guitarnut

I few more details worked out. I decided to make use of the bits, bearings, bindings and inlays I have on hand,,,a fair amount after usually buying the price break quantities. So, that included white and black bindings at .090", .060" and .040", plus .060" and .090" bearings for the binding bit and lots of black and pearl dots. After trying this and that I settled on pearl dots...I'll leave the edge inlaid markers to Mac and Glenn on their Gretsch builds. The neck and headstock will get .040" white binding...just taped in place for this pic. And the body will get a .040" black inside with a .060" white on the outside in a .090" channel. This will give me .010" or so to scrape them flush. EDIT: I eventually changed this to w/b/w.

While the fretboard is setting up, I got back to the body. I gave it one more pass on the ROSS to smooth it out before the binding channel was routed. In this shot the binding channel is almost done. I just have the last pass on one side to do. I took the channel about 1/32" into the mahogany to ensure I have the entire joint covered with the binding and it will give me just a bit more of a carve on top. Binding channel all finished up. Using the binding as a guide, I marked the edge in several places so when I tier the top with the saw dust generator, I'll have a good visual guide for setting the maximum carve depth.

Then after slotting a rosewood fretboard blank, I set up my tapering jig. I tapered it to width minus the binding that will be added later. I keep a strip of 80 grit on the jig so I can dress the sides and tweak the board to final width. Then I flipped the taper jig over and use it's fence to route the truss rod channel. I decided to add a rosewood filler strip. I haven't done this in the past but I see more and more builders...mostly of acoustics...who do this. I guess it's far more critical on acoustics that the truss rod not rattle or resonate with sympathetic vibration. Then I trimmed it flush with a hand plane and scraper. There's probably only .0625" left but it's enough to lock down the rod once the fretboard is in place. Then I lined up the fretboard and glued it down.

]Clampzilla!!! The top is out of the clamps. I'm going to let it set up for a few more hours before I work it. So, on to the neck. Here's the blank all glued up and the side trued up on the jointer. The heel is within .011" of the .625" I wanted. Then I marked out the heel...end of the fretboard, start and stop of the heel and the .125" reveal above the guitar top. As I was laying all of this out, I started second guessing my design...se latest drawing above. So, some of these pics, like this one, are a bit off track but they lead to the final design.

Most of the carve is obvious but I'm still unsure of how the neck and carve come together. I've seen a few pics of the fretboard extension...if you want to call it that...it's more of a negative ramp up away from the top. So, I've come up with two scenarios for the carve. One that maintains the bell shape as it slopes toward the neck pocket.... And one that maintains a flatter top as it slopes from the bridge down to the neck pocket. I've also been looking at the current tenon design. As it is, the truss rod will be partially set in the tenon. My plan for cutting the tenon, not having a CNC mill, was to cut free the section of wood in the tenon area, narrow it down, angle the bottom, and glue it back in place. With the thin reveal, I was planning to glue up the fretboard for extra support, but that would mean the truss rod would in the way of the cut. Another option would be to chisel out what I don't need but all of the surrounding areas are finished edges. I doubt my chisel skills would prove useful there. So, I'm toying with the idea of a hybrid tenon. It would have the mass and length of the the Gretsch design, and the simplicity of the PRS design. The one thing very different from a PRS tenon is there would be no tongue under the neck PU route. With the length of the tenon and neck pocket, it's not needed.

I glued up the heel blocks but didn't take any pics. Nothing special there. This shows the setup I use for gluing the scarf joints. I clamp the black edge down on the bench... Clamp a stop on the joint end, set the joint length and tighten the clamp. This keeps the joint from separating when I apply clamp pressure to the scarf. Add glues, cauls and c-clamps. Joint? What joint? Where? Oh, there's a flash back. :twisted: Then, while the necks are setting up, I moved on to the body chambers. I slotted the template according to the updated chambering drawing I did. Then screwed it in place. I took 2 shallow passes around the template, then decided I wanted to try hogging out the bulk of the wood with a Forstner bit. It worked. Not any faster than just routing it out but I guess it saves some strain on the router...not that you need to. Imade a few more shallow passes until I hit the bottom of the bit cuts. Then I had to change to a more aggressive router bit. I didn't see any need in taking the wire path any deeper so I blocked it with some maple scrap. I made a quick temp plate for my small Makita router. I gives full support all the way across the chamber. The stock plate fell off the edges. It worked great. Very stable throughout the whole route. Last thing I did was rough cut the top. Maybe, I'll have time this evening to get it glued up for morning trimming.

I started this morning with the neck blanks. Here are two pieces of Honduran mahogany. They're almost 1" thick. I ran them thru the planer just to clean them up. They're wide enough that I'll get four blanks total. And they're long enough that I can cut 8" or so off the ends for heel blocks. After ripping them, I cut the blocks on the chop saw. Then after running one side and one edge over the jointer, I took the blank down to .750". I left the blocks at .925". My total thickness at the heel will be 1.625". Here's one of them in the scarf joint jig. Made a note to myself about marking them. And then there were 3. One of the blanks had some nasty worm holes that opened up during planing. I'll use it in the future for heel blocks.

Here are the plans for my approach on the neck, scale and PU position. They also show the body outline and chambering pattern.

