Post by ADowbs on Jul 8, 2013 11:09:53 GMT 10
Finally getting around to bringing this thread over from MightyCockMongers. It's going to be one opening monster post so standby for internet breakage. Also, there were a couple changes/restarts on the project I'm going to omit, so here's everything that's still valid at this point.
We FINALLY have a template, to scale even!!!
But regarding the top, I thought about it for a while and finally I decided to just scrap it and start fresh. If I was going to use exotic woods for the neck, I might as well use some "instrument" woods for the body as well, because why put 90 dollars worth of wood into a neck and 5 dollars worth of wood into a body, really? So I went to my local wood shop and picked these up:
From bottom to top, I got 3 feet of Black Walnut, for the body core; 3 feet of Ash, for the top and back plates, and 18 inches of more wenge for another cap (I think I'm going to do one front and back this time). The best part though, is they're all planed flat already and none of them are warped, so hopefully it should be smooth sailing from this point (knock on wood). So basically, we took one step forward and like three steps back, but I'm going to re-evaluate everything that I'm doing on this build and come up with a solid gameplan moving forward, and then some real progress should come. I apologize for jerking people around to this point with all the set backs and restarts, I'm sure someone out there is screaming at me profusely through their screen but... It's my first build and I'm learning as I go. I promise this time it will go smoother than the last few times.
So, long ass hiatus while I reassessed the situation, came up with a new design (restarting the same one over and over again takes it's toll, y'know?) and started work in a different direction. This time I decided, let's work on the neck first and build the body around that, primarily because the new design is slightly more complicated, and secondarily because the neck is the only thing I know I won't change at least once during the process.
One thing I did change was the fretboard. I was originally going to go with a wenge fingerboard, but the piece I had was thinner than 1/4 inch on one end, and rather than try something bold like laminate another piece underneath it or use an extra thin fretboard, I decided to change it out. I decided to go Brian May style and use a piece of red oak (let's ignore the fact I could get it pre-thicknessed as well, and say it was ONLY because of Brian May
). I was worried it would ruin the overall aesthetic of the build, but I have a rather clever way to change that. It involves steel wool, vinegar, a glass jar, and some careful masking. More on that later though.
Anyway, on with the update. To start, I made a template of the shape I'd like to cut the square blank to before gluing. I don't have a bandsaw so I wouldn't be able to do it with any degree of accuracy after it was glued up. The blank is actually a bit deceptive because there's going to be something added to it afterwards. I'll throw up the render at the end of this post but basically, from the heel cut to the 10th fret will be a layer of thin wenge and then walnut to make up the thickness of the blank beyond the actual neck. Reason for this is two fold, first for the transition from the singlecut side of the body, and second for a little additional strength.
That being said, the neck blank was cut like this:
With a slot for the reinforcing bar like this:
Then I had the frightening experience of gluing the blank together, but thankfully it turned out alright where it needed to be. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics during this process, but imagine a lot of glue, clamps, and panic. That should give you a good idea.
Unfortunately the fretboard surface didn't turn out quite as smoothly as I had hoped, so I had to plane that (and the aluminum bar, which was the source of most of my troubles until I figured out the technique) down to flatness. In the picture it looks angled because it's sitting on an angled piece of the table, but I assure you it is flat enough to carry on with the work (I'll work with it a bit more when it comes time to glue the fretboard). Oh, and I did have to widen the slot for the aluminum rod by hand with a chisel, so it's not perfect, but I'll fill the slot up with glue when attaching the fretboard as well. As it is, it's in the pretty solid already, but no gap is a good gap. I know it's not center in the neck, the asymmetrical carve on the back will place it on the thickest part of the neck though.
You'll also note a little gap between one of the laminates, I'm not sure how deep it is so it may come to pass that all will be well once I thickness the headstock, or else I'll have to fill it as well. Either way, it's not terrible and will be covered by a veneer in the end so c'est la vis.
I also needed to add two pieces to the bottom half of the neck because in the process of flattening the laminates I also made them somewhat too thin to fit the entire width of the fretboard, so I slapped on a pair of wenge off cuts and started to taper the neck. I wasn't sure if I was going to go with purpleheart or wenge, but I decided to continue the pattern. Next I had to taper the neck to the fretboard, which I had cut out off camera (again, I was sorta frustrated and wanted to work more than I wanted to document my work, at this point. Apologies). Keeping with the trend of incredibly bad timing, my jigsaw blade snapped right after I took this picture, and it was the last blade I had on hand.
So I had to do the other side with a rasp and a belt sander. Not necessarily the best idea as far as efficiency goes, but we got there eventually. Right here (and as it sits at the time of writing) it is rough tapered. You can see there's still a little final squaring up to do that will happen once the fretboard is glued and securely in place. There is a laminate on the right side as well, it's just difficult to see in this picture. If I was thinking I would have taken better pictures, but it started to rain literally 30 seconds after I took these and the indoors pictures are even worse quality, generally.
These last two are just a dry run with the fretboard places on top, to get a feel for the overall aesthetic. But like I said, the fretboard is not the final colour so do not fret.
I'm sure you've noticed the "tabs" at the top of the headstock, they'll be coming off, they were part of another idea of mine to keep the blank from shifting while it was being glued.
Still to do on the neck:
Thickness headstock
Thickness back of neck
Cut and add wings to headstock
Add veneers top/back to the headstock
Cut out the headstock shape
Slot the fretboard
Glue on the fretboard
Cut and add the laminates to the back of the neck
Finalize the neck tenon shape
Glue the neck to the body core
Shape the back of the neck, volute, and heel.
So still a fair bit, but I've gotten a little work done and I figured it's time for an update.
Also, the renders like I mentioned previously of the finished shape. Some things are still up in the air but most of the major things are finalized by now. So without adieu:
Front:
Back:
Middle independent volume/tone
Neck/Bridge shared volume/tone, 3 way toggle
Killswitch (normally open momentary switch) to output jack
Cut the headstock wings out today and am gluing them together before I glued them on, but I just clamped them into place to check some stuff.
I wanted to check that the piece I was planning to use for veneer was wide enough, and it was literally spot on in all dimensions, if I didn't know any better I'd think I was actually planning it out properly.
And did a test on my batch of steel wool and vinegar (to make iron acetate) which reacts with the tannic acid in the wood to turn it darker. Here's the end grain with 1 application, the face/sides are much lighter but they'll darken up with a few more applications hopefully.
Couple more pics, didn't get too much done today, I'm coming up on the point where I need parts in hand to continue. In this case, tuning machines to I can drill the holes and line them up properly, in order to cut out the headstock. Wouldn't be such a problem except GFS doesn't list the size of hole needed for their tuning machines, so best to just do it with parts in hand.
Anyway, glued the wings on and began thicknessing the headstock.
Test fit the veneer plate again, it's still in need of a great deal of sanding to thin it out but so far so good
I did a lot of work on the back of the headstock as well, but didn't take pictures as visible it didn't change much, just dimensions and stuff.
This is where I called it quits today.
A quick mockup with the body templates
Also, I'm thinking of taking the asymmetrical carve idea and going a step further, doing something similar to what Strandberg has done with their "EndurNeck" concept and moving the centreline as you move into the higher frets. They do it with a trapezoidal profile but I will probably stick to a conventional rounded one, for this neck at least, I'd like to mock up a trapezoidal profile just to try it out for myself some time in the future.
The profile, for reference:
I'm experimenting with an idea I came up with last night. Didn't take any pictures of step one, so as to not ruin the surprise, but here it is step 2.
Step 2 involves almost every spring clamp I own.
edit: Also yes, subway wrapper does make an excellent glue drippings catcher.
