Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 16, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 16, 2010 Originally Posted by thick_mike My mistake, lookin' good though! thanks mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Ratae Corieltauvorum Posted January 16, 2010 Moderators Share Posted January 16, 2010 Originally Posted by GuitarNoobie what kind of a bridge is that ? looks like some kind of a wrap around roller bridge... Tone Pros wrapover Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 16, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 16, 2010 Originally Posted by Ratae Coritanorum Tone Pros wrapover cool Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ihavenofish Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 i did a little wood inventory to see what i actually have kicking around. quite alot of stuff!! top down: - 1/4" purpleheart for a drop top (the warp will come out with steaming) - 1/4" book matched quartered wenge for 2 drop tops and 5 fretboards. - 1-5/8" x 15" wide honduran mahogany for a body. - 13" wide 1/4" thick african mahogany - book matched plain hard maple for 2 drop tops. - book matched black walnut for 2 drop tops. - 17" wide african mahogany for a 339 top and back maybe. - 3 pieces of 11.25" wide hard maple with some slight birdseye - this will make 6 carved caps. - quartered walnut for 18 or so fretboards. - 3x3 maple neck block for 2 necks and another for 7 or 8 fretboards. - a quartered maple wood block labeled les paul junior. likely will end up on a tele though. next to that is a partly done tele deep set neck. - 5" wide african mahogany for 4 laminated neck. - 1.5" x6" purpleheart for 2 neck through necks maybe. - 6.5" wide x 2" thick hard maple with lots of defects for a tele and strat body. "test prototypes" for a potential customer. - 6.75" wide by 2" thick african mahogany to make 2 les paul sized body backs. - off screen is a book matched quilt top already shaped like an undersize tele. - 3 lignum vitae boards with no imdiate purpose. - honduran and african mahogany, purpleheart, lignum vitae and pine scraps for head plates, pickup covers and rings etc. - purpleheart, maple and walnut veneers for neck laminating and headstocks or binding. - beech... err, wait, no, thats my work bench. possibly one of the better things ive bought. its got 2 built in movable vises and little "dogs" that make glueing up blanks and holding wood for hand planing or sawing really easy. also came with clamps that go into the dog holes so i can clamp things in the middle of the table. as soon as the machines here, im gonna do a poll and ask people what wood should go with which prototypes whee! sorry for the hijack. there was some point to all this: i have a 6.75x2x52" african mahogany board in there. next to it is a maple 6.75" x 2" x 33" one. the maple one is MUCH heavier than the mahogany one. in fact the whole mahogany board, which is about 1.5 times a normal LP blank and not planed to thickness is under 10 lbs (in superlight swamp ash / 3lb strat body kinda area). so, i think if i make them into LP backs they should end up pretty light, even with no chambering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nevermind Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 got my main body template cut today. Still need to finish the sanding on the edge, but it's 90% perfect right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 17, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 Originally Posted by ihavenofish i did a little wood inventory to see what i actually have kicking around. quite alot of stuff!! top down: - 1/4" purpleheart for a drop top (the warp will come out with steaming) - 1/4" book matched quartered wenge for 2 drop tops and 5 fretboards. - 1-5/8" x 15" wide honduran mahogany for a body. - 13" wide 1/4" thick african mahogany - book matched plain hard maple for 2 drop tops. - book matched black walnut for 2 drop tops. - 17" wide african mahogany for a 339 top and back maybe. - 3 pieces of 11.25" wide hard maple with some slight birdseye - this will make 6 carved caps. - quartered walnut for 18 or so fretboards. - 3x3 maple neck block for 2 necks and another for 7 or 8 fretboards. - a quartered maple wood block labeled les paul junior. likely will end up on a tele though. next to that is a partly done tele deep set neck. - 5" wide african mahogany for 4 laminated neck. - 1.5" x6" purpleheart for 2 neck through necks maybe. - 6.5" wide x 2" thick hard maple with lots of defects for a tele and strat body. "test prototypes" for a potential customer. - 6.75" wide by 2" thick african mahogany to make 2 les paul sized body backs. - off screen is a book matched quilt top already shaped like an undersize tele. - 3 lignum vitae boards with no imdiate purpose. - honduran and african mahogany, purpleheart, lignum vitae and pine scraps for head plates, pickup covers and rings etc. - purpleheart, maple and walnut veneers for neck laminating and headstocks or binding. - beech... err, wait, no, thats my work bench. possibly one of the better things ive bought. its got 2 built in movable vises and little "dogs" that make glueing up blanks and holding wood for hand planing or sawing really easy. also came with clamps that go into the dog holes so i can clamp things in the middle of the table. as soon as the machines here, im gonna do a poll and ask people what wood should go with which prototypes whee! sorry for the hijack. there was some point to all this: i have a 6.75x2x52" african mahogany board in there. next to it is a maple 6.75" x 2" x 33" one. the maple one is MUCH heavier than the mahogany one. in fact the whole mahogany board, which is about 1.5 times a normal LP blank and not planed to thickness is under 10 lbs (in superlight swamp ash / 3lb strat body kinda area). so, i think if i make them into LP backs they should end up pretty light, even with no chambering. wow quite a collection going there... with that african mahogany being that light it won't cause an unbalanced, neck heavy guitar will it??? Originally Posted by nevermind got my main body template cut today. Still need to finish the sanding on the edge, but it's 90% perfect right now. very cool... you should start a thread on how to make templates or you could sell them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ihavenofish Posted January 17, 2010 Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 Originally Posted by GuitarNoobie wow quite a collection going there... with that african mahogany being that light it won't cause an unbalanced, neck heavy guitar will it??? not with the maple top and a thick body. the sg i made isnt really neck heavy, and that body weight like 1 lb or so. i find the neck heavy feeling comes mostly from strap placement. you rarely see anyone say a strat is neck heavy, even when they take a rosewood neck and stick it on a 3lb wamp ash body. