Another Guitar Building Odyssey

Cafe Society
21

So, the curly maple top arrived today:

[http://i42.tinypic.com/2ci785l.jpg](

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As you can see, the wood supplier drew a guitar shape on it already to mark the bookmatched side.:rolleyes: The centerline cut isn’t exactly straight and perfect, so I need to remedy that. I’ll do that the same way I did the alder blanks - with a straight edge and my router. (see post #1) Again, once they pass the sunlight test, they’re ready for gluing.

Now, these are thin pieces of wood - 1/4" thick. I can’t glue them like I did the alder because there isn’t enough surface area on the join to keep the wood from “tenting” up on me. So, here’s the method I learned on how to glue two bookmatched pieces of maple on end.

First, you can see from the first photo, I got the maple sitting on a 3/4" piece of MDF. That’s there for a reason. It’ll be my “stage” so to speak. What I do is put the two pieces of maple on the MDF and tent them with a 1/8" thick piece of scrap wood. Then I hammer nails into the MDF around the perimeter of the maple, making sure the nails are right up against the planks:

[http://i40.tinypic.com/v2w6cy.jpg](

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Now, as a test before I apply the glue, I pull out the scrap wood and push the maple tent flat:

[http://i43.tinypic.com/33xgg8k.jpg](

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The nails keep the pressure on the joint and make sure the two pieces are pushed together tightly.

So all that’s left to do is to put down some newspaper so the excess glue that oozes out the bottom of the join doesn’t bond the maple to the MDF (yes, the first time I tried this with scraps that’s exactly what happened :smack:). I apply the glue to the edges and set up the tent, pull out the scrap and push down. Some glue oozes out of the top of the join, too, but I just wipe it off with a piece of paper towel.

Now just in case it decides to want to tent up on me from the pressure of the nails, I lay down another layer of newspaper on top of the maple and clamp it at the top and bottom of the seam. I also put a 25lb plate in the middle. That ought to keep her down:

[http://i44.tinypic.com/2lsg10z.jpg](

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That’s all for today. Next, we glue the top to the alder base…

22

Fascinating - all the stuff I can’t do and certainly don’t have the tools for. Nice piece of maple - will it be a solid blue or a burst-type of finish and what will the main blue be - dark, royal, aqua, etc…?

Why are you chambering it primarily? For weight or for tone? What tone are you targeting with that alder+maple combo? Seems like it would be fundamental and bright given those woods…is the chambering supposed to balance that out with a little semi-hollow warmth?

You have a cool shape and the wood seller should never have traced a guitar on unsold wood, but a Les Paul would look sweet out of that wood, ya gotta admit. :wink:

23

It’ll be solid blue, but I will be doing the “black and sand back” technique to the top to bring out the figure more. I’m going to try and get it as close to a medium royal blue as I can. I still have to test my dye mixtures on scraps to get the right recipe.

I’m chambering mostly because I’ve never done a chambered guitar. :smiley: I’m a little worried that it might turn out too light, resulting in a neck heavy guitar. But, it’s too late to turn back now. The neck I’ve ordered is maple with a pau ferro fretboard which shouldn’t be too heavy, but we shall see…

24

The linden tree in my landlord’s front yard fell down last year. Actually, it was kind of a double-trunk; one trunk split and fell and took out the power lines, he hired a crew to take out the other half. According to that woods page BigShooter linked to, basswood (from the linden tree) can be used for guitar bodies.

I have a friend who does woodworking. When the crew came to take out the tree, they looked at me like I was nuts when I asked them to save some good, straight-grained pieces for me. My friend has them air-drying in his garage now; he wants to learn turning and make some bowls out of them.

If I’d known anyone here might have been interested, I’m sure I could have scavenged enough other pieces for a few guitar bodies. I’d have given them away just for the cost of shipping them. Does the body have to be two pieces, glued together? The pieces I saved for my friend were about 20" diameter, and a few feet long.

