ADFinlayson

I've got these korina blanks that I've had since 2020, I got them very cheap and they've got a couple of imperfections but I thought it would be cool to make something out of them. the body blank is nice and flamey, although weighs a ton So I decided to slice a slither of each side before glueing them together so I could make another chambered build The top is now glued on to the back and I've mostly routed the shape out, it now weighs about 3/4 of a ton. and the neck blank has had a week or so after roughing out to settle so I've plane the headstock angle in and it's ready for a truss rod channel. I've used black limba on a couple of builds but never the white stuff. Really nice to work! I'm planning to use some tortoise shell binding on the body and I'm hoping a natural finish with some black grain filler will make it look good.

Little bit of progress on these, I've got pickup routes done Made some progress on the necks, headstocks shaped and inlayed. The ebony headstock is getting some gotoh locking tuners I already had with the thumb screws and they rosewood is getting top locking klusons with the top bushings so that is why the holes are not the same on both, I was low on fret wire so I thought I'd try the stewmac medium/tall wire which I have mixed feelings about, first thing I noticed is that tang on it is really short compared to Jescar wire and I don't know if it's the wire or the table saw blade but the slots were not wide enough to take the wire and I had to run my hand fret slotting saw through all of the slots to widen them slightly.

Are you just going to leave it like that and tell her it's done?

Haven't done much by way of guitar building this week but I am getting the last few bits of this one done before I start spraying it. Firstly I finished off fret levelling, crowning and sanding them. I method for crowing at the moment is to rough the shape in with the crimson 3 corner file - I have several different crowning files but I'm finding the 3 corner file to be the slow but more accurate method. Then I send them with 120, then 240 along the fret until the sharpie line has almost disapeared. then I go across the frets with 320, then along the frets again with 320. Then when the lacquer is curing I'll do final sanding on them with 600 and buff them with the dremel. With the frets semi done, I installed the outer 2 tuners and the tailpiece studs. Using a new centre line that I get from running a ruler down the edge of the neck taper, just incase the new centre line isn't bang on with the centre seam of the maple cap, in this case they're both bang on but I havne't always been that lucky. With the tailpiece and two outer strings on, I can slide the tunomatic into place and get the x and y dialed in perfectly. That is a nice thing about installing a tom and tailpiece - Wrapround bridges are a one shot deal with no ability to tweak the x axis. I can also test intonation here and get the Y dialed in so there is barely any adjustment for intonation needed later on. With any luck I'll get the metallic coat and the burst done next week.

4.2mm is plenty big enough but if you're worried then any old Phillips head wood screw would do. Don't forget the bigger the screw, the more wood you're removing from both the heel and the tenon and it's the wood that provides the strength. That's why I tend to stick to set necks, that and glue is cheaper than screws.

https://www.agwoodcare.co.uk/products/fiddesnapthathinners/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA3rKQBhCNARIsACUEW_Z_iRuUX6SBL1BzzVR0U82GmLKzq0x9kfTfCm3lzzgg8Acyh4RFPtEaAjqbEALw_wcB

Calling this one DONE! Waiting for a case to show up then dropping it over to Duncan, hopefully I'll get time to record some demo noodling. I had a bit of a mare with wiring. The switchcraft toggle was dodgy and would not engage both pickups in the middle position. I took it apart and put it together again and it still wasn't working so I had to use another one. Also the pickups refused to split with the push pull - Checked stacks of times and it was wired just so, same pickup brand and same pots and same circuit as the orange special. So I swapped out that push pull and it worked perfectly. Really annoying having dodgy components as it's just eating into the bottom line. I have however got the best action I have ever managed on this build, the strings are practically touching the fretboard yet it sings. I don't know what I have done to make that happen as my processes were exactly the same as I do with any other fret job. Lastly, this is the first time I've used a pair of OX4 humbuckers, I've used a pair of his p90s and a mixed set HB/P for the last one - these sound amazing, fairly low output, bother under 8k but they sound so thick and bity, nor is there much volume loss when split - I think he offsets the coils slightly as they go down to about 5.5k - I put a resister on the bridge split but the neck just didn't need anything. Really happy with this one even though, on paper, I should hate it, being a pointy guitar.

My friend Danny popped over last weekend and had a play on the orange one and I took a few short clips. I shared it on my fb page and put it up on reverb. Then had a Call from Dreiers yesterday, who is an acquaintance of mine and good friend of my bass player. He came over to the workshop this morning and had a go, he's a big Gibson fan and mostly plays Les Pauls but absolutely loved the P90 and the extra frets. Then he picked it up from the studio this evening. So we're both happy campers.

Those woods are stunning Matt, looking forward to seeing this one finished.

