Guitar project

[anderekel]

I'm startin' a guitar in my woodworking class, it's not terribley far along but I did some stuff done today, so I figured that I'd show what I have so far. I do have stuff laid out on the wood as well, and all the parts I'm gonna use. It's gonna be slow updating since I only have the class once a week and don't have it next week cause of spring break.

[Loveless]

it looks like tetris assisted by a cat. (j/k)


keep us updated

[norgy]

cool derek...keep us posted...it will be cool to see how you do with it....

[Annie]

Be honnest Derek... Emma is doing all the work... :naughty:

Can't wait to see more of this project!

Annie

[Palepainter]

What are you using for the top on this bad boy. You may also want to consider chambering the body under the laminated top. It really helps with resonance and tone on that heavy wood.

[anderekel]

yeah, that probably woulda been a good idea mike. But I do like heavier guitars, like les pauls. The top is chakte kok? I think that's the spelling, I might be chatke kok though, it's something like that. It's really nice lookin' though, it'll be sad when it starts to turn brown, but that's life. I'm not sure at all what I'm gonna finish it with, since I don't have a spray gun or anything. Any suggestions?

[Palepainter]

Tru-oil!!

[anderekel]

The only thing about tru oil is that, as far as I know, it won't really help the red to keep from turning brown. I figured if there's something with uv inhibitors it might help, maybe not though, I don't really know.

[Palepainter]

Its not the UV..... It is oxygen getting to the wood that causes the discoloration.

[anderekel]

Ahh, ok, I've never had that explained to me before lol, I was told that it would discolor in the sun, so uv made sense for that.

[Palepainter]

Sun will do some damage, but not as much as oxidation initially.

[Cameron Arts]

Wow, what an ambitious project. Very cool, though! :rockon:

[shane]

very kool Derek man! love the red wood choice's man! whats the center strip in the neck blank?

[anderekel]

It's walnut shane. It's a sadwich of maple walnut maple. The wings are mahogany for the back and chakte kok or something like that for the top.

[anderekel]

Well, I don't have any pics this time, forgot to take the camera, but I did get more done. I got the headstock angle cut and gettin' ready to route out for the truss rod. The body wings are mostly cut out, but I had to stop when I broke the bandsaw :( Well, what really happened is the blade was tensioned to tight, so when it got too hot it melted into the rubber wheel on the bandsaw. It melted onto the wood I was cutting and stuck the blade. To free the piece my teacher had to break the blade off both sides of the wood, then to get the blade out of my piece of wood he took it to the other bandsaw and cut it out with that. Luckily the blade got stuck far enough away from the cutline that it didn't affect what I was cutting, I still feel bad though, even though it wasn't my fault, oh well. It's startin' to actually look like a guitar though, so that's cool :D I'll get pictures of the neck after I route out for the truss rod, I have it at home, just don't have pictures.

[anderekel]

Ok, so, the wings aren't glued on yet, but here's the what I have done now. The bandsaw is fixed and works so much better now that it's tensioned correctly and whatnot. So, I finished cutting out the wings, got them all sanded, and routed out the truss rod channel, I haven't tested it to fit yet, but it should be good :D Let me know what you guys think of the body shape, I'm happy with how it's turnin' out.

[shane]

very nice derek! i really like your choices in wood man :em3600:

[anderekel]

Thanks shane. I gotta figure out how I'm gonna carve the body now.

[sprayfiend]

I'm really Diggin the body shape Derek,... Looks kewl man,nice choices with the wood also,..Keep us up to date :biglaugh::35:

[mark walker]

gee derek, i've never seen a gutair being built/made before, i'm really intrested in seeing how this turns out, my father-in-law wants me to paint his as well

[Palepainter]

Looking great so far Derek!

[Heavenly Plague]

Looking good so far, please keep us posted :)

[anderekel]

Haven't done any more work on it yet, but I got my fretboard in yesterday, so I have to show it off cause it's such a beautiful piece of wood. :D It's more of a yellowish than in the picture, but not much.

[shane]

wow that is nice wood derek! :19:

[bob mc]

beautiful piece of wood there!

Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

[Palepainter]

Nice slice of Cocobolo? Looks killer. I have a few with Cocobolo fingerboards. Great stuff. WEAR A MASK WHEN SANDING IT.

[anderekel]

yeah, it's cocobolo, it's a lot brighter than I was expecting and I'm definitely gonna wear a mask when sanding. I got a question for ya mike, do you shape the neck first or put the fretboard on then shape?

[Cameron Arts]

Super cool so far. Keep it up, dude. It's interesting to see how it's evolving.

Is there a deadline it needs to be finished by?

