Members Grant Harding Posted November 17, 2016 Members Share Posted November 17, 2016 Wow! Stunning! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted November 20, 2016 Author Members Share Posted November 20, 2016 Tied some string on each of the electronic thingies so I can find them again, put painters tape over all the holes (from the inside) and glued the back on. Bound it (whew!) and its time to set the neck. I thought these shots might be interesting to someone who has heard about "dovetail" neck joints but never seen one. Basically an angled recess is cut in the body of the guitar, the sides of the recess are also angled. A similar "tenon" is cut on end of the neck heel - as it slides down into the recess it pulls the neck into the body. Its another one of those three dimensional puzzles - you are setting the angle of the neck as well as the amount of overstand with a wood to wood joint that will actually lock itself together. Here the neck is fit into the body without any glue. That little gap between the neck heel and body is desirable - you don't want wood to wood here. Besides, if I ever want to take the neck off that is where the steam will go to soften the glue. The glue of choice here is hot hide - that is totally reversible if the neck angle ever needs to be reset 30 years in the future. I'm warming the surfaces with a heat gun and letting the glue pot come up to 145 or so. Smear the glue on, stick the neck in the pocket and give it one smack with a hammer and clamp it over night Time for a nice cold adult beverage.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Les Paul Lover Posted November 20, 2016 Members Share Posted November 20, 2016 Superb work. How do you go about routing the dovetail neck joint and making sure it's a perfect fit? Is there any leeway there, or is it an exercise in exacting precision ? It looks pretty hard to get it absolutely perfect with ordinary hand tools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted November 21, 2016 Members Share Posted November 21, 2016 Freeman's middle names are exacting precision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted November 21, 2016 Author Members Share Posted November 21, 2016 Its all about jigs and the right bit. I didn't take any pictures of this guitar but here is a similar one. I built this funky holder for the neck and you can see the special dovetail router bit On the end of the jig I mounted a commercial (StewMac) dovetail template. The bit has a little ball bearing the follows the cutout and thus removes wood in the right places A similar jig holds a similar template against the body and with luck you get mating parts There actually are people who can do this by hand with a couple of chisels - I can't imagine it. Once the two parts are cut out there is still a lot of fiddling to get then to fit just right. I've pretty much switched over to bolted M&T joints on acoustics but with an archtop you don't have a hole to get your hand inside to tighten bolts so its pretty much back to the dovetail. I will add that there is something very satisfying when you feel the neck lock into the body, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted November 21, 2016 Members Share Posted November 21, 2016 That must have been a REALLY satisfying hammer smack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Les Paul Lover Posted November 21, 2016 Members Share Posted November 21, 2016 Thank you for that Freeman. Very interesting. I thought you probably had a jig for that, but I couldn't figure out what it might be like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted November 28, 2016 Author Members Share Posted November 28, 2016 When I started building this I debated using mahogany that I had or buying some maple to make a neck that matched the body. Since the body wood wasn't too highly figured and I have had good luck with mahogany on the 335's I thought I would just go ahead - besides I had some in my wood stash. I also knew that I wanted to make this more of a blond than I have done in the past, however I really didn't know how much dishwater I wanted my blond to be. I actually thought I wanted it pretty light - just a hint of color to bring out the little bit of figure - so I gave it a light wipe with some amber stain and shot a couple of coats of vinyl sealer to lock it in I don't know about you but I think that neck looks just all wrong. I spent the night tossing and turning and debating the possibilities - one was to just shoot a nice dark tobacco burst but I would loose that wonderful flamed binding. So I did something totally radical - I just coated the guitar in paint stripper and took it all off Back to bare wood (they call this "in the white") Did the stain again, this time with a little brown and red along with the amber. Did another stain on the neck, only amber (its already redish brown) Not necessarily what I started out to do but I think I like it (in case anyone is counting, that is the stain, one coat of vinyl sealer and three coats of lacquer with just a hint of amber in it. All the following coats will be clear) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bluesmann Posted November 28, 2016 Members Share Posted November 28, 2016 I'm speechless and amazed. Freeman you've got it going on man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members thatsbunk Posted November 28, 2016 Members Share Posted November 28, 2016 Wow, just wow... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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