demonx Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Goal - just a mess around guitar built from offcuts laying around my workshop. Specs: Body 5 piece lamination: USA Maple Fiji Mahogany Alder Quilt maple 2 piece top Neck 7 piece lamination: Tasmanian Blackwood Ebony Indian Rosewood Queensland Maple ------------------------------------------------------------ I was looking at some body offcuts wondering what the hell I could do with them and decided if it was a solid color guitar then it doesnt matter what color the timber lams sre, so I cut all the ends from the waste of some previous made bodies and jointed them: Same for the neck blank. The ebony is a finger board I left out in the cold after I'd thinned it to 5mm and it warped, the Rosewood was another screwed up board. Now I have a drum sander I was able to salvage them both. Add in a strip of QLD maple and frame it in Tasmanian Blackwood! This is the body that was discussed in the "cutting bodies with router thread" I decided to add a quilt top to it so I ran the body through the thicknesser to cut it back enough to chuck on the quilt. This is a top I bought off ebay several years ago, was listed as a bookmatched 5A quilt. When it arrived it was more like 2A and it didnt resemble the sellers pic in any way. It's been stored for several years so I figured I'd throw it on this scraps build. Curly Maple fingerboard (has a slight defect which I centered at the first fret dot) Because it had this defect I considered it a scrap board Curly Maple Binding from stew mac - I had 2 pieces that just didnt match other pieces so I havent used them. I put the better of the two on top where it's visable and the lesser of the two underneath where it wont be seen I tried this "pinning the board" concept which a few guys here are doing. I went to my other shed and got the smallest nails I could find that looked like they'd hold place, I drilled a couple guide holes making sure to not go deep enough it'd effect my profile carve. I tapped them through with a hammer making sure not to split the maple board: I then drilled some matching holes in my clamping caul, so after I clamped it, before the glue had set I pulled the nails out with pointy nose pliers. It held very well, no movement, was lined up to where my grey lead marks were, so I'm very happy with this method: I saw on a previous GOTM submission someone had added laminations the the heel area of their build to make up for the blank being too small - I liked the look of this and thought I wanted to try something similar, so I added some QLD maple and Indian Rosewood to the heel to give that "capped" look when the neck is carved: The headstock is actually a 2 piece horizontal lamination, it's two pieces of quilt offcut from other bodies but I've thicknessed them the same depth and glued them together to make a headstock as I didnt want to cut up a good piece of quilt for this guitar and these pieces were just scrap laying around: I'm yet to decide on hardware. It'll be black but I'm not sure Kahler or Floyd. I'm yet to decide on the body carve. I liked the look of Crows Jackson Soloist copy but I'm not decided yet. I'm yet to choose a color. It'll most likely end out being candy black or candy blue with a solid black rear and matching headstock. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazygtr Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 With those inlays I think the blue will look killer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demonx Posted May 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 With those inlays I think the blue will look killer. The dot inlays look dead at the moment as they're rough sanded to 60 grit. When I sand and finish them they're actually quite pretty pieces of Paua. I had a bag of 100 dots laying around which I'll probably never use as I'm not too keen on dot inlays, so I picked out the best ones for this guitar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazygtr Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 I can PM you my address....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
verhoevenc Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 That quilt looks pretty dang nice from where I'm sitting..? Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demonx Posted May 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 That quilt looks pretty dang nice from where I'm sitting..? Chris It looks better in the pics than in person! Its usually the other way around! I'm hoping that a bit of stain will help get some definition into it later on - will have to wait and see. It was actually your build with the kahler in last months GOTM that made me try the heel cap thing, I thought it looked pretty cool. I'd thought about it before but always figured it'd look tacky, but yours looked good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
verhoevenc Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Muchos gracias... and to whet your imagination on the quilt: blue to red burst? (fast forward to end for end result I'm referring to) Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muzz Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Great idea with the clamping caul and the pins, guitar is looking fantastic too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 (edited) I really like the way this scarf and board looks. SR Edited May 21, 2012 by ScottR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted May 23, 2012 Report Share Posted May 23, 2012 Damn you are spitting guitars left and tight!!! I love quilt so I will be following this one for sure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demonx Posted May 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2012 <p><p> Damn you are spitting guitars left and tight!!! I love quilt so I will be following this one for sure! Correction - I WAS !!! Theres a neckthru in my workshop I started same time as this I havn't posted pics of yet too - (see pic below) Since I screwed up my elbow ligaments nearly a month ago I've barely done anything. I'm actually on workcover and doing light duties at work 3 days a week. The rest of the week I'm eiter at physio or bored at home which would be the perfect time to be out building but I can't! I can't do much more to this build as I have to carve the top which the elbow doesnt allow and might not for several months. I really shouldn't have attempted to carve the neck (which isnt finished yet, its just roughed but I wont do anymore to it till the elbows better, just roughing it probably set me back a fortnight or more of healing. Live and learn. I actually sent a message to another forum member nearly a week ago offring to pay them to carve a top template for me so I can use it on my marlin but never got a response. I saw this as a way I could keep going on this build without using my elbow but oh well. I cant even swing a hammer at the moment! