Official Luthiers Forum!

I started a new guitar today. I lke the concept of a neck thru guitar in that both ends of the strings are anchored to the same piece of wood. But I was after something different, just for the sake of being different.
I had a nice piece of vertical grain Douglas Fir thats been kicking around the shop for a few years. 2" thick by 3 3/4" wide and 35" long. So I fed it to the dogs (jointer, planer,bandsaw, etc.) to chew on for a while and came up with this.

Here's a shot of the layout. From the neck end you can see the line for the body joint which is at the 23rd fret, the next curved line is the end of the fretboard, then two humbuckers (Dimarrzio's) a TOM and stop tail piece.

Since this will be a flat top with a tall bridge, I'll need a three degree angle from the "neck" to the "body". Here is the layout of the angle starting at the end of the fret board to the end of the neck. I then marked a parallel line from the end of the neck back to the heel. This gives me a final tenon thickness of 1 3/8".

First step is to machine the bottom of the tennon, so off to the bandsaw, the double sided tape, thickness sander... and I end up with 3.05 degrees. I can live with that.

Doug Fir.

If it's good enough for Ken Parker it's good enough for me. I've pattern routed plenty of flamed maple and I don't get tear out. You would think that this was my first time with a router, this stuff is a regular chip fest.

Cut the end to match the tail of the body and finish up the shoulders of the tennon.

Now you get to see where all this is going. The blue tape is helping glue a splinter back on (a splinter from Doug Fir?Really???).


Next up was routing the body for the tennon. This was done in the standard manner with a template that was made to fit the neck, a drill press with a fostner bit to bulk out the material and a router with a pattern bit.


Now the neck is in the body. The top of the neck needs to be brought down flush with the surface of the body. Back to the band saw, this time I finish up with a block plane and a sanding block.






Here's what it looks like at the end of the day.

Wow, a d fir neck on a normal guitar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wanna make a lap steel square neck with d. fir.
you got some cajones there.
I bet it will come out fine.

I have some similar stock I was thinking about doing a similar thing with. I like the idea of a light weight electric neck, but I thought that Dough fir would be the opposite of the electric tone that is desirable. I look forward to the reports. What is the body wood?
Looks good.
Rob

_________________
http://shastaguitar.com/
http://www.kalimbakit.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/comfyfootgr ... ature=mhee
http://www.facebook.com/robert.renick.7

Really cool build! Look forward to seeing the progress.

_________________
Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

The body is spruce from a huge board that I got at a woodworkers estate sale. Maybe I'll make the tuner buttons out of mahogany with a maple cap to apease the tone fairies.
Today I got started on flattening the veneer for the top. Then I thoroughly f-ed up my fretboard , which was my last piece of ebony, so I came home to drink beer instead.

Hate it when that happens.
I have some maple cutoffs I'd been planning to use as a fretboard. they are tapered width-wise, from 1/4" down to 3/16". Thought they were 1 & 1/4" wide, turns out one was(already used it). The rest are 1 & 1/16". Not wide enough. I think I'm gonna join two of them and use it anyway.
Don't sweat the fretboard. You'll get another and start over. Good luck.

_________________
Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

So I got a little shop time in today. Glued on some burled walnut veneer and cut the messed up fretboard to size. It's going to look something like this.

looks good so far! (looks like a twin to the tele Im working on right now haha ) That walnut burl will suck uf finish like no other so it helps to seal it with epoxy prior to finishing

This is very cool - can't wait to see how this comes out...

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

That's gonna look pretty sweet. Love the shape

I am really digging the neck-through-sort-of-but-not-really design. A very cool idea! I've certainly never seen one like that before. Can't wait to see the final product.

_________________
-—-—-—-—-—-—-
Mike Hoenerhoff
Elderly Instruments

Thanks for the encouragement gentlemen.

I remembered how nice your guitar looked Alex and I have a couple of flitches of the walnut left over from a job so I went with it. I''m going to leave the fir neck showing as I like the reddish tone against the walnut.

