jazzclub

I couldn't find any proper driver to the router from the school I had to break my habits and use cnc! And it was pretty scary to watch my precious under the horrible, horrible machine. Here's some pictures from the process. That's a big machine it is. Scarred yet? http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00012.jpg In this stage I really had to focus not to wet my pants. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00015.jpg The result wasn't so astonishing. But that was the sparkle to make mounting ring from walnut (wasn't going to do them at all before this). And I also got a vision to put golden pickup covers. Of course all the hardware had to be golden now. This project just became a little more expensive!

Time to take it to the band saw. First cutting it raw with a band saw (sorry, no pics from that) and then some sanding. And the result -> http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00001.jpg You can see some brown stuff in the corner of the neck angle as in the previous pictures. It's not what you might think it is. It's plain PVAC glue tinted with some brown stain powder. I was't sure if the joints with the veneers would be good, so I used the glue also as filling. I had some bad luck with the walnut as you can see in the wings. The pieces in the middle are not as dark as I wanted them to be. I heard that the lighter walnut is called "fat wood" so it's not heartwood. I got the heart wood on the top in the lamination.

In those pictures she's about 55 mm thick. I'm going to do it 50 mm thick at the thickest part but after sanding it to its final shape it won't look even that thick because it's going to be veeeeery round. By the way how thick is an average les paul at its thickest part, does anyone know?

Here the pieces are together http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00024.jpg http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00028.jpg It's a shame i didn't get that black veneer but the teak (four brown stripes) suits pretty well too. Though I tried to ebonize the teak but it just didn't soak the black stain up enough. Maybe I should have kept the veneers in the stain longer than 24 hours.

Thanks for the tip for the headstock! I got some pieces done for the body and the neckblank too. Here's a wing for the body done from 3 pieces of walnut and 2 pieces of ebonized teak veneer. I glued them together using a press. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00005.jpg Here are the pieces between the neck and the wings done from ebonized teak veneers and birch. Glued also with a press. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00002.jpg http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00004.jpg This is the neck. Mahogany in the middle and maple on sides. Honestly I've never succeeded to do a gluing as good as this. Progress!!!

I haven't thought about the tone so much but I wanted to combine them visually. The appearance of guitar has always been a big part for me. That's why I always want to desing my guitars myself.

Here's the plan edited with photoshop (still don't know the headstock): The idea was to use multiple woods, so here's the woods from the middle to the side: mahogany (or some substitute), maple, some very dark veneer, Finnish birch, the same veneer and last but really not least WALNUT! This guitar is going to weigh a little...needs a wide strap. I studied autocad in the school and I had to do a 3D work for the course. Guess what I draw! The headstock still isn't the final model.

Hello everybody! It's been a long time since I've have had a chance to do guitars. Been in army and stuff. Recently I got into a polytechnic to study wood technology. So it was pretty obvious that I'm going to build a new guitar. This time I would have all the needed equipments. There would be a CNC too but I don't believe in them. CNC EATS THE SOUL OF GUITAR! Ok that's enough of my life. Now to the subject The Telezipper. I wanted to mix the elegancy of les paul to the punkness of telecaster. As I knew there would be a proper parallel planing machine or rotary planer (don't know the english word, remember I'm from Finland) I wanted to do the body from multiple woods and a neck-thru of course. Here's the plan I draw on my mother tonque lesson: In this picture I didn't know what kind of headstock to put

Here it is! The Zipper Cherry! This is the fifth guitar that I have desinged and built. My guitars has been under the name Zipper since I was 12 years old. And they all are handmade in Finland! The woods in the body are two-piece finnish birch back and two-piece finnish tervaleppä top. The cavity covers in the back are made of appletree. The neck is taken from an old strato-copy called Sledgehammer, but restaured complitely. Trem and tuners are also taken from the Sledgehammer but modified a little. Pickups are Dimarzios PAF pro/red velvet/blue velvet. The crank mounting is missing a screw if you wondered.