Also, part 2 of my multi-part surprise. I know it's rough still but hell, 59 LP slots didn't line up to any discernible mathematical formula so who cares if it's a tiny bit off. I'll go back and clean it up some tomorrow once I get home from the memorial I've gotta go to in the morning, before I start part 3 of my super happy funtime surprise
Yes, these are obviously hand cut, I'm way too lazy to create an elaborate jig for slotting fanned frets. Like I said, I'm adopting the '59 LP mantra. Two or three slots need to be filled and recut though, that's what I get for trying to rush the upper register because it was getting dark out. Oh well, the scales are as they're supposed to be at aleast (18.75" short side, 20.25" long side).
Frets 22, 13 need work for sure. 16 and 17 might, I'll have to check them on the calipers tomorrow.
Alright so, picking up where we left off last time, we've not got our fret slots filled and deep shame welling in the cockles of our hearts. Good, then you're ready to move on to the next step. If not, go back and feel ashamed some more.
Moving on, you start with a big dark blotch on your otherwise pristine (ish) fretboard where you filled your mistake. If it looks like crap, good, you're following along thus far. If not, I'm not sure why you're watching since you're clearly better at this than I am. The next step is to take a razor and score a groove along the proper fret line that you measured with the calipers and marked with a pencil in the last step. I didn't take a picture of this step because well, it's pretty simple. Take knife, run along line, repeat until you have a decent groove.
After that, you just repeat the process of cutting fret slots. I'm using a coping saw with a blade that is 0.020" thick, roughly, because fret tangs are 0.022-0.023" thick usually. Once you've recut the slot carefully, you should have something that looks like this.
Hopefully most of your slots don't look like mine, which is to say, like you had a sudden bout of Parkinsons while you were cutting them. Those will be sanded out when it comes time to finish sand, but right now it looks like crap. Anyway, you'll notice the slot that was repaired is a little thick in the middle because I didn't fill one side quite enough, so to remedy this I'll have to use a dot of glue on this fret when it comes time to fret. Regardless, for now, it is what it is, I'll deal with it when it gets closer to that time. Once you've recut the slots, sand back the rest of your goop mixture to remove most of it and you should be left with something like this.
It's not the prettiest, but once the frets are in and the fretboard has been sanded and finished (I'm thinking possible a light tru-oil coating, I'll decide what I want to do though) it should be nearly invisible. The picture is actually very close up, from arms length it's almost impossible to pick out unless you're specifically looking for it. So with that done, it's time to move on to the next step, which first involves cutting the walnut body core to size. So take your template and mark out the body wings, and then split it accordingly.
Once you've split it, true up the edges on the table saw if you're too poor for a jointer, and then you can take your neck blank and fretboard and "assemble" it, only to take a really horrible picture that shows almost nothing.
But the most importantly, you can then cut your strips of fretboard binding. My table saw blade is 0.070" thick, so I set the fence to take 1/8" less than the total width of the board, giving a binding thickness of 0.055" roughly. Not much, but enough to offset the two tone laminate sides of the fretboard still. You should end up with strips like this:
Then, all that's left is to true up the sides of the fretboard and glue the binding on. It really requires very little glue and pressure, I probably used a little bit too much glue but since I have some room to play with, I'd rather ensure that the joint gets enough glue with a little bit of slippage than the other way around. Then, all you have to do is take a really (really) poor photo while the glue dries on side 1.
Last update for today, have the binding strips glued on both sides, along with a little more magic goop to fill a bit of a gap I wasn't 100% pleased with. Tomorrow I'll flush up the strips and the fretboard will be put aside for a while as it's pretty much done up to this point, until I decide whether I want to do inlays or not on the face.
Got most of the excess material taken away, unfortunately had a big of an issue with a piece snapping off near one of the ends, I'm gluing it back together now. Still, not pleased about that, but the rest is looking pretty decent in my opinion. Well pleased with it.
Hey guise, look what I found!
Fuuu wenge y u do this to me. Drilling for dot inlays today, wenge decides to tear out in a bossly fashion. Damnit. Well, gonna have to figure out how to fix that too I guess. Should have used another step between the pilot hole and the actual size bit. Will do for the rest of the holes since my drill battery died halfway through the operation. I kept going with the ones I could because I didn't think it was that bad, but of course the worst one emerged from the narrowest fret slot, right at 24, so.... fuark. Anyway, here's what lead up to it at least:
Start marking out your slots that need to be inlayed. It might sounds silly, but you'd be surprised how often you can throw yourself off in the process, and I've seen more than a few build threads where people have finished the inlays before realizing they drilled the wrong section and the inlays were totally off. So just mark it, for peace of mind, and be done with it. Then you need to ascertain where your markings need to be. If you're doing centered dots this is easy enough, regardless of parallel frets or multiscale, just draw an X from one corner to the other of the fret slots you need to mark, make sure they connect in a straight line, and bam. Instantly centred.
If you're doing offset dots, like me, you find the centerline as before, then you draw an X across the slots you're going to inlay into. But you're not done yet, because 12 and 24 won't line up. So you draw another straight line through those Xs, and that will be your 1/4 width line. Then, erase the lines of the Xs and draw new ones on the outside edge, and obviously on both sides of the 1/4 line for 12 and 24. THESE are your lines for marking the inlays. Use a centrepunch or knife (or something sharp + thin) to mark the center, and create a small hole to centre your drill bits.
Then use your small bit, which you've marked the depth with tape (real easy, didn't take pictures, just make sure it doesn't go all the way through your fretboard by laying the fretboard on it's side and squaring the bit up to where you've masked it off). Drill your first set of holes.
HERE is where I screwed up, so pay attention. If you're using something that's extremely open grained and has a tendency to splinter (or hell, if you feel like being extra cautious) you should use an intermediate sized bit to drill another hole. I went straight from 1/8" to 1/4" and it was a massacre, so 3/16" would be an appropriate size bit to bridge that gap. Unless you feel like trying your hand at fixing screw ups, do NOT do what I did, which was drill the 1/4" size holes like so:
So now, I gotta figure a way to fix that. Honestly it shouldn't be TOO difficult, just another step. Oh well, it's all part of the learning process, right? I'll see if I can work something clever out for the next update. The magic goop mixture my not be my best move since it dries extremely dark. If it were on the other side of the fretboard, where the heavy grain lines are, it might be a more viable option. We'll see.
There was another saying I picked up from either Project Guitar or TDPRI, which went something along the lines of "the difference between a good luthier and a bad one is not whether or not they make mistakes, but knowing how to fix them". While I'd never be so brazen as to consider myself a luthier any time in the near future, it's something I've taken to heart on this build. Obviously being my second effort ever, and my first without a full workshop to make a lot of jobs extremely easy, mistakes are gonna happen. I figure, if I can come up with and execute plans to build an entire instrument from scratch, I should be able to fix my mistakes as I make them. Another set of pictures as well as I found another drill with a full battery and got some more inlay work done.
Once the holes are all drilled and cleaned out, I cut the 1/4" maple dowel I will be using to 12 pieces and made sure one end was flat using a bit of sandpaper as a mini shooting board, then used the same sandpaper to put a tiny chamfer on the edges of the pieces. I test fit all of them before gluing, in case a couple holes needed to be cleaned a bit more by hand using a drill bit wrapped in some paper towel (because, as I found out, using a drill bit by hand will cut your fingers into about 1000 different pieces.) gloves would also work.
