Necking

I talked with a luthier over the summer, and he convinced me that necks are easy to make, so I figure I’ll give it a shot.  I glued up some 4-inch slab cut maple and mahogany to make a big block from which i’ll cut out three necks.  I planed the maple to 3/4″ and sliced some 1/8″ mahogany pieces on the table saw.  Gluing it all up was quite a pain, but the planer did a nice job of making even surfaces.  Using some scraps of mahogany, purpleheart, and walnut, I glued up another blank.  The plan for that one is to make a scarf jointed bass neck.  After gluing up boths neck blocks, I ran them through the planer again to get a perfectly square top and back.  These squared up surfaces will be where the fretboards are glued.

maple/mahogany laminate (for 3 necks) and mahogany/purpleheart/walnut (for 1 neck)

I then laid out the neck dimensions onto a piece of 1/4″ hardboard.  The necks will be 25.5″ scale length, 1 5/8th at the nut and 2 1/4″ at the heel.  I’m planning on 22 frets, with a 10″ radius Fender-style fretboard.  The headstock is my own design, and will be 3L/3R and angled back at 10 degrees.  I used a fine-cut jig saw to cut out the templates, and then used a belt sander to make them perfectly straight.

I then traced the side profile onto the neck blank.  I tried to cut it out on my 10″ table top band saw, but it couldn’t hack the 3″ thickness of the blank.  I’ll have to take it to school to use the industrial sized band saw in the shop.

New materials, new toys

Over the summer, I got my hands on a boat load of wood.  I got large 8/4 slabs of padouk and mahogany, which I will use for bodies.  Finally, I won’t be gluing up 4/4 boards any more.  For the tops, I got a big piece of 1/4 bloodwood.  I also bought – at Lowes of all places – a decent piece of spalted maple.  I plan to book-match that piece and make more tops with it.  Ideally, if I get good at the whole book-matching thing, then I’ll get some wood from Dead Head Lumber Company, a Maine-based lumber yard that harvests “Dead Heads” from the bottom of Maine lakes.  I went to the local hardwoods store, Atlantic Hardwoods, and got some random scraps of mahogany and walnut that I will use for necks.  All i need now is a climate controlled shop to store this stuff in…..

I also found a Craftsman sanding station on craigslist for 50$.  It’s decent, and fun to play around with.  The plan is to use it for shaping necks.

That’s all she wrote

I recently finished both guitars. It was serious crunch time, as they needed to be done for a charity auction. I auctioned off the walnut version, along with the prototype I built earlier in the year. Unfortunately (well, kind of unfortunately) the walnut didn’t sell, but the prototype did and it fetched some serious cash for my school.

I finished both guitars with a danish oil and wax combination. The oil really made the grain of both instruments pop. Each guitar got four coats of oil and sanding with 320 and 400 between each coat. I realized after applying the wax that I probably should have used a darker paste. If you look really closely at the walnut guitar, little flecks of white wax are visible in the grain of the wood. I chose not to fill the grain on the guitars. I like the natural feel of the wood, but I’m also not sure how to fill the grain and I didn’t have the time to experiment.

The electronics installation went pretty smooth. I ran each pickup through a three way mini toggle switch. The Saturn 63’s in the walnut guitar work great, with a nice round tone and some good bite. They feedback a bit with the gain turned way up. Total country with the bridge pickup on and a very unique sound with both pickups going. The p-90’s in the mahogany version have some serious crunch. However, something is wrong with the switch (read: something is wrong with my wiring job in the switch) and I can’t get the switch to reliably work.

I installed Bigsby B-5’s on each instrument along with a rolling bridge on the mahogany and a standard tune-o-matic on the walnut version. The intonation was pretty good, although the action on the mahogany guitar needs some work. I think most of the problem comes from the nut slots not being deep enough. Time to buy some more tools (nut files)!

I rushed to snap some pics of the gutiars before they sold. This made me realize I need a better camera. But, you get the idea.

