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steve1556

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Posts posted by steve1556

  1. That guitar looks stunning! My first proper guitar (if you ignore the basic end of range Squire Strat that I did a trade with my bro-in-law for) was an Ibanez S470 with a stained mahogany body. Still got the guitar today and your one reminds me of it so much so that I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside, only difference is the stain on mine is matte and not shiny.

    How did you find carving the body as it's both front and back carves?

  2. Hey Rutger, I'm still looking at maybe getting one of those belt sanders, still undecided on it at the moment and I'll also need to wait until it's more necessary as I seem to be spending a fortune lately! I see where you're coming from with making it quicker and easier to do the scarf joints with, could definitely be worth a try. I really like the Ibanez style necks, both the thinness of them and also the angeled heads. so I'm planning on learning how to do scarf joints at some point, just not brave enough for a first build. I think you should get one to let me know what it is like though :)

    Not too much of an update, didn't get hardly anything of what I wanted to do done yesterday.

    I picked the Triton sander up, noticed that there was a guy sanding a guitar body using it, then I looked closer and realised it's Ben from Crimson Guitars! He is the one to blame for getting me to build a guitar because I've watched far too many of his videos on YouTube. I'm planning on booking his 5 day guitar building course once I've done this build.

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    I forgot to take more pictures from this point on, so this is the last one of the sander from when I was getting it out of the box.

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    Decided to buy myself a proper mask as mine isn't teh greatest and I think it's past it's best. I'll wait until this cold clears up before I use it though.

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    Started to use my stepdads new drill and smoke started pouring out of the motor straight away, so decided to buy my own one. Just got a cheapy one for now, I'll maybe upgrade it in the future.

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    Templates are nearly done! I plan on setting up a router on the router table shortly and transfer the 6mm template onto the 15mm one. I'm guessing that using the router table will be easier then doing it by hand. I am kinda wishing that I bought pre-made templates though as it would have sped things up a lot at the expense of learning.

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    It's currently looking like I don't have to start work until 4pm tomorrow, so the plan is to try and finish up the templates then if I can.

    I had to use the spindle sander in the garden, but I'm going to invest in a dust extraction unit for it soon, and I'll use it with other tools as well so I can work in the garage if need be. I'm thinking of something like this, as it's small and cheap here

  3. Thanks for saying you both think the Triton style oscillating sander is a good thing to have. I just tried the sanding disc set I bought to use with the drill press, and bobbin sanders are definitely the way to go with sanding the templates, so I've just ordered the Triton sander. It comes with the 80g bobbins, but I've just bought the 150g and 220g bobbin sets as well, and it will be in stock tomorrow for me to pick up. Quite excited about finally being able to finish the templates after suffering with a lack of time to be able to do them.

    Tomorrows plan, get up early, tidy the garage up and cut out the cavities in the templates. I should be able to pick up the sander from 12 onwards, so the afternoon will be spent sanding the templates down, and hopefully getting them transferred to the 15mm templates. I'm back to work on Tuesday so won't get much done for the following 5 days.

  4. Go on, buy yourself one of those Tritons, you know you want to! Actually, I would just love to read your review on it.

    With regards to the sanders/linishers, may I ask why you think they are useless? Most of them don't seem to have a plate underneath the belt part so it looks like the whole edge of the guitar body could be sanded with it, including inside the horns. Admittedly this is all guesswork on my part though.

  5. On 6/18/2016 at 4:55 PM, Prostheta said:

    Try sticking to the UK. You'll get screwed for import duties and tax from US suppliers. They might be expensive, but you only pay what you pay.

    Carlos at Guitars and Woods is very busy at the moment because one of his staff members has been off for over a week. He's been doing the work of two people! Did you measure whether the board was cut longer than the advertised size? I bet you that it was glue to prevent raw stock checking from breaking out into usable wood and it just wasn't cut off before sale.

    I'd plan out your string paths on those headstocks 1:1....some of them will be very uneven and difficult to route, or at least require thought on how to make them work.

    I actually found that company through one of their eBay listings and it says no import or duty fees. Unless they are somehow including in the shipping cost, I'm not sure how it's done, so I was thinking that it maybe worth a punt. When I got a cheap Chinese laser cutter, I ordered a massive upgrade kit for it from a place in America, and I got absolutely screwed with import fees, and don't particularly wish to do that again.

