Guitarfrenzy

As you can see from the picture, the dovetail wood where it meets the fingerboard was mostly gone. I don't know if the luthier who worked on it didn't glue the wood back and just threw it away, or some strange shrinking wood took place.. lol It's really no wonder it didn't hold up though, because there wasn't enough glue surface. I'm going to have to add wood to that area and build the dovetail back up after I glue the heel back into place. This should be interesting. Also a quick note, notice this guitar has a truss rod, and was first used in 1944. Also, check out the two walnut strips they used to make the laminate neck stronger. Body Closeup Also, you can see that when I heated the fingerboard off the body, it pulled some wood up. I'll have to use Titebond to glue this back down so it will be level again.

Like Gorecki said I'd just return it and make them give me another one. Anything you buy new, if it gives you problems, return it before the return policy is up, don't wait around. I've made that mistake before.

My dad passed away a couple of years ago, and he played guitar all his life too. I have his old Gibson J-45, which I'm almost certain was made in 1944, which he bought new for a little over $300 dollars.. lol Here's a good site on the history of early Gibson J-45 guitars. Anyway, long story short, the guitar wasn't treated very well, and the neck heel had gotten cracked bad enough that it needed to be fixed. So, quite a while back, before I had even started building guitars, I brought this guitar to a luthier at Batesville, in the northern part of the state, to what I was told, a great luthier. We'll he did repair it, and I payed him $300 dollars for the job, and I figured it was worth it since the guitar meant a lot to me. About six months later, I woke up to some noise, I couldn't figure out what it was, we'll guess what, the neck has snapped at the same exact spot. My guess is that the glue he used either didn't work in this situation, or he didn't steam out the rest of the heel and reattach it to the neck first before gluing it back in. I bought Dan Erlewine's Neck Reset DVD a couple of months ago, and talked to Robert(Soapbar) about the job. Between the both, I figured I was ready to do this. In the picture below you can see that the heel area and fingerboard extension had to be steamed and removed before I could fix the neck's dovetail, check for neck angle alignment, and glue it back together. The steam can cause some blushing on the finish, but even Bryan Galloup had this same problem on the video. He has a trick to remove it that I'm going to try later on!!! Here's a closeup of the headstock. The other scratch marks on the finish was there before I started. Headstock Banner Logo. I'll post more later today... I'm hoping that by posting this, someone might get something out of it. Matt Vinson

How long have you had it? They might fix it for no charge. Check this link out, and see if it's still under warranty. The symptoms your describing could be a lot of things.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Its fender, thats as close as it gets Sadly, you might be right.. lol

I agree with what everyone has said so far. I have the small Delta 9" bandsaw your talking about too, and for the price it's the best one you can get for a lower end model. It will cut out bodies with no problem, but it's not going to do you any good for resawing. That's when you'd want a 14" bandsaw with riser blocks, for the capability of resawing and with you get a stronger motor. A jigsaw like others have said is good if you make sure you stay quite a bit away from the body outline you draw with the template. I do think you would be better off using either of these to get your body close. Then you can use a router with flush trim pattern bit, to finish it off. Just be careful of tearout, by taking your time and taking small amounts with mutliple passes you can get the job done. Good luck, Matt Vinson

Yes, if you was doing one style of guitar body, you could really use those type of jigs to be precise. If I'm not mistaken and correct me if I'm wrong it looks like they used a machine to preslot the nut (4:05-4:10). If so that's very cool.. I'm sure it just gets them close, they probably have to slot them a bit deeper for good action.

I'm glad everyone liked the video. There are a lot of things on the video that I thought was cool, and gave me some ideas too. The first one was the side dot machine, it was very neat to see them be able to drill them all at one time (3:39-3:45). I also thought the way they sanded their fingerboards with the moving belt sander was cool (3:10-3:19). The machine that could cut all the fretwire off flush with the edge of the fingerboard was interesting (4:01-4:04). All in all it was a good sneak peek into their manufacturing process. Now, you guys just need to help me build all these awesome machines.. lol

Yep, it's called a CNC - but he did make it himself. lol.. I hope your just joking and do realise I know what a CNC is..

I completely restrung the g-string, so I dont think there is anything in the slot. I dont have a capo, so I cant try that. And for some reason, it mostly happens when I play powerchords, so I thought it was my finger position, but its never happened before. Its definately hitting a fret, and I even raised the action to a level no player would dream of trying to play with, and no luck. You took all the strings off right? How long did you leave them off, because you might just need to let the neck readjust to the tension for a couple of days, and your buzz could go away. There might not be enough relief now, since I'm assuming you took all the tension off the guitar by taking the strings off for some time. Do you have a straightedge to check the relief? Sometimes when you string and restring you can introduce a kink in the string that will cause a buzz. I'd definitely put some new strings on it.

