First Ever u6crash Design/Build Thread

[Freeman Keller]

1 - Take some denatured alcohol with you when wood shopping and wipe the boards with it. That will pop the grain and give you close to the color that you'll get with a clear (non amber) finish

 

2 - Its easy to order both shellac flakes and nitro in either rattle cans or just quarts/pints - depending on which state you live in it might be harder to get the Everclear for FP. I use either nitro or a water born cross linking lacquer (advantages to both, we can discuss). I'm doing a TruOil on a couple of barn casters right now - first time I tried it I hated the results and stripped it off, but I think now it might go with the junk wood.

 

Always good to practice on scrap.

 

3 - The thin lines in purfling or a laminated neck are usually the white or black fiber from LMI but sometimes maple is used for light lines. Three piece neck (mahogany and maple) with black fiber lines, maple binding

 

 

The light fiber wants to suck in stain - black of course is fine.

[DeepEnd]

Nice looking J-Bass. The walnut looks cool. Of the woods you pictured I like the Chinese chestnut for its grain if you can work around the knots. Keep us posted.

[u6crash]

"How About A Pickguard?" Day

 

Did these yesterday. I think it's a good idea to sit with an idea for a bit to see if you still love it or you start to hate it. I don't hate my design yet, but as I continued to look at the guitars that kind of inspired it, they all had one thing in common: a pickguard of contrasting color

 

So here we go.

 

Mint

 

Cream

 

Tortoise Shell

 

Pearloid Gray

 

Flame Maple

 

On the computer I can't believe how much I like the Pearloid Gray. I expected to like the flame maple more and it might be my least favorite along with mint. I also briefly demoed plain black and plain white. Neither did much for me.

[u6crash]

Thanks much! It was my first ever kit build. I sold it when times were tight and have since replaced it with another kit, but this time red with racing stripes (to help me play faster).

[Les Paul Lover]

Cream, flamed maple, or none.

 

I like the flamed maple best.

[u6crash]

Didn't do as much as I would have liked this weekend. Had to work another shift Friday night. Spent a good section last night working on my other past time:

 

 

This is a film for a silkscreen stencil. I run a small silkscreening studio out of my basement. Hoping to turn it into a full-time gig one of these days. This project has been getting neglected due to my excitement about finally building a guitar.

 

Here's what I started working on last night:

 

 

Basically I'm redrawing the whole thing from scratch. When I first started laying it out I did it half-size and that was getting confusing. So I'm doing it full size now and changing some of the corners and angles a bit. I'm also including a lot of the dimensions right on the page so I don't have to keep referring to scribbled notes next to the computer.

 

And there is this modest change:

 

 

Added a burst to see how I would like it. I'm going to have to do some Google image searches on burst guitars. I can't recall ever having seen a guitar with a natural(ish) top and bursted edges, so maybe it would bad in person. The other small change was to see how I liked the bridge pickup with a black cover.

 

These are by no means the definitive pickups I will get, but in this example and the last few I've depicted Lollar Gold Foil P90s in the bridge and their staple P90 in the neck.

 

In other news, my tax return was deposited into my account this weekend so I can start ordering parts, or at least get serious about tracking down and making a list of all the parts I need and the suppliers.

 

Also, why did I choose February to start building a guitar? It's cold out and my garage is not heated. If the low humidity is an issue, I might put it off or find a room in the house in which to build. My upstairs loft my be an okay place to do it. I don't want to wait too long and lose my steam, but I also don't want to start cutting and gluing wood in an environment that is not conducive to it.

[brucebennett]

I can tell you from my experience building the J.Backlund Design guitars, that "Ultimate Support" makes the GS100 or GS1000 guitar stand that will hold ANY odd shaped design with no issue.

So build what you like without fear.

[brucebennett]

its just an opinion and really has no value..

 

But, a body design with lots of flats and rounded corners. will look odd against a head stock with all curves and sharp points.

you may want to think about carrying your body "theme" over to your head stock.

[brucebennett]

I've always used either maple or poplar in either Dyed or Undyed veneers for the thin lines,

they just become part of the laminate stack when you glue up the neck.

 

Hint: twin screw wooden clamps and a 2 x 3" piece of steel square tubing works REALLY well for doing laminated neck glue ups.

also a small trim paint roller for your glue, will speed up your glue application. AND it will cut down on dripping glue everywhere.

[Freeman Keller]

Minor comments.

 

I vote for a pick guard that complements your theme - cream works well with cream binding, maple might go with your maple neck and head. The MOT kinda works with the nickles. I mostly leave them off.

