Akula

I like it! As others have said, router tear-out is something that can be avoided by taking away small amounts of material in a single pass. Do a million small passes instead of one large one. Router direction is something to be mindful of. Really, just pay attention to how the machine feels and sounds, and tell her nice things. Warped timber? Yep, Bizman has all the right advice here, listen to this guy. I had some good luck earlier this year with steaming a piece of timber back into shape, but that was a relatively thin top, not a neck blank. Laminated necks are the way forward - with the right arrangement, a twist in the timber will be counteracted by the other half. My advice? Give it a red-hot go. You can always buy more wood. - Jam

Yep, and that's really the part that I need to figure out is the raise system. I can easily create a baseplate for the router which sits inverted, but I don't want to wrestle with the machine under the bench. I'll get round to it one day... Marked up two big circles on the baffle. And cut them out with my aged jigsaw. Also note the black panhead screws I used to fasten along the joins - these are inset from the edges so they grab into the pine framework, pulling all the plywood panels into a airtight cube soaked in wood glue. Every face sanded to remove those awful splinters, painted rattle-can black, and a quick thick coat of lacquer on top. Check out the old cabinet in the background for size comparison. Big stainless steel ball corners, black extrusion on all edges, road case handles, and locking castor wheels. This bad boy will travel extensively. Last things I need are a grille, jack plate, and to swap the Eminence speakers to this new cab. The old cab will be getting some Celestions. - Jam

Righto. Cut all my pieces of plywood to size, and made a mitre around all edges using the router. I don't have a router table as of yet, so I used the plunge router and a straight edge. Results were alright, but a table is now next on my list of builds. Glue-and-screw construction. The pine pieces you see here will form a frame inside the ply box, adding mass and reinforcement. My box-making skills are nowhere near as good as my guitar-building skills, but then I build guitars far more often than boxes, something I wished to rectify with this exercise. Anyways, a few of the mitres got damages during assembly and didn't quite line up, but there will be trim around the edges when it's done. The most important thing was to get it airtight. Baffle and front fascia attached, solid and tight. - Jam

A couple of years ago, I bought a really beat-up no name quad box loaded with Eminence speakers, for very cheap. The monstrosity was made out of chipboard and held together with mould, and it weighed a ton, so I sold two speakers to a mate and built this cute little thing to house the other two speakers: It did get a grille eventually. Now, this little thing measured 650*650*350mm and weighed nothing at all - I could pick it up with one hand to chuck it in the car. It featured a weird convertible design where I could undo four screws and remove the back, turning it into an open-back. I rarely used that feature. It also has a switch to remove one speaker from the circuit, hence driving the one speaker really hard at a lower impedance. Kinda cool, but for the most part I'd want both speakers firing while playing live. I was happy with this cab up until I recently played through a massive oversized quad box, and was just amazed at the low-end response. My little cab is all about the mids and highs. Hmm. Something might be done... Stopped by Bunnings on the way home tonight and purchased a full sheet of plywood for $46. Plan is to build a new cab using entirely the existing parts of the old one, right down to the wheels. It'll be airtight and reinforced, and a fair bit heavier, being a few centimetres larger. Let's see how this one turns out. - Jam

After an eon of waiting, I deemed the last poly coat dry and cured, and started wet-sanding. I had a few runs and thick spots, so I started at 800 and went through to a thousand grit. I feel like I pulled off most of the poly by doing this, but I definitely ended up with a very flat surface! Then I went at it with the buffing wheel. Tempted as I was to convert my bench grinder into a buffing arbor, I went with the safe option of power drill mounted attachments. Plus elbow grease. Quite a bit of that. Assembly took place during a late night in the shed. The tuners went in first, then I filed out the pickup rings by a bee's to accommodate the EMGs. All the holes for screws were pre-drilled and the screws waxed before installation. Locking tuners, bridge, then electronics. Slapped some 11s on the axe and away we go. I hereby solemnly promise to take some better photos, but for now here's a shot of my latest guitar chilling out on the sofa. It's been real, guys! I had a heap of fun building this one, hope you enjoyed the ride. Thanks, - Jam

Thanks mate. It's Tasmanian Blackwood with a flamed figure, lucky find from the local timber yard. I'm using EMGs which are fairly squared anyways, and the smallest bearing I have for my router bits is 12mm. Instead of buying a bunch of smaller bits and bearings, I just knocked the corners off dead square with a chisel. The pickups will be mounted on steel rings anyway, so nobody will ever know haha. - Jam

