| To start I went through my curly maple boards to inspire me - I decided to use these two, which gave a strong flame pointing to the rear of the guitar, a look I really like. |
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| After flattening them and edge jointing I glued them together. |
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| The neck blank was cut to rough size on the band saw, planed flat and square and then clamped to a sled. This runs against a bearing guided router cutter to take the neck to final dimensions. |
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| So we have the main components - neck, maple top, Honduras Mahogany body blank and Madagascan Rosewood fingerboard. |
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| I roughly cut the body to shape then trimmed it to final size with a router. A 1/2" wide by 1/2" deep slot is routed across the top of the body - this is for the wiring from the pickups and to the switch. This slot gets covered by the maple when it is glued on so no-one will ever see it. |
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| On the rear of the body I drilled out the majority of the waste in the control recesses and then routed them to final size using my template stuck on with double sided tape. |
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| I then drilled the hole for the jack socket using a 25mm spade bit through into the control cavity. |
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| I sanded the top flat and smooth and did the same for the maple cap (which I have cut down to slightly oversize). Two holes were drilled through the maple (in the tenon and pickup area so they will not be visible in the completed guitar) so I could fix the maple in place with two screws - these locate the maple perfectly and also add a little extra clamping pressure in the centre of the maple. |
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| On goes the glue (PU) , locate the maple using the previously drilled screws and then clamp away! |
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| With the glue cured its clamps away and time to clean up. |
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| A quick trim with the router brings things
flush. I then gave the edges a quick sand to remove any router
marks.
Now a little more on the neck..... |
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| I wanted to make my own truss rod for this build - its jut a piece of steel, threaded at both ends and with an anchor fitted. The classic Gibson truss rod is fitted in a curved bottom slot - slightly tricky. So I made up two templates (taken from my full size plans) of the curve and clamped the neck between them. |
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| Router time - I used a 3mm straight cutter and fitted two fences to the router to sandwich it tight onto the templates. |
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| Taking a few passes to full depth (and checking I don't go too deep!) I then widen the slot to snuggly accept the truss rod. |
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| To make the curved entry slot to the truss rod access I clamped a block of timber to the headstock with a matching bevel to the bottom - then drilled though with a 19mm bit. |
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| Not bad - a little clean up but right where we need it. |
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| I made up a "half-moon" washer to fit the recess and bevelled the top edge to make sure the truss rod cover will sit flush above it. |
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| I'm going to make the tapered brass nut myself. I milled down some hex stock to the desired size on the mill... |
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| drilled and tapped to suit..... |
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| tapered and parted.... |
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| and voila! I made a couple - a spare is always handy. |
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| A nice fit and looks accurate, too. |
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| The filler strip to go above the truss rod is laid out from the router template to ensure the curves match. This shape is planed to match then planes to for a gentle fit in the width - don't want all the glue to be scraped off as I push the filler strip home. |
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| A little glue and some clamps ..... |
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| and I plane the excess flush. I repeat for the slot above the tenon and trim the nut end to match perfectly. |
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| The ears (extra material to make up the width of the headstock) were glued to the headstock next - I do them one at a time to stop them squirming around as the clamps go on. Less stressful! |
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| The ears are planed flush front and back - I used a shave on the rear as the surface is curved behind the nut. |
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| The headstock gets a maple veneer before I do
final shaping. The cut-out for the truss rod nut is trimmed and the
nut end is shot straight and true. The nut end of the veneer is
taped in position so it can't move under clamping (I want the
keyhole to be perfectly centred). The veneer is then folded back
like a hinge.....
A little black dye was painted into the truss rod cavity - easy to do it now. |
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| So I can apply glue.... |
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| Then a few clamps and a caul. |
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| The neck tenon is made with two straight cuts and two angled cuts (using the mitre gauge) on the table saw. These cuts are then finished off by hand. |
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| Leaving this. I'll do final trimming once the mortise is cut. |
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| Both templates are stuck to the neck with double sided tape. |
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| And the router table takes it down flush. |
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| While the templates are still in place I drill the guide holes for the tuners. |
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| And that's the major work on the neck complete
- just shaping and tweaking to do.
(You may notice I didn't trim an area of the headstock - this area always gets torn out by the router. I'll sand this to final shape later) |
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| While its convenient I stamped a serial number on the rear of the headstock - better to do it while the neck is easy to handle. |
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| Shaping of the neck - I use rasps, shaves, files and sandpaper to take the neck down to profile. I prefer to do this over a couple of weeks - each day I pick up the neck and any uncomfortable areas jump out immediately. The more I work on the neck, the less objective I am. So I like to leave gaps between small tweaks - this process worked extremely well on my last PRS build. That neck is the best I've done - yet ;) |
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| The body...... I routed the recess for the binding while the blank was mostly square. The area in the lower bout has an angle rout - I'll do area separately. |
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| My cheap and nasty angle box - a simple frame with two hinges on one end that is screwed to the bench. I stick the body onto the bench with tape and use my digital angle finder to set the angle - the first cut is at 1 degree. I start the cut at the front of the bridge pickup and work back to the neck - this is the "pickup plane". |
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| You can see the area I've removed here. You can take it all the way to the edges but I will be shaping that shortly so just removed the area that will be remaining. |
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| I reset the table for a steeper cut - this is the neck angle. I'm going for 4.1 degrees this time - I used 4.5 last time and I felt it left the bridge a smidge too high. |
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| This cut starts at the end of the fingerboard, giving a second flat area. |
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| Now to shape the top - I used some templates with a router to remove the majority of the waste, going in 1/16" steps around the body. |
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| Then the steps were smoothed out with the ROS and 60 grit paper. |
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| Then time for a little shaping with the disc sander. The outer perimeter of the body is slightly undercut to exaggerate the curve of the top (I believe this is a common violin makers trick) |
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| With a little more sanding to check progress.. |
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| And she's looking good! I'll do more tweaking
of the shape in the coming days to get things just right.
