Setch

Angle the neck. Draw it all out on a big sheet of paper, calculate how much angle will give you a good action, and set this angle when you glue the wings to the body. When it's all glued up, plane the neck through flush with the front and bakc of the body wings. Do you have Hiscock's book?

You can't fault that kind of turnaround speed!

I think you prpobably mean a grain filler, not a sealer. Depending on the nature of the grain filler, you can fill either before or after staining. Many waterbased fillers will happily accept stain once dry, thus allowing you to fill your grain, sand prefectly smooth, and then stain. The compatability of your stain and filler should be mentioned in their respective instructions, but always test of scrap first....

I use a 1/2 inch flat bottom bit, which works fine for me. You really shouldn't have any trouble setting the jig up provided you check everything is square, and shim anything that isn't until it is! Hopefully Brian can post pics soon so everyone can check it out, and quite possibly refine the design from it's pretty crude incarnation!

May have screwed the pooch first time round, should be with you now.

Gentlemen, check your email.

Making your own radius blocks is pretty simple. I can mail some pics to Brian illustrating how I did it. The jig I built allowed you to produce any length of block, any of the common radii, and was built in less than an afternoon. Cutting the 6 inch block I use for radiusing blanks took all of 15 minutes.

uh... Guys... first post? Yes, you will need to angle your neck, or recess your bridge. How much depends on where your neck joins the body, how far your fingerboard extends over the guitar top, how thick your fingerboard plus fret wire will end up, and of course, how tall your bridge is. The process for calculating neck angle is covered in plenty of detail in Melvyn Hiscock's excellent 'Build your own Electric guitar'. It is also important to have your guitar design finalised before making any calculations - if you change one variable without altering your calculations accordingly, your guitar could end up unplayable. If you're serious enough to invest in fancy hardware like that, the cost of the book will be insignificant, and it will save you money by preventing potentially catastrophic errors in construction.

Strap button holes, the holes for tuner anti-rotation screws and other small diameter holes can safely be drilled after finishing, though there is no real advantage. Everything else should be completed before finishing, doing otherwise risks chipping your finish, a real bitch if you've sprayed coloured laquer, or anything which doesn't spot fill seamlessly. I wouldn't consider drilling holes for pots after finishing - that's really asking for a prominent chip out on the most visible surface of your guitar!

I wouldn't concern your self with neck reinforcement too much, most Fenders get along fine with flat sawn maple necks and single action trussrods. When using a relatively soft hardwood like mahogany or Limba (ie- Korina, see Wes's post) quarter sawn timber is pretty much essential, but with maple flat sawn is perfectly good.

Sweet Wes - the use of naturally contrasting woods looks very classy. A good tip for wiring runs on neck-throughs is to route a channel in the side of the neck blank - this is hidden when the blanks are glued up, but revealed when you route your pickup cavities. That said, I like the bubinga inlay, it looks like a deliberate style choice, and really fits the blonde/brunette colour scheme. Just out of curiosity, what's up with the 1st fret in the 3rd image - it looks like there's an overhang on the treble side - is it just an 'oops' in the digital image?

Is this a DIY guitar, parts project, or off the peg? Is this a problem which has existed since you first bought/built/assembled the guitar? If not, what has been changed recently? Bolt or Set neck? The solution will be different depending on your situation...

Hi Doug - great looking work, the figure on that myrtle is spectacular, and that cocobolo looks very classy. I've seen your stuff on the mimf and been impressed with your **** retentive work getting your stains just how you want them... definately worth the effort.

Get yourself a copy of 'Build your own Electric Guitar' by Melvyn Hiscock. This book covers all your questions in depth, and is clear concise and humorously written. For the time being.... Never never never try to calculate any critical measurements or angles until you have all your hardware in your hands. This goes double for neck angle - get the bridge first. The amount of fretboard which overhangs the body is entirely up to you. The more the amount of fingerboard over the body the more stable the neck, but with a tradeoff of reduced access to high frets. However you choose to do this ensure you have enough tennon length to create a strong neck joint, especially if you plan to route for a neck pickup. Finally, the positioning of the pickups is fairly non critical, provided you don't stick the brifdge p'up too close to the bridge, which results in a thin trebly tone. You can measure the positioning from a guitar you like, or just go with what looks allright. I'd advise you to ignore any talk you might hear about harmonic nodes, since these are only relevant if you never fret any stings...

