Build: Seven string multiscale Telecaster with some gimmicks

[ECGuitars]

Well, I built a guitar...
View attachment 59194
I wanted to really test it out (aka play it) but I forgot to make a nut... I will do that in the next days.
I also want to refine the shape of the neck a little to adapt it to my liking.

Here's a picture of my sophisticated setup to press the frets in
View attachment 59195


And now there's a big BUT (not this:)
After installing and flush trimming the acrylic around the guitar I discovered that it looks quite ugly. Gluing acrylic greatly changes the appearance of it even if both sides are sanded to a 'satin' finish. Because of that I need to re-evaluate a different concept of of lighting the guitar. And while I'm at it I also want to come up with a solution which doesn't require bending acrylic since that's nowhere next to a precise process and also it changes the thickness of the strip depending on the bending radius which again creates gaps. Nobody likes gaps so that sucks.

Right now I see two possibilities:
1. Ditch the whole lighting (NEEEVER!! )
2. Throw money at the problem
This means, instead of bending the acrylic I'm going to cut its shape in two or three pieces out of a 'sheet' (like 20 mm thick lol) of acrylic and attach that to the body.
I still have to decide how exactly I want to do that (which usually gives me sleepless nights ). It most likely involves making a new body (but this time I want it from one piece, not two). Good thing I don't use expensive (tone)wood




But at this point I'm already quite proud of what I achieved and very thankful for all your suggestions in this thread
The first few notes I played on this guitar (without a nut so with a 'zero fret' lol) sounded really cool and I can't wait to continue on this build

If you sand the edges of the acrylic you can use a blowtorch and just get it neat enough and it ever so slightly re melts the acrylic and it becomes clear again. I do it all the time at my job

 

[Eumldeuml]

Nice first guitar build I actually like the "raw" look...kind of industrialish. Be interesting to hear it.

You gave me the idea to just finish this body with oil or something while I build the improved body... that would give me my first sevenstring (and my first multiscale) to play with

If you sand the edges of the acrylic you can use a blowtorch and just get it neat enough and it ever so slightly re melts the acrylic and it becomes clear again. I do it all the time at my job

I know that trick but I don't want them to be clear. Beneath the acrylic is a LED strip and I want that light to scatter a little bit so you don't see the individual LEDs.
Maybe I didn't make that point clear enough.. gotta work on my english vocabulary

 

[Eumldeuml]

I have to admit... I'm impressed Who said that plywood won't look nice?
It's also color changing... lol


This is the body which I'll use temporarily until I made the new one. It's just oiled with linseed oil, nothing fancy
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfZFGxUB7HX/?taken-by=hipstaboi_94
(I hope that this link works for you)

Yesterday I also finished the nut from aluminium and made a crude string-down-press-thingy (no idea how that's called in english, it's the same that all stratocasters have on their headstock to prevent the strings from popping out the nut). I need that because my headstock angle is very shallow. In hindsight that was a bad idea (it also doesn't look that nice) but I didn't want the headstock to be a seperate piece that's glued to the neck blank.. Now I know better

 

[Eumldeuml]

Three more remarks:
1. Why aluminium for the nut?
Because I like to work with it, I didn't have bone or whatever, it looks nice and I don't follow any rules that I don't understand ("you have to make the nut out of bone or your guitar will kill you in your sleep and devour your soul since it has none")

2. If you want to make sanded acrylic clear again, just wipe it with a thin coat of linseed oil. Works like a charm and I bet you could polish it to complete translucency again (right now it's a very smooth satin look). It's not what I wanted to happen but I discovered it yesterday.

3. I changed my plans again: Instead of cutting the acrylic from a thick piece, I'm going back to bending it but this time with two thin strips and not a 10 mm thick one. This should eliminate the problem that a small bending radius squeezes material out to the sides. Also I won't glue it to the body (also for maintenance reasons since my new body won't be tow pieces). Instead I'll use screws.

 

[IGC]

I think it's called a string keep. That pick guard cavity you milled looks pretty nice and uniform, what are your plans for that? I can recomend T6 6061 aircraft aluminum (if you don't know allready) it machines the best! It won't gum your cutters up like others. Been using it for decades.

 

[Eumldeuml]

I think it's called a string keep. That pick guard cavity you milled looks pretty nice and uniform, what are your plans for that? I can recomend T6 6061 aircraft aluminum (if you don't know allready) it machines the best! It won't gum your cutters up like others. Been using it for decades.

That's where the smoke comes out

And yes, the protective foil isn't removed. Gonna save this for a very special moment

The nut, the string keep and also the truss rod cover are made from 5083 aluminium. It's the stuff I have on hand and it also machines very nice. I worked with 7075 once and that stuff is even cooler. Leaves a very nice surface finish even on a gantry machine
It's nice to talk about metal alloys in a guitar building forum, kinda refreshing...

 

[IGC]

That's where the smoke comes out
View attachment 59266
And yes, the protective foil isn't removed. Gonna save this for a very special moment

The nut, the string keep and also the truss rod cover are made from 5083 aluminium. It's the stuff I have on hand and it also machines very nice. I worked with 7075 once and that stuff is even cooler. Leaves a very nice surface finish even on a gantry machine
It's nice to talk about metal alloys in a guitar building forum, kinda refreshing...

