ADFinlayson

10 hours ago, ZekeB said:

I love the contrast.  How does a wenge body sound?  Is it pretty heavy?  

It sounds great, but how much of that is down to the wood is arguable/subjective. The main takeaway from this one is just how damn good the neck feels, I wouldn't hesitate to make a wenge neck again.

Wenge generally is quite heavy, this body is quite heavily chambered and it weighs 9lb with finish and hardware. But I think in hindsight, I could have chambered it more that I did, I took about 20mm out of the entire upper bout, round to the behind the bridge, I didn't go any deeper because I was originally going to carve the back. If I was to do another one, I'd make it a semi hollow which should get it < 8lb 

+1 for Wenge + flamed maple, I did it last year

I like this design, a nice refinement/iteration of your last one. The tamer headstock design definitely works better to my tastes.

Looking forward to seeing it take shape

Thanks dude, it’s coming along a lot quicker than I thought. Had some spare time today and it wasn’t too cold so I got some more bits done.

I cut my truss rod slot with a chisel in the end, marked it out with a scalpel and just treated it like hogging out an inlay cavity. Got about 4mm down with the chisel then to make sure I had the right depth, I just free handed down the channel with the router before tidying up the edges with the chisel. Only took about 20 mins.

Then I marked out my fret slots, I never cut them until they’re on the board but I like to mark them out with a blade before hand while the board is square.

And now it’s all glued up. 

I will be tackling the ears on the headstock next 

Another successful evening on the V. Tidied up all the glue and planed the top flat with my No7. Then I stuck the PRS template on and routed the taper as much as I could following that template.

Then I remembered a cool trick from a Freddys Frets video where he super glued a couple of blocks to the side of the neck to locate his fretboard. So I did that to help me place the feather edge correctly, stuck it down with masking tape and super glue and routed the taper so it continued down the headstock and body. Worked well but very time consuming.

Really happy with how it’s come out, the pale lines look awesome, but the taper is so slight, I wonder if it was worth all the effort when a 1 piece neckthrough blank would take a fraction of the time. 

Need to figure out what I’m going to do next. I need to cut the headstock angle then bookmatch and thickness some maple to put on the headstock. I also need to get a truss rod channel cut which will be a ball ache as the neck is already tapered, I’m thinking that I could make a template of some sort to do this, but also wonder if it would actually take that long with a chisel. I’d like to get the fretboard stuck on as it will help prevent movement in the neck so I expect I will get on with the truss channel. It’s too damn cold in the garage at the moment though so I’m expecting slow progress over the next week 

I missed by a couple of mm when I routed the control cavity on #5. On #2 I didn’t miss but it turned out that pre routed channel filled with glue and I had to drill through it anyway now I mask off pre routed channels before glueing tops on. Every days a school day.

Well that was a productive and nerve wracking evening. I cut my tapers, that was surprisingly easy with  the router and feather edge, just very time consuming. 

Then indecided to go back to my plan and draw the side profile. I did this because I thought it would be easier to cut the pieces to the rough shape before glueing, my bandsaw would struggle cutting through the whole blank and I’d end up cutting lots of small pieces away, but cutting the 3 slithers individually means I could cut them in one pass and have enough walnut leftover to make a strat style neck with tapers already in

I drew the profile out on one of the laminates, cut it out then just drew round it to cut out the others.

Drew round one again to cut some maple veneer. Looks awesome!

Then I cut up some leftover walnut dowles to use as locator pins and drilled 3 holes in either waste or areas that would be hidden.

And we are glued and clamped. I underestimated just how much of a ball ache glueing such long laminates would be. We will have to wait until tomorrow to see if it’s any good or a total cotastrohpy

1 hour ago, komodo said:

Mark off where your body wings will glue on, then route a deep channel right in the middle on the side (or drill) and you have a pre-made wiring channel.

Smart guy
I'm putting a top on my neckthrough, so I was thinking about using a rebate but and gong from where the bass pickup down close to the bridge.

8 hours ago, GCmtb said:

I like the idea of doing the whole body out of fanned pieces of maple/walnut, could make for something really unique.

Actually, it's got me thinking that it might look a bit like Crimson's BOB1 and that's put me right off

For my next build, I'm going to be making my friend and band-mate, Ollie, a flying V. There are a few things on this one I've never done before, so it should prove to be a bit of a challenge; I've never made a V, never made a neckthrough and never tapered the laminates on any of my previous necks. So I started off with a crude drawing, then moved on to a scaled plan. He very specifically want's the same neck as his PRS custom 24, which makes things a bit awkward. I have plans for a 67' Flying V but I can't really use them, so I started drawing around my CU24 neck template, extended the neck taper, then traced the body from the 67' marked out some key fret positions on the 25" scale neck and positioned tracing paper accordingly to transfer the body shape onto my plan. Then with an outline I could figure out how the laminates would taper and what sizes they needed to be.