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazygtr Posted May 23, 2012 Report Share Posted May 23, 2012 Hope you get better soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted May 24, 2012 Report Share Posted May 24, 2012 Sorry to hear that, I wasn't aware of your issues with the elbow. I just had a corticosteriod shot in my AC joint to relief some pain that has lingered for more than 6 months. Best thing I ever did, no pain at all a 2 weeks after the shot. As far as carving the top, I like using my 4.5" grinder with a flap disk, let me tell you, I will never use chisels again for that unless I want to do a recurve. Hope you get better soon so you can finish this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demonx Posted May 26, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 26, 2012 Made this little template today. Basically its a routing template for my cavity covers, cut from MDF with a bit of scrap mahogany as a handle so I dont have my fingers too close to the router bit. Simply double sided tape my bit of perspex, timber or whatever I'm making the cavity cover out of to the bottom and jobs done. No longer cutting them by hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted May 26, 2012 Report Share Posted May 26, 2012 Same here, I made templates of everything for the guitar that I didn't plan on buying. The only thing I haven't made yet are pickup rings, so may be one day I will get some templates for those too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demonx Posted May 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2012 More template making today. I whipped up a MDF carve top template that I'm hoping will work well with my marlin. Probably not, but I'll try it. After this I thought I'd radius the board, but I can't find my neck caul to lay the neck into. I looked all through my workshop for over half an hour, sorted through all the scrap timber, every shelf, drawer and bench that is in there, the bloody trhings just vanished but it doesnt make sense. Might have to make or buy a new one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muzz Posted May 27, 2012 Report Share Posted May 27, 2012 I do that all the time, and the minute I buy the replacement it brings back the thing I lost to the first cupboard I open. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demonx Posted June 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2012 Another one of those "BUGGER" moments. My floyd template get a nick out of it the first timeI ever used it, I filled n the nick and filed it back smooth, but for some reason htis time the bearing ran over it the repair failed... Course of action: I've mixed up some poly and filled in the repair, will leave it overnight, file it back and reroute moving the tamplate back the milimeter to hide the ripple. Then maybe I should think of making a new template with this one before its too far gone. Before I started routing the floyd I noticed the router was still mounted in the table with the rounding bit in it, so before I pulled it from the table I ran the rounding bit around the edge ready for when I get to the carving stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demonx Posted June 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2012 Decided I didn't like the bits of maple and rosewood under the heel so I ran it through the drum sander to get rid of them: I also had to glue some timber into the neck pocket to make up the diffrence. Fixed up the route on the floyd recess: I radiused the neck and started fretting - while doing so I realised that some of the dots had changed color dramatically (turned yellow rather than blue) after sanding, and one of them I sanded through, must not have recessed them enough. So I drilled them out and found new dots that matched close enough. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted June 11, 2012 Report Share Posted June 11, 2012 Decided I didn't like the bits of maple and rosewood under the heel so I ran it through the drum sander to get rid of them: I remember not so long ago you were lamenting the lack of a drum sander......I expect you're loving having one now! SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demonx Posted June 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2012 I remember not so long ago you were lamenting the lack of a drum sander......I expect you're loving having one now! SR Oh hell yeah. Thing gets used nearly every time I'm in the shed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muzz Posted June 12, 2012 Report Share Posted June 12, 2012 Great fix on the Floyd recess, and the neck looks cool since you ripped off the %^&(!@ ugly heel block Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demonx Posted June 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 Sanded back the replacement dot inlays - happy with them this time round: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pestvic Posted June 18, 2012 Report Share Posted June 18, 2012 This is looking great! I start the carve top with the same router bit. I was wondering though. Is there a reason you don't use the router bit on the inside of the horns? Do you carve those by hand? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demonx Posted June 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 18, 2012 Is there a reason you don't use the router bit on the inside of the horns? Do you carve those by hand? I probably won't be carving inside the horns and if I do it'll be very slight - although I say that now I'll probably go extreme on the day! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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