Yea the neck was a big reason that I wanted to take a course for it. That and the routing were things that I would have been super unsure with. As well as just not having some of the bigger tools to make things easier.
Haha, well there is only so much you can do with a headstock if you want to keep it fairly traditional. There's so many companies that make slight variations you'll usually end up with something very similar to someone else, even if you don't intend it. At least you can claim you made yours on your own rather than blatantly taking it though
I also got confirmation this afternoon that I will be getting Figured Jarrah for the top. Don't have any pictures today, but that will be one of the first things I look at next Friday!
Last edited by B'Lark; 02-04-2016 at 01:19 PM.
Today was the second day of work. The build and how... kind of absurd it is has caught a few people off guard, most people are building fairly stock standard acoustics, which don't get me wrong are really nice, but the extra complexity in my plans have been catching a bit of attention haha.
So I got my piece of Jarrah today for the top. There was 3 bookmatched pairs to choose from, and well it basically came down to "which looks more figured" so yeah... It was actually fairly easy to catch this figuring on camera, I expected it to show a little less, because while it's definitely there, it's not amazingly striking right now, but of course it will come out much more after it's been worked with.
Aaand plenty big enough for the body.
I also got my slab of Mahogany!! It's much lighter than I expected too. It should have a bit of ribbon figuring through it, as there's 2 other guitars at the workshop that have come from the same piece of tree, and they've got some nice figuring in them. I need to remember to get pictures of them next time I head in there now that I mention it.
Pretty dirty and messy for now but hey that's how it all starts!!
Unfortunately, it's not going to be the "one-piece" dream. Not quite. The long story-short is that it would be less stable in the middle of the guitar, and be at risk of splitting and etc down the line, so for stability's sake, we're splitting it down the middle, and flipping the pieces around. And as you can see, it's much nicer on the inside!
And more in the next post because I can only attach 5 pictures to one post.
So first thing to do today was glue up the Jarrah. The piece was already nice and even in terms of thickness, so didn't have to worry about that at all, just had to clean up the sides and get them nice and even. The figuring also became reeeallly visible there too, makes me quite excited to see how it will look later.
After that, clamp it up, wedge some wood in, and clamp it up again, and there we have it.
After that was when we chopped the Mahogany in half. Then planed off the outsides to get them nice and even for gluing.
Now I don't have any pictures of gluing the Mahogany back together because a) I ran out of time, and b) Matt is going to do it for me. His belief on the issue was that since he's never joined pieces that thick together before himself, he wanted to make sure he could do it properly before making anyone else do it, which is fair, and it means I'll know it's done properly, and it will be done before my next class, so everyone wins.
The last thing that I did today was make up an MDF template of the body. In doing so I discovered that I'm bad at cutting accurately with a bandsaw, and so a couple of little sections had to be shifted inwards to accommodate. Not a big deal in the end really.
That's about all I have in terms of progress for that for now.
In terms of future things: It looks like I'll be going with a set of Blackwater Guitars Neodymium Vintage pickups. I'm not exactly spoiled for choice, but they seem like solid pickups, I can customise them a bit, and they're the cheapest I can do (If anyone does happen to have any other suggestions for multiscale appropriate pickups though PLEASE let me know, I'm totally open to options here!!) I also decided on plans for the Piezo/MIDI electronics. I will just go with standard electronics initially, but I will ensure that everything is routed/drilled so that I will be able to add the Piezo and MIDI functionality down the line myself, without having to do anything more than maybe drilling some holes for extra knobs.
Oh also, if a mod happens to see this, would I be able to get the thread name changed? To "Non PBG Build: Multiscale, Semi-Hollow, Drop-Top, 7-String Mockingbird" Thanks
Thats looking cool, that jarrah looks like the figure will come up nicely.
Tony
another one i need to take notes from! Thanks for documenting online B'Lark.
Nice! Where do u get the wood from B'lark? I just finished my first scratch build and it was a fun and rewarding process. Hope you enjoy the process too.