I did a thinned coat of poly about a week ago. This is right after application: I won't drag on about the weather again, I feel like I've spent this whole thread flogging that dead horse. But a week later and it's finally dry... Considering the moment, I think I'll let that be the final coat. I'm going to start wet sanding up to a high grit as soon as I have the time, starting from a fairly high number. That first coat of poly was rather thick so I don't think I'll be in much danger of sanding through it if I'm careful. I'd love to hear from other builders in these humid parts of the world about how to manage finishing in such a climate! My pickup rings arrived in the post, and of course they're a fraction too small for EMG's to fit through, and the mounting holes aren't the right spacing. I pray in the future somebody will buy out all major pickup manufacturing companies and standardise this kind of stuff. The Gotoh tuners aren't black, either, like the rest of the hardware, they're what Gotoh call "Cosmo Black". Ah well, good enough. They are pretty. Hopefully I'm only a few weeks away from final assembly and setup. This is the last guitar I'll be gifting to myself for quite a while, and as excited as I am to bring it into life, I'm also keen to start ordering for the next run of clients. My father taught me not to start another project while the last one is still on the bench, and although that isn't always possible in the world of small business, it's a good ideal to uphold. - Jam

Nice jig. I guess you just ride the plane down over the MDF spacer and keep going until you hit the desired angle? I'd love a walkthrough of how that setup works. - Jam

It's been nearly two weeks since the last lick of oil/poly garnished this guitar, and humidity actually dropped a bit in the last few days! Oil coats are finally dry and cured. I wiped on a bit of straight polyurethane today, and regretted it... Should've thinned out the poly first. I reckon that'll dry up with a bunch of ridges and runs. Plan is to thin out the poly with metho and wipe on another coat or two - this poly overcoat will be thin, for sure, but I just need enough thickness to be able to level it with wet sanding. I'll go high with the grit numbers before I start buffing. Ordered a set of Gotoh locking tuners today, and a set of pickup mounting rings. The original idea was to direct mount the pickups, but I had a job on my bench last week which turned me way off to the idea of direct mount. I'm considering building some rings myself out of ebony and binding them with this abalone stuff, but that might be a touch too flashy. - Jam

I'm up to my poly/oil mix coats now. I've had to two major issues to date, the first being Sydney's ever-biblical weather. We've been raining for days, again, and as a result the humidity has reached 90% and has stayed there. There's supposed to be a period of 70% tomorrow, which will at least allow me to apply another coat with less risk of clouding up, but it's still taking days for each coat to properly dry. The second issue being that this Blackwood was far more oily than I had anticipated. I really did throw on quite a lot of Danish oil, and coupled with the weather that means I'm not convinced the oil has dried off yet, making me reluctant to seal in that gooiness with a layer of plastic. I've done a coat of oil/poly at 2:1 and another at 3:2, which has the effect of thinning the poly acceptably, but yeah unless this weather starts acting like it's season, I'm going to hold off with application for the time being. To kill some time, I worked on the electronics side of it. I'm using an EMG system, the 81/60 pair, which comes with a volume and tone pot and a nice easy connection hub for their Quick Connect cabling. Unfortunately, I managed to lose my pickup cables along the way, and most places around here charge upwards of ten bucks for a single EMG cable. So I did some research and discovered that these are just Dupont jumper cables, of which I purchased a 40-pack for five dollars on eBay. This is my first shot at using copper tape for shielding, as opposed to insulated cables or conductive paint, so I made sure to plan it out. I made a paper net of the 3d space of the cavity, and used that to prepare some pre-cut lengths of copper with tabs cut along their edge. That went okay. Also seen here: magnets. Magnets, man. Cocooned the rest of the cavity with tape, and added a run of super glue around the edge to prevent any dog-earing in the future. This will contact the steel cover plate and provide a fairly decent cage against interference. I'm using active pickups, but I drilled a ground wire hole to the bridge to future-proof pickup changing options. Let's hope the weather here dries out sometime this century! - Jam

Very nice work! I'd love to see more setup and fretwork on these forums. Having started out building guitars with pre-made necks, I didn't actually have to do any real fretwork of my own for a good while, just action relief and string height stuff. In the past two years especially I've done levelling and full refretting for many guitars, but it's a never-ending cycle of development towards perfection, and I'd love to learn more from the greats. - Jam

