In my first post, Hi From Belgium, I showed a work in progress on a DC Junior like guitar , made from an ikea kitchen tabletop.
Well , it is in a working state now, just waiting to be setup and finished ( Dahpne Blue nitro finish is what I am going for )
This was the original neck shape, when I got it. So I deciced to make this a 4+2 headstock for no particular reason
I got myself an existing plan for a DC Junior and adapt it a bit for the conversion to the bolt-on neck.
Since I needed to insert the neck way more into the body, I also needed a deeper cutaway at the bottom horn.
Working on some templates, and made my first rookie mistake by already cutting out the neckpocket from the body template. No harm done, I just glued the cut-out back in. The neck pocket template is way to small and I forgot to include the centerline, etc.. I am learning this as I go at that point.
This is the Ikea tabletop that soon will become a guitar body. I will screw this one up by routing out a way too big neck pocket.
Testing the neck pocket on a scrap piece of the same wood, just to make sure the size was ok. Over to the real body, I tried to make a slight angle in the neck pocket by putting a thin piece of wood underneath the template, at the end of the template. My first couple of passes where perfect, but then I noticed I could not get much deeper with the router bit I had, so I needed to order a longer one. As I could not simply take of the template because of the angle. At some point, to cut a long story short, I managed to destroy both my template and the neck pocket cavity by not checking if the bearings where rolling on my template. The following weekend, I took a new piece of countertop, created a new neck template ( this time , I immediately copied the template so I had a second one ) and went on. I learned one lesson here, and that is , that even if you use a template, you still need to think things over more then once and keep checking everything you do., So this time, I made sure my template was locked in, and was easy to put back in exact the same position if I would need to take it off at some point, for whatever reason. Test fitted the neck and the angle , looking good !
Then deciding where the pickups and bridge should go roughly and at the same time, just checking if I would have enough of an angle by placing the bridge at the minimum height it would end up with and I had a gap of about a mm between the bottom of the ruler and the top of the frets
I started the routing of the neck pickup cavity, and of course, not without an issue, I again managed to let the bearing slide off
the template and cut in the corner a bit. luckily it was just a shallow pass, so I was able to rectify this afterwards with some filler. The second cavity was a lot cleaner. After drilling the holes for the controls, I used a jigsaw (as I dont have a bandsaw), to cut out a big part of the body. Then finished by routing the body and the control cavity.
Test fitting the neck with ferules and used filler to fix the neck pickup cavity
Rounding the edges with a roundover bit and drilled the hole for the jack plug with a 22mm forstner bit.
And this is the result with all hardware mounted, and initial stringup. I did had an issue with the first location where I put the holes for the bridge posts. they where a little offset by a mm, making the strings not 100% aligned on the fretboard. I also put the bridge a tad too close to the fretboard. Plugging the holes and redrilling them fixed the issue. Now I have a working guitar, just need a proper fret leveling, action adjustment and general setup really. After that, finishing phase. But that is for next time!
So I deciced to make this a 4+2 headstock for no particular reason
Don't think you need a reason to try something different!
Guitarists are a very conservative bunch when it comes to the design of their instruments. Which is odd when you consider that we're all supposed to be creative and innovative with what we DO with those instruments!!
I played around with various headstock options when I started building mine. I eventually settled on something that worked ergonomically, and didn't upset my eyes too much, so I've now become very conservative myself, and have no intention of changing my design!!
The neck pocket template is way to small and I forgot to include the centerline, etc.. I am learning this as I go at that point.
And we all still are!!!
I learn something on every build. Usually related to how stupid I've been in not thinking about something before I've done it - even when I spent ages thinking before I did it.
I think that works as a design. As you said - the change to the lower horn ensures you've got fret access.
Putting the bridge so far down the body reminds me of some of the Eggle guitar designs. They had a smaller sized body, so the bridge would naturally be closer to the end of the body.
I learn something on every build. Usually related to how stupid I've been in not thinking about something before I've done it - even when I spent ages thinking before I did it.
I think that works as a design. As you said - the change to the lower horn ensures you've got fret access.
The problem is, I should have had the lower horn a bit further down from the neck, the last couple of frets are hard to reach , even now. I think it could work for someone with longer and slimmer fingers/hand, but I still cannot reach the 21 and 22nd frets comfortably. I can live with it though, as it s my first 'design' and while I knew I had to pay attention to it, I never realized how much clearance you actually need.
the last couple of frets are hard to reach , even now.
You mean people really do use that end of the fretboard?
I’d pretty much decided to save myself some time and aggro on my next home build, and just put the first 12 frets in. Maybe 15 in case I get adventurous ...
You mean people really do use that end of the fretboard?
I’d pretty much decided to save myself some time and aggro on my next home build, and just put the first 12 frets in. Maybe 15 in case I get adventurous ...
hahaha, that is funny !
I do get there to that end by accident from time to time 😉
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