asgeirogm

Yes please!

The best I can come up with is creating a pin router setup, which doesn't sound bad. I just realized that the reason I couldn't get my scarf joint square straight from the router is probably that I hadn't planed the back of the neck so it is uneven from handsawing from both sides, so it must be that it was uneven where it was resting on the edge. I think I will try this approach again on my next build and just make sure the back of the neck is flat.

Hand cut the scarf joint, came out quite crooked Wanted to see if I could skip creating a jig for routing/sanding, so I put the neck at 13 degrees Seemed to work pretty well, but I couldn't get it to be completely square despite making many minor adjustments. Ended up planing the neck and headstock together like this and then just sanding until it was square. Here I've also thicknessed the headstock part Glued the scarf joint After clamping everything, I noticed that the headstock part had lifted a tad from the surface, so I "hammered" that down with my hands and could hear some friction crackling noise coming from where the headstock meets the anti-slip block, but didn't think anything of it. Realized a few minutes later that when I banged the headstock part back down to the surface, it was also slipping away from the joint and pushing the anti-slip block further away/dug into the block (which was the noise I heard). Note to self for future scarf joint gluing: square the end of the headstock and properly clamp the anti-slip block: Turns out the headstock slipped enough to create about a millimeter height difference from the top of the neck. Damn... I thought I was in trouble here and was considering how best to solve this; should I plane this with the router sled or try to sand it? Then I realized I should try my new steel beam that my neighbor got me from his workplace. So I glued some 80 grit on there and let me tell you, this steel beam is my new favorite tool. A few minutes and the thing was dead flat. The beam is very long, 80 cm, which has it's benefits, but I'm thinking maybe it's not going to be so nice when leveling the frets, so I've asked my neighbor for some shorter ones as well. Hopefully I can squeeze in some time to route the truss rod channel tomorrow, maybe even use the router sled to plane the neck profile. I have a question: I have a slotted ebony fingerboard and I'm wondering how best to proceed with tapering the neck and the fretboard. I'm a little bit worried that if I taper the neck, then glue the fretboard and route the fretboard using the neck for the bearing, that the fretboard will chip from the slots. I would do a normal cut towards the nut on the right side and a climb cut on the left to minimize the likelihood of tearout but I'm still worried about it. The alternative would be to taper the fretboard and then use that to taper the neck, but the neck is longer than the fretboard so I would have to get a little creative. Thoughts? Edit: Actually I just realized that since the fretboard is radiused, then I can't really work with the router on top of that. What is my best option here for tapering the neck and radiused & slotted fretboard?

Looking great, I can't wait see the inlays cleaned up

Great tips guys,thanks a lot! That's what I did

Do you actually use 12 beams? I imagine it could be handy having different grits ready on several beams, but I'm curious if that's the case

I'm leaning towards ignoring, but maybe I'll end up taking a mm off, let's see. It's oversize, I had expected to have to shape it on the sides and remove some from the bottom, but I hadn't realized I might have to do anything to the slots. Will I for sure have to do something to the slots if I tackle the height from the bottom? Dørs it maybe depend on my string gauge?

Thanks for the tips, I'll keep all of this in mind in the future

I need some advice, I neglected to mention before that when I was sanding the front of the body with the ROS, I must have leaned on it on one of the corners and the top is not flat: Looks to be about a millimeter at most here. I'm just going to pretend I didn't see that the side on that corner is not square (well it's probably square to the slope on that corner), it doesn't bother me. Do I need to flatten the entire thing again or will it not be noticeable on the end product? I don't want a "glass" finish, just something that makes the grain pop and protects the surface, and for that I think something like tru-oil would be good (correct me if I'm wrong). I think that works in my favor as a "glass" finish would probably make the slope more noticeable, I'm thinking? Side question: I've bough one of these nuts, I expect I will need to work a bit on the height to get that right, as well as the sides, but will I need to do any work on the slots themselves? If yes, what are some cheap tools I can use for that? To end on a happy note, I couldn't resists doing a mock up of the body with the hardware. I'm quite pleased

