ADFinlayson

well hold the phone! I made the bridge tonight. I started by sanding my bridge blank down to 9mm, then I drew pencil lines to extend the next taper and marked on the bridge 3mm in from the lines (those denote the two Es), then I used my string spacing ruler to mark out the position of the other for strings and drilled 6x 4mm holes. and then I shaped the bridge with the bandsaw and the spindle sander. Then I nipped over to my dads and pinched a few of his electrical screws which worked perfectly for what I need Then I got the Mrs to hold the bridge steady while I drilled through the bridge holes into the body and screwed it down. Then I cut a bone blank down short and fed two strings in through the sound hole, the 4mm holes are just small enough to stop the barrels coming through. Then I made a nut and put the two E tuners on and was able to check alignment and see where I needed to locate the saddle. This method worked but it was a bit awkward because the bridge saddle wanted to slide forwards under tension of the top E. but I was able to get some fairly accurate intonation with it and marked the front of my temporary saddle with the scalpel so I knew where I would need to route my saddle channel. Then I MacGyvered up this little jig to route the saddle slot. I had a couple of little wobbles on the first pass but that didn't matter because my bit was not big enough to do it all in one, once I was down to depth, I stuck a veneer on to my fence and went at it again and that removed my wobbles and made the slot just wide enough for my saddle blank. I radiused my fretboard to 12" so I did the same thing with the saddle, rounded over the edges to match the channel and screwed the bridge back down. Very happy with that! Action is a hair high for my taste and 12th frets air a hair sharp but I think it's all well within tolerance. I need to sand the base of the bridge to match the curve of the sound board so that might be enough action wise. Now I just need to take it all apart, tidy everything up and throw some lacquer at it while I figured out how I'm going to glue the bridge down. Chuffed!

After a bit of a hiatus, I've made a bit of progress on the neck for acoustic #1. I had cut the taper into the fretboard way back when, and got it glued on to the neck at the weekend, then I trimmed the neck excess to the taper of the fretboard. I think that's the first time I've ever trimmed the neck to the fretboard instead of trimming the fretboard to the neck. Radiusing the fretboard was nice and easy, the heel made for a nice handle. But by the time I got round to slotting and fret installation, it occurred to me that I had made a rod for my own back. I opted to press the frets in with a caul in the drill press which went quite well, it was just a bit awkward supporting the far end of the board. I got a good chunk of the carving done last night too with the heel left to finish shaping and the rest to tidy up. I'm hoping that I haven't made the heel block too small to get a smooth transition, a lesson for the next one. So this is where it's at now, I need to see if I can improve the alignment as the fretboard is pointing slightly off centre to the bass side so I'm hoping that pulling sand paper on that side of the heel will help. Then it's on to bridge making and positioning which is the bit I am least looking forward to. If anyone has any advice on how best to approach bridge making and locating, I'd be grateful for the pointers!

yes IMO a hvlp turbine is not the right tool for spraying guitars. I was using an Earlex 3 stage turbine for a few years and I got ok results but with a lot of level sanding But the turbine and gun setup just fires at way to high pressure for a quality finish with no way to regulate pressure on the machine or gun and the type of connections made it impossible to fit a 3rd party pressure regulator. IMO those machines are great if you want to spray emulsion on a wall but that's about it. I swapped out my turbine system (which I sold for as much as I bought it new so you can get a good chunk of your money back) and bought a 24L compressor and iWata LPH-80 and it changed my life. Barely any level sanding, I used to start at 400-600, now I start at 1000-1200 on open grain woods like mahogany. around 1200-1500 to level a maple top. I got my gear from spray guns direct. They do a compressor kit which comes with the compressor, cables, water filter and adaptors. The gun and gauge are sold seperately but I'd highly recommend the iWata gun, it's a whole new world compared to the turbine guns. I think the total spend was about £500 to get setup with the compressor but I sold the turbine for the £300 I bought it for so the conversion really wasn't expensive. Between a decent spraying setup and a proper buffing arbour, I have reduced the time it takes me to get a good finish dramatically. highly recommend.

