Galaga_Mike

Only a little progress here. Glued up the scarf joint and have been spending most of my guitar time planning the pot mounting and f-hole cutting. This leads to a question. I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to cut the f-holes in the maple. I like the size of them, but my smallest pattern bit (1/4") won't fit in parts of the hole. The options as I see it are: 1) Make the f-holes bigger so I can make a template and fit a pattern bit in there. 2) Cut them "freehand" with a jigsaw, clean up with files. 3) Cut them "freehand" with a coping saw, clean up with files. Any suggestions? I really like to use templates for everything, but I also like the size of these f-holes. How do other people cut these?

Yeah, I plan to laminate the headstock. The benefit of this way is that I only have to replane the headstock face instead of the entire fretboard area if my scarf joint slips by a little bit. Planing is one of my weak points, so I try to avoid that if possible. Anyway, I'll need wings glued on for the headstock and I'd like to cover those up, too.

Started the neck tonight. Got the scarf joint rough cut on the bandsaw. The rough cut was so good that I just sanded the joint flat. The dry fit looks like a very good fit.

Okay, so I'm building a PRS-type guitar with a Bigsby. I had planned on a 13 degree headstock angle because I have a jig for that. Now I'm reading that with a tremelo you should use a less steep headstock angle so that the strings do not bind in the nut (I think that PRS uses 10 degrees). I'm using a zero fret, so the nut will be relatively loose, so does this still apply to my build? Has anyone done a 13 degree headstock with a tremelo and have any good/bad stories to tell?

Finally got a few minutes to get back to the guitar. Got the chambers routed out of the mahogany. Starting to do the planning for the neck.

The mahogany is shaped. It did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. I had one small bit of tearout, but nothing too major. My bigger concerns were the burning near the horns and the "hair" at the ends of the grains. This is my first time working with mahogany, so my questions are: 1) Is burning the symptom of a dull bit, or a dull operator (am I going too slowly or possibly the wrong way?) 2) Is the fuzzy hair at the grain ends also due to a dull bit, or is this expected with mahogany? I never had this problem with maple or cherry. I see a lot of edge sanding in my future. Thanks in advance.

Got the maple bookmatched and finished making the body template. So far no big surprises. Next step is to chamber out and shape the mahogany.

Still in what I consider the wood prep stage, nothing fun yet. I got the maple bookmatch started. FIrst I run the edges of the board through the tablesaw, then I cut the remaining wood with a handsaw. Not ideal, but it works in the absence of a giant bandsaw. and I got the joint prepped for gluing using a block plane and my granite sanding block:

Got the mahogany jointed and the back side planed with the router jig. This is the tightest joint I've ever done, thanks to a slab of granite used as a sanding block. I think I saw this idea on a forum somewhere, and it is indeed a fantastic way to get a flat joint surface.

Here is the plan for my fourth build. My goal on this one is to be clean and precise. My biggest downfall is rushing through steps and calling it "good enough", so I plan to work on that. - PRS shape with slight modifications - Chambered mahogany body with maple cap - Maple neck, fingerboard wood TBD - 25.5" scale length - Bolt on neck (might become a set neck) - Bigsby with roller bridge - Zero fret - Neck angle, scarfed headstock joint - Filtertron pickups Finish is still under debate. My last two guitars have been TruOil, but I'm tempted to try a stain with clear coat. I don't have a gun or any real painting supplies, so I'll need to research the clear coat before committing. Here's the sketch: And here's a shot of the wood:

Survey says: Solid 1" piece of hardwood. I don't have much experience with poplar, but it feels like the descriptions I've read. I'm so used to maple that it seems a little soft. TBD if I'll use it in a guitar. Thanks again to everyone for chiming in with the wood type.

I'm 90% sure it's a big slab of hardwood (and I'm now fairly convinced that it's poplar). The bed looks to be from the 40-50's. Mystery will be solved when I get home and take a saw to it. Stay tuned. Thanks to everyone for the help!

Good point, it does kind of look like poplar now that you mention it. Both sides of the headboard have a laminate, which looks to be a fairly think piece of walnut laminate (1/16" or so). I pulled the laminate away from one side to see what was underneath. You can see part of the splintered laminate in the shot. If it is poplar I would probably go for that. There are worse woods. Thanks! Anyone else have a guess?

I've built about 3-4 guitars so I'm still in the training stages and I have the itch to build a LP Jr. I have had this bed headboard in my basement and got curious what type of wood it is. There is a huge slab of 4/4 hardwood in part of these headboards, and I have two of them. It feels hard with a "scratch test", it has a yellowish tint, has a relatively tight grain, chisels smoothly and easily. Any clues what it is and if it is any good for a guitar? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Mike

Hi everyone, This has been on my project list for a long time. I've built 3-4 guitars and now I'd like to resurrect my first guitar. It's a 1984 or so Fender Squier Bullet. These were built a thousand times better than the bullets built now. Still, I don't have any illusions that this is a collector's item or a highly valuable guitar. I played it for 10 years and so it has a lot of sentimental value. Lots of shows, lots of little mods and rewirings, and so much wear that the pickup covers have holes worn from the pick. Anyway, the part I need an opinion on is the frets. They are beyond worn and I need to do something about it. Should I: 1) Refret it myself. This worries me a little bit because I might mess up my only first guitar. 2) Pay a professional to refret it. This is less risky but it seems crazy to pay $200 for someone to refret a guitar I bought for $140 in high school. 3) Buy a new neck. Amazingly, these guitars are going for $400 on eBay, and necks are around $150-200. Also, I'd hate to lose the years of wear marks. 4) Give up and consider this a museum piece. Still an option, but I would like to still play this guitar if I can. Any votes??? Here's a picture for reference. Hopefully some of you can identify with the attachment to a first guitar and help me think clearly on this one.

The glue joint feels really strong. This was a fortunate break since there was a lot of surface area. I spray painted black on the sanded area, applied about 6 layers of spray lacquer, then wet sanded and polished. You can see the differences in the blacks in the right lighting, but overall I'm really happy with the results.

Taped everything off with blue tape, glued with Titebond and clamped for a couple of days. There were some gaps so I filled those with epoxy mixed with toner. Here's a shot after sanding the epoxy parts flush.

Here was a quick repair job that only took a few hours but it might help someone in the future. I bought this new Epiphone Les Paul with a broken neck on ebay. Price was right and the break looked really repairable. Before:

Thanks for the comments. I think the top is about 3/4" and the back is slightly less than that. In fact, I think it was Daniel who made the super thin maple top guitar which was the inspiration behind the thickness. I could be remembering wrong, though. I didn't make any effort to make the cavities small, but I think I will do that in the future. At the time I was just thinking that this would reduce the weight even more. Maybe I'll claim that this is chambered and I did that for acoustic properties.

And the finished product. I really like this one, it's very lightweight and the locking system really keeps it in tune. Overall, a good learning experience as it was intended.

Shielded cavity and cavity covers finished:

New progress. I'll probably finish this one up tomorrow. Crowning the frets: And making up the cherry cavity covers. I also put aluminum foil in each of the cavities and used coax cable everywhere to shield it.

Beautiful! This really makes me want to do a fanned fret guitar. Do you need to do anything special to the nut since the strings don't leave the nut perpendicularly? I would guess that the angle is small enough to not pinch a string.

Finish looks great. I'm interested, though, to see what you've decided with that headstock..

Finally getting some time to finish this one. This is after about 4 coats of Tru-Oil. I really like working with this Tru-Oil, it's good stuff.