Bizman62

Take a piece of Abura and build a chiseled one out of that! Pretty please!

Your chiseling is so clean even the rough shaped top looks superb! On such a spectacular piece of wood leaving it as such would be a waste of appearantical (is that a word???) resources. But on a blander piece of wood, have you ever thought of leaving the surface structured?

Exactly. The smaller hole on the top doesn't provide any significant support to the hollow bolt, the string capstan most likely is the place of any wobble. I did that tiny detail just because it was easily doable. Then again, as we all know tearout can be a problem with strongly figured wood. Often the tearout in the headstock is minor and mostly can be covered with the washer. With a smaller hole any minor damage will more likely stay in the hidden area, don't you think?

This is the thing: The hollow bolt is 8 mm in diameter, the tuner housing is 10 mm. And the bolt is about 3 mm longer than the part of the housing that goes into the headstock. Resulting this: Are we talking apples to oranges in a language neither of us is a master of?

So it seems, I learned to use that word from the original larger version of the picture which I found when searching for the names for the individual parts of a tuner.

Huh? All my tuners have the Capstan Bushing, the hollow bolt that tightens the tuner to the headstock. The two pin Fender tuners don't even have a securing screw on the back side as the pins keep the tuners from rotating. The only exception is my Aria bass where there's pressed ferrules instead of threaded bushings.

Standard cheap tuners. The tuner housing doesn't come all the way through and there's a couple of mm's space when the bushing is screwed to the bottom. Obviously the bushing is thinner than the housing as it fits inside it.

Today the backplate was shaped to match the headstock. I'm more or less happy with how I managed to get the stripes align, what bugs me most is the lower wing which could have used one or two strokes more with the hand plane. There was a tiny gap to be filled with super glue and wood dust, nothing that could rattle or endanger structural integrity. While scraping and shaping the headstock I also addressed the darkest edges of the body, ending up scraping and sanding the entire perimeter. As the holes in the backplate were drilled for the clamping screws they were way too small for tuners so I used a round file to enlarge them. At the end I had to grab a drill but the file did a good job to make the drilling safer. As you can see the front side holes are smaller to fit the bushing tighter so I couldn't just drill from the front. And finally there was just enough time to spread some finish on the body and headstock. Sanding the edge yet another time was worth the effort, I really like how the growth rings now pop, yet there's plenty of weathering left. And the backplate ties nicely with the rest: The center strip is from the same batch as the fretboard, the walnut on the sides is the same as that of the center of the neck. The cherry stripes are from the very same board.

I had a thought they'd be more expensive so I checked. StewMac sells nickel plated Gotoh Vintage 6 in line tuners for $47.17 and the staggered ones for $67.99. Guess that's the trend for all models and vendors.

Predrilled holes are more or less a must. The pins are about 2 mm thick with rounded tips, and about 3 mm long. Pretty much impossible to just push into maple even with a wrench making the bushing pull from the other side. And the Fender AmStd neck of mine has drilled holes instead of crushed.

I hear ya, many of those I found were for Dremel tools. Here's the measurements of the abovementioned. ½" should be plenty enough for tuners Looking further on the page it shows that they make those in various cutting diameters like 3/8", in this set of 10 they have both ½" and 3/8" in various shapes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091DWQ2Z4/ref=emc_b_5_i There's sets of 3/8" and 1/4" and some metrics like 8mm as well, now that you know where to start go find what best suits you and your wallet.

I hear ya! I'll be at retiring age in a few years and due to the changes in the retiring age my four years younger wife can retire only after seven years. Seven years! What do you think I'd have to do home alone during those years??? Hell no! I'll continue working part time during that so we can share the household chores more evenly! After that rant I must say the top looks fantastic and the fitting around the neck tight as - hmmm... for some reason I started thinking of my early adulthood. But 'glove' was the word I meant.

