Going to just start a thread here to post pictures and comments around my first build. Here we go!
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Getting started on the neck. Our maker space has lovely tools and they make wood dimensioning a joy.
I'm using some quartersawn sapele, and a couple of passes on the jointer and planer make it feel almost like it's been sanded. These are "before and after" shots.
Cheers
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I'm going to try and use a couple of pieces from this scrap for my neck angle jig. 🤠
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This is our design, within the overarching plan of Mark's course
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@nsj does that go over the headstock as a laminate or is the actual headstock? did you make a scarf joint for it?
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@nsj Very cool - and a great way to use all of your wood. I'm hoping to start finding old free tables to upcycle into guitars after I get a little more experience under my belt.
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Used a taper jig with the tablesaw for the first time. I think the headstock angle jig came out pretty good but we'll see when we actually use it
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I agree! Fortunately someone else at the space, more competent than myself, made that jig. Made my life easy. The digital angle ruler really helped too!
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Made some patterns on the laser cutter. I'm using fairly thin MDF hardboard, My plan is to use the router table rather than handheld so I believe the thin template shouldn't pose a problem. I'm not showing all here but my current strategy is to use 3 templates:
body + pickups + cover plate and control alignment
body + neck pocket + controls cavity
headstock
We'll see how that works out 🙂
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Ran into my first mishap. After a test run on the router table with some pine, my truss rod cavity got poked full of holes by a slippery router bit. turns out sapele is really really hard, and our colletes might need replacing! bugger! But it's all part of the process right? I'm going to try some wood putty, and see where we land after the neck is ready. May need some more work but then again, since it's my first guitar, some of these mistakes just add character
?
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@kalimar I like routing the trussrod channel while the blank is still squared, I use a fence on my router to follow the edge of the blank.
Then for the actual neck I make the fretboard and once it's glued on I leave it flat and run the bearing of the cutter along it to tidy the neck shape. Works a treat.
Sapele isn't as hard as maple or that, I liked using it. Heavier than brazillian mahogany in a body though.
Sounds like maybe the cutter you used was either blunt or just not up to the job.
But hey ho, it's all part of the learning experience
Turns out our shop had some faulty colletes! I'm pretty sure these gouges will expose themselves so I'm going to try a little resin and make it a feature! More to come
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My attempt at fixing the gouges left by the cranky router
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not sure why the audio came out so slow! Weird
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Are the gouges deep? Be mindful that when you carve the neck that it does not poke through. You pretty much have 1/8-3/16 of an inch thickness left after installing the truss rod. Might be best just to start over rather than having a neck and truss rod installed and a fretboard already glued on. Think about it.