103801061982

haha summer? Whats that?

couple of bits of clean up, but I think I'm OK with how this turned out. Brew time

neck pocket routed and the customary fit test. Look mom, no glue.

Starting to feel a bit less like a lump of wood.

bottom horn channel cut and filled. I was a bit out on the channel and the slither of mahogany on top makes it look a bit further off still

Having a brew before cutting the other channel.

damn straight.

The thinking was to run a black run around the body to ebony neck heel. This was the only way I could think of doing it without gluing the top and cutting by hand around the curves. As it is I've left myself with cutting channels on the inside of the horns,but in ok with that as they would have needed to flair out a bit.

for so e reason I really like the process of heat bending and binding. Maybe its because its nice and quiet.....

I've put the craziness aside for a day at least and started working on the body.

I did put shell side dots into the neck. As I thought they would they do snake up in a wibbley wobbly line. Peeved and only myself to blame, but on the up, they are a damned sight straighter  than those on a custom neck I had made (and paid a small fortune for) a couple of years ago,

So the body.... channel routed for the ebony stripe before the top goes on

Ebony binding strips bent on the iron glued with watered wood glue, and held in place with tape. Not massively fussed on the fit as only the bottom join with ever be visible.

Bindings scraped level with the mahogany top, maple glued. Excess maple trimmed on the bandsaw and smoothed out on the bobbin sander.

OK so we seem to have passed the tap test.

I received a bottle of Angelus leather dye in the post this morning and have had a bit of a play around. This is far more fun than it deserves to be.

Are there any recommendations on sealer for natural binding?

Sounds like we had similar schools pros . I'll try the tap test tomorrow. So what are the advantages of pressing in frets ignoring stray hammer strikes?

Tim, tried this method on my last one too, but was far too heavy handed with the glue and ended up with a good deal on the board. This one went a lot smoother.

Wasn't too bad really. glued two at a time, one on each side until there was a firm tack and added the next couple. The interesting bits were at the edges where there wasn't much of a gluing surface.

Got a bit on this thing done today. Flattened the top. Sandpaper and a straight beam. Knackered, but thankful that the joint isn't as obvious as I first though. Think if may have been down to something Scott was talking about in another thread about sanding a slight bevel to the edges when jointing.

Frets in too after taking down the fretboard thickness  slightly rardiusing to 16inches and flattening . all seemed to seat fine except for 14th which went in and came back out a couple of times - thankfully no chips. Surprisingly no hammer rash either. I don't think the slot was big enough. Not sure if this is the best way to do it but I nipped the tangs from the ends of the wire, filed smooth with a dremel and hammered in. Couple of firm taps on the edges to seat and then go to town on the middle. Small drop of ca wicked into the join between the overhang and the binding and nip of the end. Couple of slots needed deepening, but no issue with a Japanese saw.

If I do any more of these I may look a fret press, but for the time being, hammering seemed to work OK..

Too right. That bit was don outside between showers.

thanks gents and jolly decent of you to say so Prostheta old bean.

bit of a leap of faith when the ca went on there, serves me right for not planning ahead more. I should probably learn not to be so tight with wood though to be fair it took longer to scrub the ebony off my fingers than it did to fill and flatten.

I'm not doing this again....

Thought Id use the offcuts and rejects from the last lot of binding I cut for acoustics as I didn't fancy trying to bend any of the headstock plates I've got. First glued.

roughly trimmed and the worst gaps packed with ebony dust and CA

A lot of sanding later and I'm quite pleased with how well this worked, but never again......

That is a very sharp looking guitar

cool huh.

Well I'm back in Wales and greeted by a thunderstorm. Ho hum.

The neighbours will be glad I'm back as I reduced the thickness of the mahogany back with the router sledge and roughed out the top. I'll pay a bit more attention to that with the bandsaw closer to the time.

The plan is to route a channel before joining and pass an ebony band around the body under the natural binding of the top. If all goes well the ebony should meet up with the heel of the neck given a bit of widening of the channel where body meets neck. Black ebony to Macassar, but under finish I'm pretty sure I wont notive the diference. We'll see how this goes.  First things first though - checking for gaps under moderate pressure.