It's going to be a 3-piece neck, made from 3 25mm strips of American black walnut separated with maple veneers. The centre strips will be tapered from 14mm at the nut to 21mm at the bridge which should follow the taper of the shape of the neck once routed. Then I'll carry on the taper from the tip of the headstock to the base, so the overall taper will be 13.5mm to 22mm in the middle piece. I'm a little bit apprehensive about making the taper, I think with the tools I have, my only option is to draw the lines on the piece and use a feather edge and a router.

I'll glue on ears and body wings, again seperated by maple veneer, I'm tempted to make up the body wings from some more laminates of walnut and maple so the whole thing is fanned stripes from behind, which might look cool, a lot more work though! It might depend on the price of walnut for the wings, I'm struggling to find walnut planks thick enough to make the body with in the UK.

This one is going to have a hardtail bridge, probably a Grainger or a Schaller roller bridge so I shouldn't have to worry about a break angle, but it is going to have a flamed maple top so I will need to thickness the body part of the neckthrough.

Anyway, we're off to cut some walnut 

Cheers
Ash

2 hours ago, Mr Natural said:

Here is the real kicker -in cleaning my workshop this weekend-I came across 3 jigs I had saved- and I have no freaking idea what the hell they are for. i sorta think I know what one of them is for- but- honestly-not sure and cant even remember what instrument I used it on. So there you go. 

When you need them, you'll know what they're for

1 minute ago, ScottR said:

Very tasty!

The one I built with a ziricote top, was pretty bright, with rather low output strat pups. Are you getting any of this in that one?

SR

It is quite bright but I put that down to the pups to be honest, I've got a HFS in the mk2 and I haven't really noticed a difference, you've got me thinking that I need to play the two side by side though. 

Finally finished! Handed it over to Luke last night. I'm very happy with it as is he, but also glad it's gone to be honest. The pics aren't the best unfortunately, I wanted to take some proper photos, but just ran out of time yesterday.

Spec
Body: 1 piece carved african mahogany
Cap: 2-piece flame maple w/faux binding
Control cover: carved flamed maple
Neck: Laminated flamed maple and african mahogany
Headstock: Ebony w/ flamed maple inlay
Fretboard: Ebony with flamed maple trapeze inlays
Binding: Ebony + flamed maple
Frets: 24 medium jumbo nick-silver
Nut: 43mm graphtech tusq
Finish:
 - Top: oiled blue burst
 - Back/neck: oiled Natural
Tuners: Mini Grover Rotomatic 3x3
Bridge: Graphtech Resomax untimatic with tusq saddles and Gotoh tailpiece
Pickups: Dimarzio Liquifire bass, SuperDistortion trebble
Controls:
 - Switchcraft 3-way toggle 
 - CTS push-pull volume with treble bleed
 - CTS push-pull tone, both pickups can be coiltapped individually.
 - Ebony lampshade control knobs

ZekeB get's my vote, a real beauty!

Dryness is definitely important, but it does matter more with some woods than others. Before I use some wood, I tend to look it up on the wood-database and find out it's characteristics. 

But dryness is much more important if you're working with a 1-piece body than a 2 or 3-piece body. A thick maple cap will always help stability and dryness is most critical with your necks. Again, a neck laminated from several pieces will always be more stable than a 1-piece neck. 

Something I've found lately, moisture content in wood can fluctuate quite significantly in a short time when taken from one place to another, I've got a plank of walnut that I've split up into several pieces to make a throughneck laminate construction. When the plank was delivered, it was kiln-dried and registered 6% on my moisture meter, I left it out in the garage for 2 days and it registered at 13%. It's now been back inside for 2 weeks and registers at 6% again.

So If you've got your wood in a cold place, bring it in  - I see you're in England also and it's damn cold at the moment!

Something you could do, if you want your wood to dry out more quickly and you know specifically what you're using for, is rough cut it out but leave it slightly oversized so there is less wood to dry, but you've got some leeway if it does move on you. 

How thick is that ziricote?  must have cost a fortune!

I'm going to apply a sanding sealer to my ziricote top and limba body. What grit should I sand to before applying the sealer? and what grit should I sand it off with? If it helps answer, I'm planning on doing a wipe-on poly finish as demonstrated in the awesome finishing tutorial.

