sdshirtman

Thanks for the save accolades. Not something that I wanted to do but was necessary. Thanks Prostheta, I went and picked up a cheap Japanese pull saw that I'll be destroying when I get home to make a fret cleaning saw. I think a little careful sawing to deepen the slots and a little grinding will work. Just going to have to go slow and check the slot depth on each one before I press. As far as kissing the fret slots. I did it once but I think I nullified them once when I re-sanded the board. They have been re-done now and are good to go. I'll post the progress, good or bad soon.

Which leads me to the fretting. I decided that I was going to take on doing semi-hemispherical frets for one of these. I used pretty much the same method described in Prostheta's tutorial on semi-hemispherical fretting with a few minor tweaks. One thing Prostheta's tutorial doesn't take into account is getting the frets to an exacting length. I needed to figure out a way to properly measure these for each fret slot. I wanted the frets to be .015 away from the edges of the board so I made blocks with a .015 recess over half its length using a feeler gauge to measure. I then clamped these to each side of the board and measured the distance between them. After the measurement I'd lock in the measurement. Then I needed to take into account that the fretwire was radiused a few degrees tighter than the 14" radius of the board. If I were to measure the fret like this it would enlarge/lengthen slightly after it was pressed in. My solution for this was to make a simple jig to hold the fret while I was working on it. Its just a block of maple with the same radius as my board and a slightly wider slot for the tang. This allowed me to hang the fret end off the end and work on the fret comfortably but firmly. It also allowed me to press the fret down and properly measure its length while at the correct radius. I timed how long it took me to do each fret. The first one took 27 min, the second 24 min and as I did more the times became shorter and shorter until I hit a wall at about 19 min per. Maybe I'm slower than Prostheta but the total time was roughly 8 hours total. Thats a LOT of time for a fret job and that doesn't include pressing them in. I did this in several sittings over the week. Here they are finished and ready to be pressed in. Before pressing the frets in I installed the pearl side dots. I was going to do both necks but it turns out stew mac sent me 19 markers shorting me one. After the side dots were installed I taped off the binding again and applied some tru oil to the top of the binding as this would be easier before frets were installed. The sides of the binding would be oiled after the neck was carved. So yesterday I set off to press in the frets. I started by lightly tapping in the fret then once again used the blocks with the .015 recess to make sure they were centered before I pressed them in. Staring with the 22nd fret I pressed it in... and it didnt seat completely. The ends were sticking up slightly. So I took a caul I have and used it to try and hammer down the edges. The ends still wouldnt seat. ***?! I measured the radius again with my 12" radius gauge and found that the last quarter inch of radius was slightly tighter but it still didnt make sense. The frets were over radiused enough where this shouldn't be an issue. So it seemed I'd be pulling the fret out which I carefully did. Thats when the rest of my day took a turn. This was the aftermath of pulling the fret. @#$&%!!! After this I composed myself and did my best to repair the chipping carefully glueing the chips down with ca glue. It took a while to fix but its better now. I've had some mistakes along the way on this build but this really got me pissed off. After the repair was finished I had to walk away for the day. I ended up calling a friend up and we ended up playing acoustics in the garage for the rest of the night and drank a few bottles of wine. Alcohol and a good jam can do wonders for your attitude. This morning a went out and figured out what the problem was and I'm sure after reading this most of you more experienced builders already know. My fret slots are too shallow. With as much time and thought as I've put into this project so far its amazing how something as rudimentary as this has escaped me. Talk about humbling. I feel like a complete idiot. *sigh* Which leads me to the question of how to fix it and move on. It seems like I have two choices at this point. Option one. Send off for a fret cleaning saw from Stewmac and try and deepen the slots. I'm thinking this could be problematic trying to get the slot deep enough where the slot is right against the binding. Option two. Grind off some of the tang on each fret with a dremel. This is the method I'm leaning towards as its easier on my pocket book. My main concern with this solution is reducing the tang too much and not having enough "bite" to secure it in the board. I should add that the tangs are pretty tight and I dont think I'll have to grind down the tang to the point that I grind off the barbs. Would this be ok? I'd like to hear opinions. Are you listening Prostheta?

