ADFinlayson

Yeah it certainly is unorthodox in solid-body terms, I am certainly guilty of taking the adjustability of a tunomatic for granted, but if you look at the likes of Ramirez classical guitars, they do some funky tapering of the fretboard too, they actually plane in some fallaway just into the bass side of the fretboard. Even less adjustability in a Spanish heel too, the neck angle has to be baked into the guitar before the sides even get glued on and I don't think there is any nice way to adjust that down the line other than maybe taking the back off the guitar. 

My rationale for doing the taper fretboard is that it's less obvious than if I dramatically increased the neck angle at the heel, it will be interesting to see if anyone notices the tapered fretboard when it's all finished, I can see because I know it's there, but I think a shimmed fretboard sat on the top would have been more noticeable. 

I made some good progress today. Got a rosewood offcut glued on for the heel cap and made the heel a bit smaller. A hard wood heel cap with a real pain to do the sand paper pulls, I'll pay more attention to how much material is needed for the heel in future and make the heel cap a lot thinner, I had to relieve some material on the underside of it which made the sanding a lot easer but it was still a pain to get right because the rosewood is much harder to sand than the mahogany.

I made a tape taper to taper the height of my fretboard radius, see what I did there? Layered up and it was about 1mm thick at the nut end

Then I had a go with my new toy. Worked really well, the fretboard came out at 4.8mm thick at the nut and 6.1mm at the other end.

All the items necessary for a good fret job. The last 5 guitars I've done have all been stainless steel so it was bliss going back to nickel for this one.

Forgot to photograph the neck glue u, did it with spool clamps, then did a bit more finessing on the bridge shape.

I'll leave the top of the bridge flat until I've routed the saddle slot, then I think I'll put a radius on it to match the fretboard. BTW this fretboard has a 12" radius like the previous 2. 

Now that I am happy with the alignment and scale length, I got the bridge attached with a couple of screws in the peg holes. Now i'll be able to put the two outer E strings on, check alignment for real and find the correct intonation points to route the saddle slot.

I wasn't able to hold the camera, a straight edge and a ruler so you'll have to take my word for it. There is 2.5mm clearance above the bridge so I think I will be able to achieve decent action.

Lastly, I made an attempt at designing a paper label and did a test print. Not sold on it yet, might end up with a couple more revisions before I print it on the decent paper. 

Well when it comes to action .33mm is a big number. I don't think I need much anyway now that I've done some tape pulling. The bridge is currently 8.5mm, I can bring that down to 8mm, then there is the height of the frets too, I think I should be able to obtain decent action depending how much lift there is on the top. Worst case scenario I need to tilt the neck back a bit more and stick a veneer under the fretboard extension. 

I think I will increase the break angle in the soundboard on the next one though, all it would have needed was an extra few mins sanding on the ribs. 

How are you doing the radius? Are you taking the neck to a block or a block to the neck? If it's the latter, I'd bet you're putting too much pressure on and causing the neck to bow slightly in the middle as you're applying pressure and that is creating your hump because the heel and headstock are way stiffer. 

My preferred method now is to stick a long beam upside down in the vise and take the neck to it, that way I can target areas I need to while checking often. 

I've done neck resets on a couple of Taylors, their neck construction makes it an absolutely doddle to reset with a couple of shims. The construction of a taylor neck is a bit more involved though and would require a different construction to the neck block than to what I have made, I have been following the Grellier OM plans up until now which wouldn't support the extra lump of mahogany under the fretboard extension that Taylor uses. 

Yeah I do need to kick the neck back a bit and the obvious thing to do seems to be remove a bit from the bottom of the heel which should be fairly simple to do with some targeted sanding, but it probably will result in my needing to shim the fretboard overhang with some rosewood veneer. 

I am wondering if there is any merit to tapering the fretboard slightly, it's 6mm thick and not yet radiused, perhaps I could taper it to 5mm at the nut to increase the angle. Not sure if 1mm over the length of the fretboard will be enough to get me there or if it will look stupid. I was going to go with a 12" radius which tends to look a bit thinner at one end anyway. Maybe the combination of a slightly fretboard taper and removal or a tiny bit of material from the bottom of the heel might get it where it needs to be without the need to shim the fretboard extension. 

yes @Prostheta there are 2 M6 bolts going into threaded inserts in the tenon. Down from M8 on the last 2 builds but I figured 6M is plenty, in fact M5 would probably be strong enough, the larger the bolt the easier it is to split the tenon because there isn't a lot of meat outside of those big threaded inserts. 

