Decisions - scratch build 7 string, string spacing, scale length, pole-to-string and lots more..

[NickK-UK]

This afternoon - reduced the fretboard thickness, levelled the carp out of it, put a 16" radius in and re-leveled length wise, then installed the stainless steel frets, ground and filed them back.

Still need to polish and a few edges. Also need to re-finish the fretboard after the sanding.



mind blown.
1. the fretboard is in tune - on a guitar without a design, from scratch by someone that has never built a guitar.
2. just one buzz note (at about 14th fret)
3. with the nut reduced in hight, the 7th at fret 24 is 2.5mm (0.125") action.

My fingers are numb - that 60-10 string set is high tension.

 

[NickK-UK]

Back to the grind stone.. this time it's shaping the neck by faceting.



Simple C profile..

 

[NickK-UK]

So routed the electronics cavity and jack port. Also drilled the pickup cable channels - that was very very very part inducing lol to the front neck pickup from the reverse direction of the electronics cavity After giving a little sand I decided it was time to give it a protective oil coat for the first time - I still need to carve and finish but the danish oil doesn't stop you doing that. Will sand back and recoat over. the next few days but...

Tasty..

 

[NickK-UK]

So I've put it back together and wired it up. First I had a short (noted used to the shielded pullback wiring I was using on the jack. Attempt 2 worked and the additional shielding means the guitar is deathly silent - hands on or off, even with an open electronics cavity.

Neck pick up B string is like a death knoll but reasonably balanced (needs a little treble still).. but the bridge needs a bit of a bunk up under the treble. Once bunked up it's going to sound good

The neck needs additional thinning, it's comfy but needs a little reducing.

The jack position is perfect on the rear.

I have now found a second bum note (seems to pinch harmonic on fretting) but I think that's from caving the neck and the truss rod needing adjustment.

I will sort out the additional carving too once I have the chance.

 

[NickK-UK]

Here you go.. some xmas photos I still have a long long way to go..





Quality electronics lid

 

[lost_horizon]

Time for carving?

How much does it weight now pre-carve?

 

[NickK-UK]

Time for carving?

How much does it weight now pre-carve?

13.8lb or 6.26 Kg according to the bathroom scales, and according to the mrs they don't lie.

 

[NickK-UK]

So having some chance to play, here’s my hit list.

Neck profile - this needs 2mm off it’s thinnest point currently and extending the thickness profile along the neck itself.

The neck needs frets need flattening and finishing. Some are a little flat topped as they’ve not been finished and crowned properly. Then the nut can be adjusted.
I’ll wait till after the neck profiling and that will also change the balance, especially with a clean up of the head stock.

The weight of the guitar is quite a crush - although I’m not looking for a light guitar and the fact that it’s alder means it should be be quite light, shows I have some leeway. At 6.25kg, it’s heavier than most strats (3.5-3.7) and heavier than 7 strings (4-4.7) and even the big LPs at around 6kg.


For anyone following, I found this page with a great list of guitars and weights: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/the-weight-of-our-guitars.219457/

So with that in mind I have a couple of immediate thoughts on carves. The order of carves in priority as each carve will reduct the weight and affect balance.

First is the access carve - if I do this first it will help access to the 24th and sort out the thickness of the lower wing lobe. The guitar sits comfortably so it’s not needing much if anything off the bottom as a priorty.
This will also sort out the neck point at this point. It already has quite a cut out but that also will alter the balance. This should now have a complete mass on the left side of the balance equation. I now have the right.

The rear neck-through deliberately stops before the rear to allow vibrations not to be damped by resting on the leg. I think just a basic rounding of edges for comfort but that can wait. I think, given the later planned maple arch top carve may reduce this top thickness too much, that part of the carve may be thicker to prevent chipping over time.

The top section/wing is perhaps overly large and after the neck and access will be the next step. I think the first carve will be the strat-like wrist carve that will increase comfort. Being at the back of the guitar it will have a larger impact on balance for the size of the cut. This will reduce the maple in that area to about 5mm from the 20mm currently.
Next is the height of the top wing. It’s a 10-20mm too high (the guitar also look top heavy - but I don’t want to loose some of the mesh pattern in that front so it’s a bit of a balancing act. That will have a largish affect in balance.

At this point I will have a full thickness but can carve progressively and keep an eye on the balance.

If I do the arch top carve next, it will have a large balance impact. It’s going to be a more rounded to keep some mass. I can then take the mass from the back.

After that’s done. I’ll consider the rear body fit carve and finally remove some thickness where I have budget. Possible target is around 5Kg - the fretboard is possibly wide enough for 8 string so it will possibly be on the heavier side (an 8 string baratone is about 4.5kg with wood missing for autotune bridge). I feel that weight also helps the guitar feel more settled/planted. Also the longer string scale adds some weight.

 

[NickK-UK]

Recording (9GB!) recording of the bridge and me gibbering over the top about experiences.
Guitar recording bridge (sentient) -> mini fuse1 (small regain, 192KHz/24bit) -> garage band (no plugin active, no EQ, no echo or reverb active). My voice is recorded via the web so I've attempted sync up the two audios - this seems most obvious on the high strings but it's not completely perfect (this is what sounds a little echo on some high notes):


Tuned B-E-E standard tuning with 62-10 Ernie Ball strings.

It will happily play like this to F# on the 62 but looses the tone at drop E (active below low E) so would need something closer to 72 or so at the 28.625" scale length.

 

[NickK-UK]

Sorry recording was NECK (sentient) not bringe (pegasus).

