johnuk

+1 I spent about three times what I did on the wood just buying the bridge! Now there's still pickups & all the other bits to go.

That kicks ass! I was just thinking about exactly the same thing. I've been drawing round my JS10th on bits of extra large card trying to get a nice neat profile, this ought to save a bit of time! I would like to ask a question also. I am going to pick up a spokeshave for shaping the body but was wondering about which kind to get. I saw a video of a guy from Fine Woodworking saying the new ones like those made by Record, with the butter-fly like handles that lean up slighty, tend to try and flip over because of the blade to fingers distance. Do any of you have any expirience with spokeshaves and could recommend one or any advice? I don't want to spend 20 pounds+ on a tool I'll only use for a few hours, so I was going to pick one up second hand. The variety seems to be those made entirely from one piece of wood, with the blade holder and handles formed from the one piece alone. And those sold by companies like Record, with the butter-fly like handles. A hybrid of the two appears sometimes, it is made from cast metal and the handles are thin, but parallel to the body, like the one piece wooden ones. I figured I'd add this to this posting rather than start a new one to save some space and because I consider the spokeshave of a similar importance to some of the power tools. And at 20 pounds+ they're not very cheap bought brand new. Any advice about them would be great since they seem like -the- tool for forming the curvy bits. Thanks, John

I would be real careful. I think even though it's probably okay for a thick body section, mechanically, I really think it might sound pretty bad. It's okay if you're out to experiment, and don't mind if it could potentially sound horrible, but if you'd like something that's garanteed to be okay then I'd go with something else. I have a guitar that's made from a type of plastic resin, a plastic guitar if you want. What's more, it cost 3k pounds stirling, or $5000. Believe it or not, plastic is a usable body material. The sound it produces is very different to a normal hardwood body. It's sort of nasal and almost wah filter like. But I actually like the idea of having a weird guitar and not one which matches 30,000,000 others. I play the guitar daily, and the neck is building up a nice yellow hand print coating on it now. Hardwoods aren't as expensive as you'd think. I bought way more than enough, by about half a metre or more, for an entirely guitar for about 35 pounds, and it was planed by the store as well. I think you could do it, but think about spending 20 pounds or so and getting so really nice hardwood, like mahogany. Firstly, I'd try and work out what the wood is you've got. If it has a grain, it's very unlikely to be a man-made fibre board, like MDF or particle board.

Hi cartersymes, MDF is very easy to notice, it is exactly like very tightly squashed carboard, with absolutely zero grain to it. Unless it's been polished with wax or something, it'll almost certainly be a fibre like matt / satin finish. Plywood is a piece of wood built up from a number of layers put on top of each other, usually at 90 degrees to one another, for strength. I go to a school at the moment where all the lower years are boys only (11 - 16), to stop them getting aggitated by, er... distractions. Then 16 - 18 we're invaded by nymphomanic chicks, too sexually crazed and mentally unstable to stay in an asylum, their only hope being to go to a building with 1500 men in it... I wish... Anyway, the point, the DT rooms obviously see a lot of guitarists try to recreate their own favourite axe from pine. Mine is down there right now drying, but mine is made from mahogany, not pine (phew). About 99% of all the lads in the 16 - 18 group have tried, or play, the guitar. It's very weird. They try building guitars from these woods only to realise all the problems with grain and the likes associated with the cheap woods. Pine isn't easy to make pretty things with using DT lab hacksaws, it has a very open grain. MDF has no grain, and so is easier. But it also loves to rip, it'll tear just like cardboard with enough force, it doesn't split like normal wood. MDF is usually available with weather proofing chemicals in it and things. The dust is potentially a carcinogen. After a few years of use, the DT labs in school banned students from belt sanding it or blowing the dust around in anyway (apart from rubbing it into each other's jackets after it'd been raining). Guitar necks are very thin near the nut, I would be concerned about strength here with MDF. I would be willing to bet I could snap the neck with my hands if it was made from MDF. So, in short, it depends what you're using it for. You'll need to spray a solid colour finish almost certainly. Is it for something to go on a wall, or are you going to try and play it?

