Wizard's first build attempt

Wizard · 2009-10-31T14:59:27+00:00

Bought the wood. A 3m stretch of Alder planed to 46mm supposedly; actually 50mm: Cut out 5 blanks. This one has a large knot ... so am using this as my first attempt: Using a circular saw & jigsaw got the first rough cut. Then smoothed with belt sander:

Wizard

Latest learnings:

1) Alder dust is not good for you.
Wear a face mask.
Or suffer a sinus-headache-from-hell for at least 48 hours.
Worked this morning WITH a mask and am NOT doing my usual coughing trick.
Logical really.
(I learn slowly)

2) Alder is soft.
Advantages for getting rid of wood easily; but marks very easily.
Instills good disciplines of clamping carefully with "buffer" sheets

3) Get decent router bits !!
I've found that router bits come in 3 classes:

a) The one's you can buy in a box of 10 from your local hardware shelves
Very useful to try out and see what does what.
Work fine to round the edges of the odd breadboard.
A good strategy is to buy a box ... find out what you want to use for hard work ... then buy a decent bit to replace it.

b) The "Protech" bits.
These are the ones locked in the glass cases in hardware shops.
Quite a lot better than a) above
However, still not designed for extended hard work.
I wore one out doing a trial body rout.

c) The "real" ones.
Power Tool Repairs (PTR) in Woodstock sells these individually.
Cost a lot more - a body routing bit cost me R 150 yesterday.
Designed for hard, continuous work. Can be resharpened.
These just eat wood and glide along; where the ProTech bit is very noisy and "chattered" around.

4) Read the instructions carefully.
The routing depth under the pickups is supposed to be 19mm; and under the pots and jack 32mm.
My first stab was a uniform rout of 25mm everywhere.
Have now deepened the pot and jack cavities to 32mm.
Hope it's not an issue that the pickup cavities are too deep.

5) Belt sanders are really fun for shaping bodies !!
Especially the tummy and arm contours.
But ... use carefully ... see point 2) above

Gearhead

Wizard wrote Hope it's not an issue that the pickup cavities are too deep.

The only issue is leaving enough thickness towards the trem spring cavity. So it depends on the thickness of your guit body. The oblong routs towards the ends of your pups should still be able to accommodate for long pup retaining screws so must be deeper. These are only slightly further apart than the trem cavity is wide so if you undercut the trem cavity and line it all up nicely they miss.

inflames

good stuff Wiz, can't wait to see the end product!

Sean

Wow, good tips thanks Wizard, and of course this is your practice build. Imagine what your second one will be like, or even the third... ?

Wizard

Gearhead wrote The only issue is leaving enough thickness towards the trem spring cavity. So it depends on the thickness of your guit body. The oblong routs towards the ends of your pups should still be able to accommodate for long pup retaining screws so must be deeper. These are only slightly further apart than the trem cavity is wide so if you undercut the trem cavity and line it all up nicely they miss.

If I have routed too deep, then either:
a) this body gets discarded as a trial build, or
b) it becomes a hardtail !!
?

The majority of the time so far has been taken on getting plans, cutting templates, building jigs, getting tooled up ...
... and just waiting to pluck up the courage to actually sink the tools into the wood (= 90% of elapsed time).

Wizard

I need help.
How do I round the edges of the body?
I had assumed I would do it with a rounding bit on my router.
But ...

Did a trial run on a dummy body and ...
a) the biggest rounding bit I have makes a curve that's too small
b) I can't keep the router steady as I run down the arm contour.

I then resorted to a manual rounding with the belt sander ... which produced "ok" results.
Any other ideas?

AlanRatcliffe

A rounding bit is the right way to do it - 1/2" (12mm) for a Strat. You should do it first, before doing the body contours. A routing table is best, but not essential.

Gearhead

+1 Alan. 10mm is close enough to do the rest while sanding, imho.
The rounding over is one of the most simple jobs in the build - once you have done enough pieces of scrap you will think so too. I tend to clamp my router upside down in my work bench, not having a router table. It does work a lot better holding the body.
The nice thing about a round over bit is that you can always go back and do another run - the wheel will keep the cutter in check. You can even run the body along the bit and cut into the contoured parts, as long as the wheel can run on good contour.

Wizard

Thanks Alan & Gearhead.
In my mind I was thinking of a large diameter curve ... but looking at the strat I bought today I see it is a small diameter curve.
I was using a 3/8" (9.5mm) bit.
I may get a 12mm tomorrow.