I use a long radius block I made that's 18" long simply because I found it gives much better results than using those short blocks. There is a tendancy to sand a dip in the middle of the fretboard if your not careful with the short radius blocks. The long radius block contacts the whole fingerboard at all times when sanding, and eliminates any dips. I still want to buy the aluminum one that Stew Mac carries now, but so far the hardwood radius block I made works great and very highly accurate. I wish I had a big belt sander like Grizzly's Fretboard Radius Sander System. You can do compound radius boards also, but it's not cheap, so you better be in full production before you buy something like this for just getting a fingerboard radiused.

It could definitely be the nut causing your problem, but you didn't mess the slotting did you? Try capoing the first fret, is there still a buzz? If so, it's not the nut. The tape you used could be causing residue to stick to the string at the nut? It could be anything. You need to locate the buzz first though. If the nut isn't slotted properly, then you can get some buzz at the nut.

I don't think I'd chance it, especially if I was going to put my name on it. It might not be enough for a noticeable difference, but then again you might later regret it.

Not sure it's what your looking for but Stew Mac sell's 1/8" shank inlay bits here. I had thought about a machine like that a long time ago, but never did enough inlay work to consider building it. I know Thorn made a machine himself that can cut his T logo and various other inlays with his.

Thanks for that link, now after reading this article I think instead of throwing away all those Gillette blades, I will reshapen them with sandpaper and use them again. LOL On a serious note, instead of explaining everything here, I'll just point you in the right direction. This was taken from this jemsite link!!

Very true, Titebond original has proven to be better than their other products for luthier work. Another thing that could give your problems, as I have heard of it happening before, was if you cleaned and lubricated the jointer feed tables with something that left residue on each edge. That would cause you major headaches like your describing, but I'm not saying that's your issue though.

Good tip, I forgot they sold that.

What kinda glue did you use to glue them together? Did you sand all the glue squeeze out away and level the body before starting?

I have a video tour of the Fender factory that I just encoded for you guys to see. It's very interesting, and at 44mb it's still worth the download. It's over 6 minutes long, to give you an idea. Fender (Corona, California) Manufacturing Tour Just thought I'd share this information. Enjoy..

Sounds good to me Rob, if your into that kind of music. I used to love it, I used to play it, but music taste changes over the years. The only problem you'll have is being compared to Malmsteen, etc. simply because of the way you play. Don't take this the wrong way, but be yourself, not someone else. If nothing else put your own twist on things, be creative, don't just memorize licks from other players and play them back. Be a musical sponge, and get better in all aspects of playing, not just the technical side of it. You have that part pretty much down, now study song structures, and create melodies that are new and exciting. You see, it's not how fast you play, or how slow, a bad song is a bad song. I'm not saying your song is bad, but I know you can do much better than sounding just like someone else.

I've seen the microplane your talking about in wood sale magazine before. I personally have never had any experience with one, so I can't really tell you one way or the other. I do know, however; what the Robo-Sander will do, and can highly recommend it. I can't tell you how many times I've used it with excellent results. Anyone have the Microplane rotary? I'm curious myself as to how well it works. Actually some of the Robo-Sanders guide rollers are like you say. But, that's the ones I go after. What I've been doing since I discovered the same thing long ago, is to use it to my benefit. For example, my steps to cutting out a body. 1. Use template to draw out the body. 2. Bandsaw outside the line as close as you can. 3. Realign the template with your marks and use the Robo-Sander to get you real close to flush with the template. 4. Since you only have a small amount of wood left (1/16" or less) you can use a flush trim pattern bit to finish it off and effectively remove the sand marks, and leave you with a very smooth edge. It will cut down your chances of tearout, reduce the amount of sanding you'd have to do if you just used the Robo-Sander, and leave you with very accurate body cutout safely.

I'm sure Doug could fix you up with a custom neck, I've never heard anyone say anything negative about any of his work. In fact he has a tutorial on his site on how to install the set neck, which is very handy for people who just don't know how.

I agree with mattia, if your going to use waterbase dye, then you really need to use a thicker veneer. How long did you let the veneer dry? It might have never dried properly either and introducing water to such a thin veneer could definitely make it lift.

Oh come on now mattia, we all know you can use a dremel to route out a body and trussrod slot right?... lol