mattharris75

Thanks Ben. Got some more work done tonight. Placed and drilled the neck ferrules and screws for the neck. Because two of the ferrules/screws are on a slope I had to recess them slightly deeper, and so those two screws were cut a bit shorter just to be safe. Everything seems to align properly and it is quite solid. It's looking more like a guitar every day.

OK, spent some time sanding the fretboard/binding this morning. It's good up to 400 grit, need to get some 600 for it and then it will be good to go. Also decided over the past few weeks to keep putting coats of tru oil on my pickup cover. I really wanted to test and see if I could get the kind of look I wanted on the guitar body with just tru oil, or whether I was going to have to use lacquer. As you can see in these pictures it is thick and glassy. There are probably 35 coats of oil on it, and it's been dry sanded to 12000 grit with micro mesh papers. It's always nice to do a moku-up and see where you stand, gives you a little confidence and motivation to keep moving. One small issue I have that I haven't figured out yet: My scrimshaw inlay disk in the headstock, which is filled with black epoxy. The epoxy isn't completely opaque, so you can see the small white ridges of plastic underneath the letters now that I have sanded the headstock completely smooth. Any idea what I can do to fix that? I put some naphtha on it to see what it will look like under a finish and you can still see the ridges. I assume the headstock will be tru oiled like the rest of the guitar. How would tru oil react to using a black permanent marker on top of the epoxy? I will certainly test this if I decide to do it, just wanted to see if anyone had tried something as absurd as this. Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3 Picture 4

Thanks for the recommendation guys. I had thought (hoped) I was done ordering from stew mac for this build, but this isn't the first time i've thought that. Oh well.

Here are a couple of pictures of the fretboard with curly Koa binding. I was having trouble taking a picture of everything with the poor lighting. With naphtha on it, the binding had great contrast to the maple of the neck and the curl really popped. I'm sure daylight would allow me to take a picture much more indicative of how it truly looks. The first shot shows the whole neck, and the link shows a picture, slightly blurry but with much better contrast, from a different angle. I'm really happy with how the binding looks I think it's going to be really sharp once it's got a tru oil finish on it. Another Angle With More Contrast The next question is, how do I get the glue out of the fret slots? I got a large percentage of it out using a toothpick before it dried, but wasn't able to get all of it. I was going to try an x-acto knife, any other tips or tricks? I'm still thinking I can get this thing done by Christmas.

Very cool! Love the effect....And the theme.

I explained to you in the other thread how to get your pics to show up, just do that and you won't have a problem from now on. If you can't figure that out, then just bracket the url in tags.

Scoll over all the buttons directly above the text entry window and you will find it. It should have a pop-up with the appropriate name. It looks like a small picture of a sunrise over hills. Should be right next to the 'insert link' button.

There is an 'insert image' button that allows you to insert a picture from a link. Like a photobucket URL. Just get the URL from photobucket, click the button, and insert the link there and your picture will pop up inline with your post.

Just order it online from some place like this: Router Bits

I can't wait to see what kind of boards you get out of that stump. Should be some pretty crazy stuff.

I'm a big fan too. Finished Deathly Hallows on Sunday.

There's another alternative if you want to keep things simple. Design a logo or pick a font you like and send it to HuntinDoug. He can do a scrimshaw inlay within a circle based on a standard forstner bit size. In my case I used 1". This means rather than difficult routing of your maple you can use a forstner bit in a drill press and have a really cool and custom look fairly simply. You can then fill in the recessed area with a colored epoxy for the contrasting color. I can't post/view from photobucket at work, so just check out this thread and find the appropriate picture: Scrimshaw Inlay on Headstock

Just make sure to bring him Coopers Pale Ale, none of that Fosters crap.

You won't be 'making a template without a template'. You use your neck as your pattern to make the template off of. Here's what you do: Get a couple of pieces of 3/4" MDF. They only need to be fairly small strips. Use a table saw or mitre saw to ensure that they have at least one straight edge. place two of them lengthwise along the edges of your neck and then cut a smaller one to place against the heel in between the other two pieces. You should have 3 straight edges that are all aligned perfectly against the neck. Then just take some hot glue and a piece of 1/4" MDF that has been cut so that there is a hole to fit around the neck. The hole cut in this does not have to be accurate and can be quite a bit larger, but it will be the surface that the bottom plate of the router rides on, so don't make it so big that the router can easily be dipped over the edge to the 3/4" piece of MDF below. Then you just hot glue that piece on top of the other 3 and measure out and draw your center line on the template. And there you go, a perfect template designed around your neck to work with a pattern following bit (one with the bearing on top). There are other derivations of this same idea, but I have found this to be a simple, no-fuss way of doing things.

Stew Mac recommends 1/8"

OK Tim, no plastic binding. I was only considering it for protection of the headstock. But right now I doubt i'm going to bind the headstock. However, I did cut my binding channels for the fretboard this weekend. Because of how my neck is constructed (fender style nut slot) and the stage of construction that I am at (already have the headstock laminate glued on) I had to be very careful with where I begun/ended the route. So, i've left myself a bit of chizeling to do on the headstock end. I've gotten one side cleaned up and will clean up the other side tonight and possibly glue everything up. The binding channel wasn't too difficult. The two 12" radius cauls that I made and double-side-taped to the fretboard worked well, holding it flat on the router table and square to the router bit. Should have pictures of the bound neck in the next few days depending on whether or not I decide to sand the binding flush before taking pics. Could be this weekend in that case.

