COVID-19 I'm now in total isolation, so lots of building to do.

Lebarque

Any sign of any alder yet, @GSPBASSES ?

GSPBASSES

A few years back I was asked to make a Strat from Korina with a Koa top, the customer supplied the Koa top. Unfortunately, I cocked it up, I routed for HB in the neck position and it should have been SC. I made another for one after tracking down a Koa top of the same quality that the customer supplied. 

The point of the storey, while I was checking through the wood store looking for half-finished projects, I come across the body again. It had been badly stored, the back of the guitar was right next to a window so it was getting hot and cold, consequently the centre join had opened up slightly. It could only go a little way into the body as I use biscuit jointing, so it could only open-up as far as the biscuit. It’s such a beautiful body I decided to repair it. To do the repair are use a glue called Glue Doctor, the glue is as thin as water so can be easily be injected into cracks, see picture below.

After the glue set for a couple of day’s I cleaned it up, you can just about see the repair so I'm pretty happy with that.

 I wiped some white spirit on the top so you can see just how pretty it is.



I also finished a F hole TC, it has a roasted Maple neck with a Rosewood fingerboard.

GSPBASSES

Lebarque said:

Any sign of any alder yet, @GSPBASSES ?

Not yet I'm afraid, most of my suppliers are on lock down, so are not buying wood, I also don't think the importers are working.

Teyeplayer

Now that Koa topped strat really is rather fetching! That will make someone very happy.

GSPBASSES

 

I did not manage to get all the Fender type work done in April, I have one more Cabronita Tele with Filtertron pickups routs to do. I should have that finished by lunchtime Monday, the neck is already made. The body is fully chambered so it will be a thin line with a f hole, the cap is bookmatched.

GSPBASSES

Just about finished the Cabronita Tele with Filtertron pickups routs, I won't do any more to it now until it has a buyer. The neck I allocated to it is roasted Maple with a Rosewood Fingerboard, I think I'll make another neck as this one only has 21 frets most people want 22 on a Cabronita.

Teyeplayer

GSPBASSES said:

Just about finished the Cabronita Tele with Filtertron pickups routs, I won't do any more to it now until it has a buyer. The neck I allocated to it is roasted Maple with a Rosewood Fingerboard, I think I'll make another neck as this one only has 21 frets most people want 22 on a Cabronita.

Love it, wish I had the spare funds!

GSPBASSES

GSPBASSES said:

Lebarque said:

Any sign of any alder yet, @GSPBASSES ?

Not yet I'm afraid, most of my suppliers are on lock down, so are not buying wood, I also don't think the importers are not working.

@Lebarque I had a few inquiries about making Alder Jazzmasters, I went and check my stock of part finished Alder bodies, there was one that I had not routed the tremolo. This might suit what you need, I believe when you fit HB pickups to Jazzmaster they are mounted on the pick guard so the routing underneath could be the same as a normal Jazzmaster. It will only need and angle routing into the neck pocket for the TOM bridge.

The body is a B grade there a couple of knots in the wood, see photo below.

GSPBASSES

The two very pretty fully chambered  TC’s that I couldn't decide how to route, a  customer has taken them with only the neck pockets routers.

GSPBASSES

I went to use my laser leveller today, unfortunately it don't work anymore, but it is about 15 years old and well used. I managed to find a replacement at my local Screwfix store, Quick phone call to my son, he went and picked it up for me.

I use the laser for checking the centre line on necks with a tilt back headstock, see photo below.

GSPBASSES

HELP 

I’ve never had to rout for mini humbuckers. I‘ve been looking to buy a routing jig I can only find them in America, does anyone know where I could buy some in the UK. 

 Is there a standard routing for them or several different sizes. 

  Has anybody got the plans or a PDF file of them that I could buy from you. 

TTony

If I had such a thing, I’d gladly run you off a copy.  Will check, but I’m 99.9% sure that I don’t.

johnl

Not sure if it's more or less helpful but this shop is in Denmark:

https://tlcguitargoods.com/en/routing-template-mini-humbucker-6-string-pick-up.html

If this is for my SG I was going to use Gibson-style mini hums which fit in a P90 route (I think?) 

