Flying V build

greggreg66

Frets trimmed, side dots in (not that you can see here) and neck glued on. It's starting to look like a guitar now! Slightly annoyed with myself that I didn't remake the body thicker when I had the chance, but it's not too bad. It's funny because the neck is chunky and the body is thin, might be a neck diver! However, I'm loving it, still find it amusing that one day I'll have a flying V! (The tenon looks really loose in this pic, but I'm pleased to say its a fairly decent fit)

While I have time over the next fortnight to work on it, as my workshop is a mile from home I'm not sure if this contravene's the lockdown if I go to work on it for a few hours (in isolation)? Any views welcome on that, I'm totally on the fence but veering on the side that it's wrong.

Kalimna

Looking spectacular. Threads like yours really push me to up my game.
Looking forward to seeing the end result.

Corvus

Nice! Good to see this is still going, hope you can figure out the workshop thing

greggreg66

Cheers guys! Will definitely get it finished this year, won't be a quick turnaround sadly. It'll help that it's glued together so when it's sat in the workshop office it can wink at me and divert my attention from work! 

PeteC

Can’t wait to see next steps on your V.   I really love the way it’s shaping up -  let’s see what movement restrictions come into force, but if you can work on it in isolation away on other peeps then hopefully you can make progress.   Luckily I am working in my shed so don’t have to worry about being out and about.  

Love the body wood on your V.  

All the best...

greggreg66

Thanks @PeteC. I do have to go to work over the next couple of days (as I can't do my spray finishes from home) and can work in isolation, and whilst I'm there I could always squeeze in a little bit of guitar build time. I can't push it though as my wife is home with our daughter so unfair to burden her while I tinker in the workshop! Strange times. 

PeteC

Strange days indeed !    I guess we are all very lucky to have an interest which is so absorbing, and that you can still do in these difficult times ( assuming you've got all your materials and somewhere to work of course ) 

And of course we can sit and play guitar for hours on end too without getting bored...

Take care and stay well. 

greggreg66

Some more minute progress today after a couple of weeks away from it. Managed to get the pickup cavities routed today. Made them an arbitrary depth that was enough to fit the whole pickup in so hopefully I can jack it up a bit as needed. 

One thing I didn't do was drill a hole between the neck and bridge pickup cavities, but as the pickguard will eventually cover the gap between them I'm planning on routing a stepped channel and gluing in a fillet. I have a "tonk strip" cutter that'll make this easy. I'm quite pleased with the neck tenon fit, seems it was snug now I've routed most of it away haha!!

I've been considering colours for a little while and my thoughts are to go dark dark brown (a bit like the Grace Potter V), olive drab, or maybe change the pickup covers and do a '54 goldtop / V mashup. I think the latter would look cool, but not sure it's actually something I want.

Anyway, onwards and upwards (slowly)!

PeteC

that is one neat rout ! err...or two... 

lovely job ! 

greggreg66

Cheers pal! I was sweating bullets when I did it haha! It's snug on the width but a tad over on the length, should be okay though

greggreg66

Colour update, decided to go for "smoked cherry" pigmented clear for the top, will go for clear gloss everywhere else. I'm on the fence about attempting a stinger, think it'd look ace, but I could easily cock it up haha! All nitro lacquers.

PeteC

Now that I have to follow closely so I cannot learn about nitro finishes. My grain filler and powder stain have finally turned up this week, but I am complete newbie about nitro and spraying in general.   

PeteC

Smoked cherry sounds excellent btw. 

greggreg66

I do a fair bit of spraying, but it's a different kettle of fish as it's spraying kitchens and flat furniture panels etc which is rather to a high gloss guitar! But hopefully will managed to get it done. | have a "mix and fill" solvent base for grain filling, just need to add a fine wood powder to it and off you go.... tempted to see if I can generate enough rosewood powder to bring out the grain more. Can always stain it to help. 

I might attempt to get the bridge fitted tomorrow and the small other routing bits done today.... maybe start spraying before end of next week if the finishes arrive in time!

MattNovak

P90's and wrapover bridge would look great! Really nice build.

greggreg66

MattNovak said:

P90's and wrapover bridge would look great! Really nice build.

Thanks Matt! Its going slow but I'm enjoying it. Hopefully will get the bridge fitted very soon and then onto the finishing. 

greggreg66

Managed to get the bridge fitted today. Knocked up a quick jig inspired by @IvisonGuitars one, by taking a trip of oak and threading it to accept some sharpened pointy bolts. Instead of a trapeze another strip of oak just did the trick. So that was good, but I didn't really prepare the nut too well and the tuner (a freebie from many, many years) was total rubbish. In the end I did a 'line of best fit' by measurement, tuner and ear.

I don't think I like the Faber machine heads, they seem to have a lot of slack in them and I also made a total schoolboy error by snapping a f'kin screw for the machine head because I didn't wax it. 

The biggest downside is that I think I rushed the fret cutting as a few seem to be maybe 1mm off, so if I'm to do another guitar I will definitely make a jig and spend more time marking out. 

I'm most definitely going to slim the neck down, it's way too chunk higher up the dusty end - this was identified earlier in the build but I sat on it until now.

Hopefully with enough fuzz and volume you won't hear any intonation issues! 

Pics:

Das Jig:


Crap tuner:


Boshed it in:

PeteC

Great to see this coming along - I bet the fretwork isn't that far off ! 

Those tuners though - I have one too for my acoustic - heap of crap.  can't beat a nice plugged in hardware tuner, TC Polytune or the Peterson stuff.  Where did you get that compensated Tailpiece btw ?

greggreg66

I'm just going to have see what it's like on night, so to speak. if there's a really bad one then there's always the option of pulling the fret, filling and resawing.... but I don't really wanna be doing that at this stage. 

The bridge is the Faber compensated bridge, I bought it from GlueToMusic.

Fretting about the fretwork (bad pun) has made me ponder doing a second build but spending much more time on jigs as you did. I get a bit gung-ho and impatient!

PeteC

I know that feeling !