 

You can certainly 'burst dark wood like walnut but I think it is more striking on something light (maple, spruce). And you said in your first post that you were going to make the center block out of ash - I assume that means the sides too. You could use a dark burst to hide them.

 

Try to build in the same humidity that the guitar will spend its life - usually 40 - 50%. Its not as critical with larger pieces of wood compared to the thin plates of an acoustic but humidity is still important. Wood from a lumber yard is probably kiln dried - you might want to sticker it for a while in a controlled humidity (my little wood stash is stored in my wine cellar). And just because its cold outside doesn't mean the humidity is low - right now at my house its 20F, snowing and 85% outside. There is a very good chance that the air inside your house is very dry - get a hygrometer and make sure.

 

Your silk screen looks like a Triumph - my first scooter was a '58 Bonneville. Current noise makers (hey, its not totally off topic)

 

[Ancient Mariner]

I'd like to throw in a quick comment about the length of string behind the bridge. I've owned one guitar that was like that, and the open strings would sometime resonate in a way that fed back to the pickups, producing strange off-key harmonics. I cured it by wedging a sock under the strings to damp them, but it was annoying and distracting. I've owned a few guitars with TOM type bridges and it's never been a problem, but on the switch with a much longer length of string it was.

[DeepEnd]

Don't ask why but I dig the mint PG for some reason.

[u6crash]

It could very well be that I end up making a couple different pickguards to see which one I like best. Computer mockups only take you so far. And I don't know what it would be, but I also like the idea of making something from my own materials (a collage of something behind clear, maybe an engraving on a metal guard).

[u6crash]

That's more than likely getting shortened and/or getting changed to some sort of stop tailpiece. Just not sure what yet and haven't bothered to redraw it.

[u6crash]

I've got a hygrometer somewhere that I use to closely monitor my screen printing environment (humidity is a huge factor in paper and emulsion) and have been meaning to get a second for different rooms (just couldn't find them the last couple times I went to the home improvement store).

 

I think the MOT kind of works with the nickels and that's why I like, but I don't know if it's going to look so hot in person. Been trying to think of some way to do something original/custom with the pickguard like I plan to do with the knobs. The more things I can do that are one-off customs, the more I like it.

 

Been thinking that I might switch the center block to maple. I didn't choose ash for any tonal reason. In fact I'm not sure why I chose it other than it would contrast with the walnut, which is moot if i burst the edges. Also maple would be much easier to grain fill than ash I believe.

 

The drawing is a Triumph. I had a '96 Thunderbird triple for a while and I rode it every single chance I could get. Don't have the budget for one this year, but summer of 2018 I will be riding something.

[Freeman Keller]

You can buy an inexpensive hygrometer at a cigar store - those guys are pretty anal about their smokes.

 

Maple does not need to be pore filled, I don't know about ash. Walnut does (I think). I personally like to use woods that complement each other and only a couple of different ones - you could carry your maple and walnut neck and headstock theme thru to the body.,

 

The Sporty was a gift from my wife and the paint job was done by the guy that I built the ES-175 with the skulls. As I get older I don't ride as much and I'm going to sell it, an old car or two and a few old guitars this spring. Less crap for my heirs to have to deal with.

[Freeman Keller]

U6, I've got several pictures of ToM's from the side that might help you with a plan view of your guitar - I could post them if you think they would be helpful. I honestly think the best thing is just to do a side layout with your top, neck angle and overstand and the bridge and tailpiece you plan to use.

[u6crash]

Definitely going to do a side view. It's just less fun and I haven't started it yet. I'll probably get on that this weekend.

[Freeman Keller]

It may not be as much fun but its probably far more important to the success of your project. I care far less about the shape of your guitar than whether it will be playable.

 

If you don't actually have your bridge and other hardware you can get pretty good dimensional information from either the manufacturer or vendor websites (StewMac has drawings and measurements for all their bridges).

 

I find it helpful to have a set of plans for a guitar with similar geometry to take measurements off of.

[u6crash]

First Side View Day!

 

 

Will probably have to wait until I have the bridge in hand to perfect this. It will go through a few versions.

 

I don't know precisely how deep the strings will sit in the saddles or in the nut, so in this illustration they simply sit on top of both. I know the nut grooves will be deeper than the saddle grooves.