In Dr Nitro's youtube videos, he holds a ruler up to the fretboard and runs is razor down the fretboard side to scape the binding/fretboard edge evenly without having to work around the frets.

Nice, I love the slightly pink hue see-through finish. A friend has asked me to do him a swamp ash tele in see-through olympic white, So there's something else to learn.

I've got a cheapy adjustable draper soldering station. I like the fact the wattage is adjustable so I can crank it up for heating up the back of pots quickly and turn it down a bit to solder delicate pickup wires to the lugs.

haha, I'll do the hard work so you don't have to Jeff. I bought a few spares to play with first because I heard that roasted maple doesn't like being routed. I've got a 2" blank to try one of my standard style necks and a over-sized blank for a fender style neck, I want to have a go at a one-piece fender neck with a skunk stripe. I was going to record some playing on the Berlin after it went back together but I forgot, My playing is awful with a trem anyway. It's been string back up well over a week and holds it's tuning even with some diving which I was surprised by, plays very nicely too once I lowered the action quite a bit. Intonates well and sustain is fairly good, but I did notice that even with brand new coated strings, it just sounds a bit dull, so I'm hoping the V2 will be an improvement. Anyway he's been and collected and very happy, apparently it's as it was before. I'll give this neck blank a couple of weeks before I do anything with it, need to make a couple of body templates and finish another build. Then I'll rough out the neck profile and leave it for another couple of weeks.

Yeah we had a chat about neck construction, he's quite adamant about a one piece neck through so he can have as few glue joints as possible, in fact it's already on route from Hades. The screw down from the top locking nut seems like the best option, I was also thinking that as his current axe has a truss rod wheel at the heel, could do that too and keep the end of the rod away from the nut by a good 1/2 or so which should help strengthen the area. Volute is always a given for me unless someone says they really don't want it. The floyd nut with a zero fret could work, would reduce issues if I ended up routing half a mm too low for the nut that way too, but on the other hand, doesn't a metal locking nut completely negate a zero fret (tonally)?

yeah the bolts through on the locking nut is something I am also concerned about, he has atleast said he want;s a big neck on it, I believe it's the R5 locking nut, something like 44.5mm wide, I wonder if there is anyway to avoid screwing through, I don't particularly want to go down that road if I can avoid it. Also I wonder what the value of a locking nut actually is with a premium set of locking tuners? He was talking about a zero fret and a locking string retainer like he has now but that would mean a zero fret, a nut then the string lock which would look weird to me.

Well that's interesting, I've just done some google but can't find anything that corroborates. Not saying I don't believe you but certainly warrants more investigation. I think the main issue with this one is that the neck shaft to heel transition is so tight, goes from 19th to 21st fret so when it went over the other day it just popped clean off. I think he was thinking that the neck-through would make it unbreakable but IMO the heal needs to be a bit more substantial. Though I do wonder if quarter sawn would just make it susceptible to breaking the other way as if it fell sideways on to the headstock instead of back. Ultimately, guitars are designed to be played, not dropped. yeah that's true PRS don't have a huge amount of glue joint, but they do have a fairly chunky heel and I haven't seen one that isn't quarter sawn mahog. I haven't managed to ruin any of my prs style builds either and I do like a cheeky neck dive. hehe yeah I know, I am not a trem guy. I did take the Kahler out and have a good look at it though, I quite like it - all encompassed within the trem itself with no back route, just enough clearance for the spring mechanism underneath it (which I need to try and find a template or plan for) and just 4 wood screws attaching it to the top. It seems like a easier entrance into into a whammy build. My only trepidation at the moment is around the locking nut and getting the cut/route for that at the right height and clean, esp on a roasted maple board. I generally don't like maple fretboards because it's way harder to hide any blunders.

