mistermikev

so... given that it's regularly over 110 degrees here... have been doing anything but finishing my templates in the garage so... spent a little thought on this the other day: cross section of what would be a flip-able 30" radius jig for radiusing the front/back of a guitar. the blue squares are the rails from my router sled jig and are mounted on carriage bolts that can move up/down. yellow are cleats that would connect two radiused rails. this jig has a 'rate of change' of .8" from center to edge on a 14" body. ie a 2" body blank would result in a 1/2" radiused body. I think that is too much but am unsure what would be a 'typical' radius for a guitar face/back.... anyone have advice on this?

that is a beauty. nice work. I appreciate the encouragement... leaving that in the 'someday' bin. can't wait to see how this one turns out!

that lacewood guitar above... huba huba. I'm going to watch this thread for sure... not that I'll ever build an acoustic but I'm betting there is a ton of stuff an avg joe like me can take away from it. Still trying to wrap my head around the taper above!;)

like how you used the natural stripe in the grain to line up with the toggle... looks nice.

thank you sir! I couldn't hand over the money fast enough!

so... for lunch today I decided to check out a new lumber yard nearby... the guy at the desk told me they didn't have any figured woods. I asked to take a walk about anyway. low and behold... 8/4 rough flamed maple in the soft maple pile - 2 pieces 9ft long. asked for a price: $4bf. one piece is 5" and the other is 7.5". I was all set to build the neck for this build out of some 4/4 flamed maple with no neck angle... because I still have not found a band saw that can tackle the 12/4 7" mahog I have... not anymore! also - I fully recognize that I have a problem. I have an unhealthy need to buy more wood than I can use. I'm going to try to work on that. also my wife may kill me as my wood pile is growing so if you don't hear from me - now you know why.

that is a very interesting/clever trick. thank you for sharing it!

so... question: the top for this is 1/16-1/8 - probably closer to 3/64. I know how to joint the two edges... but am not sure how I'm going to get good clamping pressure without tearing or buckling the top? would love some advice. my current plan would be to clamp one piece down to a 3/4 piece of mdf with a channel cut for the seam. use 2x4 to keep it flat. then place the other side and put bar clamps across... adding 2x4 to keep it flat. the mdf with the seam would be a little short of the edges so the bar clamps can overhang.

nothing revolutionary - just describing how I made the templates for neck/neck-pocket and control cavity. in the pics above you can see(leftmost) the 1/4 template for the neck and neck pocket... the grey line around the neck is epoxy. those are two separate pieces that pull apart and the pocket template is a nice mirror of the neck template - no gaps. that's all. I know there are lots of ways to make a neck pocket that is a mirror of the neck... but this method doesn't require much skill and that's perfect for me!

well boys... I'm afraid nothing much too look at yet as I've been focused on my templates... just a few more moves to do there and I can start choppin' up mahog/flamed maple. In the meantime, just thought I'd share a glamor shot of my templates: have been working on perfecting the epoxy template method for anyone who cares: the process is - 1)make my neck template (for instance) then 2) trace it onto something else and cut out about 1/16 around it. 3) put down wax paper, put two layers of masking tape around the neck-template edges, clamp everything in place flat, fill the gap between neck-template and neck-pocket-template with epoxy. I guess the proof will be in the puddin'. thanks for looking! next steps (this helps me keep on track): transfer the neck-pocket template to the body-template. transfer control-plate-pocket template to body-template drill holes for control plate mount and knobs into control plate template.

that's a good tut. thanks for that!

compound radius... naw... not tackling that one! std radius is complicated enough for this simpleton! Thanks for posting tho, looking at it - I admit - I have no idea how that works!

is it me or does that finish just keep getting better! pics really show how it changes depending on the light. what a nice job. your elbow must be titanium!

looks pretty cool. that wood looks really cool. design suits it well. looking fwd to it!

it would seem like routing binding as usual and then building some kind of wall around the outside might be the only hope for me given my skill set. I guess if you wrapped the guitar in 3 or 4 layers of tape... then cut the binding, then taped on a card stock barrier to the outside of your already taped guitar - you could build up a little more channel in hopes that you could sand it back and be left with a fairly uniform binding... in theory. would almost have to build a test body to attempt... and then it's getting to be enough work that just doing binding might be easier for a one-off. thanks for the input guys! good idea on the purfling tho... that could work!

