Nomad's First Scratch Build

paulnb57

Nice work, I'm enjoying the whole process, I like the way you explain your thoughts on each task....

nick_s

The dot markers fit like a glove it seems!  Very well executed.

Roland

paulnb57 said:

Nice work, I'm enjoying the whole process, I like the way you explain your thoughts on each task....

The thinking about it is often more interesting than the action

NPP

great stuff. I admire your courage to implement all the difficult things on your first scratch build - I think I'd steer well clear of everything that might look good but also be complicated to implement but you'll be rewarded by a very classy-looking instrument.

Nomad

Thanks all.

Thinking about it is also, at least at this stage (first build), very important to ensure that things get done in a sequence that doesn't create problems later on. Although the overall design concept was in place when I started, lots of little details weren't (eg, headstock shape wasn't determined, or the logo), and they need to be considered carefully in the wider context. Some are dependencies in terms of getting bits to fit together, while others are more subtle, like being aware of how clamping might become awkward with a given shape (so clamp and glue a bit first, then cut the shape). It occurred to me a few weeks ago that guitar building is a long sequence of quite small steps rather than a few small steps punctuating big ones. It strikes me as something that requires a careful and methodical approach, with time taken at each stage to check that things are going according to plan.

@NPP, the whole point of this is to practice the techniques and methods I think I'll need, as well as test out the sequence of steps and their dependencies. This build will also let me try out the geometry, which is a little different from the norm (and from my two main guitars), and the balance with a double cut body. From that, I should be able to modify the design to something that suits me better if there are any parts of this that don't work for me. The longer term plan is to build another two guitars - another twin humbucker one like this, but with better wood for the body and neck, and one with single coils and a whammy (possibly a revised Red Special type of guitar without the chambered body for better balance). Something else I'm thinking of is trying a chunkier neck carve to see what I think. My current guitars are a LP copy with a modern Gibson profile, and the other is a Red Special which used to feel like a relatively chunky neck but now feels normal.

Nomad

Time to glue the fingerboard on.

The first thing I wanted to check was whether the truss rod would rattle when the tension was released. I put it in the slot, held the board on top and gave it a shake - it rattled. Ben Crowe at Crimson Guitars gets around this by reverse-rolling some masking tape and putting it between the truss rod and the board, but I'm not keen on that because I reckon masking tape ages and goes minging. It's also not exactly designed to resist compression when rolled up. Instead, I used a couple of little bits of self-adhesive foam tape, under the threaded part like this, one at each end...

With the board held on again and another shake test, no rattles whatsoever.

Next step was to keep the glue out of the truss rod channel (another Crimson tip), with a strip of masking tape over the opening...

To maximise the glue area, the tape is trimmed closer to the channel...

...and the end trimmed off at the left...

Note that it doesn't matter if this bit of tape goes minging in years to come - it's only job is to prevent glue getting into the channel while still wet.

The initial clamping was done with the neck in the chunky vice. First, two small quick clamps were used to hold the board down in position, then a couple of cauls were added, each with an F-clamp at the ends. The position was checked (and slightly adjusted at the body end) and further clamps added. The assembly was then taken out of the vice and the middle area clamped as well. Finally, the two quick clamps were removed and a couple of short cauls placed at the ends with more F-clamps. After another check that the centres were okay, it was left to dry. Note that the left hand end of the neck is nipped up in the vice to keep it upright...

Clamp removal and glue spooge cleanup tomorrow. At that point, I have to decide how much wood I'll cut off the back, which probably means I'll be measuring my other guitars to get some numbers worked out.

Nomad

 So, the clamps came off and the worst of the glue squeeze-out was scraped away. I then took some measurements from my Red Special and decided to make things 2mm or so deeper for now, and marked out the cut line...

The top of the curve towards the right is at the 16th fret, which is about where the wood on the main body ends when I have the 24th fret aligned pretty close to the lower cutaway (to get good top fret access). So, at the area of the curve, there will be a melding of neck and body wood which hasn't been clearly defined yet, other than I know I want a low profile heel.

To keep things even on the bandsaw, a strip of sacrificial MDF was stuck to the side of the neck using superglue and masking tape - this stops the sticky-outy bit of the wing on the headstock catching on the edge of the saw table...

Didn't take long to cut it out, and I still cut to the waste side of the line by a fair margin...

