Finished Pics! SG-style in Yew

PeteC

Lovely bit of wood. ..did you keep the PPE on to go shopping later ?  

Looking forward to seeing the SG develop  

Andyjr1515

PeteC said:

Lovely bit of wood. ..did you keep the PPE on to go shopping later ?  

  Full face mask with cans either side.  Hmmmm...that would certainly keep everybody moving away from me pretty darned quick... 

Andyjr1515

I had a single length of David Dyke neck timber - as usual a beautiful piece of quarter-cut mahogany.  I always buy bass-length because of my slightly quirky way of doing things.

With luck, I would be able to incorporate the headstock angle and the neck angle in the one blank to be able to flip one blank over and get the mirrored end grain pattern when the two are put together.  There will be a 6mm centre splice of harder wood between the two in the finished 3-part assembly.


For anything to do with through-necks, I always start with the physical bridge in my hand and draw the thing full-size, with the adjustment ranges of the bridge so that the angles are going to be right:



You can see here why I buy the bass length.  There is then enough extra length to allow for the extra depth each neck side is going to need for the neck angle (looking like 3 degrees) and the headstock angle (I always use 10 degrees).  I wouldn't have had enough depth of blank to do this if it had been a guitar-length blank of this particular width (which is sold to be part of a multi-splice arrangement).


Cut between the two sides:




And checked that my 'upside down & back to front' stuff was correct in terms of end grain.  And luckily it was   A bit difficult to see with the saw marks, but hopefully you can see the V of the mirrored grain which should, in theory, give good stability of the finished neck and avoid twist, etc..



And then back in the shed to see if I've got anything suitable for a centre-splice.  

As always, thanks for looking and your encouraging feedback

PeteC

Thanks for explaining that approach. I have  a bass length mahogany blank very similar to that and have been wondering about the best way to cut and splice to get a stable neck after watching fletcher do something similar on a YouTube build I watched a long time ago.    

Can’t wait to see how this develops - that pic of the original yew SG had me drooling ! 

Andyjr1515

It's been a productive day.  Amazing how much you can get done when you are ordered by your Prime Minister to stay at home.  And it's amazing how much you can procrastinate about the decorating when you know you probably have thirteen more weeks of the same (so its rumoured) with a guaranteed no-one coming to visit in that time for any other reason than one where the decorating won't really matter anyway...

Got the Yew and Sapele to their final thicknesses, the Yew cut out and also found a 6mm splice of Purpleheart for the neck!


Here's the Yew, ready for final jointing (that will be just a skim on the handplane) and gluing together:


Those who have seen my previous build threads will know that I'm a bit weird in that I will file and sand the top to its final outline and use the top itself as my routing template for the body once it has been glued on.  

My logic (and remember I simply tell you what I do and absolutely not that this is how it should be done) is that way, for the finish rout of the body outline, I don't then have to let the router blades go anywhere near those decorative horn tips because - for me, at least - that is the road to misery


Tomorrow's job will be to assemble and glue the neck blank...

Teyeplayer

That looks awesome already, lovely bit of wood.

Andyjr1515

Teyeplayer said:

That looks awesome already, lovely bit of wood.

Thanks.  

Just wait until it's carved and varnished - it should be magnificent. 

shaunyshaun1234

Andyjr1515 said:

It's been a productive day.  Amazing how much you can get done when you are ordered by your Prime Minister to stay at home.  And it's amazing how much you can procrastinate about the decorating when you know you probably have thirteen more weeks of the same (so its rumoured) with a guaranteed no-one coming to visit in that time for any other reason than one where the decorating won't really matter anyway...

Got the Yew and Sapele to their final thicknesses, the Yew cut out and also found a 6mm splice of Purpleheart for the neck!


Here's the Yew, ready for final jointing (that will be just a skim on the handplane) and gluing together:


Those who have seen my previous build threads will know that I'm a bit weird in that I will file and sand the top to its final outline and use the top itself as my routing template for the body once it has been glued on.  

My logic (and remember I simply tell you what I do and absolutely not that this is how it should be done) is that way, for the finish rout of the body outline, I don't then have to let the router blades go anywhere near those decorative horn tips because - for me, at least - that is the road to misery


Tomorrow's job will be to assemble and glue the neck blank...

Lord above!! That's going to look stunning!

Andyjr1515

shaunyshaun1234 said:
Lord above!! That's going to look stunning!

Thanks 
- as long as I don't c**k it up, of course

AustrianJohn

Another great build thread from @Andyjr1515 Thanks!

Roland

Andyjr1515 said:

shaunyshaun1234 said:
Lord above!! That's going to look stunning!

Thanks 
- as long as I don't c**k it up, of course

1. Some of the things you would class as a cock up the rest of us wouldn’t notice.
2. We have confidence that you can solve them, and will enjoy watching you do it.

Who was it said that woodwork is about solving your mistakes?

Andyjr1515

Roland said:

Andyjr1515 said:

shaunyshaun1234 said:
Lord above!! That's going to look stunning!

Thanks 
- as long as I don't c**k it up, of course

1. Some of the things you would class as a cock up the rest of us wouldn’t notice.
2. We have confidence that you can solve them, and will enjoy watching you do it.

Who was it said that woodwork is about solving your mistakes?

Probably the same person who also said that a definition of a guitar build is a series of compromises held together with hope  

mikenetic

I had no idea that the entire tree was poisonous. I'd heard the berries were, but it's like the arboreal equivalent of a puffer fish!