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| The neck mortise - a tight joint makes for a strong guitar. So when making the router template test fit the neck tenon into the template to test the fit BEFORE you cut your joint. If it fits snuggly in your template, you'#ll reproduce this in your guitar! |
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| I marked the mortise on the body and then removed the majority of the waste on the drill press. |
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| The template is attached with double sided sticky tape - I clamp the template in place for five minutes and the bond is very strong. It won't move during routing - I placed some wedges at the rear as the template is stuck to the short area where the fingerboard will lie, which is angled at 4 degrees. |
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| First pass with the router....... |
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| Second pass to full depth (34mm in this case). Fit the tenon and she's a good 'un! I need to final fit the shoulders for a clean fit against the body. |
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| I gave the headstock veneer a coat of black dye while I remembered. |
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| I finally gave in and built an overhead router
from some scrap MDF and a couple of drawer slides - looks like
rubbish, but works perfectly (yes, I was rather surprised!) The router is counter-balanced so it almost floats and on the underside there is a shaped guide to follow the upper surface of the guitar. |
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| Here you can see the router in action - it worked perfectly! |
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| The binding was then warmed with a hot air gun to follow the curves of the body - the lower horn is pretty tight. |
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| Using thin superglue the binding is glued in place - I started at the lower horn and worked my way round. A shot of accelerator helps speed things along. |
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| Then a cabinet scraper (a spare blade for a Stanley #80) is used to level the binding with the top. The sides of the body are sanded almost flush on the spindle sander then scraped level. |
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| The Fingerboard.... I knifed in the positions of the frets, cut them with a tenon saw and then laid out the inlays. Each inlay had its outline knifed into the fretboard and I then routed out the majority of the waste. Each inlay was then fitted using gouges and superglued in place. I drilled two holes through the bottom of two of the inlay recesses and tapped nails through into the neck - these are to align the fingerboard at glue-up time. |
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| The nails are snipped off a couple of millimetres above the surface. |
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| Working my way through the inlays.... |
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| Then a file is used to make them flush with the surface. This is followed up with sandpaper. |
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| The fingerboard is then tapered using a sled on the table saw. Remember the binding needs to go on so take off extra material. |
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| Fret time! Each fret is trimmed slightly oversize and then tapped home. |
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| The end are then filed flush. |
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| The binding gets fitted with superglue. So the end first, then the sides. I used masking tape to "hinge" the long lengths - this made gluing it much easier as it was flush with the bottom. |
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| Binding complete! |
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| The excess was filed flush, leaving the "nibs" at the end of each fret. The nibs were then chamfered at 35 degrees to meet the end of the frets using a file. |
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| All the routing is completed for the pickups ... |
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| and the control cavity covers. |
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| Covers made up from 2mm plastic sheet and fitted. |
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| Tuners test fitted... (yes, I've been aging them!) |
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| Finger board glued to neck. |
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| Final routing job is to shape the floor (top?) of the control recess so the pots sit at the correct angle. I stuck a baton to the body and free-hand routed to the correct level. |
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| Time to glue in the neck with a little Titebond. |
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| With the glue cured I started to test fit all the hardware to make sure everything fits. Then I strung up the outer two E strings to locate the bridge. It is sat on a piece of wood to raise it close to playing level and then moved around until I can properly intonate the strings (and it lines up side to side perfectly over the fingerboard. Then I drill two holes and tap them for the bridge. |
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| With the bridge properly located I can then
move the pickups to their perfect position - I hate it when the
strings don't run evenly over the pickup pole pieces! Next I strung her up, adjusted the truss rod (it works!) and played her! There are a couple of high frets that need dressing but overall she played pretty well. Now to strip her down, final sand and get out the Nitro! |
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| With the hardware removed and stored safely
away I gave the guitar another sanding. Next I made up some pore filler (Rustins, mahogany colour) and applied that to the back of the neck and the body - don't forget to mask the maple top first. The filler was applied with a rag, rubbing it firmly into the grain. |
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| After giving it five minutes to set up I removed the excess with a rag. |
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| After a quick sand to 320 grit I sprayed two light coats of clear nitro to seal the surface. These were then lightly sanded back with 320 grit paper. |
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| With the back and neck sealed I gave the top a
thorough sand up to 320 grit. I raised the grain by wetting the top
with water and then sanded off any fuzz after it had dried - it is
surprising how rough the surface gets. A quick coat of nitro on the top seals it and also lets me see the grain figure properly for the first time - Boy, it is something special!! |
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| After letting the top dry for a couple hours I then masked off the top and the binding and mixed up some cherry red tinted lacquer using Chestnut spirit stains. I started applying thin coats and added a few drops of royal blue to push things in the right direction. |
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| After a few coats I was happy with the colour - the guitar will receive some final coats of amber tinted lacquer to give it that "vintage" look and this will alter the tone of the red a little. |
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| The top gets a quick sand with 400 grit and another coat of clear. |
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| Then yellow tinted nitro is sprayed. |
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| A coat of clear with a hint of blue is sprayed around the perimeter to give a "halo" effect - at this point she looks like a classic lemon drop les paul. But I want more of a cherry look. |
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| I spray cherry tinted nitro until I'm happy with the colour and pattern. |
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| When it's dry I lightly sand the top with 400 grit and scrape the lacquer off the binding using a fresh stanley knife blade. |
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| The headstock gets a nice wet coat of black lacquer. |
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| Final coats are going to be this - no, not whisky! Its lacquer that I have tinted to give it an aged, amber look. |
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| A few coats give the guitar a warmer look and takes the edge off the red. Now to wait for it to cure...... |
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