    I haven't messaged Carlos yet, i received some bad news about my nan before I went away with work and that had to take priority. I didn't think that the fingerboard may be cut a fair bit bigger then is needed, so I'll get it measured today. Hopefully it's longer then I need so it won't be an issue. If I do need to contact him, I'll bear in mind that his has a much bigger workload and it may take a while for a reply.

    The plan is to do the headstocks on a 1:1 size before I use one for the reasons that you said. I'm hoping to get at least one of them working well though as I do quite like them.

    Little update, I've have some plans arrive for a P Bass build ready for when I do my friends one, although I won't be starting it yet. I've been looking at some sanders, there is one that definitely sticks out as the clear winner in my eyes (although it's the most expensive), but if anyone can shed some opinions on them that would be greatly appreciated.

    Option one (preferred one) - here

    Option two - here

    Option three - here

    Option four - here

    Option five - here

    Option six - here

    I realise that option 1 does the same function as option 6, plus has the belt sanding part which would be an advantage. Option 5 does look good, but I think it's easily beaten in terms or price and usability as 2, 3 and 4. I know options 2, 3 and 4 and near identical, in terms or power and specs, but I'm not sure which one would be the best out of the 3. If there is no difference really then surely the cheaper one would be the better option, especially as it's near enough half the price.

    I've got 5 days off work now, but I've got a lot on my plate with my nan, so if I could get the templates done and finished I'll be fairly happy with the progress. If I get any more done, I'll consider it a bonus.

  6. On 6/16/2016 at 8:43 PM, Prostheta said:

    Did you ever mention this to Carlos at Guitars and Woods?

    Not yet, I've had the wood sitting on a shelf in the garage and didn't get round to checking it, mainly because I forgot. I'm going to shoot him an email now about it.

     

    On 6/17/2016 at 1:15 AM, curtisa said:

    3mm MDF doesn't leave a lot of "meat" for the router bearing to ride against. 6mm or thicker would be better. With a 3mm template it won't take much for the bearing to slip over the edge and start riding above it, cutting into the template. Maybe the piece the template was attached to was slightly warped and the template was cupped slightly at that point, allowing the bearing to run off the edge?

    The overall lack of smoothness of the cut can be due to a lot of things - dust and debris getting trapped around/on the bearing, vibration of the workpiece or router as it is worked, eccentricity in the router spindle and collet...I'd personally call the slight waviness in your cuts quite typical and would expect to have to deal with it during final sanding and shaping anyway.

    I did think what when i was trying to set up the router bit on the template that it looked rather thin, so what you say about it makes sense (and it's nice to have someone else thinking the same as me before I waste more time and money doing new templates in case I did something fundamentally wrong). It was my first ever time trying to use a router, so I was fairly pleased with how it went. I'm glad the waviness looks normal, but I'm going to sharpen the router bit before using it again.

    I bought another sheet of 6mm MDF as the bit I had left from the initial templates isn't wide enough for the body now, and I got a chisel, mallet and a small clamp to clamp pieces to the work table when routing. I started making the templates out of 6mm MDF yesterday using my friends band saw. Hoping to get a little bit more done on them tomorrow before work, after that I'm going away with work for a few days so it will have to wait until I get back. On the plus side, I then have 4 days off work to try and get loads done. 

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    My friend is halfway through clearing out his man cave, and as a result it took me about 20 minutes to find his jigsaw. I would have cut it before I went there but I bought the MDF sheet on the way to his.

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    Playing around with headstock designs (I can't draw to save my life!), but I'm liking the idea of the 3 circled ones. I'm thinking of using the same headstock design on all my guitar builds.

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    I found a good place for guitar tops as I'm getting far too ahead of myself and thinking about the bass build that I would like to do for my friend. This place is the cheapest I've found by a long shot, but if anyone can recommend anywhere else that would be great. The website is here. The other place that I've found that is here in England is very expensive for woods, website is here.

  7. I've finally found some time to work on the templates! And then proceeded to mess it up! I'm pretty sure I have anyway, but I shall explain below. Work has been pretty bad lately, and my Nan has fallen over twice, once breaking her wrist and the other time she ended up in hospital, but she is making a good recovery so hopefully that translates as more guitar building time!