Here's the Cherry in action http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...minjakitara.jpg http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazziclubbi/kaikki.jpg

I left the Rotoflex flexible, because when it's locked it jumps off the surface easier. When it's flexible, you can control the sanding better.

1. I used an electric gun. Sound awfull! I don't recommend it for anyone. 2. You're very right. The neck was taken from an old ***** guitar called Sledgehammer. But it was restaured complitely. ADMIN EDIT: Swearing is not allowed on this forum. Please re-read the rules on the main site and here in the Announcments area if you have questions. Consider this your first warning. You know the shop TV, the tv program that sells any useless stuff ("and if you buy this product in the next seven days, you'll get even more useless stuff for free"). The rotoflex was advertised in that program, but I bougth it from a local store, in Finland of course. Rotoflex is a clamp that is attached to a drill and you can change different kind of discs from sanding to buffer to the clamp (good english isn't it). The discs are kind of stickers. I don't know any links to Rotoflex and I don't think that it's manufactured anymore. And now my favourite part of building a guitar: carving. I deffinitely went by eye. And I slided my fingers and palm on the surface to find the bad spots. I did the whole carving by sanding. Usually when I get to the point of carving the guitar, I can't stop it. I just have to do it as long as it's good. It can take 5 or 6 hours to get the carving right. The carving is about 7mm thick.

The Zipper Cherry is now ready! Here are a few pics from it: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazziclubbi/15.jpg The back plates are made of appletree. Pretty cool huh! http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazziclubbi/17.jpg The pickups I have in this guitar was the biggest investment. For example the trem is taken from the old crappy Slegdehammer. So the pickups from bridge to neck: DiMarzio PAF Pro, Red Velvet and Blue Velvet. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazziclubbi/loimua.jpg The tar-alder came out pretty cool too. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazziclubbi/24.jpg I had much fun taking these pics, as you see. ADMIN EDIT: Please re-read the rules regarding posting of pictures: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=11235 Thanks.

The first coats of clear lacquer. I made a temporary neck from 10mm plywood to make the handling of the guitar easier. Now I can spin the guitar however I want. The lacquer was ment for boats but I used it earlier somewhere (don't remember) and it shined so hard I almost got blind! The quality of the picture is very poor. Sorry. This is my working table where my baby's getting sanded from 240 grit to 1200 grit. That's enough for me. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazziclubbi/kitara7.jpg

Baby's getting stained! I'm using stain powder which will be added to boiling water. I think I mixed a half bag of bright red, a little black and blue (would have been easier if there were dark red). I did a series of mistakes in the staining. First I dropped too much black powder to the water so it looked like black water in the jar. But I was too anxious to stain the baby so I went to stain it. I stained the guitar once and it looked too light to me so I stained it again. And guess what, it was too dark. So I tried to WASH the color away. And it actually helped a little. Well, here's the pictures. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...enpetsausta.jpg http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/petsattu.jpg After the stain had dried, the surface looked a bit like satin. COOL!

Ok, there's a little gap from the previous picture but anyway. I made the carving to the top with rotoflex (neverheard?) sanding clamp used with a drill. I don't have any better tools for that so I sanded it. Pretty much work it is. Then I put the hardware to the guitar and tested it. The tremolo seems to work fine. The neck I have attached now is from an old crappy guitar called Sledgehammer! It's the neck I'm gonna use but I'll restorate it complitely. I'm pretty satified so far. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazziclubbi/kitara3.jpg I've finished this guitar by the time I'm writing this so sometimes I think why the hell did I paint this red. It would look pretty fine like this too with maybe some oil on, wouldn't it. This is the first time I put bindigs on my guitar but it went well. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazziclubbi/kitara5.jpg

This is almost the start. I've already glued two pieces of finnish birch and two pieces of something called tar-alder (tervaleppä in finnish) on top. The joints are not too good but this is the second try so I'll let it be. The shape is sawed and sanded raw.