WIP - Making of the mini-guitars begins

Kalimna

Greetings folks,

Following on from the previous few posts requesting advice etc., here is the start of my two mini-scale builds (for Isaac and Sebastian, 5 & 7). So far, I have traced the outline of a couple of Fender shapes (using CorelDraw), spray glued onto 3/4 birch ply and using a combo of jig-saw/bandsaw,disc sander and bobbin sander (!) trimmed to shape.

The wood I am using was purchased from David Dyke, and came in a rather random assortment of lengths/widths/shapes. It is horse chestnut, and so far has been beautiful to work - silky shavings off the plane and very fine grained. A little easy to dent, but fairly lightweight.

A bit of moving the various bits of wood around, and I have enough for 3 mini-size bodies. Unfortunately the rather delicate spalting will be covered either with solid black or solid metallic red (yep, nice easy colours for a first spray!).

So, the first photo's. The joints have been nearly-planed to allow rough positioning, but will sit for a week in the house prior to planing worthy of glue.

https://i.imgur.com/DQZk3AZ.jpg?1

https://i.imgur.com/uMbRkYX.jpg?1

Comments welcome,

Adam

Ravenous

Looking good... It is a truth universally acknowledged, that every grown-up should own at least one shortie scale...

Kalimna

Well, by the end of this, there will be 3 of them in the house I was going to go for a JEM-style with the leftovers, but could only fit a PRS template... When we took the boys into GuitarGuitar Glasgow, I couldn't get over how much fun the Squier Mini's and Ibanez Mikro were - fretwork was pretty awful mind you. So I figured that if our two were going to receive a mini guitar each from Santa, then they might as well have guitars their dad would like to play. Plus, it's a nice thing to make stuff for folk.

With any luck I will get a little bit more done before the weekend.

Adam

paulnb57

Great start, looking forward to the next instalment.....

DrBob

You can adopt me if you need a recipient for that third guitar 

Kalimna

Cheers - not sure we're up for adoption just yet, but could probably do swapsies for a pedalboard So long as you dont mind flourescent pink

Adam

DrBob

Kalimna said:

Cheers - not sure we're up for adoption just yet, but could probably do swapsies for a pedalboard So long as you dont mind flourescent pink

Adam

It's a good point you make, I must get that sorted ! 

Kalimna

Rightyo, I thought I would do a quick update on some more work I carried out today. Not too much, but glued up all the blanks, and ran two of them through the thicknesser. A couple of things I noticed today - the horse chestnut is lovely to work with, planes beautifully. Also, my planing is in need of some major practice. I reckon I was spending 25-45 minutes per joint (i.e. 2 surfaces) getting it spot on. They are still not absolutely perfect, but given the light coloured nature of the wood I defy anyone to see the glue line (apart from the obvious grain changes). Oh, and was rather chuffed with some of the shavings, so measured it out at 0.0015" thick

So, first up is one half of the mini-Strat with a wispy shaving on top :

https://i.imgur.com/1FWjTgy.jpg?1

Next we have that wispy shaving betwixt the jaws of a measuring thingy :

https://i.imgur.com/UIIzYCK.jpg?1 ;

A snake of Titebond I :

https://i.imgur.com/k4zS7PN.jpg?1

And being run through my trusty, but dusty, thicknesser : 

https://i.imgur.com/z5lE5IK.jpg?1

Here we have a photo of the glue up for the mini-Jag. Perhaps highlighting one of the other tricky aspects so far. The wood I purchased arrived in several random shapes/widths, and arranging these to fit the guitar outline involved some rather awkward clamping. I am not sure I arrived at the best solution, and there were a few internal swear words during glue-up, but it seemed to work.
There is a maxim for any type of woodwork which states "You can never have too many clamps". I would like to add "And they should all be open before a glue up". A couple of times I had to reach for new clamps (despite having done a dry run) or blocks, and it adds an extra, unwanted, layer of stress.

https://i.imgur.com/UTZGYOU.jpg?1

Lastly, here is the mini-Jag having gone through the thicknesser. You cant really see it from the photo (snapped with my phone), but the glue lines are near-as-dammit invisible. It will be interesting to see how the random-width-bits-of-wood approach to the guitar body affects the final sound. In retrospect, I perhaps should have rearranged the pieces so that the densest/hardest where on the inside. However, I didn't and I am not going to bandsaw through the joint lines to re-do it!

https://i.imgur.com/nLlkHtw.jpg?1

That's it for now. Due to 12 hr shifts this weekend, I don't expect to get much done for a week or so, but that will again give the bodies time to acclimate before I start routing the outline and places for the pickups and neck to go.

As always, comments are welcomed, and critique appreciated.

Adam

Kalimna

Ok, a little more of an update - I got a few things done today. I managed to draw up plans for both instruments, and checked that everything fits ok. I think it does -  the only thing I haven't settled on is the headstock shape (it will be, hopefully, straight string over the nut, 6-inline) and pickguard shape). So here is the mini-Jag replete with Oil City pickups and tuners.

https://i.imgur.com/ntuhh5P.jpg?2

Next up are the neck blanks and fingerboards - ebony and purpleheart

https://i.imgur.com/L2VRXGw.jpg?1

And here we have me sawing the neck blank for the scarf joint, then realising I need a deeper tenon saw... (btw, those two saws represent my half of the engagement presents when my wife and I got engaged - she got a ring, I got some tools )

https://i.imgur.com/CwP0kOe.jpg?1

https://i.imgur.com/3sZOb2Z.jpg

Since the photos were taken, I've planed the scarf joints and reduced the thickness of the headstock portion. There are also extra bits to widen the headstock once the scarf has been glued.