Cheers
Ash

2 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

man you and @Norris really like your tailpieces floating high (jk).  Looking real good!

If you can't bow it like a cello, it's too low.

54 minutes ago, komodo said:

SWEET build. I love the small dots on the fretboard, it looks sophisticated / refined. It's a nice size to accent the dark woods.

You mentioned using a coping saw for the MOP. Is it a pearl cutting saw? They are worth it, with pearl cutting blades and some parafin wax to lube the blade. It makes easy work of it.

When I put the studs in it makes me nervous I have the hole too small and the whole body is going to crack in two, so I make sure it's big enough to be pressed in with force but not have to be hammered. 

Thanks, yeah I'm pleased with the small dots, I did't really want to inlay dots but I get lost without something to mark the face of the fretboard, especially at the dusty end. Another plus for 2mm dots is that they're half the price of 6mm dots

This was literally my first go at cutting MOP so I had no idea what to expect, I did some of the cutting with a coping saw and some of the cutting with my band saw, and did the rest with little jewellers files. I'll look at pearl blades for next time (I didn't know that was a thing).

The inner diameter of the bridge wells is 11mm and the outer diameter - the lines that grip the wood (I don't know the correct term) are 11.25 so there is not that much pressure required although simply pushing them in with fingers is not enough. If it's a tunomatic bridge then it can be a looser fit but a 1-piece bridge is taking all of the lateral pressure from the strings so needs to be a snug fit - I've come undone here before and needed to plug and redrill.

Neck is all glued on and I've got a good joint. I did have to glue in a .25mm veneer down one side. I learnt a lesson here. When I routed the pocket, I had a tight fit, too tight in fact, so I used a scraper to fettle the pocket so I had a snug but not not over tight fit. But that was when I was working out in the cold. When I brought the parts inside, the neck pocket shrunk (became wider), which allowed a tiny bit of lateral play in the pocket. I expect, if I'd left it be instead of scraping at it, it would have been fine, but after sticking the veneer in, everything is fine and id doesn't appear to have affected the centre line - I guess by the time the neck is pressed in, that veneer becomes paper thin.

I got to work on my bridge wells last night. These wraparound bridges are a bit more work than tunomatics because the studs sit back from the saddles, needed to measure that offset and drill accordingly, with the PRS adjustable stoptail, the studs sit 5mm behind.

I'm working to a fairly shallow break angle for this type of bridge, turned out just under 2º which means my bridge will need to sit flush with the body for the strings to bottom out on the fretboard and give me a bit of adjustment. So I've had to make a recess for the bass of the studs. The bass of the studs is 13mm in diameter and 1.5mm thick, so I started off by drilling a 13mm bit to 1.5mm depth, then I switch to 11mm bit to drill deep enough so the bridge well and the bass of the stud would be level with the top. Then after sorting out the earth wire I started tapping them in, then realised it was 23:30 and the baby was asleep So that will be a job for tonight (but a bit earlier). I'm wishing now that I didn't give my dad his drill press back, drilling these holes is easy with a hand drill, but using a drill press to push the wells in is a lot quieter than banging them in with a brass hammer.

That inlay work is stunning, proper job.

Looks awesome, kudos for attempting that design for your first inlay! I found the easiest way to stick and score round them is to just stick them down with a tiny blob of superglue which holds it down more securely than tape and you can see the wood you're score instead of tape.  You can normally get a scalpel under it to prise it off if it won't just twist away but if that doesn't work, a drop of acetone softens the glue, and it doesnt matter if the super glue leaves a mark on the fretboard because that area will be removed anyway

Frets are in, very happy wit the result. Bit of a squeaky bum moment smashing the life out of the 12th fret over all that MOP but nothing happened. Clearly MOPE is not as fragile as I had worried. I had a real nightmare on a few of the frets, for some reason, I just could not get them seated and had to pull 3 and replace. The slots were deep enough, I filed the tops of the slots, and I nipped and filed the tangs close to the binding so there was plenty of tang to hold them down but some of the ends just wouldn't go down.  So took me a fair few hours to do the fretwork, but it's all done now and result is my best fret-job yet  Planning to get the neck glued on over the next couple of days, temperature permitting.

thats a great looking carve, especially first a first attempt. Did you go straight from gouges to scrapers? That is one way to do it but a lot of effort. I tend to go from gouges to random orbital sander, or if I'm after some quiet time, thumb planes. FYI my thumb planes cost about £15 from ebay/china, I highly recommend them, like your cheep gouges, they just need a good sharpen. If you want to do a bit of a back carve though ala PRS, it's much easier to do that with the random orbital. Looking great, looking forward to seeing it mate.