Akula

9 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

That would tie up with the other damaged mirror acrylic parts. Is the mirroring surface easy to scratch from the bottom side? If so, scraping the mirror off for your logo might look interesting.

Yep, that's the direction I was going as well. The backing is easy to scratch off, I'm thinking if I do it with a Dremel it'll have a clouded look on the underside of the acrylic. 

My headstock design is rather slim, too, and it doesn't leave a lot of room for a large cover, so the logo will be quite small. 

 - Jam

Oil's cured. Wax, assembly, electronics, strings, fretwork, strings, and setup. Normal story - guitar's far from normal.

Just need to make a truss rod cover with my logo, and this atrocity is complete. Shall I make it out of steel sheet like my other builds, or do it with mirror acrylic?

 - Jam

On 1/3/2024 at 1:08 PM, tjiscooler said:

I love this!

HOw did you size the fingerboard to the neck? looked like you glued the full blank onto the neck, but a router wouldn't make it past the body?

Thanks!

Yep most of the fretboard was trimmed flush with a router, but you are correct, the router won't follow past the point where neck meets body. For the last little bit, I used a chisel.

On 1/4/2024 at 8:16 AM, ScottR said:

This definitely needs to be a prop in a horror movie!

 

It's so creepy it's cool.

SR

One day it might be

 - Jam

42 minutes ago, henrim said:

Acrylic cracks easily. Counter sinking the holes may help some. But better alternative is to use polycarbonate for clear parts that are fastened with screws.

One of my first experiences working on live TV was screwing in an acrylic facia to a riser during a changeover, and I went too hard and cracked the corner off. About thirty seconds to air, back from an advert break. Camera tape saved my ass, but I learned all about how easily acrylic can crack!

Polycarbonate would indeed be a better solution, but acrylic was easier to source, and it's a known material to me - sometimes it's all about the devil you know.

 - Jam

Whilst waiting for a bunch of tung oil coats to cure, I figured I'd make a jack plate and pickguard. I had previously made these items, but then I screwed them in using 2mm screws in 2mm holes, and cracked them. Whoops!

So I cut the jack plate using a hole saw, and carefully removed the "plug" to reveal a mostly round-shaped mirror object. Attached an M6 bolt, nut, and washer, stuck it in the drill, and wiped it on some coarse sandpaper at high speed until it was rather circular. Got my bevel done in the same way.

Pickguard was pretty easy to cut, three straight lines and a bunch of sanding on the edges. This mirror acrylic stock has been lying around in the shop for a few years, and the backing has definitely detiriorated in that time. Heads up - mirror acrylic will get damaged if you leave it on the sheet stock shelf for long enough! When I wet sanded the sides, the watery gunk flowed over the face of the pickguard and made these awful stains that I can't seem to remove with metho. These imperfections almost made me order some new stock, but when I screwed it onto the guitar in question, I realised that it would fit the style nonetheless. 

Interesting thing about the jack plate, spinning it lathe-style against sandpaper gave it quite the thermal shock, and it cracked, but just around the edges. Same argument, I figured the broken mirror effect sort of fits the corpse-filled guitar look. It's staying. 

I masked off the sides leaving just the router-milled surfaces of the tops and backs exposed, then sanded the machine marks away. I could've gone much higher with the grit numbers, but the cloudy finish gives the impression of some sort of binding. If I wanted to go super glossy I could've flame polished the edges, but I didn't want to risk the glue joint opening up.

Here we are, all rigged up with another coat of oil to cure. 

I've done four coats of this tung oil, and I'm thinking I might do one more tomorrow and call it quits. The horns and edges of a guitar are normally the main points to protect, but the timber doesn't see any of these parts. And I'm aiming for a satin finish at the most. So yeah. One more coat, assemble, show the world my most insane creation.

 - Jam

Here's a quick cross section of the idea I had a few years back. The view is a cross section viewed from the strap button, looking at a slice of the body, down the neck.

