Muzz

I made a bridge over the drop sheet

and started shaving the neck down with the crab

checking the symmetry periodically with a contour gauge, this was at an early stage.

Tidying up every now and then with a rasp

The wood looks very brutalized at this point, the profiles at either end will need carved after I make carve guides for them, here is where it is today.

These shavings and sawdust are going into the garden.

On 10/1/2021 at 10:39 PM, Prostheta said:

Try turning a hook on the blade by running it across something like a screwdriver handle. They work well like that anyway (it's one of my favourite tricks using tape to make a depth stop) but with a hook they really cut quickly. The downside is that pearl is pretty abrasive on blades. I tend to use double cut machinists files sans handle for most levelling work on markers as they don't scuff up the wood too much if you're off target. Once they're level, the whole file can be run along the section length to test for high spots. Any scuffs come out with final sanding.

Very diligent work!

On 10/1/2021 at 10:49 PM, Bizman62 said:

That's one way to sharpen a scraper as well, honing one side of the steel to a knife edge and turning a burr to it.

I've used a sanding beam in a similar manner. It also allows for going through various grits.

Cheers Prostheta and Bizman, some fantastic tips and tricks being contributed., a good page describing the safety razor technique here https://www.woodcraft.com/blog_entries/tips-tricks-issue-93-a-safety-razor-scraper

Checked the height of the new neck compared to the old one.

That's close enough.

That reminds me, I have to put some side dots in, I will check the parts box to see if I have a side dots stick, if not I will have to order one,. Marked out for tapering, OMG that wood has got dirty sitting up in the racks for a few years 

Tapering down, 18 mm of maple to 16 mm in the straight section with a rasp (not in shot), that will end up 17 mm to 15 mm after shaping and sanding.

The maple looks much nicer after the dirt is scraped off

On 9/30/2021 at 4:10 AM, Prostheta said:

This looks sharp and schmicko, looking forward to hearing some heavy tones from this. 

On 9/30/2021 at 10:23 PM, Bizman62 said:

Oh the filed down spike! Such a small thing making a big difference!

On 10/1/2021 at 12:00 AM, Prostheta said:

Yep, good call!

On 10/1/2021 at 12:37 AM, ScottR said:

Yeah, brilliant!

SR

Cheers Bizman, Prostheta and Scott, No one wants to stab their truss rod 10 times with a sharp spike so you have to look for ways to avoid that scenario.

So today I brought the MOP dots in line with the rosewood, most of the bulk taken off with this little file.

I ground the dots down until the file started to rub on the masking tape, then I switched to a sharp chisel and a razor with sticky tape on the ends.

The covered ends of the blade follow the contours of the radius and scrape the dot into the same shape

Also great for levelling repairs to dings in finish, I wore my mask because sanded new epoxy can do horrible things to the epithelium, the cells that line the air sacs and exchange gases, in your lungs.

Those dowels have sandpaper superglued onto the end, 120, 400 and 1,000 to finally polish up the dots.

Just a minor spill and fill  looking forward to seeing more progress on this, remember everyone your god(s) will only knock your guitar off the bench when you have no carpet or bean bag under it, as soon as you do, the guitar will be stuck to your bench with celestial glue  

On 9/24/2021 at 12:45 PM, Prostheta said:

There's always something that wants to sit in the path of the blade! 

Oh yes, and my workmate bench loves to crawl under the wood I am cutting with a jigsaw into that path!

On 9/28/2021 at 1:40 AM, ScottR said:

Goodness. While I've been off traveling a bit, you've been working. Looks good too!

SR

Hope you had a lovely holiday, I have made a bit of progress, heading towards my favourite process, carving the neck.

On 9/28/2021 at 1:50 AM, mistermikev said:

perhaps just another illusion but the line on your fret saw looks a hair deep, then again better deep than shallow.  I always dread the part when I finish the slots cause I know the next part... well I'll be holding my breath for a while.  have a few under my belt... but still feels like pounding in frets... dressing... leveling = flirting with disaster!

I use the bottom of the line as the signal to stop, it is 3 mm deep in at that point, the fret tangs are 2.3 mm, should be all OK, it'll soon be time to pound some frets!

I started drilling the MOP dot holes with a 6 mm brad point then before getting too deep I swapped over to a bit where the spike has been filed down.

Put some epoxy in the holes and popped the dots in.

Really enjoying watching the craftsmanship here, hope the supplies arrive on time.

So many inspirational guitars have come from Japan, the white with black and gold design looks especially awesome.

Yep, the danger of getting invested in watching a build on the forum, the fade away thread can be a traumatic experience 

9 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Did you get close to sawing through your blue tape roll?