Made a bit more progress. Got my headstock shaped and cut out, a few little dents there need steaming out after some happy clamping - glueing the veneer on the back got a bit tense  

Test fitted my tuners, These are cheap and cheerful Stewmac restoration tuners, I like the vintage look, I think I might age these in some white vinegar before assembly.

I shapped the heel profile and cut out the tenon which I apparently forgot to photograph. I used a handsaw because I don't have a jig for this and apparently I like suffering

And after a couple of hours of fine tuning and flossing, I have a the facade of an OM

Currently the X axis is perfect and the joint between the heel and the sides close enough to perfect. But I do need to sort out the Y axis.

There isn't currently any gap between the fretboard and the top so I am a bit concerned when I do kick the angle back a bit that I'm going to introduce a gap or a massive fallaway when I glue it down, not sure how best to proceed with the Y axis, it's definitely not going to get good action as it currently is though. 

Those router bits look a bit good, I've ordered myself one. I expect this guitar is going to look a bit good too. 

Back down the rabbit hole with the sides I bent up about a year ago now. The back and the top are both african mahogany with spruce braces. I don't know how good that is going to sound but I thought I would try putting a pickup in it anyway, 

I glued the back to the sides while it was still in the form, upside down so I could clean up any squeeze out. Then decided to try the spool clamps to stick the top on, worked quite well. 

There is no rosette other than some tortoiseshell celluloid that I bound the inside of the hole with. I used a piece to make the end graft too. Then on to the binding channel. I still hate this job, I put a lot of effort into getting the sides as flat which made a huge difference though, then used the stewmac dremel router guide to cut the channels which worked pretty well (much better than last time) so I think a lot of the difficulty in this job is down to preparation of the sides. It's not perfect but by far my best effort. 

I filled some hairline gaps with mahogany dust and titebond and scraped the binding flush.

Then got on with the neck. I designed a new headstock that's quite a bit thinner than what I put on my electrics. A). to keep weight down and also so I don't have to glue ears on to my neck stock. This is actually my second attempt at a neck for this guitar. I drilled the tuner holes wrong twice and decided that neck wasn't fated to be. It turned out my scarf joint was glued on the piss so this time I clamp everything down to the table saw for insurance.

And this is where we're at now. The veneer sheet is going to go on the back of the headstock to hide the scarf joint, I'm hoping I can carve it into a stinger 

This is my first time using rosewood for a bridge, I think it's going to work well though - it's not as heavy and has a much more tuneful clink than my ebony blanks

My hi tech mortising jig is still going strong too.

$300 for a 16" drum sander, thats a bargain! They take up a fair bit of room but I find them well worth the footprint, looks like you've got the right idea with it on a cabinet too.

That neck joint is mega cool!

Hard choice, both fab guitars!

O

On 6/13/2023 at 11:05 PM, Asdrael said:

Well, after a fruitful discuss, I have conjugal authorization to go to the workshop once weekly for however many hours I want. So today I left work early and stayed there until 23:00. Mind you, I don't get much done each time because I'm so slow still... but at least I can enjoy myself.

So today, I had a new best friend:

I was planning on using this bad boy to thickness my headstock and start the volute shape. Which I did:

I used this contraption to make sure the thickness was fine and to help with the volute:

It worked somewhat, but the plate wasn't that stable (one thread of the screw holding it was lose). So I had a bit of a dip in my headstock close to the volute. I had to get the thickness a tad lower that I wanted by hand, and I fell in love with my Shinto rasp. Holy shit that stuff is awesome. Anyhow, after a bit of sweat, I ended up with an almost perfect headstock sanded down to 400 grit (+-0.5 mm).

 

Which gave me the perfect setting to start working on the veneer. I sanded it down roughly to 2mm and finished it to 1.5mm thickness by hand, to 400 grit as well.