The very end of this article has a routing template (or actually a template for making a template) for a mini humbucker:

http://www.projectguitar.com/tutorials/instrument-building/router-basics-humbucker-pickup-routing-with-pickup-ring-r73/

GSPBASSES

I haven't managed to get my 2 guitars finished this week, although I did finish three that were nearly completed the week before. Got a bit distracted on other things still guitar related though.

I did make a start on the 6 string V 90, I routed the body ready for to glue the neck in plus the rear cavity, The Jack plate cavity and the leg rest cavity, Plus making a start on the 6 string neck.

The construction of my neck joint is different from how Gibson do it, if you look at the first picture below that is the standard body template. Note the square end to the body, I don't use that, if you look at the second photo I've added some length plus rounding it off. By doing this it means I don't have to have the neck going down that deep on passing the tenon. It also saves a lot of time making the tenon. I also don't reduce the width of the neck as it goes into the body. I use a full width tenon again this saves a lot of time and effort.  

GSPBASSES

johnl said:

Not sure if it's more or less helpful but this shop is in Denmark:

https://tlcguitargoods.com/en/routing-template-mini-humbucker-6-string-pick-up.html

If this is for my SG I was going to use Gibson-style mini hums which fit in a P90 route (I think?) 

The very end of this article has a routing template (or actually a template for making a template) for a mini humbucker:

http://www.projectguitar.com/tutorials/instrument-building/router-basics-humbucker-pickup-routing-with-pickup-ring-r73/

Thanks for the info

The routing jigs I'm looking for are not for your guitar, but do make sure the pickup’s you are going to use fit the sandard P90 rout.

guitargeek62

Add one of those Vs to my wishlist 

GSPBASSES

 

The first of the V90’s is finished, as this is going out to the trade it will not be fretted. If you're not familiar with the V 90 they're a bit different to all the other V’s. The first big difference it doesn't use the normal Gibson scale length, it has the Gibson long scale 25.5”, also quite a few of them had a just a humbucker at the bridge, or a humbucker in the bridge and a single coil in the neck position, quite a few of them also had a Floyd Rose locking trem. Two other differences one it had a tummy cut, they also had a fold away leg rest, this made it easy to play sitting down.

I should point out these are not facsimiles of the original V90’s, it’s  based on the shape, the layout has a  few obvious changes, the main one being the controlled cavity is on the back of the guitar not on the front with a scratch plate. It has dot inlays, not the fancy ones that Gibson used to use. Normally they have a bound neck but the customer did not want it bound. On this particular one the jack socket is on the underside of the upper V, not on the face of the body.

greggreg66

Love the V!

timmypix

GSPBASSES said:

 

I did not manage to get all the Fender type work done in April, I have one more Cabronita Tele with Filtertron pickups routs to do. I should have that finished by lunchtime Monday, the neck is already made. The body is fully chambered so it will be a thin line with a f hole, the cap is bookmatched.

Really cool to see these as I acquired a chambered body of yours Graham, and I didn't realise it was chambered until I went to line the control cavity with foil!

GSPBASSES

Back to work on the 7 string V 90’s, I need a new body template, the overall shape will be the same but where the neck joins the body needs to be slightly wider to accommodate the 7 string neck. I also need a new template for the neck joint, this new jig will have the neck angle built into it.

I already know the neck angle needs to be 2.7 degrees, although I did change this as I was cutting the neck joint to 3 degrees. This is quite an easy job to set the angle on this jig, I lay the neck jig on a flat bench with a digital angle Finder set to zero degrees. I then place different thicknesses of wood under the jig near the front until I get the angle required, once this is done the correct thickness of wood is attached to jig.

The necks have been glued into the bodies.

I forgot to take photos of how I machine out the neck pocket, I have another 6 string V to make later in the week I will take photos of that.