Starting out in guitar building - There will be questions!

WezV

That looks better.

These days I always do neck carves in a couple of sessions as there is always something to smooth out

SteveF

Thanks Wez.  

Starting to think about the fretwork now.  A couple of questions if I may.

1. I have a few options on tools.  I have a 6" fret levelling file, a 1" x 3" x 18" (I think) aluminium section that I could use as a sanding beam or I could use the 18" radius beam that I did the fretboard with.  Any advice on the best approach to try for a beginner? 

2. Should I glue the frets in or just hammer them in? (also, is it worth radiusing a piece of wood and practicing putting in a couple of frets, or is it fairly straight forward with little to go wrong?) 

3. Deepening fret slots.  Should I cut them flat to a set depth, or try to match the radius of the board?

davros

For cutting the fret slots, I would stick a piece of wood to the side of the fret saw as a depth stop and deepen the slots to a little more than the tang length. This would follow the radius of the board.

With an unbound neck I would hammer in the frets dry then wick some super glue in the ends to fill the cavity under the slot and the ends of the slot.

SteveF

Frets in, gaps filled with thin superglue and rosewood dust, frets levelled, crowned, ends dressed and all polished up.  

Decided to go with the file for the levelling, then used a sanding beam for fallaway.  Tried a couple of ways to crown the frets, but I didn't really like the type that does both sides at the same time.  Didn't feel as controlled and couldn't see what I was doing.  Ended up using a triangular fret crowning file and found that much better.

Certainly a learning curve.  Probably ended up taking a little more off than I would have with more experience but they were tall frets anyway and all seems level and smooth so fingers crossed for when it's all strung up! I also think I may have overdone the bevel slightly in places - hopefully not enough to cause a problem. 

PhilKing

They look great

TTony

Nice work there @SteveF ;

BillDL

You did a great job at recrowning and polishing those frets.  Wow!

SteveF

Thanks all. @BillDL for the last step i used a dremel with a felt polishing bit and some honing compound that I use for my planes and chisels. It’s green veritas stuff but I’m not sure what grit that equates to.  

PeteC

Nice work.   Did you round off the fret edges when you did your bevelling if the fret ends ? - it might be the picture but zooming in looks like there are a couple of sharp corners that might feel better rounded off.  Hard to tell from the photo 

you’ll probably find yourself making lots of tweaks like that anyway once its strung up and you can play it for a while and see how it feels - I certainly did on my first few builds.  Its great to be able
to make these adjustments and finesse the playability - you learn an awful lot about what makes a guitar play well. 

Lovely job - looking forward to seeing it all come together 

SteveF

I did, some are a little more subtle than others though to be fair - I'll get more consistent with practice I am sure  

The top pic of the full neck is before I did the levelling and fret end dressing.  Only the last picture is after the whole process.  I wasn't 100% on the best order so I did: 

- Frets in
- Beveled the ends, then realised I needed to flatten the little bits of tang that were proud that the bevel wouldn't touch, so did that and ran over the bevel again. 
- Leveled the tops
- Crowned
- Dressed the ends. 

BillDL

It takes a bit of practice to get into a good swing and dressing the fret ends with a safe-edged triangular file, but once you have the knack it becomes a much less laborious task.  I keep meaning to buy one of those slim straight concave files that are simlar to crowning files but are intended to make it quicker and easier to do the bulk of the rounding off by just dipping them over the edges of the frets inline with the fret, but I think I can do just as good a job with my old triangular files and it doesn't take me too long.  I often do this while watching TV, because it's mostly a feel thing rather than being visually demanding.

SteveF

Interesting.  I used a triangular crowning file for the crowning, but a straight safe edged file for the fret ends like in this video: 



I wasn't a fan of the concave crowning file I tried. 

SteveF

I'm quickly learning that there are a million ways to do all of this stuff

SteveF

Well I wish I’d seen this before cutting my body out with a jigsaw - genius. 

https://youtube.com/shorts/-W7rmLAXClo?si=9699MoaYuEpkWJTS

BillDL

I need a new jigsaw, but I only realised this as I was roughing out my last body.  The mechanism that grips the blade and then supports it has become looser over the years and ends up steering off-vertical even when the saw is held down hard to the flat surface.  I'm glad I left a little bit extra outside the pencil mark so I could square it up.  That's a clever jig in the video.

SteveF

So, finishing queries.  I have watched a couple of different approaches to finishing using nitro aerosols. The question I have surrounds pore filling (which I assume is broadly the same as when grain filling is referred to?) 

 @SteveRobinson has some great posts and videos on his site and I notice he uses Rustins grain filler, then sanding sealer, then primer, colour and finally clear. He does say that some woods don't need filling. 

The Stewmac video series below, the chaps use epoxy to pore fill, then vinyl sealer (presumably similar to sanding sealer) and then colour and clear.  

 

Opinions?  I am using poplar/tulipwood for the body so I am not sure what is required in terms of filler? 

Thanks as always  

WezV

Poplar can be very thirsty, so needs a good sealer coat.  It doesn't have open pores, so doesn't need grainfiller.

SteveF

Wonderful Thanks Wez

For future reference - any view on rustins/epoxy/something else?  I would never have thought to use epoxy - I'd have assumed it would create a plasticky coating that wouldn't be good for paint but they get a fantastic result in that series. 

SteveRobinson

I'm finishing a poplar body at the moment, no grain/pore filling required but there were several knots that needed attention. It's going to be a solid colour so I used my white primer which allowed me to easily see any imperfections. I filled them with Squadron white putty which is easy to use, dries quickly and sands really smooth. After that I applied another coat of primer before the colour goes on.

SteveF

Thanks Steve  I have some of your primer too  I will check over for any dents/knots that need sorting and I have some Rustins 2 part filler I can use for that, then your sanding sealer, primer, LPB colour and clear gloss. Still got to sort out my ferrule block first, but certainly fast approaching the stage of finishing.