FrankenLab Experiment #6

The Bride’s Father has long been involved in the wood and wood products industry.
He is currently clearing out and consolidating his various stashes of wood accumulated over the years and this has had some side benefit for the Lab.
So we have inherited a stack of nice clean DAR NZ beech boards, roughly 20mm thick x 75mm wide and of varying lengths.

So the plan is to use some of this to make a multi laminate neck, with two different colour veneers between three slices of the Beech.

So we have gotten this far:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...774e2cb694.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...4dfa7a8686.jpg

So far , the Beech works very easily. I have noticed there is some fragility to it around areas of figured grain and it Chips out very easily. This may prove problematic for the neck shaping, but I feel it can be worked around.
Given it is a softer wood I may also have to carbon rod this puppy as well, but we shall see.


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Ooohhhh nice!

Man that looks great. I might do that sort of laminate on my 12 string build.

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Oooh! More goodness from the lab, I'll get the popcorn....

Gosh, that looks fantastic

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Originally Posted by FrankenWashie

So the plan is to use some of this to make a multi laminate neck ....

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I'm sure it'll look great. Have you considered using it on the body of the guitar as well?

Life's a beech and then you dye it.

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Originally Posted by TZK321

I'm sure it'll look great. Have you considered using it on the body of the guitar as well?

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sadly I’ve only the thin boards, and not enough to laminate a full body from. There are three strips that would be long enough for a neck through G or F scale, which may get a run later. That will require some long laminates, so I think veneers are out for that.

A teeny tiny bit of progress tonight. Managed to get the whole blank square.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...636d2f165f.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...fe6db3264a.jpg

It’s a very small win, but doing it by hand has always proved problematic for me before.
Some careful attention and frequent checking allowed me to get things all squared out and ready to mark up for blanks.

One of the tow blanks out of this is going to be a bit dodgy. I unfortunately did not have enough blue veneer to get full width through the blank. You can see the effect below:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...1f1bed4d07.jpg https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...cd38432baa.jpg

So that leaves a little void to one side, but I feel it may be salvageable as the fretboard side of a secondary blank, with some epoxy treatment to fill and stabilise it.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...963acd5a0d.jpg

So I had to wet it down to see what the beech looks like:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...25e7d353df.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...6e147019dc.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...2cc5fd43ce.jpg

The intention is for a scarf joint, 3 x 3 HS, 25.5”. The slightly dodgy blank, if it holds together, will be the basis for a multi scale neck (Blame Igor. And probably B’lark just a little bit as well).


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I'm excited about this.

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Originally Posted by Andy40

I'm excited about this.

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You’re excited? You should see Igor, he’s so wound up all three hands are shaking!

So the full blank was thick enough to do two bolt on neck blanks, so that’s what the lab set about doing this afternoon.

We started with this:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...db5c78b1ff.jpg

Turned it into this with some careful use of a cordless skilsaw:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...8691a0e97c.jpg

Always, always take multiple shallow cuts in one side to get to an appropriate depth and then matchup with the same pattern from the other side. Don’t do what I’ve done here, as Blades deflect and follow grain and do all sorts of wonderful things on a single deep cut.

Thankfully the lab has a spiral head thickness planer, which allowed me to get these blanks cleaned up.

As I’d already satisfactorily jointed them by hand, all I had to do was pass them through to clean up.

That left me with these:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...785df81b1f.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...3d279340ae.jpg

They are just on 27mm thick so still plenty to play with. Width wise, they are good for a standard F or G style neck. Material will need to be added for headstock width, but that’s expected.

The lower half of the blank , where the blue veneer didn’t quite make it all the way:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...a684e7b1e3.jpg

And the full coverage blank:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...1056cb0b6e.jpg

Given the need to finish off a couple of things (red strat, Reso, IB-5) this will likely be shelved a while. I may get around to doing the scarf joint for the defect blank this weekend but that’s not something I want to rush, for obvious reasons.



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Well done, sir.

That looks amazing! great work :-)

Gorgeous work man.

Great work, as ever

You are a true craftsman FW!

awsomeness

Okay, so I was going to leave this a while, but I had some time today so I decided to set up and cut for my scarf joint.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...b7adc7a0f6.jpg

I had set the side where the veneer hadn’t reached as being the fretboard side, but I realised that the bulk of that would be pared away in the neck carve. So I elected to make that the underside of the blank, I think there will still be a couple of spots where I might need to fill, but this is a test neck so meh.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...f3b793895f.jpg

I forgot to snap the marking up, but the essential arithmetic is this:
My desired head length is 6 & 3/4”, so I added 1.5” for safety.
The scarf angle is 13.5 degrees, measured from the end of that adjusted head measurement.