Taking up Gearhead's challenge, I just went and practiced again.
The trick is to keep the router base parallel with the body ... and a router table is one way to do this.
I remembered a technique of using another plank of the same height to run the other side of the router on (if that makes sense).
Works well.
The right arm contour is still going to be an interesting challenge.
Maybe I must rig up something so I am holding the body rather than the router.

Inventing jigs is one of the great pleasures.
?

Thanks for the help.

Wizard

Bought a 12.7mm (1/2") rounded router bit.
Quite a lot of money (240) but these "Dimar" router bits can be resharpened many times at 20 a pop.
The cost is about the same as the Pro-Tech bits; but these are in a completely different class.

Gearhead

Wizard wrote Maybe I must rig up something so I am holding the body rather than the router.

Yes you must. Routers tend to have aligning holes to let 2 pins (mine are 8mm) through for circular guides or straight edge guides. You will need two loose pins. Your rig will consist of those pins and a thick piece of ply or similar, with a hole the shape of the router base. The resting position of the two pins in the wood you can rout out to the right depth, and you can clamp them down any way.

Wizard

Ok ... I built a router table as per GearHead's plans ... although given the dimensions I'm tending to call it a "router box":

I then used it to round the edges of my body.

Ran into a problem of router bit burn where I didn't feed the body through fast enough.
Used a cabinet scraper to get the burn marks off & do further shaping.
I can strongly recommend a cabinet scraper.

Here's where we are currently:

Gearhead

Wizard wrote Ran into a problem of router bit burn where I didn't feed the body through fast enough.

Does your router have a rpm regulator thingy? I kept on running into burning cutters until I got a speed controlled router... problem gone.

Isn't it funny how the rounding over makes a piece of wood (cut into Strat shape) turn into a (n unfinished) Strat?

Wizard

Gearhead wrote Does your router have a rpm regulator thingy? I kept on running into burning cutters until I got a speed controlled router... problem gone.

Yes it does.
I initially tried a low speed and got major burning. Realised it has to be on high speed, with high feed rate.
I ran it at top speed ... but in the tight turns around the "horns" I fed too slowly and got burned for it
?

Isn't it funny how the rounding over makes a piece of wood (cut into Strat shape) turn into a (n unfinished) Strat?

Yes !!!
It has suddenly gone from a piece of wood to a guitar body!

And thanks again for the router table idea's ?

TomCat

That is starting to look really cool.......Well done

Wizard

Attached the neck to the body today.
Because the neck had already had holes drilled, I needed a way to match them to the body.
I filled the holes with prestik; painted the end of the prestik with a koki and held the neck in place.
It left koki marks where the holes needed to be.

Next steps:
- get and install a nut on the neck
- get and install a truss rod nut

Gearhead

Wizard wrote - get and install a truss rod nut

???
Q1. Why would you want to attach the neck if you still have a lot of sanding, spraying, sanding, spraying, etc to do? The body is better left on its own now...
Q2. Even if you wanted to leave the neck on, why would you want to tension the truss rod?? It's only required for counteracting the string tension which you will not have until you have the bridge on which you should not have until the finish is on...

Wizard

Gearhead wrote Q1. Whaddayameanby 'nut on the neck' if it is not a truss rod nut?

This kind of nut:

Would like a GraphTec nut ... but have been unable to source one so far.

Q2. Why would you want to attach the neck if you still have a lot of sanding, spraying, sanding, spraying, etc to do? The body is better left on its own now...

I just wanted to make it look more like a guitar before I go back to work ?
I'll be taking the neck off again while I do the rest.

I'm also intending to do a low level finish on this guitar.
Will sand it smooth and coat it with a few layers of Tung Oil.
I know it will ding easily ... and when it does I'll just resand it and re-oil it.

Q3. Even if you wanted to leave the neck on, why would you want to tension the truss rod?? It's only required for counteracting the string tension which you will not have until you have the
bridge on which you should not have until the finish is on...

Good point - the truss rod nut is probably the last thing I'll need; when I do the stringing and final setup.

[deleted]

That looks brilliant!

I would love to try it one day, but I am so scared of the finishing and spraying that I just stopped thinking about it... ?

Congrats

Wizard

Brentcgp wrote ... but I am so scared of the finishing and spraying that I just stopped thinking about it... ?

To be honest, I'm not all that fussed about the finishing.
This is a musical instrument I'm making; not an artwork.
It must look good; and I'm hoping it will.
The imperfections are what will make it "mine" (and there are many already).

I plan on a simple finish of hand applied Tung Oil.
If it gets a bit dinged, I'll fix with resanding and re-oiling.

If it gets too dinged, I'll just make another body.
?

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