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Hmm, that amber tint may help with the back and side color also.



I remember seeing that one. That was just a great concept from start to finish. I've also seen tutorials on Youtube on how to age brass using muriatic acid. If I end up with brass saddles, that's probably the route I'll go.

I actually got quite a bit done this weekend. I got my neck pocket trued-up, so it looks much better now. Since my body is pretty much done, I got some sanding done as well. I started by going over the back with 180 grit. It didn't change the color much, so I went ahead and used it on the top to. I was wondering what to do to the top because I didn't want to lose the patina or ruggedness, but I wanted to knock down the grain some. The 180 grit did the job great. I lost a little color, but it comes back nicely when wet. I also went around the sides and smoothed out the roundover as well.

Next, I finally got to work on the neck. I didn't spend enough time on my template, so it ended up just a tad narrow, but I don't think it's going to be a problem. My initial thought was to use the cherry for the neck and fret board, but the color is too similar to the body, so I decided to go with a maple fret board instead. Right now, the neck blank is about 1/4" too thick, so I need to rip it down and then route out the truss rod slot. My fret board blank is about 1/2" too thick as well, but it had a nice surprise hiding in it. This is about an 8' piece I got from my mom's barn. It looked pretty rough, but once I started sanding it, it revealed quite a bit of curl. I'm excited to start on my 2nd one so I can use more of this maple for the neck.

Last I started work on my fret-slotting jig. This is the start of the sled. I have the fret slot locations marked on the face and side, and the next part will be making an index hole to correspond to the fret location. All in all, it was a good weekend for building.

Looking good - r u going for the shotgun shells for knobs?

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

I don't think so. I think I am going to amend my original plan to use a six saddle set up, though. I'm leaning toward going with Alex's idea of using a traditional brass 3 saddle set up. I can age the brass with muriatic acid so that they'll fit with the rest of the guitar.

Thanks, Chris. The bridge, neck plate and jack plate are all going to be similar to the control plate. They'll all be made from the same ammo box. I think the theme is coming together quite nicely and can't wait to get it done. I should be able to make a lot of progress this weekend. I plan on getting the neck completely done. Whether or not that actually happens remains to be seen however

Lots of progress today. I started with a punch list of things I wanted to get done. First up was drilling my tuner holes. First thing I did was to improvise a fence on the drill press so that all I had to do was to slide my headstock along to the positions, and they would have equal spacing from the top of the headstock.



Next, I wanted to make sure the spacing on my printout was correct for my tuners, so I drilled the pattern into a scrap of mdf


Everything was perfect, so I proceeded to my headstock


Next, I planed down my neck to proper thickness. I didn't get any pics of that, but I'm sure you can picture the excitement in your heads


Then it was time to work on the fretboard. I began with a 3/4" piece of maple and ran it through the jointer to get it trued up and thicknessed. Again, no pics of this process, but just use your imagination.

Next was to lay out the fret locations.


Once that was done, I began to saw fret slots. Since I didn't have a miter box, I used a trick that I saw here in Jim's bass build threat the other day. It seemed to work really well, but of course I won't know for sure until I get it fretted and set up. *crosses fingers*


Last was the mock up.


Despite that fact that it took me less than 3 minutes to make this post, it took me about 4 hours or so to do the work. I'm getting really close now, and I hope to be carving the neck on Sunday *again crosses fingers, and toes...

Roger,

thanks for the pics. I do like the look. Is there enough ammo box to do the pick guard? Instead of shotgun shell knobs can you get 50 cal shell casings? With a similar patina to your bridge it would seem theme appropriate. An ammo loop guitar strap, a grenade pin whammy bar.....

Thanks, Danny. There's not enough ammo box for the pg, but I've thought about .50 cal casings for the knobs. If you look back toward the beginning of the thread, you'll see my strap. It's a general purpose WWII strap that I got from a surplus store. I've got a couple of meaningful patches that I'm sewing on it as well.

You WILL be playing "Machine Gun" by Hendrix for your FIRST song, right?

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Hehe. I just wouldn't feel right playing hendrix on a tele

Now on to today's update. You know how they say that pride goes before a fall? Well, I'd gotten a little too comfortable and confident in my progress. I mean, I hadn't had any real set backs so far. I got my truss rod channel routed last night and got my fretboard glued on. That was the thing I was scared most about. Today I was just going to trim the excess off the fb and thickness the headstock. Easy right?

D'OH


I did something that I'd heard people warn about. It was getting close to lunch, I was hungry, my blood sugar was a little low, and I just wanted to hurry up and get this one thing done before I quit for lunch. So what did I do? I proceeded to take the headstock excess off the BACK of the headstock


I just sat there in disbelief for a couple of minutes and thought about what to do. I was doing the cut with a scroll saw, so it wasn't the most uniform of cuts. I thought about just sawing it off there and making a cap to go on the back of the headstock, but again I didn't think I had the tools available to make it work, so I just ran the back side of the entire neck through the jointer to get everything evened out on the back side.


I then cut another piece of cherry to glue on the back side


Once it was dry, I just used my router with my pattern bit and my OSS to trim it to the finished neck. Worked like a charm. I also got the locations marked for fb markers.

Oh yeah, I got the headstock thicknessed as well. I was quite proud of how I recovered because I usually get very irritated when things don't go well and I have to do them over again. This time, cooler heads prevailed, though. It's not going to be the prettiest neck out there, but this is my learning project, so it can handle the warts and bruises.

