ghostdive

I'll give it a walloping with a rubber mallet when I next see it. I kind of just hate epoxy anyway - stinks, gets everywhere, don't know how thick a layer I need, don't know how much pressure to use. Whether it works or not I may just use something else for future projects. I like the uniform black but could live without for ease of assembly.

Seeing all of the wires in their proper places is so pleasing!

Thank you both for your input, I didn't consider bolts and the friction additive (salt or otherwise) is something I never would have come up with. I'll definitely consider those moving forward. Today I did not get a whole lot done. Fixed the void, put it back with some clumsy chisel work, fixed it again, epoxied the fretboard, found out that it slid (used towels under a soft pine board to distribute clamping force, which obscured vision), peeled it off, scraped and sanded until the epoxy was gone, made better walls for the fretboard to sit against, and just now glued (with titebond) the fretboard again. I'm confident in its position this time, but no clue if this will work out. Whether richlite needs epoxy is debatable from what I've gathered; since I'm out, I don't lose much if wood glue doesn't hold aside from another 20 minutes of sanding. We'll find out this weekend, I suppose.

Little bit of progress today. Bought more wood; more mahogany for the body and some 1/8" walnut for future projects. A stroke of inspiration resulted in this: Routing this with a pattern bit sticking out of the table was seriously terrifying. I didn't go full depth on most of it since it'll be cut off when I go to finished thickness; the portion I did go full depth on (to have a flat surface for bandsawing) had me questioning my choice of hobbies. I'm mostly happy with it, with my only irritation being that I went too far with the sander. Won't be hard to fix, at least.

I can get started drafting a file, either to print or to have laser cut. I'm not so good at making templates by hand yet. What nut width, and do you want tuner holes included?

Was going crazy trying to get this last piece glued on when my brother asked if I'd tried rubber bands... Fingers crossed that this holds. I'd say that it isn't a structural section anyway, but I just bought a pointy headstock guitar and you wouldn't believe what part of it I bump things with the most!!

Some new fire for you all - I've roughly shaped the fingerboard, close enough for now, by cutting then sanding. I'm finding that there are a lot of things that a router would work well for that aren't worth the setup. I did get the table just right and routed the slot for the truss rod, which went pretty well considering I did full depth in one pass. I'm using a 1/4" bit and after the first run I moved my fence 1/16"; fits nicely. Of course, after these pictures I couldn't leave it alone, and went too far towards the heel, so I'm fixing that. Also beginning to glue headstock pieces on - current plan is to get enough meat for the shape, then glue on a veneer in the shape I want, then rout the rest using the cap as a template. I'm somewhat confident in my scarf joint despite the cold temperatures (I jumped on it several times, and I'm 245 lbs) but a little help won't hurt it. Next step is...either cutting excess off of the neck (unsure how I'll tackle that) or gluing on the fretboard (I'm scared). Onwards and sidewards...

It's very pretty anyway, makes me want some neapolitan.

Ah! Forgot to mention that this is the suspect neck with the knot crack. I trimmed that off with about 5mm to spare (aiming for 56mm heel width). I didn't want to try my new jig with the good one. That being said, it came out so well that I'm tempted to use it if the glue holds. I decided to go with a Richlite fretboard, which will arrive in a couple days. I have a truss rod from a past project. Frets/tuners/nut aside, I may have the hard part done before too long.

Not much progress this weekend; attempted cutting the body to approximate shape and the bandsaw wasn't having any of it. I then absentmindedly knocked it off the bench and the glue joint failed, which I suppose puts to rest any doubts about its strength. I've taken it as a learning opportunity. Managed to get the scarf joint going, taking no pictures along the way. You know how these things go by now, it's nothing special. Considering ways to test its strength next weekend...

The gap is 11/16" deep at the front, then 3/8" starting about half an inch back. I think it'll be okay once the neck is glued in. I trued the wood a bit more on the tablesaw, which roughed up the surface but gave me better 90 degree angles, and then I cut access slots for the bandsaw: Set up the bandsaw fence to cut about halfway, then adjusted slightly after a test nibble: The blade wandered about a millimeter as I cut, which I'll call a win. I intend to have the neck a little thicker toward the heel anyway. In hindsight I could have made the heel a bit shorter, but I'll alter that later. I plan to do a reverse Jackson-style headstock. I did some rough math and I should have enough material - 20.25" to the 24th fret, plus ~.375" after, plus ¼" or so for the nut, plus ~8" for the headstock, plus ~4" that will be shortened by the scarf joint (purely guessed at this). Neck blanks are 3"x1⅞" at the heel, about ⅞" at the thin part. One of the blanks has an unfortunate defect, so I'll likely cut off the heel and reglue it on top to see if i can save it. If not, oh well!

Thank you all for the advice, I appreciate it very much. I still haven't cut the body close to the final shape; I wanted to give the glue a lot of time to cure. I procured a 1/2" long pattern bit (why are all of them in the wild 1"??) so I'm hoping to take small bites for once. Still haven't made the template...soon. I found a few of my old tools, sans my nice #6 plane, so I sharpened up this #4 and it's worked very well to correct the neck wood. It's flat enough to trim accurately and I think I'll be able to get two blanks out of it - one to blow up, a second to make right Back to the body; one side of it has a nice seam, and one side has an unfortunate gap. My plan is to put the neck onto the gap side, since routing the pocket and gluing the neck will sort of nullify it. There will still be a small gap between the pickups, but it won't be hard to fill and I don't plan to have a smooth glossy finish anyway. Input appreciated if this is a dumb idea - my second option in mind is putting a couple bowtie inlays on the gap side and using it as the back. Marks to be cleaned up, of course, in due time.

That first one is very cool, I can't wait to see it fully formed!

I got into making guitars in my late teens because I wanted specific things and either couldn't afford them or they didn't exist. After four lame attempts, two of which actually played, I lost my building space and life went on. For some reason now seems like as good a time as any so here it goes; I'm finally making a giant V. I'm nearly as tall as my favorite guitarist, and while he's played a Les Paul for a long time now, I've always fixated on his giant Y2KVs. I'm deviating here and there; my basic design is a Gibson V body scaled up ~11% with a 27" scale length. The one dimension that differs is that I kept the same length from the top of the body to the crook of the V, mainly to hopefully make it sit on my leg a bit more naturally. There's a lot that I'm apprehensive about, particularly the neck and routing the body to the template (I have tearout-related PTSD). In spite of that, I'm giving it my all. Updates will be slow but I look forward to sharing progress as it happens. Next step is seeing if I can salvage the super twisted mahogany I bought for the neck.