Made a little marking gauge to get an even spacing around the edge. Then I set up the Shopsmith in drill press mode. I love this machine! I can drop everything done and sit on a comfy stool while I work. I seem to be developing some wood allergies so I'm being very cautious with dust collection these days...always have been with MDF. All hogged out with a Forstner bit. And cleaned up on the ROSS.

I have the body out of the clamps and ready to profile. I went thru the usual steps... Traced it out. Rough cut it on the band saw. Sanded it to the line on the ROSS.. Sanded both sides with 80 grit to clean up the glue joint and level out a bit of planer snipe. And I blocked out the edges to get rid of any waves from the ROSS. Then I used the body as a template to start the template for the chambers.

My band saw table isn't wide enough to cut the 6.750" that I need so I had to screw some supports to the table and move the fence onto them. Fortunately I had countersunk holes from when I used the table as a router table. That lead to this... ...which lead to these... ...which lead to this... ...which gave me these after thicknessing to a shade over 1.500". One more pass on the jointer and ready to glue up.

I wrestled this monster up onto the bench and blocked it up so I could clamps under it. It's far too heavy to feed thru the band saw so I have to cut it to length first. After marking my cut line, I clamped a straight edge 1" from the line...distance between my saw blade and the edge of the saw's fence. In about 1/2" passes, I cut the line to the extent the saw would go. Then I braced the slab on it's side and clamped it to the table with both sides of the joint supported and finished the cut with a hand saw...good old fashioned mucsle power. It only took a few minutes of steady cutting. Had it been anything but mahogany, I would have cut the second side with the circ saw.

After the first resaw, some of the white wood is still there. I placed the bookmatch backwards here to show it. This would be down the center of the guitar...not good. After a clean up pass thru the planer, and the bookmatch laid out properly, I can see the gamble paid off. The white wood on the edges will cut away. After resawing the second half, I cleaned them up in the planer and laid out the template. All good. After taking them just a touch over .500", I glued it up. It's damp here from glue clean up. It's gonna be a pretty one.

Here's our victim. On the surface this billet looks like a fine piece of maple. But there are a few thing that trouble me about it. It has great flame on one edge and if I were doing faux binding I would want this on the outside of my bookmatch. But since I'm using plastic binding on this build, I want make sure I have the best possible bookmatch and not worry about the edges. The edge alos has some sapwood showing. This will be significantly brighter than the rest of the maple. I have to cut 2.50" off of the billet so I can resaw it. My saw will take 6.75" max. I'm going to gamble and cut away the flamey edge with sapwood. The finished billet, ready for resaw. I'm happy so far. I mark the edge so I can line the pieces back up later. The check the piece under the guides and square up the table to the blade.

Thinking ahead on this one, I decided to take a look at the chambering. This pic of the Gretsch chanbering is all I have to go on.. I loaded it up in Photoshop along with the Duo Jet PDF and sized it to fit. I had to do some serious perspective correction to get it to fit but it's real close...close enough for me anyway. Then I loaded it up in Illustrator to make sure it was done to scale. No problems there. The two pics look pretty much the same. Then, I just traced it out, turned off the guitar layer and visually balanced everything out. I also tweaked some points to the center line since the pic is not staright on to the camera.

I've been on a Strat kick for the last few months and it's time for something different. This is a build I started in Oct last year. The posta are being copied from another site so my references of time passage, work schedules and holidays is meaningless at this point...I didn't feel like editing it all out. It's inspired by the Gretsch Duo Jet and is made of Honduras mahogany with a carved flame maple top and w/b/w binding. The set neck is Honduras mahogany with Peruvian rosewood board and overlay with white binding. I did a quick mock up. I just feel like it needs to be orange. I don't currently own an orange guitar and it is, after all, the hallmark of Gretsch. My attempt at highlighting the carve didn't come out too well but it's a mock up, right? I have this slab of mahogany that I've been saving for something special. I think this qualifies. It's currently 13.125" wide and 3.5" thick with rough edges. Not quite wide enough for a Jet but plenty thick for resaw and bookmatching the back set. If I'm careful and rip it with a narrow resaw blade, I can get the Jet and 3 other BM 1.5" thick blanks. As luck would have it, only one of the tops I have glued up is wide enough. It's flamey, but it's .750" thick and not bookmatched. So, I'm going to cut into another little jewel I've been saving...might as well go all in. It's 9.250" wide by 2.500" thick. I'll have plenty left after the top. I'll cut a .500" bookmatch set. My plan being to leave the bridge flat at .500" and carve down the edges to .250" all around.

Thanks!

It's fixed now. Good catch. Thanks!

Thanks! Thanks very kind of you to say. Glad you're enjoying the threads. Peace, Mark

SoundClips Sunburst Strat A5 Clean A5 Dirty Sonic Blue Strat A2 Clean A2 Dirty Edit: The links are launching 2 player windows...not sure why.

Silver Mist

Burgundy Mist

Sonic Blue

I started these back in the spring and just finished them up a few weeks ago. Build threads are at Strat-Talk.com. The 2 tone burst is a 1-piece alder body. The other 3 are basswood. All 12 PUs are hand wound. I used A5 mags for the burst and silver and A2 mags for the sonic blue and burgundy. Middles are RW/RP. 5-way switches in all 4. 2 Tone Burst

I finally got this one finished up. I had a "rash" of Strat builds and I tagged this on to the end.