I've decided on no volute, incidentally, because the neck wood is all quarter sawn.

While looking things over, I discovered what appears to be an insect burrow or some other flaw. Didn't see any evidence of this until I cut the shape (you can see the thin sliver of wood between the flaw and the maple)...

My thought process was: if that goes in deep enough to still be there after the carve, I'll try to fill it. If that ends up a mess and I have to scrap the neck, at least I'll have had some practice at carving.

So, I routed the sides of the neck down to the fingerboard, using the board as a template with a bearing cutter in the router...

...and then got a spokeshave out and used it in earnest for the first time...

It's gone okay so far. As I carved away, the flaw I had spotted earlier started to become smaller and eventually disappeared, so no issue there.

Part of the reason for cutting shy of the already-generous line was to give myself some time to get a feel for the spokeshave without getting into critical aspects of the carve (ie, some chances to make crappy cuts without adverse consequences). The shot above has some sidelighting to show the shape as it stands. The measurements I took from the Red Special included the fret and strings, so it's currently well over size, and it feels it - very chunky indeed, although the sides near the fingerboard haven't been touched yet.

I think there's still some spokeshave work to do before I switch to rasps and files, but I decided to call a halt there for now. I'll start afresh next time without a bandsaw and router session just before it.

I flipped it over for a look and saw...

...a guitar neck.

By no means finished, but I think there was a transition tonight, from some bits of wood to something that is recognisably part of a musical instrument.

You can see my carving setup here as well - the big vice is clamped to the bench and the neck is held at the body end, while the headstock rests on a lump of wood to stop it swivelling downwards. The whole lot is at an angle to the edge of the bench so that I have more comfortable access - I can stand directly in line with the centreline of the neck.

A 12" radius block is inbound from Crimson Guitars (just in time - took them ages to get it shipped), so I'll hopefully be making use of that at the weekend. For now, though, I'll be concentrating on the general neck profile.

I think I've also pretty much decided on not having an extended tenon at the body join. I'll look at things some more, but I reckon there will be plenty enough body wood to get a good strong join if the neck is cut at the end of the board.

Rabs

Looking good man ....  Im also getting on with my neck..  Cant wait to glue the neck and body together..  That's always a good day 

LuttiS

Just spent the morning catching up on this.. it's really looking fantastic, really liking your process. I think it's good to be trying all these new things, and your right it is inspiring to others. I hadn't really considered doing a neck before, but now the idea is starting to take root... 

BigMonka

Awesome thread full of awesomeness! Great work @Nomad - keep those updates coming.

Nomad

Thanks once again, folks.

Just a quick in-progress pic for now. Been working on the neck some more...

It's all feeling quite rounded now. Most of the shaping was done with spokeshaves (mostly a flat-soled one, and a little with a curved sole). I also used some violin maker's planes for some bits, and Iwasaki Japanese carving files here and there. The smoothing out of the surface was done with a palm sander with rather worn 120 grit abrasive.

The depth at the first fret is just about where I want it at 23.5mm, which matches the Red Special with fret and strings (but just to the board surface on this). At the 12th, it's still a bit deep at 29mm - I'm aiming for about 25.5 to 26mm there. So there's still some bulk removal to be done, but that's fine because it'll give me a chance to remove any lack of straightness in the taper that there might be at present.

A little tip that might be worth mentioning - the bits where the neck widens from the nut to the wings aren't at final size yet. There's still a couple millimetres to remove, which gives me a surface that I can ding into with tools and sanding things without worrying. Once the main neck shaping is finished, I'll take these down to final size. Similar with the fingerboard width. When I cut the taper, I marked the lines and set it on the sled very carefully for cutting in the band saw. It was set with the outer edges of the lines inboard of the bandsaw kerf such that it was slightly oversize by about 1mm (so 46mm at the nut, 57mm at the 24th fret). This gives me a little scope (0.5mm each side) for final working and sanding of the sides of the neck, and room to take out any unintentional dings or marks.

Once I've finalised the depth along the neck, I'll work some more on the profile. At the moment, it feels a bit bulky in the areas along the edges of the maple centre strip and around the meranti. Overall, though, it feels pretty good so far.

