The Deluxester Prototype - Sonic's foray into repeatable scratch builds

[G-Axe]

That Flying Samurai is wild. Shame present day Yamahas are so bland.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[Sonic Mountain]

That Flying Samurai is wild. Shame present day Yamahas are so bland.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Hmm, worth checking out the Revstars, they are really nice guitars. I've played one of these ones and was very impressed (I kinda want one eventually)



Anyway, bit of an update. I took the weekend off from messing around in the shed to do some much needed gardening.

I put a mix of glue and sawdust in the swimming pool cavity and rerouted to tidy it up a it from where I went too deep with the drill.



I've also done some more work contouring the back.





I'm liking the way that's heading, but.....

I have two main concerns:

1. Its still pretty heavy. Despite what I thought earlier, while it's lighter than it was, it's still significantly heavier that the shoegazer body. That guitar is my heaviest and currently apart for some weight reduction as it is.

Deluxester:



Shoegazer (JMA-1) :



2. I'm not entirely sure if its just because I'm removing material and exposing them more, but the cracks in the wood are concerning me. It is kind of par for the course for native timber, which I guess is why there isn't a big foot print using this wood for guitar bodies. I might try some timber mate and see how it looks and if it keeps moving. But yeah, not ideal and starting to make me think that this might be best as a bit of workshop decoration.

At least I know the templates work, and I also know that I can carve up hardwood without too many dramas. I'm going to go back and see the wood guy after Easter, so might start again with some camphor laurel.

I'd be interested in the thoughts of more experienced wood workers than me - do you think I can get away with timbermate and then sealing with Poly.. or should I start again?



I'm also starting to thing that I'd like to fix the neck further into the body. Sitting with it at the moment with the test neck in, it feels like an SG, with the headstock a long way away. When I was drawing it I was just thinking about best possible upper fret access. But on a 24 fret neck, I think its a bit ridiculous at the moment. I'd also like a bit more meat on the heel pocket, so might be a bit of a redesign in the works, possibly lopping off 2 frets and moving everything 'down a bit' I'll see what I can do with the existing templates, but might need to start again. The radius at the bottom of the neck is a problem at the moment anyway as it's too small to get my router bit in, which means I have to tidy it up with the dremel.

[Woltz]

I have two main concerns:

1. Its still pretty heavy. Despite what I thought earlier, while it's lighter than it was, it's still significantly heavier that the shoegazer body. That guitar is my heaviest and currently apart for some weight reduction as it is.

Deluxester:



Shoegazer (JMA-1) :



2. I'm not entirely sure if its just because I'm removing material and exposing them more, but the cracks in the wood are concerning me. It is kind of par for the course for native timber, which I guess is why there isn't a big foot print using this wood for guitar bodies. I might try some timber mate and see how it looks and if it keeps moving. But yeah, not ideal and starting to make me think that this might be best as a bit of workshop decoration.

At least I know the templates work, and I also know that I can carve up hardwood without too many dramas. I'm going to go back and see the wood guy after Easter, so might start again with some camphor laurel.

I'd be interested in the thoughts of more experienced wood workers than me - do you think I can get away with timbermate and then sealing with Poly.. or should I start again?

I just looked up the information on the White Mahogany (Eucalyptus Tenuipes) and I'm not surprised that's the weight you're getting. A seasoned density of 950kg/m3 is heavy stuff. The eucalyptus that I've got for my body for my tele build was also heavy (hence the thinline direction for the build) and that has a lower density. An option could be to convert this to a chambered body (like Gibson has done with a lot of Les Pauls) and glue a top on it? That approach would also hide the cracks on the top.

For the cracks on the back, if timbermate doesn't work maybe you could try resin in the cracks to stop them spreading?

I've found that Eucalyptus is not that tolerant of temperature change. When we came out of the Canberra winter last year into spring and then summer mine ended up with quite a number of cracks starting to appear. I just put titebond into the cracks at the time to stop them spreading which seemed to work and then when I cut out the body shape I cut away the areas with cracks. And I've been keeping the rough cut blank inside the house when I'm not working on it because the temperature is more stable.

Hopefully some others can offer you some more advice. I don't think you should stop on this one even if it just ends up on the wall as your first prototype because it'll give you a lot of information in preparation for production of more. And I think you'll find Camphor much nicer to work with.

[king casey]

I think it was phrozin warned about using Timbermate under paint.
I used it to fill gaps in the tuner dowels on a headstock.
After painting and clear-coat it shrunk, leaving obvious divots in the finish.

cheers, Mark.

[Sonic Mountain]

I just looked up the information on the White Mahogany (Eucalyptus Tenuipes) and I'm not surprised that's the weight you're getting. A seasoned density of 950kg/m3 is heavy stuff. The eucalyptus that I've got for my body for my tele build was also heavy (hence the thinline direction for the build) and that has a lower density. An option could be to convert this to a chambered body (like Gibson has done with a lot of Les Pauls) and glue a top on it? That approach would also hide the cracks on the top.

For the cracks on the back, if timbermate doesn't work maybe you could try resin in the cracks to stop them spreading?

I've found that Eucalyptus is not that tolerant of temperature change. When we came out of the Canberra winter last year into spring and then summer mine ended up with quite a number of cracks starting to appear. I just put titebond into the cracks at the time to stop them spreading which seemed to work and then when I cut out the body shape I cut away the areas with cracks. And I've been keeping the rough cut blank inside the house when I'm not working on it because the temperature is more stable.

Hopefully some others can offer you some more advice. I don't think you should stop on this one even if it just ends up on the wall as your first prototype because it'll give you a lot of information in preparation for production of more. And I think you'll find Camphor much nicer to work with.

Hey Woltz, I somehow completely missed this. Yes, it was a bit of a rash decision in the rain to grab the wood I did. I do want to have a go at a chambered version with a cap at some point, but probably not with this one. It is still a nice bit of wood, but I don't think its ideal for this process.

I think I'll do a little more shaping for fun and then leave it. It has been very valuable experience and I don't regret it, even though I don't think this will make it to playing guitar status. It's probably fairly obvious, but I am not much of a wood worker, so every part of this so far has involved a lot of learning.

It's also done a lot to help me work out what does and doesn't work with how I've set the templates up. I think I could very reasonably keep using these with some modifications, but I think I'm going to get a new set cut along with the fret cutting machine parts. I'm looking at the money spent so far as an educational investment.

And I also said that I would give myself a year to arrive at a finished product, so I think I'm still on track