Members deafinoneear Posted January 1, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 1, 2011 So yeah, that was a joke. A sad, sad joke because it accompanied a sad sad moment. It was right before this that I had MAJORLY {censored}ed up and would have to erase a lot of work and start over to an earlier point. I would have loved to have one of those "roll-back" programs that come in Windows nowadays were you can essentially undo everything up to a certain point, but that's just not the case. Is that scalloped photo a joke? I forgot all about this build. Would be nice to see it go again. I'm back at it, believe me. Now that I had this nice little winter break from school it gave me some time to collect myself and re-plot this thing. I'm going to be using it as a mental shield against too much studying, so expect an update every couple of weeks. So give me some time over the next couple days and I'll fill it all in. Got to go to the store to pick up some fixins for NYE, but I'll be filling this in over the next many hours/day. Glad to be back on board, glad to see an updated board (you guys were {censored}ing funny during the changeover), and glad I can document my wins and failures for you guys. Seriously though-- no matter how many times that doof AJC says making this stuff is easy, it's not... it's hard and there's a million ways to goof. Come on, AJ-- make this for me already! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members deafinoneear Posted January 1, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 1, 2011 So where did we leave off? Oh yes, got the mortise/tenon going. Alright, so at this point I decided to work on the neck almost exclusively. It was time to make the headstock. I can't remember why it was that I went with 15 degrees, and I don't have any pictures of the process, but here's the neck measuring out with a 15 degree headstock. Here's a sight down the neck. I remember this part was kind of nerve racking as not only did you have to line it up vertically but also horizontally as well, all the while balancing a bunch of those wood clamps, which aren't the most precision pieces of gear. Now it's time for the ears. This is the maple block that I've been getting wood from, which will also be the top to the next LP I build. I just took a small strip off of it for the ear strips, not anywhere from the good middle part. The ears by their new home. And getting them glued up. (of course, I spread the glue evenly before attaching...) And gluing everything up. OK, now I'm *really* going to the store. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members atrox Posted January 1, 2011 Members Share Posted January 1, 2011 yay! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TomCray Posted January 1, 2011 Members Share Posted January 1, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ajcoholic Posted January 1, 2011 Members Share Posted January 1, 2011 Seriously though-- no matter how many times that doof AJC says making this stuff is easy, it's not... it's hard and there's a million ways to goof. Come on, AJ-- make this for me already! Hey I never said mistakes dont happen. Ever make a wall unit, or worse yet a set of custom wood stairs for someone, deliver it and find out it doesnt quite fit where its supposed to go? THAT is a disaster... F'ing up on a hobby guitar build is, well, not that bad in the grand scheme of things. Get turned back around the right way and carry on! AJC PS I seldom show my major "oops" but I certainly have my moments. Have a sweet guitar almost done, and then drill through the carved top with a 1" Forstner bit? Yup, did it. Working on a carved top & back guitar, and not notice the depth stop sliding lower and lower, and wreck your $300 claro walnut top you just spent 3 nights working on? Yes, I did that too. Have a guitar almost finished, and only when going to string it up figure you have the bridge 1" too close to the nut? Why yes, I did that too! It happens to everyone... trust me. I am sure Atrox has a few stories to tell as well (come on, you have to, right??) AJC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 9-Pin-Phoenix Posted January 1, 2011 Members Share Posted January 1, 2011 Thanks for sharing the scope of your adventure! I can't wait to see the next step. PS - I'm glad the scalloping was a joke - though that is probably a mistake I would have made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members axegrinder Posted January 1, 2011 Members Share Posted January 1, 2011 It's good to hear that even the seasoned guys make mistakes. My fear of making a goof is what slows me down...paralysis by analysis. Deafi- It's good to hear you are not giving in. Looking forward to the next installments. May 2011 bring good tidings to all...Cheers!