I've accounted for a 12mm body, standard humbucker at 23mm total height, and a 5mm fretboard. Springs go between the pickup ears and the body, as usual. The drawback being, clearly, you've got the butt-end of a humbucker poking out through the back of the guitar, as in, the pickup route will be quite literally a hole through the guitar body.

Solutions include making the body just thick enough for a pickup, but just in the area underneath the pickup. Think like the camera "bump" on a modern super thin smartphone. Or you could look at some ultra thin pickups, I think Lace Sensor make a super slim model.

I'm really interested to see this one come together! Following intently.

 - Jam

I dig it! Keen to see how the pickup mounting idea works, I investigated a similar idea a few years ago which didn't pan out, I'm sure you have much better ideas.

That inverted strat-jack is genius!

 - Jam

On 12/27/2023 at 9:17 PM, Bizman62 said:

That's the issue with long haired women, be they wives or dolls. Yesterday I had a strand of female floss in my salad. And pulling a hair from under your foreskin has to be done delicately...

Hahaha duuuude! 

On 12/28/2023 at 5:18 AM, woodfab said:

My wife hates Barbie.

Mine too! That's why she pulled all their heads off!

Right, so that WeldOn glue is pretty strong. After taking the clamps off, I couldn't twist or squeak the wings at all. They've formed a triangular box section, so geometrically they should be very sound. I routed the tops and backs to the exact profile of the sides, and while routing acrylic always sucks, it came out pretty good.

Now it's time for the finishing phase. This comprised of sanding all the exposed timber until it was glassy smooth, and staining it black. 

The stain seems to raise the grain a little, but I'm always reluctant to sand it again and risk going through. I tried something new - I burnished the wood with a scrap of MDF, and then with a rough rag. The maple ended up glassy smooth, once again. Now it's time for a few coats of Tung oil - well technically it's a product sold as "kitchen oil", and it's made for benchtops and cutting boards, but a look at the data sheet tells me it's basically just Tung oil.

I'm going to do a few coats of oil for sure, I think a matt finish wouldn't fit the aesthetic as well as satin towards gloss. 

 - Jam

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MXq1XGZaBv-wqxqv53c0wFu2QgLKi2Kzzp5NUSPhdNA/edit?usp=sharing

https://www.projectguitar.com/forums/topic/55163-jam-winter-builds/

Here's a documented, day-by-day progress log of my last Tele-inspired build. The link for the forum post is underneath, includes two other builds in the same thread but mostly the same processes. 

Hope these help! 

 - Jam

I document all of my builds from start to finish, including times for processes and labour costs. Part of my quotation includes a full bill of materials. When I get on the PC later I'll post an example

I'm guessing you're talking about materials and parts, as opposed to order of procedure, labour times and tools required. Order of procedure really depends on the builder, people like to do things in different order. Labour times probably vary wildly - I'd bet I do my fretwork a lot slower than most professional luthiers!

 - Jam

The whole expanse of maple will be stained black eventually, so I did the sides of the core now, so I wouldn't have to much around with masking off the insides of the hollow wings at a later time.

Then I glued the backs and sides of the wings to the core. 

So there's three kinds of glue going on here. There's epoxy resin, which glues the back acrylic into the dado grooves in the maple core. I roughed up the acrylic with sandpaper so the epoxy would have something to grab onto. Then there's the Weldon glue which attaches the sides to the back. Apparently this glue has a working time of 5-6 minutes, which is total bullshit - it sets within a few minutes, but for a good bond you really want the pieces in the right spots right away. Then I'm using CA glue to hold these locating pins in place.

All of these photos look really messy. It's a combination of glue squeeze-out, the black stain bleeding, and hideous end grain scratches. All of these points will be nullified or rectified.

A little more about those locating pins. Getting the wings in the right places for the sides to line up properly... nightmare. Half a mil at the front of the "wing" could result in miles apart at the tip of the "wing". So I drilled some holes through the maple and acrylic clamped in the right spot and put some little black screws to hold them in place. However, this looked a bit unclean, so for the final glue-up I removed the screws and replaced them with 2mm aluminium tube. A drop of CA over the top and they're solid, providing a good mechanical joint as well as a clean aesthetic. They'll look great when it's all stained black.

