Armaan

On 12/10/2018 at 7:42 PM, RestorationAD said:

How did you make the cover plate? Looks really good. 

On 6/25/2021 at 6:00 AM, ADFinlayson said:

Thanks, yeah that's just some plain maple veneer between each of the walnut pieces. That was a pain in the arse to glue up

Looks fantastic and well worth the extra effort. I would’ve definitely incorporated this style in this build had I known about it. Maybe next time...

Control cavity cover plate: I fitted the cover plate to the control cavity and beveled the long edge of the plate on the inside edge. Now it sits flush with the body and if you press down along its longest side it gets pushed in and lifts on the other side.

I will be putting in magnets on the other two sides - this way I avoid using screws or cutting out material to allow it to levered open. 

Quite pleased with how it turned out!

@Bizman62 I think this would be interesting to use as a volume/tone setting indicator, but I want to have as little maple visible on the face of the guitar to keep it darker. 

@Gogzs I agree - it would bother me as well to have stripes pointing in different directions. 

I'm also thinking of making a chamfer on the top and making a subtle groove on the edge to indicate the setting. 

I might make a few of these and see how it looks placed on the body and then decide.

Thanks!

Knobs and pickup rings: I was initially planning to have all-black electronics, including black acrylic pickup rings and black plastic/aluminium knobs. I'm now thinking that I should make them with wood. I thought of these three options:

Option 1: Walnut-maple-walnut knobs to match the horizontal wood layers in the body. Since the top of these knobs will be walnut, the pickup rings will also be made of walnut.

Option 2: Walnut knob with ebony top. Since the top of these knobs will be ebony, the pickup rings will also be made of ebony.

Option 3: Ebony knobs and pickup rings.

Option 1 will have a more natural woody look and option 2 and 3 will be more in line with the original all-black theme.

What do you guys think?

56 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

This is looking great, certainly not looking like a first build 

Thanks! Lots of reading and watching youtube videos in the last few weeks and some practice to get to this point. I've certainly made errors, but I've been able to fix them or revise plans to get around them. 

I was looking up the guitars on your website - the Ziricote stoptail is just fantastic. For Ollie's flying V - how did you get the lines on the back? Is that veneers stuck between pieces? Looks amazing

21 hours ago, Gogzs said:

This is so raw but nice, I like it. As for the nut, I put it on its place and use a pencil to mark the radius of the fretboard on the nut and use that as a guide to slotting. Everything else I agree with what @ScottR said. 

Yes, makes sense. Alternatively I thought I'd print out an autocad template to make sure I get the radius right.  

Update:

1.      Made the pickup and control cavities using a drill and a forstner bit and completed it with a chisel. Wanted to avoid the router as far as possible.

2.      Started work on the body carves using a chisel – in the process of sanding and smoothening them down. Used a 45 degree angle router to make a chamfer along the horns.

3.      Used a router to cut a groove for the back plate. The bit I had could only accommodate 2mm of cutting and I had to chisel the rest of the groove. 

4.      Cut the back plate from an offcut of walnut that roughly matches the grain on the back of the guitar. Shaped it and in the process of making it sit flush in the groove.

Work-in-progress, so some fine tuning and clean-ups are still required.

8 minutes ago, ScottR said:

 I leave everything about the nut till last, then roughly shape it and slot it when the guitar is ready to be strung. The slots should follow the headstock angle  or even be a degree or so steeper. The break angle should be at the front edge. The bottom or the slots will be radiused the same as the frets. The top edge will account for the string widths and so will be higher at the low E side. On half to one third of the string showing is the norm at least for the thicker strings. That's pretty tough to do for the high E. The key is to keep the strings from hanging up in the slots. A wide Vee shaped slot will accomplish the same thing and it then doesn't matter how much string is exposed.

SR

Thanks! this is super helpful and makes sense.

8 minutes ago, mattharris75 said:

I designed it so that I could use a 3/4" forstner bit to cut the inlay hole. I drew the design in Adobe Illustrator and then used my favorite laser cutting service, SendCutSend, who I use for all of my combat robot work, to cut the design out of 1/8" thick brass. Then inlayed it with epoxy with a little black furniture powder in it.

Got it! I might try that out if I can find a good laser cutting service.

Combat robot work!? Is that like Robot Wars / Batllebots? Sounds cool

Nut installation: I have a few questions regarding the nut:

1. How should I go about installing the nut? Should I roughly shape it and leave final slotting for when the guitar is ready to be strung?

2. Should the nut slots follow the headstock angle of 15 degrees or be slotted parallel to the fretboard? I guess if it follows the headstock angle it would have a higher chance of string breakage due to the increased angle at the point that the string makes contact with the nut.

3. Should the nut be radiused exactly as the fretboard is? Is any deviation needed on account of the fact that the low E is fatter than the high E (i.e. and therefore it will sit taller on the nut)?

4. Is there an ideal nut slot depth? I've read that it is advisable for 1/3 of the string to be above the nut.

Anything else I need to know?

Thanks!

This looks fantastic! Very unique

On 6/19/2021 at 9:56 PM, mattharris75 said:

Need to drop fill some epoxy in the voids and micromesh everything to a nice polish, but here's the inlay design I went with:

 

This looks great! How did you do the inlay? I'm thinking of doing a headstock and 12th fret inlay on my guitar 

52 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

That will push the neck pickup closer to the bridge which may remove some thickness and warmth from the sound. I.e. the neck pu would sound more similar to the bridge pu.