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members deafinoneear Posted January 3, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 3, 2011 Thanks all for the encouragement. It helps, believe me. Seriously though-- no matter how many times that doof AJC says making this stuff is easy, it's not... it's hard and there's a million ways to goof. Come on, AJ-- make this for me already! Hey I never said mistakes dont happen. Ever make a wall unit, or worse yet a set of custom wood stairs for someone, deliver it and find out it doesnt quite fit where its supposed to go? THAT is a disaster... F'ing up on a hobby guitar build is, well, not that bad in the grand scheme of things. Earlier this summer I was hired to make a wall-wide bookshelf install. I got the measurements, checked them twice and went back to the shop, meticulously cutting every piece (40-50 pieces of pre-sanded birch ply, the thick stuff) to really high tolerances, determined to make this the strongest, sexiest bookshelf ever seen. Got back and started installing, only to realize that the house, a 1940's build, sitting in the hills of Berkeley, CA, had gone beyond "shifted" to the point of being "fun-house," meaning that the side I was measuring was about 4" smaller than the other side of the wall and that the window that measured level was actually not lined up with the wall, meaning that none of it fit, that I'd have to buy 30% more wood, that I would have to then re-cut everything on site, and then fit it into place. Took more than twice as long as it should have. Boner rookie mistake. PS I seldom show my major "oops" but I certainly have my moments. Have a sweet guitar almost done, and then drill through the carved top with a 1" Forstner bit? Yup, did it. Working on a carved top & back guitar, and not notice the depth stop sliding lower and lower, and wreck your $300 claro walnut top you just spent 3 nights working on? Yes, I did that too. Have a guitar almost finished, and only when going to string it up figure you have the bridge 1" too close to the nut? Why yes, I did that too! It happens to everyone... trust me. I am sure Atrox has a few stories to tell as well (come on, you have to, right??) AJC Thanks for telling me this-- it sure seems like you and matrox and other just zip on through like some sort of magical rainbow unicorn that can do no wrong. In fact, I sure wish I could see more of this in the build threads around here-- I think showing the mistakes and their fixes can be just as helpful as documenting the process. I know for damn sure that I'm learning more as I screw up than when everything seems to be going well. And let me tell you, if that's the metric, I should be master-class by the end of this guitar! :lol Excelsior! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members atrox Posted January 3, 2011 Members Share Posted January 3, 2011 yeah. I make many mistakes. I only document them in my mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members vcnyls Posted January 3, 2011 Members Share Posted January 3, 2011 Looks great! Good luck in law school - what year are you? I started playing guitar when I was in law school (about 5 years ago) and I swear that's what got me through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members thick_mike Posted January 3, 2011 Members Share Posted January 3, 2011 Thanks for telling me this-- it sure seems like you and matrox and other just zip on through like some sort of magical rainbow unicorn that can do no wrong. In fact, I sure wish I could see more of this in the build threads around here-- I think showing the mistakes and their fixes can be just as helpful as documenting the process. I know for damn sure that I'm learning more as I screw up than when everything seems to be going well. And let me tell you, if that's the metric, I should be master-class by the end of this guitar! :lol There are plenty of cockups in my Ric thread here. This is one of my favourite quotes (from William Rosenberg apparently): Show me a person who never made a mistake and I will show you a person who never did anything. Anyway, perfection is overated. Keep going! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members deafinoneear Posted January 3, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 3, 2011 There are plenty of cockups in my Ric thread here. This is one of my favourite quotes (from William Rosenberg apparently): Show me a person who never made a mistake and I will show you a person who never did anything. Anyway, perfection is overated. Keep going! That last line is my new motto. Also, thanks for the link-- I especially appreciate that there's a mistake in the very first post. lol Thanks everyone-- you guys rock! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members deafinoneear Posted January 3, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 3, 2011 The glue dried and I popped her out. And a side view for whatever reason. The shop doesn't have a big enough sanding belt to do the whole neck in one pass, and I'm using the mill to cut out the truss rod cavity anyway, so I'll be planing the top on the mill to make up for the overhang where the headstock meets the neck, as well as to make up for a small twist Bruce found while sighting it. I didn't take much off, at most a 50th of an inch. Having a mill is nice, but there's also a curse to not having a big one-- for longer runs like the entirety of the neck, you have to re-seat the neck in the jig half way because I think the run of the mill is only about 12" or so. Here's a pic of how much I shaved. And a closeup of the work. You can see uneven lines, but I don't think they measure more than a couple thousandths-- as in I don't care. Marking out where the truss rod will lay. And a mock up. I didn't realize it at the time, but I think it's sitting too close to the body here. It's not the biggest deal, but it is a little wonky. Later on I realize that the planed surface itself is too long, but we'll get to that later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ExiledCrow Posted January 3, 2011 Members Share Posted January 3, 2011 Very cool build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Orygun Posted January 3, 2011 Members Share Posted January 3, 2011 This is a great thread. very cool to see the process from planks forward! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members deafinoneear Posted January 3, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 3, 2011 Very cool build. Hey thanks! I think it'll get even better. And thanks Orygun-- I always enjoyed watching other people do it, so I hope you guys feel the same. So now for the truss rod. After making sure everything was level again, I found a bit that was the same thickness as the truss rod, which made it easy. I wouldn't normally do this cut with a bit that is the same thickness as the hole needed because of chatter and stress on the bit, but the sipo is so damned easy to machine that it wasn't a problem. I'm not sure how this is going to sound, but in terms of workability, I highly suggest sipo to you all! Mill porn. It fits! This was as far as the mill could go in one run, so I have to unclamp and re-measure for levelness. and start again till the end. I have no idea what the 32D was-- this was like a year ago and I can't remember. (probably wishful thinking ) And how the rod sits in the channel. I still had some work to do at the end, but this pic was needed. Again, this was a year ago, so I have no idea what happened here. Remember-- I've been f'ing up all along the way here. The guitar is going to need an appropriately disastrous name. I hope that hole doesn't show up when I carve the neck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members deafinoneear Posted January 3, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 3, 2011 I remember reading somewhere that epoxy was preferred over titebond for the truss rod. I don't remember why or where that was, but here I am doing it. If anyone knows otherwise, let me know please. Not that it matters for this build, but I'll be making more in the future and it'll be good to know. I also remember reading not to put too much epoxy in the channel as this will gunk up the inner workings-- that you need just enough to keep it in place. As you can see, I followed the directions. The only reason I took this picture is because of how nice my scrap wood has gotten. A while ago I would have yelled at myself for using such a nice piece of maple as a clamp. Now I do whatever works I guess. You put a stick of hardwood that's slightly smaller than the channel over the rod when you clamp it so that there's equal pressure all along the length. As here. I let it sit over night... or maybe a week. Can't remember. More mill porn. I'm about to thickness the headstock to 1/2". New bit. Purple. Sexy. Absolutely no reason for this pic, just that I had to show that laminate necks make for beautiful shavings! About the right thickness. I hope that 2 thousandths of an inch wont affect my sound too much. Thicknessed. Actually, this process is pretty tiring. It moves slow. If you'd like a good laugh seeing how slow a manual mill goes, here's two short videos of the process. It's pleasing and all, but when you have to turn those wheels a couple hundred times, it starts getting old. I checked out the truss rod to see if it was alright and realized that I actually had used too much epoxy, and a glob of it came to rest around the tightening nut. Thankfully, polished chrome isn't the stickiest surface, so I just turned it with an allen wrench and unstuck it, following up with a sharp blade to get rid of as much as I could. Alright, enough for now. I'll be updating more probably tomorrow. I really had no idea how much time had passed on this project. It feels good to get this out of the way. Thanks again for joining in! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Beckman Posted January 4, 2011 Members Share Posted January 4, 2011 Looks great! I can't wait to start a build thread of my own, some day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members deafinoneear Posted January 5, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 5, 2011 Looks great! I can't wait to start a build thread of my own, some day. Thanks! These look to be great ways to start with minimal tools and what looks to be decent components for the price. Start doing it! Aside from the sometimes-pain, it's really fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members deafinoneear Posted January 5, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 5, 2011 Speaking of "sometimes-pain," here's where my world got dark. If you'll remember at the beginning of this thread, I had that nice, stripey rosewood that is going to look great on this thing. You can see it here in the background. Unfortunately, this is where I