Andyjr1515

To my fellow builders, particularly the ones just starting out on this crazy journey:  

If you don't already use hand planes and you are in lockdown, then one of the best things you could possibly do with the time is to watch a few videos on YouTube of how to set one up and adjust and use a hand plane and, crucially, how to sharpen the blades.

And I say that as one who, until my late 50's, had only ever used my handed down Stanley plane the way my father had and, no doubt his father before him - to smooth out the lumps and bumps in poorly home-plastered walls!   

And that was because the possibility of actually cutting wood with them - even soft woods like pine - was, quite simply, fanciful

And now, for me, planing a piece of wood ranks as one of the most pleasing and satisfying parts of the whole building process.

 

So what was I planing this time round?

Well - having found a piece of leftover purpleheart 6mm splice, it was time to assemble the neck blank.  Before I did that, I wanted to make sure I could maintain a flat surface that the fretboard would eventually glue to, so I put the two mahogany halves together, lined them up and just skimmed the combined top full length with the plane to square it up.

Then glued, assembled and clamped it all to within an inch of its life and I have my 3-part blank:

 

Next jobs on the neck blank will be:

- Routing the trussrod slot

- Thickessing to final width

- Cutting the plan and side profiles on the band-saw, ready for the bottom wings to be glued on (after, of course, checking the sizes, re-checking, checking the checks, walking away and then coming back to check again )

 

Stay safe and thanks, as always, for watching. 

randella

Roland said:

Who was it said that woodwork is about solving your mistakes?

Absolutely anyone who's ever worked with wood, if they were honest about it

There's something incredibly soothing about these build threads - ASMR I believe is the fashionable term nowadays.

impmann

Andyjr1515 said:

To my fellow builders, particularly the ones just starting out on this crazy journey:  

If you don't already use hand planes and you are in lockdown, then one of the best things you could possibly do with the time is to watch a few videos on YouTube of how to set one up and adjust and use a hand plane and, crucially, how to sharpen the blades.

And I say that as one who, until my late 50's, had only ever used my handed down Stanley plane the way my father had and, no doubt his father before him - to smooth out the lumps and bumps in poorly home-plastered walls!   

And that was because the possibility of actually cutting wood with them - even soft woods like pine - was, quite simply, fanciful

And now, for me, planing a piece of wood ranks as one of the most pleasing and satisfying parts of the whole building process.

 

So what was I planing this time round?

Well - having found a piece of leftover purpleheart 6mm splice, it was time to assemble the neck blank.  Before I did that, I wanted to make sure I could maintain a flat surface that the fretboard would eventually glue to, so I put the two mahogany halves together, lined them up and just skimmed the combined top full length with the plane to square it up.

Then glued, assembled and clamped it all to within an inch of its life and I have my 3-part blank:

 

Next jobs on the neck blank will be:

- Routing the trussrod slot

- Thickessing to final width

- Cutting the plan and side profiles on the band-saw, ready for the bottom wings to be glued on (after, of course, checking the sizes, re-checking, checking the checks, walking away and then coming back to check again )

 

Stay safe and thanks, as always, for watching. 

I've *always* wanted to learn how to set up, sharpen and use my dad's and grandfather's planes. I have them both here and they've been in a box for *YEARS*. I had a fiddle with them last year, actually, but was totally out of my depth and genuinely don't fully understand them.

Thats a great piece of advice... thanks. I wonder if I can actually manage to do anything constructive with them.

randella

impmann said:

I've *always* wanted to learn how to set up, sharpen and use my dad's and grandfather's planes. I have them both here and they've been in a box for *YEARS*. I had a fiddle with them last year, actually, but was totally out of my depth and genuinely don't fully understand them.

Thats a great piece of advice... thanks. I wonder if I can actually manage to do anything constructive with them.

Do it!  Honestly, it's a lovely thing when you get a plane sharpened and cutting just right.  I have a couple of Japanese water stones for sharpening, I don't think they have to be deadly expensive (these were a present).

As well as learning how to set the plane, it's worth taking a bit of time to understand grain direction - generally you want to be cutting along grain that's running 'uphill', so to speak.  Even the best plane will struggle if you're cutting the other way.

PhilKing

I was lucky enough to grow up with a father who was a joiner.  He had a full set of hand tools and taught me the use of all of them.  he would still use hand tools for finishing, even when he had power tools for all the jobs.  Unfortunately, he now has Alzheimer's and doesn't remember what the tools are for.  I've inherited a few of his tools and still use them myself, though I don't have his skills!

I was using one of his planes last weekend in fitting out my studio.

PeteC

Great that these hand tools are still getting used - and often producing superior results too. 

I was lucky enough "inherit" a few planes from my good friend's late father's collection, including some really nice Bailey smoothing and jointing planes.   I didn't know what to do with hem until a few years ago when I started looking for info on Youtube. 
Now they are flattened, tuned and sharp !  I love using them.  

One thing I really like about these old working planes is that joiners often used to stamp girls names on the sides of their planes so that the would be able to prove ownership if they went "walkies" on site or in workshops.   I recently jointed the Idigbo body of only my second build using a circa 1940's Bailey jointer called "Eva".....I wonder what the story was behind how she got her name..? 

A real pleasure to watch and learn from your work @Andyjr1515 ;

Andyjr1515

Thanks for the kind feedback, folks.  And it's nice to see my love of planes is widely shared

Mine's got something scribed on the side, @PeteC ; - I'll have a peep.  Probably Plane Jane.

I'll get my coat....