Thanks mate. Warming up the oil to lower viscosity is based on thought experiment, I have not actually tested it scientifically... But I figure it's worth the effort, and the fan heater makes the shop a bit more comfortable to work in as well! - Jam

Onto the slurry coats. The theory behind this, for those unaware, is that while applying the oil with sandpaper with moderate pressure you sand off the exposed fibres of timber into dust which mixes with the oil and then sinks into the grain, creating a flatter surface. I did this three times with 400-grit on the back, top, sides and headstock, leaving the maple alone. There's always a risk of tainting the maple with walnut dust, but a quick hand with a clean rag prevents this. Action shot. I sand in little circles for the first slurry coat, knocking the heads off any fibres silly enough to poke their heads up. The second and third coats at 400-grit get sanded along the grain. Since this takes longer than simply applying with a cloth, by the time I've sanded dust and oil into the top, sides, back and headstock, it's usually about time to start rubbing off excess oil - or adding more with sandpaper, if the area calls for it. I leave each coat for at least 24hrs to dry before the next. After three coats of 400, I stepped it up to 600-grit tonight. As seen here, the wavy grain of the top is starting to look nicely sealed and filled, but could do with more flatness. I'll probably go up to 800 before going to the polyurethane coats. This is application number 5 of Danish Oil now, so I think the timber has slake it's thirst by now. - Jam

That does make perfect sense - a shiny surface to begin with is the way to go. I'm interested to know what kinds of wood you've done this with? My Tassie Blackwood is very open-pored with a wavy grain, so I had assumed I wouldn't be able to go much higher than about 400 grit, but I'm now kicking myself for not giving it a go anyways. I'm going up to 600 or 800 with the slurry coats, or even higher until I'm happy with it. After I start adding more polyurethane to the mix I'll go to finer grits again. - Jam

I'll set my Danish Oil in a warm water bath for a few minutes before applying the first coat. The logic behind that is that it raises the viscosity of the fluid and allows for a deep initial penetration into the timber. Applied with a good lint-free rag. The first coat gets a lot of oil, left to soak for twenty minutes, then wiped off. It's easy to see the spots that absorb more oil, because they're left looking dull, which begets them another good slap of finishing product. I hang the guitar from an S-hook rigged from the ceiling of my workshop, allowing me to do the entire guitar at once. Naturally, the maple takes much less oil than the walnut, and the parts with exposed end grain, such as sides, cutaways, and contours all drink a ton of oil, so I stay in the shop for three hours during this crucial step to ensure that: a) every bit of timber gets enough oil saturated into it, and b) no excess oil is left of the surface for long enough to go sticky and tacky. Obviously, this is quite the balancing act. I have five different species of wood involved, and every individual piece of wood is different. Case in point - there's a lovely dark feature on the top, above the bridge pickup, about where the forearm would rest. This little knuckle seems to soak up a bunch of oil upon application, yet then spits it back out for about an hour afterwards. The solution is to take care and have patience. Let it take all it can drink, then clean up afterwards. My impression of Tasmanian Blackwood is one of a very oily timber. What a piece of wood, though! The first stage was to get the wood surface totally inundated with oil. That was a success. The next step will be to grain-fill the walnut and blackwood with the oil-slurry technique. - Jam

Love the idea! A touch of flame maple showing like a flirt? Perfect. 64mm thickness, though... Are you going to be chambering it? - Jam

