More of that thing . . . . . real life that is . . . . . and it keeps on interfering . . . . . . . . . . .

Sorry for the lack of updates . . . I haven't forgotten but my todo list looks something like this:

- Finish garage room
    = make school table
    = build beam for hanging chairs
    = build wall
    = build work table
    = build bench

- Finish kitchen island for friend . . . . . at this point it's pretty much down to the top

- Finish living room
    = build plinth for cube book cabinet
    = make new guitar hangers w/ led lighting
    = . . . .  .

- Finish sons room
    = fix cabinets to wall
    = design & build bed
    = put french door is closet
    = finish base boards

- Finish daughters room
    = design & build bed
    = put french door is closet
    = finish base boards

- ....
- ....
- ....

- Finish guitar
    = laminate wood
    = cut lower pick guard
    = mount pickups
    = wire electronics
    = get nut cut
    = set up guitar

As you can see work on the guitar will be catch as catch can at least until the first two items are pretty much done . . . . . then I can steal an hour here and there to get back to it . . . .

More of that thing . . . . . real life that is . . . . .

Ok so the OTHER project I was talking about was the rehab of our 'garage room', which means that until I get a new work area set up . . . . I won't be able to get 'anything' done . . . .

Which won't be until after:
          • the walls are painted (by coincidence the same color as the outside of the house - we only noticed once we entered the paint color into the 'house records' and went ... wait we just saw that) . . . we're about 70% done on that one.
          • some book cases have been moved . . . about done 60% on that.
          • the living room - were the book cases came from - has been moved around . . . and a new (larger, what else) hanger backer for the guitars has to be put in . . .
          • the new project table has been set up in the garage room (maybe some posts on that later)
          • a sitting bench is made (may post that here as well)
          • the current fan is replaced . . . by a 'non fan' light fixture
          • a beam is put in to hang a couple of hanging chairs

Yep the wife has some HONEY DO things to do before I can get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

All strung . . . . . . . out . . . . . . up . . .

Well I did have a 'free' morning this weekend so I decided to see how things fit together . . . here is the result next to it's relative . . . . .

For now it's hanging up to get the neck set before I start monkeying around with things. The HAMP locking tumers from Gotoh are nice but I'm not sold on the 'no string trees are needed' part of the advertising . . . the high E string has this annoying 'ring through' . . . then again the el cheapo plastic bridge (uhm . . . it's a NUT the BRIDGE is the OTHER end of the strings dummy . . . ) that's on it right now is almost certainly at least part of the problem . . .

The action is still pretty high but the bridge can still be lowered some ... and ... of course the neck hasn't 'set' yet ... and ... the truss rod hasn't been adjusted .... and ... that el cheapo nut is still 1 mm higher than it should be ... and . . . . . . I foresee some more work in the future.

On the plus side, it does play quite well already on the higher frets and I like the feel of the neck . . . a LOT.

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 ...