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Then glued and firmly clamped under a decently thick block of sapele:
Then the final few jobs on the fretboard before fitting. Added the side dots and filled the fret slots with epoxy mixed with macassar dust:
The headstock plate was clamped while being glued on using acoustic guitar bobbin clamps, but the fretboard needed something a little more substantial!
Basically:
- tweaking the outline a tad
- finish off the top
- doing the back
- carving the neck
The outline tweak is to compensate for the fact that, in changing from the maple to the macassar, I added two more frets to 24th. As such, I will deepen the cutouts a touch:I'll see you the other side
Those of you who have seen my other builds will know that I generally pop an early coat of tru-oil on - regardless of what I will eventually finish it with - to help show up the lumps and bumps:
Did you notice some of the family features
Don't worry too much about waiting for a proper workshop - remember that most of my builds up to last year were done on a Black & Decker workmate on the back patio
As I've mentioned before, I finish the neck profile off once the guitar is finished and fully strung up - yes, I know. I'm weird like that - but there's still a bit of bulk to take off to get to my preferred softish 'V' profile.
After just a few minutes with a spokeshave, most of the carve has been done using micro plane blades, just held in gloved hands like a scraper. The towelling underneath is to stop any dints on the top - you can see it's been used for many times for past staining jobs. Based on the fact that a number of my staining jobs are red ink, it has the unfortunate look of the results of a serious router/finger incident!
At this stage, I tend to do a lot of air-guitar playing I've got some more bulk to take out at the heel / body transition, but the thumb anchor points and 24th fret access feel fine so far. You can see why I took impressions earlier of where the hidden weight relief chambers are! Breaking through at this stage of the process would definitely spoil my day
Total weight so far is spot on 4lbs - about 4oz lighter than my previous build. Having a bash at making my own wood knobs - which will save 2-3oz over the brass ones I previously used, a final 5 1/2 lbs weight should be within reach
The swifts are also fitted in the headstock plate...
...and so, in terms of the front, probably the next job is fitting the bridge so that I can properly line up the pickup chambers before forstner roughing and then chiselling them out.
An evolution of design experimentation more than a product line
It's not in my game plan to go at all commercial. Mind you, if anyone wants something similar to be built then, for a mere king's ransom....
Many of you know that I hate routers and I hate using routers. But for a flat-bottomed deep chamber, it's almost unavoidable. So personally, I use the router for the least number of operations.
I start with defining the depth and corners with a drill:
Then make a relatively shallow hog-out with a forstner bit:
I then straighten the cuts around the outline with a sharp chisel down to the depth of the amboyna top.
And only then do I use a bearing router. I use a very short one so I can safely tidy the sides of the existing shallow chamber before I start cutting the chamber bottom. So again, I basically use the top as my template - I know that is not the usual way but all I can say is that it works for me and I've massively reduced pickup routing c**k ups since I started doing it like this
Then, using the bearing trimmer against the tidied up chamber sides, I just deepen a couple of mm a time to the required depth.
And here we have the chambers with the sub-5mm thick bottoms:
And the inevitable mock-up. I may well use black pickup rings on the finished article - but I happened to have these gold ones in the spares box so they will have to do for the mock up:
Back to @BigMonka 's earlier comment, I do think that this further evolution is probably a better overall design for lead players. Time will tell...
As always, folks, thanks for looking and for the ever encouraging feedback.
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
I know having gold on an electric is a bit marmite - and generally I don't use gold - but I'll probably stick with the scheme I used for the previous two builds - the logic being:
I incorporated some gold on @impmann's Alembic-esque to pass a nod to the Hannes bridge Tim had sent me to fit onto it, which was black and gold. Basically I mixed up the components of a black set and gold set of tuners which balanced the look nicely:
On my own build, I had, of course, the other set of tuner bits (the new range of light Axesrus locking tuners, by the way - and they are LOVELY). And - as it was always intended as a sister build, I carried on the theme:
So why do it again? Well - it was these two builds that triggered the request from Jane, my sister-in-law, to build an electric for her.
And she likes the 'John Player Special' vibe of the black and gold
So, while this will probably be my last black and gold build in the forseeable future (cross my heart! ), I'll probably stick with the theme and go for the Swift Lite version above for the bridge and pickup rings and Tim's Alembicesque version for the tuners.
Talking about my own version of a 'Swift Lite', 3oz of the weight of that guitar was the black painted brass knobs. This put me closer to 6lbs than the target 5 1/2lbs. On one of the forums, a few folks suggested I made my own knobs. One kind soul pointed me in the direction of a company call Thonk (yes - priceless name) who supply knob inserts.
So for this build, I got the inserts from Thonk and a cheapo diamond hole/plug cutter from ebay:
Then, after a few trial runs to work out the best sequence, started with a 9.5mm hole in some scrap oak:
Then used a Forstner for the nut relief in the bottom:
Then the plug cutter:
And added the screw access hole before filing out the bore to a very slight interference push fit for the insert:
Then took some macassar offcut and drilled a 6mm hole:
Then plug-cut that:
Then glued the two together, added a MoP dot, and rounded the sharp edges:
Well pleased!
They are a fraction of the weight of the ones on my own guitar. So I'll be replacing the ones on that too
Yes - I think you're right. Maybe using one of the tiny 2mm side dots. I could, of course, inlay a tiny swift in each but, hmmm...too much wildlife?