Clever idea, about the smoke emerging from behind the pick guard. Be interesting to see, keep us posted
Into metallurgy? Guess that chat would have to be another thread... I'll keep a look out if you decide to make one

 

[Eumldeuml]

I did post a preview of the smoke machine some time ago here in the forum (or rather on instagram and linked the vodeo here since I don't know how to post videos here):
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZoaSiFBFkH/?taken-by=hipstaboi_94

But in the final version there will be a button, so no need to carry a screwdriver around to activate the smoke
Since you seem to have some kind of engineering background: Do you know any type of fan that will put out a little bit more pressure (and air) than a puny PC fan? I tried the smoke system with "mouth-to-mouth-ventilation" (just blew the smoke in the pipe) and it looked so much cooler than with the small fan I got in there.

Into metallurgy? Guess that chat would have to be another thread... I'll keep a look out if you decide to make one

Well, not really metallurgy (although it's very fascinating) but more like machining in general. That's where I want to end up working (currently still in university).

 

[IGC]

There has to be a large volume/ small air pump hack somewhere on line? Would like to post more on this subject but gotta run, planning vaca with wifey! Ttyl.
Sweet smoke guitar vid
Get into GF maching solutions

 

[IGC]

Maybe a small air turbine like the ones used in these
http://www.pathon.com/airturb.htm

 

[Eumldeuml]

Well guys, I'm still alive
The guitar is somewhat finished (meaning that I can play it but the gimmicks are still missing). But since I am not an experienced guitar builder there are some design flaws, for example the neck is too wide, the headstock angle is too shallow, there are gaps between the fretboard and the neck, the backside compartment doesn't look very nice because I had to a lot of manual work to it...
To resolve these and all the other issues I want to rebuild the neck and the body (= the whole guitar )

For the translucent strip of plastic on the perimeter of the guitar and for some of the fixtures and parts in the backside compartment I needed a new way of manufacturing... So I built a 3D printer from scratch


Right now I'm in the process of redesigning the CAD files so I can start building again

 

[LiveOVErdrive]

Brilliant. I forgot about this one but damn I want to see how it all shakes out.

 

[Lemonbaby]

Well guys, I'm still alive
The guitar is somewhat finished (meaning that I can play it but the gimmicks are still missing). But since I am not an experienced guitar builder there are some design flaws, for example the neck is too wide, the headstock angle is too shallow, there are gaps between the fretboard and the neck, the backside compartment doesn't look very nice because I had to a lot of manual work to it...

What's your metric to decide that the headstock angle is too shallow? And before you make the neck too narrow, I'm almost 100% sure it just feels that way due to the neck profile. Agreed on gaps between the neck and fretboard not being a good thing. How did you glue the fretboard?

 

[Eumldeuml]

Brilliant. I forgot about this one but damn I want to see how it all shakes out.

Thanks, I really appreciate your interest and curiosity
I'm right now thinking about an illuminated inlay in a circuit board style... I want to cast it with clear or satin epoxy resin and light it with fibre optics. Because why the fluff not?

What's your metric to decide that the headstock angle is too shallow? And before you make the neck too narrow, I'm almost 100% sure it just feels that way due to the neck profile. Agreed on gaps between the neck and fretboard not being a good thing. How did you glue the fretboard?

Well... It's almost completely flat which required me to use a string-down-pressy-thing (forgot the name again) which is also found in original stratocasters and telecasters. And also I don't like the look of it (which is my go-to criteria for deciding most things on my guitar )
The neck is too wide because it feels more like an 8string and not a 7string (or like an acoustic guitar, those also have quite wide string spacing).
For the neck gluing I found a tip in a video which told me to use a few grains of salt which would in theory stop the fretboard from floating around on the glue. It kinda worked but it also left me with those small gaps. For the new neck I will use alignment holes. Should have done it this way from the beginning..

 

[Eumldeuml]

Regarding the inlays, this is what I think might look nice:

(Don't mind the white and red stuff)

I plan to wire all the frets to a voltage potential which gets grounded over my body when I press a string on a fret, which gives me the ability to light up the area where I play and which also will very likely delay my guitar by months...

 

[Eumldeuml]

Or something like this?..


HELP MEEEE

 

[Lemonbaby]

Thanks, I really appreciate your interest and curiosity
I'm right now thinking about an illuminated inlay in a circuit board style... I want to cast it with clear or satin epoxy resin and light it with fibre optics. Because why the fluff not?




Well... It's almost completely flat which required me to use a string-down-pressy-thing (forgot the name again) which is also found in original stratocasters and telecasters. And also I don't like the look of it (which is my go-to criteria for deciding most things on my guitar )
The neck is too wide because it feels more like an 8string and not a 7string (or like an acoustic guitar, those also have quite wide string spacing).
For the neck gluing I found a tip in a video which told me to use a few grains of salt which would in theory stop the fretboard from floating around on the glue. It kinda worked but it also left me with those small gaps. For the new neck I will use alignment holes. Should have done it this way from the beginning..

Fully agree on string trees being the single most useless invention ever made. Regarding the neck width: what's the distance between the lowest and highest string at the nut? And how wide is your fretboard?

 

[Eumldeuml]

It's like 50 mm string width at the nut and 58 mm neck width. I don't know how it ended up like this because I took reference measurements of my schecter guitar which plays really nicely but somehow I screwed it up

 

[Lemonbaby]

I see, that's indeed a little wider than usual. Looking very much forward to your fretboard-disco-lights though.

 

[Eumldeuml]

I think this is the final inlay design:


The whole guitar will then look like this:


Opinions?