Progress Report

Making neck cavaties freaks me out. I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m pretty sure the pockets are to blame. I sucked it up this weekend and routed the cavities. I used Koch’s technique of clamping the neck onto the body, and then clamping two long, dead-straight boards on each side of the neck heel. Then, I cut out a block that matched the profile of the base of the heel. After clamping these, I removed the neck and had a nice one-to-one template of the neck. I got rid of most of the wood with a fostner bit and a chisel and then routed it clean.

In this picture you can also see that the tops are glued on and the edges have been rounded with a 1/4″ round-over bit.

I also cut control cavities into the backs of the bodies. It took some serious planning to lay out everything because real estate is very limited due to the massive f-holes. I’ll be using mini-pots to save space. As of now, the plan is to wire the pickups through a 3-way micro switch (like a tele). That way, I’ll only have one master tone and one master volume knob.

Topless No more

I found a nice book matched set of flame maple on eBay for 30$. The wood was a little warped when I got it, and it’s not quartersawn (although I don’t know if figured woods can be quatersawn). This maple will be the top for the mahogany guitar. I had enough walnut leftover from making the plank so that I could make a walnut top for the walnut guitar. Using my planer, I took the one-by walnut down to 1/4″ (it was too tall to rip on the bandsaw.)

Using my dad’s jointing technique, I jointed the tops and carefully glued them together. I was not careful enough….

I ended up spending a whole night scraping my joints smooth and flush. But, some new scrapers that I bought from Lee Valley worked great. I had bought the scrapers to do the binding on the prototype. I really enjoy them. Definitely a must have.

I then used a template and a narrow 1/4″ flush trim bit to rout out the f-holes. I chewed out a sizeable chunk on both the mahogany and maple tops, but a file and sandpaper hid most of the damage.

Finally, I glued the tops onto the chambered bodies. My father always says, “You can never have enough clamps.” Case in point…

Ch-Ch-Chambers

To make the chambered body, I made a template out of MDF.  I took most of the wood out with a fostner bit and my new drill press.  Using a chisel and then a  flush trim bit, I routed out the cavities.

I kept the dept of the chambers to 3/4″.  Even though the body is nearly 1 3/4″ (with the top wood), I was hesitant to make the back of guitar too thin.  On the bass I finished last year, the entire body warped once I strung it up.  I don’t know if this was because the grain of the bottom wood was perpendicular to the grain of the top wood or if it’s just a result of making a body out of two one-by pieces of wood glued together.  Hopefully it’s the former, and these guitars (factoring in the reduced tension of lighter gauged strings) won’t warp.

The flush trim bit did a great job, and only some light sanding was required to dress up the chambers nice and pretty.

Two a Days

I showed the RD6 prototype to some coworkers and played it out one night. Happy with its looks and playability, I decided to use some seasoned walnut and mahogany that I had to build two guitars. My school has a charity auction each year, so I figured that I would build one for myself, and donate the other to the auction (and use the tax deduction to justify buying a new planer!).

Unlike the fake f-holes in the prototype, these guitars will be semi-hollow with two chambers. While the mini-humbucker and salvaged neck of the prototype were great, cheap finds, I decided to buy quality parts for these guitars. One will have Seymour Duncan vintage P-90’s (I think those will be on the one I keep) and the other will have Eastwood ‘63 vintage style single coils. I also got two Bigsby B-5 ’s.

The necks will be strat-style 24.5″ scale necks. Both are eBay finds and I’m very happy with the quality and feel of them.

The first order of business was trying out my new DeWalt 734 planer on the rough sawn mahogany and walnut. The planer is absolutely amazing, and it sure beats lugging the boards 20 miles to my friend’s house.

I then glued up the .75″ planks to make 1.5″ boards. I know this is not ideal, and it is partially the reason that the first bass body warped. However, keeping the grains parallel and planing the boards dead flat will hopefully remedy my past problems.

I then jointed the blocks. I don’t have a jointer, so I tried to use my router table to do the deed. Buy, my router table is a piece of crap, and I wasn’t happy with the joint. So, I used a technique that my dad talked me through. Using a 6-foot straight edge that he made and gave me (one of the best tools I have) I guided the router and got a perfect joint.

I then cut the boards and glued them up into 16×20″ blocks for the body

Adding Strings

Over the fall and winter, I mulled over attempting a six string electric. I came across what I thought were two solid maple doors (each weighed nearly 100 lbs), stored in the basement of the school where I work. I scooped them up and promptly took a week off from work.

