JimF
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Posts posted by JimF
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Great info thanks!
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Aaaaand we have frets!
Ebony is a nightmare to work with. Ended up using a triangular needle file and putting a chamfer on the top of the slot. Everything else went pretty good! Found is easier to work one side to another, rather than left-right-middle. I think I was fighting the barbs of the fret tangs, trying to make them go sideways to counteract their radius. All sorted now!
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Ssssshhhh nobody is supposed to notice that dot!
But yes its winding the cock off me lol. That's great advice thank you. I'll try that!
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As per the title, slow progress, but progress nonetheless. I've made a point with this project that whenever I start getting impatient or slightly frustrated, or tired, I stop. This is when I make mistakes (learned this the hard way from knifemaking). As a result of this its meant that I've been literally weeks without doing anything. A new job in October hasn't helped either.
BUT its starting to look even more like a guitar, and I'm over the moon. I was never sure about the padauk in the neck since switching to a walnut body but now its oxidised more to a rich brown rather than a disco orange I'm falling in love with it. Very pleased with myself haha!
Now for pics!
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Thanks!
that had crossed my mind but on the practice body I ended up running too close and nicking the body in several places so was playing it safe.
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Pictures are self explanatory really: I tackled the neck, added the truss rod, fretboard and glued all together, flush trimmed it to suit the neck, then made a start on the body. Rough cut to shape (in the end I decided to go for Side B, but inverted), did a few passes with the router then stopped for the night. The next day my Dad was round, and he is Mr Precision (time served engineer) so got him to assist with the inlays, hence why the body is stopped mid progress! The fretboard inlays have a dab of superglue, and the side markers are held in by optimism and wishful thinking.
Pics!
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Thanks! I'm sure to go super careful with this body and also avoid having any highly figured bits near the edges.
I'll probably shelve this body until I end up with a piece to add to it, or a spare neck!
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Just to clarify, the poplar blank above will be going in the bin, its only approx 30mm thick, and not got a great surface finish. I'll just use it for routing practice (cavities etc), the walnut is a full body blank and will be cut & routed shortly.
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More progress. As I'm extremely pleased with the walnut blank I have, and don't want to have to do any more thicknessing, problem solving etc, I've decided to do a practice body to make sure I'm fully comfortable with routing this before I attack the walnut.
Pretty pleased with the results on the warped tulip poplar blank!
A few cheeky mock ups with the neck blank to remind me what it is I'm making
I just need to decide which side of the blank to have as the face.
A
B
I was leaning towards B, but now i'm thinking that A, whilst not having the lighter flash, will actually take on more character when oiled (from experience). I may even invert A so I get that lovely flamey section in the control area, but that knot may make routing the lower horn tricky...
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Managed to get it salvaged!
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Yep! Nail on head there. I didn’t want to take a full depth cut, but the nature of the bearing cutter and thickness of my template kind of forced my hand there.
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Thanks! That's the plan. Not sure whether to fine tune it this weekend or wait until the neck is more complete (i.e. fretboard on and fretted).
To be honest I don't think I can bear looking at it! I'll be sorting that shortly.
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Recently routed the neck shape, truss rod channel, and rough cut the headstock. Pleased with the results and pleased with how my budget router is performing.
A little off centre, but who's checking!Ended up buying another body blank, glued and planed to thickness, so all that needs to be done is routing. Went for black walnut and bought blind, was pleasantly surprised when it arrived.
I think I'll end up using the side with the lighter flash, and use that at the bottom/bridge end of the guitar. The other side is relatively interesting, but the colouring between the two pieces is too different, and also the interesting swirls will end up being lost when the shape is cutout. Very pleased with this body blank, and I am planning to do an oil finish, no stain or anything.With this whole build, I've tried to remain philosophical about the whole thing: yes I've chosen some tricky woods for a first build BUT I have woodworking experience, as does my father, and he is a skilled engineering consultant. The philosophical approach helped me when the first body blank went wrong, as I just kept in mind that my goal was to make a guitar, NOT to make a guitar with those particular pieces of wood; and anything wrong that happens is part of the learning curve, and part of my journey towards reaching the goal of finishing the project. If at one point we have some disasterous event, then that was always going to happen, and its a learning opportunity.Which brings me neatly onto my next set of photos, entitled "Tearout Tuesday":
It can be safely said that I don't like Padauk as a wood to work with. It seems to be unpredictable whereas my experience with the Wenge is that it is hard hard hard hard, it seems consistent. This Padauk will cut beautifully, and then have massive tearout.I'm not making a full tribute Blackmachine replica guitar so modifying the headstock shape slightly was always on the cards as the piece I scarfed onto the neck wasn't long enough. This just means it will take longer.I'm not discouraged, just a little frustrated. Most likely its occurred with interlocking grain and on radiuses where I perhaps should have gone in the opposite direction. Like I said, its all a learning experienced. -
Well its been a frustrating week. My progress has been as follows:
Thickness guitar body -> confirm body is perfectly flat, smooth & level -> look away for 5 seconds -> body has warped.
Now I'm not sure if its the current heatwave/humidity here in the UK, the wood itself, or some other hidden reason.
I'm pretty sure I'll be scrapping this body. It's already almost down to 30mm and that's much thinner than I wanted. Life's too short to mess around so I guess this will be going to the wood carving pile.
