Padauk Headless 'Long Scale' Guitar Build

MARVlN

Time for another update. Still in August time-wise...

First up, working on the headstock. I drilled out the centre (using the fretboard as a template). I also thinned the neck with my router sled levelling setup.

Didn't take any pictures...

Next on the agenda - the string clamps.  My concept for this is aluminium tube for the strings to pass through. These are drilled at an angle to prevent rubbing. I'm going to experiment with using the wood, threaded at M5 (I think) for some reasonable durability for the clamping. If the threads get chewed up, plan B is to replace with an aluminium block instead.

Are they straight and even? Er...

Here I realised that I hadn't left enough material for the Hipshot D-Tuner, hence readding a block...

The threaded holes for the string clamps. The grub screws are 25mm+ long to give the best durability I can.

Next, some more weight relief/creating the main electronics cavity (with a couple of preamps, there's plenty of space required)

Trimming the neck to the size of the fretboard.

And the headstock:

Flushing the string clamps.

Now, plan B of the LEDs.

I decided to go with button-size LEDs, which meant the neck required a bit of filling (handy to have some awkwardly size old walnut kicking about), then drilling out for the LED PCBs (9mm from memory)

This time, I coded the microcontroller and spent an hour or so each evening soldering some more LEDs, carefully testing each one as I went.

Success!

MARVlN

Something I realise I managed to 'sneak preview' but not mention in the prior post was the body carving getting under way.

The core of the design is to have a swoop across the body from the upper bout. I made a router template for this, and then began to remove material from the back of the face of the body.

Something mentioned but not shown was the neck thinnning. I did this with multiple passes on my router sled thicknessing, er, thing. The cut-away parts also needed to be tidied - only having been roughly sawn with a jigsaw so far. Here you can see where I've begun profiling with a bearing-guided router bit (you can see the 'step' in the cutouts)

Began carving the body - there's a marked line in from the upper and lower face showing where to shape to - this is in an attempt to prevent a wiggly line.

Coming together (or, perhaps, ripping apart?)

Upper horn detail:

Carving's always so satisfying, really starts to turn what was a 'block of wood' into a guitar. Began work on the neck. The idea of this was to get a soft V, but with the centreline or point of the V moving across the neck, from the bass side at the head-end to the treble-side at the body end. Sort of like a Strandberg Endurneck, but less extreme. That's not at all apparent here, which is very rough (partially because the fretboard really wants to be fitted before really getting into it)

Excuse the pickup cavities, they're going to be neatened up. My initial idea was to have holes through the body to insert the pickups from the back (a-la Relish Guitars). I then had a bit of a panic about strength because I'd already removed a lot of material in the upper bout, and really didn't want this folding in half.

This was an attempt at filling with a shaving/superglue mix, that seems more like the semi-soft tiles that were (are?) used in children's play areas when I was a kid. I'll be making some plugs and doing it 'properly' at some point.

Still, a first concept preview, rough carved - there's work still to do, but it's getting there. The bridge sits on its own island:

That takes us up to the end of August. So here's a gratuitous shot of the fretboard pinned in place with the LEDs aglow:

Chris.B

some great woodworking and electronic skills demonstrated in this update Marvin - a nice documentary series.

Looking forward to the next update

MARVlN

Thanks Chris, it's kind of stalled a bit in the last month, so it's therapeutic to do a write up as it gets me in the mood to push on (just need the time!).

Today's update, mounting the D-Tuner, making cover plates, and the pickup mounting system.

Both basses I've built (this is guitar build (of any stripe) #4) has the D-Tuner & three headless tuner setup, and I've yet to come up with an elegant method of mounting a single tuner. Attempt #3 sees me rotating the plane 90° from normal, classical style.

Maybe slightly more elegant (less inelegant?) than a single tuner head sticking out the side... Some shaping to follow the contour of the baseplate to follow.

Next up, cavity covers. I've chosen aluminium for all the cover plates, which should polish up nicely (for about 10 minutes). Custom shapes have never been a strong point. My method this time was to take a piece of paper, place it over the cavity, use my thumb to press it onto the edges to create an impression, which I can then pick out using the side of a pencil.

Applying this to the aluminium (although I created a thin plywood version first so as to not waste the aluminium sheet), and the freehand upper plate (so much easier!) gets me to this:

Polishing/finishing to come later.

Pickup mounting next. Because I'd chosen Wide Range Humbuckers (which are massive), I'd bought a template specially. Unfortunately the Hosco's are seemingly bigger than the Fender ones, because they didn't fit. I decided to expand the routes with a 1.5mm binding bit.