stopped studying HC's build threads and Hiscock's and Okham's books and started studying for the LSAT. At this point, my head was just not in the game. I mean really-- I was nowhere to be found, and so I started just working on this blankly, kind of forgetting all that I learned. Now, we know that there is a thousand different ways to make a guitar, and everyone has their own, but for me this was not the way that I had planned and I was just on autopilot. So here I go just gluing up that nice, saw, unshaped fretboard on the neck that I'd been working so hard on. Those SM radius blocks are relatively well priced (I just don't want to make a jig to cut my own, ya know?) and work great for a number of things, including clamping fingerboards. Very well, in fact, as that thing stayed on the neck stock like no other joint I had ever made! Of course, before I applied the glue, I cut the sharp off 4 tacks and placed those in the neck stock, just popping up out of the wood 2-3mm to that I could pre-place and push down the fingerboard when the glue was on without having to worry about it sliding. I also masked off the truss rod so that the glue didn't get all gunked up in there, and pulled off the masking after the glue was evenly spread. Then my spaced out brain says "well la-dee-dah, I should probably cut out the shape now! That'll be a fun distraction from reading comprehension!" I don't know exactly why I thought I could do this free-hand, nor do I know why I felt I could lay a radiused fingerboard down and expect a stable surface. "Hey, this is fun, DERP DERP!" "Ta daaaah" So I thinned it down a bit, took that to the aforementioned belt sander (remember, the one that was too small to work on which is why I planed the top of the neck) and then realized that A) I couldn't get a straight line from the nut to the heel, and B) I had gone too much at the nut trying to get the straight line in the middle and now the bridge width was about as wide as a mustang. No. Just... {censored}. I felt so bad at this point. After all the time and meticulous work I put into this neck, I had just ruined it. I couldn't believe it, and frankly I just decided to put it down and work on getting into school. It took months for me to get past this point, I was so discouraged. A few months had passed and I at least wanted to take off the goddamn fretboard. I would rid myself of the curse. Did my little drum-sander scalloping job (and yes, I took that shot way back then with the intention of asking you guys if I was scalloping correctly). And back on to the mill the neck went. By this point (I now remember) I had taken on a little project to at least put a walnut faceplate on the headstock. That's the rough shape you see there. I also ordered a new fretboard from LMII (I'd like to support the local boys as well) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members deafinoneear Posted January 5, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 5, 2011 Jamie had the idea to just glue on some extra thickness on the sides of the neck, taken from that nice maple block you saw before as that's where the neck wood came from anyway. The only problem I could see was that past the nut where the headstock meets the neck was a curve that was kind of complex. We did our best cutting out pieces and then clamped them on. It was by no means pretty, but I think it's going to be alright. And a final view And then I let it sit for a while so that I could gently ease back into it and deal with my next completely-overly-what-the-hell-do-you-think-you're-taking-on-over-the-top part of the process: *abalone* Coming later: I take weeks and months processing down raw uncut red abalone that the last owner of this house left embedded in the ugly concrete fountain out back so that I can put in a little headstock logo and avoid paying stewmac $50. No, no I'm not kidding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mind Riot Posted January 7, 2011 Members Share Posted January 7, 2011 I don't know if you followed any of my build threads over the past couple years, but I've got just a huge steaming pile of mistakes and screwups on all of those. It's a miracle they all came out as well as they did. I also had to strip a glued fretboard off a neck, due to a misalignment when it was clamped up. I never ran into a screwup so bad that I couldn't devise a workaround, and that's where I think a lot of the useful knowledge comes from. It's one thing to follow a template and make a cut within specs, it's another to blow the cut and have to gain a full three dimensional understanding of why the cut needed to be that way, and how to get it back where it needs to be. I think you're doing great, and this is an excellent build thread. Keep it up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MahaloVision Posted January 7, 2011 Members Share Posted January 7, 2011 My building pipeline is sometimes best described as a series of repairs in progress. It pretty much comes with the territory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GuitarNoobie Posted February 2, 2011 Members Share Posted February 2, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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