Members Bowen Posted February 7, 2010 Members Share Posted February 7, 2010 Well, it is not all that hard really. I have a squier affinity strat laying around. It has a pretty nice neck but it is really too light and the body is very thin. After digging around in the shop some I came up with a couple pieces of western maple that I could hack a body out of. A maple strat body would be pretty heavy so I'm planning on using a swimming pool pickup route and very deep arm and gut contours on the body to make it as light as possible. I took quite a few pictures, I hope you don't mind. I started this last night, I'll catch up to today's pics. Here is the donor guitar: All pulled apart: I've cut some 19"x13" half inch MDF panel to make my templates out of. The pic makes the body look bigger than the panels but it is not. A half hour of routing with a couple of different pattern cutting bits and I have 3 templates. On the cavity template I slipped with the router. I'll fix that later. Here is the wood for the body, before it is glued. There is a coat of shellac wiped on so I can better see what little figure that there is. The maple is 2 inches thick at this point. Clamped and glued. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bowen Posted February 7, 2010 Author Members Share Posted February 7, 2010 I started out this morning by unclamping the body blank, bandsawing it to rough shape, then thicknessing it using a wagner safe-t-planer. Here is the body after that.So I slacked a bit on the pics today. I used a jack plane to smooth out the safe-t-planer marks then screwed on a template to route the sides.I took too big of a bite with the router so the bit grabbed and tore up the wood in one spot.A few minutes with the spindle sander fixed it right up.While the router was in the router table I figured that I'd go ahead and do the round over.The forearm contour and belly cut are pretty quick using a bandsaw, handplane, and power sander.The finish that I'll be using is a shellac sealer coat with polyurethane clear over the top. Here is a little test section to see how it looks.This is what I do with the scrap wood. It is also a great way to see how the maple will look finished. This piece used to be just to the rear of the lower half of the body.The workbench started clean, It's pretty deep in sawdust and shavings now. I'll clean it up later. Or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members vintage clubber Posted February 8, 2010 Members Share Posted February 8, 2010 very impressive work there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Surfdude Posted February 8, 2010 Members Share Posted February 8, 2010 When you have most of the correct tools, it's not as hard as it seems. The fewer tools on hand, the harder it is. That's why my builds take so long. I'm always saving up for something that I did not have the last time. Even still, it takes talent to do as good a job as you have done. Surfy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members hrcnsfan Posted February 8, 2010 Members Share Posted February 8, 2010 Nice work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Orange Jackson Posted February 8, 2010 Members Share Posted February 8, 2010 Cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Sharkfin Posted February 8, 2010 Members Share Posted February 8, 2010 Nice, it's shaping up quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bowen Posted February 9, 2010 Author Members Share Posted February 9, 2010 Thanks all...I got some more done today. I started removing wood from the body using a forstner drill bit. I drilled the neck pocket slightly deep, there are still drill bit dimples left in the finished neck pocket. Because I screwed up the cavity routing template for the output jack, I decided that I'll take care of that later with a drill and chisel.Using the cavity template the router work went pretty fast. You'll notice that there are a couple of small holes in the body that will be covered by the pickguard. I used sheetrock screws to attach the template to the body.The route is big and deep in order to make the body as light a possible.I did not route to the template on the nose of the neck pocket. There is not much support for the wood being cut there. I cleaned the neck pocket up with a chisel later.The back, routed. I used 1 screw and a clamp to secure the template to route the spring cavity. Again, this is deeper than is needed. There is about 10mm between the spring cavity and the pickup cavity.Once the neck pocket is done I had to throw the parts on to give it a look. Sanding and finishing: I started with 150 grit then went to 220. I then put a wet coat of shellac and waited a few minuted for it to dry. What that does is it the wet shellac will soak in a bit and also raise the grain. After the shellac is dry I went over the body with 400 grit and put another coat of shellac on. When coat #2 was dry the whole body got rubbed down with 0000 steel wool. That did not cut though the second coat of shellac, the body had a satin shine at this point.I changed my mind and decided to use tru-oil. Here are a couple of pics of the first coat. The second picture is a better representation of the actual color.That's all for a little while. I'll be building up the tru-oil and waiting for the brown toy truck to bring a roll of stainless jumbo fretwire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bowen Posted February 9, 2010 Author Members Share Posted February 9, 2010 When you have most of the correct tools, it's not as hard as it seems. The fewer tools on hand, the harder it is. That's why my builds take so long. I'm always saving up for something that I did not have the last time.Even still, it takes talent to do as good a job as you have done.Surfy Thanks,Tools certainly help. Most of my guitar building stuff was bought on craigslist for dirt cheap. Unsolicited advice: If you want to put together a small shop for hobby stuff scour CL for old (1950's seems to be the best era) cast iron. I picked up a Delta/Rockwell tablesaw, 14" bandsaw, and radial arm saw all for under $200. The table saw needed $20 in bearings and they all needed cleaning and tuning up. Spend the money on a good router (a used porter cable router is perfect, they last forever) and midrange bits. The Rigid spindle/belt sander makes lifer much easier but it is not necessary. Almost everything else can come from harbor freight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members newbuilder Posted February 9, 2010 Members Share Posted February 9, 2010 Sweet thread man! I'm in:snax: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bengerm77 Posted February 9, 2010 Members Share Posted February 9, 2010 Is this a solid maple guitar body? That sounds soo cool. Companies don't make enough maple bodies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bowen Posted February 14, 2010 Author Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 It is a little too chilly and humid in my shop for tru-oil so I decided to use oil based Minwax high gloss poly finish. I've used it a couple of times and while not as classy or hard as nitro it works very well and is plenty durable. After letting it cure up for all of three days I went though the micro-mesh grits and was left with a almost gloss satin finish that looks nice. Assemble, set up, and here are the glamor shots. The tone is not as bright as I had expected. It is clear and articulate but not brittle. It sounds like a strat should. The guitar is not too heavy. It gained a pound or so with the new body. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members paradisel0st Posted February 14, 2010 Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 :thu::thu: Awesome!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members thick_mike Posted February 14, 2010 Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 Not normally a fan of au naturel guitars, but this is nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members whiteop Posted February 14, 2010 Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 you are just awesome. Thanks for showing us that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chqtarzan Posted February 14, 2010 Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 COOL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members weather.at.8 Posted February 14, 2010 Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 You really do incredible work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Brewski Posted February 14, 2010 Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 OUT-F'ING-STANDING!! how does the maple thingy sound? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bluesrock70's Posted February 14, 2010 Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 That came out nice:thu: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Furtive Posted February 14, 2010 Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 Really nice work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bowen Posted February 14, 2010 Author Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 Thanks all!OUT-F'ING-STANDING!!how does the maple thingy sound?Acoustically it is very loud, much louder than any of my other guitars. The tone is tight and balanced across all the strings. Very high fidelity would be my best description. Plugged in is not so good. I still have the crap squier pickups in it. I'll need to scrounge some decent pickups.I might do an experiment and replace the magnets in the squier pickups with neodymium magnets from harbor freight. It could be a waste of time but you never know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members EJD Posted February 14, 2010 Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 Wow! Also, go check out BG Pickups Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fatcat Posted February 14, 2010 Members Share Posted February 14, 2010 Awesome job thx for the pics. The build threads on this forum are the only reason its worth coming here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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