 Yes, went right through it, I am now using it as a low pressure clamp 

I love cognitive illusion photos

Deepening the fret slots at the outer regions where the radius shallowed them

I used my incredibly sophisticated slotting jig on the high notes that were looking like worn tires in places

It didn't take too long

Next step, implanting the pearly dots 

That is a great looking Explorer body, the knots are very subtle, I like them, they show the connection of the guitar to nature.

On 9/16/2021 at 2:25 AM, Bizman62 said:

If Glad-ys looks so sad, how would Sad-ie look?

On 9/16/2021 at 2:33 AM, Prostheta said:

A bit like Mad-die.

Maddie usually looks self-assured

On 9/17/2021 at 12:53 AM, Crusader said:

Well there was no Gladys tonight, they're all about A-bombs now....meanwhile I'm looking up Seinfeld

My favourite Seinfeld epi is The Bubble Boy, really enjoying Ted Lasso at present.

Today I made a neck following fretboard edge sander, two bits of wood screwed together,

On the underside, an 18 mm wide strip of 120 sandpaper stuck on upside down, so it follows the maple part of the neck without sanding it, and a piece the right way around to sand the rosewood

and used that to take the last slivers off the fretboard sides

This is the first time I have made a neck to fit an existing neck pocket, usually it's the other way around, at the moment it fits snuggly but not tight enough to lift the the guitar up by the neck without screws, I am hoping after the finish goes on it will be at that stage.

Now to make those fret slots the right depth

18 hours ago, Crusader said:

I was wondering who that was with the purple hair! By the way I feel for you guys over there. I have cousins in Sydney, one is in Canberra. I don't know how you don't go bonkers

Gladys would look good with purple hair like that, perhaps she will see the image and give it a go. All good here except we are all missing live music badly and chatting to each other over face time. 

17 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

The original photos paired with those should be mandatory to all teenage girls to study! There's too many of those suffering from self-esteem issues for trying to look like the people on the Internet!

Todd Sampson recently put out an amazing documentary called Mirror Mirror which looked at anxiety over body image, I don't know if you can watch it where you are but here is the link in case https://10play.com.au/mirror-mirror/episodes/season-1/mirror-mirror-s1-ep-1/tpv210909rwesf  we need more pastoral care for young people to help them navigate their way in this world, more of the village approach.

I found some left over 0.4 mm thick maple veneer, that should just fit onto the headstock

Here is Gladys and Kerry without any Photoshop, they look fantastic, very stylish

Beautiful blueburst and great offset evolution of the Tele shape.

21 hours ago, Akula said:

Why the rasp? I'm sure you have sound reason, but I've always trimmed fretboards to neck taper dimensions using a bottom-bearing flush router bit, the kind you can get from Bunnings for fairly cheap. I know there's more chance of a tear-out event with a router, but then I feel a rasp could be just as dangerous, and heaps more tedious with more clean-up.

Just a question, mate! Looking to learn more than I'm intending to criticize.

 

Loving the plant in that last shot. I live around where the old Cooper's factory used to be, and the tannins from the oak barrels have made my garden barren - nothing grows!

No worries, you and everyone are welcome to ask any questions. The answer is simply every now and again I like getting out in the open air and shaping wood using hand tools. A little 7 mm strip is nothing, except for the edge roundover, the entire periphery of this guitar body was shaped by hand, no template, no router. Try it sometime, so relaxing actually feeling the the guitar take shape, this is why I am so envious of Scott's awesome skill with the chisels.

Got this close to flush today

Next the edges get sanded perfectly straight and flush on glass

Good news for us in lockdown in Sydney, our state premier Gladys Berejiklian and Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant are easing restrictions for double vaxed people. This is Gladys and Kerry after an Instagram makeover.

That agave is nice isn't it, it's an old and big one, I have got some younger ones propagating, I hope you can get your garden going, have you tried agapanthus? It's very hardy. 

I got some time on the banana lounge this afternoon, this was one of the songs on my play list. it rocks

I got a lot of the excess fretboard off today, I marked out on the top what had to go and started rasping,

Got to about 1.5 mm from flush and started sanding with a block and 80 grit to make sure the plane was at 90 degrees, and alternated between the rasp and sandpaper

Got one side flush so far

On 9/7/2021 at 6:30 AM, ScottR said:

About this time a young anole run up from behind me--he's been living in the garage! He's definitely a blues lizard.

