Woodenspoke

Starting to come together, looking goooood.

Starting to come together, looking goooood.

On my current build, I pretty much finished building the neck before starting on the body. So I made the pocket to fit the neck. I made a template and used a flush cut router bit with bearing to cut the pocket to the template.

Also, how to people go about making templates? I just drew around the end of the neck and cut/drum-sanded my way up to just short of the lines.

I would have

1. made a template of the neck minus the headstock (or not your choice) include the tenon if it has one.

2. Use this template to make a neck pocket using double sided tape amd a router.

a. Tape the neck template to a piece of template material. Hang the neck template over the edge but make the part that is on the template a bit deeper than the actual neck pocket you are making. just a little deeper.

b. Use tape and some small square edged pieces of wood (3 pieces) and surround the neck template taped to the template material.

c. remove the neck template

3. you should now have a neck pocket made of 3 wood blocks. Now take your router and template bit and use the wood blocks as your guide to cut out the neck pocket.

Once you have routed the pocket make sure both templates fit snugly together. You are ready to go. All easier before you start doing anything.

Or buy a guitar template and transfer what you need to your own guitar shape. So if you are using a fender, gibson or PRS neck size and scale you can buy a template of one of those and just use some of the template, as all this has already been done for you.

can u have the drill bit all the way in the chuck...is it ok to grab the cutting flute and not the shank???

You drill with the tip not the flutes, so yes the chuck should have no effect on the bit, clamped onto the flutes. Since you are not drilling into a hard material you should have no slipping where the bit rotates in the chuck. Normally I would not recommend this method.

As I said the best bit is a brad point. If you are in the US Harbor freight has sets for under $10 on sale.

I don't mean to hyjack this thread but while we are on the subject on PVA glues i've been using this for most of my work. Any body else use it or any better suggestions for future as i'm running out

Gret picture, now what is it?

I always figured this was the easy part. Yeah you have to be careful with those smaller bits. Also get the bit in as far as you can into the chuck, this will help stiffen the bit up. Also use a brad point drill bit as these will not wander.

I just mark it out, shim up the board at the first few frets so its level with the drill bit and use a fence. Never had a problem. I do try to place the dots lower on the edge of the board rather than try and center them as the board does thin out at the upper frets after you radius.

I also put in my inlay and side dots prior to radius work.

The optical delusion makes it look arched from the side view, unusual!

I used original titebond and it dried dark brown/grey. Might have been the wood though. Walnut and padouk.

Never had that happen no matter what wood I have used?

I used TitebondIII on my workbench and noticed that it does not dry as clear as original Titebond

Its possible.

I most cases your joints should be tight enough that the glue color will have no effect. You get some type of glue line regardless. The LMI glue I use is white and dries clear. Probably clearer than titebond.

I just bought a bottle of Titebond III today, anybody got something to say about that stuff?

Any PVA glue that is labeled waterproof should be avoided.

According to other posts I have read since this one started the waterproofing of the glue means the glue will stay more elastic than a non waterproof glue. This will dampen sound transmission, prevent stain from penetrating wood which was exposed to the glue and possibly cause creep ( I have not personally experienced this creep effect). Check out the dragon guitar build.

I will admit I have used titebond II on a number of instruments without incident as well as numerous pieces of furniture. But in the past few years I use only original titebond or similar non waterproof PVA glue on my instruments. Better safe than sorry.

Hey I was wondering, when does a piece of wood get too thin to put through a thickness before tearing out etc?

I imagine it depends on figured on non figured wood (quilted maple etc tears out easier?)

I want to thickness a piece of wenge it is about 7 or 8 mm already but I need to even it out to 6 mm...

Is a drum sander the only option or will it be alright through my thickness?

Your right it really depends on the wood you are running through the planer and its grain pattern. If you have a planer you can also wet the wood a bit which will soften the grain and help prevent tearout. This may not work on an oily wood, and should be tested on the same board prior to the final pass. But as you are going from 8 to 6mm you dont have much to work with. You can also run a hand plane over the surface if it tears out on the hand plane the wood will most likely tear out in your planer.

I have both machines and always pull out the drum sander. A sander is not effected by grain patterns. The worst thing on a sander is burn marks from a clogged sanding belt. Change the belt if it gets clogged and the next pass will remove the burn line. On light woods like maple it may take several passes.

Most likely, that is a photo flame, which is why they went for the sunburst. And so will you, unless you come up with a clever way to transition from the top to the bevels. Veneer will not be able to follow that edge.

Just give it a try: take a regular piece of paper (like for your printer), and wrap that around an orange. Didn't work to well, did it? That's the problem you will have with the veneer.

As far as filling the cavity, that's totally up to you. It can be un-done, but it's just more work. Not impossible, just more work. Do you have the skill and the patience to perform that surgery when the time comes? Only you know that...

I agree

I would leave the sides and back finish intact and just veneer over the top then blend the new top color and sunburst into the old finish.

