Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello ladies and gentlemen! My name is Eugene and I have started my first guitar build... I will post pictures (from my phone) once my MicroSD card arrives, until then words should suffice. First a little background- I am 24 years old, imigrated from Ukraine to the US at the age of ten... Dropped out of college at 18, currently a construction worker (mostly carpentry and wood flooring)... I play guitar at church, been playing since about 15... and thats about the time that I decided I want to build my own guitar... so now 9 years later that ambition has reached fruition and there's no going back... hehehe... There are several hinderences though, such as the fact that I do not have a well stocked wood shop, nor even a poorly stocked shop, so I'm working on the rear deck in the middle of winter... Another problem is that my dad (an outstanding guitarist/musician) is convinced that building a guitar is a worthless endeavor... To combat this I have come up with plans for a guitar that would cost much more to buy than to build... In details as follows...

Lacewood/Walnut/Jatoba
5 piece Laminated Neckthrough with a tapered center
5 layer Semihollow Body
Fan Fret (24.5/25.5)
Active Electronics with 2 Humbuckers and a saddle Piezo
Final Cost <$300

Hope that's not too buzzy a for an amateur... lol... Think

So thus far I have amassed the following:

18 3/16" dual action rod

24 fret kit (from ebay... undercut and prebent, but trimmed almost perfectly to length... for a regular fretboard that is...
which poses a bit of a problem for my slanted frets... oops... where is my magic fret stretcher... lol...)

2 rail humbuckers (Entwistle brand... not your standout super-pups, but found no dirt on them either... very cheap as
well... $45 for the set... Look and feel very decent...)

Artec active preamp with saddle piezo and aux. input (aux. is for the pickups... this unit is meant for an acoustic guitar,
but I'll remove the curved shroud and stick it under my top... no one will ever know... mmmhhahahhaha!)

Sperzel tuners (in black... looking forward to receiving these...)

Shop Fox fret saw (now this one is causing me concern... I bought it because it was the cheapest fret saw I found, they
gave no info as far as the kerf width so I naively assumed that because it was a "fret saw" it would be some
standard kerf... upon recieving and measuring it with some precision calipers I found the kerf to be .015" and
my frets are .025" at the tang... uh-oh... will this work? or should I just send it right back? I test fitted one fret
a little and it will go in with a couple mighty taps... should I try the whole fingerboard? my fingerboard is jatoba,
not the softest wood...)

Hi! Finally bringing ya'll some pictures! They are from my phone, but they'll give you a fair idea of my progress...

Looking good Eugene! I look forward to watching your progress.

Thanks for your comment Danny, so now i know I should continue with my documentation... right now I'm stuck on the fact that my .025" tang frets will not fit my .015" slots... Not wanting to spend $30 at Stew-Mac or LMI, I am seeking out creative ways to supersize my slots... I have already raided my local hardware stores with some calipers trying to find a suitable saw but no luck... Once I clear this hurdle i will be one happy monkey!

I am no expert, but for this to work i think you would have to center the new cut with the old cut you can't just go for it and hope for the best or your slots will be off. keep that in mind and maybe others will confirm or bust my theory.

That is a wierd coincidence. I'm doing a neck thru electric. All my builds have use .023 fret slots. I now have the fretboard glued to the neck and body to find that the fret wire is .028. For me the solution is buy some more .023 fret wire. For you if you use a jig with a template and can recut your slots using the same exact setup and the right kerk saw then you're ok. Otherwize, I agree with the previous post, and you should make a new fretboard.

Wait! You don't have to make a new fingerboard.
I have had to widen fret slots several times & there's an easy & cheap way to do it.
All you need is a feeler guage, the thickness of your fret wire & a small round file. (or the corner of the stone on your bench grinder, if you have one)
File a semicircular "gullet" into the tip of your feeler guage (to turn it into a hook knife) & draw it through the slots. Filing will leave a small wire edge on the feeler which will make the slot a little wider than the guage. Experiment with some scrap to make sure you've got a good fit before you go at the fingerboard.
You have to be careful to avoid chipping as you exit the slot, but otherwise, this is an easy (if a bit tedious) process.

Hi gentlemen! Thanks for all your ideas, especially Daniel Minard who's idea would of been suitable for me... Unfortunately I got it done and over with before I had a chance to review your posts. Here is how I did it...

I realized that instead of centering my new slot on the old one I could just shift it .010" towards the nut, which would be the equivalent of that much nut compensation. So I just found some razor blades that were .010" thick and used them as spacers to slide my .015" saw against... The net result is a total .025" slot width with each fret a little closer to the nut... Plus I did my fret markers and fretboard binding today, so I'm pretty happy...

Some pics...

Hey Eugene;
Glad you got it fixed! Lots of ways to skin the cat.

Good thinking, Eugene. Looking forward to your progress.

Danny R. Little

I have been working alot lately, which is nice for my budget but not so nice for my guitar build. Here are a few pictures of the body section that I was working on... This is the middle section of the body sandwich, which will constitute the hollow part... Some of you may wonder why in the world I got myself into this jigsaw origami buisiness, and the answer is there is no simple answer... My idea was that I didn't want to see endgrain on the bottom of the guitar, and binding wouldn't work cause there is going to be some carving involved... so this was my solution! Besides, if it makes things alot harder than they should be -then it must be art... lol...

Any update on this? About to start my first as well and looking for some cool stories.