This was OK for now, but hasn't left much room for the mounting tabs. I always think that pickup mounting systems generally are a bit toss in the main. My fix? to bend the mounting tabs around underneath the pickup, mount a plate with an M5 rivnut (you'd never know I used to own a Lotus Elise) and then adjust via a screw from the back. The cavity itself would have foam in it.

This admittedly doesn't allow for tilting the pickup very easily. So I've just invented a slightly more compact form of toss.

Anyway, here are the accompanying pictures:

Rear adjustment:

Next time: gluing the fretboard, more carving, yet another 'oops' moment, a smiley jam jar lid and fretting. Join me if you will for more tales of the incapable.

Chris.B

I've been hanging around this forum for a few years now and this is the first time I can recall seeing a D tuner - I had to go away and find out what it does - an interesting little contraption. 

I like the innovation you are bringing to this build, something much lacking in the conservative guitar world. It makes a change from scraping some paint off and calling it aged.

MARVlN

I do all my aging the traditional way - by accidentally slipping with a screwdriver in final assembly, sticking a massive gouge into some recently finished wood...

I've always viewed building my own guitar as the ability to build something that I couldn't buy (for better or worse!) off the shelf.

That does lead to some odd design choices and limitations in execution, but that's part of the charm.

Roland

Interesting design choices are the really interesting part. 

MARVlN

Time for another update (we're really starting to catch up with the present configuration, not helped by forgetting to take recent pictures when I have had time to do a few bits).

First off, getting the final shape of the bridge and its 'riser', then a dry run assembly to be sure it fit:

And this is where the classic 'measure twice cut once' would have been best heeded - complete botch of the treble side mounting screws which look crap. Very unsatisfactory. The forward one is unusable because it's where the piezo wires run, and the rear one is ok placement wise, but because of the contour of the bridge, looks rubbish.

New ebony ordered and we'll have another go. Also ordered a much better pillar drill than my decade old 'cheapest on the market' job that's done sterling work, but you can measure the precision in whole +-mm.

So here's a smiley face in a  jam jar lid:

Moving onto something that is working, the LEDs - I'd written the code to control them. There's a rotary encoder which cycles through a table of tuning configurations, then click down to make a selection (or if left for 3s it'll reset to the current setting). With that all tested, it's time to glue on the fretboard. Firstly, I filled the LED channel with copper-safe epoxy to keep it stable, then flatted it back and got the Titebond and clamps out:

Note to self - use clamping cauls, and really stretch the rubber bands as I had a few tiny gaps (despite both surfaces being perfectly flat beforehand). Easily filled with some fine Padauk dust and superglue anyway, then a quick level and it's as if nothing happened (hmm...).

Anyway, with the board in place, the neck carve could take place properly. Always difficult to photograph, so here's a shot of the in-progress carving of thumb relief where the neck joins the upper bout:

In progress:

The eagle eyed might notice how I managed to sand through to the truss rod nut cavity (which was too deep in the first place). Thankfully I did this before gluing the fretboard on, so was able to reinforce. Now I've watched a lot of twoodfrd on Youtube, I have an idea of how to fix this properly by cutting this out and I may try a contrast piece. Or, because it's solid, I might just leave it.

There's a similar oops moment on the LED cavities you can see down at the body join. Again, no structural concerns, but it looks a bit cack. Those will be much tougher to fix, so I've simply made them good by filling - there's little else that can be done here.

Still, they do light up and look cool.

C# 'mode'

Detail of the refinement to the headstock shape:

At the body join:

So, what have I learnt? If I'd made the fretboard thinner (because this is quite hefty, and I only didn't do it for fear of 'de-squaring' a really nice board), then I wouldn't have needed to so aggressively carve the neck, and would have been much less likely to have hit cavities.

The worst part is, I learnt that on the first guitar (bass) I built, and didn't repeat it on the 2nd. Oh well!

I've been concious of the weight of the guitar - Padauk is not the lightest wood, and being long-scale, there's a lot more neck and truss rod than normal, so I've been keeping track:

Not too bad, but there's a lot of electronics to go in yet!

Something else that'll add some weight are the frets. To make my life hard initially, but easier ultimately, I have always used stainless fretwire. This is some Jescar model something or other, which I hammer in lightly, then press with a caul in my pillar drill (might go some way to explain why it's so inprecise...):

Levelled, dressed, crowned (plus a light coat of tung oil on the board):

Polishing to come soon, and hopefully we're on the other side of 'silly mistakesville'...

racefaceec90

fantastic looking guitar. good luck with the rest of building :-)