Build for a friend.

[Grif]

How's the build going?

 

[DistinguishedPapyrus]

How's the build going?

Haha, funny you should ask. It'll be done this week if all goes well. I took a little while off to focus on other things, but I'm giving it a final push to the finish now and I'm currently working on final assembly and setup. I still have to make the truss rod cover, and nut... and that's about it. Maybe some minor tweaking on a few areas before packing it up to ship.

It's funny you ask cause I was waiting to make a final update here til it's done, which should be within a week or so, but heres a taste of what I've been doing so far:

More pics to come on the NGD...

 

[MoonJelly]

 

[Grif]

I really like this build and I admittedly got a little impatient/worried that this build was forgotten

 

[warped]

Really nice - is that the hand rubbed oil finish? What did you use?

 

[DistinguishedPapyrus]

Really nice - is that the hand rubbed oil finish? What did you use?

So far just straight up Tru-Oil, thinking of waxing too. 4 coats over all, pretty well soaked in and cured, a real light rub with 0000 steel wool over the back of the neck afterward to make it feel super slick and knock the gloss down. I know that is not an extremely protective finish, but the guy who will own it is very careful with his guitars, he wouldn't jump off his stack in a local bar gig with this guitar strapped to his back or anything lol... it'll be in good hands.

 

[DistinguishedPapyrus]

Ok. No more crap.

It's done.

Thank God for giving me this talent. So I have been having alot of fun playing this thing. I gotta build another eventually to keep lol. It has a super clear sound from these pups. The action is tight and fast like a properly set up Music Man JP. I actually built the neck to be very close in specs to the JP's. The overall sound from playing and simply knocking on the body is a little more on the brighter side, but it sustains for decades!!! Stays in tune really well thanks to the locking tuners. I still have a little bit more tweaking over all to do on the build before I'm satisfied with it and ready to pack it up to ship... some polishing of the frets and making a truss rod cover and such. Gonna put my signature on the cover. Believe it or not this is actually my second completed guitar. It's hanging with the first one in that last pic. Heres a few more shots of the final build steps for anyone interested:

After discussing it with Ben we decided to take the heel back a little deeper and came up with this shape, super smooth fret access now:

Real tidy electronics cavity, love it!

Heres one last shot I took pre-finish:

Oiled, about to begin assembly:

Close up on how the scarf joint came out:

Assembly included dropping in the string through ferrules:

Installing pups:

Putting together the electronics. Pretty simple, a 3 way selector, and a single volume with push/pull for coil tap.

Making a bone nut is a bit of an art all in itself, and smells really bad. Not recommended to use high speed cutters...

 

[MoonJelly]

Really beautiful, man. Congrats to you and the new owner.

 

[thinkpad20]

Jeez, a second build?

I keep seeing people post these amazing builds which are their first or second or third build, and it blows my mind because I'm pretty sure if I tried to make one it would come out looking more like the Dima Gothic thread And the build in this thread doesn't look simple at all. Is guitar-making that easy? or do you have some sort of woodworking or other applicable background?

Either way it looks really amazing, great job!

 

[DistinguishedPapyrus]

Jeez, a second build?

I keep seeing people post these amazing builds which are their first or second or third build, and it blows my mind because I'm pretty sure if I tried to make one it would come out looking more like the Dima Gothic thread And the build in this thread doesn't look simple at all. Is guitar-making that easy? or do you have some sort of woodworking or other applicable background?

Either way it looks really amazing, great job!

My only background is that I've always loved playing around with power tools like since I was a little kid in my dads garage, done all sorts of at home projects. But I specifically said this is my second completed build cause I have about 3 others sitting around that aren't done yet, and I've made nearly a dozen attempts at other builds that failed in some way or another. This was definitely a challenging build, one I honestly thought about throwing in the towel a few times over. You really just have to be extremely patient, have a full guitar planned out, do each step as precisely as you can, not accepting anything less than perfect in every step and follow that plan through to the end without changing it up mid way. It's taken me about 6 years to get to this point.

 

[Ebony]

Very impressive

 

[Hywel]

That looks fantastic!

Your friend is a very lucky person.

 

[Pikka Bird]

Stellar work, and I loooove your design! Keep at it!

 

[Electrotimber]

impressive work. Congratulation. may I ask about pick ups?

 

[Electrotimber]

This is exactly the guitar model I'm trying to build. I started with the angled scarf joint neck but with out success. Than was lucky to storage another piece of lamineted neck and I did again the scarf joint but this time I did it streaight, I mean perperndicular to tha central axe of the neck. I'm scared to make it angled. I must learn how to make it right becouse don't like the fretboard with that little piece angled that appear after the nut.

 

[DistinguishedPapyrus]

impressive work. Congratulation. may I ask about pick ups?

They're made by a guy named Ethan who runs a business called Instrumental Pickups. He can make a custom set for a fanned fret instrument, whatever your specs may be; number of strings, string spacing, scale length... etc. Very nice stuff, look him up on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Instrumental-Pickups-1389691651274679/

 

[thinkpad20]

My only background is that I've always loved playing around with power tools like since I was a little kid in my dads garage, done all sorts of at home projects. But I specifically said this is my second completed build cause I have about 3 others sitting around that aren't done yet, and I've made nearly a dozen attempts at other builds that failed in some way or another. This was definitely a challenging build, one I honestly thought about throwing in the towel a few times over. You really just have to be extremely patient, have a full guitar planned out, do each step as precisely as you can, not accepting anything less than perfect in every step and follow that plan through to the end without changing it up mid way. It's taken me about 6 years to get to this point.

Ah, OK that makes a lot more sense then Well, I really love what you've created. Your friend is very lucky, and I hope you keep it up

 

[DistinguishedPapyrus]

Ah, OK that makes a lot more sense then Well, I really love what you've created. Your friend is very lucky, and I hope you keep it up

Definitely man, I'm already thinking of doing another as a keeper. Same model, just different woods and maybe a few slight spec changes. That'll be my next build.

 

[Grif]

I love the whole build, but that shape...man, I might be in love

 

[KR250]

I've been following this one for a while, turned out great! Well done. I'm building one for a friend as well that is finally getting close, seeing this is good inspiration to "get on it".