done, I guess

I decided I was done with clear coats. I didn't even buff the last one out. I was kind of tired of the process and more excited about being done with the project for now. There are still brush stroke lines in the finish, but I'm hoping they'll wear out. The quality of finish is still pretty good, fairly shiny, and the lines aren't noticeable except up close.

It plays surprisingly well. I screwed up the neck pickup and will need to buy more (different) magnet wire in order to correct it...I'll wait a bit before doing that. The only real issue with it is that it's much quieter than the bridge pickup. Given how well the guitar plays, I might buy a nice set of pickups for it. I did have to shim the neck so the strings wouldn't buzz. I may have to cut the neck pocket a bit deeper, but I'm going to hold off for a little while. The narrow neck isn't that big of a deal breaker for me, actually. I find it to be at least as easy to play, if not easier, than my pink strat. I may also need to cut a new nut for the neck (the one I rough cut may actually be too low) but I'm going to let it acclimate to actually being an instrument before I mess with it.

bleh. more work

I started to stain the body and realized a couple things...first, I need to do more sanding so that stain will penetrate evenly and second, I hate finishing.

I sanded down to wood, then re-conditioned and re-stained. The result was a bit better this time. I'm still not 100% satisfied with it, but I think I'll move forward for now. Given the fact that the wood this guitar body is made from is IKEA pine shelves as well as the neck looks kind of bad, I think I'm worrying too much. I'll clear coat it and, if it looks bad but plays well, I'll look into re-finishing it. Pine is a funny wood for taking stain, so I'll need to figure something out. The main issues are the sides of the guitar; the front and back look fine, for the most part.

I also wired up electronics as much as I could. Basically, I got all the potentiometers and the switch mounted up and wired except for the pickups.

On the pickups front: I cut the magnets roughly to size. They're made from a VERY hard material, so I should have made my "rough" cuts a bit closer to full size =\

DUMMY. I forgot that it was nearly 2am and was pounding on the magnets to get them set in the pickup flatwork...Erin yelled at me...and we're going to be spending LOTS of time in the car tomorrow...Hope she's not too upset =\...I'm such a dummy. I wound up using my drill press to (much easier and more accurately and, more importantly, quietly) press the magnets into place...

Progress

Some of my parts arrived on Thursday. The other parts should (hopefully) arrive tomorrow. The parts I'm still waiting for are basically pickup covers/baseplates, tuner conversion bushings and other minor details. I was able to make a template for my pickguard (except for the hole that the neck pickup will go through) as well as make the pickguard itself.



The pickguard is one of my own design (as far as I'm aware). I opted to have the pickguard go a bit further back, as well as keep the f-hole uncovered. I'm pretty happy with the fit and the look of it. I still need to put clearcoat over it; if I don't clearcoat the pickguard, it will get scratched really easily. I also need to drill and countersink the screw holes to mount the guard. Once the other parts come, I'll lay out the template for the pickup hole, route that out of my pickguard, and get started on the staining/finishing on the body as well as the clear coat on the pickguard. While those are going, I'll install tuners in the neck and get started on pickup winding. I really hope to have this finished before I go back to work, but I may still have some stuff left, depending on how long it takes for the polishing etc.

That's not how it's meant to be

I guess I got a little ambitious? I thought I'd rough out my pickup cavity template last night and leave it at that. Once I roughed it out using a forstner bit on my drill press, I thought, "I'll just route it out with the router and stop there." Basically, I had a thin template made of hardboard that I was turning into a larger template made of MDF. Once the MDF template was done, I wound up lining everything up on the guitar body and routing the cavities. After a little bit of additional work (I had some small mistakes in my hand-cut template) the body cavities were done. Once my parts arrive, I'll determine if any further modification is necessary.

I also drilled the access holes between cavities. When I was drilling the hole between the control cavity and the bridge pickup, the chuck on my drill came into contact with and dented the body. That, along with a Phillips' screw shaped dent (guess what I dropped) needed to be fixed. I got the areas wet, put a wet cloth over them and used my soldering iron to heat the areas. Essentially, I steamed the wood to get the fibers to expand a bit.

I ordered the rest of my parts on Monday night, so they should be coming later this week or early next week. What do I have left to do?

Drill mounting holes for the strap buttons
Determine if I need to fill in the ferrule holes at all (they're slightly over-sized...)
Mount tuners on neck
Make pickups (cut magnets, wind pickups, pot pickups)
Cut a pickguard template (and the MDF copy)
Cut a pickguard (and angle the edges, drill mounting holes and counter-sink them)
Apply finish (all water-based -- apply wood conditioner, stain, clear polyU, buff and shine)
Assemble
Set up (fix any issues with the nut I made [cut a new one, if necessary], intonate, etc.)

Not to mention, I still need to finish my test piece...I want to make sure the finish will look nice.

drill presses are fun

I got my drill press today. As a result, I did some more work on my guitar. I wound up getting the bridge mounted, as well as drilled the ferrule holes in the back of the guitar. They weren't spaced perfectly, but I fixed them as best I could. I'm not that concerned with them, just because they're very awkward to place...and they're on the back of the guitar.