Now it was just a matter of putting it in place, and this time putting actually recessed screws as guides for glueing.

I was aiming at 14 to 15mm thickness as my tuners fit 13 to 16mm. Mission accomplished:

so yeah, I put some glue and aligned the guides, screwed them down. Thought about my mistake not clamping the neck well enough...

 

I made many mistakes today, but I learned a lot. Apparently I watched enough tutorials, videos etc and have enough common sense to get in the flow and not ask myself 'shit what do I do next again'. But I too often simply go for it to realize later that the tool was probably not the best. I need to be more careful - slow and steady wins to race. I am hoping my headstock cap joint will be nicer than the scarf joint. I guess I'll know that in a few days. Next stop - clean up, some sanding and truss rods / CF routes!

Oh how I wish I could own one of those big edge sanders!

Noice!

Heaven't heard from you in a while mate, glad to see you're still building and looking forward to seeing this one come along

Ash

On 6/23/2023 at 6:49 PM, Bizman62 said:

It took me until now I had time to concentrate on that video. Outstanding!

Exactly how long is it since we first "met"? Seems like yesteryear or so! Bro, you've become a real pro!

I wouldn't call myself a pro but thank you mate, appreciated. 2018 was when I first signed up to the Crimson forum and had a go, so a little over 5 years and 32 guitars. I'm now working part-time in IT and spending the rest of the time doing commissions and setup/repairs. Never saw that one coming!

23 hours ago, peachtree said:

Thanks everyone for the replies! I've stumped up the courage and below is what I have so far - I don't know if it's super clear from the pic but the fretboard laid across the neck plane basically comes in just above the bridge when it's sitting on the body (which is a clumsy way of saying a straight edge across the top of the fretboard extended over the bridge clears the bridge by 6mm, if it's just sitting on the body.

I think this is usable but probs not ideal - especially after frets/action etc my bridge is probs going to be sitting a little too high. I'll decrease the angle a bit I guess. Do you guys agree?

 

I'd like to see some more pics of that build, looks amazing. 

I used the crimson method of doing this with a hand plane many times. it's simply just the height of the bridge minus the height of the fretboard + frets defines the height of the block which is stick to the body at the scale line then plane down the front until you angle starts at roughly the back of the neck pickup position, then smooth it all out. 

height of planing block = (height of bridge + 2mm) - (height of freatboard + height of strings).

For a tunomatic bridge a planing block of about 8mm will do it. 

I still (kind of) use this method now but I do it with the drum sander 

If you watch my vid from 26:28, you will see what I mean
 

11 hours ago, maranho7 said:

Anyone have a SG2000 plans to send?

In future I'll try to build this model.

I don't have any plans for this and I wasn't able to find any, I just found a front on shot of the sg2000 body and traced it in illustrator. I did however lend my template to another builder and he told me my template is about 1cm too small all round so I won't offer up mine!

On 6/13/2023 at 1:54 AM, mistermikev said:

quite the all out jamboree there... I enjoyed it.  guitar looks great - nice work.

I'm not a fan of jam, but I do like Brie 

25 minutes ago, Professor Woozle said:

Thanks for doing the video @ADFinlayson, I had a mouthful of coffee when the comment about your grain filler popped up on screen and very nearly didn't have a mouthful of coffee...

That's something we regularly try to do to each other at band practice, extra points if it comes out the nose. 

On 5/17/2023 at 7:15 AM, Bizman62 said:

Hah! On some of the photos that looks more golden than the Gold Top! Although there's no metallic colour on it the birdseye makes it look like slightly embossed. The essence of gold instead of the actual metal...

Yeah it's an amazing top on this one. I've been hunting around for some more maple like this and haven't been able to find any sadly. 

The final instalment

Crikey it's been a fair few years since I saw that film. 

The guitar was for a band called Anastasia Elliot from Tennessee, the inlay is their logo.

https://www.anastasiaelliot.com/

16 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

So neat!

Why did I think about Alex when you did that 12th fret inlay, droog?

I have no idea who Alex or droog is!

Finally got round to editing some more footage, here is the 3rd and penultimate episode.