I see a clown's face in the Burl

A Clown???? HUH

I dont see it, hows about a pig, LOL I may have failed a Rorschach test so...........

I usually use Titebond thinned considerably for the task

Interesting sealing with Titebond, I would have generally headed for the shellac can due to all the moisture in a thinned titebond. As long as it works.

The reason I'm posting it is to show you how to do it knucklehead.

But you forgot the picture right after it came out of the press, Drak Ole buddy Ole pal, LOL

Hey as long as you can glue it together and to the body dosnt matter if it has a bit of wiggle, right. Looking good, what color will it be?

Maybe we should place bets on how flat it will get

Keegan only took a small portion of another size so the offer is still open

Ibanez generally do not use matching pieces of wood underneath their solid finishes. You'll be lucky if the wood underneath has an acceptable coloration either side of the join. Also, the sealer coat is virtually impossible to remove! You would probably get better results by adding a veneer to the top - which is difficult with Sabres - or building a body from scratch.

Not trying to dissuade you, just illustrating the difficulties you'll face. Wouldn't want it to go wrong, or you to find the result not being worthwhile.

+1, risky thinking it will look good underneath the black.

If you want to expose the wood a commercial stripper to start then sand, mahogany will need the pores filled and sanding sealer as well until the

surface is flat enough to paint or clear coat.

Sand it down and repaint not for a clearcoat as the sanding will not or should not expose much wood or the wood pores.

i thinki might just break down and build a fox style bender. What blankets do you guys use, whats the right size to get, and where can i find em? Thanks!

Also, do you need 1 or 2 blankets? I have noticed some people seem to use 2 by looking at older threads.. but is that required?

Not really, but you will need some stainless or spring steel slats for support as well.

I have to look into super soft II.

I should read what I wrote? Anyway what I ment to say is.

One blanket is plenty, a heat control is suggested as well as a timer, I got mine from LMI. Both pipe bending and a fox bender use metal slats to support the grain so it does not split, two is recommended for the heating blanket/fox bender, you only need one for the pipe.

I built my own bender from the LMI plans. It was easy. The hardest part was the body template, getting it right. buying a body template made it much easier.

I do not use bulbs as the heating blanket is enough.

Their are some U Tube videos of people using a side bender, worth looking for. Also taylor guitars has a shop tour with bending sides as one of the videos.

Now if you want some real fun, try stabilizing wood in Pa. Dry winters, and humid summers, plus fall and spring will change 40% humidity in one day. In fact yesterday at lunch my hygrometer read 75%, at 6:30 it dropped to 40%. Today is sitting pretty level around 40%.

Thats why I moved from Jersy(UGH) to Colorado. Dry all year.

Excellent! I love the star grounding on the back of the pot....very impressive!

Is that considered a better method or you just like it more?

Anything specific you're looking for? I have a bunch of misc stuff I'm not using.

Pm me with a list. Right now I am open to anything that isn't total junk from like a starcaster. LOL

Hawaii is a more tropical climate therefore higher constant humidity, which will make the wood stabilize at a higher humidity. If it is truely stabilized and hangs around 11-12%, that means the wood is no longer losing moisture but is no longer gaining, and has reached a balance with the surrounding air. If you order it I would give it at least a few months to acclimate to your climate. It should lose more moisture until it stabilizes to your climate.

+1 absolutely 100% unequivocally perfectly correct answer. Unless you also live in a high moisture climate, LOL

Would 16" be long enough for you? THIS place sells 16" long blocks with any radius you want. I have no experience with them as I ended up making my own blocks but the price seems pretty good to me for a CNC machined quartersawn maple block of that length.

Axehandle will make them longer for you. I had him quote 39.00 for 24" blocks. Plenty long. Just email him and ask. He is now making them out of laminated maple and they are nice. He uses a CNC machine to cut them.

Also long blocks can be put in vises. Then you move the neck instead of the block like Benedetto does in his "Making an Archtop" book.

See the link I said call first. Thanks RestorationAD. Dont let one bozo put you off to continue trying. I would have said then you dont like my money I will find it somwhere else. Too hard to not cut one for you.

I am surprized anyone would waste a good CNC machine cutting these blocks. A Jet molding planer and a few custom radius cutters will make these in no time with little effort. I know Stumac does it this way as I have sent back blocks with knicked blade lines and snipe.

Whats the EVO shape like? never heard of a EVO-named bass... (Steve Vais main Jem guitar is named evo though...)

Maybe he means EBO

Woodfinder.com

Type in your ZIP and how far you're willing to drive, and it will show you all the places. If there's a place within 2-3 hours roundtrip you'll likely save $$.

I've visited places as far as 5 hours away - even farther if I'm away on business. Now that I've been to some of them, I know which ones are likely to have what I want in stock, and I can just phone them up and have stuff shipped instead of driving there again.

I just tried that and I am sad to find out it didnt work, gave me places like woodcraft, UGH. The biggest hardwood dealer near me was left out of the list. Maybe Colorado is special.

My local hardwood dealer.