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Two years waiting for a project to come to fruition, what's next, start a vineyard for a wine company? Got the pear trees going? They take a while to mature too :-) good to see people enjoy retirement.
Choosing the wood. I cut two blanks from the plank, and rejected the first because it had an internal crack.
Cutting the rough outline with a fretsaw. This is where the end grain becomes enticing.
Levelling off with the router sledge. It's at this point that you can begin to see what the grain looks like on the front of the guitar. Don't those circular saw cuts look rough.
The router marks look rough too, but in reality they are only a fraction of a millimetre deep, and will sand out easily.
We've been making wine for many years.
https://goo.gl/photos/SQ3AS1em54Z9XjLZA
You may notice that there are no holes for the bridge. That's because I've been experimenting with different type of bridge, and they all have different holes.
I always use a mask when cutting mdf. To reduce dust even more I tried using the scroll saw instead of jig saw or router. The scroll saw is not very good at cutting straight lines in wood, but no problem with mdf, which shows how much effect grain and varying densities have on the blade.
I had a hiccup last night when the secondhand neck turned out to be bowed, even with the truss rod fully released. This I presumed was a one-way truss rod. Clamping to a 3" x 3" beam overnight sorted that out, and will save me buying or making a new neck.
Whereas the bridge screw holes need the drill stand positioned over the body. (I really should get a pillar drill).
Soldering up the controls in situ is fiddly because of the depth of the cavity, so I use a simple jig, and a tray to keep the components organised
I'm using a Les Paul selector switch, which is a tight fit in the cavity, AND the terminals are very close, all at one end so I took it apart and reassembled it.
1. The controls are body mounted, and the access panel is inset.
2. The pickups are body mounted into 7/8" holes, and need a bit of depth behind that for the mounting bolts to protrude into.
Here's the finished assembled guitar:
Regular readers will remember that I was having problems with resin weeping out of the wood on my previous build, where the body slab was taken from just above the stump of the tree. This body is taken from the trunk, and is currently stable and dry.
Throughout the build I've kept a record of the weight. The body has been thinned a little, and chamfered, but there's no weight relief. To avoid adding weight there are no Bridge and control plates, and the tuners are non-locking.
- Body blank, cut to rough profile, but before carving: 2.36Kg (5lb 3oz)
- Finished body, thinned, carved, sanded, and oiled: 1.70Kg (3lb 12oz)
- Completed guitar, (add neck, metal and electrics): 3.02Kg (6lb 10oz)
First thoughts.
1. It's light. If the body were any lighter I would be worried about balance.
2. The sound isn't as bright as I expected. That's down to one or both of the tone control and the alloy saddles. I'll play around with the capacitor, test a treble bleed, and try swapping the black saddles for bright steel.
3. The secondhand neck is still settling. So far It hasn't bowed under the string tension, despite a completely relaxed truss rod, which means there's no relief. Does this mean that the rod has been overstressed and bent in a previous life? Also worrying is that either the fretboard is not square with the heel, or the neck pocket floor is nor quite level. Once this had a chance to settle I'll take the neck off and measure. This
My template has a centre line drawn down it, and I can align this with the centre line of the guitar. "Measure twice and cut once" so I also cross check against the pickup cavities. Once the neck pocket is cut I do a dry assembly of body, neck and pickups, and check that the bridge position before drilling for bridge screws and string through holes.
This was an opportunity to try out old and new tools.
From the bottom: Wood rasp, Japanese (actually Czech) toothed rasp, wire brush to keep rasps clear, surform, spokeshave, templates and micrometer. Conclusions: Surform is best at removing wood; spokeshave gives the best finish; only the rasp can handle the volutes at each end of the neck. For finishing I prefer a cabinet scraper, particularly over the volutes where sandpaper can leave the surface smooth but bumpy. The problem with this neck was that it’s three piece, with grain running in both directions, which meant frequent direction changes for the spokeshave and scraper.
It is going to be bound in black, and clear finished. It should be a little less Amber than last years’ which was finished with Tru Oil. This is what it is going to look like:
Question is, how do I mount the five way superswitch?
Options:
1. Make a control plate, either gold or black.
2. Make a mini plate, just for the switch. Probably the easiest solution.
3. Mount it on the wood. Cedar is soft. Routed down to 5mm it’s going to need strengthening with cyano acrylic, or an internal metal plate.
4. Use rotary switch instead.
Decisions, decisions.
Moving on. I want to body mount the pickups, but this time without affecting their magnetic fields by using steel. The cedar is a bit soft to take hex nuts. If the body were thinner, and the front and back were parallel, then I might try Tee nuts through the back. For this one I’ll use plywood.
The nuts are tapped in with a hammer, and secured with glue.
To reduce weight the body will be thinner. It’s a one piece body blank, with no cap, so no chambering. The metal bridge and control cavity plates are going. Instead it will have a short bridge, and the controls will be body mounted. The metal mounting plates under the pickups are also going, but might come back if the sound changes too much.
Some things won’t change. Same pickups: Oil City Californian and Wapping Wharf. Same five way superswitch.
Using the superswitch means that the body has to be full depth at the control cavity, but can be thinner away from that. I’ve settled on a wedge shape.
The wedge provides an extra challenge. Every time I drill or route I have to think whether the hole should be aligned to the front or the back.
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