 

At first I had the fretboard sitting nearly on the body. Fender routs their neck pockets about 5/8" deep, but the neck heel (less fretboard) is 3/4" deep. When I had it set up that way I had to have the bridge recessed 1/4" into the body which is a whole lot. Fender only has the neck pocket 5/8" deep so that they can fit the pickguard within the 1/8" gap between the fretboard and body. This is less of an issue for me since if I go with a pickguard it will not go under the fretboard. With the neck raised to Fender's heights I can recess the bridge 1/8", but I would go more (maybe the full 1/4") so that I have some room to play with.

 

Obviously you can't see dimensions written out here because I've scaled it down to fit on the screen. The headstock is still to Fender specs. I'd like to lower it to further increase the angle over the nut by one or two ways: 1) Cutting the neck from thicker stock, which shouldn't be too difficult as I'm laminating the neck myself instead of using a stock neck blank or 2) Adding a decorative back plate to the underside of the headstock, probably in walnut like I plan to do to the front. This would require removing slightly more stock from the top side as the thickness for the tuners cannot exceed 0.5625".

 

Ordered my tuners today. Still have to accommodate the truss rod into the side view. That could be tricky with the truss rod I plan to use. More as it develops...

[u6crash]

Okay, one more...

 

 

Have I mentioned that I'm particular about things and want them all a certain way?

 

So one thing I want is truss rod adjustment at the neck and no truss rod cover.

 

After my marathon day of reading about truss rods some time ago, I'd decided that the one for me is the Low Profile Two-Way Adjusting rod from StewMac. However, they make this rod to be adjusted at the heel end (like too many truss rods). So I'm trying to flip it around.

 

I'm still trying to figure out how I make it all look good. One possibility is routing a round over channel at an angle in which a dowel (with a hole drilled through it) gets glued and cut off. Maybe a little tricky. There's the bonus question that if I use a headstock veneer, how do I make a pretty hole in it that lines up with whatever hole I fashion for the truss rod access?

[Freeman Keller]

I don't know if I'm being helpful or just meddling in your thread. If the latter, please tell me and I'll go away. In the mean time, you've figured out that I'm pretty anal about the geometry of a build and since I happen to have a couple of tele clones underway right now I threw a neck on one and set a ToM bridge on it. The neck pocket is 5/8 deep with a flat bottom (parallel the top, zero neck angle). The neck is a standard aftermarket replacement so its built pretty close to Fender specs. The ToM is sitting on two little blocks of wood 0.150 thick which emulates the top of the stud and the knurled adjuster - in other words this is the lowest the bridge could be adjusted.

 

In this picture a 24 inch straight edge is sitting on the frets - I call this the "fret plane" - and the end is 28/64 off the top of the guitar at approximately the bridge location

 

 

On most Gibson plans that I have that measurement is around 40/64 give or take. Note that the fact that the top on a gibbie is arched and the neck is at an angle makes no difference, I just want to know where the fret plane is relative to the top (or bottom) of the bridge.

 

Next I moved the straight edge so its sitting on the top of the bridge and the second fret.

 

 

I measure a 12th fret action of 0.040. That is close to the string line but not quite because it should be at the bottom of the nut slot, therefore lets add 0.005 to the action figure and say that the lowest action you will be able to get is 0.045. A little bit of relief will add to that, cutting slots in the saddles will lower it. Personally I think thats marginal but your drawing with your bridge and other measurements will let you know.

 

A couple of other random thoughts - here is Gibson's take on the six-on-a-side headstock. It is angled and doesn't use string tees

 

 

And while I haven't used the low profile truss rod I have used StewMac's and LMII's standard double acting rods. You can mount them with the adjuster at the headstock just fine and all you have to do is drill thru the head plate

 

 

OK, I'll leave you alone now.

 

[u6crash]

I don't know if I'm being helpful or just meddling in your thread. If the latter' date=' please tell me and I'll go away.[/quote']

 

Definitiely not meddling. I'll take all the insights and help that I can get.

 

In this picture a 24 inch straight edge is sitting on the frets - I call this the "fret plane" - and the end is 28/64 off the top of the guitar at approximately the bridge location

 

 

On most Gibson plans that I have that measurement is around 40/64 give or take. Note that the fact that the top on a gibbie is arched and the neck is at an angle makes no difference, I just want to know where the fret plane is relative to the top (or bottom) of the bridge.[/img]

 

The difference between 28/64 and 40/64 jives pretty close with what my side view shows me. What I didn't account for was the tops of the mounting studs.

 

Next I moved the straight edge so its sitting on the top of the bridge and the second fret.

