SwedishLuthier

A bit more work done I glue the top with a new toy, the LMI Plate Joining jig. I will write a review of this tool when I'm done testing it but I can give away the biggest benefit compared to my old method of clamping batons to the work bench and gluing the tops there: I can put the workpiece away while curing and free up the space on my bench for other work

Oh, my bad, Striped ebony, not mahogany! I don't think I would trust mahogany to hold the frets in and certainly not to stand up to the wear and tear of long time fretboard action.

A quick trip to the band saw to remove most of the excess And another trip to the router table to clean everything up

Caulk in the truss rod slot to stop any vibrations. Tape to make sure I don't get caulk on the wood as that will stop the wood from adhering. Press the truss rod in, remove excess caulk, remove tape Now the freeboard is being glued to the neck blank in the usual fashion, using small nails in the fet slots as guides I use a LMII aluminum beam as clamping caul. This is after all the clamps have been removed. I always use epoxy for fretboards as I don't want to have any water there that can potentially cup the fretboard.

I mark the outline of the body on the neck blank I drill and use a forester bit to make divits for the hardware to rest inside A bit of cleaning up on the other side. That Festool count sink (is that the right name) gotta be the best in the word. It centers perfectly and always leave a totally smooth bevel.

OH, this is how I made the neck blank (totally forgot to share that): I glue thin maple and walnut veneers, 0.5mm thick to 0.5mm thick graphite, one on each side. This is the mahogany used. I almost feel bad using a flame mahogany for this... I then glue the thin laminates to the mahogany. The square steel tubes are used as clamping cauls throughout the process to ensure perfecty straight pieces. I now have pre-fab stringers with thin brown, thin black, thin white, 5mm brown, thin white, thin black and finally thin brown color. Two of those get laminated between flame maple. the walnut didn't became as visible as I had hoped, but I think it turned out pretty good anyway.

As I have more compound radius fretboards coming up I decided it was finally time to build a radius jig. I opted for the on-top-of-the-router-table-version. As it was the first test I did a very "ghetto" style hinge.That will be upgraded before next use. 16-20" radius done in a few minutes. On the other hand it took me three hours to build the jig... Here you can see how the bit sits inside a tube that steers the jig. The surface of the fretboard is a bit rough, bit I don't think it takes more than a few minutes of sanding to clean this up.

Fret board cornea rounded over I use the router table, a flush trim bit and a template with a 16mm radius I rout for the truss rod on the router table, first the narrower 6mm rout all along the truss rod length. and then a 8 mm bit for the adjustment nut of the trussrod a nice and tight fit

Cutting of the excess 1 Cutting of the excess 2 A bit of cleaning up on the belt sander and you can see what fretboard the customer chose

Starting to work on the fretboard. For custom compound scales I print the CAD and glue it to the board Clamp the board to a table, clamp a steel ruler right up to the printed line, score the wood with a sharp knife. I then continue with to a thin saw. This saw is thinner than the fret saw, so thin that it tracks the knife cut good but wide enough to give the fret saw enough guidance later on And then it's time for the fret saw

Body left to dry while I turn my attention to the top. First clean it up a bit on the planer The burl makes the birch extremely hard. So hard, in fact, that the band saw didn't had enough power to complete the job. So I had to hand saw it, quite a bit of work... After even more cleaning up with the Wagner Safe-T and the planer:

OK, I'm not one of the best when it comes to build threads, but as I already does this in a lokal guitar forum for the customer I might at well share with you guys too. This is a build based on my NorthStar body. However it is going to be a headless guitar with compound scale (fanned frets) and 8-Stings. Oh, and compound radius too. Here's a drawing Body wood, Brazilian cedar Body top, Masur Birch, a quite common birch burl in Finland and Sweden Neck is going to be multi laminated, with a lot of things going on, but mainly maple with mahogany stringer The customer got to choose from one of these striped mahogany fretboards Body being glued up EDIT:Forgot, hardware from fellow Swede Ola Strandberg and it will also have an EndurNeck profile, that Ola is kind enough to let me license for this build. Or anyone that just pay his quite reasonable fee.

I hate to break it too you... but you missed one of the magnets there. You have to start over again

Yeah. Most of the metal flakes out there are just tiny colored aluminium (Scientifically correct spelling!) flakes. So if your flakes start turning silver you have ended through the color coat of the flakes. And it doesn't take much and through for ti to be visible. You need to get the finish coats on really heavy, I sugest laying the instrument flat (or suspending it like you do) and getting extra thick coats on, making sure that you cover the sides too, let it sit extra long, flip it and get extra thick layers on the other side, once again shooting a "normal" layer on the sides. This way you will get extra thick lacers on the top and back for each spraying session and double layers on the sides for every "complete" coating. The surface need to feel more or less completely level before you shoot at least one or two final coats. then it might be OK to level sand. Metal flakes takes a bit of extra care to succeed with. One way to fix the problem with the flakes turning silver is to shoot a green tinted layer and a few more top cots. That will tone down the silver effect.

Ukulele tuners are often friction tuners without gears. Stay away fem those. Have a look at geared banjo tuners instead. However I'm not sure that they will be either cheeper of better than the Steinbergs.

Ola Strandberg, a fellow Swede and the master mind behind "building the ergonomic guitar" and Strandberg Guitars, has the integrated single string tuner/bridge he designed and now manufactures up for sale here: http://guitarworks.thestrandbergs.com/products/purchase-page/ As I'm about to build a custom order headless 8-string based on Ola's hardware I have already completed CAD plans for those and I'm about to post those too, any day now... These tuners/bridges take standard strings. However the maximum string gauge is .080 and I'm not sure that the bigger end ball of bass strings will fit. However it is possible to get custom ordered bass strings with guitar ball ends and tapered end/beginnings that might work. In the end; to much effort if you ask me.

Thanks for posting. Here is a direct link EDIT: Had a quick look at this (still not finished the complete essay). It looks really good. If you did the writing (= no copyright infringements) this would make an excellent tutorial to re-post here on the forum. If you have some photos it would be even better... EDIT2: After reading through it all I guess that you are not "Adamson" and we will have to do with a link. Maybe I'll try this exact working scheme on a Alto Acoustic being completed any time now and snap a few pics to show this method a bit more graphical...

File Name: Free-Way Switch File Submitter: SwedishLuthier File Submitted: 20 Jun 2014 File Category: Electronics 2D CAD for 6P6T Free-Way Switch

490R, Alnico2 magnet 42AWG (probably Poly) wire, 7.2 to 7.8 Kohms 50 mm pole spread 57 Classic, Alnico2 magnet 1.94" pole spread (49.3mm), 7.4 - 8.5 kOhms, unknown wire type but probably 42AWG with thicker insulation compared to the 490R. So the 57 will be slightly hotter, with more mid and probably (because the wire insulation) a slightly "drier" sound. This is only based on the specs and no A/B comparison.

You are right that there are several versions of the classics out there. The problem is that very few of them are very accurate, or complete (example, the extremely detailed and accurate Tele body drawing floating around, no neck that match that level of detailing is available). My thought was that a "PG stamp of approval" in regards of accuracy would be a very nice touch.

If possible without infringement of copy rights etc I would love to se a series of complete (or as complete as possible) drawings of all the old classics (Tele, Strat, LP, SG and so on)

That, of cause, depends on what type of system we are talking about and what you want to do with the "scars" from the old system. I'm assuming the current controls are mounted at the sides of the body and that it is ok for you to either plug the current holed with something that is visible or just leave the controls in place. If not you also need to adress the holes in some way or another. You can even make the holes a feature and call them sound ports... Anyway, if you are looking at a system that is mounted like this it takes some skills to do it. You need to assure that you doesn't weaken the structure too much (at least don't cut through too many side braces). The preamp need to at least reasonable match the curvature of the sides to fit nicely. And you need to be able to cut a few straight lines in the side. If you feel comfortable doing this it shouldn't be impossible to do it yourself

DCR isn't really that interesting. Turn count is what it is all about. How much was you able to get on the bobbin? My guess is around 7000 to 7500 turns. Anyway, there are those who aware by the under wound P90s, Lindy Fralin is one of them. With 42AWG and 6 Kohm-ish you will probably be just fine.

File Name: ABM 3710C single string bass bridge File Submitter: SwedishLuthier File Submitted: 27 Apr 2014 File Category: Component Drawings 2D CAD of ABM 3710C single string bass bridge