Before I do that final adjustment to depth and taper, I'm going to think some more about the heel join. I need to be careful that I don't remove material too far up the neck and leave myself less flat surface for gluing. I also want to leave some meat on the neck beyond the body so that I have something to work with when I fair in the body at the heel. So, time to pause and think that through.

In other news, the 12" radius block finally arrived from Crimson yesterday. It's 400mm long, but I'm not sure yet if that's too long, so I'll stick some abrasive on it and have a play on some scrap.

axisus

Just found this thread, fabulous stuff! Very inspiring.

Nomad

Cheers, axisus.

Time for an update after doing various workshop things like building a clamp rack.

The radius block had finally arrived from Crimson, and I tried it as-is. It's a 400mm long one, bought on the basis that I could cut it down to a shorter version similar to most (200-250mm), and have another that's shorter again for more localise radiussing, but I decided to try it at 400mm first, and it seemed to work well.

Here's the sanding part-way through...

It was done as a combination of sometimes holding the neck in the vice and working the block along it, and sometimes holding the block in the vice and working the neck along it. It seems to get a bit easier to keep it aligned as the sanding progresses.

Fingerboard after the radius has been done...

I tried some gauges on it, and the result was a bit smaller than 12" - more like a bit over 11" (or maybe my gauges are wrong). Either way, it feels fine, and the height reduction at the edges is pretty close to what I calculated would result (or close enough).

Next step was to redo the slots which had originally been cut with the board flat because the radiussing reduces the thickness at the edges, and hence the depths of the slots at the edges. For this, I used the slotting saw with the depth gauge fitted to give a cut about 2mm deep...

This didn't work quite as well as I would have liked. The saw, you may recall, was changed from a pull cut to a push cut when I did the initial slotting in the mitre box. I also mentioned when I did that, that the saw felt a bit grabby at times until the cut was progressing. This is fine with a mitre box that has slots to constrain the saw that are about 15mm deep, but not so good when all you have is a slot in the board that's 1mm deep at the edges. All it takes is one little grabby thing and the blade can jump out and catch the surface of the board to the side of the slot...

If you're unlucky, it can happen three times.

There were sweary words and a flying saw.

After some time to calm down and stop blaming what was obviously a poor tool, I tried filling with ebony dust and superglue...

It worked reasonably well, but I could have done with a second fill on a couple of the cuts - still got some groove at those, but they won't affect playing (they're at the low E side of the neck) and I wanted to press on.

Apologies for a lack of photos here, but the next thing was to do the side dots. I had bought 2mm diameter dot rod ages ago and used that. All went fine except at the 24th fret, when I found that three dots in a row wouldn't fit between the fret slots - the sides of the dots would meet, which mean that drilling the holes (using a 2.1mm bit a hand drill) would touch, which would likely end up in a mess . So I positioned the two outer dots a bit lower which allowed them to come in a bit and still keep some wood between them.

I then whacked in the frets, and levelled, crowned and polished them...

If anything, I would say that the ends could be a bit smoother, and I'll probably do a bit more fettling. The levelling was done with a fairly long levelling beam, after setting the neck straight using a notched straight edge. (Although this is a 24" scale, a notched straight edge for Fender scale can be used if the first fret notch is over the nut - there's no notch over the 24th fret, but that's fine for this.) I used a fret rocker to check for level as I worked them flat. The were crowned using the Crimson crowning file ( a three-square with the corners ground smooth) and their fret end file (a smoother flat file with the edges ground smooth). I felt I was able to get more tilt with the end dressing file after taking the bulk of the material off with the crowning file (one side of the flat file is ground to a noticeably rounded profile). The crowning file was tending to scratch the masking tape more easily when I tilted it during the reprofiling.

After trying various things, I found that that one of the many foam sanding blocks that litter my workshop was good for smoothing out the file marks and getting the tops of the frets more rounded, followed by the Crimson rubber polishing blocks, starting at medium, and working through fine to super-fine, which gave a pretty shiny finish.

I then made a start on the nut. The plan here (with regard to my list of steps) is to get the general shaping done and make sure the nut seats okay on its little platform. So, the bon blank was held in my modified cheapie vice and cut to a bit over length using a junior hacksaw...

It seated nicely on the platform without having to work the two faces, so all I had to do was work a bit of a slope into the face on the headstock side, which went fine with a file.

Here it is place dry on the neck...