Apart from this I've been fiddling with the back of the headstock before getting to grips with sorting out the volute - which still doesn't look right.

none more lack.....

This is where we're going with this. Couple more layers of black each side. Again, it'll be a close enough match for the Macassar and will be easily able to take the bend. I've dry clamped here to check and thankfully no bending iron shenanigans needed.  

while the better half has been looking at dingly dangies to decorate the house I've been left to poke around the inevitable olivewood cutting boards and bowels. There's some incredibly nice wood here a lot of quite strong flame and figuring that almost reminds me of swirled paint jobs. Sadly the biggest pieces are still a bit small for tops but I do really like this stuff. Has anyone gotten their hands on boards wide enough for building and if so how does it work? Feels really heavy, oily and dense.

I did wonder about the weight as they do look quite chunky. The buttons were the only thing making me think twice about the hipshots.

I do also quite like the look of Schaller mini top locking tuners, but I did kind of want open gears. I bet the buttons on the hipshots are swappable.

Cheers gents!

Taking a week of sun in Crete and craving a warm beer at the moment. The more time away, the more fiddling jobs want to do on the neck. I'm also ashamed to say that I've already started thinking on the next one. I want to extend the stripes onto the back of the headstock so that's the first thing to ponder on I think.

What's the general opinion on open locking hipshot tuners? I think its a toss up between them or a set of sperzels. Not sure if I read the blurb right, but is the orientation changeable on sperzels?

not going to be able to get much bench time in today, but there is time for a quick whittle.

I shaped off the heel a bit more. Treble side yet to do.

Gawked at some flame a bit

this is where I need someone to tell me to stop obsessing.  these chaps are bugging me for some reason. I'm guessing they will become a lot less obvious during finishing. The volute is lobsided as well, but then isn't everything on multiscale guitars.

Cheers gents

The plan was to stain all of the light wood so the contrast would be a bit less and when done I should be left with just rose and pink and ebony.

really like your f hole design. Takes me ages to come up with stuff like that and I'm invariably never quite happy with it.

.... Not 100% sold on the laminates, but hey this ones more about trying things out than anything else I think.

thanks Pros.

Andy, I start the slots with the saw against a square cut offcut and then finish off by hand. Seems to work, but a mitre box is on the list. The ever growing list.

Bit of grunt work today.  levelling boards.

Rough cut blank.

and then thought this was a good idea. fool.

Had some fun with the neck though. Rough carve done. I'm going to walk away from this for  a bit an the dial it in later.

Annoyingly Ive hit a couple of really dark lines in the maple under 1st fret. Really hoping I don't have to touch this area again.  The heal block takes care of a couple of offcuts that I didn't want to through out.

Didn't take too many pics over the last couple of days.  I know, slacking.

I started on the fretboard. I love the figure in this Macassar Ebony. I'm blessed to have gotten 6 boards and a few useable offcuts from the billet that I had.  I wasn't prepared by how much it wants to chip out though. I'm quite lucky that the boards are wide enough to give margins. On the acoustics I've built I've tended to score fret positions with a chunky violin knife, go in with a thin Japanese saw and then widen with my fret saw. I got about halfway though this board before finding that my fret saw had gotten about as blunt as a sponge - caused a lot of jumping around at the higher frets, but nothing that wont be hidden when fretted.

Gluing bindings. I'm nowhere near confident enough with fretting yet to let the tangs hang out. Bindings are much blacker, but I quite like the effect.

Radiused back to 16 inches and roughly levelled

2 mm carbon rods and a truss rod installed and board on. Sides scraped flush and headstock roughly shaped. I'm thinking of leaving this without truss rod cover. On the whole I'm quite happy with how things are going on this.

Thinking of finishes already. Theres a video on youtube that I love of a tele with a puple to light rose fade finish. I've got it in my head to finish this thing in light rose - ok pink. natural back or purple stained?

I think it may be the angle of the picture. There'll be a bit of coming off the back of the neck too so I've got c. 5mm to play with there

Surprisingly so - only minimal clean up and smoothing with paper needed. I did spend a lot of time truing the bed and rails on the routing jig though. This is my first time working with maple as figured as this and I was half expecting it to turn into chipped torn out mess.