Heres an update with some minor disaster at the end. I decided I had to grain fill the walnut binding before I fretted. The only grain filler I have is called cristalac and the last time I used it was on a mahogany body and I was less than impressed with the results so I settled on using CA glue for the job. I started off by masking off the binding with vinyl automotive masking tape. From there I used med ca glue on a brush to fill the grain. filling I only filled the sides of the headstock binding because I'll be lacquering the top of the headstock. After everything was filled I ended up sanding the binding with 320 then 400 grits and finished with 0000 steel wool. After all the work on this I ended up taking off a reasonable amount of the stain off the board so I ended up re-masking off the binding and re-dying the board black. (again) The vinyl tape didnt let the CA glue bleed at all and I'm pleased with the result

I'm not sure exactly what you want to un bond. When you say you're going to scavenge the headstock are you wanting to remove the fretboard? In any event I've has decent results using a heat gun on titebond.

If it were me I'd scrap the board and start that part over. Whats the time to fix that vs the time to start that part over and get the correct results.

You can use Scotch 471 Series blue plastic fine line tape. Its made from vinyl and is very flexible which will allow you to follow curves and bends. You should be able to find it at most auto paint stores.

With the neck screws/bolts installed its time to glue on the fretboard. I'm going with the drill bit indexing method again. Maybe this wasnt the normal way but I used some violin clamps in conjunction with the squeeze clamps I have to clamp this all up. I want to make sure the edges dont have any gaps. I got a few gaps on my first build I had to fill. I didnt want it to happen again. It occurred to me just before I glued this up that I forgot to kiss the fret slots with a file before I glued on the binding. I know you dont have to but I've read where it really helps to allow the frets to seat better. I'm thinking I can still do it with the corner of a small block of wood with some 320 stuck to it. Its just going to be more time consuming. Thats as far as it goes so far. I'm debating wether to fret it next or do the neck carve first then fret it. Does anyone have any advice on which some be done first? My first build I fret it before carving the neck. Oh and if anyone has advice or a tutorial I haven't seen here yet on carving the volute I'm all ears.

I set up to drill my tuner holes by placing some wood behind the headstock to minimize any possible tear out and and drilled in from the top. On the third hole I tore out a chunk of ebony. I should have done just the opposite which I did, and the rest of the holes came out fine. I dont have pics but I fixed it by mixing some epoxy and ebony dust and filling the gap and sanded it flat with some 320 the next day. I can still see it but I think it should be fine once a tuner washer is over it and the headstock is clear coated and finished. I'm thankful it wasn't worse. Can you spot it? I counter sunk for my neck ferrules. These can be a pain to remove. I use a decently powerful magnet and they come right out. Installing the inserts. The first time I did this I used a spare bolt with some nuts to screw these in instead of a screwdriver. They went in pretty straight but not as straight as they could have been. This time I used a 3" bolt with the head cut off and some nuts and placed it into the chuck of my drill press so I could drive them in dead straight. I used a wrench to help torque it down. This was much easier and quicker and a lot more accurate. The inserts are counter sunk about a mm under the surface. And installed.

I'm not a big tele fan but this came out stunning. Excellent job.

I saw this on another forum. Even made in China it makes me wonder how they do it.

Try Allied Lutherie, Its a little longer than what you want but it might work. https://ssl.sonic.net/cgi-bin/alliedlutherie/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=PTR2WB Its 21.75" .

Next up was to angle the body beyond the neck pickup to 3.24 degrees so it would match the angle of the neck. I want the fretboard to sit right up flush with the body kind of like a Les Paul. Routing the headstock angle. This little angle finder gizmo is worth its weight in gold. I'm pretty proud of how accurate this came out. This came within less than a millimeter of where I planned for the string to meet the bridge. With the frets installed and strings setup I think my bridge will only have to float maybe 2mm over the body. I did have to do some very slight sanding on the back of the neck to just slightly change the neck angle. This is because when I drew up my plans I didnt take into account the fact that my finger board would be slightly thinner by the 22nd fret after radiusing. Lesson learned. Its finally starting to look like a guitar.

I think I agree with you at this point. I was thinking about maybe doing a thin lam of ebony-walnut-ebony to use for the truss cover. Then again one of the mockups has a piece of maple stained to match the body that I like. We'll see. I did my first headstock binding Friday night and self schooled myself on wood bending. All in all it went pretty smoothly. At first I was trying to miter the binding while it was installed with an exacto. I got the idea from a video on youtube of some guy from the PRS custom shop who was doing it that way. It turns out it was much easier to pre-miter both sides of the binding before gluing it on. Live and learn. I used surgical tubing to clamp the binding tight. Dont know if its the norm to use of not but it worked great and was really easy to work with. I wish some of the miters were a little tighter but I'm happy with the end result.

