Gearhead
The sides you must rout with a straightedge guide for the router. You can plane if you are handy with a planer, but I would recommend routing figured Maple because of the grain running in and out of plane every couple of mm.
With the thickness it is now, you must steam the bend in before glueing. If you sand down to less than 4mm or something thereabouts, you will not have enough stiffness to clamp the top flatly and if it is not flat, you will then need to sand it flat. With 1.5mm you will then not have enough thickness to sand at all.
Clamp two pieces of wood on both sides of the bend area, one above and one below on either side, four in total. The clamps give you leverage to hand bend the wood and the blocks of wood make sure the bend is parallel (well, they do if you put them parallel) as opposed to conical. The process of bending I mentioned in another thread last week. You can bend forward until you hit the angle of your body blank, if you overbend you can also bend back. By applying the heat evenly across the surface between the blocks, you make sure you get a constant radius.
It might be worthwhile practicing on some other pieces of Maple or even other woods to get the hang of it. Bending is not hard at all, but experience is essential.
Clint-Green
Thanks Gearhead!
Eish, this is now an entirely different ball game to what I was originally intending...I've read loads of tutorials where they use 1.5mm veneers, wood glue and clamps or bags of sand to weigh it down, that's what I thought I was getting, but now it looks like I'm going to have to do a drop-top...
I'm going to have to do some practicing this weekend, I saw a post on Sevenstring.org where a guy claims he used some water applied to the wood, a sheet of foil and a household iron. He says he had to reapply the water and the iron a few times. Would this work as well?
Another big issue for me now, is the fact that I'll have to have the body thicknessed to the point where the control cavity will run through to the front of the guitar and will have to be covered by the veneer alone since it's routed leaving only about 2.5mm on front (not sure if I'm making sense). So basically all of the wood where the toggle switch and vol/tone knobs are mounted will be gone, so I would have to mount them on the veneer.
So should I have the body thicknessed, taking 4mm off the top, then once I've glued the veneer on, sand it down until the body is back to it's original thickness (leaving 4mm of veneer on top, basically)? I feel I may be in way over my head now, again I'm a total newb ?
Gearhead
Take my opinion for what it is - an opinion. If there are guys who do use 1.5mm and they say they have made it work, that's another opinion on how it's done. I guess what I'm saying is that there is always another way, but the drop top would be mine.
The sand bag trick might work to distribute the pressure evenly, but I would be worried about the veneer being pushed into cavities. You will in any case not be able to see what you are doing for the bag. Just please do not soak the veneer in water, this would soften it and increase chances of the veneer tearing. The wet does not help bending, steam or rather its heat does.
It is not hard to put the controls in 4-6mm Maple, just mark up before thicknessing where they were.
The thickness of the guit is only essential by the neck pocket and if the bridge is top mount like on a Strat. Even then you can get away with a few mm as long as there is stroke on the height adjust of the saddles. Thicknessing a few mm before glueing and then one more mm after glueing might be a good idea.
Clint-Green
Sorry Gearhead, I think you misunderstood my last post; I wasn't disagreeing with what you said at all, I was just saying that I had thought that I was getting myself into a simple laminate job. To be honest I had never even heard of a drop top until I Googled "steam bending wood) after reading your post...haha
Now that you mention it though, I do think that it will be a better option, except I don't have access to a router so I'll have to take things really slowly and work very, very carefully, doing it the old-fashioned way by hand.
I'm excited about the project but scared at the same time because although this axe is a real beater, I'm in love with it. It just has some sort of magic to it, I've been playing it with worn-out frets for a few months now and it still plays like a dream. Well it did, it's in pieces now, so the restoration has officially begun ?
Clint-Green
Did my very first refret this weekend on my RG, didn't come out too bad (could have been better, some of the frets didn't seat quite the way I wanted them to but still decent for a first timer). I reassembled the guitar last night to check the playability and I'm proud to report that she now gets just under 1.5mm action at the 12th fret with some fret buzz that I can live with ?
Next up I will practice steam bending some scrap plywood I got from a local shop before tackling my pricey piece of flamed maple.
Neon-Gecko
Clint Green wrote:
Next up I will practice steam bending some scrap plywood I got from a local shop before tackling my pricey piece of flamed maple.
I'm speaking under correction here, but I doubt whether ply would react to steam in the same manner as maple would, seen as the layered plies have the grain running at zero and ninety degrees for added strength. There is also the possibility that the adhesive may soften under the applied heat and delaminate.
See if you can’t find an off cut of kiaat or similar from a local cabinet workshop or something in your area to experiment with.
Clint-Green
I thought the ply might be an issue, I tried to bend a piece last week to make a neck caul for my refret (also just to experiment a bit) and I spent an hour on it with my steam iron set at full, spritzing water over the surface as the board dried out and it wouldn't budge!
I will see if I can get hold of something else, the wood shop I got this from are quite generous with their offcuts ? Thanks Neon Gecko!
Clint-Green
Got 3 smallish pieces of kiaat for 30 bucks to practice on, 6mm thick x 85mm x 400mm. I hope these will be big enough!
Neon-Gecko
Clint Green wrote:
Got 3 smallish pieces of kiaat for 30 bucks to practice on, 6mm thick x 85mm x 400mm. I hope these will be big enough!
Yeah mate, that'll work and seems a fair price too. Although kiaat isn't as hard as maple, harder timbers seem to bend a lot better. Good luck dude and let us know how it goes, maybe with some pics too, eh?
Clint-Green
They're pretty small pieces but I reckon they'll do...thanks for the tip, as I said, that ply I got would not budge..haha..
I'll def do a new thread showing pics of the build, so far I've just done the refret, will chemically strip the paint off of the guit's body sometime this week and see how things go ?
Clint-Green
Here's an update:
- Steam-bent the maple top for the arm contour using the top of the guitar with the paint still on there as a mould.
- Took most of the finish off the top, back and sides using an orbital sander.
- Planed the top of the basswood body down by 4 1/2cm using a hand planer, belt sander and orbital sander. It was a bit of a challenge getting everything level, it wasn't 100% but close enough ?
- Glued the top half of the veneer on using Alcon cold wood glue. Here's the kicker though...whilst clamping down the pre-bent arm contour (I obviously hadn't steam-bent it far enough), I got a 5cm crack in the maple ☹
Could anyone suggest how I can hide this bearing in mind that I will be staining the top, painting the back and sides and then clearcoating the whole thing?
TomCat
Post a pic and lets see....
Neon-Gecko
TomCat wrote:
Post a pic and lets see....
Aye, I'm also keen to see the progress...
Clint-Green
Hey guys, sorry for taking so long to reply...
I will be posting some pics soon, still experimenting on scrap with ways to fill the crack; there is also a very visible seam down the middle, between the two maple pieces which I will need to fill. I didn't spend enough time working to get the edges true :-[
Still haven't found an acceptable filler, I've tried staining some bicarb (this is suggested on StewMac in one of their newsletters) and dropping superglue (Q-Bond) but haven't had much success. Also tried the old sawdust and (a tiny amount of) cold wood glue, also not so great-looking. I might need a bit of practice with these methods to get them to look okay so I will keep trying. My last option would be to get hold of some stainable wood filler although I haven't read many good things about these (ie they really aren't very stainable).
Anyhoo, both pieces of maple are now glued on and I've routed out the pickup and neck cavities as well as the slot for the 5-way toggle switch - all by hand - using various chisels, a stanley knife, files and sandpaper...what a mission!!!!!!
Still have to sand the rest of the finish off of the back and sides, spent most of the weekend experimenting with different ways of filling, trying to get the right colour stain mixed and sanding the edges of the maple flush with the basswood body.
Watch this space! ?
Gearhead
Waste of time, filling cracks you made yourself. If you want a nice looking guit, saw the seam back open, true the edges properly and matchingly and glue again. You'll be grateful you did this in the end.
It would also have been easier to leave the opening of the pup routs etc to when the veneer has been glued on, saves the chance of the smaller parts pulling during glueing. Too late now, but don't think you cannot get the size of the cavities right after putting the veneer on the body. Saw, true, glue, open up.
Clint-Green
Hey Gearhead, both sides are already glued on, I routed the pickup cavities with the top glued on already and they came out perfectly. The only problem now is the crack that popped up when I steam-bent the veneer and the seam down the middle...how do I loosen the glue? I glued about a week and a half ago so it's all properly cured by now.
Gearhead
Steam and heat. Check out StewMac for ideas about applying those in the right place. Had not read your posts properly, sorry; must still consider whether taking it off is going to risk making more cracks in your top.
Clint-Green
Gearhead wrote:
must still consider whether taking it off is going to risk making more cracks in your top.
Yebo, that was the big concern I had in mind, expecially in between the pickup routes where the wood is quite thin. Neon Gecko had a pretty good suggestion where I could route the seam to about 3 or 4mm and glue a piece of kiaat in there to create a nice contrast in colour and something that looks intentional. I've also thought about filling the seam then airbrushing a stripe down the middle and out along the sides kind of like they do on some of the Jackson Rhoads axes. Just an idea...kind of like a neck-thru effect:
http://www.mattsmusic.com/666d.jpg
Gearhead
I'd go for the wood rather than the paint. It is imho easier to get a wood/wood join flat and not pop up while finishing, than it is for a filler/wood combination.
Clint-Green
Haha I think you're right, in retrospect my airbrushing idea was a bit of a brain fart; looks cool on a Rhoads V, on an RG body not so much ?
I just worry that I don't have the skill to make the wood join look good...
