Nice work with the neck and headstock. I see you wear the same brand of Aussie safety boots as me!
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Nice work with the neck and headstock. I see you wear the same brand of Aussie safety boots as me!
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@simon at the moment looks like any repair would be covered bu the washer and tuner body so may get away with it
@ Andrew yep he good old Aussie safety boot, should probably be wearing something a little more robust- especially when working with chisels.
So made a control cover out of an ebony headplate and got a pretty good fit. Tip for marking blind holes. Used tape with a line to the hole point and measured distance from edge. Once the cover was in place lay the ruler along the line and marked the hole position before drilling. Better Tip : drill the holes in the body after you drill them in the cover.
Worked out the distance that the fretboard and nut were going to sit on the neck and added taper from headstock.
Had the thin the thickness on the ebony fretboard from 12mm down to 6mm then slotted for frets. Small miscalculation and cut one too many fret slots.
Trimmed the fetboard to the neck and did a rough mock build.
To fix the extra slot -once glued on will cut a bit back and add a sliver of MOP and may go back half way to the last fret for a bigger piece and engrave something in the MOP.
coming up a treat Tony good work. There is always a workaround as DB says when the plans change. You get so much more satisfaction out of building a scratchy hey. Keep up the good work mate can't wait to see it progress to a playable state. Is that a Gotoh bridge and what are the pups ? (excuse me you probably already have said)
It's all about the build! Looking great
Gotta love those traditional Qld safety boots. Pretty much standard footwear up here.
Progressing nicely.
I'm truly gobsmacked. Outsatanding effort methinks . . .
This is an amazing build Tony - very inspiring!
cheers,
Gav.
Thanks guys surprising myself how this is turning out.
Woks is an allparts bridge and will maybe use a different one. The pickups are Gregory pickups.
I find that toes are very overrated and so 2016.Quote:
Originally Posted by vh2580
Looking great. It's a real shame about the extra fret slot. but a lot of guitars have some form of inlay on that last fret.
Got back into this today and made a trem cover out of some Ebony headplate. Next build I will inset into the body.
Decided to fix the extra fret slot I had cut . cut another slot line and removed the end of fretboard and glued in and shaped some black MOP to suit.
Had a crack at shaping the neck and now know why everyone uses CNC to do this stuff, took most of the day
Rough shaped the main neck area down to 24mm to get the basic profile I was happy with and then worked on the transitions to the headstock and neck joint. Did some more shaping and got the neck down to 22mm at headstock end tapering down to 23.5mm at the joint end. Measurements are with fretboard unprofiled so may drop a little in thickness once thats done and final sanded.
Nice work Tony!! Love the shaping around the neck too!
So fitted some Black MOP fret dots and radiused the fretboard. Bent my fret wire and installed frets and only had an issue with one pesky bugger that needed to be CA glued in.
Got a Babicz trem for this build and I am so sold on these things, man there is some meat on the tone blocks.
One issue though is that Babicz, when manufacturing, obviously didn't take into consideration that I would have a thinner body than a standard strat. (LOL)
So will have to remove about 3mm off the top where it screws into the baseplate. Plenty of thread to accommodate.
Just have to find a jobbing shop and give it a mill.
Hi Tony, bummer about the long trem block. Hope it is not too hard to trim a bit off?
It's important to get a really flat surface on the block to maximise the contact area and sustain. Make sure that after the main height reduction that you rub it down on increasing grit numbers to level it and get the top as smooth as possible. You can also use flat oil stones (fused for sharpening tools and knife edges etc.).
Would it be easier to file it back from the bottom where the springs connect?
If the block is like a traditional Fender one, then the string ball-ends should sit just below the surface of the end of the block. Cheaper alloy blocks often have much deeper holes so the ball ends sit much nearer to the bridge, and this is supposed to detrimentally affect the tone and sustain (the string end is then only pulling against some of the light mass of an alloy block rather than the heavy mass of all of a steel block). But if you file the bottom end of a block with the ball ends just below the surface, then you'd also have to re-drill the insert holes otherwise the ball ends would sit proud of the block (and you wouldn't be any better off). You'd probably also have to deepen the spring claw holes. So it's really less work to remove the depth from the bridge-plate end.
