Norris

For those of you who get excited about that sort of thing, first trial fit of electrics

(and the first full-frontal pic for a while)

Control layout is to owner's spec. He likes to ride the volume with his pinky while playing and hardly ever touches the tone 

40 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Moody lighting!

Ha ha. It's actually in the workshop where most of the photos are taken, just not the normal auto-exposure settings due to the reflected light

Cavity shielding tonight 

Followed by a bit more sanding to refine the neck and heel. I'm starting to run out of things to do that don't involve putting a finish on, but still a few jobs left on the list.

Next up will be a bug turned into a feature...

Drum sander #drool

I dropped the corner of the lip so that...

when pressed...

Then a lot of sanding - blending the roundover, smoothing the end grain, etc.

Cavity shielding next, more sanding, and possibly a splash of Truoil

Beautiful work. Looks fantastic!

On 10/10/2019 at 9:27 PM, ADFinlayson said:

So in the meantime, I’ve been worrying about these tuners. They require a 14mm hole for the shaft and 17mm hole for the bushing. Can’t find a 17mm Brad bit anywhere but I have got a 16mm flat bit that has a point and I’ve managed to find a 17mm hss bit which I’m hoping to use to fettle the hole up to size. Tried on a test piece and it worked, bushing went in fine. 

You could always use a hand reamer, as I did on my current build. You can take it to whatever diameter you want, although bear in mind it will be a tapered hole

19 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

How mesmerizing!

Thanks for showing your drilling template. Having not figured out such a simple tool has kept me from drilling my magnet cavities!

It's just a piece of paper that I trimmed to the size of the cover. I measured and marked out where I wanted the holes, gently put the paper into the hole, then marked with the bradawl. Popped the paper onto the cover and marked again through the holes I just made, and they should align when drilled on the marks

Even in the shade that wood looks like it's on fire. In the sunlight it's an inferno. Nicely done sir!

A fair bit of sanding done, but plenty more to do. I think I'm going to have to stick with quite fine grits as the wood has a tendency to "fur up" a bit with heavier grits. The list of bits to do is certainly getting shorter and we can't be too far from the home straight 

Anyway, a bit of magnetism...

The magnets are 3mm diameter and so was my drill bit. So after drilling to depth on the pillar drill, I sat and spun the bit by hand in each of the holes to create a little clearance, before setting them in with epoxy.

A handy tip was to keep the magnets in a stack, sticking a bit of masking tape on one end, then feeding them in straight off the stack into the body holes. Then, the important bit, sticking the tape on the other end of the stack before feeding them into the cover. Then they should all be North-South polarity. The flat end of a pencil was quite handy to press them in flush

A pillar drill is very handy. Number 3 on the list after the bandsaw and router imho

You have some gorgeous wood there!

Beautiful!

The key thing is to get the nut, frets and bridge in the right place. As long as they are correct everything else is negotiable. Mistakes can become features. It's not a race, and you can take as long as you like to get something you're happy with. The main thing is to enjoy it and take pleasure with the things you get right. 

Welcome to the forum, do keep us updated and feel free to ask any questions

I'm sure if you listen carefully you'll hear that burl purring to itself in pleasure at the way you've made it look. Absolutely masterful

That's some beautiful tidy work!

Oh - I'm only on page 2 of the forum. Quiet summer?

Hooray - I'm back at class! I put the second template I made to immediate use

and I'm quite pleased with my efforts to align the wood grain. I also drilled the jack entry hole with a 22mm forstener bit - you can just see where it meets the bottom corner of the chamber in the top picture. 

Next week I'll drill for the pickup wires and then start a fair bit of sanding.

It's nice to be making sawdust again 

With the vibrancy of that green I'd have been tempted to do the whole top. It fizzes colour 

That looks positively brutal. Nice work!

On 8/6/2019 at 2:59 PM, Prostheta said:

For my own part, I prefer using a (thick plywood) template based on the outer cavity cover size, then starting the inner cavity using a guide bushing.

I did that on the Nozcaster, but for some unknown reason am doing it "flush cut" this time. The issue is probably working out the guide bush offset. It just seemed a little easier making the template actual size 

I've already made the template and cut the cover to fit that. It's worth bearing in mind for the future though

I've earned enough brownie points with the good Lady Norris recently to be allowed to make some sawdust, and lots of it. It was control cavity routing day

First I transferred my templates to 18mm mdf. Then I drilled out and routed the main cavity 

Some minor "ledge dive" but otherwise reasonably neat. I did all the routing with my small Makita. 

I'll have to buy a stubby template bit to do the ledge rebate 

Maybe try elongating the "snout" of the headstock on #1 a tad to mirror the lower horn? #3 looks good too

Edit: or maybe just hit the straight run sooner on the b tuner like on #2

Congratulations!

14 minutes ago, Stu. said:

Your control cavity and cover are delightfully neat!

Thanks. I'm going for the magnets again