seb

Sounds convincing!

I also had the expectation that such a grit is much to coarse and that it leaves ugly scratches ... however it seems i was wrong - it looks great so far!

I'm curios about the next coats!

Thanks everybody! :-)

Fine tuning of the nut compensation and the electronics are still pending... as usual the last 0.5% to complete the job entirely are waiting weeks and weeks. Anyone familiar with that problem?

Thanks! Congratulations to your excellent guitar builds, Argytar and Massimo!

Thanks to all voters, regardless which one you've voted for.

Great community by the way. Guess I won't leave that place that early.

6 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

In that I generally vote in the end with 'which one would I want to take home with me the most' ,  it's Seb's

Sorry mister, no chance! Thanks for your words. Makes me really happy!

Thanks. MM is great stuff. Did you use it wet or dry?

Wow, that's a gloss! How did you polish it?

Thanks!

On 23.10.2017 at 6:45 PM, Prostheta said:

• Better ROS usage. The machines sand more or less equally from the edge to the centre of the disc, as the orbit is equal at all points. Don't let the machine "hang" over the sides of the workpiece when doing edges. Having maximum pad-to-workpiece contact at all times reduces edge softening.

The gold standard is to use a hard sanding block of course. If you specifically require very sharp edges, that's the way to go. In general I think that most of the solution is in improving machine usage. This is entirely why I prefer the 125mm discs over 150mm discs.

This was for sure a point I did not think about enough as I used the ROS... but next time, thanks very much!

Why ever the sanding block method did not work very well for me this time. Had some issues with big ugly scratches although I've used quality wet sandpaper, soaked it in water (and a drip of detergent) several hours, and took care about not to fold the sandpaper on the sanding block edges. As I've once lacquered a guitar that was no issue...

6 hours ago, Woden said:

I was wondering about the headstock logo. Is that a waterslide decal buried under 2K or did you do something else?

As you say: waterslide decal under 2K

Hi, I´m Sebastian, 31 years old, living in germany near cologne. I have started building electric basses 2 years ago. This one shown here is my first electric guitar. As most of us, I'm already completely obsessed with the topic. Currently I'm building in a small 4qm cellar room at home.

My past and actual build projects are shown on my facebook page. Do not hesitate to have a look and to tell me what you think: https://www.facebook.com/KaemmerGuitars/

'Model 222' is a special guitar dedicated to a special person. On February 22nd my first son was born and my grandfather died. With that in mind I've designed and built this guitar with great passion and dedication.

The idea of the design was to combine the following aspects:

• classical, but not a thoughtless carry over of old habits
• elegant appearance, but not overloaded
• ergonomic playability and lightweight, without a "freaked out" ergonomic shape
• expressive and flexible tonerange

Building time: 02/17 to 08/17
Project Guitar thread of the building process

'Model 222' specifications in short:

• Scale length: 25.5"
• Body: mahagoni, chambered
• Neck: mahagoni, 3 pieces, scarf joint headstock
• Fretboard: mahagoni, 12" radius, hardened, porefilled and lacquered
• Top: "flamed" pear wood
• Pickups handwound
• Tuner: Schaller M6
• Bridge: Hipshot hardtail, string through
• Nut: bone, compensated
• Pickguard: aluminium
• Finish: 2K PUR high gloss
• Total weight: 2.9kg / 6.4lbs

• Flamed pear wood top
• Mahagoni fretboard
• Custom '222' inlay at the 12th fret, aluminium fret dots
• Aluminium pickguard

• Drop top at the armrest:
• Thickest part of the body is 37mm

• Custom control knobs recessed in the aluminium pickguard
• Volume pot with push-pull for SC split
• Tone pot with push-pull as cap switch (gives a warmer, mellower mid range tone)

• Contour shaped backside for a pleasent feeling
• Matched electronics cavity cover

• Three piece mahagoni neck, the middle strip is turned over for a improved neck robustness towards weather changes
• Asymmetric medium v-shaped neck profile
• Scarf jointed headstock with volute and veneer on the backside

• Compensated bone nut
• Matched headstock veneer
• Aluminium trussrod cover

Photographs made by Martin Christ

I've filmed myself assemblying the guitar and made a short time lapse video of it - enjoy:

Let me know if you like the guitar.

Best regards!

Sebastian

Polishing with "Rotweiss 1100" paste applied with a polishing pad attached to the random orbital sander for the larger surfaces again. The remaining parts were polished by hand with a microfiber cloth, which worked out much easier and faster I had expected:

12 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Wow, they're really haunting you! Quite likely it is to do with the solvents in the dye and finish. They probably migrate out through the wood differently near the thinner chambered areas, leaving a temporary shadow. Also, the wood may be swelling slightly differently around the chambering, so you should probably leave the workpiece a few days when sanding the finish level; flattening it in its slightly swollen state might again reveal the chambering when the vapours offgas.

