5-String Fanned Hybrid Headless

[octaedro7]

Nothing to add in the compliments department, all have been said.

What about a fingertip access after the pointy end of the cap? (reading it again I´m pretty sure it´s what Pete suggested) I did it and works beautifully (the magnets are differently placed and perhaps are smaller in diameter in my case though).
I´m seeing that your top laminate seems to be thinner than mine too, perhaps what I´m suggesting is not feasible...

 

[Dave Higham]

Well, there might have to be a small depression to allow me to get something under the edge of the truss rod cover, as the magnets pull it down so well that it doesn’t want to let my blunt knife under the edge! What’s more, the strongest neodymium magnets I have aren’t strong enough to overcome the pull off the truss-rod nut.

I’m going to do a bound fingerboard as I think it will be in keeping with the ebony ‘framing’ of the tuner block and pickups so the next thing to do is to cut the fret slots. To do that I made this jig following the instructions given by Jeremy Fullerton on the Australia/New Zealand Luthier Forum. (Sorry I can’t find a link to it now). As you can see, the adjustable guide has 3 neodymium magnets embedded in it, so that the saw ‘sticks’ to the guide. There are 2 clamps to hold the fingerboard securely whilst the slots are cut. There’s a strip of wood attached to the saw with double-sided tape to act as a depth stop; not as easily adjusted as a fret slotting saw with adjustable depth-stop, but cheaper.

Here’s the jig clamped to the bench with the fingerboard in place and the first few slots cut. There has to be some space under the guide to allow for difference in thickness of fingerboards so, to make sure the guide was perfectly aligned with each fret line, I replaced the saw with a flat scraper blade which I could slide down until it touched the fingerboard surface to check that the guide was perfectly aligned. Then I replace the scraper blade with the saw and cut the slot.

Slots nearly finished.

When all the slots were cut, I gave each slot a couple of swipes with a triangular section needle file. This helps when pressing the frets in and, in the event of having to take them out, makes it less likely that the barbs will cause the surface to chip out. I made some ebony binding strips (from an old ebony ruler would you believe?) and glued purfling strips of maple veneer to them.

I seem to have missed a few photos here. I tapered the fingerboard, cutting most of the surplus off on the bandsaw and then using a plane and a sanding board brought it down to its finished size = width minus two thicknesses of binding.
After carefully mitring the corners, I glued the bindings to the fingerboard using thin CA.

Then planed and scraped the bindings flush with both sides of the fingerboard.

 

[pilotjones]

Nice work. And good idea using a scraper blade as a proxy for the saw when aligning. I will definitely be doing that on #2.

 

[Ol'Bass'ead]

Just in case anyone else had problems finding the knobs....

Invalid Link Removed

 

[suraj]

Wow I just spotted a few grains of sawdust in this thread
The work is super clean

 

[MPU]

Wow I just spotted a few grains of sawdust in this thread
The work is super clean

Compared to the previous post there's HUGE piles of sawdust everywhere

 

[Dave Higham]

Compared to the previous post there's HUGE piles of sawdust everywhere

Whoops!.. I'll have to take more care!

I just came across the link to the fret slotting jig so I thought I ought to give credit where it's due. Here it is:

http://www.anzlf.com/viewtopic.php?t=2094

Have a look at Jeremy's web site. He does some very nice work.

 

[Dave Higham]

The next job is to fit the backstrap or rear headstock veneer. First I need to take the headstock down to its finished thickness by removing the bulk of the material on the bandsaw.

Then I sanded it down to finished thickness on my home made ‘Luthier’s Friend’.

Here it is finished.

I made up another pair of book-matched off-cuts as seen earlier on in this saga and trimmed them to a rectangular shape big enough to cover the rear of the headstock. (No photo). The book-matched veneer is 1/16” (1.5mm) thick, so it’s not going to follow that curve without some help.
Below is a simple bending iron. It’s a piece of steel tube with a 150w halogen bulb inside it. It has the bottom of a Coke tin wedged in the top; partly to keep the heat in and partly so it doesn’t blind me when I switch it on. I plugged it in and let it heat up and then did a test on the little piece of maple you can see in the photo. The result was quite good. The curve wasn’t quite perfect but could easily be persuaded to match the curve of the headstock.
So then I went ahead and bent my book-matched piece. This bent quite willingly too, but then I noticed that where it was bent the glue line had separated and the two halves had shrunk away from each other by about 1/16”!! Aaaaarrgghh!!!

I didn’t take any photos. I almost threw it away and started again by trying to find an off-cut big enough to make a one-piece veneer, but the other off-cuts have quite a lot of staining and aren’t very pretty. So I started wondering if I could salvage it. I sawed the two pieces apart and then rubbed what should have been the matching edges down on a sanding board until they met up again. Then I glued them together again. This was a bit tricky, because the veneer was already at more-or-less finished thickness.