All it takes is a drop of glue in the hole, and once the dowel appeared seated in the hole I gave it a few light taps with a block of wood I had sitting around in order to make sure it was seated properly and to force all the glue to seep up so I could wipe it off. Once all the dowels were in place and glued, I mixed up a bit more filler from wenge dust and glue and filled the pieces of tearout. I would have rather glued back the original chipped off pieces, but unfortunately I didn't think to save them when drilling the holes. It won't be pretty, but it'll be mostly covered by frets so I'm hoping it won't be *too* gaudy when it's all said and done. You can see the filler on both sides of one inlay, and one side of another at the 24th fret in this picture: I used the same method as depicted earlier when filling a fret slot, with a bit of folded paper to block the slot itself this time, instead of just an area of the slot.
Once the glue has had a bit of time to set, I took a coping saw and lopped off a good portion of the dowel I had left to allow me to maneuver the dowel into the hole, as some were a fairly snug fit. Tomorrow I will file and sand them flush with the board itself, as well as the tearout repair on the 24th fret. Til then, this is where it'll sit for tonight. Forgive the mound of paper towel in the background, tomorrow is garbage day You can see there's a bit of paint on one edge of the binding from where I cut it off the block, I'll have to remove that in the future.
Once you've got all the nubs cut down, they're taken flush with the board using a file and a sanding block (a belt sander would also work but I prefer the precision of manual tools). You end up with something like this:
I still need to fill the tearout on the 24th fret again, apparently I didn't do enough previously. No biggie, I'll work on that once I get home, I have a physical today so I should have some good time to work after I get home.
Didn't do anything significant today, I'm dead tired after only getting 2 hours sleep last night, and that's when you make mistakes so...
I finally cut the binding to size and finished filing the edges flush, also took a bit off the bottom end of the fretboard to make the radius match on both sides. Now all that's left there is to install side markers, cut a nut slots, and glue that sucker on.
I also just cleaned up the surface of the neck blank where the fretboard will attach eventually, and thicknessed the back of the neck a bit, definitely made it too thick. Next time I'll use thinner laminates and a scarf joint, I can do more fancy shit as well that way. Oh well. Here's what everything looks like so far, I made a headstock template but I'm pretty sure I was huffing glue or something at the time, because it looks retarded, so I'll make another one tomorrow along with a few other necessary templates probably.
Alright so today I set out to make a bunch of templates, but I got distracted halfway and decided to cut the neck tenon instead, to give you guys a bit more than drawing, measuring, cutting, and repeating for todays update. I made a few templates but I still have a few more to work on, namely the headstock and the pickup layout. Also the bridge plate. Also I need to finish the chambering template I got halfway through before pulling the #yolo card and going to do some quantifiable work. Damn that ADD.
Anyway, back to the neck tenon - before I made any measurements on the wood itself, I grabbed the neck and made a quick template. Actually, quick isn't the right word, with the way the neck is built it was a bit of a hassle to get everything lined up properly, because the tapered face is elevated from the straight, but narrower tenon. Anyway, that process out of the way, it was marked on the wood like so:
The first thing I needed to do was cut the tenon to length, since I decided I want the bridge to be anchored in the body, in order to pick up some more of the hollow body walnut-y essence (see the discussion earlier in the thread on neck joints, etc for expanded reasoning). So in all, I took about 3.5 inches off the neck tenon, which still makes it a significantly long neck tenon but not running the entire length of the body like a set neck (although it would have probably been easier to build one'a dem, But who ever said you should try something easy for your first full scratch build? Not me! Besides, as you'll see in the picture, the tenon as it was, wasn't exactly.... straight, haha.
Luckily I has some MDF that was just thick enough to make it flat with the fretboard surface, which made cutting it much easier. Just some tape to attach it, probably should have shown that but too late now.
Once I cut that to length and checked it against the markings for the body, I went ahead and made the two straight cuts on the table saw first. Obviously I couldn't go all the way to the edge, as a table saw blade is round, and I didn't want big floppy gouges in the backside. I marked on my table saw fence where the blade ends, rather than where the protruding bit is, so I didn't overshoot it from the back. Worked decently well.
Then I took my trusty jig saw and cut out the rest of the slot (carefully). Then it came time to test fit it, I didn't expect it to be perfect right off the bat, since I had a tapered part of the neck to fit in there as well. In fact, I didn't even expect the straight bit to be perfect, and thankfully (I guess?) it wasn't. But it was progress. You can see the two pieces of the body don't fit snugly together, and the rest of the neck is just resting on top of the boards.
Next I had to widen the slot to fit using a file, and taper the side where the upper horn attaches to the body. This took a lot longer than I expect, as with the two wenge pieces I added to the neck for extra width, it become a fustercluck of strange angles and shapes. Right when I was about to call it a day, I did one more test fit, and to my amazement it fit like I glove. Once again, it was a case of "damn, it almost looks like I know what I'm doing!" Eventually this luck will run out, as it has a couple times previously, but like I said - build the most complicated guitar you can think of, while making all the plans and templates yourself, and surely it will go awry sometime. That's part of the fun!
Anyway, here's the mostly finished product, I'll have some touching up to do tomorrow but I'm just glad I got it to fit today. Also might need to shim it as I got a little enthusiast with my file/fit/repeat process at one point and there's a tiny gap on the right side. Luckily, I have some extremely thin offcuts that would work nicely.
And one with the fretboard, just to see how it'll eventually look. Of course, there will be two more layers of wood on the top and bottom as well, so it actually won't look much like this, but nevertheless. Next I need to figure out an appropriate back angle for the neck and clean up the long side of it a bit more - and finish those damn templates! I'm going to get some 1/8" dowel tomorrow for side dots, since I'll be out getting my bloodwork done any way from my physical on monday (forgot my medical card at the time) so I'll probably put those in as well.
Hey guys, today was moderately productive. I started working on something I wasn't planning to, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I started with what I was going to do yesterday, so I got my 1/8th inch maple dowel from my wood supply store. While I was there, I noticed a shelf I'd never noticed before, with a bunch of the "creme de la creme" woods in small pieces. There was one species I can't remember, I've never come across it before, but there was also Brazilian Tulipwood (in the rosewood family, extremely expensive), lignum vitae (the densest wood on the planet), and 2 varieties of ebony - black, and Gabon (brown streaked). Since I was there, and I was considering getting a piece of ebony to use as nuts/saddles, and they had ebony, it only made sense to grab a piece while I was there. Given that I find regular black ebony boring, I of course opted for a piece of Gabon, and at $110 per board foot it was a pretty small piece! But enough to make a bridge saddle and 2 nut blanks, which should be plenty for the time being.
They also had some gorgeous pieces from a new shipment of padauk, for even cheaper than my walnut was. I'm still mulling over whether I want to go back and pick up a piece of it, it would make a really funky neck with the purpleheart I still have for.... something in the future.
Anyway, on to the work for today. I started with work on the fretboard, because I wanted to get those side dots installed so all I had to do after that was cut a nut slot and it would be ready to attach to the neck blank. I began by first drilling a test hole, to make sure the dowel would fit snugly, which it did. After that the process is largely the same as installing the markers on the face, but I'll go through the process anyway. I marked the centres of the frets first, which can throw you off a bit when the frets are angled to various degrees, and you have no fret slots visible at the ends to check with. It's not too difficult to make the adjustments by eye when need be. Once I had the vertical lines marked, including both fret ends of the 12th and 24th and the centre, I marked the centre of each vertical line and used the X method to find the centre for the pair of double dots. Once again, make a small hole in the centre with a punch or fine point, and you're pretty much done with the measuring bit. Sadly either one of my marks or my centre punching was a little high, and the first marker (3rd fret) is a little out of alignment with the others. However, I'm gonna chalk it up to learning curve and carry on, it doesn't bother me too much.
Next the piece is clamped up to hold it flat for drilling No real jig required, just something heavy with a square edge, like this convenient chunk of 2x4 turned 4x4 post.