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 17, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 Originally Posted by ihavenofish not with the maple top and a thick body. the sg i made isnt really neck heavy, and that body weight like 1 lb or so. i find the neck heavy feeling comes mostly from strap placement. you rarely see anyone say a strat is neck heavy, even when they take a rosewood neck and stick it on a 3lb wamp ash body. that's true... the only neck heavy guitar i've played is an SG and we know about strap pin placement on those... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 17, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 ok guys, more SAD news... but there is a happy ending... the more i tried to set up this guitar, the more i realized i had a problem.. the bridge had to be up unusually high to keep strings from flattening out on some frets. and fret buzz was not going to be easy to get rid of. upon looking closer at what i had, i realized the neck angle was a full 2 degrees too much before leveling and crowning the frets and ending up with a playable guitar, but one i wouldn't be happy to put in someone else's hands, i asked my friend Brian (nevermind) what he would do. he soon convinced me to pull the neck, find the problem and re-do it... i knew this was the right thing to do, but hearing it from him helped convince me to learn some new skills... thanks brian !!! i knew the neck was glued in with hide glue and knew it was water soluble so i started on my latest guitar adventure... here is a shot of the bridge height in order to get all strings to ring out... a full 1/4" higher than my other tune-o-matic style bridged guitars, including a my cheap water drop dean vx... and here is when i realized how bad my problem really was... so i grabbed my turkey syringe and started pumping a little water into the limited places i had available to me... i also incorporated my heat gun to heat the whole joint up. my cat is sad in the background and she had to reject the guitar in it's last Quality Control check i was also using a small knife and the heat gun to start helping break down the glue joints... i would heat the knife and work in it further each time. to be continued, next post.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 17, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 so i realized my turkey syringe with opening on the sides was not getting much water where i actually needed it. so i took my dremel and modified the end, opening it up and using some painters tape to close up the side holes... that ended up working remarkably well... after several hours working at the neck removal with the above pictured methods i was getting no where fast... so i decided the fretboard had to come off... but i has used titebond II for that well i now speak from experience, but that bond can be beat with heat i used my heat gun to heat up a wide putty knife and the fretboard ever so slightly (insuring i didn't burn anything... so make a inch of progress, re-heat putty knife and fretboard, then repeat... only took about 20 mins to get it off, then i had some room to work on the neck. so i used a combination of the heated putty knife, heat gun on neck joint and water syringe squirted in where i could get it... finally after working at this way for about 15-20 mins, i was able to get it lose and keeping using water and heat to losen it until it came apart.... new skills now acquired !!!! continued in the next post.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 17, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 17, 2010 with the neck off, i discovered the neck angle on the body was off. most of this was caused by me sanding the binding and deforming the edge of the top of the body in the process... 6.1 on one side and 6.5 on the other... so i did some sanding on the top of the body to get it back to roughly 4.4 degrees. next, i took an angle reading of the actual neck route and it was okay... 4.5 degrees (sorry, didn't take a pic of that one...) so then i turned my attention to the neck tenon... had a problem here too that was helping contribute to the problem... at the end by the pickup it was 33.09 mm and at the other end only 31.43 mm. really not sure how this happened, but i will damn well pay attention to that on my latest build... well needless to say, me and the neck went back to the rigid sander and fixed up this little problem. while i was there with removed neck in hand i took a little more wood off the back of the neck to make it a little thinner (more like i prefer) and then hand sanded it back smooth and silky... so i cleaned up the neck mortise and neck tenon and test fitted the neck into the mortise. i removed a little bit here and there until i got my angle and got pretty tight seams along the body... i also cleanup up the top of the neck removing the left over titebond in preparation for fretboard re-installation (to be completed with hide glue this time)... and finally heated up some hide glue and set the neck again, this making damn sure of the angle... i will still have to remove a little more wood off the top of the body to get the fretboard to set down perfectly, but i should be past the problem now tomorrow i will re-glue the fretboard and can start thinking about sanding and the finish work again... Whew !!