New scratchplate

AustrianJohn

One of my first projects was to renovate an old Hohner. I was pleased with the results, but after a while I thought the blue scratchplate was a bit too ... well ... blue. So on a recent visit to the UK I had the pleasure of visiting David Dyke and picked up an interesting piece of burl wood from which to make a new scratchplate.

   

First step was to make a template (10mm plywood) from the blue scratchplate. Using the thin scratchplate as a template wasn't easy, but a bit of sanding and some filler soon had the template the right shape.I then made a 5mm plywood scratchplate from the template, just to make sure the process worked ok. Left to right these pictures are the template, the plywood and the real thing.

   

As the guitar is finished with a washed blue stain followed by Tru oil, I tried something similar on an off-cut, but the colour hides some of the figure, and the wood is lovely with just a Tru oil finish so that's what I'll do. Now I'm waiting for a chamfer router bit to arrive that will tidy the edges.

AustrianJohn

I had some wood left over so decided to use the same wood for the headstock and the rear cavity cover.I used the jig that I had built for reducing the depth of a body to add a top to reduce the thickness of the headstock. After some sanding I glued the new wood in place.

  

AustrianJohn

Headstock edges have been routed. I need to remove the paint from the orginal wood around the truss rod as the transition is a bit stark.


I now have several coats of Tru oil on some offcuts. These are (from left to right), blue stain, heavily diluted blue stain, no stain.

   

I think the figure is shown best in the middle one - so that's what I'll use.

AustrianJohn

Worked on the back of the guitar this morning. I routed out space for the tremolo spring cover so it sits flush with the body. Pics are (1) after the rout, (2) with the cover in place, (3) cover wetted to give an idea of what the finished article will look like.

   

Still waiting for the chamfer router bit to arrive  

AustrianJohn

Chamfer router bit has arrived and done it's work. First coat of Tru-oil applied.



Headstock is finished and ready to be put back together again.



Back cover plate is also good to go.

AustrianJohn

Project completed and guitar put back together again. Close up both the headstock and the scratchplate look cool. But from a distance the effect is lost. I guess that the message is to use wood with BIG and BOLD figure rather than very fine patterns, no matter how pretty the fine patterns are.

   

Sporky

Very nice work - that's some astounding timber. I don't see it as a bad thing that it's best up close.

PVO_Dave

Great job!

Adam_MD

Wow not to my taste but the skills are impressive. I tip my hat to your sir.

WezV

AustrianJohn said:

 But from a distance the effect is lost. I guess that the message is to use wood with BIG and BOLD figure rather than very fine patterns, no matter how pretty the fine patterns are.

Its lost because of the background  colour.   If you put this plate on a black body the figure would really pop