 

 

I measure a 12th fret action of 0.040. That is close to the string line but not quite because it should be at the bottom of the nut slot, therefore lets add 0.005 to the action figure and say that the lowest action you will be able to get is 0.045. A little bit of relief will add to that, cutting slots in the saddles will lower it. Personally I think thats marginal but your drawing with your bridge and other measurements will let you know.

 

This is where you start to lose me (and/or where I need to do more homework). So this would simulate fretting a string at the 2nd fret and I don't know what the ideal action at the 12th when the string is fretted at the 2nd. I've got to get my books out and do some searches, but I still get the feeling I'd be best off recessing the bridge.

 

For the life of me I can't remember what made me want to go with the low-profile truss rod. I might go with StewMac's standard model now with the 4mm allen head, but I see LMI's truss rod uses the same channel depth/width as StewMac's low profile. I get what you're saying about drilling through the headplate to make a hole for the truss rod access, I just really worry about drilling at the correct angle and straight. I want a great looking hole considering I won't be using a truss rod cover.

 

[u6crash]

 

Went through some of my supplies and picked up a couple other things.

 

I've got stacks of sandpaper ranging from 60grit to 800 wet/dry, sanding block, 4 pairs of alligator test leads, and a handful of extra alligator clips all courtesy of my employer (I had to pay something for them, but not enough to worry about). Left over from a previous abandoned build I have two Switchcraft jacks, rear string ferrules, a deep panel jack, 9/16 forstner bit, StewMac string action gage, and strap locks. It's more than likely the ferrules and strap locks are chrome and not nickel, but I'm not worried about it. The ferrules will go on the back far from any other metal parts and the strap locks are easily changed if I find the color mismatch unbearable.

 

New acquisitions today include 6-32 threaded brass inserts and some matching machine screws. I started pricing them on eBay yesterday and to get a small number of black oxide inserts was too costly. These will go on my wood knobs. I'll make the set screws myself with a Dremel. The knobs will be black so I'll drop a bit of paint on these when it's done to make them match.

 

Priced a couple other tools and supplies, but didn't get anything else yet. Ordered a Tele style Electrosocket from eBay yesterday. Hopefully my jacks have Imperial threads. Might start another thread to get some opinion/insight on pickups.

[Freeman Keller]

 

The difference between 28/64 and 40/64 jives pretty close with what my side view shows me. What I didn't account for was the tops of the mounting studs.

 

You could fix that one of three ways - angle the neck, change the overstand (the amount the neck is above the top) and/or recess the bridge. Personally I think recessing the bridge will be a hassle but then I've done so many angled necks its sort of second nature to me

 

If you do decide to recess it and you go deeper than 0.150 you will need to route a little channel between the studs or the bridge itself may bottom out on the top

 

 

This is where you start to lose me (and/or where I need to do more homework). So this would simulate fretting a string at the 2nd fret and I don't know what the ideal action at the 12th when the string is fretted at the 2nd. I've got to get my books out and do some searches, but I still get the feeling I'd be best off recessing the bridge.

 

Yes, I knew this would be confusing. I only had a 24 inch straightedge and of course the scale is 25-1/2. The correct thing would be to put a longer straightedge on something as thick as the nut slots (maybe 0.050) and that would represent the true unfretted string plane. By putting it on the 2nd fret the action will be a hair lower, I guessed 5 thou. Adding some relief into the picture will do two more things - it will raise the nut relative to the body plane and will move the 12th fret down. Both of those will add some action at the 12th fret. My point to all of this is that with the bridge all the way down you will still have a moderately high action - I'm guessing 50 or more thousands (or maybe 3/64th if you think in fractions). Basically that gives you no future lowering to compensate for anything that happens to the guitar.

 

I have had good luck with ToM's by setting the neck angle such that the fret plane just hits the top, there is plenty of travel to get acceptable action and still be able to go up or down if needed. You can accomplish the same thing with a bolt on neck but shimming the pocket - that's sort of your ace in the hole for this critter.

 

 

For the life of me I can't remember what made me want to go with the low-profile truss rod. I might go with StewMac's standard model now with the 4mm allen head, but I see LMI's truss rod uses the same channel depth/width as StewMac's low profile. I get what you're saying about drilling through the headplate to make a hole for the truss rod access, I just really worry about drilling at the correct angle and straight. I want a great looking hole considering I won't be using a truss rod cover.

 

Hiscock shows building a drilling jig for his Fender style build and if you used the SM low profile rod they even sell a special reamer to make the hole (which would require making some sort of jig. Obviously my headstocks are angled and the peghead overlay covers the routed channel. I put a t/r cover on - usually made out of wood that matches the theme.