Craft supplies - UK Supplier of tonewoods. Cheap, and certainly good enough for your first few guitars. 'Build Your Own Electric Guitar' - For sale at Amazon.co.uk. Next.... ?

If you've not got a copy of Mr.Hiscocks book, you probably won't see the stuff you need to know until after you need it.... if you get my drift. The aim of the book is to keep you away from the common mistakes, thus freeing you to spend your time making stranger, more elaborate errors. In many ways guitar building is much less complicated than it appears, but there are certain areas which need to be explained lucidly and in depth if you are ever to create a high quality instument - Woe betide anyone who rushes in without knowing how to calculate their neck angle... Seriously, I would recommend the book to anyone who has an active interest in guitars, and it's basically compulsary for anyone considering building.

Come on now... that's enough with the great looking guitars!! Isn't it about time you turned out a piece of poorly finished crap to make us all feel better? Seriously, that looks great, as did your first. I might seriously look into rolling nitro, your finishing looks top notch.

Um... Scott - What exactly does a left handed template look like? Does it look anything like an upside down rightie?

If the neck seems OK don't mess with it. If you do need to play, a single action rod can only add backbow to a neck. The rod has to work pretty hard to alter the curvature of the neck, and as Wes says (heh... Rhymes )it can take a few days to settle into it's new profile. It is often a good idea to introduce the curve you want to the neck by carefull clamping with carefully placed shims on a flat surfaced. Once the curve is as it needs to be, you can tighten the rod to retain the curve. This elliminates a lot of the stress on the rod which could cause the nut (or god forbid the threaded rod) to strip out.

I'm 100% with Rye here - trace it, then cut and sand to the line. You can be plenty accurate with a well set up jigsaw and some carefull sanding, and even if you do end up taking away an extra .01 somewhere, you'll never notice it. Routers and template follower bits etc are great, but they are not the answer to everything - I was very over reliant on mine when I first got it, but it's no substitute for learning to do things the slow, correct way.

The really allergic wood you guys are thinking of is probably cocobolo - I've heard of people breaking out in hives all over because of exposure to the dust. Padauk is not that bad, but it will give you a nasty itchy sensation in you nose, and make you sneezy and sore. As Wes said, any sawdust will irritate your nose, but certain varieties are particularly aggresive, padauk being one. I try not to do any routing or sanding of it without an airfed mask. Derek - the neck and bridge in relation to the body are unchanged - I just made the fingerboard a little longer.

Thanks guys, this was guitar #1 and has quite a few rough edges on it. Regardless it plays very nicely and sounds great. The body is the same length as usual, but appears longer because I used a SG junior style wraparound bridge - so there is no stop tail to fill up the space behind the bridge. The colour is 100% natural - the only finish I applied to the guitar was colron Danish oil. The colour is a feature of padauk, which turns a very vivid red when it is machined or sanded. The colour has toned down a bit, taking on a browner hue in the , but has retained the lovely ribbon figuring. FYI the padauk is quite troublesome to work - I swore I would never use it again after building this, but it is so pretty that I'm sure I'll break my promise! It is very resistant to planing and other bladed tools, though it can be scraped and sanded easily enough. It is also a mild nasal irritant, so a dust mask is recommended (even more so than usual) when working with it.

I've used it to build an SG, it sounds great but is incredibly heavy. If you plan on using it for a LP type guitar you will need to chamber it or risk a couple of herniated disks trying to lift it! My SG is almost an 1/8 thinner than a stock SG, and has some chambering in the treble bout, but still clocks in around 9 lbs.

OK, a template is an example of a jig, but the two things are not synonyms. A jig is a device used to hold a piece of work and guide the tools used on it, allowing you to perform a task quickly and repeatably. For example, I have an angled jig I use to hold my neck blanks and route a perfect 12 degree angle on them for a scarfed headstock, a router jig to rough radius f'board blanks, and so on. Um...oh... that's what Scott said. Nevermind

Um... surely if you attach the neck to a piece which later becomes the centre of the body you're simply creating a setneck or bolt neck with a three piece body. You wouldn't be able to make the neck joint any smaller, since you don't actually have the benfit of one continuous piece of wood running the entire length of the body. An endgrain to endgrain gluejoint would actually be weaker than a conventional setneck or boltneck. Tell me if I'm missing something here, but it sounds like a complicated process without any real benefits.