mattharris75

I went ahead and tried to flatten the pickguard. 24 hours later I pulled it out, and it's still slightly damp, so I re-clamped it. I did put it in the first mockup picture before reclamping it, though. I did a few little things, such as getting the pickup mounted on its springs for height adjustment, drilling for the tailpiece attachment and string holes, etc, etc. Lots of little thing to get it to the point that it was playable. The biggest thing I did was slot the bridge for the strings. This went fairly easily, except for the first slot I tried to use a guide which just ended up messing me up. Due to that the lowest string is a hair over a millimeter off from the others. Really nothing I can do now other than making a new bridge, which I doubt I have time for and am not particularly inclined to do. Although it doesn't look particularly terrible, and the playability is just fine, so it's 75% an aesthetic issue. I suppose that's what happens when you rush things. But then this whole guitar is a bit of a rush job. Anyway, it looks great and plays quite well. You can see where I mounted the strap buttons as well. One on the tailpiece and the other on the heel of the neck. It balances well there and is quite comfortable to play. Now I'll get it disassembled and finish sand and clean up a few things before I start the epoxy/tru oil finish. Also, given the possibility that I may have to make a new pickguard, what would you guys do? Would you do one in a traditional pickguard material, and if so what color/kind? Or would you go with a solid walnut guard? I'd love to do one in macassar ebony, but I don't have any large enough chunks.

Thanks. Yeah, I think i'm going to go with the combo heat and moisture treatment, and once it's good and warm, clamp it down flat and leave it for 24 hours. I'll be applying both the heat and moisture to the black substrate rather than the thin veneer so that I don't run the risk of delaminating it. By the way, a more specific answer to your earlier question about pickup position; if you were to scale down a picture of a strat and overlay it on this guitar you would see that with the placement and angle of the pickup you essentially cover both the neck and middle pickup positions. I'm hoping that this ends up sounding as good as I think it will.

I thought about trying an iron with a damp towel between the pickguard and the iron, and with a piece of 3/4 MDF underneath it for a flar surface. Since someone else thinks it might work, I guess i'll go ahead with it if I don't get any other replies. As far as the tuning, i'm not 100% sure yet. First I'll try GCEA, like a tenor ukulele, since it is the same scale length. But, since I haven't made a guitar like this before, i'll play it by ear. If I prefer the string tension and sound in a different tuning, then i'll go for that, since there are no rules for a small guitar like this, really.

Pickguard is cut. Still needs a little tweaking. It's made of the same flamed maple veneer that is on the headstock laminated on top of black wood fiber. Unfortunately it's a bit warped at the moment. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get it back to dead flat so that I can finish it? If I can't achieve that I may end up having to cut another one out of walnut.

Control cavity cover is completed. I originally cut the control cavity with a forstner bit (Part of the keeping it simple nature of this build, one less template to have to make). In order to have a boss to screw into I sanded a small piece of mahogany to match the inside radius of the cavity and epoxied it in against the side. I cut the cover using a hole saw with the pilot bit removed. I used a 2 3/8" bit, and only had to sand the edges very slightly to make it fit the 2 1/8" ledge.

This is really cool. I'm definitely going to have to do a couple of these in the near future myself.

I'm not an 8 string guy, but it really is looking very impressive. Good work.

Spring practice has kept me busy these last few weeks, but I finally managed to get the template for the pickup made and get the pickup cavity routed. I also added in a flamed maple veneer spacer for the nut, and some other details such as that. The last things I need to do before starting the finish sanding and finishing process are drill the hole for the tailpiece, drill the screw holes for the tuners, and drill the hole from the bridge to the control cavity for the grounding wire and from the pickup cavity to the control cavity. Getting into the home stretch on this one. I figure i've got another week of odds and ends and two weeks of finishing before it's completed. I'm planning on going to Atlanta to visit my friends around mid June, so hopefully I can have it completed by then to give to them.

If I want to do this really fast, I'd just use my safeTplaner, it would be even faster than setting up the router. but I do like using my hand tools. as we all can see, there`s many many ways of doing this task. I really like using my safe-t-planer, it's a very effective tool. However, in this case it's such a small area that's being routed, and it requires such precision that a jig would be necessary to make sure that you don't run into the end of the fretboard. Of course, you could do that and it would be very effective if you did. As you said, there are many ways that will work, but the router and rails method seems to be the simplest for me in this particular case.