I forgot to mention that I had planned on having a 24.75" scale and 22 frets, but I have a 25.5" scale 24 fret ebony fretboard I bought 15 years ago. Originally I didn't want to use that for this build as that would mean moving the bridge, and I didn't think that looked good. I then realized that I could just use 22 frets and lengthen the neck and then I could avoid moving the bridge that much, so that's what I'm doing

Done some work on the neck, tried the handplane but after a very short test, I saw that either it was too blunt or not straight or something, but at least I didn't want to use that. I found someone who had a thickness planer, so I got it planed using that. The sides of my neck blank were not straight at all, so to get a straight side to be able to use a side as a guide when routing the truss rod channel I used my flush trim router bit and used the edge of my workbench as a "template". It was fine clamping at the ends since the blank has holes in the ends, so they won't be used anyway. I took as little as possible in each pass, so this was done in 3-4 pases On to sawing it in the long side, splitting the blank in a way I can get two necks out of it. I wanted to avoid using a table saw as that would mean gluing the heel on the one of the blanks, and I really prefer if it's one piece, I started with hand saw with a completely wrong blade, gave up on that, bought a really long blade for my jig saw (totally not intended for hard wood, and especially not this thick), but when testing on the end, the blade always bent to the side. I could only afford about 4mm between the two neck blanks before risking ruining one of them, so for fun I tried making a guide for blade on the underside, but that didn't work well enough, as the blade dug a little into the guide. ://imgur.com/kKXtV So, I went back to the handsaw but switched to a different blade and that worked pretty well (although a bit slow). I was thinking I would let the neck sit for a few days and see if it moved at all. After that, the plan was to use the router sled to flatten the headstock part and route the neck to the correct thickness by laying the neck down at an angle. I was then thinking I might also do the same to do the 2 degree angle in the heel. If someone thinks any of this is a bad idea, I would love to hear about it. I can draw some high quality MS Paint diagrams if anything is unclear about what I'm going to do.

I think you guys are right about that

Great discussion and tips for the gloves, beveling and sanding, thanks everyone. Slight hitch in my project plan as the FabLab I have access to want to have someone professionally set up their big woodworking machines after they were moved from an old location for safety reasons, so I can't use the jointer for flattening my neck blank nor the bandsaw for sawing out the side profile for the neck. I have a hand plane I've borrowed from a neighbor that I will try to use to flatten the neck blank. I can't afford to screw up too badly if I want to be able to use this blank for two necks, I can only take off about 3-4 mm max. I haven't used a hand plane in 15-20 years but I've just watched a few videos on YT and I'll set the blade so that I take very little at a time, so I think it will be fine. I've found a hand saw in a box of tools I got from my grandfather that I think might be suitable for sawing the side profile on the neck, so I think I'm back on track, just need to find some time to get cracking.

Regarding the air pockets under epoxy, I've never done epoxy inlays so I probably don't have the right idea here, but if the problem is air pockets 'under' the epoxy that can't escape as the epoxy is too dense/thick and not bubbles in the epoxy itself, could you make a hole through the inlay through the entire fretboard so that the air will be forced out through the bottom of the fretboard, where you can just close up the hole with some tape and then sand it down? Maybe the bottom of the inlay and the hole could look like a funnel to make sure the air is forced through the hole. Probably a terrible idea but I thought I'd throw it put there. Another way I've seen discussed that you probably know about already is heating the epoxy so that the bubbles rise out of it, but I thought I'd mention that as well. Love the design and build btw, an M-II is definitely somewhere on my todo list for the future

