2x 6 String BM Style build thread

[Walterson]

Here we go again... my Kids are 8 and 5 Years by now and my doughter is in serious need of a Guitar, but well - it wouldn't be fair to build only one...

Specs so far:

Body: some sort of Mahogany salvaged from a step of a staircase
Neck: Wenge boards left over from a door somebody build 30 Years ago
Fretboard: Wenge
Scale length: 22,2" (basically Gibsons 24.75 but without the first two frets)
Size will be abot the same as those Ibanez Mikro Guitars

I already glued up the body and neck blank.



Went a little crazy on the neck blank. -> if it's worth doing - it's worth overdoing....


9Ply with some Wenge and Maple veneers. Glued up with 2k, quite a hussle - but worth the effort. Please note: the middle piece is getting thinner towards the headstock...

So long. Have a nice one!

 

[Walterson]

Excellent. How can I edit the thread title? -> got it.

 

[dmlinger]

Looking forward to seeing these builds.

What glue is that? Always used regular yellow wood glue.

 

[foreright]

Nice - I'm just starting a micro-guitar for my 4 year old - am torn between my original design (kinda skeletonized headless strat with 3d printed bits) or a hohner "the jack"-a-like, both with a 20" scale length. WIll be building both (haha) but undecided as to which he gets. I drew out the neck outline on some black limba I have lying around and it looks REALLY small.

That mahogany looks really nice btw - will be good to see how they turn out!

 

[Walterson]

@dmlinger: this is the epoxy used to laminate the neck -> https://shop1.r-g.de/en/art/100110
I would not try this with water based wood glue, to much moisture and "open time" for wood glue is somewhere between 5-10 minutes before it starts to cure. It took me ~30minutes to apply the epoxy (on 16 surfaces!) and clamp everything up. I needed about 105g of Epoxy and there was almost nothing squeezing out.

Looking good so far...

 

[BlackMastodon]

That neck looks beautiful. Your kids are lucky to have such a talented builder for a parent, hoping they stick with the instrument and make lots of noise for you.

 

[electriceye]

Love the neck. I recently made something similar and ended up buying 6 more long pieces (6' or longer) of 1.25x.75 wenge, so looking forward to making many more. My only hangup is that they are splintery!!

 

[astrocreep]

I was confused as to that sketched shape looking nothing like Brain May's guitar.... until I realised you meant Blackmachine....

I guess I saw salvaged wood, short scale homebuild and jumped to the red special!

 

[Walterson]

@BlackMastodon: Thanks man! I finished my last build ~6 Years ago. We'll see how these turn out...
@electriceye: you are right and it's quite brittle to. Routing Wenge is a nightmare also.

Made a little progress and roughed out the first two neck blanks. If anybody wondered why the blank was so big -> I can easily cut 4-5 Necks from that blank with very little waste.



I went for a very shallow head stock angle between 7-8° to reduce friction at the nut. Red Special is working fine with 4°... we'll see.

 

[Purelojik]

OMG a new walterson build?! im following this for damn sure. are you on Instagram by chance?

 

[Walterson]

OMG a new walterson build?! im following this for damn sure. are you on Instagram by chance?

I'm just back from your build blog and I'm jealous. Awesome builds! I'm only on flickr and not posting much there...

 

[Walterson]

Managed to glue on headstock extension for two right handed guitars.... ....my son needs a left handed one.
I wasn't feeling like correcting this and made a third neck instead. I may have a guitar to spare soon. The neck blank is thick enough for another two necks - at least. Oh and truss rods are in as well.

 

[JimF]

Just make one guitar a non reverse headstock?...
Looks great by the way!

if it's worth doing - it's worth overdoing....

That's a phrase I live by!

 

[Deegatron]

I made a lefty for my niece and honestly I regret it. she was about 5 or 6 at the time.
Learning on a left handed instrument means she will always play on a left handed instrument.... and will only have access to left handed instruments (which are extremely rare and hard to resell).
I made a righty for my son about a year later (he's a lefty) and he's adapted to it just fine. Not that he's a super savage player by any means but he can pick it up and strum it and plink along. he's going to learn on a righty and can play any righty guitar from here on out....
Just some food for thought.

 

[dmlinger]

I made a lefty for my niece and honestly I regret it. she was about 5 or 6 at the time.
Learning on a left handed instrument means she will always play on a left handed instrument.... and will only have access to left handed instruments (which are extremely rare and hard to resell).
I made a righty for my son about a year later (he's a lefty) and he's adapted to it just fine. Not that he's a super savage player by any means but he can pick it up and strum it and plink along. he's going to learn on a righty and can play any righty guitar from here on out....
Just some food for thought.

My son is 6 and a lefty as well. He is drawing interest in the instrument and I'd like for him to play righty for the same reasons.

 

[JimF]

I've always wondered why lefties choose to learn left hand when there is no natural ability for guitar! Especially seeing as playing with your dominant hand on the neck is probably advantageous. Easier to learn how to strum than learning how to fret! In addition to this, being right handed myself, and learning guitar as a right handed person has meant that 20 years later I'm pretty much ambidextrous (apart from using a pen), which has proved very useful in working on cars etc and in DIY

 

[KnightBrolaire]

I've always wondered why lefties choose to learn left hand when there is no natural ability for guitar! Especially seeing as playing with your dominant hand on the neck is probably advantageous. Easier to learn how to strum than learning how to fret! In addition to this, being right handed myself, and learning guitar as a right handed person has meant that 20 years later I'm pretty much ambidextrous (apart from using a pen), which has proved very useful in working on cars etc and in DIY

I made a conscious choice as a lefty to learn on right handed guitars when I was first starting out. It made fretting/playing muuuch easier imo but also I could walk into any shop and pick up a guitar to try it.
Normally I'm not a fan of forcing people to do things a certain way, but it's just going to make their guitar experience easier in this case ime.

 

[JimF]

Oh yes I 100% agree, definitely not a case of forcing lefties to do something as they are in the wrong, but more a way of making their life easier! Pick your battles in life

 

[Walterson]

@All: thanks, interesting discussion! I think I'll let him choose and try to convince him to use a right handed one. Talked to guitar teacher with 20+ years of experience and he said about the same... well I'm builiding both anyway.

Made some progress on the necks and headstocks btw:

 

[JimF]

Wow they look fantastic!