Setch

Rich,

I've been playing with splitting some quartered pine (not sure what it is - it's recycled from an old door's stiles), and it splits nicely, but doesn't create a flat face. Presumably this wood would be discarded, until a flat cleavage plane occured, and then stock would be jointed and cut parallel to this face?

Did you finish the back of the cover too?

I'd guess that it's bowed because it's absorbing more moisture through the back than the front, which means the back expands more than the front, and forces the piece to bend. Try placing it somewhere dry (like a sealed box with a pack of solica gel in it) which may help it return to flat, then finish the back to balance the moisture absorbtion.

Oh, and by the way - *beautiful* piece of work, very impressive, doubly so considering it's only your second.

Draw it all out, fullsize.

Glue is very weak, but the chemical bond created when a well fitted joint is glued together is extremely strong - to quote the old motto it is 'stronger than the wood itself'.

A mortice and tenon with dowels will be more complicated and less strong than a conventional one, and less strong than a conventional bolt on too.

The dowels will add nothing to the joint at all.

Too cool! The only thing I'm not sold on 100% is the license plate cover, but it's a minor detail. Great job on the rusty recycled hardware neck plate and trapeeze, and the weathered top wood.

Yes, you could, but you wouldn't get bookmatched sides - which is the whole point of resawing a top.

Buy them from Stew Mac. Even if you get stung for customs, it'll be cheaper than buying in the UK, and it's extremely likely the stuff will arrive faster too.

dunk it in hot water, and then clamp it between 2 flat boards. Make sure you protect the show face, or you can clamp a pettern into it if the boards are rough!

Nice guit-box Setch, but geez man, trim those strings!

Busted! I was still experimenting with the setup when I took those pics - so the strings were on with too many winds on the post, and not snipped so I can take them on and off easily. They did get trimmed before the owner got the guitar - I have photographic evidence!!

MDF will come to piece very quickly if it has to bear the weight of a pickup - it has very little cohesive strength, especially in thin sections. Stick with solid wood, or veneer a strong wood like maple, cherry or teak.

I made these rings out of wenge, with a cap of wenge veneer on top, so that I could get quartersawn grain on all the long grain faces (the flatsawn grain was too bust for such small pieces). Wenge is pretty damn splitty stuff, you just need to go slow and careful, plus having access to a milling machine helps!

Jon - I made some ebony rings lately, and I'd not do it again - if they're made geometrically perfect so that they don't look sloppy, it's damn hard to tell they're not plastic! I might just try knocking back the shine on some plastic rings with fine steel wool, and using those.

Kewl!

I used the hipshot on the guitar at the top of the page, and it's a very nice trem. It's not floyd by any stretch, but it's definately a very nice take on the strat-esque 2 point trem.

There's a reason that bar frets fell out of favour as soon as an alternative was available...

Modern frets actually have more surface area in contact with the neck, since they have the area of the tang, and the overhanging faces of the fret where it extends over the fretboard. They are more securely anchored, since the barbs grip the fretslot, and they are easier to crown and level, since there is less material to remove, and the t-shape makes it much easier to seat them all to the same height.

Bar frets have very little to commend them, and are only appropriate to replace existing bar frets on historic instruments.

Never trust those f-clamps near a router, tablesaw, or any other vibrating powertool - they are extremely prone to slipping when exposed to vibration, which can lead to injury to your project, your tools, or to you (see above!). G-cramps are a much better bet, but still need to be monitored - vibrations make threads creep undone, so keep your eyes peeled!

For the cheesy, surface mounted monstrosity which ovation use in place of a rosette, I'd use CA or epoxy. Glue it directly to the bullet-proof ovation poly finish, you won't hurt it, and stripping it or removing it is nigh on impossible without routing it away. Scrape away any old residue first, but be careful to colour inside the lines

For reference, this is what DJ is describing;

It's a plastic ring, about 1.5mm thick, with a printed pattern on it. It's glued onto the guitar top without any channel or rebate being routed, and stands proud of the top. It's also butt ugly.

Way cool Al - kudos to you!

Hugo,

1/8" is very thin - stick with 1/4" or you *will* have a structural failure. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but certainly the first time the instrument gets bumped. 335s and their ilk may go thinner, but only when they're using pressed, laminated (plywood) tops. Going that thin with carved solid wood is a recipe for disaster because of the way carving creates short grain, it's significanlty weaker than a flat section of solid wood of equal thickness.

The fifth will reult in the most quartered grain orientation, relative to the surface of the archtop. Looks like the best plan to me.

Any particular reason you're using limba for the top? Spruce would be more traditional, and the optimal material for an acoustic archtop.

Another good trick for amber-ing lacquer from Frank Ford - stick a sealed glass jar full of lacquer on your roof, or in your gutter, and let it sunbathe for a few weeks/months/years. The UV will age the lacquer and leave you with nice amber lacquer which will age at the same speed as the original nitro, rather than getting too dark like amber dyed lacquer.

Measure twice - cut once.

Less haste, more speed.

There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over...

I could go on, but you get the idea. Slow it down, and you'll stop having to backtrack and waste money and time. When you encounter a mistake, STOP and fully consider the possibilities for salvaging the project, or at least ensuring it doesn't waste any more materials or time. Fretting this when you were unsure it would work is crazy, especially since 20 minutes with a pencil and paper would tell you whether or not the neck was wide enough.

On the plus side, the fretwork does look pretty good in the pics - at least you got some practice in...

Here's another example to supplement Jason's pics.

Cutting the covers:

Final result:

Like Wez pointed out, this is easier on a well quartered body, but if you cut the blanks oversize you can get pretty good results on rift or flatsawn bodies too.

A palette knife and a domestic iron, plus a little patience, and you'll have the fretboard off. Same for the trussrod.

Then saw off the scarfed head, and rejoin it further down - the taper of the neck should give you the extra width you need. Bind the fretboard, etc voila - neck with the correct proportions.

If your dad won't let you dispose of the dodgy tape, clearly mark it 'INNACURATE!' or 'DO NOT TRUST!' with a sharpie, it's too easy to make that kind of mistake.

Why would a problem with the neck make you waste the body?

If you take the neck too narrow, you can rip it down the middle, add a centre strip, and then add binding to the fretboard.

There's really no reason to use a locking nut without a tremolo.

Correct.

*BUT* if it's on there, I'd use it, because the locking nut isn't designed to allow smooth movement of the strings like a normal nut, so you'll get the normal tuning problems caused by a snaggy, poorly cut nut. Course, you'll have the problem of having to unlock everytime you want to tune up, but that's something you'll have to live with unless you want to replace the nut with a custom made piece to fill the gap left by removing the lcok nut.