henrim

The top is flat but the backside is carved so the thickness is not uniform. At the center the body is 47mm.

Right, their website is a mess. For all general glueing I use Kiilto B3 (a D3 glue) which is sold in regular hardware stores. For guitars, so far, I have used only Titebond Original because I have it.

Milled a triple pickup ring. I will shave a few millimeters of the width still and clean it up but this is now how the pickups will be mounted. EMG’s likely. The thing is made of POM.

Yes, that’s what I have understood about glues too. Titebond has handy bottles and nozzles though I might add a bottle of it to order if I buy something else, but otherwise the glue I get from local hardware store is just as good. Pickup rings could be the solution . I tried some that I had but didn’t like them that much. I may machine new ones. Actually I’m just about to go to garage to mill a combined three pickup ring for the rebuild in an other thread. At least that is something I’m going to try out for that one.

That is a Schaller 455. No longer in production. I like it too but feels now a bit too heavy on this guitar. Or unbalanced. Maybe I need metal pickup covers after all. That could help. Btw I have one extra that I could part with.

Btw in the picture the pickups appear greenish which they are not. Lighting conditions to blame I guess.

Got a new patch of nitro and started to prepare the top for spraying when I found myself pondering the hardware once again. With the black guitar the vision was clear when I started working on it again. With this one, not so much. In the very beginning I think was going to make pickup covers for this one out of silver. I don’t want them anymore nor do I want to make them. I then thought about wooden covers. But if I had to make the final decision right now I would just use white humbuckers as is. Or almost as is as I stained the plastic a bit on those in the picture. Originally they are too bright to my liking. Maybe I just paint the bottom plate black, shim them to height and screw in place. The bridge is an other concern. It’s too bulky. Anyway the studs are already in place so I will just live with it. The third thing is that I don’t have control pots planned. Reading the earlier discussion I have had some plan about knobs, which I didn’t like. The good thing is that I don’t quite remember how they looked so maybe I can design them the same knobs again and like them this time

Thanks for correcting me. I just meant to say they are the type I would never use. You gave the reason why not. I prefer Torx because they are universal. But for the looks I rather use hex socket heads (metric).

Neck bolted with five M6 bolts. I only had Phillips head countersunk screws but I’ll change them to hex socket heads later on.

Got the neck carved to shape. Profile is kinda flat C. Really flat. I keep on thinking that I would like to play with that kind of profile but I don’t know, haven’t ever played with one. But I will find that out the day this gets finished. Neck fits nicely in its new pocket. Next I need to bolt it on so that I can finish the heel area.

If you want golden hardware you can get a chromed bridge re-plated. Going from chrome to gold, plating can be applied directly on top of chrome without stripping.

Got the neck dimensioned. 22 frets is what is going to fit. Tightly. I’ll get to try out the neck shaping fixture I made some time ago. Headstock shape will be finalized once I get tuners. I need to make new gauges that I have planned for the neck shape before I start carving. And I guess I’ll radius the fretboard first.

While I think the subject deserves its own thread I’m happy I reopened this age old thread that ignited discussion about the matter.

Back in the 80's in my teens I made my first guitar. My own design, inspired by the metal guitars of the time. I made the body of mahogany. Two humbuckers and standard tremolo. It had a Ibanez neck. I then got more in to hard rock and got my self a brand new white Gibson Les Paul Custom -88 (worked hard to gather that money!). I then took my build a part and sawed off the horns it had on the neck side. Making the shape more like a RR Jackson. I also chiseled a cavity for third humbucker (not enough space for four I guess!). I did not finish the rebuild at the time but I have had the body blank with me ever since. Now, three decades later, it was the time to see if the guitar can still be salvaged. First I thought it can't. But then I thought it's worth to try. I leveled the body and cleaned the pickup cavities. I had to move the neck back a bit but I can make it 24 fret with 24,75 scale length. Originally the body was black sunburst with clear lacquer. At some point I painted it some sort of flaky candy red. I'm going back to original. I wouln't want a sunburst but the edges have to painted and I want to show some of the beautiful Brazilian mahogany. Wood that you can't really buy these days. Original neck was all maple. Now it will be maple with an ebony fingerboard to better match with the black sunburst. I have made a neck plank, cut a scarf joint and chiseled a truss rod groove. Using hand tools as much as I can this time because I want to remember the feelings I had when I did this guitar for the first time. Quite therapeutic

That is the reason it is not used (that) much commercially these days. Bad for saws and planers. Aspen likes to be sanded though. In the home shop I don't like to put aspen through the planer, but I plane it with hand plane as it doesn't take much time to re-sharpen the blade.

My day job is in the field of service design these days, so mostly immaterial stuff. I studied in University of Art and Design so I'm not a proper engineer. Aspen is used for making kantele as well as traditional jouhikko. I believe it is because of availability and because it is easy to work with hand tools, rather than it's superior sound qualities.