If you're like me and don't have a drill press, just go slowly and be careful not to tilt the drill in one direction or another, lest you risk drilling through the face or back of the fretboard. Here's the marking I was talking about, and one hole drilled.
From there it's wash rinse and repeat of the face marker installation. Drill holes, make sure they're clear of debris, cut bits of dowel long enough to work with your fingers. I was using the fretboard as a peg holder while I cut the dowels, as it serves the dual purpose of making sure all the holes are snug and clear of debris as well.
Once you've got everything ready, you've got to glue them in (I guess you don't *have* to, but it's a good idea). I was a bit vexed at first as to how I'm going to glue them without making a huge mess everywhere, of course the answer is very simple. Just put a dab or two of glue on a scrap piece of paper/surface, and dip the dowel bits in them before fitting them back into the holes and driving them home with a few solid taps. I realize this is a poor picture but I only thought to show it as an afterthought while I was halfway through gluing them up, so forgive me.
Once they're all glued in and seated, I used a toothpick to scrape the little bit of excess glue pushed out some of the holes. You don't need to, but since the binding is already so thin, the less sanding I have to do the better in my eyes.
What I didn't take a picture of is the cutting the nubs off bit, but that's the same as the previous marker install as well. Coping saw, cut, repeat. Then use a file to take them down almost to the point of being flush, and sand them until they are invisible to the touch. I haven't finished sanding them yet, which is why there's still a bit of debris making them look less than round, but you get the idea.
With that finished, I moved on to my unexpected but logical next step. I started by taking one of the off cuts from the neck pocket, the shorter one which I previously had no real purpose for (the longer one will be used later) and made some markings to start a bridge blank. Besides the centerline running the length of it, the inner lines are the string width, plus an eighth of an inch on either side, and the outside lines are the extra width to for the saddle ends and to drill the holes for bridge posts. On the outside of those lines, I used one of my copies of the fretboard and scale layout (from FretFind2D, google it) to mark the angle at which the sides of the bridge would be vertical when the bridge was properly angled to match the scale. So our blank looks like this now:
Then I lopped the angled sides off with the table saw. I did this with a piece of MDF, where the fence is set to precisely the width of the MDF board and the angle of the bridge blank is lined up with the edge of the MDF. Then it is secured in place with some tape (two sided tape works, masking tape is ghetto which is more my style as I couldn't find my two sided tape) and the process is repeated for the other side. You end up with two very nice cuts, I stole the idea from someone on Project Guitar who used it for tapering fretboard. You could use a mitre saw as well, but mine is downstairs and unplugged and I really don't want to go lugging it outside for 2 really insignificant cuts.
Then it was slotted using the table saw and another little makeshift MDF jig, to prevent the separation of my fingers from my person.
Since I'm making the saddle myself, I didn't really need to fit any particular size slot, and I basically just eyeballed it to be honest. I was aiming for around 1/4 inch though, since that seemed to be a pretty standard and acceptable width. Once the slot was finished I checked it on the calipers and, well, check the picture.
Suck on that, measure twice cut once mantra. Try measure none and cut three times in a row, and come out to an almost perfect 1/4 inches. That being said, I'd recommend if you're short on supplies or using something expensive like ebony to make a bridge piece, measure it first
So in summary, here's what was worked on today, and a picture of the little piece of ebony I picked up (which still cost $5, man).
Thanks for reading, if you've made it this far, and if not - thanks for making the effort I still have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm sure that's equally amusing and frustrating to most people who are still checking this thread occasionally, if the drop from 5 start to 3 star rating is anything to judge that by. But nevertheless, we're making forward progress and that's good enough for me at this point.
Also, update time: More work on the bridge today. When I left off last time, I had the edges cut and the piece slotted for an ebony saddle. So I picked up by making a decision to keep the tri-tone theme going with the bridge piece, and cutting a pair of wenge "plugs" to fill the slots at the ends. I have a ton of various wenge offcuts lying around, and some decent sized pieces that will go to other uses further down the line, so it wasn't too difficult to find one that was already 1/4 inch thick. It's just a matter of marking where you want those pieces to end (and thus, where you want your saddle to begin) and cutting it out, since you already have a slot to use as a template. Obviously it's a good idea to make them a little oversized so you have some wiggle room when you're gluing them in, and this is what you end up with.
Unfortunately I had a little tearout on one piece of wenge, and anyone who's ever worked with the stuff might know, a "little tearout" with it never really stays little, and an entire splinter the length of the piece broke off. Rather than scrap it and start again, because the wenge piece I was using was intended for the back plate of the headstock eventually, I decided to try and work with it. If it really bothers me, there are other ways to repair or cover it up still, so I'm gonna go with this for now. A little filler (as you see in the picture) once the pieces are glued in place, and then they are clamped to set up.
The next thing I needed to do, was add the third element of the tri-tone. Since I'm using red oak as my contrasting wood, I found a scrap piece of that and glued the bridge blank to it. Luckily the red oak I'm using is from the Home Depot craft bin, so it's already surfaced 4 sides and 1/4 thick. That's too thick for my purposes, but I'll get there soon. Next I needed to figure out the width of the bridge, since right now it was still in rough form from the blank we started with. So I took the thumb studs and stuck them in the slot, marked their total width, and then found a measure that left just a tiny bit of the stud protruding. Taking this down is easier to do this before separating the bridge itself from the piece of red oak, so I took it to the table saw and cut it down to width.
Once that was done, I had to address the thickness of the oak "veneer" strip. This served double duty as it both completed the look I was going to try for, and also added a little bit more overall thickness to the bridge blank as I decided I didn't want the thumb stud holes to go all the way through. So I took it back to the table saw and set it up to cut off roughly half of the oak's thickness, to make it ~1/8" thick in the end. Once that was finished, it was time to free the piece from the larger oak piece using a coping saw, although there's a variety of methods that would work better (I plan on taking the edges down a bit more to reduce the overall width, so the finish of the edge didn't matter much to me at this point).
You end up with a piece like this:
I also finished filing down the excess wenge, to leave us with a roughly bridge-shaped-object (BSO).
Then came the part I have been dreading without a drill press, drilling the holes for the thumb studs. I did a bit of looking around online, and came across an "old school" method that people claimed to use giving "acceptable" results. It essentially involves using mirrors, or in this case, a CD and using the reflection of the bit to ensure it's straight and level on each side. You accomplish this by lining up the reflection of the bit in a straight line with the bit itself, and using a steady hand you can actually achieve some decent results.
For a little extra security though, I drill a two stage hole, starting with a bit that was just a bit too wide to hold the stud posts in firmly, and then drilling the last bit of depth with a bit that was appropriately sized to hold the posts firmly in place. This actually worked surprisingly well, and it was another situation where if I didn't know better, I'd think I might actually know what I'm doing here.
Of course, I had the thumb studs on hand to make sure I hadn't gone terribly off the reservation during this process, so once I stopped shaking for fear that I'd screwed this up horribly, I built up the nerve to go and do an actual test fit. It took a couple tries fitting and drilling to get them all the way seated, as my expert masking tape depth stop wasn't perfect, but eventually I did get them seated without and play - an acceptable result.
As you can see from this next picture, somehow when I reduced the thickness of the "veneer" oak piece down, it wasn't perfectly even on both sides, so some filing and sanding ensued after there pictures were taken to get a better result. However, no one really wants to see pictures of that, so I didn't take any.
And that's all folks, tomorrow I'll cut the ebony blank up (if my table saw doesn't implode trying) to form an acceptable saddle sized piece, take the edges of the blank down a bit, and maybe start some rough shaping to get the bridge more fluid shaped and less blocky. I had a picture of the bridge + fretboard on the cardboard template I'd made, to give an idea of what's actually happening, but it was so blurry it wasn't worth posting. I'll go try again and attach it in an edit, I just wanted to get this post/update up first.
