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

[Fretworn]

I’ll be interested to see how it balances. My brain assumes it will be a bit neck heavy. But it might balance perfectly.

[Sonic Mountain]

Some more playing. Through a combination of forstner bit, circular saw and bloodymindedness I managed to do a reasonable job of shaving the front of the headstock off. Obviously it's too thin to be practical, but it's proof of concept for the method.

In the next version I think I'll add a bit more meat above the tuner holes, it's these things that are hard to judge on screen, no matter how much you measure in real life.

Really looking forward to having a drill press and I can see a band saw being extremely handy as well. I'll continue to save up, the equipment list keeps growing.

Also did a bit more work on the neck profile as well, shaping it consistently isn't as difficult as I thought it might be. I'm sure harder wood will increase the effort.

Another small step forward anyway.

[JohnH]

Oh, man. That looks so good!

[Bakersdozen]

Love love love

[Sonic Mountain]

Cheers guys, so far so good.

I've also been playing around with the fret slotting machine idea. I'm kind of making it up as I go, but I think it's going to work. I bought some drawer slides today, the are ball bearing ones, so nice tight tolerances and no unwanted movement side to side (they were only $7.50 at BGS)

Next step is some MDF to bring up the working platform. Then I need to get the blade and work out how to mount it. I'll probably get a cheap/second hand small circular saw and mount it underneath. I think a grinder might work as well. I'll see as it progresses.

A lot of messing around, but if I can knock out a bunch of accurate fret boards in a sitting it be worth it.

[Richy17]

https://www.youtube.com/user/fletch123/videos

This guy has some great videos, I can't remember which video it is but he has a pretty cool home made fret slotting jig in one of them.

[Sonic Mountain]

Yeah his slotting technique is the same approach as mine essentially. I'm just building a dedicated machine for it.

[G-Axe]

No idea how I missed this one. Super cool design and lots of cool ideas to tool up! Good luck, have fun, will be watching intently.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[Tadhg]

Awesome work, Sonic. I've got two questions.

1 - You're talking double sided tape to hold stuff down. Have you considered the marking tape - super glue - marking tape method used by Ben at Crimson Guitars? Can't help but think it'd be cheaper (double sided tape is dear) and more stable (double sided tape is often thicker than normal tape). He does it in almost every video he makes. Here's his primary explanation clip for it.


2 - The fret saw. That concept looks great, but I can't help but think there's scope for error for the Italian guy, given he's still relying on lining up pencil marks. I've got a mate in town who built his own guitar from scratch, and his major regret was that he got two fret slots ever so slightly off. He's a perfectionist, his father-in-law builds violins, so it's only noticeable when intonating, but of course he knows it's there...
I'm wondering if it'd be worth putting something like your notched fret straight edge on the back of the template, and then have guide pin on the side of the sliding bed, to locate it? Wouldn't take much, but you'd have ever more confidence that you're perfectly aligned with the fret saw. And I note you've already got holes in that notched straight edge. Perhaps you're already planning just that, using the pins on the neck and fingerboard bed..?

Love the idea of reclaimed wood, and steel templates. Both make so much sense to me.
Will be watching with much interest.

[dave.king1]

Yep used the tape and superglue trick a few times now