So I'm on the lookout for a pre-thicknessed body blank!
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Hey mate! I certainly did get it from a Chinese eBay seller. Took a risk but it seems pretty good!
Andy - thanks! Hopefully the fretboard and neck wood choices will pay off!
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Slow progress...Wasn't overly impressed with the results from the Safe-T Planer. No real issue with the product, I just think the bearings in my bench drill have seen better days, leading to play and a not-so-good surface finish. Also the working 'throat' of the bench drill now setup as a planer meant I would need to find another way to thickness my body blank.Most of the planer thicknessers were either insanely expensive or only had a 11"-12" max width. Now my body blank is 12"-13" so things were against me.I decided to make a router thicknesser jig!I've always been a big fan of the most complicated way of doing a simple thing, but here it is:
It works well! and with molegrips to avoid any unwanted movement, I've a pretty damn good setup! I've already ran the neck blank through this (more on this later!) and decided to make a start on the body tonight.
One thing I realised was when standing at the table, was just how close my balls were to the router. Having heard horror stories, I decided I needed to protect the boys.
Not quite bulletproof, but should provide peace of mind at least! And there's more protection than before!Spent a decent amount of time tonight on it, playing with it, tweaking, setting it up etc, and managed to two a good two or so passes over the entire body width. This takes longer than you think!
My plan is to keep on with the passes, and get it down to approx 32mm. Then flip it and do a pass on the back as the blank is ever so slightly cupped. I believe most Blackmachine guitars are 30-35mm thick, and I have a 5mm maple top to add to this. I also have a guitar with a 40mm body and because it is heavily contoured on the back it feels pretty thin. I suppose with the blank currently being about 46mm I should have this down to a working final thickness by October :DAlso, I mentioned earlier on about the neck blank; tonight started with gluing that up! With plenty of excess wood at either end, I believe we're going to be okay with this. Quietly confident with this, or, more humbly, not concerned with potential errors.
I think I earned this!
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Thanks! Phew! Remembered I need to take the fretboard thickness into account so need to remove another approximately 6mm from the neck blank. Going to try and borrow a thicknesser as I’m not a fan of the Safe-T-Planer on larger pieces.
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Thanks!
Realised I’ve done an 11degree scarf instead of 7 as per the norm for BM style builds. Can’t see it being an issue but want to research a bit just in case before I glue anything up
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Overdue update, but I'm determined not to rush things. I've also sold my car, bought a new one, resigned, job hunted and then started a new job - so plenty on my mind & to keep me busy!Pictures are pretty self explanatory, but that's never stopped me waffling before!First pic is the obligatory layout photo, showing the padauk strips, wenge centre, and white mystery veneer strips. Why mystery veneer I hear you say? Because I forgot what I ordered. The laminates were cut on the bandsaw, before being trued up with the Safe-T-Planer, planes, spokeshave and scrapers, each used in differing orders with varying degrees of success.
Glue applied liberally, and then clamped up, I applied a secret weapon to stop the veneers curling as they were glued...
Staples!
It was then brought into the house, and left in the dining room to be forgotten about and subsequently tripped over.
A few days later it was time to straighten everything out, make sure it was true and flush.N.B. Wenge is brutally hard compared to what I'm used to with my knifemaking history! I thought maple was hard!
Artistic shot, including delicious looking curls
Off centre, I know, but starting to look more like it should!
Sanding belt cut, and then double-side-taped to the bench for sanding on a larger scale
Distance shots including messy bench! If your bench/workshop isn't messy, are you even making progress?...
Scarf angle measured!
Then cut on the bandsaw, then sanded on the bench mounted paper. Then to the belt sander as the guard worked as a handy guide at the correct angle.
There's a slight low spot at the nearest edge (hence the curve in the line) but I'm not overly concerned about this at this stage.Then I started with the piece I intend to scarf onto the neck blank. This was about 50mm thick, so I ran it through the bandsaw, then due to inexperience/lack of attention/not enough coffee, it ended up slanted/wedge shaped and needed correcting.Out came the Safe-T-Planer setup including the trusty old-shelf rest.My fence/guard for the setup was the same height as the piece of wood I was working on. So I got the double sided tape, and fixed two offcuts to the base to even it up (after sanding flat & true). Sanded again on the bench mounted paper, and ran it through the planer.
Action shot - mind your fingers!
Back to the bench-sandpaper, to remove any marks
And a bit of light sanding later:
Then a cheeky mock up - Looks alright I think!
Not bad progress for a weekend in my opinion! -
Thanks! I’ve been searching too and have already bought the acetone and also some 0.6mm veneer to help the two adhere to each other.
As long as white PVA wood glue will ok I think I’m good to go!
test glue is a fantastic idea. I’ll try that shortly.
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Ok - stupid question number one. When gluing neck strips together, I’m alright to use white PVA aren’t I? Im finding conflicting info online, and I hate using epoxy.
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I just want to touch it and feel it!
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100% Same thing with me. It gives you the larger gap between pickups a 22fret guitar has but visually looks better.
JimF's First Build!
in In Progress and Finished Work
Posted
We now have level frets! Just need to re-crown them now. I'm not going to lie, this hasn't been my favourite part of the process.
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