GregP

I've only just done my first ever scarf joint, but as long as you have a way to cut an accurate angle, this isn't such a bad idea. Greg

I'm still waiting for the fingerboard to arrive. Bah. That means I'll either have to print/draw/fabricate a mock-up of the neck first, or sit on my hands until it arrives in another month or two. I agree, though, that it seems like the next best step. I'll see what else I can think of in the meantime, but I agree that starting the carve now would make my life hell. Greg

If it was only a minor recess, I don't see why not. But remember that while the strings go OVER a TOM, they go THROUGH a stop tailpiece, which is pretty low in profile to begin with. I imagine recessing too much would be a pain in the ass in terms of putting the strings through it. Also, while a TOM easily goes on over top of its posts, the tailpiece slides laterally into its posts, which poses another problem for recessing. Greg

I figured there's got to be a better tool for the job, so I gave it a go with a scraper. I don't know how to put a proper 'hook' on a scraper, though, so although it was working to a certain extent, I didn't feel I was controlling it very well. I went back to the file, but started alternating strokes. I had to get right in there with my hands to prevent chatterring and vibrating on the upstroke, but it was worth it to not have the dreaded "fuzzies". Once I had worked for a bit, I stopped to check my progress: Nope, still not there yet. The flat file wasn't going to work for doing the whole thing, so I switched to a round file for a while. Once I had worked off the last little bit, I went over it all with some 400-grit sandpaper, and cleaned up the whole thing, including bits that were shoddy straight from the factory. I may go back and do a bit more when I have the patience. Using my paper model, I did a final 'test fit': Looks OK! But if I need to work on it a bit more, it'll be sandpaper from here on. Next steps: 1 - finish making spool clamps (2 down, 4 or more to go! Thanks for the tip, Perry!) 2 - re-plan my controls. I don't like how close the volume knob is to the pickguard 3 - plan my body's routs, and do them! 4 - glue the top to the body, and flush-trim the body to match the top 5 - figure out what's the next best thing to do... neck pocket? neck? Pickup cavities? carve? We'll see. Greg

As I mentioned a few days ago, I suspected I'd have to reshape the pickguard a bit. Tonight, I pulled 'er out and confirmed my fears: (gotta love those full-sized drawings for trouble-shooting in advance! Kids, take note!!) Well, I have no fricking clue what a guy's to do to reshape one of these things. Apparently a router bit at the correct angle will do the trick, but I wasn't up for power tool tom-foolery tonight. Besides, I wasn't cutting out a whole pickguard, just a little bit. I figured fine sandpaper would do the trick, but it would have been too slow going. After marking in pencil where I thought I wanted the new line to go (you won't see the pencil mark, but the graphite was reflective at the right angles), I clamped it to the workbench (to help subdue 'chatter' as I worked) and went at'er with a file: Surprisingly, it was very easy! And I did it freehand. If you have at least a few mm of play, you can use the first few seconds of filing to get a 'feel' for the correct angle. Also, in a laminated pickguard, if your angle is too shallow the middle stripe gets noticeably wider. If each 'layer' maintains a continuous width, you know you're going at it with more or less the correct angle. Which is a lot closer to 90 degrees than I would have initially thought! Problem with the file is that I was only doing downstrokes. I soon developed a cluster of plastic crudola, which was trickier to remove than you'd think just by looking at it: See how the stripes are a bit wider in the area I'm working? At that point in time I was using an incorrect angle, but I knew I had about another 5 mm to go, so I wasn't too worried or too careful.

I ended up with a surprisingly good cut!! At home, I took some sandpaper and threw it onto a straight block of wood. I clamped one piece on top of the other (sorry, no pic, but here's a sketch:) And used the sanding stick/block to make sure it was all flat and ready to go. It didn't take too much work, though there WAS a bit of a lip on one side that although I had noticed, I hadn't thought would have been a problem. I'm glad I took the extra step in sanding it down. I don't have the pictures of the gluing, but basically all I did is apply a fairly thick layer of "Carpenter's Glue" (from Home Depot) to one half of the join, and clamped it together with 5 clamps. I was going to do something to avoid squeezing the pieces away from one another, but in the end I didn't need to because my neck angle was shallow enough. I should've taken a shot of a more interesting angle, but here's the neck glued up:

I knew I wasn't leaving that room without a 13 degree cut through a neck blank, so I walked over to the bandsaw. I knew it must be adjustable for the amount of blade exposed, so I just inspected it until I saw which parts connected with which, and made the correct adjustment. I raised the guide just enough that the wood could get through, with about a half-inch of blade exposed still, above the wood. That taken care of, I had to re-make the jig with its mounting board. Grrr!! I put the sandwich atop the board, and hammered the outside pieces down with some finishing nails, taking care to put them in places that would not be in the path of the saw blade. I then squeezed it all together, and checked it against my 90 degree level. Once it was squared up, I clamped it and went over to the bandsaw. I didn't know where the guide rail was, so I had to make my own. It was surprisingly like a puzzle. I needed 4 clamps and several strips of wood that were handy to pull it off with any sort of accuracy (2 of them being removed in a later step). Once the guide rail was secured and I verified that the band saw lined up with the cut line on my neck, I tensioned up the blade a bit (I remembered it being wobbly from before) and gave'er.