    Decided that I'll invest in a shorter template router bit, which means I won't need to make 25mm MDF templates and the 16mm MDF sheet is plenty. It's also a lot sharper then the red ones that I bought.

    Had a package arrive today! After opening a package, I found it nicely wrapped up with a bow! It's a Shinto rasp that I ordered from Crimson Guitars, the guy raves about them so I've got high hopes to it. Planning on using it for the neck shaping and 2 bits on the body.

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    The new router bit! Quite looking forward to trying this out! Had to borrow my friends router for it as the one I'm borrowing from my dad uses a bigger shank.

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    I'm borrowing my friends router table (can you see a theme of borrowed tools yet?), which I'll put to good use soonish.

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     I mentioned in an earlier post that I thought the fingerboard had a crack in it that looked like it had been glued. I inspected it a bit better the other day, and it's definitely cracked. Here's a few piccies.

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    Buggered the template up slightly. Any ideas on how to avoid this happening? I've borrowed the router table off my friend in the hope it will make the next template easier to route. Also, not sure why some parts of the template aren't smooth (the 3mm template feels perfectly smooth when running my finger over it).

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    I drew around the 3mm template onto another piece of 16mm MDF, and you can see in the neck pickup pocket where the router bit dug into the template like it did with the neck pocket. This bit will be under the scratch plate so I'm not too worried about it.

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    My friend is on holiday so I'm going round to feed his cats and fish, while I was there I borrowed his bandsaw again and cut out the template as I think the other one maybe knackered.

    Satefy first!

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  8. Cheers guys. My plan is to make the templates as perfect as possible, as if there is an error on them then the guitar will be wrong. So in that respect I'm not rushing them. I've got a lot of time off work next week so I'm hoping to get them all finished and transferred up to the 25mm sheet.

    Don't worry, I'm wearing a dust mask. I've got one of those disposable P3 filter ones that I use for powder coating, but work is on hold until I get hold of some safety glasses, which will hopefully be tomorrow, if not Tuesday.

  9. I know mistakes are all part of the learning curve, but I'm just trying to limit the amount of expensive mistakes (ruining the body blank, for example). I do also realise that being my first guitar, I'm a lot more likely to make mistakes by using the wrong technique and that, but I also appreciate it's part of the learning curve. I just really don't want to make a massive mistake on this build. Prostheta - that's the biggest reason of building an ash bodied Strat, if I really do mess it up then it's not massively bad cost wise, or ruining a nice piece of wood! I really want a nice mahogany bodied thinline Tele with a nice walnut top, if I attempted that as my first build and trashed the wood, I would have been kicking myself, hard!

    Managed to get a bit of work done on the 16mm template yesterday. I've decided not to use the 9mm MDF and go straight to the 16mm. Over the next week I'll get the back template done on the 16mm, use the router on both of them, and get them transferred to 25mm MDF sheets. I've decided to go for the 25mm sheet as my router bit is 25mm long and it means I can take small amounts out of the body on the first pass.

    Onto some pictures! I found the Fostner bits were crap at going through the MDF, they just seemed to get too hot and not much cutting. Forgot to support the holes with some scrap wood and got some blow out on a few holes. The front template is only roughly cut out with the jigsaw, it still needs routing, but I'll do that after I get some glasses as it was a bit windy yesterday and blew dust up into my eyes a couple of times.

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  10. 2.5itim - I'm just worried that as I've spent a fair bit of time on the body so far, that I'm going to completely and utterly mess it up with a router!

    Andy - Thanks! I'm really pleased with how it's joined together, and really glad I took the advice from Pros to redo the joint. I completely messed up the planing but found a guy that did the planing for me, which helped massively and is the only way that I created a decent join.

  11. Don't know what happened to the last post, I think it's likely to do with my browser (Opera) as i couldn't add any text under the quote. 

    I didn't think about the sanding drum issues like that. I was planning on using the router for the cavities that need doing, but now I'm thinking to use it around the edge, as like you say, there is no need to be scared of it and I need to learn at some point. The issue is that I've never used a router before, and I really don't want to mess the body up (at least with the cavities they are hidden under the scratch plate). I think what I'll do is finish up the templates, then practice routing the cavities on some scrap wood before I try on the body, and I'll route the outside of the body after I've had some practice, probably won't be at that stage until next weekend maybe. 

