10pizza

got my neck pocket routed yesterday. Scary stuff to create a big hole in that body, knowing there's no return here if messed up. So it took only about 20 times re-measuring and aligning my template with the body centerline.

Used a fostner bit to remove most of the wood. Turns out that Zebra wood is a lot harder to drill than mahogany. After that: routing time!

Used the tape trick to make the pocket slightly more narrow which resulted in a very nice and snug fitting neckpocket.

now I just need to finally make myself a proper pickup-template and I can start routing the rest of the cavities. 

I'll pre-drill the floyd-mounting studs with a small drill as it's easier to mark them on the flat surface. After routing the floyd cavity I can then use the pre-drilled holes as a center for the stud drilling.

another thing on the list: how to aesthetically and functionally place the control knobs and switch. 

3 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

I'd go with a repair before altering project bounds. If the repair goes south, maybe.

spoken like a good project manager!  I

29 minutes ago, Norris said:

If you were to bind the top of the body that would cover it - a nice rosewood binding to match the fretboard would look great

that thought did cross my mind..... but it also introduces more routing with further chiprisks. Doing a binding is on my list for my next project ;-)

I managed to create a nice splint which I've glued in. I'll see how it turns out. Once done I'll put it up for the GOTM contest and I'll see if you guys can spot it ;-)

it is the top edge indeed. Thanks for the advice @Prostheta. I'll try to create a wood splint from a piece of zebrano and make it fit as nicely as possible. another learning experience ;-)

next time I'll inspect first and then clean up.....

attached a Pic, it's not too bad I think. I'll create some filler and see how it turns out.

another 2 months passed. Time for some updates.

got some things done in the past couple of weeks:

• joining the zebra-top pieces
• rough cutting the body
• rough cutting the top
• glued the top on the body
• created some more templates for the neck pocket and trem-routes
• Routed the glued-together body

some pics attached. 

Unfortunately the zebra top lost a small chip while routing it flush with the body. Good news is that it's not on the top but on the glue-side. I'll create some zebra-filler with glue to cover it up. If anybody has good advice on how to best do this: please!

things to do (hopefully) this week:

• Create (yet) another template for the pickup routing. I only screwed up the first 5.
• Route the neck pocket, test attach the neck and determine final hardware positions from that
• drum sand the body-sides when I can get access to my friends workshop
• route a 1/16"" rounded edge on the top.
• route an edge on the back. thinking maybe 1/8", a bit more round than the top
• route the pickup, electronics and trem-cavities

I decided to not place the pickup selector in the horn. I'll keep it in place with the volume/tone knobs. This means I only have to create one electronics cavity in stead of 2, which reduces risk in messing it up. 

cutting the zebra top left me with some zebrawood to create cavity covers from. Unfortunately not big enough to cover the trem-cavity, so I'll need to source another piece for that.

It's very rewarding to see the wood turn into something that actually looks guitarish!

on to the next steps!

will do! Not sure as of yet. But I'll let you know in case I do.

Welcome and congratulations with starting your own shop in Prague!

I might be visiting Prague in July, so maybe I'll look you up.

Nice pictures and indeed a great looking top. I'm sure that will turn out great. What do you use to finish it? Tru-oil?

Enjoy the forum!

totally true @a2k that's one of the things I like most as I'm constantly pondering on work-related things. Working with the wood and tools, measuring etc really requires focus and clears up your head!

great topic. While waiting on my glued top to dry I've built myself a jig similar to your design #1.

I'm using threaded inserts to secure the wood into place while routing. I'll get a picture tonight when I'll be doing a test with it.

38 minutes ago, a2k said:

I've got 5 or 6 concurrent builds going on in my head at any given moment. Buying wood for one of these future potential builds is a new step for me, though.

A great step to take though!

got myself some nice wood last weekend at a woodshop that was having an exibition. It was like being a 6yr old in a candy shop!

I managed to restrain myself a bit and only got the following:

• a tiger striped maple top for a cheapo Les Paul restauration project.
• A great piece of birds-eye maple that will let me build my first 2 necks hopefully, together with another astonishing  birdseye maple piece that I can turn into two fretboards.

