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First Commission Build - Is A Super-Tele A Thing?

#221
Truss-t In Yourself.....
So I thought for a while about how to recover from my problem of stepping out of sequence. I glued that headstock ear right in the way of my router edge guide. Woops. But that's okay, we can overcome this!
My thought was to use "The Trick" to glue a straight edge on the side of m neck blank that would stand proud of the headstock ear, giving me a straight surface to run my router edge guide along. I had some scrap MDF from another project, that stuff is pretty dang consistent in thickness, so that should work! -
Screenshot 2022-10-01 212753.jpg


Once I had it set up, I went about routing my truss rod slot -
Screenshot 2022-10-01 212851.jpg


And now we've got a routed truss rod slot! I also took the time to lop off the excess length on the headstock and draw some outlines of both the headstock shape and the neck as well. Next up will be trimming the headstock to rough shape and the neck as well down to where the body wings will attach. Then we need to move on to this fretboard situation. :eek:
 
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#222
Shave & A Haircut.....
The neck blank, not me. I'm not getting a haircut any time soon. :p
But, now that I had that truss rod slot routed, I could get back to my regularly scheduled broadcast. That meant trimming off some bulk to sort of "rough shape" the neck and headstock. Nothing terribly exciting about it. Just draw a lot of lines with various templates, measurements and straight edges, do a little freehand sketching around the volute and head over to the band saw. For those wondering, I've currently got a 1/2" 3-tpi Timberwolf blade on the ol' ShopSmith band saw and I don't really fancy removing it. It might have been better to use a smaller blade for the curvy bits, but honestly, I don't currently have one that has teeth sharp enough to cut, much less through this blank. So, the 3-tpi it is!
No pictures of the band saw work, you guys know what that looks like.
I mean, it worked fine, but I've got some bulk left in some areas that I would have liked to have cleaned up a bit better and it may have taken a tad bit more off in a couple areas than I wanted to. But I'm still well outside my lines where it matters. I'm just gonna have to see how that volute develops as I work through it. Anyways, we now have something that looks kinda like this -
20221002_212842.jpg


20221002_212852.jpg


It's a good place to start, that'll work just fine.

Next up we need to move on to our fretboard. I suppose I could use my neck templates to bring this down to final width and headstock shape, but I'm gonna save that I think. I kinda want to move on to that fretboard. but who knows, I may change my mind and break out those templates, we'll see. :cool:
 
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#225
Gilmourisgod said:
so... a work order question: Do you cut your fingerboard to taper first and then template rout the neck to that, or taper the neck beam first and then trim the fingerboard flush to neck? How do other people do this?
Click to expand...
Honestly, I haven't decided yet. On the last couple builds I shaped the neck to taper first, then glued the fretboard on and trimmed it to the neck blank. I may go the other way on this one, just because I have a laser cut fretboard template for this build. Something inside me says it'll be easier to do the fretboard first and then flush-trim the neck blank to it.
 
#227
I've Been Fretting Over This For Far Too Long -
Yeah, yeah, lame pun. It's what I do. :smug:
So yeah, I have kind of been stressing on this for a long time. The last (and only) fretboard I slotted was done by hand, mostly because it's multi-scale and you can't really buy a template or jig for that. I decided to sit on this one a bit and waited around till I got my Christmas bonus from work, and promptly spent half of it on the StewMac website. :rolleyes: Whatevz, it's my money, I'll spend it how I please.
I got my new fret slotting jig and accompanying saw and decided it was time to "do work". :smug:
I had planned on slotting this one by hand, and had gone so far as to mark out a lot of stuff that I wasn't terribly confident in and had even cut one fret slot. But something inside me said "Just start over man." Luckily, that slot wasn't really very deep and I kind of feel like my fretboard was too thick as well. So I stuck it to the workbench and took the #6 hand plane to it until it was nice and smooth and free of any slots or marks or weirdness. Let's just hit the "do over" button here and use the fancy new tool, shall we?