I looked him up - great craftsman. I've followed him on my social medias, because its good to front-load the mindless scrolling with some actually useful and interesting content! Thanks. No pictures today, as all I did was sand up to 360 for the front, back, and neck, 400 for the sides with grain-raising steps in between, and 1000-grit for the binding. I could have scraped the binding, but this binding material was an eBay purchase and seems to invite "skating" with the scraper. I'm halting at these grits for the timber as I'll be grain filling with Danish oil for the finishing phase. Both Tasmanian Blackwood and Walnut are just waiting to soak up that finish... Every time I wet the thing down with metho to search for scratches, I just can't wait to apply the first few coats and watch the figure and grain come to life. Honestly, I'd like to take a moment to outline the things I could have done better with this build. Unusual for a builder to show off their flaws, but the sanding phase always brings out those moments where I wish I'd done a particular task better, and what better way to remember something than to write it down? The neck-body-top join has irked me on several builds. I fixed a gap in this join with veneer, and it turned out great, but it's something to work on. More box-making, I believe. Moreover, the hard to reach areas of the neck heel are important to get right on a neck through build, because they are difficult to get later with low grit sandpaper. The "I'll fix it later" approach doesn't work. This build just has some areas right in the cutaways that will definitely show some pockmarks from the router through the finish, and they're nigh impossible to get at. Speaking of router-rash, I'll be buying some good decent quality bits and bearings to use on future builds, or at the very least do a new purchase of mid-quality bits before each build. The amount of time I spent trying to sand out burn marks was incredible, and not an efficient use of my limited time in the shop. Binding channels. Next time, I'm using a proper routing jig or not at all. The top side looks amazing, but the sides and back definitely had gaps from my chisel work, and needed filling with glue and dust, which will of course be visible. It's not a major concern for me, but others would notice. Timber storage and acclimatization was mentioned earlier in this thread, as my top cupped and was recovered with plastic deformation similar to how acoustic sides are bent. This wouldn't have happened if I'd realised the city was in the midst of a biblical flood, and had stored my timber appropriately. Fret ends. I tried a new technique on this build by shaping one side of each fret before installation, but shied away from doing both because I was afraid of how accurately I could install them without them shifting side to side and looking out of plumb. Now I realise that if I can accurately measure fret slot spacing, I can accurately shape each individual fret down to size before installing, and tap them sideways if installation goes awry. This will make my fretwork much faster in the future. "If you don't look after your guitar, it'll end up covered in dents." Well, I'm not much of a writer of proverbs, but stencil this one onto my headstone. My workbench is a hard-weathered MDF top, and after rough shaping I continued to wrestle the workpiece through all other processes, resulting in an absolute nightmare when it came to finish-sanding. I'll be replacing the benchtop at the earliest convenience, and I'll have a stretch of carpet at the ready to velcro down as soon as any future build is past the stage of shaping. Again, if I am to continue building instruments in any reasonable timeframe (especially with my occupation), I need to cut my efficiency down to size, and this is a way to cut at least five hours off my current build time. Be more bloody careful! These are just my own observations. If you guys have anything to add, I'd love to hear it! I started building guitars in 2009, gave up in 2012, and re-started my habit in 2020, so I have many a tip or trick to absorb. - Jam

Once again, your pure mastery of that particular tool amazes me. Great build, mate.

Yep, I was having a chat with a lighting technician at work last night about this - he's a cabinet maker by trade - and he kind of chuckled and said that "Whatever Oil" is something people having been cooking up in their workshops for decades. I believed him, the man's long in the tooth by every meaning of the phrase. Dude, that Ovangkol top came out looking amazing! And yeah give it a go with mixing your own. It sounds like that's what Ben from Crimson did, marketed it well, and made good business from it, and there's nothing wrong with that either. I bought a dozen little glass jars from the dollar-store a while ago, they're great for making different mixes of finishes and easy to label. I even add my own stains and tints to them, easy to do since everything's oil based. - Jam

Totally! In this case, I mean "poly" as polyurethane lacquer. Specifically, this stuff. It's meant as a brushed-on or rubbed finish, which is why many people to refer to it as "varnish", adding to the confusion. The Danish Oil I'm using is of the Organoil brand. I suspect it already has about a 1/4 of it's mass as polyurethane, the other 3/4 being boiled linseed oil and mineral spirits, with possibly other elements to add hardness. It's a good product, I've used it in purity on other builds to good effect. For example, I'm currently playing an old build in my kitchen late at night, I'll grab a quick photo: Nice shine, but not shiny enough. And I do notice pick scratches on this guitar more than my others. Therefore, adding more polyurethane to the mix of Danish Oil after the grain filling stages should add a bit more of a protective film on top, and will give me a much more solid material to buff up to a sheen. I'm not expecting a factory-grade mirror finish, hell no, but a guitar like this deserves to be a bit more than dull. Thanks man! - Jam