I've seen a lot of talk over the years about using gloves around power tools as a huge no no, i.e. the thing will sick your hand into the blade/bit/what ever. I did however notice that on the CMT bit case, there is a picture of gloves, indicating that you should use gloves when routing. Now I'm just confused, I would love it if someone could inform me about when and when not to use gloves Oh, great then! Can you really build a guitar without a stash spot for aviator sunglasses? :') I like that train of thought, at least I'm going to try to think like that instead of letting it bug me I can understand why you'd come to that conclusion, but I fully realize I will have to sand the edges (although I must admit did not expect to spend hours on it). The reason for cleaning up the tearouts with the router was that I don't have a belt sander, I do have a spindle sander (using my drill press) but I made the the spindle thing myself with a hole saw, and it's not as straight/consistent as I would want it so I wanted to avoid using it if possible. I do have a random orbital sander but it was just easier and "safer" for me to use the router. My plan was to just use a flat sanding block on the flat and convex edges and maybe use the spindle sander for the concave ones. I've bought 120, 180, 240, 360 grit sandpaper to start with. Any suggestions for sanding the edges would be most welcome, I had been thinking about slight bevels, I think I would prefer slightly beveled edges over 'straight-up block'. What would be the preferred method of adding slight bevels, keeping in mind that I would prefer it taking longer over accidentally taking to much in one spot and either having the bevel be uneven or having to make it larger everywhere than I would prefer.

On another sidenote, these marks/knots/what ever they're called are bugging me a little... They have become more and more visible as I've reduced the thickness and sanded. Oh well, hopefully I will end up liking them

Forgot to mention something earlier, I figured out why I was getting some "ribbing" when routing, it was being caused by vibrations due to the guitar body not being clamped down well enough. If we think about the body being a clock (hmm where have I heard that analogy before :') ), I've clamped it at 3 and 9, I'm routing at 6 but there's nothing holding it down at 12, so it must have been jumping a little up and down on each side of the 3/9 axis. What I did was put some heavy crap on the 12 end of the body and my problem was solved. That also made routing just so much more easier when I didn't have to be fighting the vibrations. I sure am learning a lot in a short amount of time here, both by doing and finding what works well and what doesn't; and by getting some really good info from you all. Damn this is fun stuff

I tried to do exactly that, my short comings were basically when I failed to do that and crash landed into the tarmac, but I've become better at that with a little practice and knowing my limitations and knowing a bit more about how the router behaves. I think I will probably set up a router table in the near future and figure out what I like more. It was a bit scary to be sitting with basically my face level with the bit, so if something went terribly wrong, I had both my legs kind of below the bit and my face level to it. The more I write about it, the more I feel like an idiot for doing it like that. My problems stem mostly from being 2 meters tall and my workbench being too low for me to be able to route the body standing up for such a sustained period of time, it would absolutely kill my back. But I will definitely have to do something, maybe just try prop my work surface up by a few centimeters.

So, I fixed the tearout on the long curve on the bottom doing something that is probably quite unusual (at least I haven't seen it). I decided to just sand the template (and maybe a little of the body, but that's besides the point) and route again, taking parts of a millimeter at a time. I did this again and again until the tearout was all gone. I also adjusted the corner part of the template so that the transition from the long curve to the corner to the other side of the corner still looked good. I had a little trouble due to my own unstable hands but in the end, I'm very happy with the result, I only have to sand out some minor imperfections. Man I love that endgrain Now it was time to take the template off to finish the second pass with the pattern bit. I ran into trouble with that as I bought some double sided tape and I wanted to try that out as opposed to the painters tape & CA glue method I had used before. Oh boy, I guess I put way too much tape on there as I wanted to make sure it wouldn't move, but the template was absolutely welded to the body. I tried heating the glue up with a clothing iron through the template. I didn't have big hopes for that since the template is 12mm and I doubt there was much heat reaching the glue, and it turned out to do absolutely nothing. I tried putting some floss between the template and the body and try to floss the glue into submission, but it barely made any difference, I could lift the edge only 1-2 mm away from the body in one place. I got my wife to help me by sticking a teflon spatula between the template and the body and then I tried prying it away apart while she jammed the spatula into the glue. Eventually we managed to get it loose, but I was too forceful at the end and the template came apart. Not a huge problem, I don't actually foresee that I'll use this template again anyway, if I make another explorer at some point, it will probably by a 76 or a 84 model. So, finally time for finishing the routing and trying to fix the other tearout I had. mmmm endgrain Again I did something unconventional to fix it (i.e. not just sanding it like a normal person). I moved the template back a little, clamped it in place and routed in two passes with the pattern bit. I didn't take so many pictures but I then did this a couple more times, making sure the straight edge of the horn on the body was aligned with it's counterpart on the template, so the radius of the curve was kept intact. The reason I decided to fix the tearout like this instead of sanding is I felt I had more control over the final result like this, I was confident that it wouldn't tear out and I was worried if I sanded it that I might ruin the curve so it would become unpleasing to the eye. I expanded from only the place with the tearout all the way to the heel to keep the curve as close to the original radius as possible. I tried to keep the heel as intact as possible, but if it means my curve stays nice, I'll live with the heel being a tiny bit off down the road. Success! Only a tiniest bit left of the tearout, which I'll sand out later when I sand the all the edges. I'm honestly so, so happy with what I have made so far, it's so satisfying getting to this stage after dreaming of building this guitar for 15 years. It's so pretty! I can't wait to see this thing with a finish to make that grain pop I think I'll 3d print a Humbucker routing template tomorrow so I can route for the PUs and then I'll try to get down to the FabLab this week to plane the neck blank and laser cut my neck template so I can start working on the neck. I also have to order the fretboard and the electronics soon.