Edit: Picture as described:
And I think that brings us up to date thus far.
We FINALLY have a template, to scale even!!!
But regarding the top, I thought about it for a while and finally I decided to just scrap it and start fresh. If I was going to use exotic woods for the neck, I might as well use some "instrument" woods for the body as well, because why put 90 dollars worth of wood into a neck and 5 dollars worth of wood into a body, really? So I went to my local wood shop and picked these up:
From bottom to top, I got 3 feet of Black Walnut, for the body core; 3 feet of Ash, for the top and back plates, and 18 inches of more wenge for another cap (I think I'm going to do one front and back this time). The best part though, is they're all planed flat already and none of them are warped, so hopefully it should be smooth sailing from this point (knock on wood). So basically, we took one step forward and like three steps back, but I'm going to re-evaluate everything that I'm doing on this build and come up with a solid gameplan moving forward, and then some real progress should come. I apologize for jerking people around to this point with all the set backs and restarts, I'm sure someone out there is screaming at me profusely through their screen but... It's my first build and I'm learning as I go. I promise this time it will go smoother than the last few times.
So, long ass hiatus while I reassessed the situation, came up with a new design (restarting the same one over and over again takes it's toll, y'know?) and started work in a different direction. This time I decided, let's work on the neck first and build the body around that, primarily because the new design is slightly more complicated, and secondarily because the neck is the only thing I know I won't change at least once during the process.
One thing I did change was the fretboard. I was originally going to go with a wenge fingerboard, but the piece I had was thinner than 1/4 inch on one end, and rather than try something bold like laminate another piece underneath it or use an extra thin fretboard, I decided to change it out. I decided to go Brian May style and use a piece of red oak (let's ignore the fact I could get it pre-thicknessed as well, and say it was ONLY because of Brian May
). I was worried it would ruin the overall aesthetic of the build, but I have a rather clever way to change that. It involves steel wool, vinegar, a glass jar, and some careful masking. More on that later though. Anyway, on with the update. To start, I made a template of the shape I'd like to cut the square blank to before gluing. I don't have a bandsaw so I wouldn't be able to do it with any degree of accuracy after it was glued up. The blank is actually a bit deceptive because there's going to be something added to it afterwards. I'll throw up the render at the end of this post but basically, from the heel cut to the 10th fret will be a layer of thin wenge and then walnut to make up the thickness of the blank beyond the actual neck. Reason for this is two fold, first for the transition from the singlecut side of the body, and second for a little additional strength.
That being said, the neck blank was cut like this:
With a slot for the reinforcing bar like this:
Then I had the frightening experience of gluing the blank together, but thankfully it turned out alright where it needed to be. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics during this process, but imagine a lot of glue, clamps, and panic. That should give you a good idea.
Unfortunately the fretboard surface didn't turn out quite as smoothly as I had hoped, so I had to plane that (and the aluminum bar, which was the source of most of my troubles until I figured out the technique) down to flatness. In the picture it looks angled because it's sitting on an angled piece of the table, but I assure you it is flat enough to carry on with the work (I'll work with it a bit more when it comes time to glue the fretboard). Oh, and I did have to widen the slot for the aluminum rod by hand with a chisel, so it's not perfect, but I'll fill the slot up with glue when attaching the fretboard as well. As it is, it's in the pretty solid already, but no gap is a good gap. I know it's not center in the neck, the asymmetrical carve on the back will place it on the thickest part of the neck though.
You'll also note a little gap between one of the laminates, I'm not sure how deep it is so it may come to pass that all will be well once I thickness the headstock, or else I'll have to fill it as well. Either way, it's not terrible and will be covered by a veneer in the end so c'est la vis.
I also needed to add two pieces to the bottom half of the neck because in the process of flattening the laminates I also made them somewhat too thin to fit the entire width of the fretboard, so I slapped on a pair of wenge off cuts and started to taper the neck. I wasn't sure if I was going to go with purpleheart or wenge, but I decided to continue the pattern. Next I had to taper the neck to the fretboard, which I had cut out off camera (again, I was sorta frustrated and wanted to work more than I wanted to document my work, at this point. Apologies). Keeping with the trend of incredibly bad timing, my jigsaw blade snapped right after I took this picture, and it was the last blade I had on hand.
So I had to do the other side with a rasp and a belt sander. Not necessarily the best idea as far as efficiency goes, but we got there eventually. Right here (and as it sits at the time of writing) it is rough tapered. You can see there's still a little final squaring up to do that will happen once the fretboard is glued and securely in place. There is a laminate on the right side as well, it's just difficult to see in this picture. If I was thinking I would have taken better pictures, but it started to rain literally 30 seconds after I took these and the indoors pictures are even worse quality, generally.
These last two are just a dry run with the fretboard places on top, to get a feel for the overall aesthetic. But like I said, the fretboard is not the final colour so do not fret.
I'm sure you've noticed the "tabs" at the top of the headstock, they'll be coming off, they were part of another idea of mine to keep the blank from shifting while it was being glued.
Still to do on the neck:
Thickness headstock
Thickness back of neck
Cut and add wings to headstock
Add veneers top/back to the headstock
Cut out the headstock shape
Slot the fretboard
Glue on the fretboard
Cut and add the laminates to the back of the neck
Finalize the neck tenon shape
Glue the neck to the body core
Shape the back of the neck, volute, and heel.
So still a fair bit, but I've gotten a little work done and I figured it's time for an update.
Also, the renders like I mentioned previously of the finished shape. Some things are still up in the air but most of the major things are finalized by now. So without adieu:
Front:
Back:
Middle independent volume/tone
Neck/Bridge shared volume/tone, 3 way toggle
Killswitch (normally open momentary switch) to output jack
Cut the headstock wings out today and am gluing them together before I glued them on, but I just clamped them into place to check some stuff.
I wanted to check that the piece I was planning to use for veneer was wide enough, and it was literally spot on in all dimensions, if I didn't know any better I'd think I was actually planning it out properly.
And did a test on my batch of steel wool and vinegar (to make iron acetate) which reacts with the tannic acid in the wood to turn it darker. Here's the end grain with 1 application, the face/sides are much lighter but they'll darken up with a few more applications hopefully.
Couple more pics, didn't get too much done today, I'm coming up on the point where I need parts in hand to continue. In this case, tuning machines to I can drill the holes and line them up properly, in order to cut out the headstock. Wouldn't be such a problem except GFS doesn't list the size of hole needed for their tuning machines, so best to just do it with parts in hand.
Anyway, glued the wings on and began thicknessing the headstock.
Test fit the veneer plate again, it's still in need of a great deal of sanding to thin it out but so far so good
I did a lot of work on the back of the headstock as well, but didn't take pictures as visible it didn't change much, just dimensions and stuff.
This is where I called it quits today.
A quick mockup with the body templates
Also, I'm thinking of taking the asymmetrical carve idea and going a step further, doing something similar to what Strandberg has done with their "EndurNeck" concept and moving the centreline as you move into the higher frets. They do it with a trapezoidal profile but I will probably stick to a conventional rounded one, for this neck at least, I'd like to mock up a trapezoidal profile just to try it out for myself some time in the future.
The profile, for reference:
I'm experimenting with an idea I came up with last night. Didn't take any pictures of step one, so as to not ruin the surprise, but here it is step 2.
Step 2 involves almost every spring clamp I own.
edit: Also yes, subway wrapper does make an excellent glue drippings catcher.
