(INCOMPLETE AND/OR ABANDONED) Demiurge's proverbial hat in the ring

[Demiurge]

I hope you are having as much fun with this as I am.

I definitely am. I've been messing around with doing a build for a very long time, but for some reason, I could never quite get over this weird, mental block with coordinating the materials and design and making that first cut. It was always more thinking than doing- a good habit, just taken too far. (Of course, I think now I just have less qualms about messing up on $5 in poplar than a $75+ "body blank.")

 

[cadenhead]

Very true. I started building a guitar in high school. It ended up having a design flaw and I basically wasted all that money on wood.

 

[Demiurge]

Update:

My weeks-long respiratory illness has finally cleared-up AND I received a $50 Lowe's gift card. Time to get more supplies.

Maple and Oak for the neck. The pieces are long enough to provide "wings" for the headstock as well.

Fingerboard wood... but wait... 2 woods? A $7 experimental attempt at a Conklin-esque "melted fingerboard" to come this week.

$10 for a 24X24 sheet of aluminum- thin enough that I believe I have the tools to cut it effectively. Just tryin' something...

 

[cadenhead]

Are you going to use that aluminum for a top?

 

[Demiurge]

Are you going to use that aluminum for a top?

I'm going to try to. It's cheap, and it appears to be workable enough to where it's worth a shot.

 

[Zachg]

I'm going to try to. It's cheap, and it appears to be workable enough to where it's worth a shot.

That would look cool, you might want to let the luthiers chime in here just in cause there's any weird possible issues. I can't think of any but I what do I know?

Cool guitar,
Zach

 

[Demiurge]

That would look cool, you might want to let the luthiers chime in here just in cause there's any weird possible issues. I can't think of any but I what do I know?

Cool guitar,
Zach

Thanks! I don't forsee any problems, as I wouldn't be relying on it for structural support. I'd be treating it like a Zamaitis-like deal where it serves as a kind of a pickguard that covers the entire face of the guitar.

 

[Arminius]

lookin great!

 

[Demiurge]

Now for my fingerboard experiment. Fingerboard-sized pieces were only $3-$4 apiece at Lowes so why the hell not try something that might turn out interesting.

Maple clamped on top of a decently-dark piece of oak.

Lines that I hope my jigsaw will let me follow.

Safety first. When using a jigsaw, make sure you have apparatus that clouds your vision and reflects you own bad breath back at you.

On my way. I tried to be as careful as possible to not let the wood slip while being cut. After (and in the middle of) certain cuts, I would reposition my clamps and whatnot.

Not quite a final product- needs some TLC to clean up so it glues together nicely (should I use epoxy & black paint or something?). Then I have to figure out which to use and which sections as the pieces are oversized.

I was really hoping to get more done this week, but whatever...

 

[Fred]

Looks awesome, man! I prefer the top one personally, but they're both delish.

 

[Arminius]

 

[Demiurge]

Update:

Got some work done on the neck blank. I did not have a camera available for all of the glorious shots of wood being clamped, so feel free to use your imagination with those.

Most of the rough sanding done on the fingerboard-face of the neck blank. Still got some glue sticking out at the bolt-in end of the neck- kind of exhausting to sand-down even with 60-grit. I'm not worried about all the glue mess on the other end, as you'll see in a moment...

I don't quite trust myself to glue-up a scarf joint correctly, so I'm angling the headstock back some.

Rough outline of the volute.

I kind of want to get a truss rod picked-out before I go that much further on the neck. I have a StewMac "hotrod," but I think it's for a bass, and their attempts to sell a specific router bit JUST to install it, I'm thinking I might want to go with something more standard.

Alright, a few more things to do with the neck...

I want to cut the profile of the headstock, which I figure I can do in essentially 3 phases.

Of course, the edge of the headstock is perpendicular to the face of it, so I make a quick flush cut.

I use a piece of wood to keep my very cheap handsaw as true to the intended cut (in each dimension) as possible.

Looks like it came out okay.