My cuts were as shallow as I could manage, the tearouts happened when either I wasn't being careful enough when adjusting my sitting position or something like that or when I wasn't being careful enough and didn't have enough control over the router and allowed it to bang into the body. I have found that it is much harder to route using the longer flush trim cutter because it's grabbing so much wood (even with very shallow passes). When you say "alternate cutting direction between conventional and climb", do you mean that you go back and forth on the same place on the body? Or do you mean that you alternative cutting direction, based on how the grain is (like you describe with the clock analogy)? I did draw on the template which way I should route where, and I'm positive it was correct, it was just my unsteady hands that did the damage. I did exactly what you describe and show on the drawing, I just messed it up a little. I've considered that, but I've also read horror stories about wood going flying when climb cutting and mishaps potentially throwing your hands towards the bit, which is beyond scary to me. In any case, can you share the dimensions of the mounting holes of this plate? The aliexpress listing doesn't have any dimensions anywhere for the screw holes for mounting the router.

So, on with the project. I sawed out the shape as close to the line as I dared with the jigsaw (which was still a few mm). I sawed it all in one go, just in case I wanted to do something funny one day like create a semi-hollow body big boy Explorer, similar to what @Crusader is doing with the Big LP. Sanded closer to the line with my random orbital sander and some 40 grit (I went a little further actually after this picture was taken) On to template routing for the first time ever, routing from the master template to the 12mm MDF. So, I've learned that you have to be very, very careful when moving around with the router in hand, spinning at full speed. Bumped both the master and the 12mm MDF in a couple of places Decided to try to repair it as if I wanted to use the laser cutter again at the FabLab to create a new master template, I would have to wait a week for the next open session and drive 30 minute each way. I'm too impatient for that. Mixed some dust and woodglue (second photo is Mahogany dust, ehh who cares) Sanded it down a bit, created some more dust-glue-goo and sanded that down until I was happy with it Used the "female" of the 6mm MDF I laser cut before to know when to stop sanding the horn Added some superglue at one point to harden it up a little as it seemed maybe a little soft in some spots, but then I sanded it down so there was barely any left. Oh well, it seems good enough. here Template saved and glued to the body, ready for routing! I was actually quite nervous here because I didn't know what to expect, having never template routed hardwood before (only the 12mm MDF that went so splendidly). I marked the directions I would be routing on the template to same myself from making stupid mistakes (This video from fellow PGer A D Finlayson helped a lot with preparing for this). I had bought the longest pattern router bit CMT sells with a 8mm shaft, which still has only a 31,7mm cutting edge, so I'll do it in two passes. I first did the "conventional" cut, and it went splendidly! I then did the climb cut in the other direction from the waist, and while it was significantly more uncomfortable to control the router, it also went great! I just did many, many shallow passes (for both directions), as shallow as I basically could, so I was removing very little wood in each pass, and that worked really well. I started to think "man this was easy, I wonder if the whole thing will go so well..." You can guess the answer to that... I decided to do the long curve on the bottom, which is a climb cut the entire way. Man, that router is tough to keep steady, especially when trying to do many shallow passes. I probably lost my concentration and the bit bumped into the wood in a couple of places, leaving some shallow but ugly tearout https://imgur.com/h081IqL This was the point in time when I really realized why so many people hate climb cutting (and that's leaving aside the risk of injury and all that). Then I had an epiphany; I had also bought the longest flush trim router bit CMT with an 8mm shaft, with a cutting edge of 40mm. I could just flip the thing over and do the previously climb cut edges with that from the other side (had actually seen the post from @curtisa where he/she was doing that. Thanks for the idea!). I tried that on the other side of the horn, again doing very shallow passes, taking as little material as I could in each pass. It went pretty well, but I got a little tearout, I must have bumped the bit into the wood. It's a little hard to see in this photo I then did the rest of the long curve on the bottom, I actually had a some "ridges" after routing, I'm not sure if it's because I didn't prep the template edges with some watered down wood glue (I was impatient, if I did that, then I wouldn't have been able to start routing the body today). I can see where I have routed that the bearing digs a little into the template, so definitely in the future, I will smear those template edges like a bagel with cream cheese. I also did the other side of the heel and the heel itself with the long flush trim bit, and that went really well, but I forgot to take pictures. The end grain on the heel is absolutely beautiful, I'll have to take a picture of that tomorrow. That's as far as I got today, I really hope I can squeeze in a some time to finish routing the body tomorrow. I'll then have to sand some of the edges as they are not very straight. Any tips on how to fix those tearouts (the ones that can't be sanded out, that is)? I saw you did some nice fixes on tearout the LP4 (I think) @Crusader, any tips?