The great binding experience draws to an end! I put a 9mm bearing on a 12mm drill bit, freshly greased and tightened. The router base got modified with a block attached to the underside of one pillar, at the same thickness of the guitar body, to provide a square cut. This setup doesn't account for the depth of cut changing, so I went shallow and re-adjusted the depth a few times around the body. My gramil used on the edge provided an accurate depth line, vaguely seen in this photo because it's right on the join between top and wings. Sharpened up my chisels and set to the job in hand. Except, as mentioned, the chisel did in fact end up inside my hand at one point. Whoops. The headstock was a little harder to do, as the router is a bit heavy to get stable on a small surface. I went in with a sharp knife and cut through the veneer, then used the gramil for the depth, and finished the cut with the chisels. Glued 'er in with CA. I used masking tape and rubber bands to hold it down while the glue set - the masking tape gunk got stuck to the sides with superglue and was a total pain to scrape off. Had a small issue with the binding protruding from the headstock - guess my channels were a touch smaller there, probably due to some subconscious process. That was taken down to flush with sandpaper. I guess my chisel skills aren't as good as I'd like, because after cleaning it all up I found some gaps. You'd find it hard to get a fingernail in them, but I did manage to stuff some wood glue and dust in there. Not the best solution, but it came out alright. Right onto sanding for the finish. Here's a shot of the thing up to about 180-grit, wetted with metho to show scratches. The back had a few decent dings that needed steaming/sanding - I need to get a patch of carpet to velcro onto the workbench as soon as the body is rough shaped. I explored a few different options for finishing. My first idea was 2K poly, but I don't have a spray booth or setup. Rattle cans are an option, but they're expensive and I don't have a sufficiently dust-free environment to shoot in. Second option was shellac, French-polished to a high sheen. I've never done a French polish before, but after extensive reading I figured it might not be as protective as I'd like the finish to be. This guitar will probably end up going on the road with me, it won't be a home instrument, and I need to know it won't look like crap within a year. The last handful of my builds were finished with Danish Oil, and I'm fairly competent with this style of finish. It's still not a particularly hard-wearing finish, though, and it lacks the glossy look I'm aiming for. Therefore, the current plan is this - Danish oil, applied with sandpaper to achieve a nice grain filled smooth surface, then I'll add more and more poly to the mix on subsequent coats. I toyed with this idea on a V-shaped guitar last year, and although that particular project had many issues with the Danish oil interacting with the black stain, the oil-poly mix was a success. I could buff it to a mid sheen, it was hard enough to withstand pick marks, and it still had that oil-feel instead of plastic poly. Mostly that was a brain-dump to sort out the ideas in my head into an organised manner. But, it also serves the purpose of allowing all you guys to point out any potential issues with my finishing plan. I hate the finishing process - the guitar's 90% done and I just want to put strings on it already! Patience, Jam, patience... - Jam

Well, in a way, I'm glad it's not just me. I was doing a paring cut across the grain at the end of the bass horn when the wood let go and the chisel went whack right through my finger. Dumb move - first cut after re-sharpening and I had my whole weight behind it. I screamed like Homer Simpson. No point building guitars if we haven't got fingers left to play them with afterwards, right? Anyways. I finally got the binding channels cut, installed the binding, and sanded it down flush. I've got a few hours of sanding and random tidying-up jobs left to do before I start with the oil and top coats, so I'll get those done before posting about them. But the guitar's in a good place, which therefore puts me in a good place to start working on the next projects in the pipeline as soon as I start finishing. Happy days. - Jam

That didn't happen. It seems every major band in the world had a two-year mandatory hiatus from touring, and now they all want to get back on the road again! I'm gonna be busy for the next year non-stop. I got on with binding channels today, but it needs more work before the glue-up, so I'll keep those photos and that discussion until it's done. I also stabbed a precise hole in my index finger with a dead-sharp chisel while doing it, which put me in a sort of a mood for the rest of the day. So instead I'll post a nice photo of my truss rod cover. Got it cut out of steel and shaped on the grinder. Note the Strat-style step behind the nut; I made a channel to accept the cover, which keeps it from slipping side to side. There's also a wedge of maple to be glued to the underside of the cover itself, which fits perfectly into the truss rod channel. Add three magnets, and I'll have a cover which should be firmly stuck to the headstock with no rattle but also easily peeled off with a guitar pick. Having failed with decals in the past, I'm exploring getting this piece laser-engraved with my logo - "Jam Guitars". More tomorrow. - Jam

I agree - drilling string through holes without a press is quite the talent. I got myself a DrillMate for about fifty bucks and it helps out heaps. But looking at the product of your steady hand in these photos, I don't think you need it!

Thanks dude! One other reason for the steel plate is EMI shielding. Just thought of that one now. Hoping to have a few shorter working days over this weekend. Super keen to get this thing moved over into the finishing phase. - Jam