There's a bit of overhang where the back acrylic overshoots the sides, and especially noticeable at the heel end. Once the glue has cured I'll route to profile with a bearing. I'm anticipating a fair bit of sanding drum action as well.

Tomorrow I need to fill the empty wings with their secret material - and no I am not flooding it with epoxy - and then glue the tops to the wings to close the box. I can foresee issues with glue squeeze out and messiness, as I need to slide the wings into place in their grooves. Wiring is also a problem. After filling the wings with their secret objects, how will I get pickup wires to the electronics cavity underneath the pickguard, or output wiring to the output jack? I have an idea, but we'll see how it goes.

2 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Ahh, didn't realize until now that it's going to be hollow! Now I guess I understand the gluing problem better.

Is there going to be a straight piece of acrylic against the wooden body?

 

There's two problems with solid acrylic guitars - they sound like crap, because acrylic doesn't resonate very well, and they're heavy as hell! Making a hollow one with a timber core cancels both of those issues.... I hope!

Nope, no acrylic against the jointed face of the body, I'm relying entirely on a routed groove to hold the wings into the body. 

 - Jam

Had a right proper day in the shed.

Proper planning is key, especially when embarking into the unknown. These plans might even throw a little light upon the bigger picture here. 

Transferred the desired shape onto MDF and started making my mould. 

I cut one shape and transferred it onto six layers with the router. I banned MDF from my workshop some time ago, and will only bring it in when plywood just won't do. The mask will help my lungs, but this fluffy dust makes me all itchy. Horrible stuff. And the bandsaw hates it.

Next up, I cut the four pieces of acrylic for the tops and backs of the wings. Being that the mould will dictate the shape of the sides, I used it as a negative template. I cut all this acrylic on the bandsaw - poor machine has had the worst materials today. I'm going to have to buy my bandsaw a drink.

Used a fence on the bandsaw (poor machine) to cut strips of acrylic at exactly 32mm wide for the sides. I clamped them together and sanded the blade marks out, and measured them to be straight and true at the right width. Any deviations could introduce gaps when gluing up.

Bending! Okay, this is kind of like bending sides for an acoustic guitar, except that it's a damned sight easier. Acrylic is a homogenous material and doesn't crack or split, but it can warp and distort in planes other than the desired ones. I used a hot-air gun, affectionately known as "The Hag".

This here is just a test piece. See how the curve pulls the plastic into a concave shape? The mould helps with this, but doesn't alleviate it completely. More of note is the corresponding "bump" in the top and bottom faces, which will create gaps when gluing up with the top and back. Easily solved with sanding on a flat surface, though.

Pr

I did a few tests, then got down to bending the actual sides. Seen here is my clamping system - one pulls the interior of the mould towards the tip of the wing, and another holds it true against the long edge. To avoid any spring-back on the workpiece, I left it in there for long enough to cool down to room temperature.

Here we go - I've successfully made two triangular boxes. 

Quick mock-up. The rear end of the maple isn't shaped to it's final dimensions yet - I realised I would have to do that after installing the wings so as to get the correct angle following through from the acrylic wings into the maple.

One last job for the day was cutting a chamfer into the sides so that they marry neatly to the core.

Anyways, my shed is covered in acrylic shavings and MDF-fluff. Can I just move house and start another workshop?

 - Jam

4 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

How about a full length dovetail groove, guess rather in the wood as a wooden slat inside the plastic might swell and crack the plastic.

Oh yes, to join the acrylic to the timber core I'm using a dado - the wings will extend into a groove in the neck. That will be glued with epoxy, and I think it will come out rather strong.

What concerns me is the joint between the all-acrylic sides, top, and back of the wings. That is a 90' butt joint with a surface area of 4mm in cross section. On the plus side, that cross section measures 700mm long in the length of the "sides", and the wings are a triangular shape which should add some geometric strength and resist twisting and popping open the glue joints 

Again, all an experiment. I'll let ya know how I go!