 

What a beautiful blues loving lizard, this is a good omen for your guitar

On 9/6/2021 at 10:42 PM, Prostheta said:

I find that thinner boards allow the rear profile to have more flexibility, so you can transition into the contours "earlier" than with uber-thick boards. Those smaller radii tend to add another variable to this, as the board gets thin at the edges at the body end much quicker. I've always been bugged by this, so I'm now trying to dial in fingerboard radii so that they're based off the edge thickness. Not entirely the easiest thing to wrap one's noggin around!

I wonder if a fretboard is trimmed to the same taper as the neck and then radiused with a block, is getting an angled rise sanded in because the block sits lower on the narrow headstock end than the thicker body end. Are you shooting for a fretboard edge that stays the same thickness all along the neck? Google says a 12" to 16" compound radius should do this, I have not checked the maths.

20 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

same here, I go to 5.5mm pre radius and end up at 5mm in the middle afterwards or there abouts. I like a thin ish neck with a bit more wood under the truss rod.

20 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Guitar is looking great. Something I've been doing lately with sanding the radius is to put the beam in the vise and take the neck to the beam instead, you can get right over it and get a proper lunge in so it goes a lot quicker, the heel and headstock make for good handles too! 

Cheers AD, I am going to try that technique, it makes sense that there is more grip on the neck than there is on the sanding beam.

16 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

That's how we've been doing it at the course. Our Master has a couple of full length radiused solid steel blocks which are way too heavy to be used handheld. They were originally meant to be used for something else, potentially related to the production of Flaxwood guitars (wood fibres and resin sprayed in a mould) but they didn't work as expected so he found other use for them.

Sounds like those blocks would be perfect to use in the technique above, after the work that would have gone into making them it's good that they were still useful.

23 hours ago, Prostheta said:

How thick is the board, overall? I've started to reduce the thickness of my fingerboards of late, mostly because they contribute a lot to the feel of the neck. I'm now in the region of 5mm at the thickest point.

A new neck might not sound that different on first inspection, however I noticed that your old/existing neck "sings" with note bloom on the A note at 7th on the D string. My #1 does that with F at the 9th on my G string. The note evolves and compresses into a singing sustain. Very cool. That will probably be the first thing you notice unless there's a massive difference in brightness by material. I mean, you're sticking to Maple and Rosewood so I'd imagine there'd be a common theme between the two for the most part. Play 'er and see!

That fretboard is now 7 mm at the apex, using a thinner fretboard is a good way to shave off a few mm when going for the uber thin neck, ESP/LTD have used that approach, they make very nice guitars, 

Yes it is going to be interesting to find out how a different neck affects the sound, the way the strings resonate and sweet spots on the fretboard. Those singing and blooming notes are a great way to start a solo or take a pause with a sustained wail.

The old neck is mahogany finished with a really tough coating, it's now sitting in a drawer. 

Sounding fantastic  

I hope you are all well, I recently got my second Astro Boy vax shot and I am feeling like covid can kiss each of my butt cheeks and because Sydney is in something like its 12 th week of lockdown I am missing live music so badly. So yesterday I wached AC/DC tear it up in Argentina 2009 on YouTube

and today I did some fill in on the body where there was some studded belt removal of the finish. This body was finished with car clear finish which is great for areas where there is no movement, Where there is movement and abrasion it can cause brittle cracking. The body was finished before I discovered two pack Rustins Plastic finish which has amazing abrasion resistance.

I put some spongy 2 sided tape on the neck, you only need a few spots, and stuck it down.

I used a cut off from my Destroyer as a radius beam guide.

Made some sawdust

until the sand paper had bitten in to the middle of the fretboard.

Then smoothed it all out with 120, 400, 800 and 1000 grit.

I am going to be interested if this new neck makes a difference to the sound, here is what the guitar sounds like with the old Dr. Parts Neck

Looking blackishilicious 

On 8/25/2021 at 1:44 AM, ScottR said:

Mission accomplished.

SR

On 8/25/2021 at 2:11 AM, Prostheta said:

Those clean slots though.

Thank you, I am just about to grate that chocolate, I tried out a longer radius sanding block, 

all looks OK

On 8/23/2021 at 10:00 PM, Prostheta said:

Looking sweet! Be careful about anything that might blow out the grain near the fret slot ends....I'd reconsider using a rasp for that, preferably a router or scraper depending on how much needs removing.

Cheers Prostheta. I'll have to look and see if I have any stains that can give an amber tinge to that maple, check out this nice shade, that's the goal.

I put on Weezer, Everything will be alright in the end

Everything will be alright with the rasp, I used  a very old one

Rough sanding 

then some finer paper and the fretboard is a 60 mm wide rectangle 

It looks like a bar of chocolate.

Next step is radiusing