Ha ha ha ha! Weird thing is... that sounds like a really fun idea right now! John P.S. Thanks for the piccies, that blue is shweeet!

monkeyboy777, Do you live close to any wood suppliers? Call them up and ask them if they can plane the wood for you. They have mondo sized automatic planes at most of these places and they're excellent! I had my wood blanks planed after I bought them and they went together nigh on perfectly. The finish is very smooth after planing, about two minutes with some 400 grit paper on a block and the edges are sliky smooth! Setch, thanks for the information on glues. I never knew PVA was a chemical glue and not mechanical! Very interesting stuff! Especially when it's considering the simplest glue of all, kids use it in school when they're 5. The same with hide glue, I would have thought that was mechanical as well. Ho-hum! I guess the only way to use the keyed surface idea with such glues would be if they overlapped perfectly, rather than randomly, allowing pockets to form. I sanded my join and glued it thinking.... 'hey.... I should have probably keyed that'. Then I read your post! As to cutting the blanks, I don't know why it's so important for the saw to cut straight. If the cut is on an angle, you're going to carving the body out of the block anyway. But for almost everything else I can see it being a major issue. Have you looked at the small band saws available? Are they generally considering worse than the table saws or something? Damn, I wish I got Yankee Workshop! Kind regards, John

I have no idea about geetar. It's sad, but until I started playing I could never remember how to actually spell guitar! Maybe it's the same, if you don't play, it's easier to just spell it phonetically, geetar. Once the glue has dried I'm going to sand off all the extra glue that came out of the join (It was far too tacky to wipe off even after I just put it on, and it's waterproof anyway!). I'm going to setup a drill press in school with the depth stop at ~50% of the full body thickness, then drill many, many large holes with a spade bit in a 6" strip down the centre line of the body. The neck is going to be deep set, and since I don't have a router of my own, I'll probably end up trying to use the school's. Which means I have to limit the amount of time I'm using it for to the minimum. Added to that, the drill press is about 500 times quieter and will take out a lot more material in one go. Once it's all roughed out, I'll route the slot for the neck to sit in. Then it, and the neck blank, are going off to a wood supplier near here. I'll get them to plane the body blank down so it's totally flat. The body top is going to profiled like the S series from Ibanez hopefully, but in the middle it'll need to be flat. The neck and headstock will look a lot like an Ibanez's neck. I wanted to copy the one on my JS10th, because I like the feeling to be consistant when switching between guitars. I have a really beaten up Fender Squire, and I really don't like changing from the tight radius of the JS10th, with it's jumbo frets, to the Squire which in comparison feels almost flat and has almost no fret height (And to think I used to dislike the JS10th's jumbo frets!). So anyway, hopefully the guys at this place will be able to do all the rebating on the neck, because it's a lot of work for me to do which is somewhat unecessary but could easily make things go horribly wrong. The most annoying thing is trying to find somewhere to work, the rooms are usually VERY busy. All the best, John (Who's excited because his 'real' floyd rose, tuners, ebony board, strap holders and other bits of junk are in the post to him all the way from the US! )

So many more people who like blue, it's incredible! Anyway.... I like flamed maple but I think that on some guitar, like the custom shop Wolfgang, the flaming is perhaps a bit too linear. But I don't really like the extreme quilt form either. So the perfect balance... fiddleback! It looks evil! I am planning to stain mine deep blue with a burst of black around the edge if I can manage it. The translucent blue from reranch looks good. I was also thinking of trying the two stage dying idea to get a really deep 3D blue effect. I worked it out as: Finish back of guitar body and inside cavities black to establish a base. Attach veneer. Spray one coat of thin black dye. Backsand veneer gently to re-expose the high spots. Cover with mask and spray black burst. Spray blue. Seal, clear coat. I don't know if that's the right order but it's the one which seemed the most logical to me at the time while I was thinking about it. I'm just worried about getting a nice clean join between the veneer edges and the body, so it doesn't look stuck on. Any links to good sites about applying veneers? So far I know about bookmatching them, centring them, marking their positions, taping them in place, that I should glue the body NOT the veneer and to press into place with lots of sand in plastic bags. I guess a VERY thin layer of glue is needed with the thinner ones right? Don't want nasty bubbles and kinks in it! Here's some nice piccies from reranch. I particularly like the first!

