SwedishLuthier

He he, pretty much so. Best summer in years. Too bad it seems to coming to an end now. On the other hand the slightly cooler weather is way better for building... Got quite a bit done now, and I actually thought that I should be able to wrap things up on this one today, but more on that later... I finally got to mate the finished body to the neck, always a pleasure so see what it will finally look like. started on the string locks, all hardware comes from Ola Strandberg of Strandbergs guitar works. I will write a review of these later on. First you need to drill two holes per string lock, lining everything up over a double angle..lucky for me I can draw it out in CAD and just glue a template in place! the locks are installed using one screw and one pin like so all of them there, including a rough cut nut

Nice tip there Brett. I have to check them out. I will soon need a new pair as my old Stewmac cutters are, as Carl's apparently, pretty messed up after using them on SS. How do you prevent changing the hardening of them when grinding them? Cooling them periodically? or do they benefit from a bit of tempering (I think its called tempering...).

So with another week of temperatures of 33C (91F) here hasn't been much work done. I finally forced myself to do a bit anyway. The final sanding is done and I have started to apply the Tru-Oil on the body. With these temperatures the fist couple of coats cures faster than I can ally the oil! Got a few coats on the back and the front Finish sanded the fretboard A drop of tung oil or two to reveal the fantastic color of the wood and had the frets tapped in (no pics of the frets trimmed, sorry) Now I have to finish sanding the neck, starting to apply the oil on the rest of the neck and wait for the magnets for the pickups to arrive. We are shooting for a tad weaker PAF style pickups and I only had big enough ceramic magnets for 8-string, no A5. Got a bunch of those made and on their way to me right now.

Got the jack hole drilled Marked and routed for the pickups Sometimes it can be really hard to see whats going on... So everything is done. Now I just need to finish the sanding process and get to the finish phase. That picture is taken outside as I brought the body out to sand it. We have excellent weather for a change (OK had so for more than a week now) and I can't be inside all day working. We had 30C (≈85F) today and have had in that range for the last ten days. Great for building up a tan, disaster for work morale.

A new template for the actual cover I'll save you the use of Google translate. "Utsidan" means "this side out". Helps to avoid making things backwards/inside out. Removing the bulk with the band saw and routing flush to the template on the router table. Those small plastic chips really stick to anything in the shop! The same template also has holes to help align the screw holes A very nice fit

Now a twist I have never seen with anybody else. A third template that slides down inside the main template Like so Drilling out the bulk first Routing out material until the template isn't needed anymore And finishing the recess to the right depth Whipping out the same third template again, placing it were the cover will go This template also has holes to help locate were to drill for the fastening screws

I have made a set of templates to make the control cavity and the cover more accurate. Start with marking the position for the holes on the front Drill ALLTHE THREE HOLES right through the body!!! I can't believe I missed one. No biggie, but it is typically me to do so when I'm taking pictures to dokument the build... With the body flipped over, put the template to the back and center it in the holes with something the same size as the holes Put double stick tape on the main template and slide that over the first template Perfectly centered Pull out the first template and rout a recess the depth of the cover material

Not any planned. The idea is to have the "original" body shape that I usually do, softly rounded over and then have a few cut outs made with quite sharp and crisp lines, like something that can't be seen in the pictures, the arm cut is a very gentle roll rather than an angled surface. the edges of that roll will meet the round over with a crisp (not very sharp, that would defeat the purpose with the soft rolled arm cut...) edge. The same thing with the hand cut-out. The lines that are meeting the rounded edges will have crisp lines. I'll have to wait and see how it looks and feels with the hardware mounted to make the final decisions thou.

Got the edges rounded over today, despite a 1.5 h power loss due to a massive thunderstorm. And no, that was not the bit I used... Router a relief area under the tuner parts of the bridges. Most users of this type of tuner simply cut away a part of the body. With this solution you can maintain a bit of "normal" look and still have full access to the tuners I ended up using a round nose bit with a non-matching bearing so I had to adjust the template a bit to match. Ended up with a pretty smottoh area that is smoothed further with 80-grip paper here. BTW I probably had one of the fancier templates as I used of-cuts from the top. Masur Birch template, not bad! Rasped away to make for easier access for the left hand Belly-cut marked And cut, lots of rasping today. This surface is also smoothed with 80-grit paper And the arm-cut done in the same way The idea is that the darker cedar will be visible at the arm-cut, the "hand-cut" and the relief cut under the tuners. It will look quite interesting, I think. Next up is the control cavity and most of the heavy "body building" is done

Measuring for the bridge(s). If you think it is hard to get the string ferrules on a tele in a straight and nice line you should try this. I had to plug and re-drill several of the holes. There is 0.5mm clearance between each tuning machine and if it is a tad off the tuner parts will grabb each other and make it impossible to tune accurately. And it will look all wonky. Most of the base parts screwed in place And test fitting everything Next up is rounding over the edges, cutting the recess under the tuners, the belly-cut, the hand-cut and the arm-curt (lotsa cuts here...)