Also, part 2 of my multi-part surprise. I know it's rough still but hell, 59 LP slots didn't line up to any discernible mathematical formula so who cares if it's a tiny bit off. I'll go back and clean it up some tomorrow once I get home from the memorial I've gotta go to in the morning, before I start part 3 of my super happy funtime surprise
Yes, these are obviously hand cut, I'm way too lazy to create an elaborate jig for slotting fanned frets. Like I said, I'm adopting the '59 LP mantra. Two or three slots need to be filled and recut though, that's what I get for trying to rush the upper register because it was getting dark out. Oh well, the scales are as they're supposed to be at aleast (18.75" short side, 20.25" long side).
Frets 22, 13 need work for sure. 16 and 17 might, I'll have to check them on the calipers tomorrow.
Alright so, picking up where we left off last time, we've not got our fret slots filled and deep shame welling in the cockles of our hearts. Good, then you're ready to move on to the next step. If not, go back and feel ashamed some more.
Moving on, you start with a big dark blotch on your otherwise pristine (ish) fretboard where you filled your mistake. If it looks like crap, good, you're following along thus far. If not, I'm not sure why you're watching since you're clearly better at this than I am. The next step is to take a razor and score a groove along the proper fret line that you measured with the calipers and marked with a pencil in the last step. I didn't take a picture of this step because well, it's pretty simple. Take knife, run along line, repeat until you have a decent groove.
After that, you just repeat the process of cutting fret slots. I'm using a coping saw with a blade that is 0.020" thick, roughly, because fret tangs are 0.022-0.023" thick usually. Once you've recut the slot carefully, you should have something that looks like this.
Hopefully most of your slots don't look like mine, which is to say, like you had a sudden bout of Parkinsons while you were cutting them. Those will be sanded out when it comes time to finish sand, but right now it looks like crap. Anyway, you'll notice the slot that was repaired is a little thick in the middle because I didn't fill one side quite enough, so to remedy this I'll have to use a dot of glue on this fret when it comes time to fret. Regardless, for now, it is what it is, I'll deal with it when it gets closer to that time. Once you've recut the slots, sand back the rest of your goop mixture to remove most of it and you should be left with something like this.
It's not the prettiest, but once the frets are in and the fretboard has been sanded and finished (I'm thinking possible a light tru-oil coating, I'll decide what I want to do though) it should be nearly invisible. The picture is actually very close up, from arms length it's almost impossible to pick out unless you're specifically looking for it. So with that done, it's time to move on to the next step, which first involves cutting the walnut body core to size. So take your template and mark out the body wings, and then split it accordingly.
Once you've split it, true up the edges on the table saw if you're too poor for a jointer, and then you can take your neck blank and fretboard and "assemble" it, only to take a really horrible picture that shows almost nothing.
But the most importantly, you can then cut your strips of fretboard binding. My table saw blade is 0.070" thick, so I set the fence to take 1/8" less than the total width of the board, giving a binding thickness of 0.055" roughly. Not much, but enough to offset the two tone laminate sides of the fretboard still. You should end up with strips like this:
Then, all that's left is to true up the sides of the fretboard and glue the binding on. It really requires very little glue and pressure, I probably used a little bit too much glue but since I have some room to play with, I'd rather ensure that the joint gets enough glue with a little bit of slippage than the other way around. Then, all you have to do is take a really (really) poor photo while the glue dries on side 1.
Last update for today, have the binding strips glued on both sides, along with a little more magic goop to fill a bit of a gap I wasn't 100% pleased with. Tomorrow I'll flush up the strips and the fretboard will be put aside for a while as it's pretty much done up to this point, until I decide whether I want to do inlays or not on the face.
Got most of the excess material taken away, unfortunately had a big of an issue with a piece snapping off near one of the ends, I'm gluing it back together now. Still, not pleased about that, but the rest is looking pretty decent in my opinion. Well pleased with it.
Hey guise, look what I found!
Fuuu wenge y u do this to me. Drilling for dot inlays today, wenge decides to tear out in a bossly fashion. Damnit. Well, gonna have to figure out how to fix that too I guess. Should have used another step between the pilot hole and the actual size bit. Will do for the rest of the holes since my drill battery died halfway through the operation. I kept going with the ones I could because I didn't think it was that bad, but of course the worst one emerged from the narrowest fret slot, right at 24, so.... fuark. Anyway, here's what lead up to it at least:
Start marking out your slots that need to be inlayed. It might sounds silly, but you'd be surprised how often you can throw yourself off in the process, and I've seen more than a few build threads where people have finished the inlays before realizing they drilled the wrong section and the inlays were totally off. So just mark it, for peace of mind, and be done with it. Then you need to ascertain where your markings need to be. If you're doing centered dots this is easy enough, regardless of parallel frets or multiscale, just draw an X from one corner to the other of the fret slots you need to mark, make sure they connect in a straight line, and bam. Instantly centred.
If you're doing offset dots, like me, you find the centerline as before, then you draw an X across the slots you're going to inlay into. But you're not done yet, because 12 and 24 won't line up. So you draw another straight line through those Xs, and that will be your 1/4 width line. Then, erase the lines of the Xs and draw new ones on the outside edge, and obviously on both sides of the 1/4 line for 12 and 24. THESE are your lines for marking the inlays. Use a centrepunch or knife (or something sharp + thin) to mark the center, and create a small hole to centre your drill bits.
Then use your small bit, which you've marked the depth with tape (real easy, didn't take pictures, just make sure it doesn't go all the way through your fretboard by laying the fretboard on it's side and squaring the bit up to where you've masked it off). Drill your first set of holes.
HERE is where I screwed up, so pay attention. If you're using something that's extremely open grained and has a tendency to splinter (or hell, if you feel like being extra cautious) you should use an intermediate sized bit to drill another hole. I went straight from 1/8" to 1/4" and it was a massacre, so 3/16" would be an appropriate size bit to bridge that gap. Unless you feel like trying your hand at fixing screw ups, do NOT do what I did, which was drill the 1/4" size holes like so:
So now, I gotta figure a way to fix that. Honestly it shouldn't be TOO difficult, just another step. Oh well, it's all part of the learning process, right? I'll see if I can work something clever out for the next update. The magic goop mixture my not be my best move since it dries extremely dark. If it were on the other side of the fretboard, where the heavy grain lines are, it might be a more viable option. We'll see.
There was another saying I picked up from either Project Guitar or TDPRI, which went something along the lines of "the difference between a good luthier and a bad one is not whether or not they make mistakes, but knowing how to fix them". While I'd never be so brazen as to consider myself a luthier any time in the near future, it's something I've taken to heart on this build. Obviously being my second effort ever, and my first without a full workshop to make a lot of jobs extremely easy, mistakes are gonna happen. I figure, if I can come up with and execute plans to build an entire instrument from scratch, I should be able to fix my mistakes as I make them. Another set of pictures as well as I found another drill with a full battery and got some more inlay work done.
Once the holes are all drilled and cleaned out, I cut the 1/4" maple dowel I will be using to 12 pieces and made sure one end was flat using a bit of sandpaper as a mini shooting board, then used the same sandpaper to put a tiny chamfer on the edges of the pieces. I test fit all of them before gluing, in case a couple holes needed to be cleaned a bit more by hand using a drill bit wrapped in some paper towel (because, as I found out, using a drill bit by hand will cut your fingers into about 1000 different pieces.) gloves would also work.
All it takes is a drop of glue in the hole, and once the dowel appeared seated in the hole I gave it a few light taps with a block of wood I had sitting around in order to make sure it was seated properly and to force all the glue to seep up so I could wipe it off. Once all the dowels were in place and glued, I mixed up a bit more filler from wenge dust and glue and filled the pieces of tearout. I would have rather glued back the original chipped off pieces, but unfortunately I didn't think to save them when drilling the holes. It won't be pretty, but it'll be mostly covered by frets so I'm hoping it won't be *too* gaudy when it's all said and done. You can see the filler on both sides of one inlay, and one side of another at the 24th fret in this picture: I used the same method as depicted earlier when filling a fret slot, with a bit of folded paper to block the slot itself this time, instead of just an area of the slot.