I haven't decided yet but I was thinking a cream p90s against the ebony then nickel humbuckers with black surrounds and red with black burst on the maple - My fav colour and I haven't done a red guitar since 2018. If I was to do nibbed binding then I would be using the same method Freddy Gabrsek uses in his Les Paul series. - Doing all the operations with the fretboard on the neck suits my way of working.

Thanks guys, while I am looking forward to see what that bit of maple does with stain, the ebony is definitely my favourite. I was contemplating binding the fretboard and headstock and I am interested in having a go at nibs, but I wrote off one of the 2 lengths of binding I had when I had to take to attempts at binding the body, so that decision was made for me. I will definitely be getting some more ebony for another go at this. No more progress sadly, too much work on.

So the pins worked quite nicely. They're 1.45mm and the closest I could get to that was 1.5mm so there was a tiny bit of play. but with 3 or 4 pins the fretboards were nicely secure. A little bit of tape at each end of the board when it was dry fitted meant the glue squeeze out would just peel off, smug. Once I got the board clamp down I then pulled the pins with a pair of pliers. Fretboards on and routed flush The necks do not fit in the pockets at this point because the neck and pocket templates I made are a tight fit, and I also added a bit of tape to the inside of the pocket template to make it a hair tighter still, So I sand the neck taper until it just squeezes into the pocket and removes the router marks from the necks. This is a bit of 120 stuck to a straight bit of marble. Now the necks just barely fit, they're way too tight at the moment but that's how I want it for now. When I come to actually fit the necks, I'll do this again with 220. Now I need to remove a bit of meat of the bottom of the heels to bring fretboard heigh down to the desired break angle. But that can wait until I've radiused the fretboards and installed the frets

Thanks chaps!

No, I'm in UK and a decent 2 way truss rod will cost me £10-15. Those carbon D tubes I've seen come from USA at $75-100 which translates to £120-150+ by the time I've paid shipping and import duty. I wasn't suggesting a d-tube and a truss rod. The rods I use are 1/4" wide but those d-tubes are 1/2" - 3/4" which leave less glueing surface for the fretboard unless the fretboard is going to be epoxied on. I mostly build guitars for others so keeping the margins in mind is important and also the adjustability from a truss rod for someone else's playing style is important to me. If you're building your dream guitar and don't want the adjustability of a truss rod then fair play. But on the other hand, if you've stuck £800 into exotic wood for this guitar, having a neck that you can't adjust to that sweet sport might also be a real problem. I think you're on to something with strap button position, going back leverage, you're going to save much more "weight" having your strap button in the right place than the few grams you're saving using a d-tube instead of a truss rod, which IMO is not worth the loss of adjustability. The point I was trying to make about your guitar being headless and leverage is that your neck is going to not weigh very much without tuners at the end of a headstock, even if you are using fairly heavy woods. I've made a few heavily chambered guitars now and never had an issue with neck dive.

Thanks chaps!

I looked in to d-tubes and and decided against them for 3 reasons: 1. They're woefully expensive 2. They're much wider than a truss rod so there is less glueing surface for the truss rod - wood glue will not bond the rod to the fretboard 3. No adjustability which will possibly be an issue with tuning and/or string gauge changes. Is it actually necessary? Being a headless guitar, you've got no headstock and no tuners which is not only reducing weight but also weight leverage. You could reduce that leverage further by using a wheel truss rod so the truss rod nut is at the neck/body joint.

You will probably need separate templates, humbucker and FL routing templates aren't expensive though. I would suggest get your body shaped and neck pocket done then determine your scale length/bridge position once you're neck is dry fitted, then you can work out where on the centre line your FL and pickup routes will go. That's generally how I build all my guitars. A lot of the all in one templates are close but not always perfectly accurate anyway so you shouldn't rely on the nut line or the bridge line on a set of prefab templates being gospel. There are also several universal style control cavity templates around you could use or just make a template to fit your control layout. I often just drill my pot/switch holes from the top all the way through, then position the control cavity routing template in a spot that works with the holes I've drilled.

Yeah, I got some chemical guys swirl remover but it didn't work for me, it just made things worse. I need to try something else

On to wiring, I managed to mark the edge of the damn pot recess while I was tightening the nut for the toggle switch, very annoying but i'm hoping I might be able to polish it out. I've also been having real trouble getting the extra fine scratches out of it, They're only visible when it's laying down on the bench directly under the LEDs and no matter what polish I used they wouldn't completely disappear, rather just change direction so I've given up. I wasn't having this issue with the orange special so I wonder if it's the lacquer, I was spraying this much thinner and it was the last of the old lacquer, not that I know how that would affect it. For info I had a nice level surface after the last coat and wet sanded 1200, 1500, 2000 which gave me a perfect looking surface for buffing , then buffed on the arbour with medium compound which gave me even scratches all over in the direction I buffed, then the fine compound and polish got it super glossy but I just don't seem to be able to lose the swirl marks. Overerall quite happy with it, I was having a noodle earlier and it plays nice, low action and no buzz. I haven't made a 22 fretter at 24.75" scale before, can't believe how short the neck feels. I just need to wire the pickups and attach the jack plate, and providing there are no issues with what I've wired so far, we're done.