 - Jam

On 12/21/2023 at 12:02 PM, Crusader said:

If its worth mentioning, to me Weldon is just like SuperGlue but thicker and not quite as strong

I had some but it got punctured somehow and I was left with a hollow blue tube

Copy that! I'll take care of the tube. Yeah I'm interested to see just how strong it is - allegedly it softens the two plastics and "welds" them together, hence the name, but the surface area is something of concern.

It's a hard one, because essentially the glue joint will be akin to gluing the sides and top of an acoustic guitar but without the kerfing, and with acrylic sheet instead of wood. I'd love to reinforce the butt joint with some mechanical aid such as tiny machine screws, but that'll clash with the aesthetic of the design. 

It's all one big experiment.

Fretboard radiused, frets installed and dressed, neck carved, volute and heel carved, nut installed, bridge recessed and string through holes drilled. I could put strings on it right now and play it. I've made a very pointy stick!

I forgot to order string ferrules, and in this season it'll take ages to get them delivered. So I improvised - aluminium tubing hammered through the depth of the body then routed at a recess on the back. The tubes sit against the underside of the bridge, so they're not moving under tension. If anyone asks, I'll tell them it's the latest in groundbreaking tone-transfer technology.... or something like that.

 - Jam

13 hours ago, avengers63 said:

It's so "out there" that you are now you are obligated to make it into reality.

Haha! Yep. This build is like an inappropriate joke that pops into your head during a sincere moment, the kind of line that you shouldn't say out loud, but you just gotta do it!

I turned the maple into something more resembling the core of a guitar. I won't elaborate too much, as the processes here aren't much new. One thing that was a little sketchy - because of the width of the "body", I had to cut the profile of the neck right through about 100mm of hard maple, on a 10" bandsaw! That was slow.

Managed to get one more slice of Ironbark off my billet, so that became the fretboard. 

 - Jam

Dude! Thank you so much, that's really helpful. Yep, I'll hit the mold with paraffin and do a few test runs first. The experimental nature of this one keeps my brain on it's toes, that's for sure.

But while I'm waiting for the less traditional materials to arrive, I have the standard jobs to perform on this maple neck. Here's marking out.

 - Jam

Sweet. I just ordered some Weldon - every google search from Australia for Acrifix turned out results for Weldon. 

Does it stick to MDF? I'm hoping not... I'll be gluing my pieces and clamping them inside a mould. Almost like an acoustic guitar mould, but that comparison to my project is utterly blasphemous!

 - Jam

It's going to be different, that's for sure! 

Picked up my slab of Maple today. Its over 100mm wide - it has to be, so that the "wings" have something to bite into. 

Anyone used Weldon glue before? My experiments with gluing bits of acrylic together with epoxy were quite underwhelming, and my joins are really structural. Looks like acrylic cement properly melts the two parts together. Reminds me of making Airfix models when I was a kid.

School's out for summer. Hoping to spend the vast majority of next week out in the shop making sawdust... And acrylic chips.

And dead barbies.

 - Jam

https://luthierylabs.com/laboratory/templates-jigs/truss-rod-channel-jig/

I use something very similar. It's three pieces of plywood screwed and glued together to form a U-shaped channel. Then I use four bolts to anchor the neck in the middle of this channel, and run my router on the top. I can do the truss rod channel (or CF channels) on a square neck blank, or a shaped neck, and since the router runs on the top face of the neck itself, I could even do it after carving the neck.

 - Jam

On 12/2/2023 at 6:00 AM, Bizman62 said:

But think about all those shiny sparkles, spreading stainless steel shards all around your eyeballs!

Two weeks ago, I had to go to hospital where they dug a chunk of metal out of my eye. Not pleasant! No idea if it happened in the shop or at work - the doc said it had been there for several days and had even started to rust...

Very nice! 

Double sided tape with tape loops either end should hold pretty good. Get some 357 Gaff tape, that stuff holds entire concerts together. You can also route for a small length then re-tape past the part you've routed. That way you've got an indestructible tape at either end of the leverage, if that makes any sense.