)

This is my first post, so hi! I've been exploring this website for about 4 months and have decided to make my first guitar. It will be a seven-string neck-through. Due to not being able to find much other good wood in my area, I started out building the neck with what is basically a perfectly planed oak 2 by 4, 48 inches long (flat sawn). After taking it home, I found that it had very slight bow, extremely hard to see without a light from behind it. I selected to cut the side that would make it have a back-bow. I made the side cuts, and had no noticeable changes in the bow of the wood. I made the back cut and headstock cut, and rounded the neck, and checked again for bow. Now, the neck bows back a hair over 1/8 (5/32)..... My fingerboard, frets, truss rod, and some other stuff should be coming soon, and I don't know how to correct this bow. I'm new to this (this is my first guitar), so I don't know if this is a lot of bow or not.

Here's a pic.

Do I need to correct this and if so, how?

I figure that the bow may be due to the grain being a little wavy, but it's wavy along the front, not the side..

I'm sorry if this has been answered somewhere else before, but I tried the search function and couldn't find much.

Thanks!