I brought it back to the arm saw, and lined up the jig by sight. I didn't really care if it ended up being 11 degrees or 15 degrees instead of the 13 I had planned, as long as the cut was clean. After lining it all up, I was prepared to clamp it all down: As I went to clamp it, though, I noticed a bit of wobble. I thought I had screwed up my jig somehow (it was less stable without the base), so I re-clamped it. Went back, jiggle still there. I checked the surface of the table, which was kind of chewed-up looking, but it seemed fairly flat. Put the jig back down... wobble... looked a bit closer and discovered the culprit (excuse the bizarre camera angle, I'll explain it then it won't seem bizarre): There was some sort of adjustment knob that had its top part sticking up just a bit above the surface of the table. The above photo is taken from below the jig, and you can see the wood resting on the knob. I couldn't figure out what the hell the knob supposedly adjusted, and I couldn't figure out how to remove it. As the wood HAD to be in that position for the saw to cut properly through it, I was screwed. There was no way I was going to waste my neck blank on an 'iffy' cut. Back to the bandsaw.

I elected to cut the whole shebang. I figured, I'm in a frigging WOOD SHOP, there's GOT to be a way to do it. I went over to the bandsaw, and discovered 2 things: 1. It was too short 2. There was no 90 degree guide, so I'd have to free-hand it. I was thinking about what I could do to make a more accurate cut, when it occurred to me that the radial arm saw might do the trick. I measured up, and although I didn't have 5" of clearance, I had the 'minimum' amount of 4". So, I grabbed a hammer and whatever other tools of destruction I could find, and ripped apart my finely-crafted jig. To make a new one without a base, I used a level that has 2 flat edges at 90 degrees from one another. I shimmied the 'sandwich' up against this so that I'd know the middle piece was at 90 degrees (I didn't trust the edges on the sandwich pieces alone), and clamped'er together:

OK... this'll be a doozie... because lots of the photos are redundant for people who can visualize well. About a week ago, I went to one of the schools I supply at, which has a wood shop. I figured, industrial-sized table-saw = flawless cut for my neck's scarf joint. I measured up the angle, and doing something similar to what Martin Koch does in his book, I made a jig for the cut. Basically, I cut 2 boards down to the same width as the neck blank, and made a sandwich, which I hoped would help avoid nasty tearing out at entry and exit points. I then mounted this sandwich to a piece of wood with 1 square side, at the correct angle. The idea is that you use the table saw's guide along the mounting piece, so that your neck angle cut is actually a 'straight' cut in relation to the board. Well, it didn't take long before I ran into problems. As it turns out, the table saw at the school couldn't be raised any higher than the one I already have at home. It only gave me 3" of cut, and I needed 5". I could have re-mounted the jig on a thinner board (I have tonnes), but I still would have needed 4". I had to decide whether it was worthwhile to cut the whole shebang somehow, or cut the neck blank down to 3" and end up gluing on 'wings' for the headstock.

I couldn't find such a service nearby. I just printed to multiple pages on my regular old inkjet printer, lined them up as best I could by eye, and taped them together. If they're off, they're not off by any significant amount. Here is an example:

That is bizarre! Doesn't happen for me, all is in order. Greg

People claim that string-through provides better sustain and tone. Personally, I have my doubts that the human ear would notice a huge difference, so a lot of it will come down to aesthetics, IMO, provided you've gone with an angled neck. I've chosen to go the string-through route myself, though that may change yet. If you've chosen to recess the TOM instead of making a neck angle, you'll likely need to go with a string-through just to get enough of an angle over the bridge, otherwise I don't imagine there will be enough downward pressure. Greg

I like the quilt pattern. It's not 'uniform', so it's got character! Greg

Well, since you already said you're not happy with the burst-- There's too much solid yellow distracting the viewer from the cool pattern on the cloth. I don't know if I would have bursted at all, opting for either yellow trim, or even yellow around just the sides. HOWEVER, that's not to say it doesn't look cool. It looks VERY cool, in fact, but it's just VERY yellow! If you're going to go 'all the way' with that colour, I'd suggest throwing a bit on the headstock, too, somehow, to balance it out a bit. The actual quality of the finish is remarkable... from those pics, it seems to be glassy-smooth! Greg

The Driskill guitars are indeed sweet. But there's that type of quilt I'm talking about, right in your face. Greg

Tuning to a perfect 5th is another way to do it-- the ear can quickly identify that you're a fifth apart, so that's a good method, too. Still, I think tuning to a perfect octave is sonically the most basic, and leaves the most hands free. To be honest, I don't understand why anyone would do it any other way unless they're using a machine. Greg

I chose option 3. Coincidentally, I'm still waiting for some stuff from Uni Jems. (To the purchasing public-- it hasn't been a long time, I'm just teasing; I'm not expecting them 'til the end of this coming week) Greg

No, but there's a button for uploading multiple images, which makes life a bit quicker. Greg

Probably not getting many answers because you just need to research, read, and most importantly, think it through. When I was trying to decide, it ended up seeming to me like the wraparound bridge would have been a good option if the intonation were more adjustable. The Wilkinson one linked to above was almost a winner for me, but in the end it seemed more flexible for me to go with TOM and string-through. If you use the Jr-style bridge, it seems to me that you'd have to account for a lot of factors in your design. Obviously it's a fine choice though... aren't LP Jr's good guitars? Greg

I have only ever done it one way since I started playing guitar, and in 13 years it hasn't failed me yet-- Playing the open 'D' string and the low 'E' string at the same time, and dropping pitch on the E string until it's exactly an octave lower. You get a free hand for the tuning peg, and a free hand to pluck the strings again as you need to. How much easier than that could it be? You'll still hear the 'beats' even though they're an octave apart, plus sometimes you will actually FEEL your guitar resonating more strongly as the octaved 'D' note locks in. Greg

Am I just stupid, Or are both of those links just links to a profile page, one of which featuring a dude's face, and the other featuring a toy truck? Greg

Thanks for that. Greg

It's been done. I personally don't find it particularly sharp, but that's just me. Nice enough guitar, but no contrast to the inlays. Greg

Bah. The Zero Fret was supposed to be EASIER... what the heck happened between yesterday and today? <grin>