thank you sir. that is a very thorough pictorial on that jig and def some good ideas there. it's really similar to the scheltema jig. this vid is another variation on the scheltema... being used to profile that back of the neck but I assume it could be also used for the fretboard radius perhaps w some modification.

wow, some good info there. I was wondering how some got those razor sharp mitres. was gonna use my chopsaw (jk). note to self to build a drill press binding cutter. excellent idea. the mold - does offer a spark... perhaps I can create tiny little cloud pieces around a radius cut out of some sort. or perhaps just use the actual and warm them up and press a mirrored piece on them and let them cool down. "My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives." - hedley lamarr thank you!

thank you sir... changed my mind on it a thousand times. at one point was going to go with faux abalone binding and inlay but then thought "abalone clouds??! that just isn't right" so switched to pearloid. now if I can just get the actual to meet the theoretical! on a side note, another challenge I'm realizing: the tip of the headstock. I can't see inlay being one continuous piece there due to the strong angles on the 'cloud'. If I cut it into small pieces I'm not sure I won't have issues with them sticking. at this point am considering ending the binding and leaving the center 3 'humps' un bound but that feels like quitting before you start. all advice on that point would be welcome.

hehe... that would be a real honor. I've got to think it through at least a thousand more times before I make a move but... will do.

what a beauty... really nice burl, amazing work.

thank you for confirmation norris!

so this is what I'm basically shooting for... I used pics of my actual top and my actual tailpiece here so... going to be fairly hollow: got a few templates made so far... challenges: I'm a little unsure how my binding transition between neck and headstock should play out. ideas include A. trying to put a slight angle on the headstock and keep the transistion straight(only have 7/8" material so... i don't know. don't really want to glue in a scarf either so... maybe not. B. just cut the headstock binding channel while the headstock is full thickness and simply stop the binding at a point close to the transistion. C. I'm doing a headstock overlay... could bind it prior to install or cut it short to make the binding channel (I believe this is what norris did?). next step: make the body route template. ... and templates galore: some wood pile shots: UPDATE: *-==========08/09/18==========-* so... I've broken ground. starting off at 6lbs 7oz... that is fairly light for 2" frican mahog, yes? all for now. UPDATE: *-==========08/12/18==========-* made a little more progress this weekend... 1 outta 2 ain't bad: toggle cavity control plate worked swiimmingly - that dewalt saw is awesome... used a bigger saw for the other cavity but failed as the blade was too thick... so I'll have to pickup some 1/8" mahog for that. revealed some nice grain planing down my neck blank... UPDATE: -==========08/20/18==========- obligatory forstner shot and after some work with the bowl bit... down to 2lbs 9 oz started to work on joining the top... with the bit taking off 1/16" on either side... =====================update 08/21/18 mr natural: you da man. used your trick for gluing up my super thin top. worked like a charm! Here's a shot of the top being held down by a bunch of slate tile. UPDATE: -==========08/26/18==========- glued my top on... used my dremel to cut the inlay channels in my fretboard... final product... routered off the excess on my top... sounds great when you finger drum on it! no puppy toys were harmed in the making of this photo... UPDATE: -==========09/03/18==========- so did binding this weekend... went pretty good all things considered. I taped/dry-fitted and bent the binding first... using a hair dryer (heat gun is just too much for binding I think). Then I used ca glue to go around the body again and pry-apart/glue/re-tape. and a closeup... started carving down my neck too... I still haven't round a good bandsaw so I used a jig saw. This meant a lot of excess to remove... so I just used a straight edge and multiple passes to prevent blowout. one step closer! update 10/1/18 Update 10/21/18 update 12/15/18 ======================================================DONE!

I'd give you a 100 thanks if I could. Answered may of my questions -one being the length of the radius. thank you soo much for the awesome pics. also... is that snakewood? you gotta be kidding me! I have seen variations where the router is fixed to the jig, and the jig moves on a set of fixed pvc pipes(or other) - this is what I was planning but you've got me 99% convinced it is not the way to go. So now I am thinking to build the bearings version like yours... but to make the radius part flip-able. I'm fixated on flip-able because it would allow me to build caul, sanding block, and scale up to do the top/back of guitar. my plan was to use aluminum fastened via bolts (for track rails) so that I could adjust the base height and conquer the issue of radius length/proximity (for the most part). could work for either version. I'm sorry, w/o a drawing I doubt very much of this would make sense to anyone other than me... just thinking out loud here.

Right on, great video. I'm kind of dead set on the idea of building something because I can't afford aluminum radius blocks in all the radius' I would want!