A couple of works in progress - Woodworking Talk

frankp · 08-11-2009, 04:02 PM

My daughter decided she wanted to learn how to play guitar. I've been piddling with one for many years (still can't play a whole song but lots of song snippets) and always wanted to build one.

Let's kill two birds with one stone, I thought, so we started making plans to build some guitars. The key was she had to do at least some of every aspect of building the guitar, from design, to plan drawing, to wood selection, cutting, glueing, you get the picture.

So here are the stats so far.

Her guitar is the "extreme" body shape. Body is a basswood core with quilted maple top and back. Neck is a through neck with three layers of laminated purpleheart. Fingerboard is macassar ebony bought on ebay pre-slotted for a standard 25.5 inch scale.

My guitar is a big body chambered guitar (mostly because of weight) with a red cedar body and a quilted maple top. 3 inch wide 3 layer padauk neck (very heavy) with a macassar ebony fretboard. I'm making it a 28.5 inch baritone scale so it has a cooler "growlier" sound.

We attempted to bookmatch the tops for each guitar, and they are close but not quite perfect (hers had to be offset a quarter inch or so due to her body shape and mine wasn't quite wide enough so I had to add some "wings" on the outside edges.) Plus, you can definitely see the seam on each guitar.

And here are some pics... her guitar front/top, both guitars front (hers sans top in that pic), both guitars back (haven't finished with the chambering of mine) then my guitar front/top.

Once we've gotten a little further along, I'll take some better quality pics of the grain in the tops and the finer details.

FrankP

TS3660 · 08-11-2009, 10:57 PM

Looks good so far Frank. I'm a banjo player but I bought my banjo. That was BEFORE I was a woodworker. So, a banjo is on my project list....

Kenbo · 08-12-2009, 08:18 AM

Looks great so far Frank. The quality time with you daughter is a bonus as well. Keep us posted.
Ken

The Everyman Show · 08-12-2009, 11:20 AM

Frank these look fabulous. What a great endeavor and a cool project to work on with your daughter. And kudos to you for actually moving forward and doing it. When you're all done I would love to pick your brains on what you did, what worked, what you'd do different next time, where to buy all the bits and bobs and twisty things (obviously my suppressed musical technical side is spilling out here). I was talking to my son about making a guitar for him about 3-weeks ago and I tasked him with making a design and we'd see how we could build it together. Alas I am still waiting for the design, this is a good motivator to prod him along. Frank I am both envious and extremely happy for the progress you’ve made so far. Excellent work and great choice of exotics.

frankp · 08-12-2009, 03:35 PM

Bud, I'm no guitar player but I've always thought they couldn't be too hard to build and it would be a cool project. So far, so good. I messed up a couple of my fret slots for my guitar, but I figure no biggee, if it sounds horrible, I'll pull the board and do it again. That's the great part about building these ourselves.

Ken, thanks for the encouragement. Definitely the best part is getting to do this with my daughter.

John,
I got a few parts from stewmac.com and borrowed several library books about building an electric guitar. There is also LMII.com which also sells luthier equipment and the mimf.com forum (which I'm not too impressed with the attitudes there) as a couple of other resources. I actually bought a couple of cheap used guitars to yank parts and components from ($140 total for two guitars and a case) because I don't know enough about guitars to know what brands are good but inexpensive and I wanted to do this as cheaply as possible. I bought the fingerboards on ebay for really cheap as well as the green abalone we're using as inlay material. I recommend doing this and I'm happy to forward info on who I bought from if you decide to build with your son. As for the exotics, I used what I had on hand except the maple and the purpleheart... my daughter has always really liked purpleheart and we both decided we liked the look of the quilted maple tops we had seen more consistently than any of the other tops.

I'll have some more status later tonight or tomorrow, I suspect. Feel free to ask me any questions and I'll try to answer them if I can.

rocklobster · 08-13-2009, 07:34 PM

I like everything about this project. Looking forward to seeing more.

Rob

Steve G. · 08-13-2009, 09:10 PM

Is it alot harder to build an acoustic guitar than an electric? I've never played an electric guitar before so I'd be interested in building an acoustic.

looks good, how many hours have you put into it so far?

frankp · 08-14-2009, 12:46 PM

Yes it's definitely more detailed and intricate work to build an acoustic. Sound boards are more particular than electronics are to thickness, placement, tolerances etc. There is a thread on here that has been a fantastic "step by step" of an acoustic build, though. It's doable, just takes a little more care and planning.

I already have an acoustic and wasn't really as interested in building another one of those as I was building the "easy" electrics.

Kenbo · 08-14-2009, 02:19 PM

Okay Frank, enough talking!! Get back to the guitars!!!

Some of us, on this forum, are dying to see the finished product.