Redo -
With the fretboard smooth again, I went ahead and stuck it to my new 7ender scale slotting template. The trick here was that I've already rough tapered the sides, and the StewMac jig isn't really made for that. I think they want you to slot them when it's still a rectangle, at least, that's my guess. I spent a lot of time marking out a centerline on the template, a centerline on the fretboard, making dang sure I had my nut location located in a position that left enough width for the nut to actually be there, all that sort of stuff. I probably overanalyzed it way too much, but for whatever reason I'm kind of freaking out about accuracy here. Probably because this one isn't just for me. :meh:
Anyways, once I had it all laid out to my satisfaction, I went ahead and sent it through the slotting jig. I gotta say, I love pull saws. They just work so much better and smoothly for me. It just feels right. The slotting jig worked a charm, I honestly think it was beyond worth every penny here and I pray that I never slot another board by hand again. This thing is lights out, head and shoulders, beyond my hopes and dreams, amazing. Yeah, you can get the same setup cheaper from other vendors. And if that's your thing, I encourage you to do so. If you have a vendor you like, support them. But I'm beyond happy with this StewMac Fret Slotting Jig.

Pics Or It Didn't Happen -
Oh, yeah, pics. Sorry about that. I was filming for the YouTubes and I forgot to take any pictures of the process. But I do have this pic of the slotted board -
20230107_205702_HDR.jpg


As you can see, I still haven't removed it from the slotting template. I'm hopeful I can do the inlay with it still attached and then put it back in the slotting jig to cut the slots through the inlay material as well. At least, that's my ideal scenario. It sounds good in my head anyways. :wacky:
And for those about to ask, the blue tape is marking my 12th fret location. That will come in handy when I get to the inlay, which you can see laying off in the distance. So yeah, that crazy inlay is up next. :eek:
I'm equal parts scared and excited. Okay, not equal at all. Maybe more like 75-25. This inlay has me nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I'm pretty sure I can screw this whole piece of wood up in a hurry here. So what's my plan, you ask? Great question! I've got one of those little metal bases for my Dremel and a multi-purpose bit. I spent a little time setting up the base for what I think is the right depth. I can't find my can of spray adhesive, so I plan on going to the store tomorrow and buying a new can. I'll stick that inlay template (it's just a full size print of the inlay) to the face of the fretboard, use a really sharp razor knife to draw the outline of every dang letter, then come at it with the Dremel to remove the bulk of the interior of the letters. Once I have that done I'll use some chisels to clean up the edges of the letters and if I don't screw this up, I should have something ready to inlay. It's the part where I'm free-handing with a Dremel that has me kinda freaked out. :eek:
Oh, and before you start asking, I'm just gonna pour crushed MoP shell in this and flood it with CA glue. This isn't one of those "cut out the inlay, then trace around that on the board" things here. The inlay material is crushed MoP shell, it's almost a powder -
41XD1PT5LZL._AC_SX466_.jpg
I'm taking the easy way out. :roflmao:

Anyways, if anyone has a good YT video on freehand routing with a Dremel, feel free to drop a link below! o_O
 
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#232
Definitely do it on a scrap piece first.

Here's my video



I didn't explain anything in the video, but you can see how I measured out the distance from different lines to mark where to put a straight edge and I used the router base against the straight edge to make all the straight lines, then cleaned out the inner parts freehand. (Edit: doesn't look like you have any straight lines, so I don't know if this will help)

Take several shallow passes so that the bit doesn't pull into the surrounding wood.
 
Last edited:
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#233
Practice Makes Perfect -
I don't know that we're anywhere near perfect, but we're definitely practicing!
Taking the advice of the LC, I stuck my "template" to a scrap piece of cedar and decided to have a go at it. After a little handy work with the Dremel, I had this -
20230108_185941.jpg 20230108_185947.jpg
Not bad, I can live with this as a first go. I can see some issues with this tiny little bit. Feed rate, much like a CNC, is very important. I can visually see the bit flexing when it gets to the harder grain and then snapping back straight when it hits the soft grain. Again, this is cedar here, so it's not a very good simulacrum, but you can get a pretty good idea.
I wanted to see how it looked with the paper peeled off, so I did that -
20230108_190527.jpg
Yeah, it looked kinda good. So let's continue on with the inlay method and see how it goes from here.
First up we pack it full of crushed MoP and flood with thin Starbond CA -
20230108_190934.jpg
So it's hard to get teh crushed MoP into the tiny ends and sharp pointy areas, and it didn't come out level with the top of the wood, so let's just cram it in here and flood again -
20230108_191226.jpg
interesting tidbit, it apparently gets hot when you hit it with the accelerator, because I literally got smoke off it! :eek:
Okay, calm down, let's keep our cool Tim. Hit it with the accelerator again and......more smoke! But this time it's kinda fun. :laugh:
Focus...focus. Let's sand this back and see what we've got -
20230108_192039.jpg
You know, it's not terrible. :meh:
Let's go ahead and hit it with the StewMac fretboard finishing oil -
20230108_192237.jpg
Yeah, I know, it's cedar. That rosewood is gonna look completely different. But you can kind of get the idea, and I'm not wasting my good rosewood on practice!

So is it great? No, not really. If I'm being honest, I'm feeling less than thrilled with it. But I did learn a LOT about this process and I did help my confidence level a TON! So there's that. I feel like the edges aren't as crisp as I'd like them to be. But I also feel like, short of a laser or CNC engraver, I'm never gonna get there anyways. So, I will most likely practice a bit more on the Dremel end of it before I dive in on the fancy wood. I've got lots of these cedar scraps laying around, and maybe we'll even try some other scrap hardwoods I've got laying around too, just to see if this bit ends up breaking off or not. :eek:
 
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#234
The other things I noticed is, it’s very difficult to see inside this little base. Making sure you have a light placed properly is huge, positioning it so the opening in the base allows the light to shine in is a must.
It’s insanely hard to get the dust out of there. Even trying to blow it out is borderline useless. I don’t have a dust collection method here and I’m using both hands to guide the Dremel, so trying to hold a vac hose isn’t happening.
Any advice here would be great.
 
#235
TerribleTim68 said:
The other things I noticed is, it’s very difficult to see inside this little base. Making sure you have a light placed properly is huge, positioning it so the opening in the base allows the light to shine in is a must.
It’s insanely hard to get the dust out of there. Even trying to blow it out is borderline useless. I don’t have a dust collection method here and I’m using both hands to guide the Dremel, so trying to hold a vac hose isn’t happening.
Any advice here would be great.
Click to expand...

I've seen people make a flag out of tape on the bit that turns into a fan when the bit spins. I've done it, but I can't usually get it to stay on for long.
 
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#237
TerribleTim68 said:
Even trying to blow it out is borderline useless. I don’t have a dust collection method here and I’m using both hands to guide the Dremel, so trying to hold a vac hose isn’t happening.
Any advice here would be great.
Click to expand...
Damn StewMac, darned if they don't think of everything!! :facepalm:
:greedy:
I use a small devilibiss air compressor.... that was previously used as a medical nebulizer (breathing treatments for my daughter)
And a rubber hose.
It goes "ppphhhhhttttdddd". And blows air. :smug:
Screenshot_20230109_004601_Google.jpg
 
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#239
TerribleTim68 said:
Making sure you have a light placed properly is huge, positioning it so the opening in the base allows the light to shine in is a must.
Click to expand...
I use a headlamp for inlay routing. Even a small one from the outdoor/camping store will do. That way it's much easier to see inside the rout compared to aligning some fixed lamp.

Regarding the bit size, I use 1, 2, and 3mm bits. I remove as much material as possible with the larger bits and then carefully work the edges and corners with smaller ones as necessary. The 1mm bits are really easy to break, it's necessary to go slow and take shallow passes.
 
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