Danstinyexplorer

Here’s a black one in the rough, not so sure about this one either! I think I’ll flip a coin and stick one of them on for now whilst I keep an eye out for a suitable piece of walnut to to make one that matches the neck.........maybe!

I’ve rough cut a black one too but Can’t seem to decide. Will stick another image up when I catch a quiet moment

The front has me in a pickle. Not sure if the spangly gold is too much. I kind of like it in its sparkly silliness!

I passed a blow torch over it until the resinous parts turned black, gave it the lightest sanding then dropped some stain on.. followed it with danish oil and osmo wax

I’m scratching out my first full size guitar. Going for a ludicrous glam rock feel!

Hang on a minute.... The big one that I’m growing is 24 1/2” this one is a pocket sized 20” scale!

Suddenly My fondness for a light neck is restored!

I’m thinking I might try and darken up that bright neck, going to have a read about black dyes over lunch. Can anybody give me an insight into wether or not it would stay dark or would I expect to see it gradually reverting back again?

It has a 24 1/2” scale. Purely because as somebody who knows next to nothing about the how’s and why’s of guitar building I simply put a tape measure over little mans children’s acoustic guitar and copied the length of that!

Here’s a new little toy I’ve been chipping away at. It’s a mahogany mantle piece mated to a hard maple chair leg! Just thrown it into one piece this morning to check all is well before finer finishing etc. Its for my 11 year old and also fits in our big rucksack so will come camping with us etc. It’s a touch more planned out than my last attempt but still mostly made up as I went along.

Hello For all my hunting about online I can't seem to find a couple of neck dimensions. I'd ideally like to avoid a train ride to a music shop clutching a measuring stick! Can anybody here run a tape measure around a fairly meaty neck at the first fret and tell me a circumference? I'm building something with a Strat sized neck but wanting to build it deep and meaty with a fairly flat D shaped profile. As I only have some oddball instruments about the house I have no real world template to work to. Any pointers would be most gladly received Ta

Because the string spacing is particularly narrow mr Almuse built a Phatbird mandolin casing with magnets that would normally live in a ukulele . This is 10mm across the poles where his ukulele pickups are 12 or 14mm. It is so much louder and smoother than the one that came out. It arrived within 2 working days of ordering and I wasn’t charged any extra for having it built......dead pleased with everything about the little transaction, top notch!

I’ve been thinking I would like to make a bigger hollow body guitar at some point so did a spot of mucking about/scaled down prototyping with some scraps of pitch pine and mahogany. Ended up with a super light body which has some large cavities in there. Fitted the home made bridge which was a bastard to get into the correct place using hidden screws from the back, all in now though after making some rotating posts with offset holes through the middle that allow some addistment of the bridge position whilst staying invisible. I bought a ocustom pickup from Pete at Almuse, he is an absolute diamond and well worth speaking to if 4 strings are your thing. A bit of fettling is needed here nd there but I suspect it’s evolution is nearing completion. I’ve learned a few things through trial and error but am starting to get the gist of what this guitar building lark is all about. Gearing up for A 3/4 size build soon....... to

Errrrrr.... Have you never seen a harmonising crystalline pulse generator before?

Good thinking, I’ll dig into mandolin parts and see what surfaces. I started making this little fellow this evening. I’ve no idea if it will change the sound in any way but I thought it would look cool either way!

Good thinking, I’ll dig into mandolin parts and see what surfaces. I started making this little fellow this evening. I’ve no idea if it will change the sound in any way but I thought it would look cool either way!

String spacing over the pickups is about 11mm. Not a size I would have ended up with if I had given the project any forethought! The head was a little thin and as a result quite easy to knock out of tune. I whacked a bit of ebony veneer on top which gives the tuners a bit more support and hides the join where I sawed it up and extended it. Ive still got to finish that bone nut but need to come up with something to slot it with in absence of the correct tools.

So I got rid of the plastic tone knob and knocked up a new one from a lump of African Blackwood. So it’s not very shiny but you may have noticed I’m more rustic than glossy, it suits me fine this way! I found some Victorian bone crochet needles which I put to good use as fret markers ( is that what they are called?). I did this in totally the wrong order, I’m sure 99% of people probably cut frets and drill holes in the fingerboard before it is glued to the neck but hey, who likes convention anyway? I’ve still got a 3 pole pickup in there, I need to hunt about for a four string version really, hopefully something with a bit more grunt. I can’t say I really know where to look for options here, any pointers would be gratefully received.

Well it sounds 100x better now with twice the sustain. Above maybe the 8th fret it sounded a bit woolly before but it rings very nicely now. I was wondering if I would need a fret levelling tool, as it stands my broomstick press worked a treat, they all seem flat to me with no buzz or dead notes anywhere. I’m really rather pleased. I should really get that bone/tusk nut finished and get a wooden tone knob made now. To think a child’s toy has become such a long winded project!

The slots are all perfect apart from the aforementioned last fret which is not 100% solid and a bit wonky. I’ll run a drop of thin super glue into it and it will be fine. I was a bit nervous about fitting frets but I really quite enjoyed it, On such a small fingerboard it was fairly easy but I can imagine the extra width of a full sized one would be a challenge without a good cutting guide. Just smoothing off the craggy ends now and we are going to bolt her together and crank her up!

So I bought a fretting saw and started scratching out some cuts. After marking out the scale I fannyed about with a few bits of timber to make a cutting jig but in the end decided to just cut it by hand. With the exception of the last 2 frets (which were cut at 2.30 in the morning after a few to many drinkies) I was quite happy how it ended up. In true Dan style I chopped up a bit of broomstick and used a sqeezy clamp as a fret press. The fretboard is flat on this but when I first sanded it I put a gentle radius on the edges. Now there is four strings they run a bit close to the edges so I had to curl the frets around the edges in a mildly quirky manner. I couldn’t find a hammer so tapped them round with the metal handle of my trusty Gilbow tin snips! Frets went in nice and clean, just need to buzz the edges off and clean them up, fingers crossed the whole thing is going to really come to life now.

Maybe fossilised was a bit over eager. It is truly ancient, maybe not quite from the age of the dinosaurs. It just about cuts with a very sharp saw, my blade is distinctly unimpressed though! Yes the North Yorkshire coast is fabulous isn’t it? I guess moose country is not without a degree of majesty though!

So I lopped half the head off and created a more shapely one in order to fit a fourth string. The old one looked pretty shit too so pleased how it has come out. Setting it up a bit differently using super slinky's in D, G, B & E. I had read that thicker gauge strings were best for something this small, in reality it sounded muffled and fairly pants, these sound so much better now. Next job is to scratch out a new nut, this one was made with a bit of african blackwood which was the best thing I had in the shed at the time. I have been rummaging and have found this piece of fossilised bone that I found on the Beach at Robin hoods bay some years ago, It seems a fitting use for it. I have an old lapidary wheel which I'm going to use to crudely shape it as its a bit hard for my files.

Im glad there are no rules as I made it up as I went along without doing any reading first. It’s stumpy little neck does mean it needs fairly heavy strings which need to be tuned to A. With normal tuning it sounds like a bass!