It's incredible how cheap you can get really good materials for dirt cheap by browsing Facebook Marketplaces and similar places for tables, shelves and the like in nice woods, I highly recommend it. I know the original 58 explorer was about my original thickness, but I seeing as I couldn't chamber the body at all and that this mahogany is so damn heavy, I decided to bring the thickness down. I would probably perferred 39-40mm but I actually feel 37mm is okay. Good point In any case, if it's possible to at least not support logging of endangered species, then I'm all for that

I can't figure out how to edit my post, but I just hope no one takes offense to the bit where I spoke about not contributing to unsustainable logging practices, all I meant was that I'm an environmentalist and I would like to only use sustainable wood if possible, but I also like reusing and giving things new life, so I chose to buy a table and use that for my guitar (also means I don't need to wait for it to acclimate, which is a plus). So, no offense meant to anyone as I know people use all kinds of wood for their builds, but in any case, I urge everyone to try their best to use sustainable wood when possible Ásgeir

Hey everyone, long time lurker (until recently), started lurking this forum probably around 15 years ago when someone called something like Metal Matt was constantly making some sick metal axes, but after a few years of hibernation from lurking, I´m back and in the mood to build! I've always loved the Explorer, as a Metallica man there was plenty of inspiration to be had on that front from Papa Het. So, some high level specs for my '58 Explorer: Mahogany body Mahogany neck with a scarf joint Crelicam ebony fretboard (Mad kudos to Madinter for providing a sustainable source of ebony) T-O-M bridge and tailpiece So, as most builds, this started with sourcing wood. I don't want to contribute to unsustainable logging practices (either accidentally or on purpose) so I decided to pick up a mahogany table from a guy nearby (when I came to pick the table up, I learned that the guy is a furniture maker and he made it himself, I felt quite little bad so I didn't tell him the table would end up as a few guitars). He told me the species of the mahogany but I cannot for the life of me remember what he said, the guy told me it is "extinct", meaning it is probably actually endangered, but what ever. If someone has ideas, I would love to hear them. So, I printed out the body shape and cut it out and tried out a bunch of different locations (on both sides of the table top) to find what I wanted to use. The table top is a three piece, so I could try it up and down in two different places, and on either side. Cut it with a large buffer as the table top is 44mm and I want to take the thickness down to about 39mm with a router sled I just built, and I having never used one before, I wanted to be on the safe side in case of tear out. This is from the underside of the table top, so not really finished, and you can see some lacquer drops there. Can still see how great the grain is despite the lack of a proper finish. Went to a local FabLab and laser cut my master template. 6mm MDF on the left didn't go so well, a bit too thick for the laser, so I picked up some 3mm plexi someone had so glamorously laser cut some glasses out of previously. I´ll have to redesign and recut that neck pocket template, the top spikes are too thin and short. So, So, having never used a router sled, I put a cutoff on it to get a feeling for how to use the sled. I had been waiting for over a week for it to stop raining and couldn't wait any more so I was hoping I would get at least a couple of hours of no raindrops to try the sled out on the offcut and then on the actual body. A Alas, it started raining so I gave up and went into my shed. I had held off on doing this there because of dust and the fact that I didn't have a shop vac for clean up, but at this point, I didn't care, I was going to use this router sled this day and that was the end of it! I do thankfully have the required PPE to protect my eyes, ears and