In order to insure the cut stayed square and straight i clamped a guide to the blank. This set the angle for the saw and insured it didn’t stray from the 90 Degrees.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...b4aadbbaf4.jpg

So once the nervous cut was made I ended up with a reasonable cut. Doing this with a hand saw is tricky, you are likely to end up with some form of wander on the cut, which you can see at the bottom of the photo. I used my disc sander to take out the bulk of the saw marks and then tidied up with a Kanna plane.

Then it is a matter of checking the squareness of the two bevels, one will form a part of the fretboard bed, the other needs to mate up squarely against the rear of the headstock slice.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...1710a7d28e.jpg

Once everything is squared off, minor differences in surface flatness or irregularity can be sorted out with pencil marks and 80 grit paper on a flat surface. You work gradually to even out everything.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...3eb0f16330.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...a71aaf0c3f.jpg

The head segment needs to be cut down, I’ve gone with a 5/8” thickness, again this had to be cut down by hand and dressed to clean up the saw marks.

Next step will be setting up to actually make the joint.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...ff33940a9a.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...583c6ce4d4.jpg


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Nice cutting.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...f3d392478d.jpg

<Sigh...> I really have to stop listening to Igor.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...209e0247b9.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...fd1c15d9de.jpg


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Tear off one of his arms (he's got plenty more) and beat him with the sticky end.

Nothing you can't level. It will all be fine.

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Tear off one of his arms (he's got plenty more) and beat him with the sticky end.

Nothing you can't level. It will all be fine.

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No need, i'll just grab a spare from the fridge and use that. He gets a tad acerbic when you tear them off, it makes a neat re-attachment job so much more difficult.

IN terms of the veneers, I am going to glue them up as an assembly first, clamped flat between two thick, waxed pieces of MDF.
Hopefully this will keep them flat. I want to try and dowel locate the HS to the Neck blank through them as well, to prevent everything slipping about under clamp load (This was a bugbear in the initial glue up and probably cost me 3-4mm in depth of the full blank evening both sides out).

We shall see. IGOR! Fetch the CLAMPS!

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...aa134398e8.jpg

So I think I got enough clamps on it.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...f280d1cd3f.jpg

And I’ve managed a reasonable veneer ice cream sandwich.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...b8563495af.jpg
The colour pattern has worked okay, and thanks to having done it oversized I can square it up and still leave an overhang to dress it up to the blank.


https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...617bb5d716.jpg

I’m happy that this is going to work out the way I want, I think the only thing I’d do different would be some reference pins through the layers to prevent them sliding as the clamps go on.

The next challenge will be getting this sandwich to sit still when I clamp it between the headstock and the neck, I’m thinking a couple of little dowels either side of the center line should do it.

If I can get that to hang together, then we will set up for truss rod rout and a couple of carbon fibre rods to reinforce it all, then add a couple of strips to the headstock for full width.

I’m still ruminating on how far to take this, as it was a test neck, but it may actually end up on a guitar if all goes well.

We shall see.



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It could do with some mayo and maybe a little salad, but it's a nice sandwich nevertheless.

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Originally Posted by FrankenWashie

clamped flat between two thick, waxed pieces of MDF.

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Just about no glues stick to brown mylar parcel tape. I find it invaluable for jigs and the like.

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Originally Posted by JimC

Just about no glues stick to brown mylar parcel tape. I find it invaluable for jigs and the like.

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That could go well on the scarf mounting jig. Thanks Jim!😁

Okay, so it’s not outside the realms of possibility, that I may have slightly, like just a tad bit, overbuilt my scarf setting jig....
A wee bit..

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...487293b59a.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...f281cb9b0d.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...1fd25bd9b8.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...00b8b2596a.jpg

Maybe.


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You're 'aving a scarf, mate!

IME time wasted on good jigs isn't.

And you can now mass-produce scarf joint necks. Or arms or legs or whatever else Igor's putting together at the time.

Winning.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...fb4c0e6e67.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...57779877ca.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...806b0e08e0.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...060455d4ad.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...1e861631fc.jpg



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Nice. Very nice.

Nice job. Have you got an idea of what body you'll use these necks on?

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Pretty cool dude. Have got me thinking about trying a scarf joint next... if I ever get back to my other build.

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Originally Posted by Woltz

Nice job. Have you got an idea of what body you'll use these necks on?

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Thanks Woltz, this one really is a bit of a lab experiment. I anticipated it would fail prior to this so I hadn’t really thought of what body to put with it.
I’m leaning single cut LP style, but something Ibanez RGish could work as well.


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Very cool mate.

Okay so for better or for worse, I've elected to run with this neck in the "Something Stirs" Thread.

https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ead.php?t=8784

This will involve building up the neck heel a tad to make up the required height, Tenon extension and bridge angle.

Mmm that phrase "stashes of wood" was enough to get me excited.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oby

Mmm that phrase "stashes of wood" was enough to get me excited.

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Yes, there is much unremarkable stuff but many secret little pockets of great timber.


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