A slightly conical file/burr, rotary or handheld, would be my choice. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Tungsten-Carbide-Rotary-Grinder-Diameter/dp/B085T45CBY

Have you checked your spam folder? That has often happened to me since Thunderbird doesn't synchronize the Spam folder. I've since learned to check them via browser every now and then especially if I'm waiting for an answer from a new contact. Not to mention the case when my ISP enabled filtering and started to send the messages from my website to trash and delete them after two weeks. Don't know how many customers I lost before finding that out! Also note that the filtering rules may change without notice.

And if that seems too thin, splinters of wood attached to the first layer of masking tape with super glue provide more thickness without becoming mushy and bouncy.

I just couldn't resist, I had to find out whether the backplate has to be redone or not! It seems I got lucky this time. No gap to be seen anywhere and the lines match. Hopefully the situation will remain after shaping and sanding.

Hello and welcome! The quality of a luthier is not in how meticulously they can build their instruments, it's based on how well they can fix their mistakes! So to answer your question: No, you haven't ruined anything, you've just changed the design a bit. Assuming your neck is narrower than the template all you have to do is to add a sliver of wood on one or both sides of your neck pocket and rerout it to fit your neck.

I've been thinking to order their acoustic backs for tops, they're much cheaper than their electric drop tops and with binding you really can't tell how thick the top veneer actually is. Cutting covers out of them never occurred to me as there has always been suitable offcut pieces available. Good to know that they actually seem to be a bit thicker than they say.

As I was enjoying a gettogether last Saturday I thought I could do something at home. So I took the tuners and noticed that the headstock was too thin. Wrote a note to myself to make a bottom side veneer on the headstock, only problem being to figure out the material. Well, as this build is made of offcuts and scrapwood I took a piece left from another neck and widened it in the same style i.e. glued wings with a light coloured strip in between. Opposite colour scheme to the actual neck, that is. Found some silicone paper in the trash bin to prevent the glue sticking to the block. The back of the headstock required a resanding to make the glue stick so masking tape and super glue to the rescue and onwards to the smaller belt sander. Nice and clean! After spending a couple of hours trying to bend the almost 3 mm veneer it was time for some creative clamping. I'm afraid I'll have to redo the process next weekend!

If I remember to use that in my future builds consider that idea stolen!

A single edge razor blade used as a scraper. And BLO after that. When oiling, remember to first apply liberately, then when it gets tacky wipe everything off with a dry cloth. And after some 15 minutes wipe away everything that's been sweating out. Otherwise the surface will remain tacky forever. Also remember that the oily rags and towels are self-igniting unless you spread them rather over a fireproof surface to dry. After they've become stiff you can wash them for reuse. Never toss moist oily rags into the trash can!

I can think of at least two reasons. First, it might be that the finish is shrinking and comes off at the bottoms of the pores. That's my primary suspect especially as you say it has been poorly refinished. There seems to be some sort of lacquer even on the fretboard which would explain that happening there as well. The second thought is wax but as you didn't mention about having done any polishing recently I'm doubtful about that. That said, wax residues in pores are easy to fix: Simply take a brush and use it similarly to polishing your shoes. That would also serve as a test between these two options. If option #1 is the more likely one, apply some boiled linseed oil. That alone can be good enough, but mixing it with turpentine and solvent based lacquer will make it fill the pores a bit for a leveler surface. TruOil and the likes are a commercial version of that mix. One third each is the starting point but depending on your goal you can change them, even leave the lacquer out. Another mix is shellac, alcohol and BLO, rubbing that vigorously in so the friction creates heat can result a nice gloss. That said, be aware that rubbing alcohol will melt nitrocellulose lacquer which may be used on that guitar so be careful with the latter recipe!

I had to double check about the body: There seems to be a pattern of tight grained wood, especially visible in the waist.

The bass strings now seem more articulate and flavorous, the treble ones still sound a bit ukey especially when strumming chords.

For testing purposes that looks solid enough. For fast swapping, Relish Guitars have invented a swappable pickup system allowing at least any humbucker sized to be swapped even while playing: https://www.relishguitars.ch/article/focusing-on-material-innovation-and-functionality They also sell the pickup mounting hardware separately, here's how they're installed: https://youtu.be/416t56R-V5c?feature=shared