Ken

frankp · 08-16-2009, 01:17 AM

Ken,

I routed out one pickup pocket, finished (mostly) the inlay and did some sanding on my guitar. As you can see, it's not a perfect job and I need to go back and fill in a little with epoxy around the inlay, and possibly sand a bit more (only sanded with 220 and was planning to go to 600) but so far I'm fairly happy with it as a first effort.

My daughter dyed her fretboard and finished cutting her inlays today and we'll try and get them put in her fretboard tomorrow. Company coming over to see the new baby though, so who knows how much we'll get finished. Here's a pic or two of the latest status on mine... no significant visible change on my daughter's...

I have found a couple of issues-
1) cedar is a very soft wood and any time I do some work on the top, I have to be very careful not to dent the body on the back side.
2) It's easy to get ahead of yourself with these projects and then make the "next" step difficult for yourself. Note my neck pickup pocket hasn't been routed yet--that's because I have to make a jig to route that pocket because the fret board is in the way and my router won't sit flat now. Careful planning is important in a project like this.

Kenbo · 08-17-2009, 06:16 PM

Looking great Frank.

frankp · 08-18-2009, 12:16 AM

So not a lot of progress on my guitar since my last update. My daughter's guitar, however, has some significant changes.

On my guitar, we got a little more sanding and routed out the neck pickup pocket. On her guitar, we routed all the pockets, did a ton of sanding (220 on the body and 600 on the top) , the fingerboard inlay (and more dying) and dyed the top and body. Tomorrow we dye the back and then finish with KTM-9 and fill a couple of other details in before putting in the electronics. A couple of progress pics...

5 points for anyone who can spot the error (a guitar error not a woodworking error) we made.

Steve G. · 08-18-2009, 07:46 AM

the bridge is not centered?

Ella Menneau P. · 08-18-2009, 11:53 AM

What a couple awesome projects, Frank! Of course, we'll need some Utube video of you and your daughter rockin' out!

frankp · 08-18-2009, 07:46 PM

Steve, that's partially an optical illusion, and partially a screw up. It's a Strat-style tremolo bridge so the bridge itself actually sits in front of that hole... that's the hole that the spring tremolo "bar" runs through and it's wider than the actual saddle area of the bridge. It is slightly off-center but the screw holes for securing everything were aligned properly.

Either way, here're today's updates--all for my daughter's guitar:
Sanded and stained the back, finished sanding the neck, filled a couple of mistakes and put in the tuning machines, the nut, the strap buttons, drilled a hole for the jack, and put the first layer of epoxy on for filling the pores. Here are a few shots...

Peter Benders · 08-19-2009, 11:00 PM

this is probably the most wonderful thing i have ever seen in my life. those guitars are awesome. very good work of art.

frankp · 08-20-2009, 12:52 AM

Okay, so today's progress is fairly significant since it now looks like a nearly complete guitar. Again, just progress on my daughter's guitar, but we got the frets on, tape-lined the pick up pockets, waxed the neck (no other finish for the neck) and put another layer of epoxy on the top (KTM-9 needs a sealant before application) and a first layer on the rest of the body.

Since no-one seems to have figured out the correct goof for the 5 points... here it is. The second octave abalone (supposed to be the 24th fret) is inlayed one fret high, in the 23rd fret. My daughter layed it all out and I routed the pockets without ever checking them, because we had checked twice already. Clearly we didn't check enough times and I noticed it after everything was already glued in place.

My daughter wishes me to remind everyone that though these particular pics make the guitar look a reddish color, it's quite purple.

A couple of progress pics...

Kenbo · 08-20-2009, 08:33 AM

All I can say, is that guitar is positively............
SWANKY!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm loving this project Frank. Great job.
Ken

frankp · 08-23-2009, 08:55 PM

We 'finished' up my daughter's guitar yesterday. I say 'finished' because it's not completely finished (still needs a couple of coats of KTM-9 on the back and then some good buffing) but she had to go back to her mom's so it's finished for now. Sounds great after a little bit of setting up (another new experience for me, but not difficult at all) and she's pretty stoked.

The electronics for her guitar are 2 single coil pickups (neck and middle) and a humbucker (bridge) pulled from a Yamaha EG112 guitar. Master volume and master tone. The bridge is a standard strat style tremolo bridge, and the tuners are inline cheapo tuners also pulled from the Yamaha.

The volume and tone knobs, I forgot to mention, are my first turning effort on my new lathe. They are Macassar Ebony died for color consistency and then varnished with 3 coats of varished thinned with mineral spirits.

Pick guard and back plate are 80 mil lexan that my daughter painted black on the back side using black acrylic paints that we bought to paint murals in the baby nursery. She wanted it to stay "shiny" and it turned out quite well.

So without further ado, I present Zen Guitar's first offering, the currently dubbed "Purple Lightning" S/N 001 as it is right now...

Chad · 08-23-2009, 09:27 PM

Awesome. Rock on!