Hey everyone.
So I have decided to start a little project I have had in the back of my mind for some time.
I want to build a guitar entirely from woods that are local to Southern africa (and preferably trees that have been sustainably harvested)
So here it goes.
Specs: 24 fret, 25.5' scale, Gotoh hardtail bridge, gotoh tuners and one single fat humbucker (type to be determined) and a volume and tone knob.
I first went on a mission sourcing a local wood I liked the look of. I eventally settled on African Wild Olive. I bought two planks, each of which measured about 35mm thick. this wood was collected from a tree that was removed during the development of an office park.
I then settled on the right hand side plank and cut it in half and used a borrowed planer to get the faces relatively flat. There is going to be a piece of African leadwood sandwiched in between these two peices. I still need to get all the faces straight and true.
I then spent some time doodling on guitar designs and decided on the following design for the body.
This design is going to be mostly flat with the exception of the outside area which will have a slight bevel.
I then designed the fretboard and headstock and made up the master templates. I am unsure as to if I should keep the headstock fender style or go with an angled headstock. will decide on that when I start making the neck I guess. The neck is going to be a 3 peice laminate consisting of african mahogany and leadwood with a leadwood fretboard. I was lucky enough to get a massive slab of leadwood from a tree that was removed during the development of the Tokwe Mukorsi Dam in Zimbabwe. will post picks of that later.
Pics of the Templates
My next step is going to consist of cutting up the leadwood into useful bits, get the body blank trued and glued up and then work on getting the body ready while I wait for the shipment from stew mac to arrive.
I have a couple of questions for the experts here. This olive wood has grain that is all over the place and is quite brittle. How do you prevent tear out from happening when using a plane on this? I have even tried using my freshly sharpened hand plane set as finely as I can and it still happens.
Secondly. With regards to the angle on the neck of the guitar. I am planning on using a gotoh hardtail bridge. is it okay if the neck is parallel to the body of the guitar or does there need to be a slight angle to the neck to ensure that the action is okay?
Finally, for fretting I was planning on using the stewmac fretwire which has a 0.58mm tang width. Could I get away with using a Saw blade with a 0.4mm kerf width? or do I have to buy a fretsaw from stewmac?
Cheers!
Hayden