Yes not the most obvious choice but a traditional wood for all kinds of utensils in Finland. Pärekori for example. I actually like aspen a lot. It has beautiful light color and this should not be painted. I store birch, maple and aspen, so I guess it was not very carefully made choice. I just had a suitable slab to make this thing. Esthetics come from my background as an industrial designer.

A bit slidy yes. I don't have strap buttons on it yet so I don't really know how it balances when played in standing position. If UPS is kind enough to deliver my parcel I should have them today though. Here's a couple of pictures of test piece I made to try out how to back mount the pickups. It was also to test waterbourne white paint to finish the guitar. But plans changed and the guitar became black instead. This is a solid body "Jouhikko" with cello strings. Made of aspen. I have never played a real jouhikko in my life so obviously I didn't have a clue what I was doing. As an Instrument it may not be great but it was fun to make and learned a few things.

All the pics on this one have gone missing. Like I said in my other thread it's been a while. Anyhow this one has seen some progress too. I finished the top with shellac. Which looks fine but I found it too vulnerable. Like I should have known. And I actually knew but still wanted to do French polish. Because French polish. Anyway I just decided to spray a bit of nitro on top of it to protect the surface better. Back side is finished with Danish oil and I like it. So I'm going to leave that as it is. No idea how nitro would bond to Danish oil anyway. Satiny Danish oil looks nice on padouk too but I want the top to be glossy as that way the wood really shows depth and miraculous changing colors.

Thanks guys! Here's one pic from the gut side.

Can't wrap my head around how this would need to be done. I would have to draw it. Anyway what you need to take in account is that resistance adds up in series connection while in parallel connection sum is less than the amount an individual resistor has. E.g. If you have two 250K pots connected in series you effectively end up having a 500K pot. Two 250K pots connected parallel sums up to 125 Kohm resistance. I can see the benefit from a master volume. Although personally I would not like to have all those pots on my guitar And don't get me wrong I LOVE pots, but I need to save them to my synth module builds

It’s been a while Life happened, got busy with other things. Started new projects unrelated to guitars. As my son has started to play guitar and has taken my only playable electric in his use I dug out the projects from cupboard and started to work on them again couple of months ago. The so called number three is now pretty much ready. Reworked a few details and the whole color scheme changed. I wanted to keep the grain visible. Ebonized the swamp ash body with iron oxide (iron vinegar solution). Iron oxide reacts with tannins in wood and turns wood to black. Ash is low in tannins so I first had to treat the body with tannin solution. To finish the body I applied Osmo wax-oil on it. Swamp ash body, ebonized with tannins and iron. Osmo oil/wax on top. European maple neck. Treated with boiled linseed oil. Bolt-on with M6 bolts and inserts. Ebony fingerboard. Ebony headstock plate Heat treated titanium emblem. Dual action truss rod Jumbo frets Tuners: Schaller M6 Back mounted pickups Neck pickup: EMG H4A Bridge pickup: EMG H4 Bridge: Schaller Hannes 6 One volume and one tone + a 5-way rotary switch. I’m currently using only 3 positions (N/B/Both). Possibly going use the remaining two positions to split the pickups (or change to 3-way switch). Alpha 500K pots and currently a 33nf greenie capacitor. Custom jack assembly with switchcraft jack.

Just to recap the last five months or so.... First, thanks everybody! Bukoffsky, congrats for the GOTM! I'l have yet to see the build, but will check it out as soon as I'm done with this post. Anyways good to hear there are other people with the same background One of my teachers builds guitars: http://versoul.com/ . He was teaching me back in -94-95. I reckon we had a brief discussion about the subject back then... What has happened in last five months. First off all I did finish building my paint booth. Other that that, this pic pretty much summarizes it: 1. The build number one (one that will get it's own thread once it is compleately ready) has been re-finished. Nice white water-bourne paint job is done. Still waiting for few coats of clear (KTM-9). 2. The build number two has gotten numerous goats of shellac been applied and scraped. So the top and the headstock are grain filled and it is almost ready to be clear coated. It has new pups too... 3. The build number three has it's fingerboard fretted (oh, I'll show you the details. It is nicely done!) and the headstock is painted, once again waiting for the clear... Oh and the baby is fine

Jep, the bridge is looking good! Bridgeport... wish I had such a beast of a machine

Juntunen, not too long ago I was a bit confused too. I was reading a thread here and saw that I had replied to it. First thought was I cannot remember when I did that and after reading the reply I was happy that I had said such nice words. Only then I realized it was not me but "HenryM"... Carl, I dont wipe my planes with oil (except some of the wooden ones). The cast iron plane bodies are good as long as they don't go outside the shop. And my planes they are supposed to stay in the shop and not to go out to do any nasty jobs. Sometimes they just do... "Hän" would not cut in this context as personal pronouns are only used for, eh, persons in Finnish language (would be understandable though...). The easy part of the language is the same pronoun is used for Female and Male! That is why it is hard to remember how you use she/he for objects in English. If I was talking about a plane (an aircraft) I would have known I was supposed to say "she" To make it easier for my self I Should should just call that block plane "My darling" Way to go (No matter the destination)!