Two boring picks of neck shaping, simple before and after shots Instead of my usual use of spokes shaves and shoeshine sanding motion I hade to use rasps and files and sanding blocks and make sure I followed the lines. Quite hard as the surfaces are to be smooth and that the angle along the neck changes with the S-curve. I got it accurate in the end. Test-mounted the string locks and the neck is more or less ready for finish sanding (apart from fretting of cause)

Thanks again! Next up is the back of the neck profiling, but first I need to angel the head part so that the string locks doesn't get too hard to engage I make a makeshift protection for the nut shelf clamp the neck blank up, and have a go at it with rasps and files and this is what you get (mockup with nut)

OK, the rod from Gitarrdelar need to be put in between a separate fretboard and a neck blank. So you need to either slice a bit of the neck blank or find a flame maple fretboard. I did a quick search and only found flame maple board blanks available with Perry Ormsby in oz land... He's a semi regular here under the moniker rhoades56 so you can shoot him a PM and ask. Some years ago, when I started building there were ample supply of flame maple fretboard blanks. 1" is generally too thin to slice off a fretboard if you also take in account that you need to clean up the surfaces that is being glued and that the saw blade, however thin it might be, eats away a bit of the wood.

Have a look at "no 2" in Curtisas first link: That kan be done with a one piece neck. Now to another question at hand: This is your first guitar, right? To do that build with a one piece neck and a traditional one-way truss rod takes for some serious planing, lots of jigs and requires (IMHO) quite a bit of experience. After almost 20 years of building guitarist that concept still scares me enough to keep me away from that. Add to that the extra step of making this a double action truss rod, I think that is too much for a first build. Have you really got the skills and understanding to get this done in a good way (please don't get me wrong, not trying to put you down here)? My sincere suggestion is that you question yourself why you want the one piece solution. Is it because you want a flame maple neck and fretboard look? If so you can get a separate flame maple fretboard and separate neck blank and use the much simpler solution with the truss rod sandwiched between those. Pros with two-pice solution - Straight rout for the rod - no curved jig for routing the back of the neck needed - no jigs needed for drilling holes as body and head end - ready available truss rods - Easier to do an angled head supported by the fret board Cons with two-piece solution - visible joint between neck and fret board - no visible skunk stripe at back of neck So mostly ascetics here... For a first build there will be so many obstacles to get around anyway. I therefore suggest to keep as much as possible, as simple as possible and that you considering being willing to compromise a bit with the ascetics to be sure that you really get to the goal line and make a fully functional. nicely playing guitar. For a first guitar that is maybe a more realistic goal that to produce the guitar of your dreams. EDIT: I see that you are in Sweden. I'm in Stockholm and might be able to lend a hand if you are somewhere near me.

Lastly a bit of work on the neck. I thinned it out to final thickness and taper with the Wagner Safe-T and some different thickness blocks under the neck to create the right taper (sorry, no in progress pics of that...) And cleaned up with some sanding Printed the template for the EndurNeck on paper and taped it to the neck And had the shape transferred to the wood as this is *very* different from what I normally do I will have to reinvent my methods here.

This is a bit of a "magic" moment for me every time I can attach the neck to the body for the first time. Its like it's becoming an instrument in that moment. Looking very strange with that "head". Let's remedy that. I glue on the template A bit of band sawing, sanding and mocking up with the nut blank and we have this Now it looks much better

I drill the holes first from the top to back with small pilot drills Then drill from the back with the appropriate brill bit to fit my bushings And of cause use a bigger bit to make room for the screws. All four of them in place

Now how to locate the holes in the body to match the holes already drilled in the neck. The tool: In the threaded bushing Press the neck down in the neck pocket and you got some nice markings

The Myka neck pocket jigg that Chris built and still have on sale. Great tool! Neck pocket routed A good fit

Body cleaned up, from out of the clamps via band sawing to sanded with robo sander and top sanded smooth and wetted with naphtha

Thanks, I had also totally forgot about that. Well you'll have to bring those and yourself over to Stockholm some time! Thanks! Thanks! Thats one of the few benefits from living in cold scandinavia...

Nice little vacuum thingy. Do you place it in an oven all together or do you heat the plastic with a hat gun? Or I might just say +1 to Chris...

Yeah, less is more, or something like that.

Fast forward in time (about two hours for the glue in the top joint to dry). I band saw the top to rough size and shape and sand the gluing surface completely flat. Titebond! Looks a bit like a christmas gingerbread... and lots of clamps Now that has to cure over night. Next step is to sand the top to final thickness, levelness and smoothness (lots of "-ness" there). Then sit back and wait for the hardware to arrive.

And then its time for fret markers. The customer only wants side markers as the fretboard looks so nice. A center finder ruler is great for finding the right spot A simple makeshift jig for drilling all holes in a straight line I'm using 4mm aluminium dots. I cut those from a rod, glue them in with super glue and use a small hammer to tap them in place