Thanks for looking,

Adam

lysander

Love it. Bonus point for the hand tools

Kalimna

Cheers - though the purpleheart i have seems to resist all efforts at hand planing. Reversing grain and massive tearout. The maple is a dream in comparison!

Adam

lysander

I hate when that happens. Can you use a scraper or is there too much you need to take off ?

Kalimna

Even a freshly sharpened scraper struggled. Sanding all the way, unfortunately. Very easy to waste abrasive strips on my drum sander - it gums up/burns on something chronic. Looks fab when done though

Kalimna

I have a couple of HNT Gordon planes that do a reasonable job, but i still struggle to set the blade with them.

Kalimna

Okay, have posted an update on this for a while, but I've managed to get a fair bit done over the last month or so. I will probably flip between the two different body shapes, but the process is nearly identical except for some of the cavity routing and colour spraying later on. As always, critique is welcomed, and please ask any questions you may have....

First up is a little more work on the necks, starting with the routing of the truss-rod channel. For this, I used a round-bottomed bit and the fence on my router as a guide, registered on one side of the neck which had been planed true. There is very little wood between the top of the truss-rod and the fingerboard, but a slim fillet of maple is glued in anyway. This is also an excellent example of my tidy workbench.... Not photographed was the cutting of a taper in the neck - I do this prior to installing the fretboard, and use a template I made with a bearing-guided router bit.

https://i.imgur.com/7bKVl4Y.jpg

Next step in my workflow is to cut the slots on the fretboard. Yes, I could purchase pre-slotted fingerboards, but the choice of timber is more limited, and I would be unable to use bits from my stash. Plus I get more satisfaction from doing it myself. Having said that, I do rely on the StewMac fret-mitre-box and templates. For these guitars, I used a PRS 25" scale starting with the 3rd fret position as the 1st. This gave me a 22 1/4" scale, which approximates to the Squier Mini and Ibanez Mikro guitars these are loosely based on.
Here is the purpleheart, a fairly brittle piece of wood, but easier to saw than the ebony.

https://i.imgur.com/J61Rqnf.jpg

With the fretboard slotted, I then glue onto the neck, as I still have access to the centreline on both, for ease of alignment. To prevent the fretboard from slipping under clamping with glue present, I predrill through a couple of fretboard slots into the neck (with the 'board dry-clamped and in position) and hammer in a couple of small nails which are then removed after the glue has dried.
Here are the two necks with fingerboards attached and preparations for the fret marker installation (white and gold MoP)

https://i.imgur.com/SyyL8rQ.jpg

With the fret-dots glued in place (medium cyanoacrylate) I can now camber the fingerboard. There are many ways to do this, but I use radiused sanding blocks (this one made by Phil of Philly Planes - excellent wooden planes made in UK) and elbow grease. You can see the cross-hatching that lets me know how the radius is progressing from flat (pencil marks) to curved (sanded wood). I start with 80-grit and with the purpleheart and ebony I finish with P1200 I think it was to achieve a fairly smooth satiny finish.

https://i.imgur.com/bgoekQP.jpg

Whilst working on aspects of the neck, I set about turning the body blanks into guitar-shaped things. With the bodies roughly bandsawn to outline, I use one of the self-made body templates to refine the shape. Once this has been done, I place the neck in position (approx join at 16th fret) and firmly clamp in place. As the taper has been cut in the neck, I MacGyver a neck-pocket template out of some straight-edged pieces of birch ply (technique from the Koch book), triple check the depth of the pocket and rout away. Later on I discovered that I hadn't routed the pocket deep enough on one of the bodies so had to further MacGyver a new jig based on the old pocket. If I had a very short bearing-guided router bit, it would have been a lot easier, but I don't, so it wasn't. The various clamps in the picture are to hold everything securely. It looks a mess, but it works. One thing I have done in the past, but forgot to do here was add a strip of tape to the straight edges once set up - the effect of which is to make the neck pocket a slightly tighter fit, which can be useful.

https://i.imgur.com/XA6CAUL.jpg

And test fit of a neck with check of bridge position(ish) and saddle height.

https://i.imgur.com/nguDpnK.jpg

And the last photo for now, both necks test-fitted (will stay by friction alone) and a view of the overall guitar shape. I'll say now that I'm not too happy with the headstock shape, but I didn't want to slavishly copy an existing design (bizarre when you consider the body shapes) and my creative side just didnt come up with the goods. They will work, just not convinced they look 'right'.

https://i.imgur.com/jRArPJr.jpg

For the next installment, I'll mostly be shaping the bodies and using a lot of cyano.
Thanks for reading this short post, and question away

Cheers,
Adam

DannyP

Cool progress, I like the way you work!

Plukky

Are you going to finish in time for xmas???

Kalimna

Thanks DannyP.
And Plukky, thats the plan. Plenty of time. Im much further on than the above post, i just havent posted the details yet (both bodies lacquered and one polished, frets installed both necks, both necks carved and tuner holes drilled). Another hour or two polishing the other body followed by an hour or two per guitar doing the fret levelling etc. And another hour or two per guitar wiring up and tuning.... yeah, plenty of time

Adam

paulnb57

Great progress, great gifts!

Winny_Pooh

Looking great

Andyjr1515

Great skills on show here and results are looking pretty sparky too