I had this in mind when making it, but I hoped the change would not be significant. It would move 10mm forward and I was thinking of it as if it were a neck pickup placed on a 24 fret guitar. 

7 hours ago, Gogzs said:

I wouldn't make a top for the headstock, but then again, I love that "racing stripes" look that goes across the whole body, and I'd definitely keep it that way, but to each his own. Nice progress so far, great job  

Well - that seems to be the popular opinion so far. My wife thinks so too, so I would have to find a lot of support to change it! 

Headstock: Do you guys like the headstock face? I'm considering making a walnut top for it.

I will also cover the bass side of the headstock with a thin walnut binding, as I don't like how the stripes look stretched across the angled surface.

I will be using all black tuners and am currently not planning make a truss rod access cover.

Any thoughts or design suggestions are welcome!

Thanks

Update: 

1. I cut the body to size using a jigsaw. Kept a 1-2mm margin for error. 

2. Experimenting with an arrow shaped step at the the end of the fretboard. The body is around 3.5mm lower than the neck, so I thought this might look interesting. Any thoughts?

4. Received the pickups and pots today. Planning the pickup and control cavities.

@Bizman62

Here are some better pictures of the makeshift long clamps

23 minutes ago, curtisa said:

There might be an error with the way you've calculated the height difference. I get a height difference of about 0.53mm from end to end when I use the values you propose.

In any case, the height difference generally wouldn't be influential on the geometry of the guitar in practice. You either radius the board and aim for the apex of the radius to be at 6.5mm the full length of the board and live with the edges thinning down by 0.5mm from nut to last fret, or radius the board such that the edges remain a consistent thickness all they way along the board and accept that the board will be 0.5mm thinner at the nut-end. In both situations the end result is that the fret board playing surface has a consistent radius and constant angle relative to the strings (within a tiny fraction of a degree). Certainly similar enough that any difference could be adjusted out by tweaking the bridge action.

In short, don't sweat it. It works. 

There was an error - a pretty silly one. I used a 12" diameter and not radius in my drawing . Had a feeling I was missing something - 1mm seemed too much 

At 0.5mm, it will be hardly any difference and will correct it with the bridge action. 

Fretboard Radius:

I was planning the height for the side dot fret markers and when I was calculating the drop caused by my 12inch radius, I noticed an issue. Since my fretboard tapers from 56mm to 43mm, radius sanding parallel to the neck would result in the fretboard being slightly higher at the nut than towards the body - it should rise by about 1mm, assuming a 6.5mm fretboard height at the center line. Is saddle adjustment or fret leveling the answer to this? Or am I missing something?

On 6/14/2021 at 6:34 PM, mattharris75 said:

A boiled linseed oil based finish looks great on walnut. Tru Oil is generally a good option as you can go with either a more 'in the wood' look or build coats into a shinier finish if you are so inclined, so there's a lot of flexibility. Danish oil also works well for the in the wood style of finish.

As far as tung oil, that's a whole can of worms. Tung oil and tung oil finish, which are different things, can have a pretty wide variety of ingredients, sometimes not even including any actual tung oil. So unless you have a brand that you like and have worked with successfully I'd personally choose to stay away from it altogether.

Thanks! I was choosing between linseed oil and tung oil (pure). I had narrowed these down as tru oil seemed a bit too glossy and it is quite expensive in my country. I was leaning towards tung oil as linseed oil is slightly darker than tung oil and it is known to yellow over time which I would like to avoid. I have never used an oil finish, so I plan to try it on some extra pieces and see which one looks better.

After it cures, I was thinking of applying polyurethane over it as a protective layer. Is that a good idea?

20 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

I had to fill and recut a couple of slots on an ebony board on I think my second build, ebony is quite forgiving if you fill with dust and super glue you will barely see it, but if you're 1mm out you wont see it at all if you use jumbo fret wire. Just fill and recut after it's had a good 24 hours to dry. 

Yes - my fret will cover the error. I was more worried about having the fret sitting in a weak foundation and potentially getting dislodged, but I guess the glued dust should be strong enough.

Thanks

Help!

Any suggestions on how to correct fret slotting error? I made a 0.5mm/1mm error while cutting one fret. 

Planning to fill it up with ebony dust and glue and redo that cut. Anything else I should be doing?

11 hours ago, ScottR said:

Love that wood combination, looks like an ice cream sandwich.

SR

That’s true! Especially in its uncut rectangular shape at the moment.

I was debating whether to have ash or maple wings and walnut stripes, but I really liked the walnut grain and I wanted a darker looking guitar with all black electronics. Looks like it worked out well. 

Thinking of an oil finish to bring out the walnut grain. Any suggestions? I’ve heard of tung oil and linseed oil are good. 

1 hour ago, Bizman62 said:

Your long clamps - the pair of 2x2's with a lot of holes -  look interesting! How do you tighten them?

It took me this long to figure out that the plastic bag with the text 'Bulbond' isn't your favourite candy!

 Bulbond is a synthetic resin adhesive - I wish it were candy!

For the clamps, you attach a block on one of the holes,  based on the size of the piece that needs clamping. The space between the block and the piece is tightened by driving a wedge through.

Will take a picture of the other side tomorrow and post it.