Alucard0811

Uuuhhh... "Becaus I could... " is my favorite reason

Do you have a helper taking pictures for you?

Your pictures always have a sort of early 90s educational vhs or wookworkers weekly magazin vibe to them. I love it.

This is my entry to Guitar of the Month

My 7-String Singel Cut "Projekt PS-7S"

• The woods and materials used, especially if there is something unusual in there!
  • European Walnut Top
  • African Mahogany Body
  • Mahogany Purpleheart Neck
  • Ebony Fretboard with Walnut Binding
• Scale length(s) and other specific configuration details
  • 26.5 Inch Scale
  • 7 String Tuned to A-Standard
• Electronics, pickups, etc.
  • Lace Aluma X-Bar in the Neck and Seymore Duncan Invader for the Bridge
  • TOM-String Through Bridge
• Is this your first build, fifth or five-hundredth?
  • Its my 7th build in total
  • First time doing a carved top without help
• A bit of information on your own background as a builder helps give context to your build.
  • I am from germany working in IT and started building Guitars as an escape from sitting at a PC all day and getting Bord-Out from Covid "Work-From-Home"
• Was it built in the garage, at school, work or in your own shop?
  • This was build at a Makerspace with most "big boy wookworker tools" one can dream of.
• A summary of the build's history. Was it built for yourself, friend/family or a client? Did you design the instrument and its specifications or was it built to spec?
  • The design is my own. Its build on a double cut I designed for a 2 Week Guitar building Course in the UK at Crimson Guitar.
  • Build Thread

Its finished:

While I wait for finish curing I started a new build.

Headless 7 string.

Strandberg Hardware.

Ash body.

3 Piece mahogany neck.

Indian rosewood Fretboard.

Singel bridge humbucker.

Nothing fancy this should be a quick and simple build to be used as a daily driver quick to pick up and do some licks.

Body shaped

Neck prepared

Its almost done. Waiting for the finish to cure and for the Outputjack plate to arrive.... I knew I forgot smth.

Things to do:

Nut and strings.

Output Jack

Strap Buttons.

Fretboard needs scraping to remove the last ca glue and polishing residuals.

Things I learned:

I am not really happy with the finish. It Crimson wipe on Lacquer. Looked good first but dried to be less rich in color. I am tempted to sand back and use oil.

Also the bridge Pickup is a little close to the bridge, and the lace is not centred correctly.

The Headstock Inlay is of centre, i eyeballed it and didnt meassure.

The binding on the neck is a little thin needs to be thicker.

7 hours ago, Dave Higham said:

Thanks for the kind words Biz.

Someone said "Building guitars isn't rocket science, it's harder than that". But it isn't really. It's mostly just cutting bits of wood up and gluing them together.

Didn't Darvinci or so say: " Statue carving is rather easy. You start removing all the bits which do not belong to the statue ubtil only the statue is left" or smth to that line.

Thats some nice work, and the wood selection *chefs kiss*. 

Cant wait to see it come together and get some finish on this beauty.

If this is going to be just a fraction of the worksmaship you showed with the acoustics, this is going to be a hell of a ride.

will follow this one closely.

On 5/10/2022 at 1:55 PM, JGTay said:

Then it was on with removing the clamping points.

 

Thats "Pointy" should have left it there

Comming alonge nicely. Looks both shreddy metal and elegant.

Got some hours in this weekend not much progress, lots of sanding and finished the neck

While cleaning the workshop we found the headstock inlay it went down one of those clamping holes. Will be added to the headstock next time.

While there I also finish sanded and applied the first coat of oil

Need to sand two parts where the oil showed some scratches.

Starting Thurstday I am on holidays and will spend those days in the workshop finishing this one and a nother I have ordered some parts from Sweden.

Uh nice.
I love me a nice EX-Shape. Have a couple myself. Will follow closely and looking forward to the result

22 hours ago, mistermikev said:

that back side.... oooh la la.

Things you can say about your guitar and your wife

Jokes aside. Really nice work lovley woods and looks great.

This is just poor woodworking and craftsmanship p*rn WOW

After some setbacks I am back on this build.

Cut the inlays and could test my new dremel tool

2 cats at the 12 and a paw print at the first

Then traced and dremelt the caveties

3 hours later everything was in and gaps filled with dust and glue

after some sanding everything looks really nice

and thats how she looks now.

Now I only need to find the headstock inlay 1 cut two month ago

Body is sanded to 240. As soon as I have finied the neck its sanding sanding sanding and then I can start the oiling.

uuuuh nice, reminds me of a build @ScottR finished not to long ago. I think the only part to make it a true hommage to Scott is to drop it on the concrete

Got some hours in today:

Carved and radiused the neck

So the Neck is ready for Inlay, unfortunally I broke the first set I spend about an hour cutting and getting finished.

Next step to get of some frustration was body carving, So out the loud maschines and dangerous disks.

rather happy with that, Now sanding sanding and some more sanding. But the randome Orbital Sander needs a new pad so I have to wait for that.

So I returned to Inlay work and did my headstock Inlay

Now I need to fined some time for Inlays, Sanding and then off to finsih

The next day was mostly working on the neck:

Getting the binding ready and glued

off to the bandsaw and gone with most of the wood and then refined on the sander

The last day I spend routing the top, fitting the neck pocket and Pickup caveties

Drilling to all the holes and first test fit off all components.

Next on the list is Inlay work, body carving and through body strining ferruels, here is the layout for the body carving

Unfortunally I will be gone this weekend and most of the week so no time for the workshop

Thanks for reading

So I got some hours in over the weekend and the last days.

First of the Warping got better after fully drying. Then I found out, that the maker space has a "small" router sled

Its enourmous, but it works

Then I went to the router table and refined the outline AND gota hugh blow out

looks like the bit also is done for

Finaly i routed the caveties and glued to top.

I am still drooling over the blue Explorer. Thats some tasty figured wood.

5 hours ago, nakedzen said:

Maybe this one?

Maybe, but I think you need to add a design feature from the body to the headstock.

Since your body is round and flows, the wavy outline feels disconected.

I would make it a little rounder and add the same bevel like you have on the body.

In my mind the headstock should "belong" to the guitar and desing and not just be there to be.

Sorry if I dont get my point across

That carve looks really good!

Thats some really nice and clean work.

Wooow.

Hey,

my current build is moving allong rather nice and I am to the stage where I can start planing the finish.

Up till now I only used handrubbed oil finishes to matt finish. And one time Acrylic rattel can Satin, which was not really a good solution.

Now I am looking for a good way to achieve a Semi-Gloss finish, I dont have a spray gun or a spary booth. The workshop where I work most of the Time has now Finishing area, so I have to clean the workbench after I am done, If I get a good slot I can maybe leave it over night.

At  home I could only use the Balkonie. So 2K Is out, anyting with a long drying time till I can set it down or keep dust free is out.

So what are your recommendations to achieve a semi gloss finish?

Rattelcan Lacquer?

Oil?

Whipe on varnishes?

Any EU / Germany sources for your recommended finish would be nice.

Thanks,

Alucard

The top is 16 mm thick at the moment.

I think the main problem was that i glued the veneer on and that and didnt wait till i sandwitched everything together.

I have it now under a heavy piece on a flat surface in the temp controlled storage. Lets see how it looks next week.

Also additional question, how thick do you keep your fret boards? Mine is now 7,5 mm and it looks and feels a little thick. and the Binding i have left from my build at crimson does not quiet reach to top.