I just use scraps of MDF I have laying around and throw a template bit in the router. Takes 5 minutes to set up and is significantly faster than using hand tools. But to each their own!

Crazy guitar...Impressive work.

I've used the router method that J. Pierce described. It's quite easy to do and works well. I just take a couple of pieces of MDF and lay them roughly parallel to the neck using double sided tape. I then take two more pieces of MDF and lay them across the first two to serve as the platform my router will sit on. I align one of these pieces exactly with the end of the fingerboard to ensure that I don't route into that. Then I use a template bit so that I can follow that board on the fingerboard side and just take several passes to get it close to level and then finish it off with sandpaper. It's really pretty darn easy.

I agree. It's stylish and funky. Just different enough to be its own thing, but it also looks like something you'd see on the shelves at a music store. Nice job!

My preferred method for getting it perfect is like what Perry uses in the video Killemall8 posted. Very simple, minimizes the amount of work, and gives you a perfect template.

Because I am keeping this simple and cheap. One pickup, only volume control, using cutoff and found wood, cheap tuners, plastic nut, etc. And as for the position, since there's only one pickup I placed it in the position I thought would be best. A guitar of this size is obviously going to be trebbly and bright so I wanted it as far forward as possible. And, it's not as far forward as it looks, keep in mind the scale of the instrument. The back of the pickup route will only be 3.25" from the bridge. Yeah, yeah. It had been a really long day.

More progress. Got the neck pocket routed and glued in the neck, then routed the tenon flush with the body. Also routed the channel for the brass part of the bridge and fit the wood and the brass together. I've still got a few odds and ends to do. Control cavity cover, pickup route, hole for bridge ground wire, string through holes in the tailpiece and then mount the tailpiece. Once all that's done, it's hit everything with 400 grit one more time and get started finishing. I've done the bulk of the woodwork in under 3 weeks, which is pretty much flying for me. Details and finishing will probably be another 3-4 weeks I'm thinking. Anyway, here are the pics: Here's the mockup shot: The back: And finally, a picture with me for scale. It's a cute little thing at only 26" from tip to tip: What do you guys think?

I believe the carving on the horns just makes it appear that way from a certain angle.

I like it quite a bit. Very slick looking. Particularly the first one. Looking forward to seeing it completed.

The neck is fretted, carved, and sanded to 400 grit. I tagged a corner of the headstock with the rasp by accident and slightly dinged it up, so you can see in the pictures where I have glued in the repair, which is currently drying. I'll sand that down once it's dry and then hopefully i'll be able to find time this weekend to drill tuner holes before I glue the neck in. The woodwork will be finished up next week. My finishing schedule is going to be 2 coats of z-poxy, sanded down, followed by 5 thin coats of Tru Oil, burnishing with 0000 wire wool, 1 final coat of Tru Oil, and then waxing. I've still got to route the area for the brass section of the bridge to fit in the base, and also cut the control cavity cover (which will be padauk).

Thanks Bill! Maybe it will be ready in time for next months competition. We'll see! Some more progress this weekend. Neck and headstock routed and rough sanded. I expect to get the neck sanded to 40 grit, fretted, get the neck pocket cut, and get it glued in this week. Still waiting on the pickup to arrive.

Sounds like you're attempting to sell these, and if that is the case then this is not the proper forum to post this. I've informed the moderators to move this.

My vote went to Decadent Jon's guitar. When I looked at it I could see myself up on stage rocking out with it. It looks like a no nonsense guitar that would be a real work horse. Something about all the elements on it caused all those images to rush into my head, so I guess you could say it just spoke to me. Tons of cool stuff this month though; Jehle's plethora of CBG's, Wez's build, and MSherman's Orion all stood out to me as well.

Tru oil is a polymerized linseed oil with other additives for faster drying. I've heard it called an "oil borne varnish". Tung oil is a very slow drying natural oil that does not build like tru oil. There are also 'tung oil finishes', which are not straight tung oil. However, overall tru oil is the most popular choice here for oil finishes.

Looking good so far. The name for this extra wood at the headstock/neck joint is the 'volute'. And if you want to try a different finish, give 'Tru Oil' a shot. You can buy it in small quantities, it's fairly cheap, super easy to apply, builds quickly, and can be made to be satin or gloss. Good luck!

are we running campaigns now!!! I better get baking the cupcakes Send me a few pints of Calder's 80 from across the pond, and you've got my vote, Wez.