:6:

[Palepainter]

I would shape the finger board first. With a neck through it is bit trickier. I would suggest inserting the trussrod, and mounting the fingerboard before you glue up the body wings. Ater you mount your fingerboard, use a following guide bit i a router to use the fingerboard as your template and then shape the neck.

[anderekel]

Oh man mike, that's genius. I would never have though of shaping the fretboard and usin' it as a template. Time to start layin' it out :D

There's no due date marge, it's just something I've wanted to do for a while and finally got the chance to take the class to use the tools.

[Palepainter]

It is a little tricky to do if the board is prereadiused before glue up. You can radius and level after the fretboard is glued into position. There are alot of ways to do it. Do wht works best for the tooling that you have access to.

[norgy]

It is a little tricky to do if the board is prereadiused before glue up. You can radius and level after the fretboard is glued into position. There are alot of ways to do it. Do wht works best for the tooling that you have access to.
:thinking:....had me for a second....(preradiused) or pre read i used ...hehe...

[anderekel]

Well, I finally got some work on this. I still need to design the headstock, grrrrr, but I'm gonna do that this week and make the template, then route it out during class next week. Over the weekend I got the fretboard shaped and glued in place on the neck, I still haven't radiused it by the way, so don't worry about that, hehe. Today I used a template bit and used the fretboard as a template to get the neck profiled, worked great. Thanks Mike, you're a genius. :3: :hail: :35:

Now, I have a story to tell of why you should never let anyone touch your project that claims they know what they're doin', including teachers....... So, I had to route out for the truss rod, easy enough, I figured I'd use a router table, I already made the spot for the end so that's where I'd start the bit so it didn't tear anything out. Well, I was gonna do it in class. My teacher said I should do it freehand and make a jig, ok, fine. Well, he measured out the amount of bit showing, I told him the depth, and he claimed he grabbed a 1/4 inch bit, well, neither were right. Luckily he had measured the depth too short and the bit was a 3/16 instead of 1/4. So I took it home and used my dad's router table. Took me only a few minutes and it was the right depth and width. I'm never lettin' anyone mess with my projects again lol.

[shane]

looking great derek!this is going to be bad ass when it done i think! :0:

[mark walker]

man thats lookin really trick lookin, i love the color of that wood your usin,,

[DiegoND]

Derek,
It is starting to actually look like a guiter. You are doing a great job man.

[Palepainter]

Nice job young man. Remember to remove excess wood with a band saw before youhave a tear out trying to remove larger areas with your template router bit.

[anderekel]

I know mike, I'm gonna saw off the rest of the extra, just gotta draw up the cut lines. Thanks for the comments guys :D

[Annie]

Wow Derek! It's coming along nicely.
I love the shape of your guitar. I can't wait to see what it will look like when it's completed. I wish I could hear how it sounds! hehehe

Great work Derek!

Annie :D

[bob mc]

Very cool looking!

Agree with Annie... nice shape to that axe!

[anderekel]

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

So, I started the night off drawin' up what the headstock is gonna be. I'm happy with it, the tuners are gonna be staggered, the bottom ones being farther out. Then I cut of the excess wood on the back of the neck, then the fun came, I used a rasp to shape each end of the neck. Then I took my new spokeshave and shaved it all down to approximate size. I'm not as good as some at using a spokeshave, so I went back to the rasp at the end to make it all nice and even.

[Palepainter]

Derrick, Looking killer!.

Do you have any cabinet scrapers? That is at the perfect stage for scraping and final contouring.

[Loveless]

:bigok:

[norgy]

I like that headstock layout....looking great so far derek.....:3:

[shane]

out standing work derek!, You have came a long way dude :D

[anderekel]

Thanks for the comments all. I'm pretty happy with how it's all turnin' out :D

Thanks to you Mike for helpin' me out ideas of how to build the guitar and to everyone for just payin' attention. It really means a lot :notworthy

[anderekel]

Ok, I finally got to work again, class was canceled last week, so I didn't get to do anything major then, but I had the wings glued on. So, this week I cut off that big chunk of wood at the bottom of it, so it's the basic shape it's supposed to be :D I also worked on shaping the heel (rather hard to do with the wings glued on, hehe) and then went over the whole neck with a cabinet scraper, it's lookin' and feelin' really good to me. I'm still gonna have to shape the heel a little more, bring it back a little, but it's goin' well overall :D

[Palepainter]

Heel looks great, How heavy is that bad boy? Looks beefy,

[Loveless]

gonna be a real cool lookin guitar

[anderekel]

I haven't weighed it yet, but it is rather heavy.

[shane]

very cool Derek, soon you ll be the juke box hero! :8: