Woltz's semi-scratch strat build

[Woltz]

Some lovely grains in that she-oak! Also looks like a fairly large piece (though I'm possibly comparing to half a body blank?)

Yep, the piece of Yaka is an offcut of half of the book matched pair. The sheoak is 69mm wide.

Looks great. I just took a drive down to my local recycled timber place ready to buy a few bits and pieces and its closed down.

Mega sad face.

Ah bummer. Any others close-ish

Nice piece of she-oak, Woltz, but how do you feel about the redness of the she-oak against the yaka? I thought the rosewood highlighted the darker tones of the yaka nicely. Anyhow, that’s my worthless opinion. I’ve been wrong in the past and I’ll be proven wrong again in the future.

I know, it's a difficult decision. This is the Sheoak against the Western Red Cedar blank that I have...



I'm leaning towards keeping the sheoak for when I do my next build in the future out of the Cedar blank.

[Woltz]

Glued up the bookmatched top last weekend. Started sanding and cleaning it up but a bit of work still to go.



And looking at alternate timbers for a fretboard. I'll save the sheoak for the next build.



L-R - Goldfields Blackbutt, Greenstone Mallee, Wadjil, Mulga

[Woltz]

I don't have a nice acrylic template for the neck and need to make one from a printed plan and mdf. But I don't really like the tele headstock design that much so I started playing with some ideas.....



At this stage I'm planning a 25.5" scale fender style neck but with an angled PRS type headstock.

[G-Axe]

Should look good. I quite like 3x3 headstocks on teles. Are you going to cut the angle or do a scarf joint?

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[Woltz]

Should look good. I quite like 3x3 headstocks on teles. Are you going to cut the angle or do a scarf joint?

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

I have a piece of Queensland Maple sitting there that I can get two necks out if if I do flat headstock or scarf joint angled headstock. So I'm looking at using a piece of that with a scarf joint.

But given it's my first attempt at making a neck, as long as the spare piece of tasmanian oak I have doesn't crack more than it has I'm planning to try a scarf joint neck build with that as practice.

[Woltz]

Routing F holes in the MDF and....



F*#k. Appears to have sheared off inside the upper shaft. Got in contact with Stewmac. Awesome customer service. Acknowledged there must've been a fault with it and within a couple days a replacement arrives at my door free of charge.

After researching around, I purchased this saw to try out as a fret slotting saw. Just need to build a mitre box.



I also ordered my bridge and neck pickup ring.

[Sonic Mountain]

Yikes, breaking a router bit is scary. Enjoying this thread.. keep it coming.

[Woltz]

Well because I don't have a lot of the required power tools at home I'm only getting things done when I get a chance to head down to the ACT Woodcraft Guild where I'm a member. Fortunately I had taken today off from work so I headed down to the Guild and got a little bit of stuff done.

Ran the bookmatched top through the drum sander. It cleaned up quite nicely and pretty happy with my job on the joint, particularly considering I jointed the two boards with a hand plane.



I also picked up this piece of Queensland Walnut which I think I'll use as the fretboard.



Here it is with the top...



Then I cut the pieces for the neck. I'm doing as Franken suggested by cutting the blank into 3 strips and inverting the centre piece for more stability. I just need to clean up the joints and glue it up.



Then I rough cut out the mdf neck templates. Just need to sand the edges now and they'll be ready to use. I also need to make a template for the PRS style headstock at some stage as well.



And finally I've been giving the forstner bits a workout removing material from the cavities. Still some more to go and then I'll be able to get the router in there. The body blank prior to starting to remove material from the cavities was 2.95kg. So far it's down to 2.2kg. I'm hoping that once the cavities (including the neck pocket and pickup cavities) are fully routed out and the top is glued that on the weight will be under 2kg.

[DarkMark]

Nice work so far, Woltz. That book matching join looks well done for a home job.

[G-Axe]

Good progress! Which way are you going with the truss rod? In from the top or skunk stripe style?

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk