Charlie H 72

Nice save on the twisted neck. Somebody was posting here a few weeks ago that Gibson used to glue all of their necks as you have mocked up there - with a gap at the heel end for a tight fit. That 6mm might be more than Gibson used, but it could still come out in the wash. However - neck pocket shims aren't too difficult to make and can be practically invisible if you match up the grain right. 

Good idea to re-rout that neck angle though - 1/2mm on the heel could cause a significant difference at the nut. 

And like Prostheta said - just keep building! The work is really clean and you are dealing w/ the unexpected very methodically. I think this is going to be a good looking and good playing guitar. 

3 hours ago, ScottR said:

But no, I don't intend on shooting this thing anymore. I'll have to learn to live with it, or get it dirty enough to fade away.

Wise .. "The perfect is the enemy of the (really, really) good" as they say. I had a boss who had that phrase backwards - that was not a fun year! 

Yup, this looks awesome! No surprise, but its good to see it come together. And come together it did! Can I nitpick? I'm going to... Any way to shoot some black lacquer over that babicz logo? It's distracting me!

I’m not an expert, by any means, so take this with a grain of salt. 
 

I think you should not worry so much about this neck, especially for your first build. Just treat it as a practice neck and keep rolling with it. If it happens to work out, that’s a great bonus. Make it a bolt-on so you can easily make a new one if things go south later on. Put a veneer on the face of the headstock if you need it for the nut to shift back a little. You may find that it warps while carving, but at least you’ll have gotten some carving practice. The fact that there’s a scarf joint there means it’s likely already stronger than a Gibson headstock.

Try stringing it up before you put finish on it though-that’s a long process you don’t need to go through only to find out you have a defective neck! 

Whipped up a good bridge today-this I think attempt #4 on the CNC-the back of the pickup rout is done caveman style so I won’t show that to you.. one day I will learn how to do flip cuts! I also made a pickup cover and a saddle blank while I was working. I’m thinking of a way to get that black from the pickup out of the way - maybe just some nail polish around the edge? Maybe nothing?  

This is an exciting build-lots of interesting new ideas and a unique instrument. Looks like it will sound great. 

True! Also I just realized that they are the only visible part of the instrument that is not custom and/or handmade in some way (ok minus fretwire, strap buttons, and screws) so it’s gotta happen. I think it will tie the headstock into the body nicely and save some weight as a bonus

Any thoughts on bone tuner knobs???? I’m kind of into it. It was a pain to make but if I go to the maker space and actually use a drill press it might be easier

8 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Huh? Architecture school trick? And I thought I had just cooked up a variation of the old hollow template thingy... Oh well, that's the problem with all of my inventions, someone has already thought similarly. Which on the other hand proves that the ideas must be good, bad ones wouldn't have survived and spread all over!

Nothing new under the sun, as they say!

37 minutes ago, ScottR said:

I'd probably just narrow the nut a little and sand a new taper into the fretboard/neck.

SR

Thanks for that Scott - I took that sanding beam to the sides and I lost a light 1/16 at the nut - manageable. Plus I started with a 1-3/4" nut so now its just down to standard fender dims. At least worth taking to the finish line and seeing how I like it. I can always make another neck later. Thanks, Leo.

And - another lesson learned - one should never decide what is and isn't firewood after midnight!! 

13 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Recognizing that it's rushing makes some good progress as it should teach you not to rush... Which you may well forget with your next build! Don't ask...

Haha! all too familiar with that cycle - "this time I'm going to take every step slowly and carefully...until I don't feel like it any more" every dang time. I'm sometimes ok with it though. At a certain point ya gotta just play the thing. 

14 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

The tuner layout isn't that bad, you disliking it may also be because of the shape of the headstock. There's an easy way to reshape it for testing purposes without cutting any wood: Take a piece of black paper or tape and mask what you think you might want to cut off. Look at the result against a dark space or surface to see how the new shape would look.

I think part of my trouble with the headstock is that those are all lefty tuners but I intended to use righty on the bass side - which would shift the buttons upwards a good deal. Maybe I should just pony up and buy the righty ones to see how they look. Also curious about those Strandberg firebird tuners, hmmm..

I used to use that black paper trick all the time in architecture school - thanks for the reminder - its a good one! I think if I were to stick with these tuners I'd just need to pull a little bit off the top... again, worth trying. 

Ooooh that ebony board! This is starting to get dark in a great way. It has a "spooky forest at night" kind of feeling.  Love an all black guitar - especially when its all wood too.

Okay

good news and bad news

good news: I have made a lot of progress recently

bad news: some of the progress will now have to be firewood

I guess that’s called rushing, not progress?

The guitar sat for a while and I recently got into working on it again. Changed my attitude, decided I’d just finish the dang thing! Shaped and painted the body, cut the pickguard, shaped, sanded & burnished the neck, installed frets and cleaned up fret ends. All looking good, starting to imagine the notes just jumping off the fretboard.

Then I found out last night that somewhere along the way I sanded a curve into the profile of the neck. Dang. A strong 1/16 on the treble side and 1/32 on the bass side. That won’t do-to the scrap pile it goes. There were a number of issues with this one that I think I will be happy to resolve on round 2. Especially the way the tuners lay out on the headstock, and some ugly mineral streaks that showed up along the way.

pics

the bad first:

(I really like the look and feel of the burnished maple - probably would get destroyed with dirt but I don’t mind. I like dirt.) 

on the other hand, I’m pretty excited about the body. I left Stewmac’s white PG material out in the sun and now it matches their vintage white perfectly - who knows how it will age from here but I like it. I also decided to go no sealer and no primer or sanding between coats so that the grain is raised thru the finish, which I love the look and feel of. It’s a really thin finish so it probably will age quickly, but again, I like dirt..

is this orange peel in the finish, or just the wood texture?

so close-yet so far!

Whoa these knobs and that bobbin cover are awesome! Still loving all these details you bring to the build. So worth it. I'd try CA glue first- It won't be obvious if it doesn't go quite as planned and you need to try something else. Maybe score the surface of the bobbin first with an xacto? Gorilla glue I'd have to think there is no coming back from with all the foaming. High temp hot glue could also be good, and removable should the owner ever want to swap pickups. 

Wow that looks great! I never should have doubted.. 

Cool, that’s a good point. I looks forward to seeing how they come together with some finish

Love it so far. This has been exciting to follow. I find that the mahogany neck doesn’t sit well with the light colors in the ebony - any plans for stain on either part? 

I’m with biz on this one. Love the subtle veneer. I think maple would have outshone the subtle grain of the rosette. This thread is inspiring as I am in the market for a new acoustic……… dangerous! Probably would go with a kit for the first time around. And definitely have to finish the current build before I take on anything else

welcome-
The slow way is the fast way-try sanding!  
 

Best if you have an orbital or something like that to help move things along though. 

Late to the party here-but that 4+2 layout is off the walls, I really like it. These are coming along nicely. That tall binding really means business

Yes it’s resin. That’s a good idea with the hair dryer. I had also considered putting it on low in the oven for a few as well, but I don’t want it to shrink much. The neck pocket could stand to be a little tighter though  

I had read the same thing about knot preventing primers like kilz being shellac based - a classic case of “new and improved” being the same old stuff that has always worked!

Also-if you haven’t been following along in the design bar-I am trying to forgo the truss rod on this build. We’ll see how it goes! Worst case-I just make a new neck

Alright 

got the neck cut!

It’s not perfect… but I think it will do. If not-good practice. And it’s nice to have a “guitar-shaped object”

I cnc’d it-but it was challenging to get all of the cuts with different size bits to line up well. I didn’t realize that I would have to move the cutter to change the bit so there was not a consistent “home.” This caused the nut slot to be off center (tried to cut it “blind”) It’s still blind but I only have ~1/32” of wood on one side. I am just going to work with it, though - the fret spacing all checks out, and if I blow through on one side while carving I’ll just open the whole slot up. 
 

Also the fret dots cut out of round for some reason. they are small (1/8”) so I am just going to go to 3/16 and drill them. 

My Doug fir is sweating-is this a problem? Or something a coat of shellac will take care of? 
 

it’s at this stage of every build I start thinking I should just keep it natural.. but I will keep moving on ahead planning for white blonde paint  
 

Just catching up here-Those new pics looks great!! And it sounds awesome  

And-Its a perfect complement to Danae

thanks for sharing it has been a great ride 

Whoa, an aluminum fretboard! I say leave it, I bet when you start playing it, it will scratch to a semi-uniform sort of distressed finish. Maybe like a metallic dirty maple fingerboard? 

Oh that neck-- heck yeah. My favorite part so far. The little bit of red makes it. The subtle fades on the green are great too. And your tape lines are getting cleaner every time. I imagine such high contrast is not forgiving!