Asdrael

More progress! Slower than I would have liked (as usual), but at least it's a steady pace. I had to redo my template for my home made fretboard slotting jig. I had a minimal error (0.265 mm...) as the nut slot didn't take into account the thickness of the saw. This should have been the fastest thing even on the laser cutter, but as I completely cleaned it and set it up properly last time, I had to make sure it was going to be perfect. Anyhow, yes, it's now perfect. Which means that after a couple of rounds on the spindle thickness sander and some hand planing to make sure it was all perfect (god damn I love those shavings) it was time to cut to a rough shape. Queue lots of sawing. I don't know if my technique is bad or is my saw is going bad (ebony is even harder than I thought) but it took me I guess 2 hours to do it in total. Including setting up the height of the cut properly. Slotted, nice depth (the radius won't be too extreme here with 17") and seems to align perfectly with the template. Better than doing it by hand like in my first build. BUT... the ebony decided to crack a tad from fret 22 to 24 on the bass side. I decided to ghetto fix it to stabilize it with superglue and pressing some dust into the crack. Once it's on the neck and radiused, I will do it better. (I sanded it afterwards and it's almost invisible already.) I had some time left so I decided to make a mess. Routing is fun, routing rosewood is messy. But the neck and part of the headstock is routed, I will do the rest by hand. I prepared it well on the spindle sander first to make sure I was as close to possible to the template before taking the bit to it, which was a good idea as I had some minor chipping on the first pass (that was not deep enough to be seen on the second pass). The trick parts like the heel went smoothly too so I am happy about that. I am not sure the template is perfect as I can heel (but not see) some imperfection but nothing a few passes of 180 grit can't take care of. Is it me or is rosewood harder to work with than maple? Between that and ebony, I feel like my neck is way more difficult to work on than my first one. Next stage: headstock shaping, perfecting the neck route by hand, and mating the fretboard to the neck!

It's normal. However be careful that you don't overheat the frets. For what it's worth, you would get almost the same result with a good old rag with Autosol.

One more day in the workshop! This time around I tried to plan everything better to be more efficient. The goal was to get the neck ready for fretboard glue up but I didn't quite manage due to a jig having to be redone... Anyhow, status at the start of the session: So first, I had to take care of the overhang of the headplate. Easy enough with a file and a hand/blockplane (which is quickly becoming my most satisfying tool to use): You know you are done when you have nice double scoop of chocolate and vanilla: And a nice result. The glue line is not perfect, but I am fairly satisfied with it (it will be under the fretboard, and that's on a 10° angle). From the sides it looks perfect though. Macro shots: After realizing my truss rod routing jig was not good for that blank (blank was too narrow, the jig kept rocking), I had to go shopping for a piece of wood and redo the jig. Not a big deal, jut cost me 90 minutes and 7,50€. Still... Anyhow, queue some routing: With a good end result: For what it's worth: this time around, I tried another type of truss rod. Still double action but not entirely wrapped - it's supposed to be extra low profile. It's also metric. I like the low profile bit, the only issue is that while the start and end are basically cubes and fit perfectly, the threaded part sit very slightly shy of those. Meaning that when I push at the ends, it's all flush and perfect, but in the middle, there is a small flex. I will likely address this with a drop or two of silicon. One mistake I did is that I either didn't secure the depth stop for one carbon fiber rod (this time around 3x6mm) or I measured the thickest one before routing. For some reason one rod was 5.9mm, the other one 5.6mm thick. I like to route a tad deep, so I routed approx 6.3mm deep. For one side it's on point, for the other it's slightly too deep. Not deep enough that I am going to bother putting a veneer on it, but still. Not a perfect job. As I was getting late and wanted to let the wood relax before securing the CF with glue and moving on to the truss rod, I decided the best course of action was to start removing wood. First step: headstock thickness. Aiming for 14.5-15mm before any final sanding. Now with a made-up thickness sander / volute shaper: It does the trick nicely: I just had to do a pass on the bandsaw to roughly shape the neck so I could let it rest before moving on next time... Status: I am digging the headstock shape to be honest (thanks again for the feedback on the other topic peeps!). And the rosewood as a neck feels awesome unfinished already. Surprisingly tightly grained and smooth, even just at 320grit. With some wax it might feel even better than a classical tru-oil maple setup.