Yes, that was also my presumption. I guess it predominantely came from the waterbased stain. The wood above the channels just got too thin, such that each drip of water or which solvent ever lead to a swelling of the wood. However, there were a few days between spraying and sanding the primer coat (this documentary is lagging...). And by now it seems that I've won this battle.

A long story short... in total 3 further coats of 2K lacquer have been applied... and, lacquering means in truth: the fun part of spraying takes about seconds and the most time you are cleaning your spray gun or you are sanding.

To make the labourious part of sanding faster and easier I've found out what works pretty well for me: dry sanding starting with 3M soft pads (medium), Mirka Abranet 400 & 600, and Mirka Abralon 800, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000. For the large surfaces like the front and the back I use the Mirka pads with my random orbital sander, the rest is done by hand. This stuff is absolutely worth its money and i can recommend them unconditionally (no, I'm not sponsored ).

I think these photos were take at a stage of 3000 or 4000:

For sanding in between the frets I've made these wedges laminated with the 3m soft pads:

d

Yes, mistakes happen ... and they even have advantages as long we learn from doing them. Heard from several professional builders that mistakes happen even after years. But they know exactely how to fix them or to find elegant work arounds.

Here you can see my open air spray booth... extraction, heating, and lighting provided by 100% renewable energies.

I'm using 2K polyurethane for this guitar.... started with a primer filler:

Intermediate sanding after the base coat.... wah, what the heck? As I've started sanding the stripes came up again ...

... however, after a few minutes of sanding the stripes became history:

Then I've sprayed the top with highly diluted and yellow tinted clear lacquer:

Thank you guys. I'm happy that you like it. It means a lot to me!

11 hours ago, gpcustomguitars said:

Excellent work, nice and clean! I like that you're including skills other than only woodworking, Your pickguard looks great, any more pics of it and it's making?

No sorry, but there will follow a few pics of the finished guitar. The pg design started with a rough hand drawing, then I've refined it in detail on my computer with inkscape. I've printed out this drawing and glued it to the aluminium sheet. Then roughly cut out the pickguard with a fretsaw, filed and sanded it to the final shape. The recess for the neck pickup was done by drilling two holes of 14mm diameter with a step drill. Then again sawing, filing and sanding to bring the recess into final shape. Then the sanding marks were done as shown above with 180 grid. Finally the pickguard was lacquered with a thin coat of 2K PUR.

Let's do the finish....

...started with porefilling the mahagoni parts. This time I tried it with 2K epoxi:

Sanding back the epoxi was a terrible job. Especially sanding at the end grain felt like a never ending story. Next time I would use pumice & shellac or wood paste again.

A next I gave the top and headstock veneer an amberish colore tone mixing different waterbased stains (Clou "yellow R" and "oak medium"). In fact I wanted to achieve just an enhancement of the natural color of the pear wood. I was happy with that ... however, I've played around too long with the stain and probably used to much water. As you can see at the armrest, the channels routed at the backside of the top became visible Damn, close to tears... have i just destroyed my guitar?

Decided that the only solution is to sand off the stain as good as possible and to renew it in a quick manner, using water just as little as possible. The luck was on my side again...

Then I've designed and made a pickguard and trussrod cover out of a aluminium sheet (1.5mm). Brought it into shape with a fretsaw, files and sandpaper. Lastly I've created longitudinal sanding marks on it:

Time to bring together all the parts and to verify if everything fits together as required (it did ):

On 11.10.2017 at 6:49 PM, eubie said:

... and can't wait to see some finish on it.

Ready to go!

Turn, turn, turn... it was time to do some pickup winding. For that job I use an old sewing machine housed in plywood box. The rotations are counted with a bicycle speedometer (setup such that 1 turn equals 1 meter).

Potted the single coil in front simply with CA glue. Potting of the humbucker coils outstanding on this photo:

Potted, mounted and secured with tape:

... and chrome covered:

T-Style Neck single coil:
- AWG42
- AlNiCo5
- 9000 windings ~ 6.3kOhm

Bridge humbucker:
- AWG42
-AlNiCo5
- 5700/4300 windings ~ 4.5/3.4kOhm
- the stronger coil is used for the SC split

Hey guys, the old weathered wood was just the template and in fact nothing else than a coated piece of MDF.

A thing I've missed in my last update... did you notice that the bridge humbucker is mounted frameless and directly to the top?

I did the routing "underground" to the top with a router of 35mm in diameter. This was really a scary job... one wrong movement and the top would have been destroyed. Looking back this was really a reckless job, so next time i will route the cavity before glueing on the top...

As next the electronics cavity got a fold and a matched cover made of a leftover piece of the body:

Then the body's backside got shaped. I liked the idea of a sharp edged top with a soft shaped ergonomic backside. What do you think?