In this photo, there’s a caul and a clamp holding the flat part of the two halves in alignment. Behind that are two long tapered pieces of maple. Behind them is another block nailed to the base (but you can’t see it). By sliding the tapered pieces against each other, the two pieces of veneer are forced together. The little spring clamp is holding the ends of the curved sections in alignment, with the aid of two small cauls (you can see the one above) and the miniature clamp is forcing the curved sections together.

And it worked! I was so relieved; I forgot to take any photos again.

 

[miziomix]

Ah! what would a build be without a little drama? I like the bulb/coke/tube bending iron. I'll try with Pepsi

 

[Dave Higham]

So now I could glue it onto the back of the headstock, and thereby hangs the tale of the second minor disaster involving this accursed bit of wood!

To make sure the 1/16” maple (and the thin black dyed veneer I’m going to put under it) is pressed hard against the back of the headstock in the curved area, I need a caul with a slightly resilient surface. So I made a caul, allowing for the different thicknesses being clamped and glued onto it a sheet of cork. Then I glued up the veneers and clamped the whole assembly together.

This is what the caul looked like when I took it apart. If you ever make a clamping caul with a cork surface, make sure the cork isn’t a load of crap. Mine was! The dark coloured bits are a lot harder than the rest, so when I clamped it up nice and tight the hard bits were forced into the maple and the surface looked as if someone had stepped on it with hobnailed boots. I was so disgusted that, again, the thought of taking photos didn’t even enter my head.

Now, there’s a method of getting dents out of wood, but I’ve only used it (and heard of its being used) on spruce and cedar soundboards, I suppose because they’re what get dented the most easily. But I tried it, and it worked, but again I didn’t take any photos. So I thought I’d show you using that little off-cut I used as a bending trial.

I matched the off-cut up with the caul, then put it in the vice and squeezed it up hard. When I took it out, this is what it looked like.

Then I plugged in my soldering iron and let it warm up. This one works well because it has a flat oval tip. I then took a piece of kitchen paper, folded it into four, wet it and squeezed out most of the water. When the iron was hot, I placed the damp kitchen paper over a dent and pressed the hot iron onto the paper. This creates steam which is blasted into the wood fibres and swells them.

You do this to all the dents, using a fresh spot on the damp paper each time, and this is the result. You can see slight marks where the deepest dents were, but very little sanding was needed to get rid of them.

So, after all that, this is what the back of the headstock looks like now.

 

[pilotjones]

If you do any more of the steaming out, it's worthwhile to get an old clothes iron to use instead of the soldering iron. I learned this after making two soldering iron tips unusable for soldering.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Ah! what would a build be without a little drama? I like the bulb/coke/tube bending iron. I'll try with Pepsi

Pepsi is inferior for bending purposes.

 

[Max Pratt]

What kind of router do you have? Only wondering because i am getting a new router and i admire your work and am sure you have good taste in tools. Also would it be possible for you to send me the cad files u drew up for that bridge; i'm making a headless carbon fiber bass and think it would be perfect for my purposes (just the tuning portion not the saddle part). Oh and can the router you are using be mounted in a router table if i was to make one for it?

P.S. Sorry for my lack of capitalization of my i's i am somewhat tired right now.

Thanks,
Max

 

[anezthes]

Excellent work! Sub'd.

 

[suraj]

If you do any more of the steaming out, it's worthwhile to get an old clothes iron to use instead of the soldering iron. I learned this after making two soldering iron tips unusable for soldering.

Just wondering, how would the soldering iron tip become useless ?? All its doing is evaporating water right..?

 

[Dave Higham]

Just wondering, how would the soldering iron tip become useless ?? All its doing is evaporating water right..?

I did wonder myself. Even if you did damage the surface, all you have to do is file it back to a smooth bare copper surface and re-tin it.

 

[Max Pratt]

Bump, hey Dave just for clarification, my earlier question was addressed to you.

 

[pilotjones]

I did wonder myself. Even if you did damage the surface, all you have to do is file it back to a smooth bare copper surface and re-tin it.

Have you ever tried this? Not as easy as it would seem. I don't believe the tip on an electrical iron is copper, and regardless of what it is, once you lose the initial coating it becomes solder-phobic and hard to re-tin.

 

[Smilodon]

The problem is that the coating of the soldering tip get exposed to air. Combined with the water (And it's impurities) and heat it will oxidize and get damaged.

You can file down the tip, but a tip with exposed copper won't last very long when it's regularly exposed to flux. Flux is designed to remove oxidization after all.

 

[Dave Higham]

What kind of router do you have?

Also would it be possible for you to send me the cad files u drew up for that bridge.

Oh and can the router you are using be mounted in a router table if i was to make one for it?
Thanks,
Max

The router is a Festool OF 1400. It's the most expensive tool I've ever bought, but every time I use it I think it was worth it. It can, of course, be mounted in a router table although, if you use the threaded holes in the base they are metric sizes.

PM me your email address and I'll try to send you a drawing of the bridge assembly.