Thanks man It is a weird axe. There is actually no break angle over the nut at all, there is just a locking string retainer, no headstock angle or scoop down like on a fender neck. One thing I noticed too, this guitar sounds quite dead, play it without amplification and it doesn't really resonate at all to my ears, even with brand new coated slinkys. I'm hoping the Berlin V2 would work out better.

I had a phone call a few weeks ago from a chap in Oxford about a custom build, he said he had an Eggle Berlin in the early 90s and he didn't like it so he had a local luthier in Kent (where he lived at the time) named Steven Acworth build him a guitar. But said it's getting a bit tatty at nearly 30 years old and wanted a new custom making, so I invited him over for a chat and got him to bring his Acworth build with him - After a bit of research, late Steven Acworth (died about 5 years ago) was a fairly well known luthier in the UK having done guitars for Status Quo, T-rex and Jeff Beck. His website is still alive with a few pics, a real internet relic: http://steve-acworth.co.uk/guitars.htm So he brought his guitar over... By getting a bit tatty he actually meant neck snapped clean off, apparent'y this is the second time and it was reset by a luthier in Abingdon who has since retired. Looking at that neck pocket, it's no wonder it snapped when the guitar went over. It's a weird one, I think the route is actually on the underside which would explain this ebony filler piece on the back but can't really tell because the neck pickup cavity is covered with conductive paint. But even with this route, it's a flat sawn neck and it's split cleanly along a grain line and not the same place as the previous break. Anyway I've glued it back together - that bit of basswood that came off with it helped it to go back together like a jigsaw. left it clamped for 36 hours then left it flat in the case without strings for another couple of days, then last night I strung it back up. Hopefully when I go and look at it later, it will still be in one piece. This is my first experience with Kahler trems, I must have tuned it up 15 times before it stayed in tune! You can probably tell from the above pics, this gentleman has some specific tastes. So he gave me a list for his build. 1. Same shape as above 2. Quartersawn neckthrough to help mitigate further woes 3. Hates figured wood, must be plain and fairly pale woods 4. doesn't like lacquer finishes so oil finish "if at all" 5. Must have a kahler trem 6. steel girders for frets 7. Want's more available sounds so 5-way blade + push pull volume, no tone So after a bit of hunting I ordered a neckthrough blank from Hades Roasted Maple in Canada, who also had to do some hunting - he said a perfectly quarter sawn and completely plain piece of maple is just has hard to fine as a perfect 5A piece of maple. So that is on the way with a couple of other roasted goodies for me. And we agreed on swamp ash wings. I'm hoping with all that I can keep it fairly light-weight and minimal on finish - I have read in a few places that roasted maple does not require finishing, I can't help but think it's not a bad idea to give the neck a few coats of oil, I'm sure even dry roasted maple would be able to take on water.

I recon my lp specials I have been doing are around 45-50 hours maybe slightly more. I kept a bit of a casual timesheet on a semihollow carvetop build I did back in 2020 and stopped counting at 150 hours though, so how long is a piece of string. A lot of the labour really depends on the process though - You can be cooking the dinner while your CNC is operating where as I have to make sure I'm not stabbing myself with a chisel I have sped up a few processes though, table saw for slotting and decent buffer must have shaved 10 or more hours off a build for me.

A bit more action on this one. I've routed a chamber, did some stepping down in depth to account for the belly carve on the back, then tided up with a thumb plane and sanding. It's not going to be a very deep chamber, but I warned him that would be the case if he has the belly carve. Glued an ebony veneer on to the back fo the headstock, no reason other than I thought it would look cool but it was a bit of a pain to clamp down I cut my logo out of a walnut offcut from the top, I saw on a stewmac YT video about flooding wood inlay material with fine superglue to help prevent splitting, seemed to work, And that's it inlayed, a bit more sanding to do on the headstock but it's starting to look the part. I also got 24 steel girders installed. I'm using stewmacs jumbo wire this time - I don't know if it's just me but they seemed to go in way to easy for SS, They were a pig to cut to length like you'd expect but they just seemed to comply a bit more than the Jescar SS wire I've used in the past, anyone else noticed stewmac wire being softer? Then today I spent the after noon making a load of spool clamps, I've been meaning to for a while so I picked up some carriage bolds, wing nuts and washers from screwfix, and used my black limba offcuts from this body, which I backed with some 5mm cork, cut them out with a hole saw and they work really well. I opted to go for 200mm bolts so that I could use them to glew up the next acoustic too. This was a dry run, still a bit more work to do before I close her up. In an ideal world I could do with 2 or 3 more, but the metal work came in packs of 10 so I only got 20. That's all for now.