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 18, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 bump, for failure overcome !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ihavenofish Posted January 18, 2010 Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 Originally Posted by GuitarNoobie bump, for failure overcome !!! hehe. didnt look that bad really. ive seen worse on guitars in the store. aparently gibson had neck angles all over the place in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 18, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 Originally Posted by ihavenofish hehe. didnt look that bad really. ive seen worse on guitars in the store. aparently gibson had neck angles all over the place in the past. i just wasn't gonna be able to get the low action i wanted. the bridge was horribly high although that wasn't affecting playability... it was playable and i've played worse, but i just wanted it better... plus i learned how to remove a neck... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ihavenofish Posted January 18, 2010 Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 Originally Posted by GuitarNoobie i just wasn't gonna be able to get the low action i wanted. the bridge was horribly high although that wasn't affecting playability... it was playable and i've played worse, but i just wanted it better... plus i learned how to remove a neck... and you learned why hide glue is nice. i put in a neck with yellow carpenters glue and then realized it was crooked.... it took some of the body with it when i removed it. i cut the body into an double cut and the neck got scraped. oh.. anyone in toronto want a free pine body? its still perfectly good and looks pretty, but ill never use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rakester Posted January 18, 2010 Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 good work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 18, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 good work thanks...the fretboard is now back on with hide glue this time.... here's the last of the pics for tonight....clamps removed from the neck and it's not 4.4 degrees, but i will take it... a far cry above where it was...had to take a little more of the top off by the tenon... fretboard should now lay flat on the top of the guitar...all clamped up and drying...And the QUALITY CONTROL INSPECTOR lurking in the background :poke: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members igge Posted January 18, 2010 Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 Good work. New skill aquirements are always a bonus. Catfood on top of a 335 lying on the floor? Blasphemy!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members k4df4l Posted January 18, 2010 Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 i just wasn't gonna be able to get the low action i wanted. the bridge was horribly high although that wasn't affecting playability... it was playable and i've played worse, but i just wanted it better... plus i learned how to remove a neck... Exactly why it's nice to have a test run going...I don't know about other folks but I definitely learn a TON from making a mistake, figuring out what went wrong then correcting it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 18, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 Exactly why it's nice to have a test run going...I don't know about other folks but I definitely learn a TON from making a mistake, figuring out what went wrong then correcting it.yep mistakes will teach you things for sure... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Brewski Posted January 18, 2010 Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 Wow - very cool!! After seeing you jack that neck off in error I now know that I will be giving a build a try with the expectation that I will (not may) make mistakes and my solice is that I won't be the first! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 18, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 Wow - very cool!! After seeing you jack that neck off in error I now know that I will be giving a build a try with the expectation that I will (not may) make mistakes and my solice is that I won't be the first! cool, get to collecting tools and parts and even the most experienced builders make mistakes. at least that's what they say...i found a quote once on MLP that went something like this..."an good luthier is a luthier that can correct their mistakes and make them invisible" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 18, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 18, 2010 she's back together and the bridge is normal now so i am spending some time sanding and touching up anything that needs it on the wood. removing a couple little dents using steam, etc...tonight i might even be able to hit the back of the body and neck with some grain filler and possibly even start spraying a little amber and cherry red nitro lacquer on the front and before you ask, here is what i am using on the back, neck and sides Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted January 19, 2010 Author Members Share Posted January 19, 2010 getting ready to apply the the grain filler and i have a question. do i need to tape the binding up to protect it from stained...?the grain filler has a stain in it and i assumed the binding might be porous enough to become discolored. is that assumption correct?thanks btw, i finished sanding and cleaned up everything with a good wipe down of naptha... the cedar really has a nice look to it, as does the mahogany neck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BG76 Posted January 19, 2010 Members Share Posted January 19, 2010 Your binding should be fine with the stain in your filler, plus you have control over where you fill. You should look into buying a compressor and a gun. The price on the aerosol will kill you. Also, you can get filler without going to SM. That place sells ok stuff but the prices are insane. Build looks great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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