We "First-Timers" call this an "Intentional Design Modification To Please The Masses", it's not that you messed up, you were simply "Pushing The Envelope" to test your limits before that well-deserved PB&J samich. Your face shows it all - I can't tell you how many of those I made, and that was just day 1(Not sandwiches, "Faux Pa's"!)

I think you should break out the Dremel next and try every doggonned adapter they make for those suckers, put an "Overdrive" on it and crank up the RPM's to 180,000 and "Get Creative"

Kickarse! Keep it going bro!

PS - how about some REAL bullet holes in the guitar - kinda like them ol' "Shotgun Jeans" from the 80's????

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

thanks for the encouragement, Virgil. I'm actually not all that worried about it since this if my freshmen effort. I knew I was bound to makes lots of mistakes since this is my first, and I'm also somewhat (maybe a lot) impatient. Those 2 things usually add up to having to do lots of things multiple times . I'll keep pressing forward and get it together soon. I may end up having to make a new neck, but I'll use this one first just to see how far I can "push the envelope" in terms of how many small things can be off and still have it sound good

Keep your eyes on the overall completed vision and nothing will get in your way bro. You got a REALLY cool 1st guitar in the works - I just had that feeling recently of plugging in my 1st guitar - there's nothing quite like it and you are almost there!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Well Virgil, I really had to keep focused on this today. Apparently I wasn't humble enough after the last setback, so the guitar-build gods saw fit to really teach me a lesson. I went to get more done today and noticed that something wasn't quite right with my neck. Apparently my friend's jointer table had gotten angled, so instead of truing up the back, I was imparting a nice wedge to it. I was pretty much heart broken at that point. I slammed the headstock into the ground and broke it in two. I did reclaim the truss rod out of it though. I wasn't sure what to do, but I thought about putting the entire project on hold for a while. I went ahead and loaded up my car with the tools and supplies (I've been building this at a friend's house) and headed home.

After moping around the house for a few hours, I decided to give another try to making another neck. In all honesty, there were enough issues with the first one that I was worried about how well it would work. I will say this, things are much easier the 2nd time around. I improved my process for attaching my neck template. Then I cut very close with the scroll saw, which resulted in a much cleaner job with the router. My truss rod channel was exponentially better this time around as well because my process there was much better. I attached the neck to my work table using double sided tape. Then I clamped a level to the edge and made sure that it ran parallel with the center line. I had it just far enough away so that my router bit would be centered on the center line. I then just used the level as my router guide, and away I went.


I ended up with a much cleaner and neater TR channel. Tomorrow I'll make a new fret board and attach it, and drill the tuner holes. I feel much better about this neck and am looking forward to getting past this stage. And BTW, the double-sided tape I used was Duck brand, and it held great but didn't leave a ton of residue on the neck. Just FYI.

Sounds like you dusted off your pants and got back on the bike, and learned some balance on the way - awesome Roger!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

*Cue the Hallelujah Chorus*

Finally hit a big milestone. Recovered from my neck debacle to finish a much better neck. Slotted and installed my fb and even got my headstock down to proper thickness.

Before installing the fb, I had to take some thickness off. I don't have a thickness sander, so I thought about it for a while and then realized that all a thickness sander is is a drum sander with a flat plate to guide the work piece through the drum. Given that information, I fashioned this

It's an old stanley plane that I clamped to my OSS. I'd just move it closer to drum on each pass. Worked like a charm.

I used the same apparatus to get my headstock down to thickness


Finally, here a pic of the neck bolted to the body


And a close up of the neck plate-- made from the ammo box


I didn't think I'd ever get to this point and am thrilled beyond all belief that I've made it this far!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Cool!!

Got a lot of stuff done yesterday afternoon. I'll try to get some better pics sometime this weekend. Sanded the FB to radius, Fret markers installed, jack hole drilled, jack plate finished, and frets on. I still need to install the side markers and dress the fret ends, but it really looks like a guitar now.

I did the fret markers with a walnut plug surrounded by rosewood sawdust mixed with CA


I'd originally just wanted to do the walnut marker, but my plug cutter cut slightly smaller than 1/4" so I had to fill the gap.

Here's the jack plate finished and installed


And lastly, another mock up

Hey hey hey Roger! This is starting to look like a guitar bro! So, the audience want's to know - how did you like putting in the frets for the first time? You can always use gun sights for bridge saddles! Do you have all the parts you need to complete the build? We're watching!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

The frets weren't terribly bad actually. Time consuming, but not difficult. I tried building a fretwire bender, but it didn't turn out very good, so I tried the trick of cutting a notch in the edge of my bench to pull the wire through. I had better luck with that, but still couldn't get a consistent radius. I hammered in the frets and then used a caul and C clamp to press them in as well. I think they turned out pretty good.

Sights for the saddles.... that would be a great idea, but I don't have any. I do currently have all the parts I need to finish up, so every spare moment I get, I'm working on it. I'm hoping to be doing the set up and playing in about 3 weeks.

Alright! Can't wait! It's cool watching your build - we all get to see it go from zero to hero!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Hehe. Dude, this is nothing compared to your first effort. And your second one isn't going to be a slouch either

Awesome job so far! I just found this thread and I really like the idea, materials and theme.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

hehe yeah, it's already kicking my arse!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar