Posts

Real life keeps interfering but I did manage to set the inserts for the bridge into the body.

Here are the intended players in today's drama.

The holes supplied were not deep enough so these needed to be drilled out . . . . AND . . . . of course the flat point drill bit my dad brought over has a shank the same size as the bit = 11 mm . . . . which is ... JUST ... big enough not to fit into the 3/8 collet (I think that's what it's called) on my drill . . . . . SO that was a NO GO. 

The boxy thing has 2 11 mm holes lined up dead vertical to help keep the drill bit aligned in lieu of a drill press . . . which I don't have . . . basically a couple of scrap pieces of 3/4" white wood for the sides and 2 1/2" pieces for the top and bottom screwed together. The blue tape is on the bottom over the crew heads to prevent scratches. The metal ring is a depth stop . . . to prevent drilling THROUGH the body should the bit grab.

OK so the flat point bit doesn't work (it WILL NOT fit the chuck of the drill FAIL . . . ) . . . back to the brad point, after verifying that I have enough depth for that little brad point to not go through . . . 

Check depth needed . . . and against the body (sorry no pic) . . . and I did make a couple of pictures of actually setting the inserts BUT . . . they are all out of focus . . . darn.

So here is the finished product . . . . one step closer to a playable instrument . . . . 

REAL Life

My apologies for the darth of updates. Real life - or at least what passes as such in the weekends - keeps interfering and that will continue at least through this weekend . . . flying kites at the beach seems much more attractive than sweltering at home in potentially record temperatures.

There will also be some updates on another project besides the guitar . . . . soon.

picking a guard ....

So here is the current idea .... not much progress .... real life intruding ...

The top piece of Padauk may be replaced by Wenge ..... still have to make a jig to glue this up.

Screwed

So as seen in previous posts the body has a contoured heel ... but the neck screws are all the same length, and when you put them in THIS happens:

As you can see the left rear screw protrudes the required 5/8" ... the others ... more. The right front screw is too long by 5/16" ... get out the hacksaw ... well after trying to use the jigsaw with a metal cutting blade ... not sure what was going on but that didn't make much of an impression on the screw I tried it on.

I drilled some holes in a scrap piece of 1/4" ... something ... and screwed in the screws till the protuded just about a much as needed to be cut ...

And then proceeded with elbow grease and the hacksaw - INITIAL measurements can be seen on the wood, turned out that was to little and two of the screws made another trip through - REMEMBER on custom thingies like these (they are Gotoh cosmo black to match the neck plate) measure twice - at least -, cut once; AND cutting long and you can shorten later, cutting short and ... well ... $&#*((#@ sums it up I think ... ... the metal cutting blade in the jigsaw barely made an impression but the hacksaw blade was made of somewhat sterner stuff ... although one end still got chipped ... Note To Self: get a new blade ...

That looks more like it, I don't know if it matters but the tops of the cut screws were deburred using a bastard file and now the are all 5/8" over the neck pocket.All the cut screws went in very smoothly, it was the screw that wasn't cut down that squealed and squeaked ... go figure ...

And here is the result ....

Now we need something to go into and cover those holes ... ... ... working on it ... ... ...

Still have to figure how that will go together but I found that I need about 6" of width and it doesn't matter if its straight back to front or at an angle .... need to check the required length in both cases though ... and where the screws would end up ...

Pick the pickguard

Okay so I had some time on my hands as the wife and kids did other activities ... so I went down to the 'local' wood working store (which incidentally had a 25% off on wood sale) and picked up some pieces for the pickguard. Here are some photos ....

Padauk, Wenge & Yellow heart .... oh the possible combinations. At this time the top photo is also the top contender ... mirrored over the red Padauk so with another yellowheart stripe & then the Wenge again ... not sure if that's wide enough though ... may have to use a 1/2" stripe instead of 1/4" or put another stripe on the outside. I'm pretty sure I wont use the full width of the Yellow heart as in the bottom pic ... or alternating Wenge & Padauk as in the middle ... 

The body . . . part 3 of ...

Well the finish of the body is finished, here is a picture with the neck ... which fits quite snugly BTW, I may need to do a little work with some 400 grit sandpaper if it's not quite straight as it will NOT move as it is now ... fortunately a quick check with a straight edge seems to indicate that it is ... ... ... or at least very very close to

And here is a picture of just the body with the first attempt at a pick guard ... at least the part covering the pickup cavities will be wood ... and quite possibly the whole top part ... the bottom most likely will be black/red/black 3 ply.

Next the bridge post holes need to be drilled out (they need to be 5mm deeper and just a hair wider to accommodate the inserts) and the neck mounting screws need to be shortened ... ... ... I bought some clear optiplex from Lowes to get a better read on the eventual form of the pick guard once that's cut to (more or less) shape I can start assembling the electronics ...

More from the cat

Must have been feeding him the GOOD stuff lately ....

(sorry for the blurry pic . . . only noticed later)