Once the glue has had a bit of time to set, I took a coping saw and lopped off a good portion of the dowel I had left to allow me to maneuver the dowel into the hole, as some were a fairly snug fit. Tomorrow I will file and sand them flush with the board itself, as well as the tearout repair on the 24th fret. Til then, this is where it'll sit for tonight. Forgive the mound of paper towel in the background, tomorrow is garbage day
You can see there's a bit of paint on one edge of the binding from where I cut it off the block, I'll have to remove that in the future. Once you've got all the nubs cut down, they're taken flush with the board using a file and a sanding block (a belt sander would also work but I prefer the precision of manual tools). You end up with something like this:
I still need to fill the tearout on the 24th fret again, apparently I didn't do enough previously. No biggie, I'll work on that once I get home, I have a physical today so I should have some good time to work after I get home.
Didn't do anything significant today, I'm dead tired after only getting 2 hours sleep last night, and that's when you make mistakes so...
I finally cut the binding to size and finished filing the edges flush, also took a bit off the bottom end of the fretboard to make the radius match on both sides. Now all that's left there is to install side markers, cut a nut slots, and glue that sucker on.
I also just cleaned up the surface of the neck blank where the fretboard will attach eventually, and thicknessed the back of the neck a bit, definitely made it too thick. Next time I'll use thinner laminates and a scarf joint, I can do more fancy shit as well that way. Oh well. Here's what everything looks like so far, I made a headstock template but I'm pretty sure I was huffing glue or something at the time, because it looks retarded, so I'll make another one tomorrow along with a few other necessary templates probably.
Alright so today I set out to make a bunch of templates, but I got distracted halfway and decided to cut the neck tenon instead, to give you guys a bit more than drawing, measuring, cutting, and repeating for todays update. I made a few templates but I still have a few more to work on, namely the headstock and the pickup layout. Also the bridge plate. Also I need to finish the chambering template I got halfway through before pulling the #yolo card and going to do some quantifiable work. Damn that ADD.
Anyway, back to the neck tenon - before I made any measurements on the wood itself, I grabbed the neck and made a quick template. Actually, quick isn't the right word, with the way the neck is built it was a bit of a hassle to get everything lined up properly, because the tapered face is elevated from the straight, but narrower tenon. Anyway, that process out of the way, it was marked on the wood like so:
The first thing I needed to do was cut the tenon to length, since I decided I want the bridge to be anchored in the body, in order to pick up some more of the hollow body walnut-y essence (see the discussion earlier in the thread on neck joints, etc for expanded reasoning). So in all, I took about 3.5 inches off the neck tenon, which still makes it a significantly long neck tenon but not running the entire length of the body like a set neck (although it would have probably been easier to build one'a dem, But who ever said you should try something easy for your first full scratch build? Not me! Besides, as you'll see in the picture, the tenon as it was, wasn't exactly.... straight, haha.
Luckily I has some MDF that was just thick enough to make it flat with the fretboard surface, which made cutting it much easier. Just some tape to attach it, probably should have shown that but too late now.
Once I cut that to length and checked it against the markings for the body, I went ahead and made the two straight cuts on the table saw first. Obviously I couldn't go all the way to the edge, as a table saw blade is round, and I didn't want big floppy gouges in the backside. I marked on my table saw fence where the blade ends, rather than where the protruding bit is, so I didn't overshoot it from the back. Worked decently well.
Then I took my trusty jig saw and cut out the rest of the slot (carefully). Then it came time to test fit it, I didn't expect it to be perfect right off the bat, since I had a tapered part of the neck to fit in there as well. In fact, I didn't even expect the straight bit to be perfect, and thankfully (I guess?) it wasn't. But it was progress. You can see the two pieces of the body don't fit snugly together, and the rest of the neck is just resting on top of the boards.
Next I had to widen the slot to fit using a file, and taper the side where the upper horn attaches to the body. This took a lot longer than I expect, as with the two wenge pieces I added to the neck for extra width, it become a fustercluck of strange angles and shapes. Right when I was about to call it a day, I did one more test fit, and to my amazement it fit like I glove. Once again, it was a case of "damn, it almost looks like I know what I'm doing!" Eventually this luck will run out, as it has a couple times previously, but like I said - build the most complicated guitar you can think of, while making all the plans and templates yourself, and surely it will go awry sometime. That's part of the fun!
Anyway, here's the mostly finished product, I'll have some touching up to do tomorrow but I'm just glad I got it to fit today. Also might need to shim it as I got a little enthusiast with my file/fit/repeat process at one point and there's a tiny gap on the right side. Luckily, I have some extremely thin offcuts that would work nicely.
And one with the fretboard, just to see how it'll eventually look. Of course, there will be two more layers of wood on the top and bottom as well, so it actually won't look much like this, but nevertheless. Next I need to figure out an appropriate back angle for the neck and clean up the long side of it a bit more - and finish those damn templates! I'm going to get some 1/8" dowel tomorrow for side dots, since I'll be out getting my bloodwork done any way from my physical on monday (forgot my medical card at the time) so I'll probably put those in as well.
Hey guys, today was moderately productive. I started working on something I wasn't planning to, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I started with what I was going to do yesterday, so I got my 1/8th inch maple dowel from my wood supply store. While I was there, I noticed a shelf I'd never noticed before, with a bunch of the "creme de la creme" woods in small pieces. There was one species I can't remember, I've never come across it before, but there was also Brazilian Tulipwood (in the rosewood family, extremely expensive), lignum vitae (the densest wood on the planet), and 2 varieties of ebony - black, and Gabon (brown streaked). Since I was there, and I was considering getting a piece of ebony to use as nuts/saddles, and they had ebony, it only made sense to grab a piece while I was there. Given that I find regular black ebony boring, I of course opted for a piece of Gabon, and at $110 per board foot it was a pretty small piece! But enough to make a bridge saddle and 2 nut blanks, which should be plenty for the time being.
They also had some gorgeous pieces from a new shipment of padauk, for even cheaper than my walnut was. I'm still mulling over whether I want to go back and pick up a piece of it, it would make a really funky neck with the purpleheart I still have for.... something in the future.
Anyway, on to the work for today. I started with work on the fretboard, because I wanted to get those side dots installed so all I had to do after that was cut a nut slot and it would be ready to attach to the neck blank. I began by first drilling a test hole, to make sure the dowel would fit snugly, which it did. After that the process is largely the same as installing the markers on the face, but I'll go through the process anyway. I marked the centres of the frets first, which can throw you off a bit when the frets are angled to various degrees, and you have no fret slots visible at the ends to check with. It's not too difficult to make the adjustments by eye when need be. Once I had the vertical lines marked, including both fret ends of the 12th and 24th and the centre, I marked the centre of each vertical line and used the X method to find the centre for the pair of double dots. Once again, make a small hole in the centre with a punch or fine point, and you're pretty much done with the measuring bit. Sadly either one of my marks or my centre punching was a little high, and the first marker (3rd fret) is a little out of alignment with the others. However, I'm gonna chalk it up to learning curve and carry on, it doesn't bother me too much.
Next the piece is clamped up to hold it flat for drilling No real jig required, just something heavy with a square edge, like this convenient chunk of 2x4 turned 4x4 post.
If you're like me and don't have a drill press, just go slowly and be careful not to tilt the drill in one direction or another, lest you risk drilling through the face or back of the fretboard. Here's the marking I was talking about, and one hole drilled.