Shiinyyy. Looks great. I really like the front of course, but the back is the highlight for me, I really like how it turned out. I guess I have a soft spot for black limba

I resorted to using ones with plastic pads on them. They are soft hardish and don't seem to mark anything. I'll keep your advice in mind though, as I will be shopping for clamps soon. I need "deeper" ones to glue the top to the body. Talking about glueing, I went in tonight for a short session: I wanted to put the headstock laminate on to be able to start on the neck building proper next time. Queue some handplaning on the scarf (I'm doing the "second method" for the scarf joint, I think it's much nicer to look at). Look at those shaaavviiinnnggssss Yep, looks like the joint is good - macro shot time: One laminate prepared in position: Now glued in and waiting in its corner... After trying a few different locating pins method, I think the toothpick works best for me. So that's the takeaway for tonight. (Also, I used a tad too much glue. But better than too little!). Now I have to route the channels, prepare the fretboard and try to figure out how I am going to glue the top on the body. Pretty excited to move forward with this!

What he said. You guys should write a tutorial, for me the finish part is the most confusing one and it's really hard to find good and trustworth ressources. A lot of people claim "yeah do whatever it will work out!" but I found it to be pretty far from the truth.

So, day 1 in the workshop. I had not a lot planned and wanted to see how it went just cruising along. Well, not-so-surprisingly, the second build goes much faster. I am not scared of every single thing touching the wood, I have some clues how to go forward or even fix stuff so now I just go and do it. There is still some apprehension when doing real cuts but I have been checking 3 times every cut. I guess that will never go away. Anyhow, I had the time to do a complete scarf joint and organize the next few sessions. I still love my scarf joint jig for the bandsaw (that I also can setup and tune pretty well now, thanks Youtube binge watching): It gives pretty much exactly what I wanted, that is 10° with an almost flat surface: A bit of hand planning later (quite a lot actually, still not as good as I should be with that tool), here is the status: Since it all went way too fast, I didn't have what I needed to start on the fretboard. Instead, did some spring cleaning of the workshop, and installed the new spindle sander: This will help with shaping, preparing before routing and thicknessing the headstock / fretboard. Which should happen next week and after I glue the headstock cap. Anyhow, I love handplanes. I tuned mine well enough and this makes me happy: Just one small mistake done today, which shouldn't be a big deal: I insist on using MDF plates to spread the pressure when clamping the joint but given the relatively small surface, I should rather simply go ahead and clamp it down directly. The plates, as I positioned them, amplify any little angle difference between neck bit and headstock bit and could result in some badly pressured spots. There will be lamination, and according to my drawing there basically won't be any strength on it, so the worse case scenario is a slightly unsightly seam on the side of the headstock. Live and learn!

Looks great! Are you going to go all the way with buffing compound etc?

While I admit being a bit scared of SS frets due mostly to the need to radius them pretty well before playing whack-a-mole, it's ultimately (read: next build) something I will try. This time around however it's simply because I have one guitar and a half worth of the fretwire I want to use left over in nickel silver and I am rather indifferent when it comes to SS vs NS. It's mostly a matter of how good the fret finish is done. And regarding tuners you are of course right they are D'Addario.

Hey, I'm back. End of 2023/early 2024 was kinda rough so I couldn't build and barely plan anything. So now I have to catch up and hit the ground running! I was really pleased with my first build (which became my main guitar) so that was a good excuse to step it up a notch. I have had this plan for a kind of straight forward metal 6 for a bit, so after a lot of research and consideration, I received the last part of my order today. The specs (and "build difficulty") are as mentioned a step up compared to my first build, and I introduced some things that are less straight forward to build. So an even bigger challenge with an even bigger gamble. Here are the specs: - Superstrat style body made of roasted swamp ash with a 5mm flamed maple top - 25,5" solid rosewood neck, bolt-on, CF rods, with a scarf joint and a matching flamed maple headstock. Aiming for a rounded D shape, 19.5/21mm - Pale moon ebony fretboard with Jescar jumbos (no, no stainless just yet) - Schaller Hannes bridge - Gorilla Pickups "The Discoverer" set - DiMarzio auto-trim locking tuners - Volume + switch (exact electronics not decided yet... maybe a Ibanez 5 way style?) - Purple hue type of stained color. Not sure how I will finish it. I have Tru-oil left over, and some samples of Osmo Hardwax. And a quite a few scraps to try it on. As you can read above, a few things more challenging than what I did previously but it should not be terrible provided I take my time. I also spent some time training myself on tools (handplanes), making some jigs (fretboard miter box) and even bought a new power tool (spindle sander) so I will hopefully not be completely clueless going in. I will try to document it as I did with my first build. Anyway, today was the "first day". I went to my neighbour carpenter and had him run a body rough blank to thickness since our planer thickness isn't wide enough. He also did the neck blank since he was at it and saved me an hour. Family picture of the wood below! Wish me luck! (and thanks @Bizman62 and @Andyjr1515 for the general encouragement building and the Hannes rant advice )

