Finished Pics! impmann's Alembic-esque Electric

Alegree

Beautiful.

webrthomson

Yup that all looks lovely - quilted ebony who knew - but very nice looking!

WezV

Andyjr1515 said:

You can just see the quilting on the ebony in this shot.  

webrthomson said:

Yup that all looks lovely - quilted ebony who knew - but very nice looking!

Pendant mode - quilting only occurs in approximately 1 in 50 trees of one particular species of maple.  I seem to remember it was thought to be genetic.   the theory falls down slightly when you see quilted mahogany showing nearly the exact same patterns

Figuring such as flame occurs in any species and best guess is its caused by environmental factors such as stress on the tree at an early stage of life  (Or in the case of flamed redwood its the sheer weight of the tree crushing it,  it only occurs in the bottom 3rd of giant redwoods)

flamed,rippled or simply figured would be the most accurate description of this ebony... and it does look a nice bit, not sure i would have been able to resist

Andyjr1515

WezV said:

Andyjr1515 said:

You can just see the quilting on the ebony in this shot.  

webrthomson said:

Yup that all looks lovely - quilted ebony who knew - but very nice looking!

Pendant mode - quilting only occurs in approximately 1 in 50 trees of one particular species of maple.  I seem to remember it was thought to be genetic.   the theory falls down slightly when you see quilted mahogany showing nearly the exact same patterns

Figuring such as flame occurs in any species and best guess is its caused by environmental factors such as stress on the tree at an early stage of life  (Or in the case of flamed redwood its the sheer weight of the tree crushing it,  it only occurs in the bottom 3rd of giant redwoods)

flamed,rippled or simply figured would be the most accurate description of this ebony... and it does look a nice bit, not sure i would have been able to resist

There was a small period this morning when we had some SUNSHINE!!!!   I took a closer shot:


It's like this all the way down and ripples like it should when you move it.  It'll be interesting how well it shows once it's been radiused and finish-sanded.

I have to say, it's also (looked on face on) the blackest ebony I've had for a long, long time.  I think @impmann 's got something a little bit special here.

impmann

Yay! Looks amazing... :-)

Andyjr1515

Not going to be able to do much (anything) on this in the coming week, but I've got the back wings glued on   :

Andyjr1515

Got back from sunny Dartmouth (actually, against all the odds, it WAS sunny much of the time!) to find the custom P90's @impmann has ordered from @Alegree wait@

Now I get it....Andyjr1515 having gained a bit of a reputation for taking on projects that most wise builders wouldn't touch with a bargepole, you've all got together and worked on a 'THIS will break him - you watch' conspiracy

More precisely, the - 'I'll tell you what - you know he's started building thinner and thinner guitars and basses...well, I'll ask for a particularly light guitar, and he'll wet himself at the chance of going WHISPER thin...and then [snigger]... then I'll ask him to put a pair of THESE in it!!! [peals of laughter swamp the TheFretboard server] ':


Yes - they really ARE that deep!

They are, I gather, a bit of a 'special'

I'll say!

They're stacked humbucking P90's cooked up over a bubbling cauldron by @Impmann and Alex of @Alegree

You can see the double coils here:


Is Andyjr1515 broken?  Has he met his match?

Of course not!

The bottom coil and wires sticking out into the fresh air at the back of the guitar might catch on @impmann's jumper a bit but, hey, we all have to suffer for our art!

Alegree

Hope they reached you in one piece  
You're braver than I taking on a build like this. I'll be very interested to hear how these pickups go down. They are certainly a bizarre pair. 

impmann

If anyone can do it... ;-)

Andyjr1515

Alegree said:

Hope they reached you in one piece  
You're braver than I taking on a build like this. I'll be very interested to hear how these pickups go down. They are certainly a bizarre pair. 

Yes - nicely packed, Alex, and arrived all safe and sound

impmann said:

If anyone can do it... ;-)

Hmmmm....and the 'if all else fails and he doesn't take the bait, he's a sucker for the "if anyone can do it" line...' ruse

Andyjr1515

I've learnt over the years of veneering tops that one of the most important things to do before you cover anything up is making an accurate note of exactly what and where stuff underneath is.