 

[NickK-UK]

I played around with the bridge pegasus pickup last night with a more critical ear.

I've observed that it tunes and stays quite stable at the nut. However the frets are a little out (all by about the same amount) which makes me think that I need to adjust the nut.

First I need to sort out the woodwork this weekend. Strip the hardware off, finish the neck and carve out so expect some pictures. Should be a weekend of woodworking

I can then focus more on the final fretwork and tuning.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the thicker the things, the longer it takes to settle too. So I short myself in the foot a little here.

 

[NickK-UK]

Both the mrs and I have been ill but I did get some done this afternoon/evening:





Access to top fret sorted, thumb access too, also trimmed about 1 cm off the top wing. Put in a body recess, sorted out the more of the headstock and generally reduced some weight whilst still retaining the balance and curves.

 

[NickK-UK]

Busy carving the top this evening.. not finished but the bare guitar has dropped from 5.1kg to 5.0kg according to the bathroom scales.

 

[NickK-UK]

Couple of hours this eve.. a nasty fret-strike on my hand and I don't want that leaving blood on the wood (you can see a pink smudge between the pickups) so calling it for the evening.



The eagle eyed will notice the top wing took another height reduction inline with the curve.

 

[NickK-UK]

The maple top is interesting to carve.
* the grain and natural preference of carve direction - the gouge and scrapers do a fine job and the no4 plane made a great wrist carve.
* flame across that grain has an alternating pattern of hard and soft wood which makes scraping difficult as the scraper will take the soft and less of the hard if you follow the grain. The danger is a scraper can pull chunks of soft from the pattern.

It’s at this point a really sharp finger curved plane would work.. but instead sanding will have to do.

The 20mm of thickness has helped solve some issues but i have a knot at the top just out of view that the reduction of top height helped remove.

Also i may reduce the lower lobe slightly.

I have to sat the guitar is mega comfy, and the guitar will balance horizontally on the leg at the moment.

As this is all hand carved I’m just recite my “not a straight edge on the guitar” manta

The strop is keeping the gouge sharp but after this is built its edge will need rebuilding.

I deliberately went for a shallow gouge to take small amounts each cut. I also have a narrower S bended gouge to but the main C gouge gets the use. Once again the shinto rasp makes light work in reducing the body when I reduce the wing height.
The carve is, well, by feel and by how it sits. With those two (and jigsaw for larger cuts) you can do without a router etc.. infact I think if I tried to route the flame top it would have torn chunks out of it.

I see tomorrow will be a lot of sanding..

 

[NickK-UK]

So I've put on some danish oil again - I find that once this is cured it hardens the wood which makes it easier without the chip out from the flame, but it doesn't stop you from changing things at a later date..



I ache.

 

[JimF]

The wood choices work really well together.
Would there be any mileage in streamlining the horns to save weight as well?

 

[NickK-UK]

The wood choices work really well together.
Would there be any mileage in streamlining the horns to save weight as well?

It's a bit of a balancing act - carving close to the balance point has less effect, however carving further out has more effect on the potential balance/neck dive. I loose some weight behind the bridge to make it sit ergonomically, although small the distance from the balance point makes it quite a big change in balance. So I'm being very careful.

The lower horn could be flattened a little with some reduction in thickness although that affects the curve on the bottom and how it sits on the leg. The upper horn could have a bit of an additional cut out for access (in fact there's a scallop behind it to allow my thumb not to hit the horn - unlike routed out outline guitars this doesn't have parallel sides all around. I could reduce the top horn by cutting out the scallop.

What you can't see in the photo (which is a panorama hence may look a bit feaky) are the changes:
* rear of the headstock took some reworking with a sander, this reduced the thickness of the volute
* neck got reprofiled - slight thinning at frets 1&2 as it was too thick as it came up to the volute, also thinned a little along the neck and the base of the neck thickness was reduced
* body-neck transition was smoothed out - it still has a little step but I like that as it has to support the tension - even with the neck pickup being close and cutting into the through neck.
* back body carve is deeper and so too is the scallop for the thumb.
* the lower horn and body got additional access carve out - I could make this a little more pronounced with little affect to the balance - again the back of the guitar at the lower horn is carved in so it helps access.

Having said that - there is possible to scope to reduce mass in both the horns. The reshape of the lower curve and the upper inside curve would work. This is partly why I've left the raised part of the carve chunky.

What I will do is wait for this current application of danish to harden. Assemble, have a play, then work out the next iteration of changes. I'll also put the strap locks on this time too and check the strap balance. Also gives me a chance to clear up/tidy my mess.. I can then use a bit of carpet on the work bench to reduce the opportunity to scratch.

 

[NickK-UK]

So this is the state currently:
* carved and reshaped (removed mass from the lower horn)
* electronics controls added
* some other things like shaping on the back

I can see there's a slight neck alignment with string/bridge/nut - but as long as it plays good then I'm happy. Nut also needs sorting next.
Managed to recess the jack upside down so the back is a little bit of a mess - I can use an offcut to make a panel and that will solve. Doh.



For now I want to play.. the strat and accoustic just don't feel or sound the same.

Weight = 4.9Kg without hardware.. so it's still on the heavy side but that's fine by me.

 

[NickK-UK]

You so the pegasus needs a little treble bump and a general gain boost simply due to it being a little further away from the strings. I found previously that the pegasus on the bridge needed a little closer to the treble strings. Once that's done it's decent and the dark murk is cleared. Not that dark is bad in the right song.



Clear as a bell but seems easy to adapt with a little tone/EQ.