    Simpleone - hope you haven't jinxed it!

    For the body, I was planing on doing it in candy red, but I'l an absolute sucker for flame and quilted maple tops, and now I'm leaning towards a red flame maple top with a black style sunburst around the outside.

  12. 18 hours ago, Prostheta said:

    Avoiding tearout is one thing, however I think that in the longer run it is a good idea to take on routing as a skill....if you avoid it because of the danger of tearout, you don't gain the skills to overcome it. Obviously learn when you're not working on a critical workpiece! Sanding drums will work, however you might go through a lot of sleeves. I'd also recommend some way of securing the bottom of the drum against the drill table; the Jacobs chuck will fall straight as soon as you apply reasonable sideload. A cheap bearing and a couple of washers under the drum will do the trick. 

  13. Thank you for the replies, and even more so for explaining the clamps. I forgot to take them with me as I was in a bit of a rush as I had a few other bits to do when I went out, I'll get them changed over for the 24" forged still clamps in the next day or 2, and for a big chain they are extremely helpful. I've already got 3 of the 36" forge steel clamps, so hopefully with all 5 on the next body that will be enough clamping pressure. TBH, the clamp that failed, I really liked it as it's very lightweight and easy to use, but if it's a poor design for the use (the little holding tab), then they are both definitely going.

    Prostheta - my clamps don't have the big bar along the base like yours do and they kept falling over while trying to clamp the wood. I'm going to create a little holding jig for them when I do the next project. and I'll be checking out the fermi problem as like 2.5timi said above, I also like to learn as much as I can about stuff that I'm doing.

    Popped into Screwfix earlier even though I forgot to take the clamps with me, and picked up some forstner drill bits for the cavities, and the drum sanders for the body edge. I chose this option as I didn't want to risk a tear out when using a router bit. The plan is to use them with my drill press, and I'm hoping to be able to do it in the next few days.

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    • Like 1
  14. 6 hours ago, Prostheta said:

    The main things to watch out for on those bandsaws is stressing the guide bearing mounts. Those tend to be cheap sintered powder metal which will crack under pressure. The frame isn't strong enough to hold high blade tension so wandering and non-vertical cutting is an issue. Take it slow with thicker workpieces and if possible sectionalise your work. It more or less looks like that's what you've done anyway, so good show!

    That body looks a night and day's difference from how it was originally jointed. It's just a real shame that the sash clamp was just poorly made.

    That's an easy fix though, and an "upgrade". Measure the "throw" of the clamp (distance from unscrewed to screwed) and drill a series of holes through the side of the clamp a little shorter than that distance. A steel pin through there provides a physical stop. That's how stronger sash clamps are made up, however that looks like the bar is made of aluminium....? I would straight out complain to the company you bought it from. That's just poor design.

    The bandsaw blade for this particular model is very thin, so I was trying to feed the wood in slowly, and for the corners I did notice the blade wandered a a tiny bit sometimes, so I kept making relief cuts which helped massively. As I've never used a bandsaw before, I watched some videos on YouTube to try and minimise any newbie mistakes on it.

    The other sash clamp is perfectly fine and didn't fail, but this one did for some reason. I did them up as hard as a possibly could to get as much force on the wood as possible. You're correct in that the clamp is aluminium, I'm going back to the shop today to get some drum sander rolls to use with the drill press to do the edge of the body, so I'm going to take that clamp back as well. I'll modify them with what you said next time I use them.

    This is a link to the clamp that failed Clamp

  15. 10 hours ago, SIMpleONe89 said:

    Looking good. How big is that band saw? Are you going to build a neck too? 

    Cheers. I was worried as it's the first time I've ever used a bandsaw, so I'm really pleased with how it turned out. It's not a big one, I would say hobby/small garaged sized, but it did the job perfectly well.

    Yep, the plan is to build the neck as well. I'm going for a 1 piece maple neck and a bubinga fingerboard. As it's my first attempt I want to keep it fairly simple. I'm planning a few builds for the future, some of them will most likely have 5 piece necks, mainly to see if I can do it, and the other is because I really like the look of them.