I’ve always been in love with the Ampeg scroll basses. If it’s good enough for Rick Danko, then its good enough for me. After finding some images on the web, I printed them and then used a photocopier to enlarge the image to a 25.5″ scale.

I sliced into my “solid maple” doors, only to discover that they were jointed pine with a maple veneer. Still, any wood products made in Maine pre-1950 (as these doors were) have a good chance of being old growth pine, so I seized the opportunity to fine tune some new templates and to, more or less, practice.

I found a lot of guitar parts on craigslist, among which was a nice vintage Japanese neck (I’m guess its 60’s or 70’s). I also scored a brand new Kent Armstrong mini humbucker at Buckdancer’s Choice for 30 bucks.

I tried to teach myself to do binding work. I got some cream .09 x .25 binding from Stewart Macdonald and a laminate trimmer from harbor freight. In case you were wondering, a 25$ router performs exactly like a 25$ router should. But, I’m happy with the way the binding came out.

I slapped this prototype together in a month or so, and the tone is surprisingly good. Nice and warm and round.

Ike Turner Almost Ruined My Bass Guitar

I was feeling pretty giddy when the time came to screw the neck onto the body, string up the guitar, and test her out.  Feeling a bit jovial, I threw on Ike and Tina’s “Come Together” live album.  Blistering tight bass lines throughout.  That Ike could really slap it.

I couldn’t find much info on what size the pilot holes should be.  Playing it conservative (i.e. I’d rather have the screw bite a lot of wood compared to just a little), I drilled out the body pilot holes to 1/8th and the neck pilot holes to 5/64ths in order to fit the 1 3/4″ #6 screws that came with my neck plate.  I inserted the neck into the pocket, made sure it was sitting firmly in there, and then flipped the body over and began screw.

So close. . .

The screws were really hard to get in.  So hard that I couldn’t do it with a screwdriver without almost stripping out the heads.  Naturally, I did a dumb thing and used the Phillips attachment on my socket wrench to crank ‘em on home.

When all was said and done, there was a 1/32nd inch gap between the neck and neck pocket.  The wood screws bit into the body, and since I didn’t clamp the neck to body while screwing, a bit of relief formed.

After sleeping on it (figuratively, not literally), I decided to play it safe and remove the neck to drill out the body pilot holes.  I removed three of the neck screws, and, wouldn’t you know it, sheared the 4th screw right off.  Now I was stuck with a neck and body screwed together but no way to get them apart.  I gently “persuaded” the neck off, pretty much chewing up the body pilot hole.  I then had a piece of the shaft sticking out of the neck butt.

I clamped onto the shaft with some vice grips, and began to turn.  Wouldn’t you know it – I sheared the sucker off AGAIN, this time about 1/8th inch down inside the neck.  I tried to extract it, but after talking with some guys at the guitar store, they said that three bolts should be enough provided “you’re not doing any weird Jaco shit”

Electric Light Orchestra

I decided to string up the guitar to make sure all of the electronics and such worked. While my volume controls worked, the tone pot was not doing its job. When I rolled the tone all the way off, the entire signal disappeared

I am, by no means, knowledgeable about electronics. This funny for two main reasons. First, my father is an electrical engineer. Secondly, I teach electricity, chemistry and physics. After talking to some experts, I realized that I had bought a 47 micro farad capacitor. Well, let me take that back. I asked the “knowledgeable” Radio Shack guy for a 47 nano farad capacitor (the standard for a tone knob) and he handed me a 47 micro farad one, and I didn’t stop to check the label.

Anyway, what was happening was that the capacitor was way too large, and when fully activated, it was dumping the entire pickup signal to ground. Normally, they work as a low pass filter with only the high signal getting dumped.

I replaced the capacitor with one that I picked out myself, and it works great.

I’m hesitant to describe the “tone” of my guitar, for I haven’t yet set it up, intonated it, or rubbed sweet mojo on it.

I did not listen to ELO during this adventure. The Byrd’s “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” was spinning. It’s a classic. I don’t need to tell you how good it is.