While I'm sure side dot material might work,I have a bag of nail pins.

Got my neck blanks planed up, one of them had a teeny bit of up bow and the other was still dead straight but I skimmed them both anyway, then I tidied up the headstock angles on the planer too - As long as the bandsaw cut is square, running the face of the headstock of the planer is a really nice and fast way of getting a nice face. Look how different these two blanks look. At first I thought G&W had mugged me off with a bit of sapele until I grabbed a bit of sapele and saw it looked completely different. Next job was to cut my fret slots - First time having a proper go using the table saw blade and template to do it. I spent a good bit of time getting a 3x2 perfectly square, to use as the sled to go behind the board and template. I used the planer to get a square face and edge, then went to use the thicknesser to get the parallel face/edge but the damn thing wasn't working. The in-feed roller was stuck still so I couldn't push the work through. After climbing inside this cavern of sorrow, I discovered the belt that drives that roller had come off and that belt was right at the back. This machine was bought in 2001 by a newly retired cabinet maker and shortly after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and wasn't allowed to use it - very sad. I bought it from his son along with a few hand planes when he was clearing out his shed when he passed in 2020. So it had been sat in the shed unused through all those winters and I expect the belt has stretched, it certainly feels like old hard rubber. I put it back on and it seems to be working fine but I think I'll need to get a new one. So once I had my 3x2 perfectly square, I installed the pin for the template 6,5mm from the bottom to account for the thickness of the fretboard and located 3mm over to one side of the blade so I can't risk hitting it, This means the slots on the fretboard will be offset by 3mm from the template. Then after checking the cross cut sled was a perfect 90º with the blade about a dozen times, I had a go and it worked like a charm Prior to doing the slotting, I jointed one edge of the fretboard blanks to get them perfectly square, then I masking taped and superglued them to the template so the flat edge of the board was flush with the side of the template where the pin was going into the notches and my centre lines would have to be referenced from that flat edge. This method worked nicely however, in the case of the rosewood board, sometimes fretboard blanks are quire narrow and come tapered so the supplier can get more boards from the material, this meant that the board is only just barely wide enough at high frets. To get around that in future I would need a centre line on the board and a centre line on the template and match them up, or just buy wider fretboards. Once my slots were cut with the template. I took the template off and measured 8mm on from the 24th fret slot, then I ran the board over the blade again on that line to give me a consistent fretboard end. Then I cut through the zero slot and my new 25th fret slot all the way with a hand saw to get the boards to final length. I haven't glued pre slotted fretboards on for a long time. I used to use cocktail sticks as locator pins, that method works but if you're using small or medium fretwire like I am, sometimes you can see a tiny bit of cocktail stick after fretting. I've got a 1mm and 1.5mm drill bits now, so I might try drilling tiny holes for pins and use a few pin nails to hold the boards in place while I clamp them down instead. Next job that I did this evening was headstock ears. I cut a couple of strips from each of the wedges I cut off for the headstock angle and glued those one. I cut them fairly close so there isn't much to plane off and use a couple of grains of salt to stop them sliding around when clamping. I normally clamp on side on, leave it 20 mins or so then remove clamps and do the other side, then leave both clamped for a few house - it's much easier to clamp them on one and a time. I got Stewmac truss rods this time - I haven't used them before but they look the same as what I normally use only wrapped in red plastic and £5 cheaper. Only thing is I hate the plastic wrap they come in, I'm sure they're there to prevent rattle but I cut the plastic wrap off anyway - it reduces height by .5mm and I'd rather have that extra bit of wood. With any luck, tomorrow evening I'll get them cut on the bandsaw and routed.

I't sure Bessy are better than others - They need to be at that price, but I've got loads of f-clamps and they all have the potential to slip and when I'm trying to get as many clamps on in as short a time possible, I'd rather just screw down some g-clamps than faff around trying to make sure the base is perfectly level. The little red 3" screw clamps pictured above aren't bad and only £4.99 a go, but when you've got a top glueing on to a body with a caul top and bottom, they're pretty much maxed out. Ideal for fretboard glue ups though.