I try to do something new with every new project so I learn a few things with each guitar. This way I try to keep the learning curve manageable.

ongoing/planned projects:

• My current project, the zebracaster it's building a body, routing for body-mounted pickups and a Floyd,  and finishing with tru-oil.
• on the les Paul project I'm using a cheap mahogany body which I'll route to thickness and then put on the maple top to do my first carved top and a cherry-brownish stained finish to bring out the maple figure. Also this will include my first neck inlay job.
• Then after that, I'll try to make my own neck. Only have to think about a body shape to match it.
• my 5yr old son would like to have a dinosaur guitar. Or a minion guitar. Or wait,  a dinosaur guitar...... ;-)
• recently picked up an IBanez RG for $25,- which I'll give the monkey grip tutorial a try on
• ....

and as Prostheta says: thinking about future projects also inspires to make a great job of the current one!

good luck selecting!

sounds like a nice experience indeed!

thanks guys!

very much looking forward to it. I'll try to find that shop in Granada. Maybe they can make me some nice guitarstraps!

nice build and great design! look forward seeing the end result!

I certainly am!

great read and I hope my Zebracaster will turn out with the same stunning top!

how did you create templates for the body mounted pickups?

A story of a guitar I never played (yet)

I noticed there's no topic on 'Introducing ourselves and who we are' and I've been around for a long time on this forum as a reader, lately more as a contributor. So let me introduce myself and share a story of a custom built dreadnought that's waiting for me in Nicaragua.

My name is Age, nickname 10pizza, 42 yrs old and living in the Netherlands. First got the guitar-virus when I was about 14 yr old and a big Pink Floyd fan. My brother bought a cheap electric one day which sort of opened up the world for me: I lived in a small town and electric guitars were something I only knew from the TV! So I started with a job during summer holidays and I got myself a very nice, metallic red Fenix stratocaster (made in Korea by Young Chang, who also built guitars for Fender), similar to Dave Gilmour's strat he played in the 80's.

since then I've owned a variety of guitars (GAS) and sold off a lot as well. Typically I liked getting cheap guitars and try to improve them with some TLC and hardware changes. That's how I came to know ProjectGuitar.com and how I ended up (finally) building a guitar myself. (in progress)

Pilarte guitars

now on to the guitar story. Me and my wife are in the process of adopting a child. It's a very lengthy procedure which takes a lot of time and since 2013 we are waiting to be matched to a child needing a family. You have to pick a country to adopt from and in our case it's Nicaragua. When we are matched to a child we will need to stay over there for about 4 months. This gave me an idea: I'd like to play some guitar while I'm over there, so I started looking online for guitarshops/luthiers. I found a local builder called Luis Pilarte and I started emailing with him on the possibility to build me an acoustic.

He sent me some pictures of wood he had available and I selected some nice pieces of cocobolo. I gave him specs matching those of a Martin D28 and he started building. A couple of months later it was ready and now it's waiting over there for me to come and play it! 

attached some pictures of the wood and end result.

Can't wait to go out there and first of all meet our kid but then pick up this baby!

4 minutes ago, ScottR said:

You'll need to glue the halves together and then make sure the result is properly flattened before gluing that to the body.

I suppose if the two halves are already perfectly flat you could do it all at once, but anything slightly out of true will show as a glue line or gap.

SR

thanks guys!. I'll get me a good flat surface to clamp 'm on and then I'll glue them together first!

11 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Do you have access to a good table saw?

yes I do, for what purpose?

Also, a question I hope you guys can help me with:

I've received my matching zebrawood top which I'll glue together on top of the mahogany back (once I get there ).

Do you guys do any special preparation on sides of the toppieces before you glue them together? Also, do you first glue the two halfs together and then later on top of the back of do you glue it all in one go?

thanks!

Back again .Managed to find an hour tonight to do some routing. One of the problems I had was that I didn't have proper routing bits, so last week I ordered some bits, some with bearings on top of the shaft and 1 with the bearing on the end. 

Did a testroute for a body-mounted humbucker cavity. I used a piece of MDF that I already screwed up on  to test. I also gave my router some maintenance as it didn't move up and down very easily anymore.

And as always, it's such a blessing to have proper tools! It really puts the fun in it all.

attached a pic of my test. It ended up a bit to big of a cavity, but it's just for test so tomorrow I'll know how to do it right!

real classy looking! was there not enough wood to recess the round cavity cover?

love the colour mix.

16 hours ago, killemall8 said:

Bring that guard down on that bandsaw!

didn't know it could be brought down! Next time I will!

he's a great guy and he knows there will be more work for him coming, so that probably helps...

Back again. Managed to find a few hours this afternoon to get started on my templates.

A while back I hired a local carpenter to do some work around the house and it turns out he has his own workshop which I can use! this is great because having some good machinery available makes a lot of things a whole lot easier.

so, today I cut and sanded my body template and got started on my pickup and floyd routing templates. I only had 2 hours, but it's a great feeling to actually get started!

hopefully I can get some more time over the next couple of weeks. I'll get myself a workmate at home first so I can do some routing on the templates. Next time I'm in the workshop I can probably cut and route my actual body!

awesome job. Interested as well to look some more at that bridge!