Stew Mac has 'furniture powder' that is a powdered dye that can be used to turn epoxy black. I have used it, works great. Look for 'inlay filler color' on their website.

First off, in order to have 24 frets and have the neck meet the body at the same fret you just have to move your bridge toward the nut the proper amount to compensate for the distance that the neck has to be lengthened to account for the extra frets. Also, a Gibson scale is typically 24 3/4", not 22 3/4". And 'jumbo' frets refers to the size of the fret wire, not the distance between the frets. If you want a wider distance between frets you should at least go with a Fender 25.5" scale if you're trying to stick close to the norms, but you can also do a custom scale even longer than that to give you more space in between frets.

I'm going to agree with Rich and say you definitely need to build the neck. When I first had visions of building a guitar I thought i'd buy my first neck, but I sort of got 'talked into' building it on my own. And while i'm not quite finished with the guitar I am fairly deep into the process, and have to say that building the neck has been more rewarding than building the body. I was intimidated at first, and yes it is harder than building the body because of the level of precision required, but it's not so hard that it should not be attempted. It just requires patience and planning. The neck is just so functionally critical to the guitar, more so than the body, that the sense of accomplishment as you move forward with it is much greater. I say go for it!

Mike, I'll answer as many of your questions as I can. I don't have any additional pictures with me at work, but will try to get some new ones in the next day or two. The spoke wheel sits far enough below the fretboard that you don't really have to make the cutout much larger than the size of the wheel itself, because the wheel is located on the lower of the 2 rods in a double adjustable truss rod. It just needs to be large enough to get an adjustment tool down into the hole. I'll try to take a detail picture of this. You will also need to make sure that you set your route up so that the edge of the adjustment wheel itself has 1/16" of clearance from the end of the neck just so it doesn't bind on the neck. The shank for the wheel, however, is recessed into the neck. The route is virtually the same as a regular truss rod, the only difference is that you have to drill a 7/16" recess into the end of the neck ( about 1/2" deep) for the shank of the spoke wheel to sit. I just slid the truss rod back into place until the shank hit the wood and marked a circle around the edges of the shank, then inserted a small offcut piece into the end of the channel and marked the center point on that so i'd have something to drill into. Worked perfectly. If you were doing a neck through design you could just chizel the recess to the correct width to fit the shank. Fitting it was actually a lot simpler than I first thought it might be. Don't be afraid to give it a go, once you get it in hand you'll see how easy it is to accomodate. Did that answer all your questions?

I haven't finished a build with one, but am in the midst of one now. Here's the thread, with plenty of pics: My Build I chose to have a 22nd fret overhang at the end of the neck like a lot of fenders, which meant I had to notch the end of the fretboard. I think that looks neat, but some people don't like the way that looks, and of course you could always not have the overhang and have it stick out past the end of the neck. It seems to me they are easier to accomodate, not so 'common', and cool looking as well. Win-win situation.

Well, I hope you're as happy with your pickup covers as I am with mine. In my case, I have to say, making it was far more time consuming than I had anticipated. Of course this may have been in part due to unorthodox tools, and being sidetracked by a nasty beltsander injury, etc, etc. But I certainly put a lot more time into it than I thought I would. However, they will certainly be that extra little custom touch that will put your build over the top. Good luck!

Sounds familiar...

Yeah, I possibly could have fixed it by drilling a bigger hole. But it would have been close. Honestly, I originally did not intend to do binding, but the more I think about it the more I like the idea. I also was questioning whether or not to bind just the fretboard or the headstock as well. I've just been trying to look at various examples over the last few days to make the decision. At this point, i've decided not to bind the headstock. I like what i've got going on with it, it's got a nice look as it is. I had considered doing a black plastic or ebony binding on the headstock to continue the black theme, but at this point i'm not going to do that. (Plans are always subject to change. After all, this is a creative venture. )I'll definitely be binding the headstock on my next build though. I've already got plans (and wood purchased) for that in the works, just doing some tweeking on that design right now. I'll post pics of that design for feedback when i'm closer to getting started. I've been trying to figure out the best route as far as the jig is concerned, and right now i'm leaning toward cutting a pair of 12" radius cauls to tape to the fretboard. I haven't been able to determine what the most 'popular' method is for doing this, even though i'm quite sure i'm not the first person that ever decided to bind their fretboard after it was radiused. I'll post a picture of the jig as well as pictures of the results. As for what I am using for side dots, I have some 2mm abalone dots, but I also just ordered a 4 mm white pearl dot. I'm thinking of doing that on the 12th fret to match the white pearl in the logo on the headstock.

Well, my attempt at drilling side dot holes didn't turn out so well. I initially had in mind to create a small jig to run down the neck to make sure they were aligned. But, alas, I got overconfident and tried to do it without a jig. All but two of the holes were perfect. Which obviously means that two of them weren't good enough. For a brief moment I considered trying to fill the holes with wood dust and glue, but decided quickly that wouldn't do. So, I ordered supplies to bind the neck yesterday. Curly Koa. Just have to finish figuring out a jig to use to route the channels on the router table. When I was drilling those holes I knew in the back of my mind that I could bind it if I screwed up. Ultimately this will make an even better end product. But it is further reinforcement of the lesson that 1 hour building a jig saves you 5 hours of build time (not to mention money). On the plus side, i've gotten some small things done the last few days, sanding the emblem flat on the headstock, adding a few more coats of tru oil to the pickup cover, and things such as that. The binding supplies should be here early enough to give me the opportunity to work on that this weekend. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.