I'm not keen on those Bessy clamps, A. They are silly money IMO, and B. I don't like f-clamps as there can be a tendancy for them to slip. Screw clamps I find product a much more reliable clamping force. In an ideal world I would get a load of those g-clamps with the swivel handle so they don't get in the way of each other, they're silly money as well though. I just had a look on screwfix and the blue Irwin 6" G clamps I first bought when I started building in 2018, were £5.99 each, they're now £10.99! so I might start gradually acquiring some more of those. I've been meaning to take a trip to screwfix to stock up on some consumables for a little while but I had a Happy new year from Audi and been without my car for 3.5 weeks now. Hopefully I don't run out of anything in the meantime, it will be at least another week before the dashboard has been repaired. Got the control cavities roughed out this morning and routing the round overs. Then I routed both neck pockets to 35mm depth at the very front - tapers up 2.8º. Then on to the binding for the ebony one. Got the channel routed to 1/4" depth, nice and neat and even, no tearout - The extra large base I made for the trimmer really helps with the channels and round overs - I don't have to do it on the router table and it's much easier to climb cut when taking the router to the work instead of the work to the router. Oh I also drilled the pot and toggle holes to size - I will need to finalise depth of those once I've got all the course sanding done i.e everything is at final thickness. Then on to the binding, started off well.. I taped the binding in place then wicked in fine superglue I got a good way round then snapped the bastard binding when I was trying to bend it round the lower horn. I warmed it up with the heat gun and it seemed to be bending around nicely but all of a sudden it seemed to go really brittle and just snapped. So I pulled the whole lot off, doing some minor damage to the floor of the cavities. I did think about doing a join instead but too awkward of a spot to have a join as it's right on the bend and I figured it will probably visible. So after cooling off for an hour, I rerouted the channel to 7mm which removed the evidence and started again, this time at the horn. Had no issue bending the binding this time, although I did end up with a hairline gap there that I later filled with some binding goop. Then plain sailing once I'd got round the horn. But a lot of work on clean up. I must have spend a good hour sanding the superglue and tape off with 120, being careful to sand evenly and not adjust the binding thickness. The binding is 1.5mm thick and I routed my channels to the match. I've still got the area inside the lower horn to do but it is starting to look good I wonder if I'm better off getting some binding glue for next time, I did think about using acetone to wick in once it was taped up but the area around that horn was so awkward that I wanted to use something quick drying so I could hold it in place. Natural binding is a lot easier!

Made some progress on the bodies. I got myself some 5mm plexi and made a larger base for the trim router - I was going to do the same for the Trend but I will need some longer machine screws. It's a game changer tbh, no more dodgy wobble on the edge and I can get in the middle of big chambers like I'm doing here. Chamber and channels done I tidied up the f-holes, sanded them to 220 and sealed the maple one with cellulose sealer prior to glueing, makes life so much easier to get those finalised prior Time for glue up, both tops and bodies are oversized because I draw around the template with a 1/4" washer, so I use 2mm coctail sticks as locator pins to make sure everything stays in place, then put a template over top - I drilled the locator pin holes at the tops and toggle. I've only got enough clamps to glue one top at a time, I'm thinking I need to invest in some more of those blue G clamps, or maybe try a vaccume bag. I like keeping everything oversized at this point, it doesn't matter if glue spills all down the sides and every time I've done it this way, I've had much better seams - The template makes the perfect clamping caul. Then I got them routed out, I just used the hand router so lots of router marks to sand out. This has got me thinking I need to get myself a decent cutter block and get my spindle moulder (shaper) operational so I can route the shape at full height and avoid all those annoying lines from switching out bits. The supplier I got the Laguna from sell a 80x62mm spiral cutter block with bearings that would be suitable but it's about £270 all in, might have to wait until I've sold a build. I'm also utterly terrified of spindle moulders. I'm doing my usual natural/faux binding on the maple but as the ebony top is only 5mm thick (it's an acoustic back set) I thought I would try my hand at plastic binding. I figured I will need to get all my side sanding close so that I don't end up changing the shape with sanding once the binding is done so sanded all the sides with 80 grit. The maple has come up really nice, lots of fleck and edge flame Tomorrow I shall get the backs rounded over, and neck pockets done, then I think I'll try my hand at binding the ebony one.

My process, which granted changes frequently, is currently to rough out necks early on, work on the bodies until I can work on bodies no longer and then come back to necks so they've had as much time as possible to do their thing before I do anything with final dimensions. I don't know if you can see from that pic but I've also started writing the date I got it and the moisture content on the piece so I know what I'm working with, for example, I got 2 mahog neck blansk and 2 mahog body blanks a few weeks ago form G&W. one of the body blanks was 8% and the other one was 15%, so the 15er isn't getting touched for months. All of the blanks for these builds are 7-8% so I will be surprised if I see any movement at all.