Building a guitar with what I've learned here. Walnut/Maple/Ash/Eastern Red Cedar

[lbridenstine]

I started drilling the tuner holes, but there wasn’t enough battery left in the drill, so I’ll finish that some other day I guess. I love these mini Gotoh tuners, especially the fact that the holes I have to drill are probably less than half as big as the ones in my bass.

I leveled off the sides of the body portion of the neck and got pretty far into the heel shaping. I used the router and made steps in the heel, then blended them with a rasp. I still need to make some adjustments and smooth it out, then I'll get the wings glued on. I do need to re-level one side of the neck though because the router dug in slightly further in one spot, which you can see below.

 

[crazygtr]

That neck heal looks kinda weak, I think you should revise that, or at least not remove any more wood from there. You're making good progress and I'd hate to see you having a set back.

 

[lbridenstine]

That neck heal looks kinda weak, I think you should revise that, or at least not remove any more wood from there. You're making good progress and I'd hate to see you having a set back.

What do you mean?

 

[crazygtr]

I'm really bad at editing photos but, maybe you'll see what I mean with this picture. The angle is too steep, leaving so little wood in the neck plane. If you look at the drawing you'll see all the wood that could be there on what I think is a safer angle. I'm sorry if I can't make it any clearer. Maybe it's just me and you're fine.

 

[lbridenstine]

The heel on my Jackson guitar is shaped liked this one:

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Basically no heel.

I've seen a lot of neck through instruments shaped the same way, so I'm assuming it's okay. My only concern right now is that the heel isn't a hard wood, but it's sandwiched between hard woods, so hopefully it'll be fine.

I wasn't planning on taking much more off, just smoothing out the shape a bit.

 

[Ironfingers]

I think you're fine. Once you get the wings glued on, you can get a better perspective on how to carve it.

 

[lbridenstine]

I think you're fine. Once you get the wings glued on, you can get a better perspective on how to carve it.

I hope so. I wanted to get most of the carving done before I glue on the wings because it seems to be a lot easier and faster that way.



I got the pickups today.
I also got pickups for the next bass I make.

 

[lbridenstine]

I got the tuner holes drilled, they need to be sanded a little for a better fit.

And I re-leveled everything so I could start gluing the body together.

I used 1/4" dowel rods and holes to line up the wings to the neck while I glue them.

I'll glue the other one on tomorrow.

 

[crazygtr]

Why didn't you cut the shape first? In my opinion is much easier that way, you can always use the offcuts for a square clamping surface. Like this:

 

[lbridenstine]

Why didn't you cut the shape first? In my opinion is much easier that way, you can always use the offcuts for a square clamping surface.

I don't have a bandsaw or anything that would cut thin enough lines to be able to use the cutoffs when clamping. I was going to shape the horns before gluing like I did last time, but I thought about it and I'm going to have to put the template on the back of the body when I route out the shape anyway (because it won't lay flat over the fretboard) and I put the end of the neck taper on the template so it won't cut into the neck, so I think it should work just fine shaping it after it's glued. Plus it saved me time because I didn't have time to shape the horns last night, so if I would have waited it'd be a day behind where it's at now.

 

[suraj]

I don't have a bandsaw or anything that would cut thin enough lines to be able to use the cutoffs when clamping. I was going to shape the horns before gluing like I did last time, but I thought about it and I'm going to have to put the template on the back of the body when I route out the shape anyway (because it won't lay flat over the fretboard) and I put the end of the neck taper on the template so it won't cut into the neck, so I think it should work just fine shaping it after it's glued. Plus it saved me time because I didn't have time to shape the horns last night, so if I would have waited it'd be a day behind where it's at now.

Everyone has their own way of doing it, but I guess you would save some trouble shaping just the horns before glueing. Of-course you can route the profile from the back side of your body, but when its time to use the router to round over or chamfer the horns from the front, the fretboard will interfere. You may have to carve that region by hand, unless you've already thought of something else.

 

[lbridenstine]

Everyone has their own way of doing it, but I guess you would save some trouble shaping just the horns before glueing. Of-course you can route the profile from the back side of your body, but when its time to use the router to round over or chamfer the horns from the front, the fretboard will interfere. You may have to carve that region by hand, unless you've already thought of something else.

Aww man, you're right. I forgot about that part.