  16. I've been thinking of maybe doing a thinline Tele build, with a nice walnut top. Won't be for a while though, so I'll keep the wood somewhere safe.

    Finally managed to get some progress on the build! Went to my friends house (the one I got the Jim Root Tele from), fitted the new blade to his bandsaw and rough cut the body out! I couldn't get fully inside the lower horn because the other horn was hitting the post so I need to finish that up with a jigsaw. I was planning on using the template router bit for the edge of the body, as I don't have access to a oscillating sander (I'll get one for future builds at some point), so I was thinking rather then risking tearing out a chunk of the body, would one of those mouse sanders work well for it?

    I cut the body while I was in my work uniform as I went to my friends before work, so that didn't go down well especially when I'm wearing dark trousers. I kept a fair bit of the sawdust for repairs if needed, and also found out that my friend has a router table, which may come in handy.

    Also, those 2 extra clamps I got for the body, I really like them, but one of them is ruined. The locking pin for the sliding part has pushed back far enough to bend the metal, it's still usable as long as the body blanks aren't too big to go in the gap.

    Onto the pictures! First the buggered clamp.....

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  17. Cheers, I'm going to celebrate it by going for a run tonight with my running club in the hope of trying to clear this cold out of my sinuses! It's a complete rock and roll lifestyle haha!

    I'm really pleased with how the wood turned out. I was a little bit tempted to leave it as it's my first build, but I really wanted to do it properly and I'm extremely glad I did, especially with how it's turned out. My friend is off over the weekend so I'm hoping to meet up with him and use his bandsaw to cut the body out.

    When you say they are still usable even though they are a bit too short, how could I still use them? I'm assuming that I can't have them so the grain goes up/down the body rather then across it. I was thinking maybe a thinline Tele (had one on my wishlist for years), with a flame/quilted maple top and twisted Tele pickups.

  18. Well, it's my birthday today and I've received some great news with the wood (even though I was expecting it not to have worked). After I got back from having it planed yesterday, I put glue on it and clamped it up, but I had an issue where the clamps would keep falling over when moving the wood or trying to tighten them, so I was worries it wasn't going to glue OK. I'm in the process of working out a clamp holder that will hold the clamps near upright for the next time I do a body. I also bought 2 more clamps (cheaper, but I actually prefer them) to help apply some more pressure. I've just taken it back to the guy who planed it, and he ran it through his thickness machine and it now looks amazing. The only issue is that the machine is great for taking 5-10mm off at a time, but has a very slight chatter when doing 1mm, so I just need to sand the body completely flat as you can feel the small bumps but not really see them. The body is down to 43mm, which I've worked out should still leave me plenty of room. I think it would have been 44mm if the clamps didnt keep falling over when trying to tighten them up and the body was completely flat on one side.

    I've also picked up a sharpening pad and lapping oil to sharpen my router bits with. The bits that came with my dads router could easily cut my finger, where as my bits feel blunt, so I'll sharpen them before attempting to route anything.

    Also, the guy that planed the body, has a lot of scrap wood that he just burns, especially in the winter to keep the workshop warm, and he had 3 off cuts of mahogany that were due to be scrapped, so he gave them to me. the length of them isn't quite long enough for a Strat body, so not sure how it will work with gluing them, etc. But he said he could get me a piece of ash big enough for 3-4 bodies for around £30 (just above cost price), which was nice of him, especially when this body blank was £47 with postage, and that was the cheapest I had found by a considerable amount.

    Anyway, onto the pictures. I don't I will get much done on it today, but I would like to try to finish up the 3mm template today or tomorrow.

    During and after the clamping (one of the clamps I could get upright for love nor money).

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    After the planing had been done, this is the end result.

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    This is the stuff I'm going to use to sharpen the router bits.

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    And finally this is the mahogany that he gave me, The template is the 6mm one that I messed up at the beginning of the thread.

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  19. I know I know, I messed up very badly! Turns out my dad is awful at woodwork so maybe it's in the genes!

    I've put the wood together, and it's just about ok to fit all the body template on it. I'll double check after its been planed as buying a new body blank is not something I ideally want to do.