Thanks Mike. I've put in a slight angle, in the region on 1º My rationale for putting the angle in is if you look at a tele or strat without the scratch plate, the fretboard actually sits quite a up way up off the body (I noticed that on the walnut tele I did at the start of the year) and it looks a bit weird to me. So I figured with a slight angle I can bring that fretboard a tad closer to the body. Also Dave likes to deck his action to the point where it's barely playable to me, so I just want to be sure that I can get the action really low. Cut the f-hole tonight and did the pot recesses. I need to do another mini one between the switch/tone (which is actually going to be a second volume) because he want's a mini toggle to split the bridge pup.

Yeah I really like the shape too. I never really bothered with Velas when I used to be into PRS because they only ever came with 22 frets and I wasn't a huge fan of the pickups. It makes me think of a not quite so offset version of the Crimson Scion. Fortunately he doesn't want it painted. It will be high gloss clear on the body and oiled neck. Looking forward to grainfilling without having to worry about keeping binding clean.

Hi, haven't been on in a while, hope every one is good and enjoying the summer. I've just started a new build for my friend Dave, he's been following my builds since I started and occasionally asked me about some outlandish builds - multiscale, baritone, 7 string, semihollow and I've said no for the last 2 years but I've finally agreed to his build after reigning him in to something I'm more comfortable doing. So it's a PRS Vela shape, semi hollow and a core style carve top instead of the contoured body. It's also 24 instead of 22 frets and he want's 25.5" scale. Walnut top, black limba body, maple neck and ebony fretboard. He's got some bare knuckles to go into it, a high gain humbucker sized p90 in the neck and a polymath (whatever that is) for the bridge. It's having hipshot tuners and a hipshot bridge. I haven't done a carve top with a low-profile bridge like that before so I need to consider break angle. First up, I made a template a couple of weeks ago. This isn't necessarily accurate to the exact vela shape. I've just offset the custom 24 design and tweaked it a bit by eye as that's pretty much all the Vela looks like to my eyes - he likes it. Something else worth noting at this point. I'm not making a custom neck template for this, I'm just using the custom 24 neck taper, In the past I have found that one can increase the scale length by .5" without issue with similar string spacing. Here are the blanks after glue up. This is a 2 piece maple neck I made up from a one piece Croatian blank that was a long way form quarter sawn and it had a good bit of twist in it. Jointing that was my first go with the new (to me) planer/thicknesser I got in 2020, so it's been glued up a couple of years and I bandsawed the profile out about a month ago. A closer look at the top Here is the top rough cut with a bit of spirits on it. I'm also working on a carve top version of Specials I've been building recently. I've had this bit of walnut for nearly 3 years and I've been waiting for a chance to get a gouge into it but it turned out to be a right nasty piece of work so and I brought in the big guns After roughing in the carve I put about half my usual break angle in using the drum sander, seems about right. I thicknessed and slotted the ebony board at some point this week too. Then I got to working on chambering the top. I used the drill press with a pin to drill a load of holes leaving about 5mm thickness. Then I started chipping away at everything that was with a gouge and thumb plane Also used the dreml to get into the really awkward spots. Fed up with saw fingers from all that carving so I'll come back to it later. On to the neck. I planed up the top and the headstock face on the planer. I thought I might have a bit of tear out but it wen pretty well Then I apparently forgot to photograph a few steps. so this is where it's at. I think I'll get the h-hole cut next.