Well... I am going to make it a carved top, so maybe that will help me out. I was going to roundover the horns instead of carving that part, but we'll see. Maybe I can just prop up the router on 1/2" mdf and lower the roundover bit or something though. Then shape the part right next to the fretboard with a rasp...

 

[suraj]

I'm not lucky with finding long shank router bits, but if your shank is long enough to safely pull out the same amount as your "prop" is thick, you should be able to do it just fine by the method you suggested

 

[lbridenstine]

I'm not lucky with finding long shank router bits, but if your shank is long enough to safely pull out the same amount as your "prop" is thick, you should be able to do it just fine by the method you suggested

I got lucky with my newer 1/2" flush trim bit that it has a longer than expected shank, so I can actually cut through the whole thickness of the body from one side, which I wasn't expecting. The roundover bit isn't quite as long, but since it's only for a roundover, I think I can probably adjust the depth of the chuck or whatever it's called on a router. I'll have to check and see though.

 

[lbridenstine]

 

[lbridenstine]

Alright, yesterday the router was having a really hard time shaping the body. The bit looks pretty dull now and it has some burn marks, so I went and got some new bits today, but they're cheap and probably won't last long, so I'll probably have to end up ordering another.

Anyways, here's what I did get done last night.

Unfortunately, it's not smooth at all and I wasn't thinking and took off the control cavity cover while I was routing and the bearing was riding along the walnut... so you can probably see what happened there.

I re-shaped the template so I should be able to go back around and smooth it all out.

Then I was drawing out a template for the pickups, bridge, and ferrules and I decided to take some hardware/pickup shots.

I'm going to adjust the curve of the ferrules, so it's more subtle before I drill them.

I'm not sure whether I want to use those zebrawood knobs or make my own out of the cutoffs of the body. Any suggestions there?

I'm also wondering if I should make the pickup rings out of walnut or rosewood. I have that rosewood left from the original fretboard that I took off. It's still bowed, but that might actually be okay for pickup rings being mounted to a carved top.

I should be getting some more done on this today, so I'll update later.

 

[lbridenstine]

I decided to make a router sled today. Here's how it turned out.

It's not perfect, but it definitely saved me a ton of time with leveling. It's nice to see the body without hard glue all over it too.

I started cutting out the shape of the other wing, but it was getting too late to have a noisy router running, so I didn't get to finish it.

I made a template for the pickups, bridge, and ferrules and I think it turned out pretty good.

 

[lbridenstine]

The new router bits helped out a lot, but there was some tear out in this area. The walnut parts should go away with shaping, but probably not the red cedar.

I was worried this might happen. It cut through to the magnets... and I still have to sand the rest of that area down and do the roundover.

The roundover is going to have to be really small around the cover. Other than that, I don't know if there's anything I can do aside from making a new cover, but then it won't match. I don't think I even have any walnut left that size. :-/

I weighed it and it's 6.2 lbs so far. I consider that pretty light considering I haven't done the pickup or bridge routes yet and I have more shaping to do. It already weighs less than all of my other guitars and basses and the hardware for it is really light. The only real weight will be from the pickups and it doesn't seem like that should be too much.

 

[lbridenstine]

I'm not sure how much time I'll have to work on the guitar this weekend, since I have one or two out of state shows, but I'm trying to plan out the shape of my carved top.

This is a very badly drawn in Paint version of what I'm thinking. I'm not sure if I'd actually need to do the inner horn steps and I'm trying to decide if it'd be better to do a roundover before or after the first step.

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The walnut top is probably less than 1/4" thick after I leveled it off the other day, so it's going to be a very shallow carve, but I think I'll prefer it that way.

I'm going to route for the pickups and bridge, and drill the string through holes and pot holes before I start routing the steps in the top so I have a flat surface to work with.


I also was looking through the pictures where the tuners are in the headstock and I think I see a hairline crack in the headstock going from the top tuner on the right and out to the end. I haven't looked at my guitar to check yet, but I hope it's just the picture. If there is a crack, I'll have to shoot some glue in there.

 

[lbridenstine]

There is a crack...

I still had the syringe from gluing my bass headstock, so I used that, but I could only get the needle to go in from the top end and the glue wouldn't go through the whole crack, only around the end. It looks like it happened from pressing in the tuners without sanding the holes out a bit first. It's not visible without sticking a tuner in.

Note to self: No more red cedar in headstocks!

Anybody have any ideas on making it stronger? I tried doing a search and I only found like one thread that basically said to take it apart and reglue it and I'd rather avoid that...