Chris, that's a Schaller 456 combo. I got it for free-ish from a hobby builders estate. I finished a guitar for one of the offspring and got all his spare parts. Look here for info http://guitar-bridge.com/hp193108/Artikel-Liste.htm

Todays pictures show some progress and some setbacks. I don't plan ahead too much when I build a new model and sometimes I pay for it. I rebuilt my fret slot miter box and when I get more ebony that will be all good. The neck is done except for the carving which is waiting on the fretboard. Here I'm ready to rout the truss rod.

The body, on the other hand, has a date with a hatchet (yes I'll potograph that for everyone). The body will be painted black save for the walnut , the neck and headplate. It will have a black burst at the head stock and heel transitions. I want a maple purfling line at the edge of the walnut veneer. I don't want a maple veneer under the walnut because with the 1/2" roundover, the maple line would be too wide. I made a gramil that could reach in 1/2" and cut an absolutley atrocious purfling groove.


No biggie it will be painted, I'll shim the purfling (.040" black/maple/black) to the inside and fill the extra space with black epoxy.


It just went downhill from there. The good thing is that I've got plenty of material and I can be back to where I screwed up in only a couple of hours.
Here's where it stands.

You are certifiable, Wheeler.

Can't wait to play it!

_________________
"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Very Cool Steve!!!

Steve, I'll switch to a Floyd Rose and some Dimarzio Super Distortions for you. I saw those pics from the late 70's and that long hair.

Tim, stop by the shop this weekend if you have time. You can take the hatchet action photos.

No work at the shop today, had to go do some actual work. Self employed means unemployed until you get off your dead arse and go do something. I did snap a few more pics while I was there getting tools and such.

Here's how I made the neck pocket template.

Pretty self explanatory. Just cut some pieces to size, push them tight to the neck and pocket screw them together. Sand it all flat in the drum sander. I was thinking about veneering this as a tribute to Filippo's excellent jigs and build threads.

I like this style of truss rod access.

Use a 3/16" ball end mill in your router.
And a piece of plwood with a 1/4" spline attached to fit in the truss rod groove to guide the neck against the fence. Surrogate neck in these pics.



Here's the last pic you'll see of this body in one piece. Only 4 more days to hatchet time.

Very clever truss rod access technique!

Steve - you tell me when and I'll do my best to be there... Hatchet plus guitar has me very curious!!

Got some work done today. No hatchet shots yet, I put the neck and body together and realized that the treble horn crowded the access to the 24th fret. Pretty ridiculous to have a 23 fret joint and not be able to reach the 24th. So I started grinding it back to get the needed access. Went from this
To this
Here is the change drawn on the new body

Got some ebony and made a new fretboard with the fret slots in the right place. This is some super rare curly ebony. If I understand the story correctly, it's a three week hike into the Congo where this species grows. The exact location is a closley held secret and the Sherpas who support the expedition are sacraficed in a ceremony to ensure the continued growth of these highly prized trees.
I clamp up the neck and fretboard to a 3/4" x 4" x 24" chunck of steel with legs on it that the brother in law machined flat for me. It has PSA sandpaper attached and I use it for all my neck prep.

My sweetie brought me lunch including birthday cake from her dad's birthday party last night.

And last for today is a shot of my veneer press which is cleverly disguised as a 1965 454 powered SS Malibu. I could sell the car and get one of those cool vacuum deals, but those can't run 11 second 1/4 miles.

Just a little work today. Veneered the new body and shaped the neck. Got the fretboerd radiused and then made some new purfling with a larger maple stripe(.020") and installed that on the body. I modified the purfling cutter by trimming back the dowel and adding a shim to get back to the correct depth. Works much better having a flat spot on the guide surface.

Here's a couple of shots of the neck.

So are you reinforcing the necks with carbon fiber rods?...Mike

_________________
Another day, another dollar.

Hi Mike,

No carbon in this neck. It is the first time I've used Doug Fir for a neck and did consider putting in two 1/8"x 3/8" cf rods. This is a strong piece of wood and after some rather unscientific deflection testing (stood on it) I decided the cf wasn't necessary.

Steve

I'm a firm believer that all tools should be multi-purpose, so I wouldn't get rid of that veneer press either