Winter Buildoff 2022: Still A Diva

Yeah, same here. Luckily I have a lathe and a passion for Christmas ornaments, so the majority of our home made gifts this year are these -

 

Gnomes.....or if you're in the metric part of the world I guess they call them "Gonks".
If you feel like wasting 15 minutes of your life, there's this -

 

So, going back to my ramblings on stains/dyes -
Looks like the choices are -

• StewMac for their "ColorTone" line
• Crimson's "Stunning Stains" line
• Keda has a limited selection that I can get through The Fretwire
• Angelus has some stuff I can get through various places
• TransTint has a limited selection I can get through LMII
• Rockler has a product called "Mixol"

It honestly looks like the bald cat with the head tats over there in the UK is the mot affordable option. they sell smaller bottles, so for a guy like me who will be doing a single guitar, I'm not left with half a gallon or whatever that will sit until it hardens in the bottle.

Who has experience using some of these products?

 

That's an awesome offer. Let's chat on the side.

 

Yup, I've been watching Derek plenty over the past couple years and we also chat on the book of faces. He makes it look stupid easy, which I know it just...isn't.

Yeah, I'm just not set up to pray a tinted clear. Don't have the gear. I do agree that the tinted clear is the way to go, because it ends up looking so much deeper and simply better. I'm just not set up for it.

 

I'm still fumbling through my thoughts on how to assemble this thing.

 

Winging It -
Okay, a little more progress today. We got off work a couple hours early so I used that free time to jam on this thing. I had planned on adding a strip of purpleheart between the neck blank and the body wings. So basically like another stripe of purpleheart on the neck core. So, let's get that all jointed and glued up -


It'll probably make more sense as I get farther into it. For now we'll let that sit overnight, then unclamp it tomorrow and see if I can find time to flush cut it. I have not rough cut the body wing shape yet, it's still a big rectangular block.

Sticking My Neck out -
Okay, I need to get brave and start cutting on this neck blank! I marked out a centerline, which meant sticking the truss rod in the slot, running a strip of tape down the middle and marking on the tape. I needed the truss rod to hold the tape up. Then we can mark out our neck taper by measuring from centerline of our full scale drawing and transferring that to the real thing, then using a very long straight edge, run a line down it connecting those measurements. Then make some marks where our body wings will be, roughly speaking, and head to the bandsaw.

Honestly, these steps scare the beejesus out of me still. It's one of those moments where you can make real expensive firewood. Luckily, my bandsaw was nice to me today, that 1/2" resaw blade stayed fairly straight and I took my time. I also remembered, we're working with wenge again, which is basically made of concrete and hatred. If you ever decide to build a guitar or bass, I'd suggest something like ash. So. Many. Splinter! My god this stuff is evil. But hey, YOU chose this crap Tim, get to work! So now our neck blank looks kinda like...well okay, exactly like this -






I'll need to do some cleanup at each end, but that was as close to my line as I dared go. I'm probably gonna use Mapleglow's method of a straight edge and pattern router bit to do the final straightening of each side. But I will be leaving the headstock ears and the body joint area rather rough for the time being. I need to get some things to sort of dowel/pin the wings on as we go through this, so that area won't come together for a while I suspect.

Let Go Of My Ears, I Know What I'm Doing -
It also became apparent that I was gonna need to glue ears on the heastock anyways. So I cut some purpleheart strips and grabbed a spare piece of wenge. We'll deal with that later. I also cut a piece of the flame maple to go on the top of the headstock too -


I know, this maple doesn't look very "flame-y", but there's a little bit there. It's what I got man, don't look at me like that.
For those who are on the Facebook, here's a quick vid I made of this top a while back -


So yeah, some progress. Not much, but some. If I can find the time, I'd like to get the body wings rough cut tomorrow so I can start holding them up to the neck blank and dreaming about how cool this thing may some day be. I can also rough cut the fretboard too. I'm still trying to decide on a solid method to sort of pin it so I don't have to full on glue it just yet. Has anyone had success with that staple method? I hear you can tap a staple in, then cut the "top" off it, leaving behind two little pins. Anyone done that with success?

 

Yeah, I mean, I know it isn't a super highly figured piece. This was "a reject from a local guitar factory" that my Rockler affiliate store had for $20. So, "local guitar factory" could be either Warmoth or Sound Guitar Works, both are literally 15 minutes from my house. My guess is it wasn't good enough for them and they ditched it. But for $20, my wife was willing to give it new life and brought it home for me one day. So yeah, the tossed maple top is a rebirth as well I guess. As long as I don't screw it up.