sdshirtman

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.

also, on the truss rod cover. i would have one as normal

sure, the access looks really good - but that could be a really nice surprise for someone further down the line. i love it when i find little construction details like that when working on 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 prefer to have the longer bits of binding extending past the fretboard and just make a short bit to fit in between them on the end. - looks pretty clean and much easier than getting the mitre right

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.

Would a transparent truss rod cover be stupid? That cavity just looks so darn good.

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.

i have wood for a third build but cant decide what to do with it yet...

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.

I didn't actually use Ebony binding! That is actually black ABS straight up against a piece of "Indian" Ebony which I subsequently dyed black to remove the brown sheen. The reason I mentioned this job specifically is that in your case an ABS layer would provide a nice barrier preventing dye from migrating to the Maple from the Ebony, plus it gives a nice wide margin of error when you mask off the inner and outer areas. CA sealing and the other techniques mentioned will help hugely of course.

I was pleasantly surprised how well it blended in with the Ebony in terms of colour and sheen. You can easily discern the two separate materials in the first picture (especially because of the fret slots) although you can just about see it in the last two. I didn't use scrap Ebony to carry out my binding because....umm....actually I forget why now....

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.

That is a big issue with maple and ebony,and everyone struggles with it.I use a vacuum at frequent intervals and denatured alcohol as a wipe,but I have often wondered if acrylized wood might be easier..as in acrylized maple for the binding...basically the wood finish is pressurized through the entire piece,so there should be no pores for the ebony dust to get into

http://www.galleryhardwoods.com/stabilized.htm

Thanks for that info. That might be a potential solution if they have maple strips.

I was thinking along the same lines. What about soaking in water thin CA into the maple to seal it away from the dye and ebony dust?

SR

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?

I think I may have gotten myself in over my head here and I need some advice. I've scoured this and other forums for the answer or a tutorial but cant find a definitive answer.

Let me explain. My design calls for an ebony neck which I had intended to dye jet black (using Fiebing's Oil Dye) with some simple inlay followed with maple binding.

I had planned on first doing the inlay, then radiusing the board to level the inlay. Then I planned on dying the board as to keep the dye from migrating onto the maple binding and obviously as not to sand off the dye during the radiusing process (duh).

Then I planned gluing on the maple binding, then a little more finishing work on the radius to bring the binding to the same level as the board and then working my way up with finer grit sandpaper to final finish the fretboard finishing with 1000 grit. ( I plan on fretting it after its shaped and finished)

I've done a test on some scrap ebony and am running into problems. Mainly that the dye is getting slightly sanded off because its not soaking deep enough into the ebony and secondly and more importantly, the ebony dust is horribly fouling the maple binding when sanding. I tried blowing it out with a compressor and also tried using some alcohol and I cant seem to remove all of it.

I've read that naptha can work but I dont have any handy. I'm going to buy some today but I really dont know how much more efective its going to be than alcohol.

I did read in another forum to use a scraper on the binding to bring it level vs. sandpaper. I dont have a scraper but tried this with a razor and it seemed to work decent but left an less than desirable inconsistent edge. It was also tediusly slow as my binding is a good 3mm taller than I need. Maybe this is the solution and I just need to practice my scraping technique.

For the dye sanding off I tried re-dying the ebony after the binding was applied and leveled by masking off the binding using 3m vinyl automotive masking tape. It worked well on my first test piece but on the second test piece some of the dye bled into the maple where the fret slots are.

I should say on my first test piece I radiused the board with the binding then carefully sanded just the maple edge using a fresh piece of paper as not to foul it with the ebony. Very tedious. Then I reverse masked off the ebony and added a few strokes of tru-oil to just the maple. After the tru-oil dried I masked off the maple then sparingly applied the black dye with a rag. As a side note here I thought I could get away with not wearing a latex glove while dying such a small piece and I now will be wearing black fingertips for the next few days. Sheesh.

It seemed the tru-oil helped to keep the dye from migrating in the first test piece unlike the second un-oiled test piece. Now this seemed to work just ok but I was only dealing with an inch and a half or so piece. I'm not sure how well this method would work with two full fretboards without risking a screw up.

The other thing is it doesnt solve the problem of the ebony dust migrating and fouling the maple during the final finish. Seeing these results I'm afraid to move forward with that method. I did by some ebony binding and that would pretty much solve all these problems, but thats not really what I want. I want ebony with maple binding.

I know there has GOT to be an easier way to pull this off. I just dont know what it is yet or how to do it.

So please chime in here. I'm at an impasse and need some help ASAP.

I'm all ears and thanks in advance.

A little more progress.

For starters I got my parts in.

And my first screw up. My bandsaw has a small gap just to the right of the blade that I didnt really take into consideration. I used it to cut my fretboard and ran it down each side thinking I had done fine untill.....

..I turned it over and saw all this tear out.

I immediately thought I had trashed some expensive ebony. I couldnt really do much so I put the template I made on it to see if I could salvage it.

It fit pretty tight and I had my doubts but ran it through anyways to see if It could be salvaged.

In the end I managed to save it out of pure luck. The bottom edge still has some rough edges. If I wasnt going to bind it I would be screwed I think.