ADFinlayson

your sled you made to radius could easily be modded into something that can do thickness/flattening, so a drum sander would be my choice. I am biased because I have one though and find it to be a fantastic tool, saves a huge amount of time and removed the risk of tearout from a thickness planer on highly figured wood. They are very expensive though, but worth every penny. 

I think my mrs would want to know what was wrong with me if I didn't come in for dinner covered in sawdust. 

it's quite nice building a guitar without inlays from time to time, certainly saves a bit of work. 

The next instalment. There's a bit of a teaser for the inlay but it isn't included in this video because I was trying to keep them to half an hour and it was getting a bit long.

those burl blocks look great mate, really smart.

have you had a good look at the top? over time the top can bugle around the bridge from string tension, also check if the bridge is lift off at all, both those things are common on old acoustics and will raise action and could also be down to a split or delaminated brace. You should take the strings off for a few days and see what the straightness of the neck is like, You could also see what happens when you go down a gauge or two, switch down from 12 or 13 to 10 or 11 is a big reduction in tension and thus height of the bridge relative to the fretboard. 

You could totally remove the fretboard and plane out a bit of the relief in the neck, I would be up for routing a truss rod channel too, that would definitely help to future proof it but you'd probably need to get the neck fairly flat before hand. The other common thing which I haven't had to do yet is a neck reset which usually involves shaving a bit off the bottom of the heel and shimming under the fretboard, providing you can safely remove it.

 I recommend checking out Ted Woodford on youtube, that dude is a wizard. https://www.youtube.com/@twoodfrd

16 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

That goty went to the right address, congrats!

I would like to say more but I lack superlatives.

15 hours ago, JGTay said:

Congrats, very much deserved win.

3 hours ago, Nicco said:

Congratulations on taking out guitar of the year, mate. 

Thanks chaps!

43 minutes ago, Stu. said:

Oh, it’s super open and roughs up just like mahogany. There are basically no sanding scratches on the back of the body, just open grain. 

It’s a fraction of the weigh of mahogany though.

yeah I was just looking at it on wooddatabase. On spec it looks very similar to african mahogany, about 2/3 the hardness and 3/4 the weight. I think it could be really well suited for a solid-body with TV finish, I think I'll get some!

1 hour ago, mistermikev said:

congrats on goty.  couldn't happen to a nicer guy nor a nicer build.

Thanks dude!

15 hours ago, Stu. said:

It seems pretty nice so far! It’s very light and works easily, but that also means it marks easily - kind of like a lightweight alder.

This blank was £40 from Exotic Hardwoods. I was looking for something cheap and lightweight, whilst also having interesting enough aesthetics to keep natural.

https://exotichardwoodsukltd.com/product/obeche-body-blank-20-x-7-x-2-2-pieces/

Maybe it's just the sanding scratches but it looks fairly open-grained on the pics, like a slightly yellow mahogany. 

dents/scratches when working softer woods is annoying, I've taken to iron the backs of my bodies with a damp tea-towel prior to getting the oribital sander out to expand all the marks, I do a lot more work with a towel down on the workbench that I used to as well. 

That Obeche (which I had never seen or heard of before this thread) looks really nice, what's it like price-wise? is it easy to find in the UK? 

I didn't spot a CNC in the above photos, but that will explain where all the tidying time comes from!

Dave just shared a music video he recently used the Vela in. WARNING: It's quite metal. 

Bloody hell that's tidy, you must get so bored with all the extra time not wasted looking for tools.

I did that on one of my early builds, 2nd or 3rd I think, I just wedged a bit of veneer down the side of the truss rod and it made it all snug, didn't even need to glue it in. I wouldn't worry too much about the channel being .5mm to deep either, once you've got strings on and a bit of load on the rod, it won't move around. Just remember the depth of your channel when you go to carve...

5 minutes ago, Stu. said:

It gives really nice, sharp separation between the maple and mahogany, which can sometimes blur into each other. I can imagine it'll make faux binding look more intentional too!

I've had the blur you talk about in the past. I now glue my tops and backs together slightly oversized which prevents that.

35 minutes ago, Stu. said:

The top looks stunning - it's got to be worth the blisters, right? Also, what's the veneer between top and body?

thank you mate, that is a roll of bog oak veneer that I got off ebay - I like that pin stripe look but it's also functional, if I spray a shader on the mahogany and want a crisp looking natural binding edge then I don't have to spend hours scraping it clean, I just tape up to the middle of the veneer 

Looks like you're off to a flying start. I've got that rosette cutter, it's a really good bit of kit. I found it quite scary cutting the route for the rosette the first time and did get a bit of tearout on the spruce, second time round I wiped a bit of danish oil on the area which helped a lot, I expect a bit of schellac would work just as well. 

Looking forward to seeing it progress. 

It's just one of those things, you have to open it up, see what nature has provided you and see what you can work around. 

Had a few days in Poole the year before last, you haven't missed much. LP looks fab, looking forward to seeing it carved.  

For a second I thought you'd managed to take a chunk out of the back of the guitar and I see after a closer look that it's access for the control cover that's very well hidden, fantastic job on the grain match. Now hurry and get some strings on it  

17 minutes ago, Stu. said:

Wowzer, check out those shop tools! I hadn't seen the bandsaw, table saw, or surface planer before.

 

It's nice to see someone else with the Trend T11EK as well. I had one as a hand-down from my dad about ten years ago, which made life so much easier. I actually re-bought it at £350 when COVID hit, because the original was down in Gloucestershire and I couldn't get to it. I don't know what your router table set-up is like, but the Trend aluminium router table insert (with a hole for the depth adjustment) is amazing. They also sell a quick release kit, so you can mount/dismount the router in a couple of seconds if it's your workhorse. Amazing

Thank you mate, those items are newish, the tablesaw/planer is a Kitty Bestcombi 2000 I got in May 2020 along with some hand tools from a workshop clearance and it had been sat in my dad's garage until I got this workshop finished.

I upgraded the bandsaw from the old Axminster hobby saw in late 2021. The hobby saw didn't owe me anything, got 15 builds out of it and sold it on market place for nearly what I paid for it. But the Laguna is something else, ideal for resawing tops so I don't think it will take long to pay for itself.

I actually wish I bought the other version of the Trend because I've only really used it as a plunge router, I do have a makeshift router table made out of my workmate with an insert for my makita trimmer which works well for fretboards, binding channels etc. The Bestcombi also includes a spindlemoulder, and at some point I'll get a follower bit for it so I can route guitar bodies out that way instead of making multiple passes with the trend. But That being said, I shaped the body for this one at the weekend and I just shaped it with the Triton bobbin sander because this bit of mahogany is quite teary.

2 hours ago, mistermikev said:

so.... qtr sawn...vnice.

it's so flecky it's almost metallic 

Almost forgot a pic of the headstock