I still have the pickup cavities to route, as well as some drilling to bridge the cavities. That should conclude the woodworking. I also need to make a pickguard, as well as wind my pickups. Sanding, sealing, staining and clear-coating should be the last steps before assembly.

There are pies on a carousel. Have a slice.

Bleh. I kind of messed up pretty bad. I needed to re-round a small part of the edge...being lazy, I grabbed the router instead of the sand paper... The router bit started to slide out of the collet and dug into the wood quite a bit deeper than I intended. I patched it up with stainable wood putty. Hopefully it will blend a bit. From my tests with the stain, it blends pretty well...almost imperceptibly well. Erin said it shouldn't be a huge issue. Hopefully that's the last stupid mistake I make on this build. I mounted the jack cup retainer too -- I'm a bit antsy, I guess.

Drill press and poly will come Monday. I'll drill some holes and, as long as everything goes well, dive in and order the remaining parts. I don't see the point in buying them just yet if there's a chance I'll break everything =\ Plus, I'll only lose one shipping day, anyway.

The scene gets nasty

I'm nearly done with House of Leaves. I'm taking it a bit slower than I normally read things...partly because I'm working on my guitar and partly because it sort of resonates with me. It almost seems like it was written to specifically prey on my fears...that said, I think it's been a great book. I look forward to reading other stuff by Danielewski...there's a companion piece to House of Leaves as well as another novel. I also look forward to reading some more "classic" horror.

The guitar is coming along. I've had to buy a drill press in order to accurately drill the holes for mounting the neck, the bridge, and the control plates. I was originally going to buy a mill, because I want to mill parts out for future projects (that bass replica, for instance) but there were 2 main issues with that. 1) the throat depth for the mill is slightly too short for the guitar I'm currently working on. 2) Harbor Frieght would have to order one and their ordering process takes quite a while at times. I ordered a nice Craftsman drill press through Sears that will do what I need, plus it has some neat bells and whistles, for about $130 cheaper than the mill. I'll wind up buying the mill later, but this will be absolutely fine for the time being.

Monday, my drill press and my water-based polyurethane should arrive. I won't be able to get much else done on the guitar until then. Ideally, I would get to work on it over the weekend (especially Saturday, because Erin has finals) but it won't be that bad, I guess. After this stuff comes in, I'll have some work on my hands...but I need to place an order with Mcmaster-Carr for some other stuff...and the final things will come from Stewart-MacDonald. I still have quite a bit of work left to do, but it's getting closer and closer. I may not finish before Christmas, but I should finish before the new year.

Now the world was empty on the day when they made it But heaven needed someplace to throw all the shit

Images are not fully opaque, sorry. Can't do anything about that. Click them for larger views.



I made this from IKEA shelves. Like these:


It's semi-hollow. The F-hole on the left and the oval shaped hole on the right (will be covered) open up into cavities.

Here it is semi-mocked up. I don't have the pickup routes done yet, nor do I have a pickguard.



I'll be cutting my own pickguard, because I did this in a funny way. Most of these that have the f-hole don't have that silver control panel on the right.

This has turned out to be a very fun project. Ideally, I'd like to learn to make guitar necks, but they're MUCH more complicated than making the bodies. If I can manage making the necks, I plan to make a copy of my bass out of oak, I'd like to also make an oak jazzmaster. If those turn out well, I might try to make an archtop guitar, but those get even more complicated. A Jazzmaster with f-holes might be fun too.

No I can't slap you no five

I started reading House of Leaves on Thanksgiving...I guess I've been reading for about a week now. It's very good. I've never read anything put together quite like it. Amber, I think you'd possibly like it. It's got a weird edge to it...just feels spooky. It's been a long time since I read a book that had me worrying about what might be in the dark corners of a room...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I also started working on building my guitar body modeled after a Fender Thinline Telecaster. I bought some shelves from IKEA to use. Buying real nice wood is a bit too expensive for a first shot. Plus, the neck that I'm going to be putting on it is a bit thin; I'm worried it'll be too narrow for my giant fingers. I'd hate to drop a bunch of money into something if I won't even be able to play it.

The shelves were almost exactly 1/3 the final width of the body, so I had to cut 3 pieces. I rough cut those last Friday. This was advantageous, though, because the body is semi-hollow (it has some open cavities, instead of being solid wood. Over the weekend, I routed out the cavities, cut the F-hole and the control cavity hole. Last night, I glued the pieces together. As of now, it looks kind of odd, but I think I'll route out the final shape of the body tonight. I'll probably cut the neck pocket sometime this weekend after I do a test or two to determine that my template will fit. I'll try to take some pictures sometime.

After I do that, I'll only need to cut the pickup cavities, drill the mounting holes for the bridge, the string-through holes, the strap button holes, and the mounting holes for the neck. Also, I'll need to do the holes for the wiring. Physical construction of the body will be complete. Then I'll need to stain and seal the body with a clearcoat. I'll wind the pickups and do wiring. That should wrap the whole thing up.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Christmas is a dumb holiday because so many people get all religiously excited. No one even knows when Jesus was born; they just took the date because it was a popular day and hoped to convert as many people as possible. Plus I hate Xmas music...