As the next big task is preparing for the top to be glued on, I've taken the master paper template and simply run my thumb round the main cavity to produce an indent of the chamber position:


Next jobs are flattening the mating surfaces, gluing the wenge demarcation veneer to the top, routing the cable routes and routing a mirror main chamber in the top.  Then I can glue it together

Andyjr1515

But what's this?  Wasn't that wing already glued to the neck?



Well yes, it was...

But one of the first things I double checked in the preparation for the top was the flatness of the mating surface.  And I wasn't happy with it. 

Would the top have 'eased' under clamping to a good joint?  Yes
Would that have niggled at me for the rest of the build?  Absolutely

So a wizz through the band saw to cut the wing off, re-level with a jack plane and sanding beam and then reglue face down on the flattest plank I have in the house (just in case it's my workbench that's not absolutely flat):


Talking of flat planks - the plank I'm clamping this on is actually a chipboard shelf (I know...but trust me, it's utterly stable and remarkably flat).  But it's the heaviest and hardest chipboard I've ever come across.  When I cut it to length, sparks came off the struggling chop saw.  When I routed a flat edge, sparks came off my router bit.  What's that all about???

Andyjr1515

OK - I know it looks the same, but it's actually properly flat now.  MUCH happier



So, now the bench and flat plank are free, the first length of 2mm wenge demarcation veneer gets glued on with an offcut of the mahogany acting as a caul:

TTony

Andyjr1515 said:

You could another thru-neck wing out of that "offcut" - and probably the other wing from the other offcut ...

Andyjr1515

TTony said:

Andyjr1515 said:

You could another thru-neck wing out of that "offcut" - and probably the other wing from the other offcut ...

...or the electric 'cello' that's been on my 'must get round to that one day' list for years....

Andyjr1515

The pickup cable rout to the control chamber is very straightforward (glad SOMETHING is   ) - just a straight rout along the ends of the pickup positions.


I will also be routing a shallow chamber in the top, mirroring the chamber in the corresponding back wing.

As ever subject to other plans MrsAndyjr1515 might have for me for tomorrow, there's nevertheless a distinct possibility the top might be glued on before the end of the day

Andyjr1515

Pickup cable run routed:


Wenge veneer trimmed:


and top glued, ready for trimming of the back wings:


That's the next job.  Anything, to be honest, to keep putting off my least favourite job in any build - radiusing an ebony fretboard...

Andyjr1515

And trimmed:



It's only rough-trimmed and I will finish off with microplanes and sanding blocks.  The couple of blobs, by the way, are not blemishes - it's just where the Titebond has squeezed up through a couple of the natural fissures in the top.  They will sand out easily.



Why do I only rough-trim?  Well, I find that sometimes the wood (particularly mahogany) bruises a little and if the template is absolutely spot on, there's really nowhere to go so I just find it easier to do the final smoothing by hand and that takes out any bruises or nicks easily.

By the way - as those who follow my build threads already know - I always try to stress that I only describe how I myself do some of these things, not 'this is how it should be done'.  How I work is often quite different to how many good builders work ... so, please, NEVER assume I know what I'm doing!

The main difference here is that I use the top as the routing guide.  Now pretty much every other experienced builder will say NEVER use the top as a routing template...and they are right.  SO DON'T!!

In fact, the convenional wisdom - for VERY good reasons - is don't even use your master template as a template.  Use the master template to cut yourself a working template and use that as the routing guide. 

I do have a very logical reason for doing it the way I do it - and it works better and less risky based on previously tried methods for me...

The wenge demarcation veneer here  is 2mm constructional veneer:


In case you're wondering, standard 0.6mm veneer works perfectly well, but when I do the carve, I want to emphasise the demarcation line and hence the thicker product.

The other thing I know one or two folks are interested in is the laurel camphor.  You can see the natural fissures well in this shot - those are not damage cracks, they are holes in the wood.  How stable is it?  Very.  It seems to have a similar stiffness and workability to figured walnut.  Actually quite nice to work with and not at all impacted by the voids. 

And just wait until I've put the finish on top!  

impmann

This is looking ace, Andy!

TTony

impmann said:

This is looking ace, Andy!

I'm guessing that, when this is done, you won't need any other guitar @impmann ;