Straight. If you even slightly rotate a radiused beam, you will mess it up. Not sure how high of a grit you level with but you can get fairly cheap rolls up to 320 grit on Amazon for example. No more length limit!

You know what goes well with gold hardware? Purple. I think you know how to do great purple finishes too (Also I have just found your Youtube channel, great stuff!)

That too I could write a short tutorial if there is interest on how to do neck profiles with the facetting method in a CAD software. It's honestly fast and very convenient, and in the end you can laser cut quite a few templates to check what you have on your guitars, what you like, and your progress once you make your own.

What you can also do is make the neck profile in a CAD software and see where everything ends up being. It's honestly not too hard. I use LibreCAD and you can get a decent overview.

Looking good and tight. Just remember they are there when shaping the neck so you don't sand through For next time, you can live as little as 4 or 5mm between channels and still be golden.

Damn good eye, you are right. It's around 0.5mm off so that throws the angle by 0.5deg or so. I will correct it next run... Too late for that one it's cutting already

The tuner holes are currently straight on both sides. The limiting factor currently is going to be the tuners themselves, I have to make sure they fit and don't bump into each other (for the d and g string). Right now I should have 2mm room but the technical drawings of the tuners I am going for are a bit wrong I think. So prototype time. Thanks again for the feedback this place is a gold mine!

I reworked the headstock slightly to accomodate for a straighter string pull, while still keeping the shape (slightly cut the lower side but not too much). I like it. Strings are between 2 to 3° off straight, which should be no issue whatsoever. The slightly higher angle on the wound strings side should be compensated by their thickness, at least visually. I think I like it. I will laser cut it and have a look at it on some plywood. Thanks for the tips!

That's a good point. I will try to work on the angles a bit. In addition to what you mention, the thickness of the low string will make this difference even more pronounced. Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback, and interesting point about the horn. I have never looked at it this way. I might try to even horns a bit more. Cheers!

Hey there, after a pretty rough end of the year rush, I am starting to plan my second build. This time around, I am toying with the idea of designing my "own" headstock, with heavy inspiration from headstocks I like and an idea of how I want it to look like to go with the body style. But I realize I have no idea how to do it and ressources are scarce (or I couldn't find the right keywords to search?). I am currently aiming for a 10° headstock angle and a 3+3 style. I made it so the tuners are all equidistant from the edge of the headstock, but I am not taking into account string thickness to offset the tuner holes. The string pull isn't perfectly straight, it has a slight angle (symetrical for unwound and wound strings.). Any red flags so far? Anything I should be aware of? At that stage my CAD looks like this (subjective feedback also welcome!):

Don't forget that reducing a body "size" means a weight reduction. If you are already using a light construction type (swimming pool routing + trem routing of a roasted body wood) you might end up with an uncomfortable neck dive, especially with a strat construction - the neck is bolted quite far out.

Any luthier worth its salt can probably build you a seven string neck, no big deal. Warmoth offers some semi custom at a decent rate if I remember correctly, you just have to apply a finish on them yourself.

I did the same with the same configuration. I found the best way to do this is building a jig for a router. that you can offset. I talk a bit about it in my initial build topic here:https://www.projectguitar.com/forums/topic/55104-first-build-birthmark/?do=findComment&comment=633813 You'd be better off looking at the video from the guy I stole it from, better explained, better done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36n_8JH9FKM Once the jig is done, it's just a matter of aligning it to you lines. He uses it for the truss rod but if you make the channels to clamp it down long enough, you can offset the jig enough to do carbon rods alongside the truss rod. You can even (and that's the beauty of this jig) use it on non square wood, or to make angled routes if that's your thing. I would however recommend around 4mm distance between the channels once they are routed, and as thin as possible carbon rods but as deep as the neck shape will allow for. You can get a much larger choice of sizes in a RC modelling shop than in a luthier shop by the way.

Looks awesome. The electronics "plate" will not be easy to do though