Mr Natural

way behind posting again-I have pics on my phone/pics on my camera and need to get sorted- the dates on the camera are all screwed up. also had a bit of an interruption with all the house guests I have hosted the last couple weeks and the weather has been extremely cold here-too cold to work in the garage. so- my shop vac bit the dust- thus the pile up on the router table- neck template done-luckily santa brought me a few home depot gift cards and a new shop vac has been purchased. making a headstock template to use with my (O'brien guitars) drill press routing method. does any one else use these little ruler thingys to pry up double stick tape (or in my case scotch tape plus glue?) these rulers are also the perfect size (with just a touch of sanding) for fret slot cleaning- pushing out sawdust/etc. i have 2 or 3 I actually use for measurements, and 2 or 3 lying around that have been sanded- used for anything but measuring I always love when a box from lmii or stewmac shows up. I had to order Indian rosewood fingerboard blank as I am completely out of IR. I think the last time I bought IR it was $8 or maybe $9 - its now $18. poof. back to the inlay- I sized the image I am using in MS Paint- and made multiple copies so when I cut out the piece parts I have clean edges on each piece. the bigger image below was just a tad too big, so- reused the paper and printed out a bunch of smaller sized images

welcome fellow Georgian!!!!

congrats on the GOTM @Norris. probably one of the best first builds I have seen. @Prostheta and @Andyjr1515 now you two ball busters leave Norris alone- he is just part of a sub club here at PG that takes their time. You know. Like others we know on here. (not naming names of course )

Fantastic job Andy. Really well done.

congrats on the new arrival!

making the routing template for the neck. I put paper plans glued to 1/4" mdf or hardboard or whatever I have laying around, and then really fine tune/sand/get it just right before making the working template. I use half inch or even 3/4 inch mdf for this- which ever i have on hand. I didnt have any cut offs that fit so here I am gluing to a quarter sheet of 1/2inch mdf I put painters tape on the underside of the 1/4" template- but ran out before I could put any on the mdf sheet- so- hopefully I wont tear out much of the mdf when I pry these apart. I spread a laser thin amount of glue with my finger and clamped it down.

once I finish with the sanding drum- its on to hand sanding. I use the flat base of my thicknessing jig (covered with 60 grit) to hold each piece, take various grits of sand paper, 100, 220, 320 in this case, and wrap around my homemade fret leveling file-I mark the down side of each thin with marker so I know top from bottom, and go thru the grits on the top side only.. At 320, I damp wipe, let dry and re-sand 320 to get these smooth. I will end up sanding them again after cutting and placing in epoxy, but I want them very much smooth now so less sanding later

wow-I am way behind updating this thread. I told myself I was going to take pics of every little thing no matter how small/big and keep this posted every other day. well- honey do list items and such have taken over. I will try to get back on track Related to the inlay I plan on doing- so- I had to make "thins". Not always easy when you have bench top toys you call tools- but- I have seen people do better with less so here goes. I was originally going to use my safe-t-planer for this- but these pen blanks are too small for the safe-t-planer (yes- I know you can put them on a "carrier" piece of wood- but- the safe-t-planer can be a scary ass piece of equipment when your fingers are close to it. I chose comfortable safety over possible disaster) rough cut on 9" band saw- very uneven- tons of blade drift-the yellowheart and holly on the left have been thru the sanding disc rig one pass the brown wood to the right is the push stick- i use this same set up when thicknessing corian for nut blanks-the space between the edge of the sanding drum and the fence determines the approx thickness of whatever you are sanding. This still leaves "waves" (uneven sanding)- so- best to leave a little thicker and then flat sand it down to final thickness getting there- the drum is 120 grit - this is after 3 (light) passes-you can see how fine the sawdust is on the drill press table- like flour

surprised you didnt render a mt fuji shaped hole to keep with the headstock theme.

I guess I wasnt paying attention when Fender has this Rascal and Lyte basses out. I have never seen those before. yet another "different" build Andy- you are batting 1000 as they say in baseball. looking good so far.

off. if you spray with the neck on- the first time you take it off you will take a chunk of finish off where the neck and body meet- and the nitro has melded together to form a single flow. and that will be a nightmare to sand and refinish.

the stain on the fret board looks really good. Are you going to seal it with some protective finish to keep the strings from digging thru the color and exposing the lighter wood beneath?

looking forward to this

William K- exactly what @Andyjr1515 said, though be careful with any brush that is too stiff on the spruce- plus compressed air if available and maybe a tack cloth. I wouldnt wet it with any cleaning type agent until vacuumed, blown or tack clothed first- then try the naptha. We like pictures here if you are able to upload

sent wrong link Scotty- here is the whiteside bit I meant to send https://www.highlandwoodworking.com/whiteside-ultimate-trim-bit.aspx not cheap but I love Whiteside router bits.

this place is local Atlanta - pricey- but they carry all the good stuff. you looking for something like this? https://www.highlandwoodworking.com/whiteside-spiral-flush-trim-router-bit.aspx

Congrats on the GOTM win!

I have really enjoyed watching this ax come to life CJ. Well done.

so- Thanksgiving Holiday got in the way of progress here. I also changed my mind on my original idea regarding electronics and such. I have finalized on the following Fender style trem vs the bigsby I was going to use for this. I am saving the bigsby for another project, I was originally going to go with 2 P-90s but I want some balls in the bridge - but I didnt want to give up on the p-90 either- so- compromised and going to use a Seymour Duncan P-rails in the bridge, and I was going to use a mini DPDT on/off/on switch to go between the p-90, the rail and then humbucker (series)mode-(I did this with a lap steel I built a few years back) but I notice Duncan has come out with these Triple Shot humbucker rings with switches in them that allow for the p-90/rails/and humbucker in both series and parallel modes. Think I will give that a shot and have one less switch on the face of the guitar. I am doing a test on the headstock. It appears that teisco guitars did not have a headstock angle. they also appear to not have string anchors-so- I am wondering how "deep" the face of the headstock has to be to get enough pressure over the nut so not to cause any issues. In other words folks- i havent completely finished the "plan" for the neck- and should before I continue. progress pics forthcoming

nice build- the first one (getting it done) is always an accomplishment and as Prostheta says- take forward what you have learned. The next one comes out better, and the one after that even better and so on. You will be addicted to building before you know it.

Osorio- you have really executed this guitar well. I especially like the "recessed carve" feature in the front. Well done.

hope any rough seas smooth out for you. The axes look great.

great job Andy. Very well done sir.

so- reviving this thread- I decided to clean this shite hole up once and for all. Ever since my daughter moved back in I have had a lot of "stuff" that needed to find room- which meant my basement got filled quick- and all my misc shite got plopped into the garage. Well- I want my "shop" back- so- time to clean so I can build. its "getting there". . I am embarrassed when the garage doors are up- so- time to remedy the situation. i am on my fifth trash bag (3 lawn bags, two white kitchen bags- time to get rid of all the cut offs that arent worth a crud- and all the other CRAP I have accumulated etc-