lungs. Did it on the floor to minimize the dust going absolutely everywhere. Man, that really did a number on my lower back. You can see an almost full bucket of dust there to the side that I collected with my hands to get rid of most of it from the workpiece. https://imgur.com/kylVG9o Didn't have enough control of my depths, so it went down to 37mm. Whoopsies https://imgur.com/ghahUP0The My router sled is not precise enough, the stacked rails were maybe not such a good idea after all, but maybe my sled-thing and my base plate are not good straight enough. In any case, I ended up with a less than straight surface (more than just tooling marks), so did some work with a ROS to take care of most of it, but I'll have to do some more work later. Pity I don't have so many tools for that job, I borrowed a handplane from my neighbor that I might use, but I´m slightly scared of making it worse though since I don't know if it´s sharp enough, and I have not used one for 15 years. Let's see if I just do more with the ROS, especially since I can't afford to lose much more thickness if I make mistakes. Should I maybe get a card scraper? The bottom part of the shed was covered in sawdust so I bought a vacuum and now it looks good again. I do almost all my sawing outside on the garbage bins though, the shed gets really warm on sunny days, and I don't feel like cleaning dust all the time (I store some strollers and kids bikes and stuff in there as well, either moving all of that out of there or cleaning everything when sawing, both less than ideal options). Sawed out my template out of MDF with my jig saw. Started on the bottom and noticed the blade had bent towards the body so I moved further away from the line on the rest of the template, both because I was afraid of the blade bending again, and to make room for making up for my previous mistake. I read a little about why the blade bends and it seems I was able to prevent it from bending on the rest of the template, so hopefully I can keep that going when I actually saw the body with the jig saw later. Here's the plexi template on the MDF, sitting on the aforementioned garbage bins workbench, ready to be routed. I've bought the Makita rt0700cx5j kit for all my other routing needs. For the thicknessing I used a router I bought used for next to nothing, but I wanted more control for the important stuff. I've 3d printed another plate and a knob as that should give me even more control. Let's see how that turns out when I get the chance to route the MDF template Sanded the bottom a little to make sure it was flat Here's my neck blank, made out of a horizontal support beam from the same table. I had a horrid time trying to saw the sides straight with my cheapo POS table saw. Not really a problem right now, but I´ll have to figure that out when I need to use it again (maybe 3d printing a featherboard might help). I don't know when I'll work more on the neck. I'm also in the process of making a small cnc router with a rotary tool. I hope it'll be precise enough to be able to do inlays on the fretboard. I had most of the hardware needed for the cnc lying around from previous projects, and I have a 3d printer I built a couple of years ago, so I figured why not give it a try. Link to cnc instructable

Thanks for the detailed response Bizman62, not what I was hoping to hear but I sure am happy I learned this now and not when later with a warped piece of wood. Andyjr515, I live in Denmark so my assumption would be that this is European Sycamore. That could be incorrect though, especially seeing as you don't think so. In light of this new info I will look elsewhere for wood in my build, but I may still buy this and let it dry for a future build if it checks out during a closer inspection. I assume it would be fine for me to buy something kiln dried to 7-10% moisture and start working with it after letting stand in the workshop for a few days/weeks? Apparently, the índoor humitity in Denmark rocks from about 40-65% depending on the season, which translate to roughly 7ish-10ish% moisture in the wood,so I assume this would be fine?