From there it's wash rinse and repeat of the face marker installation. Drill holes, make sure they're clear of debris, cut bits of dowel long enough to work with your fingers. I was using the fretboard as a peg holder while I cut the dowels, as it serves the dual purpose of making sure all the holes are snug and clear of debris as well.
Once you've got everything ready, you've got to glue them in (I guess you don't *have* to, but it's a good idea). I was a bit vexed at first as to how I'm going to glue them without making a huge mess everywhere, of course the answer is very simple. Just put a dab or two of glue on a scrap piece of paper/surface, and dip the dowel bits in them before fitting them back into the holes and driving them home with a few solid taps. I realize this is a poor picture but I only thought to show it as an afterthought while I was halfway through gluing them up, so forgive me.
Once they're all glued in and seated, I used a toothpick to scrape the little bit of excess glue pushed out some of the holes. You don't need to, but since the binding is already so thin, the less sanding I have to do the better in my eyes.
What I didn't take a picture of is the cutting the nubs off bit, but that's the same as the previous marker install as well. Coping saw, cut, repeat. Then use a file to take them down almost to the point of being flush, and sand them until they are invisible to the touch. I haven't finished sanding them yet, which is why there's still a bit of debris making them look less than round, but you get the idea.
With that finished, I moved on to my unexpected but logical next step. I started by taking one of the off cuts from the neck pocket, the shorter one which I previously had no real purpose for (the longer one will be used later) and made some markings to start a bridge blank. Besides the centerline running the length of it, the inner lines are the string width, plus an eighth of an inch on either side, and the outside lines are the extra width to for the saddle ends and to drill the holes for bridge posts. On the outside of those lines, I used one of my copies of the fretboard and scale layout (from FretFind2D, google it) to mark the angle at which the sides of the bridge would be vertical when the bridge was properly angled to match the scale. So our blank looks like this now:
Then I lopped the angled sides off with the table saw. I did this with a piece of MDF, where the fence is set to precisely the width of the MDF board and the angle of the bridge blank is lined up with the edge of the MDF. Then it is secured in place with some tape (two sided tape works, masking tape is ghetto which is more my style as I couldn't find my two sided tape) and the process is repeated for the other side. You end up with two very nice cuts, I stole the idea from someone on Project Guitar who used it for tapering fretboard. You could use a mitre saw as well, but mine is downstairs and unplugged and I really don't want to go lugging it outside for 2 really insignificant cuts.
Then it was slotted using the table saw and another little makeshift MDF jig, to prevent the separation of my fingers from my person.
Since I'm making the saddle myself, I didn't really need to fit any particular size slot, and I basically just eyeballed it to be honest. I was aiming for around 1/4 inch though, since that seemed to be a pretty standard and acceptable width. Once the slot was finished I checked it on the calipers and, well, check the picture.
Suck on that, measure twice cut once mantra. Try measure none and cut three times in a row, and come out to an almost perfect 1/4 inches. That being said, I'd recommend if you're short on supplies or using something expensive like ebony to make a bridge piece, measure it first
So in summary, here's what was worked on today, and a picture of the little piece of ebony I picked up (which still cost $5, man).
Thanks for reading, if you've made it this far, and if not - thanks for making the effort
I still have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm sure that's equally amusing and frustrating to most people who are still checking this thread occasionally, if the drop from 5 start to 3 star rating is anything to judge that by. But nevertheless, we're making forward progress and that's good enough for me at this point.Also, update time: More work on the bridge today. When I left off last time, I had the edges cut and the piece slotted for an ebony saddle. So I picked up by making a decision to keep the tri-tone theme going with the bridge piece, and cutting a pair of wenge "plugs" to fill the slots at the ends. I have a ton of various wenge offcuts lying around, and some decent sized pieces that will go to other uses further down the line, so it wasn't too difficult to find one that was already 1/4 inch thick. It's just a matter of marking where you want those pieces to end (and thus, where you want your saddle to begin) and cutting it out, since you already have a slot to use as a template. Obviously it's a good idea to make them a little oversized so you have some wiggle room when you're gluing them in, and this is what you end up with.
Unfortunately I had a little tearout on one piece of wenge, and anyone who's ever worked with the stuff might know, a "little tearout" with it never really stays little, and an entire splinter the length of the piece broke off. Rather than scrap it and start again, because the wenge piece I was using was intended for the back plate of the headstock eventually, I decided to try and work with it. If it really bothers me, there are other ways to repair or cover it up still, so I'm gonna go with this for now. A little filler (as you see in the picture) once the pieces are glued in place, and then they are clamped to set up.
The next thing I needed to do, was add the third element of the tri-tone. Since I'm using red oak as my contrasting wood, I found a scrap piece of that and glued the bridge blank to it. Luckily the red oak I'm using is from the Home Depot craft bin, so it's already surfaced 4 sides and 1/4 thick. That's too thick for my purposes, but I'll get there soon. Next I needed to figure out the width of the bridge, since right now it was still in rough form from the blank we started with. So I took the thumb studs and stuck them in the slot, marked their total width, and then found a measure that left just a tiny bit of the stud protruding. Taking this down is easier to do this before separating the bridge itself from the piece of red oak, so I took it to the table saw and cut it down to width.
Once that was done, I had to address the thickness of the oak "veneer" strip. This served double duty as it both completed the look I was going to try for, and also added a little bit more overall thickness to the bridge blank as I decided I didn't want the thumb stud holes to go all the way through. So I took it back to the table saw and set it up to cut off roughly half of the oak's thickness, to make it ~1/8" thick in the end. Once that was finished, it was time to free the piece from the larger oak piece using a coping saw, although there's a variety of methods that would work better (I plan on taking the edges down a bit more to reduce the overall width, so the finish of the edge didn't matter much to me at this point).
You end up with a piece like this:
I also finished filing down the excess wenge, to leave us with a roughly bridge-shaped-object (BSO).
Then came the part I have been dreading without a drill press, drilling the holes for the thumb studs. I did a bit of looking around online, and came across an "old school" method that people claimed to use giving "acceptable" results. It essentially involves using mirrors, or in this case, a CD and using the reflection of the bit to ensure it's straight and level on each side. You accomplish this by lining up the reflection of the bit in a straight line with the bit itself, and using a steady hand you can actually achieve some decent results.
For a little extra security though, I drill a two stage hole, starting with a bit that was just a bit too wide to hold the stud posts in firmly, and then drilling the last bit of depth with a bit that was appropriately sized to hold the posts firmly in place. This actually worked surprisingly well, and it was another situation where if I didn't know better, I'd think I might actually know what I'm doing here.
Of course, I had the thumb studs on hand to make sure I hadn't gone terribly off the reservation during this process, so once I stopped shaking for fear that I'd screwed this up horribly, I built up the nerve to go and do an actual test fit. It took a couple tries fitting and drilling to get them all the way seated, as my expert masking tape depth stop wasn't perfect, but eventually I did get them seated without and play - an acceptable result.
As you can see from this next picture, somehow when I reduced the thickness of the "veneer" oak piece down, it wasn't perfectly even on both sides, so some filing and sanding ensued after there pictures were taken to get a better result. However, no one really wants to see pictures of that, so I didn't take any.
And that's all folks, tomorrow I'll cut the ebony blank up (if my table saw doesn't implode trying) to form an acceptable saddle sized piece, take the edges of the blank down a bit, and maybe start some rough shaping to get the bridge more fluid shaped and less blocky. I had a picture of the bridge + fretboard on the cardboard template I'd made, to give an idea of what's actually happening, but it was so blurry it wasn't worth posting. I'll go try again and attach it in an edit, I just wanted to get this post/update up first.
Edit: Picture as described:
And I think that brings us up to date thus far.
