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Post by brianloco on Jul 14, 2015 20:41:17 GMT -6
I started making another guitar of my own design. Red alder for the body rosewood for the neck and an ebony fretboard |
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Post by brianloco on Jul 14, 2015 20:45:07 GMT -6
The body wood had a decent bow in it so I used a hand plane to get it as flat as I felt reasonable, still waiting to buy a planer to make it easier but at least it's good practice. Then sanded with 60 grit to even and smooth it out where the plane jumped around on me Attachments:
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Post by brianloco on Jul 14, 2015 20:53:44 GMT -6
After all that was done I used a piece of 1/4 inch phenolic to make my router jig. I traced the body shape onto the phenolic from my paper drawing of the body, rough cut it out on my 10" bandsaw and then sanded to the lines using a spindle sander. Then using my template I traced the body shape onto my blank and rough cut it out. Attached the template onto the body and started routing out the shape. I started with a plunge router with a 1/2 flush cut bit with three bearings on the shaft working around in steps until I had a little more than a quarter inch of material left to cut off. I then switched to the router table with a top bearing 1/2 bit to finish up the cut. |
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Post by brianloco on Jul 14, 2015 20:55:08 GMT -6
After routing I sanded the body again to smooth out any rough spots on the front and back and cleaned up some of the routing with the spindle sander Attachments:
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Post by brianloco on Jul 14, 2015 21:00:24 GMT -6
Now onto the neck. So this is my first attempt at making my own neck so I hope it comes out alright. I marked the angle for the scarf cut and cut by eye on the bandsaw. Needless to say the cut was less than perfect so I cleaned it up best I could with the disc sander and glued it up. While clamping it seemed I had a little slippage so it looks like I'm going to have to scrape or sand til the little step is gone and everything is even. That's where I'm at with this now |
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Post by dnic on Jul 15, 2015 7:49:38 GMT -6
Wow, I think I like that body shape. I'm not being critical it's very interesting and it's very different. From the practical woodworking perspective, the short grain on the lower horn is structurally weak and will likely snap off if dropped. Design, looks wise, what I like about this are the horns with the narrow waist. Design, playable wise, depending on where the neck meets the body (which fret) the lore horn could really restrict access to the top frets.
You're doing a great job on this. Just take your time on the neck and think all the way to end of the whole process before you make any cuts that commit you.
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Post by dnic on Jul 15, 2015 7:56:42 GMT -6
A little tip on scarf joints. Clamp the neck down to the bench, pre align the head and clamp a block down to the bench at the end/top so it can't slide down the glue joint. Leave the the neck and block clamped in place and glue up, then clamp the head down to the bench, then clamp the joint. Things should pretty much stay where they belong.
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Post by hoz on Jul 15, 2015 8:01:11 GMT -6
Wild guitar! I definitely like seeing people break the standard guitar mold.
My last scarf joint slipped on me too. Luckily the contact was still good, but I had to do a little final leveling before attaching the fingerboard.
Are you using a traditional style truss rod or the straight channel kind?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2015 9:56:50 GMT -6
I have used a few different ways of doing doing scarf joints. My favorite way of attaching tow peaces of wood is using staples.
Find two spots on the wood that wont get carved. or where the staples will interfere with the carve.
put the staples in the wood, cut off one of the legs of the staple so that all that id is left is a little nub. Press the two peaces of wood together to get in imprint, then put glue on, clamp the wood together. The wood won't slip around.
This is just one way I do scarf joints, gluing up body or attaching body wings on and so on. It really works good, and you will never see the staples.
EB
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Post by brianloco on Jul 15, 2015 15:10:26 GMT -6
Thanks guys those are some good ideas on gluing the scarf joint I'll have to try them out next time around. Dnic I didn't think about top fret access when I was drawing it out until I cut the body and laid one of the necks I have on it I does kinda get in the way but I have long fingers so I might be able to go underneath the horn since body is narrow or I'll just use it for rhythm. As far as truss rod goes I haven't decided yet I don't really know much about them so I'm open to any suggestions. I was looking into the hot rod from Stewmac but I saw that it didn't get the greatest reviews a lot of people said theirs broke during installation
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Post by latestrummer on Jul 15, 2015 17:17:22 GMT -6
The scarf joint I've done I predrilled 2 screws outside of where the neck narrows and they kept it from slipping. This was learned after a failed attempt.
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Post by latestrummer on Jul 15, 2015 17:19:56 GMT -6
Very cool design!
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Post by dnic on Jul 15, 2015 19:23:34 GMT -6
Never had any trouble with stews truss rods or any others for that matter. Stew does recommend pre stressing their rod to make sure it doesn't break. They may have gotten a batch with bad welds.
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Post by GuitarAttack Forum on Jul 16, 2015 6:20:54 GMT -6
I've used a large number of Hot Rods from StewMac and they've all been very reliable. I'm with Dane - it might have been a bad batch.
John
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Post by hoz on Jul 16, 2015 8:29:57 GMT -6
Yeah, must be a bad batch. No problems here with the the hotrod truss. Last build with the thumbwheel rod, I installed it upside down so the wheel would be closer to the surface. It's going to confuse a guitar tech in the future!
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