For me this worked out pretty well. The guitar sits very comfortably against my body, it's a very pleasant feeling.

While doing the shaping I was a bit afraid to expose the inner chambering. But the plan took off or better to say the luck was on my side.
By the way, the thickest part of the body is merely 37mm, in the center region and the electronics cavity (such that it just takes a push-pull pot).

Very cool body chambering!

The guitar seems to work out pretty well, exemplary documentation. Great experience for you and your boys for sure.

I'm curios about the drill press jig. Thought about this too these days...

Thank you guys, that's nice to read.

Had some concerns about the binding because of the bend. But it worked out without any problems. Using a heat gun the binding gets easily formable. I've first formed the binding all around the body without any acetone and fixed it with masking tape every 5cm or so. Then I went around bit by bit dripping just a bit of aceton between the binding and the wood with the pipette, kept it pressed a few seconds with my fingers (use gloves!) and then fixed it with additional masking tape.

Hmm, thanks now I'm having an incredible desire to drink a cold beer in the sun and to burst a guitar.  Unfortunately this will be the case earliest in about 6 months.

Routed the neck pocket and neck pu cavity... and determined the hipshot bridge position and drilled the string-through holes:

Then the binding channel was routed. Specially for this task I've built this simple router lift jig. It's required to get a vertical / perpendicular channel at the curve of the "droptopped" arm rest.

Glued the binding with acetone:

Scraped the binding flush and rewarded myself with a look at the wetted topwood.

It's a bit of both experience and experimentation. Could not find much discussion about it, too... So every time a friend comes by with his guitar I grap the chance to capture the neck dimensions (width, thickness, etc.) and it's profile. This improves my understanding what influences the neck feeling and what works for me or not. So I came to the point that asymmetric necks improve the playability. Of course, this is a personal thing which cannot be generalized.

The neck shown above is still part of a "long-time experiment" Next time I would leave there a bit more material at the shoulders. Or, even better, trust my feeling while carving the neck instead following a drawing done beforehand on computer based on theoretical assumptions.

Actually I'm also building a strat replacement neck for a friend of mine. He has a rough idea about the neck profile. When it comes to the final shaping of the profile we will do it together. (he says how the neck works for him, I'll carve until he's happy ) That will be exciting... could get time-consuming, since the strings should be on to get realistic impression how the neck profile works. ...anyway, it's fun time!

Thanks!

It was a blessing in disguise that no bones or nerves were injured. Thumbnail is growing again and the scar is a good warning reminding me constantly to take care. Playing and building guitars does not work without fingers.

Most fun for me is always shaping the neck profile and transition to the headsteck and heel.

These are the tools I use for that job: shinto saw rasp for the rough work, sometimes a spokeshave, several Iwasaki files (these are great!), scrapers and sanding paper.

The neck profile is a bit unusual, I call it a asymmetrical medium V-shape. It feels great and enables a comfortable playability. Sure, it's a matter of taste...

Yes, I'm sure that pumice is a vulcanic rock since. I'm living in the volcanic Eifel and pumice is a well known product from here. I think the finer the granulation the better it works as a pore filler. Actually I'm using "extra fine, 000, 0-40µ" and I'm fine with that.

Like Prostheta said, put it into a pepper shaker .. and imagine you're salting a pizza. Then use your applicator of choice to apply the truoil (kitchen towel in my case). I guess it's not necessary to additionally use fine sandpaper since there is enough slurry due to the pumice itself and its abrasive effect, too.

Could not observate a shrinking by now. I've also heard from guys using pumice with shellac to fill the pores before lacquering with NC or 2K. and being happy with that.

100 points to Zoltar and Scott!

As I guess mahagoni is too soft for a fretboard I've hardened it with a flood of CA glue (ensure good ventilation and eye protection!). The fretslots were protected from CA with teflon stripes with a thickness equaling the frettang (0.5mm):

After the CA glued has dried the fretboard was level-sanded again. Then i hammered in the fretwirewith a deadblow:

I also did the fretend dressing already at this stage since i wanted to avoid to do this job after the lacquer is applied and probably scratching it. The sidedots are made of a 3mm carbon fiber with 2mm plasticrod inserts:

The backside of the headstock got a wenge/mahagoni veneer, so the headstock is about 15mm thick. While cutting off the overhanging veneer I've unfortunately chiseled my thumb into two pieces leading to a long afternoon at the emergency room *idiot!* . Be so careful with sharp handtools (and machinery of course, too!). Anyway, in the evening I've sanded the veneer flush to the headstock shape... :

This wood grain pops out just so gorgeous!

For filling the grain I've made good experiences using pumice powder. Just spread a bit of it on the wood and apply the tru-oil. The mixture fills the pores transparently/clearly (after drying). Probaply a second application is necessary but then it should be fine. For woods with large pores this works more efficient than the slurry tru-oil/sanding dust mixture.