And so it begins!...... I took the blanks down to school this morning and glued them up. I'm not really there for any lessons now (too old ) so they sent me between classrooms to work while the kids were doing their othographic piccies of cars and things. The teacher's room I ended up in is a wood worker. "Ooooo hardwood?!" "Yes!" "What are you making?" "It's going to be..." "A geetar?" "Good guess!" Pretty damm good considering it's just two planks glued together! Trying to assemble the two glue dripping bits while man handling the sash clamps into place was fun. The kids didn't seem too bad. I've noticed a major group of asswipes beginning to come thru school now, the kind who are on Ritalin so their parent's don't have to speak to them. Unfortunately, I had to leave the body at the back of the room, so I'm just hoping they leave it alone. The glue had started to go off as I was putting it together, so it should be pretty firm now. It's sad when you have to hide your work in case someone brakes it for a laugh! The glue was really thick compared to PVA. I had a brush to rub it on and it took a fair amount of it and some work to get it all over the join, as I say, compared to PVA. Squeezing with the clamps wasn't an issue, since some kids have broken the handles off. So it was hand tight, tight enough that I could pick it up by the clamps though, and it didn't move. I noticed a nice split in the end of the wood! I'm just really thankful I'd over ordered the blanks by about 10cm, and this one is on the end of the plank where he overshot. So I'll cut that chunk off when the glues set. I'm just worried I've done something wrong now!!!!! It's like before you go on holiday. If only I had my own fully equipped wood working shop in the garage this wouldn't be a problem!!!

The truss rod is designed to correct any bow in the neck of the guitar. If you tighten the screw up, it pulls the rod in on itself and it bows out. If you undo the screw, then keep going, it pulls the sides out, bowing the centre in. With a double expanding truss rod it won't need anchoring. I went with the Hotrod by Stewmac since it seems by far the easiest to install. All you need with the Stewmac rod is a a flat bottomed cavity to drop the rod into. Check this link out: http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/I-0975.html

That's a lot of replies! Thanks. I have the blanks sitting beside me right now. I just did a bit of experimenting and can only just squeeze the red outer paper of a kit kat into the join (I mean, I have to wiggle it for a while to get it to fit thru). It stops about 5 - 6" from the ends. I am questioning if I should try to sand this kit kat wrapper sized piece away or leave it, since if I start sanding I may just add problems to one which doesn't seem to major to me. I may give it a try but I don't want to end up just sanding another one somewhere else. As to the glue, the stuff I have is made by Evostick. I went for the weather proof glue figuring they could have only improved it over the normal glue, which otherwise appeared identical. It has a firm bond time of 5 - 10 minutes! Full curing takes a few hours. And they suggest.... 'Assemble immediately, pressing pieces together lightly until a firm bond is achieved. For the ultimate bond sustain this pressure for several hours during drying'. Apparently the glue is 'stronger than the wood itself!'. I will be holding Evostick to their word, and should the glue fail, I will be asking for them to sort it out! I don't know if Evostick sells things in the US. Here they are famous for making epoxy everyone calls 'evostick'. Should I sand? Or is the kit kat wrapper gap okay?

The body is Sapele, African mahogany. It was planed at the wood store. I will be using two pieces to form the body, they are 6x2". I gave the edges to be glued a sand with some 80 grit paper, then sanded them with some 400 grit. I have had expirience with woods like pine, where-by I could cut a really bad join then squeeze it into a nice clean looking affair with sash clamps and a vice. Obviously this will not be the case with 2" thick hardwood! But there is a very tiny point of light occasionally down the seem with the blocks just resting on top of each other. By tiny, I mean sub 1mm, only just enough for light to get thru. I've had a go at sanding it out but it's too small to keep track of really. When I glue the blanks I am going to be using a type of PVA all weather wood glue which I'm going to be rubbing into the grain of the join. We have some very expensive looking sash clamps at school I'll use to pull the wood together for a day or two while it cures. The question I have is, will I be able to pull this tiny gap shut with the pressure from the sash clamps? I am asking this because I am used to working with metal and so I'm used to a totally different set of rules. With a 2" block of steel, there is no pulling together to speak of. My only other expirience is with pine, which the clamps could nigh on crush. Does wood of this type and size have any degree of play?

My first post! Yay! Er.... I think.... I am considering exactly the same question right now. I have decided to try building my own solid body guitar. The bridge is going to be a Floyd original floating trem with a D-Tuna, and a tremsetter, to stabilise it. I know exactly what you mean about the recess (step or rebate) as the neck enters the guitar and the finger board ends. Could you suggest a thickness for this? On my JS10th it's about 2mm, but I believe the neck may be shimmed on it anyway. To me, a guitar would feel odd if the board was right on the body, it adds a sort of seperation. My material is Sapele, African mahogany. I ordered it in 6" x 2" planks and had it planed down to true. My body will be formed from 2 of these glued together. I was then planning to route a 6" cavity half-way thru the body down it's centre line. The end of the neck would remain 6" wide and sit in the cavity. This was my great plan to add strength to the join down the body's centre, by overlapping joins, and to solve some accuracy problems, since the bridge, pickups and neck would all be aligned in one piece which would effectively drop into the body. Not having to start messing about with angling the body end of the neck would be great.