25

Bodies can be one piece, you just need a plank about 19" (grain length) X 14" for most shapes. Basswood is one of the more economical choices and usually is only used for bodies that are going to get an opaque color finish of some kind, because it doesn’t really have nice looking grain lines or figure.

But if you got the wood, might as well give it a shot. It’s an addicting hobby once you get the hang of it…

26

John Suhr is one of the founders and a former Master Builder for Fender’s Custom Shop and now is on his own. Suhr guitars get a ton of buzz in the guitar geek community and he is respected for his knowledge of woods and guitar building.

He loves Basswood - check out that link to his web page on woods, which overall is a great discussion of tone woods that complements Warmoth’s page nicely. Suhr loves basswood with a maple cap because the basswood is a great tonewood but is light, softer and not as pretty - the maple cap adds a bit of bright, some heft and gorgeous grain.

But basswood is a great body tonewood…

27

Good news :slight_smile: and bad news… :frowning:

Good news is I took out my nails and had a look at the glue line on the maple and it looked pretty good. A little raised up in the middle but I took that down with a little 120 sandpaper…

Bad news, the maple warped on me pretty good. :frowning: Maple’s a funny acting wood and it can do that sometimes. When I lie it flat, topside up, the corners tend to raise up about 1/8" on the bottom edge - a little less so on the top edge. But I decided to glue it to the alder anyway in hopes that it’ll work out when it’s clamped for 24 hours:

[http://i43.tinypic.com/4g0j09.jpg](

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But even with the clamps on tight, the corners are still raised:

[http://i40.tinypic.com/1ext2v.jpg](

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[http://i42.tinypic.com/1zdy7q1.jpg](

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Maple’s such a pretty wood, but it’s hard to work with sometimes. Since it’s on the corners it may be ok because when the body shape is cut out those corners will be gone, but you never know. I’ll have to wait until I cut out the body and see if there are any gaps between the maple and the alder. If there are, then I’m shit out of luck and will have to start over. It’ll be just an expensive piece of firewood at that point… :smack:

28

Couldn’t you just run it through a planer to remove the maple if needed?

29

Two reasons:

First, my planer doesn’t go that thin very reliably.

Second, it was warped so badly that even if I could use the planer, I would of had to take off so much wood to make it flat that it wouldn’t have worked as a top for the guitar.

I’m taking the clamps off later today and cutting out the shape, so we’ll see what it looks like then…

30

I meant in order to save the alder body can’t you remove the maple top with the planer?

We glue a lot of thin stock in the shop for small doors and furniture panels. We use shop made clamping cauls made with slightly crowned (interior faces) hardwood pieces (approx 7cm x 5cm) bolted through with carriage bolts and wingnuts to keep them flat.

31

Oh and I wanted to say good luck when you remove the clamps.

32

That I could do, and it occurred to me after I answered your post that that was what you meant. :slight_smile: I might do that…

I’ve been having other ideas though about what to do next if it doesn’t work out - stay tuned…

33

I know you all are dying of the suspense… well… let’s just say it worked out much better than I thought it would. :slight_smile:

So, I took the clamps off and nothing moved or popped up, which was good.

[http://i41.tinypic.com/xd8a6u.jpg](

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Then I lined up the center line of my template with the glue line of the maple and attached the template with two counter sunk screws - one in what will be the neck cavity and the other under where the bridge will be going:

[http://i44.tinypic.com/11tq5x4.jpg](

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[http://i43.tinypic.com/207onyp.jpg](

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Next, I traced around the template with a fine point sharpie to get the outline and then I took the template off.

When looking at the pics, you’ll notice that I decided to put the figure of the maple the opposite way than how the wood supplier drew his guitar outline on. Wanted to be different, I guess, plus the figure was a little better on one end than the other and I wanted the prettiest figure to show the most.

