Explorer build FINISHED!

greggreg66

PVO_Dave said:

That's going to be a great looking guitar. 

Black with gold hardware Les Paul Custom style would look amazing as a suggestion. I've got a white with gold that I had made from Precision guitars (before Gibson told them off) and painted / finished in the UK, goes well with my custom V in the same style and my Gibson Les Paul 

That looks great. I'm currently thinking oxblood at the moment. I want to buy some pickups from a luthier I know and he has a set in nickel so I'm likely to go with that combo I think. I love the block inlays on yours though!

greggreg66

Started routing the cable channel today, arguably too wide and too deep, so lets consider this partial weight relief : )



Fret markers arrived today, so got the straight in. Sanded the board to 600g, felt lovely and smooth. Then got it fretted. Defo last time I'm using pre-cut frets. They didn't feel tooooooooooo bad, but the close-up shows otherwise. They are a bit springy at the edges. Superglue should resolve it, but I'm not impressed by the under radiussed pre-cut frets. I did run some superglue under most of the frets. I'm definitely not great at fretting!



Ran out of time, but I will soon file the fret ends flush and get on with binding it.



All I wanna do is work on the guitar. 

PeteC

Nice looking board indeed

do you have a fret press/drill press caul ?  You can superglue and re-press the frets to remove any of the gaps.   I had the same problem on a few frets in my first build and the fret press / glue trick worked well.  Otherwise lots of fret levelling to do !  

In the end I bought the Elmer fretwire bender and it works really well, would recommend it.  

The guitar is looking great. 

greggreg66

PeteC said:

Nice looking board indeed

do you have a fret press/drill press caul ?  You can superglue and re-press the frets to remove any of the gaps.   I had the same problem on a few frets in my first build and the fret press / glue trick worked well.  Otherwise lots of fret levelling to do !  

Just a hammer (!)

I had to reglue several of the ends on the V I built. This one isn't as bad - where it's lifting is mostly due to the flatter frets so it wants to lift. I tried the first few without bending the frets more and they defo popped up at the edges. I tried bending them after that, which helped, but I only did a bit of a rush job of pre-bending (further up the thread I was going to make a more robust jig but didn't bother in the end!). I've ordered a fret press insert and will make a press... the price of some of these presses are ridiculous. 

But for sure will be getting a fretwire bender for the the future. 

nickaslin

Will it be nuclear capable?

gubble

PVO_Dave said:

That's going to be a great looking guitar. 

Black with gold hardware Les Paul Custom style would look amazing as a suggestion. I've got a white with gold that I had made from Precision guitars (before Gibson told them off) and painted / finished in the UK, goes well with my custom V in the same style and my Gibson Les Paul 

That is still the best looking explorer i've ever seen and frankly one of the best looking guitars too.

Each time i think about and explorer - that's the guitar i think of.

greggreg66

nickaslin said:

Will it be nuclear capable?

Only on a Wednesday before 4pm. 

nickaslin

greggreg66 said:

nickaslin said:

Will it be nuclear capable?

Only on a Wednesday before 4pm. 

I knew you wouldn’t let me down. 

SnazzyGeezer

This ?
http://imgur.com/a/teNWRj4

But instead of gold hardware, nickel hardware
 giving it a warm vibe,without the niggles of gold plating

greggreg66

SnazzyGeezer said:

This ?
http://imgur.com/a/teNWRj4

But instead of gold hardware, nickel hardware
 giving it a warm vibe,without the niggles of gold plating

Ive ordered oxblood for the top and think I’ll going for a dark-ish stained back. Have nickel hardware too

SnazzyGeezer

I bet that'll look great.
Cant wait to see it.

greggreg66

Fretboard binding is done, thankfully! Where I bound it with sticky tape it pulled it slightly wonky, but it seems to still have bonded well. I used superglue for this and it grabbed rather quickly. 

Have got the neck carve well underway. Think I'll leave the heel until the neck is glued down so I can shape it all together.

Have now got the headstock veneer gluing up ready to trim this tomorrow (maybe!) and thickness the head and then will likely glue the neck on I reckon. 