I'm seriously in love with that headstock shape.

I agree. Again I dont know what I was thinking, but its too late to change now.

Few more pics. Oh and I almost forgot. My neighbor gave me this awesome delta drill press for free last weekend.

I would think if all you're doing is sanding over some sharp edges that the change in tone would be negligible.

I've changed my mind on the binding. I think that maple on maple would look redundant and offer no contrast so I've decided on a darker wood. I'm going to use walnut on the fingerboard and body. I was having a problem figuring out how to clamp the wood binding the the board so I made a jig that allows even pressure across the sides. It works well if it weren't for some bone head mistakes. Fist off was I didnt use any wax paper between the wood and jig on the first one. The result was almost a disaster but I managed to tap it out without destroying it thank god. The second mistake was on the second board. I didnt seat the binding all the way flat and left a thin gap on the edge where the binding would meet the neck. I ended up removing the binding from that side with a heat gun. I'm so glad I was able to save it. It could have been a costly lesson. For the end piece I clamped the board to the bench and clamped another scrap piece of wood behind it at an angle. I used the wedge to add pressure to the binding. Simple but effective. In retrospect I wish I would have mitered the end piece of binding. I have no idea why I didnt. It just didnt cross my mind till it was done. Chalk it up to being a "noob". I do think the darker binding will look much better though.

It didnt cross my mind till you mentioned it. I might have to experiment with a truss cover made of smoked plexi or something. We'll see. I made a bending iron from some simple parts at home depot. I set up my router to cut some binding slots on the headstock but stopped short of cutting the channels because I needed to figure out how deep I wanted the binding to be around the edges so I could match the thickness of the fingerboard binding so I decided to finish the inlay so that I could radius and bind the fretboard. I'll sand and radius the board tomorrow and hopefully get them bound.

I didnt document the whole process but I cut out my initials and some very small stars for the Aussie southern cross and got them inlaid on the ebony headstock plate and got that glued up to the headstock. Then tonight I trimmed up my truss rod access hole and trimmed up the edges on the router with a pattern bit. I still have to finish cutting the fret markers and inlay the fretboard. Then I'll be binding the headstock and fretboard and dealing with the maple binding and ebony dust issue.

I havent been able to get too much done in the last week or so. I've been having some knee issues and it turns out Ive got a torn menuscus. I'll be having some surgery done in a few weeks and hope fully be able to close that chapter. Heres a little bit of progress though. I thinned out the back of my headstock. I was going to use a safety planer for this but this was out and it seemed much quicker. With that done I tried my hand at cutting out some simple shapes in mother of pearl. Practicing on some scrap. And the results. My first inlay ever. Its a boomerang. I've decided to do this as fret markers on the Aussie themed guitar. It just seems it would tie it in better. I thought this was going to be much harder than it was. With the first test done I went about cutting the 12th fret inlay which was a little more delicate.

Yeah, I'm not even halfway done with my first and I'm already planning like three more I keep telling myself to wait until I finish one and can play it for a bit to see what I would do differently etc. But every time I go to the wood store I start daydreaming... exactly. i havent really touched my first build since i finished it except a few times. i have no idea what to do with it! i dont want to sell it (wouldnt make much anyways) but i hate that its just gonna sit.... You cant ever sell your first build.

Interesting and thank you. Oh and nice fret ends by the way. As far as the ca glue sealing. Whats the procedure for this? I'm guessing that after my unbound fretboard is maybe 90% radiused I'd cut or sand the maple binding down to just over the height/thickness of the fretboard edge and simply coat the two edges that arent to be glued with ca glue before binding. If this is correct is maple porous enough to soak up the ca glue?

Thanks Wez. I'm hoping that I dont have to resort to adding more cost to an already expensive project but that might have to be what I do as a last case resort. Prostheta, Its not to late in the process to go with ebony binding. I actually did buy some as a last resort as pictured previously. I do actually like the look of the ebony on ebony but I really want to have the maple binding if possible. If anything else at this point just to try and conquer this problem and gain some knowledge and skill. I have my scraper and I'm doing a few more experiments today.

Thanks for that info. That might be a potential solution if they have maple strips. Do you actually think it would penetrate enough? I did go and purchase a decent scraper today. I'm going to try that on another test piece and see if that works after I practice my scraper sharpening skills and scraping technique. Any other comments anyone?