Anyway, next was a trip out to the bandsaw and the moment of truth. Here she was after the shape was bandsawed:

[http://i43.tinypic.com/r08ayt.jpg](

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I cut about 1/8" outside the line all the way around:

[http://i40.tinypic.com/nx3j91.jpg](

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And there was one spot where there was some separation between the alder and the maple: :frowning:

[http://i43.tinypic.com/142vt3r.jpg](

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Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I can easily make up some homemade wood putty with the sawdust from bandsawing and patch that. So I continue on.

Next, I have to cut down to the line. So I attach the template back to the body with the two screws and I load a bit with a template bearing on the shaft into my router:

[http://i41.tinypic.com/j60777.jpg](

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The bearing follows the template and keeps me from cutting too deep past the line. I do several passes with the router, going deeper and deeper each time. Here it is after the first two passes:

[http://i39.tinypic.com/20u282u.jpg](

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I’ve had people call me crazy for not using a router table for this, but I find I get better results with less tear out when I (carefully) feed the router to the wood instead of the other way around. Call me weird…

After I got the first two passes done, I checked out that area of separation again:

[http://i40.tinypic.com/210ana8.jpg](

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Looks much better!:slight_smile: Still see some holes and you can really see the glue line, but it’s not worth tossing it and starting over. I actually have another idea that, if I can pull it off, would solve this problem and make this guitar totally unique!!:smiley: More about that in a later post…

After taking the router to it’s full depth, I still have about 1/2" of wood to remove on the bottom half of the alder. So I change to a bit with the bearing BELOW the bit, flip the body over, and use the edge I just cut as a template to cut off the remaining wood.

So here’s what she looks like now:

[http://i42.tinypic.com/24v8pdf.jpg](

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The shape is fully cut out. Next is the string holes through the body and the neck joint…

34

It’s been a little while since my last post, but I got a couple of projects going at the moment, so I work on this one when I get the time. With that said, the string holes through the body and the neck screw holes are done - nice and straight:

[http://i40.tinypic.com/34ypk4y.jpg](

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[http://i40.tinypic.com/25hmn7q.jpg](

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For more info on my technique for getting nice straight, perpendicular holes through 1.75" of wood see post #35 in this thread.

Also, I bored the holes for the string ferrules. I made them so they sit flush with the body… well actually a little deeper. :smiley: I like 'em that way:

[http://i43.tinypic.com/vo8zcx.jpg](

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For giggles, I got out a set ferrules to see how they look:

[http://i41.tinypic.com/qzrfrk.jpg](

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[http://i42.tinypic.com/so2vrk.jpg](

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Perfect…

You can notice on the backside that the glue line is a little slanted and doesn’t run through the exact middle of the guitar like the topside glue line does. I didn’t match the centerlines up exactly when I glued the maple to the alder, but that’s ok because I’m not basing anymore of cuts off of the backside glue line and I had some wiggle room with the way I routed the sound chambers on the inside so everything will line up just fine. It’s just a prototype anyway. I would never be this sloppy if this was for a client. But then again, I wouldn’t be building something I never tried before for a client either. :smiley: I think next time I’ll have to use some pilot holes and dowels to make sure I get the top on straight…

More to come. I think next will be the round over edge on the back side and an interesting idea I have for the top…

35

Looking forward to digging into your pics - I am on my way to a meeting in NYC. Busy week.

36

Look forward to the progress reports. Glad the lamination turned out fine.

37

No work done lately, but I did get a chance to try out some dye mixtures and get the colors I was looking for. Here’s the color blue I’ll be going for on the top:

[http://i41.tinypic.com/b6wuu0.jpg](

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The back will be tobacco brown…:smiley:

38

Sweet! I love the color. So it will look something like this (just the finish, not the rest of the guitar)?

39

Wow - I am not a blue guitar guy, but that looks really rich. I look forward to seeing that on the full body.

40

It looks like it’s got 50,000 volts running through it! I just love the look of dyed figured maple.