No decent photos anywhere to see how deep the spring holes are or the string guides either so maybe taking a bit off at the top is the only way to go?
Reckon it will be rock hard and take lots of work to trim down to size and agree that getting it milled at an engineering shop would save plenty of time and effort.
So began the process of assembly and starting the wiring. Fitting a set of Gregory "Cimmerian" pickups and keen to hear how they sound. really happy how its coming along.
Just have to do a fret level and polish and nut to virtually complete.
Only issue I have, regardless of how careful I am it seems every time I look another small dent has appeared somewhere on the body.
Must be bloody "Ding Fairies"
Looks fantastic, Tony. Super classy.
It's just so easy for something to slip under the body when you're working on it, even it it's placed on a soft towel or rubber mat. You are certainly not alone!
Looking really good there, VH.
Are you going to add a headstock logo?
Great job Tony. That looks really nice and something to be very proud of.
looks awesome Tony great job, look forward to seeing it strung up and hearing it play !
beautiful, that's all I've got
Love it!!! :)
brilliant build Tony, and some nice work arounds for the small glitches
I have exactly the same setup for the fret wire - same vice and same bender, you are obviously a man of class...
thicknesser question.... what model is it? I've been looking at getting one but everything seems too small for body blanks :(
Hi Mick got from Carbatec. Was the only I could find that fit what I wanted and sub 4 digit. Will only do 330mm width(so will thickness a cut out body).It has insert style cutting teeth instead of blades.Quote:
Originally Posted by zeromick
https://www.carbatec.com.au/machiner...-head-1-carton
Thanks for the comments guys
@Simon probably wont fit decal as I have a name plate to fit on the back (made by Pablo) on either the body or possibly inset into the trem cover.
@stan yep not a bad setup and for thirty bucks those Stanley mini vices are the ducks nuts. As for class usually get called something a bit shorter than that, so thanks for the extra letters.
Had a machinist knock 3 mm off the top off the Tone block and now has good clearance with springs fitted for the cover to sit. couple of really minor things that I didn't take into consideration was that the trem-bar hole is at an angle and when the top was machined moved the center of the hole forward and only just allows the trem-bar in cleanly.
Also when planning where control holes went, didn't even think about how the trem-bar would interact with anything else on the guitar. When fully screwed in the trem-bar cant go past the tone knob. (Luckily for now it will only be joining its dusty fellow trem-bars in a drawer.)
Suppose your always learning as you progress.
Not going past the tone control, isn't too bad. A lot worse if it didn't go past the volume control - and I've seen that on a couple of guitars! As you say, you live and learn. Glad you got it all sorted.
Hi Tony, as you mentioned, so many things to think about and not hard to miss a few along the way. Glad to hear I am not the only one who leaves whammy bars in the guitar case or bottom drawer.
Finally got off my butt and over the last month and a half finished this guitar. Wasn't happy with some of the contours particularly the back of the neck pocket on the body so reshaped and refinished. Reassembled and wired up again and finally got it making noise this week. Really impressed with the Cimmerians from Gregory Pickups and the way it plays (could be personal bias though).
As normal though I need to make a new rear cover as I raced ahead and made oneand then realized it was back the front.
Will suit a left handed guitar so if any lefties want an ebony back-plate for a lefty strat gratis hit me up.only has one coat of truoil on it and could use a touch more work and maybe a bevel.
Any idea where I could get a cavity plate like that? (The black one), nice axe btw.
Hi Jo usually make them from ebony head plates for headstocks as they only require shaping. Have gotten a touch expensive lately.
http://luthierssupplies.com.au/produ...roducts_id=180
Nice work Tony. Awesome grain under all that clear finish.
Would enlarging RHS of 'opening' for strings in back tremolo cover solve the problem? I know it would still be a bit wide for high E string but could be a quick 'save' and not require too much more work?
Cheers, Waz