TD's Acoustic (FH-5V)

After the success of my resonator build, I have decided to have a go at another acoustic. The PitBull Guitars site has some FH-5V kits which do not have (due to a factory mistake) a neck or pup route and also no drilled pot/jack holes. It is an archtop and does have f-holes with binding.

I thought I could make something to resemble an "old school folk guitar" with no electronics.

I have also collected a few different resources - Grover (98 series) openback tuners, tail piece and wooden bridge (but I may not use them).

Routing the neck pocket will be the first (and biggest) challenge!

neck work:
Today I have:
Removed a few dents in the neck using the damp cloth and soldering iron trick.
Glued a chip on the fretboard using CA glue.
Tweaked/Improved the headstock pattern.
Sanded the neck to 240 g.
Added my serial number.
Levelled, crowned and polished the frets.
Filed the fret ends.

I have also checked the fit of the Grover 98 tuners, which have a push-in bushing rather than a washer and nut. I found that the bushings are too small a diameter for the tuner holes!

I could dowel and redrill the holes, or wrap and glue newspaper around the holes! I will think about this a while.

Looks great.
how's the neck going to be attached to the body? there's no neck pocket, is it just glued in place?

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Originally Posted by FaustoB

Looks great.
how's the neck going to be attached to the body? there's no neck pocket, is it just glued in place?

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I will have to route my own neck pocket. I have routed them for a number of scratch builds. However, the depth of the route for this one worries me a bit! And getting the neck angle right! But, I have a plan!

Trevor, keen to see how your plan goes. Would be freaking me out if it was mine. Hard to tell on the photo is it fairly flat at the neck or got a lot of curve?

Trev, do you have access to a FO style inspection camera? It would be informative if you/we could get a look inside at the neck block and to make sure the bridge support is positioned correctly (assuming they still use a bridge support).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trevor Davies

I have also checked the fit of the Grover 98 tuners, which have a push-in bushing rather than a washer and nut. I found that the bushings are too small a diameter for the tuner holes!

I could dowel and redrill the holes, or wrap and glue newspaper around the holes! I will think about this a while.

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I may need to do this with the push in bushings for some Gotoh tuners on a bass. I have found it hard to find dowels that fit...never thought of the newspaper trick, but it's definitely something to consider!

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Originally Posted by WeirdBits

Trev, do you have access to a FO style inspection camera? It would be informative if you/we could get a look inside at the neck block and to make sure the bridge support is positioned correctly (assuming they still use a bridge support).

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1+ I don't know that it's fiber optic, but I have found cheap endoscopes on Amazon. Not the clearest images in the world but well worth the <$20 I spent on it.

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Originally Posted by vh2580

Trevor, keen to see how your plan goes. Would be freaking me out if it was mine. Hard to tell on the photo is it fairly flat at the neck or got a lot of curve?

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Thanks Tony. The "freaking me out" is part of the fun! The top around the neck is flat.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WeirdBits

Trev, do you have access to a FO style inspection camera? It would be informative if you/we could get a look inside at the neck block and to make sure the bridge support is positioned correctly (assuming they still use a bridge support).

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No FO camera, but looking through the f holes: I can see the bridge support and that is positioned correctly. Can also see the neck block and that looks good. The kerfing around the side also looks good.

Not great pictures!

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Originally Posted by Trevor Davies

...The "freaking me out" is part of the fun! The top around the neck is flat.

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In my case the "freaking me out" has a tendency to lead to endless rumination and analysis paralysis. The flat neck area will help a lot. Is it flat on the bottom too? A problem I had when I needed to do a rout on an ES body was that it was hard to immobilize the body because of the curve on the back. Even so, that was not as challenging as yours since I was just enlarging the rout, not creating a whole new one.

Attachment 45643

Even so, more work ended up going into the jig than into the cut ;-)

For your tuner bushes have a look on Amazon and Realparts as I have used adapter bushings that have an outside diameter of 9.5 ,10 and 10.5mm diameter with an internal diameter of 6mm and 1/4".