Now, to cut the face of the headstock... I must leave end the post with a cliffhanger. I want, once again, to get as true of a cut I can muster with my available resources, so I built a jig. As I've seen suggested, any time you're about to do something crucial, stop and think about it for awhile. So, here are some photos of the jig (looks like a mess, I know) while I go think of a better way to do this...

Basically, I have rails set-up to guide the saw straight and the rest of the garbage and scraps I've clamped is just whatever I could grab to support the rails and keep them from drifting.

We've got some body-blank and neck blank off-cuts, with some other scraps.

Saw is sitting tightly between the rails, but can still move appropriately.

Haven't started the cut yet. Note how inconsistent the lams are. It was hard to get a good glue-up since they're not all perfect rectangles. Almost unintentionally, I have the straighter-grained pieces on the outside (flat-sawn turned 90deg) and the diagonal (rift-sawn, right?) towards the center. The center oak is about as straight as I could find it, though I'm really more worried about what I'm going to do to the neck than to how a 5-piece lam will move.

Update:

After a few hours to think about things, I decided to start cutting. The jig I have works great, except for that it really doesn't allow the sawdust to get out on its own, so every so often I have to unclamp one of the rails and clean it out. No big deal. Once again, it's one of those things that will ensure that I don't rush... 'cuz I really can't.

 

[Arminius]

looks great so far

 

[TravTrav]

Now for my fingerboard experiment. Fingerboard-sized pieces were only $3-$4 apiece at Lowes so why the hell not try something that might turn out interesting.

Maple clamped on top of a decently-dark piece of oak.

Lines that I hope my jigsaw will let me follow.

Safety first. When using a jigsaw, make sure you have apparatus that clouds your vision and reflects you own bad breath back at you.

On my way. I tried to be as careful as possible to not let the wood slip while being cut. After (and in the middle of) certain cuts, I would reposition my clamps and whatnot.

Not quite a final product- needs some TLC to clean up so it glues together nicely (should I use epoxy & black paint or something?). Then I have to figure out which to use and which sections as the pieces are oversized.

I was really hoping to get more done this week, but whatever...

That's a really interesting fretboard design... i have something similar for my 8-string build except i didn't think of just doing random patterns and then having the choice of two... i think i'm going to try doing a sort of yin/yan thing...possibly... great inspiration.cheers

 

[Demiurge]

That's a really interesting fretboard design... i have something similar for my 8-string build except i didn't think of just doing random patterns and then having the choice of two... i think i'm going to try doing a sort of yin/yan thing...possibly... great inspiration.cheers

I'd love to see someone try a yin/yang kind of thing. I just wanted to cop kind of the Conklin melted-fretboard kind of vibe, but then do some cutbacks between colors, too. Also, my Chinese jigsaw is very untrustworthy, so I kind of had to keep its limitations in mind. With the right tools, though, it's very do-able.




Update: Right now, I'm cutting the angled-headstock out of the neck blank. Boy is this a pain in the ass to do with hand tools. Pictures to follow once I have something to show for myself.

 

[TravTrav]

I'd love to see someone try a yin/yang kind of thing. I just wanted to cop kind of the Conklin melted-fretboard kind of vibe, but then do some cutbacks between colors, too. Also, my Chinese jigsaw is very untrustworthy, so I kind of had to keep its limitations in mind. With the right tools, though, it's very do-able.




Update: Right now, I'm cutting the angled-headstock out of the neck blank. Boy is this a pain in the ass to do with hand tools. Pictures to follow once I have something to show for myself.

ah yeah, well once i actually get off my arse and build mine (sometime in january after my US trip) i'll be using all hand tools too, i think there's alot of self respect to come out of a truely beautiful guitar when you know you've done it all with your hands similar to how it would've been done a few decades ago...well, electric saws and sanders aside lol...

 

[7deadlysins666]

(should I use epoxy & black paint or something?).

Not 100% sure, but I think you could mix epoxy and some of the sawdust from the wood to make the color match(like you do on inlays).

 

[leandroab]

Not 100% sure, but I think you could mix epoxy and some of the sawdust from the wood to make the color match(like you do on inlays).

This!