    My tip, don't use an electric planer with the cutting blade set to maximum. I'll post an update tomorrow on if the wood can be salvaged for the body or not. Fingers crossed!

  20. Well, I split the wood into separate bits, and completely messed up the planing. I couldn't get the hand plane to cut properly, so I used the electric planer, which turned out to be a massive mistake. I was supposed to be taking to joined wood to a place near me tomorrow to be planed the the right thickness, but I've contacted him today and asked if he can plane the sides for me to join it together, I've put them together and the template still fits, but it's tight in 1 section so hopefully he can sort it out without losing too much wood!

    A few pictures of the mess I made today. Sorry about the mess in the background, my dad is trying to renovate his whole house and does about 4 different jobs at a time and makes a massive mess haha

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  21. Thanks for the replies again! I thought it maybe was a bad glue joint (but excitement got the better of me!), is it because I didn't plane the edges first? I'll start sorting it out tomorrow as I'm now off work, so I guess the correct way of getting them apart is using a jigsaw? I'll also get a couple more clamps for it.

    I've just Googled cathedral rings, I've got the grain rings going in different directions, which I'm guessing is wrong and they should be the same. Here is a picture of the end grain.

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    Regarding the fingerboard, I didn't look at it properly as I had to go to work. I'll take a proper look at it tomorrow, it probably is just the sealing wax and me rushing and showing my inexperience. I read your write up on the radiusing blocks, I'll definitely be ordering one of them when I get to the fingerboard.

  22. ScottR - Thanks for the insight and I didn't consider the routing from the inside out. The way I was thinking was rather then use the 15mm MDF sheet that I already have, and to buy a thicker sheet (maybe 25mm). I haven't properly finished the initial templates yet, so I've got some time to think about which route to take.

    I haven't really done much progress on it this week due to time constraints with work and a family member being rushed to hospital (and now I'm run down and full of cold which isn't helping). I'll try and finish the templates at some point this week, On the plus side, I managed to get the body bits joined together! Only used 2 of the clamps rather then all 3 (all the videos I've watched used 2 clamps, and I was running short on time. I made a mistake and measured the body in cm, but the clamps were listed in inches, and mis-calculated the size of them when I ordered them. They are massive!

    My dad is fitting a new kitchen, so I made the most of it and borrowed his dining room/kitchen storage area for a day when I went round there.

    20160510_180941_zpsmn1pef4s.jpg

    Pictures of both sides of the wood (pictures are bad as it was in the boot of my car)

    20160513_142143_zps1lxwmwdj.jpg

    20160513_142153_zps8iltvmvq.jpg

    I've found a place that has a planer that is wide enough to plane the wood down slightly (one piece is slightly thicker then the other), which is being done on Wednesday.

    The fingerboard arrived today, found a shop on eBay doing them for a good price, and they guy has a website selling loads of bits and pieces Guitars & Woods. He is in Portugal but it arrived in a few days and extremely well packed. There has been some glue applied to what looks like a crack, but it's hardly noticeable and I only noticed it because the glue isn't flat. I reckon that when the fingerboard is planed it will be near impossible to see. The wood is Bubinga  and is a lot darker then the pictures (I had the lights on the hob exhaust unit to get a good pic, and they turned out to be too bright).

    20160514_132515_zpst4xgauds.jpg

    20160514_132507_zpscuedadya.jpg

    The neck arrived today, I've gone for Maple, and from the same seller as the guitar body blank. Completely forgot to contact them directly, as I've heard they do the wood slightly cheaper when selling direct (I went through eBay again). No pictures of that yet.

    I'm just planning ahead here, but when I do the fretboard radius, would this sander make life a lot easier? Radius Sander

    Also, I'm going to be ordering one of these rulers when I start on the neck, looks like it will be really handy! Ruler

    The router bits that I got on eBay don't feel as sharp as the ones that came with my dads router, so when I go get the body wood planed I'll pick up one of the bit sharpening cards and lapping oil. The bandsaw blade has also arrived, so I'll get it fitted to my friends bandsaw at some point. I only managed to find one place that had the right size blade for his machine. I got a 10TPI one, but now after having done some research, I think a 6TPI blade would have been better, so I'm just going to feed in the wood very slowly to avoid any problems.

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