Love it mate, I thought that was old Gregory Koch himself chicken pickin' behind the scenes there.

Yes something like this. I think the average strat/tele neck is around 21m thick at the heel but required thickness would depend on the depth of the neck pocket and the height of the bridge on the body you're already using, That's why it's often easier to start by building the neck then building the body to suit.

Your best bet is to do a 1:1 drawing of your neck on paper and work out where your joint will be, the angle of the joint and the length of the blank you will need. It is a lot easier to just stick an extra bit on the underside of the headstock than do a scarf if you want to make your life easier for your first build - you could hide that joint on top and bottom with decorative veneers. One of the reasons I stick to one piece necks, although the material costs slightly more, it's a lot less work than worry about cutting scarf joints. 438mm truss rod should be fine for a 24.75" neck

Wow that bit of walnut came up nice. Nice work.

Yes that angelus yellow is practically luminous when added to lacquer, reminded me of Mr Chin's kitchen in Only Fools and Horses. I should have just added a couple of drops and tested. I got the previous one wired up last night. In spite of the colour issues, I'm very happy with it and I'll be turning it up to 11 at lunch time. I need to fettle down the back covers before I can take more photos but specs are: - 1 piece chambered african mahogany body - Eastern maple top, natural binding - 1 piece african mahogany neck - Indian Rosewood fretboard + headstock veneer, white mop inlays and side dots - med jumbo nickel wire, 24 frets, 625mm scale length - Golden age bridge - Kluson top locking vintage style tuners - OX4 Pickups 4 conductor pickups, 8.1k Neck, 9k Bridge - 2x Vol, 2x Tone with pushpull, tuned coil splits, stewmac gold bell hat reflector knobs - Bone nut and light-cream plastics. - Nickel hardware

So after 2 full-fat coats of clear lacquer and left to cure over night. I've redone the grainfill and got a much more consistent looking fill that hasn't stained the wood. There is a tiny bit of grey in some areas where the wood has some weird grey patches and a little bit around the edge which might be some excess. So once this has had a good 24 hours, I'll give it a wipe down with some white spirit. I do quite like it natural but I'm tempted to at least try one more go at amber. and I got these Chestnut dyes to try which a friend of mine recommend for tinting cellulose. Will definitely do a tester on one of the offcuts first though - annoyed at myself for not doing a tester in the first place.

out of stock already? I guess the probably don't have loads of units of things like vices in stock - Pattern vice seams fairly specialist. Yes I thought that would be the case, it was indeed a bar steward to get out and I gave up getting it out of some spots. The issue seemed to be that my sealer flash coat didn't seal quite well enough and I got some staining, so I got all that out with 120 on the random orbital. You can just about make out here how green the binding went. You can see some areas around the edge where the grainfiller didn't want to come out. These pours are much bigger that the central area so the filler obviously work deeper in. Then this area was an absolute PITA to get looking clean again. So lots of patience, then I had to scrape the scratches off the binding with a razor again. Then is morning I gave it another 50/50 flash coat, really just to highlight if I had an areas that were going to look clean with finish (very little effort to sand out patches of a flash coat) and it looked pretty good so It's now had 2 full-fat coats of clear. Then when that clear has had 24 hours, I'll try the dark grain filler again - I think I'm stuck with the dark filler as there are patches that aren't going anywhere. But with the extra lacquer coats it shouldn't stain the wood again. This is after the first coat. I think I'm going to stick with natural and bin off the yellow until I've got appropriate dyes for it.

Thanks chaps. I added some angelus yellow to my lacquer to spray some yellow toner over it and it looks absolutely f%^king awful (much more green in real life than in this photo) so I'm going to be sanding it all off and doing it again. I'm regretting using the dark grainfiller now too. so I'm going to see how much of that I can get out then I think I'll fill again with some clear aquacoat.