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Originally Posted by fender3x

In my case the "freaking me out" has a tendency to lead to endless rumination and analysis paralysis. The flat neck area will help a lot. Is it flat on the bottom too? A problem I had when I needed to do a rout on an ES body was that it was hard to immobilize the body because of the curve on the back. Even so, that was not as challenging as yours since I was just enlarging the rout, not creating a whole new one.

Attachment 45643

Even so, more work ended up going into the jig than into the cut ;-)

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Ha ha. Yes, I think making the jig will take me longer than the routing! That's OK - I knew what I was getting myself into!

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Originally Posted by Dikkybee007

For your tuner bushes have a look on Amazon and Realparts as I have used adapter bushings that have an outside diameter of 9.5 ,10 and 10.5mm diameter with an internal diameter of 6mm and 1/4".

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Thanks Dickybee. I had not thought about that!

I have already made some wooden inserts from dowel, and glued them in. But I know for next time!

Brass tubing of various sizes can also be useful for making your own quick bushings for testing or temporary fitting.

I am still painting my headstock. So the timing is perfect for me. Thanks for the question and for the answers!

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Originally Posted by Trevor Davies

I have already made some wooden inserts from dowel, and glued them in. But I know for next time!

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Out of curiosity...how did you make those wooden inserts so perfectly?

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Originally Posted by fender3x

Out of curiosity...how did you make those wooden inserts so perfectly?

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I did mess up a couple! Using a drill press with a board bolted to the stage so that it could not move, I drilled a dowel sized hole part way through the board (which positioned the dowel). Then drilled the same size hole through a small block of wood about the same height as the dowel. Then change the drill bit to a smaller size. A dowel (with the top end sanded flat) could then be placed into the block and board. Then drill partway (headstock thickness) through the dowel. Done!

The small block covered the top of the dowel and prevented the drilling from separating the edges of the wooden ring. It also allowed me to remove the dowel after drilling without moving the board.

A little painful! Since the wooden rings are very thin, I placed glue around the outside and inside edges. Once glued into the headstock, I filed the rings carefully to fit the bushing.

I'm not sure if I would do this again!

Ingenious! It looks like it worked really well. What would keep you from doing it again?

I had in mind doing something similar for a bass. My tuner bushings are 16mm, but the hole is 17.5mm. Not sure my skills would be suffient to make a wooden bushing that small though...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fender3x

Ingenious! It looks like it worked really well. What would keep you from doing it again?

I had in mind doing something similar for a bass. My tuner bushings are 16mm, but the hole is 17.5mm. Not sure my skills would be suffient to make a wooden bushing that small though...

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Thanks. I feel the paper trick is a lot easier, and less hassle! The wooden rings are very fragile and prone to crumbling and splitting. Also, the fact that I can buy new bushings for the 10 mm holes.

Trying to determine the neck angle for this build. After stabilizing the arched guitar, placing a straight edge from the assumed fretboard height at the top of the body and the lowest height of the bridge, I measure an angle of about 5 degrees!

I have made a 12mm mdf jig to help route out the first parts of neck pocket, and a base to stabilize the body. I have routed out the top pattern and the side/front pattern

My router won't get much deeper than 20 mm with the jig in place.

Next, I will drill out the rest, using a jig to get the 5 degree angle.

Slowly getting there!

Nice looking jig! I wondered if you were going to put the angle in using the jig. 5 degrees seems like a lot! Nice that you have an adjustable bridge, in any case to give a margin of error.

Drilled out the as much wood as possible using a portable drill press angled at about 4 degrees (I decided on 4 degrees as I can shim to make a larger neck angle if necessary) with Forstner drill bits. After removing most of the wood I went "old school" with a chisel and mallet! All went OK. Lots of sanding and the neck now fits.

I think the fretboard is still a bit too high! If I lower the neck further, I will probably need a greater angle!

I wonder if you could clamp the neck, add the trapeze and see how much the string tension draws the neck up? If that is impractical...(or just plain won't work) you could take an acoustic with a similar scale, measure the difference without string tension and with string tension to see how much it lifts.