Some pics....









I think I'll carve the heel a bit more post-gluing.



Some woodwork machine porn for everyone, because why not and I love these machines. This is my spindle moulder shown with a sanding drum on (fences were removed while I was shaping the neck). It has a digi drive for rise / fall / tilt, which is really useful. 



My planer thicknesser, also with the digi up / down on the thicknesser. 



Planing a headstock veneer, taping it to some MDF to act as a sled to pass it through as it was just below 2mm thick. 

 
Fun!

greggreg66

Neck glued on, side dots in, headstock veneer glued on. This evening I've been tackling the neck heel transition. Quite pleased with it.

The way I made the neck by planing the blank to 18mm and adding on another lump for the tenon has left a nice natural stinger, of sorts. The whitish blob by the 15th fret is where I had an earlier wobble with the router (didn't stick the template down properly!), but I needed to fill it smooth in order to route the binding channel. I used a white filler as I was hoping to lose the filler with the neck carve. I didn't. And yes, I should have just mixed sapele dust and joint filler. Whoops!

MLten80

You're dead good at this Greg!
 Handy you already had the skills before this & that V   haha 

Looking forward to seeing  completed! That neck joint is smooooth 

PeteC

This is looking fantastic.   Great work on the heel transition 

greggreg66

MLten80 said:

You're dead good at this Greg!
 Handy you already had the skills before this & that V   haha 

Looking forward to seeing  completed! That neck joint is smooooth 

PeteC said:

This is looking fantastic.   Great work on the heel transition 

Thanks guys! There's defo a few bum bits, but with the aid of smoke and mirrors I'll make it look as good as I can haha! I'm inching closer to starting on the finishing. Pickups and bridge install next I think, then finish the control cavity and onto sanding / spraying. Woohoo!

greggreg66

Okay look, I installed the ABR1 after a couple of beers and the paranoia has set in that it's wrong... looks cool though! 

Humbucker cavities mostly routed, just need to drill / route the legs a little more, though I must just route the whole lot deeper. The neck cavity looks like it has a slight wobble, there's a whisker of neck tenon remaining on the bridge side of it, but that won't harm anyone and it's all concealed. 

I think that the next post will be painting, which is my favourite part of the build. 




ABR-1 post lolz

greggreg66

First seal coats today, so an obligatory update. I want to try and go slowly with this nitro finish. But I am an impatient person so it'll be difficult. I have oxblood for the top. I was tempted to colour match the headstock, but after Whatsapp consultations it's going black. 





This is the biggest shame. Some tearout when I was being impatient with the router. The mix & fill with sapele dust didn't quite work. I have some Mohawk graining pens so I will make an attempt to conceal it. Will be tricky though so I'm not holding my breath. 



The mega switch & cable channel route just makes me laugh. Ridiculously big. At least it's all concealed though!

PeteC

Looking great.  Just consider the wiring channels to be weight relief too !  

I definitely have machine envy every time I ready through your threads.  I spent two hours hand resawing some 2” thick limba down to 35mm today so my blanks can take a maple cap.   I’d kill for a workshop like you have ( or a 13” bandsaw ).  

The finish is looking great - that initial coat already brings out the character of that wood. 

The neck and fretboard also look really good on this one . 

What’s next Greg ?  

greggreg66

Thanks @PeteC! I ended up spraying a single coat of the oxblood today and I'm really pleased with the colour. Managed to get much better results this time with better thinning of the nitro compared with my V build.

Yeah it's most definitely a blessing having the machines and workshop. If we were closer you'd be welcome to come in and use them. I've just taken delivery of a new one, an edgebander, but that's no use for guitar building sadly!

The plan was to make a non-reverse firebird next, but I've dreamt up a guitar that I'd like to try - it might change of course! A bit like a Fano RB6 and a bit like a Supro Black Holiday. It'd have a maple cap like what you're doing, a German carve, weight relieved body maybe, black top, bound (curious to try binding + german carve), P90s and wraparound bridge. That's how it sits in my mind right now anyway!

This is the first oxblood colour coat.