The height hasn't been reduced yet and the shaping is still a bit rough. I'll tidy it up when it comes to stage 2, which is taking the height down and cutting the slots - there will be some general softening of the edges and some fine sanding to get a more polished finish.

Here's a shot of the neck so far...

You can see that I've lopped off the bit at the end, having decided to not have a tenon extending into the body, and I've also cut the depth of the neck at the heel to what I intend to fit (it was cut in the bandsaw before I radiussed the board - the flat board went against the fence in the saw). It was then planed smooth, checking lots to make sure that the height at each side is the same (to avoid rotation of the neck relative to the body). Also visible here is the slightly arched arrangement of the side dots at the 24th fret. I think I'll seek out some 1.5mm dot rod for next time.

As with the ebony dust when I was bringing the board down to thickness, I collected some bone dust when I was cutting and filing the nut...

The next step is to get on with the body - need to start doing control cavities and the like.

Roland

Good thread. The pictures of workshop and tools, and your attention to detail, make me feel I'm in the workshop with you.

usedtobe

Awesome!

Rabs

Yeah good stuff man.. I keep forgetting this is your first build..  Doesn't seem like it mistakes or not (we all make the odd mistake here and there from time to time).

Nomad

Thanks once again, folks. @Rabs, yes, I'm pleased with how it's going so far, in spite of the wayward saw (and one or two imperfections). According to my list of steps (discrete little jobs that I set up for and carry out), I'm about half way through. The neck is nearly at 100%, body now about 40%, with final assembly not started yet, of course.

I have now started on the more detailed aspects of the body. First thing was to decide on the final positions of the various features, and this was done on a template (well, jumping between taking measurements from the CAD drawing on the computer, and setting bits out on the template)...

The various marks along the centre line indicate, from right to left, the end of the fingerboard, the centres of the two pickups, the bridge and the tailpiece. The outlines of the cavities and the control positions were done by drawing round paper templates taken from the CAD drawing. (Tip: Use matt heavyweight photo paper for this. It's like thin card and much more robust than the usual printer paper. The matt stuff is better if you're taking photos - no glare.)

With the control positions marked out, I drill 2mm pilot holes through both templates, hereafter, template A and B. The plan is to have the cavities in template A and the control positions and wiring channel in template B.

With that done, I was free to do some cutting with forstner bits in template A...

The pilot holes in the main cavity were used to guide the forstner bit to position, and additional holes were added with an awl for the switch cavity (because it isn't round, and the switch hole isn't in the centre. I then cut out the waste from the main cavity using a coping saw and set up my little router in its home brew table, and fitted it with a small sanding drum (which just happens to have a 1/4" shank)...

The saw cuts were done after marking some curvy bits on the template to provide space for screws for fixing the back cover...

It was done this way to reduce the width of the rebate - if I had made the cavity sides straight lines between the circles, the rebate would need to be wider, and it could get too close to the edge of the body (which will have a round-over added). This was duly sanded out with care to get a nice, smooth blob shape.

Next step was to add another cavity to template A on the opposite side, this time for the cover rebate. To do this, template B was placed face down on template A and a transfer punch used to mark the positions of the four control pilot holes. Template B was then removed and the marks widened to 2mm with a drill. Another paper template was made, this time with the control centres and the revised outline of the cover. This was cut out and the control positions pierced before placing it face down on template A and holding it in place with small nails than happen to be 2mm in diameter...

The uncut template is a duplicate - can easily fit two on an A4 sheet, so it makes sense to print two and have a backup if the first one gets messed up.

The pins lined up nicely with the holes and the template was drawn around to give...

...the outline of the intended cavity and, once again, four alignment holes for the forstner bit...

Once again, the dots are joined with a coping saw...

...and the cavity shape sanded...

The switch cavity was brought out to shape using a file because the sanding doohickeys are too big to fit into the 20mm holes that were cut to start this.

Here's template A so far...

No cavity yet for the cover for the switch - at this point, I was still thinking about a shape for this that would keep it clear of the round-over on the back edge of the body.

A closer view of the outlines for the control cavity...

Next step was to add the wiring channel to template B. I wanted to put it on this template because the channel necessarily encroaches into the control and switch cavities, which would mean the sides of those would be compromised for the router where the wiring channel intersected.

You can see a line here, parallel to the batten that's clamped to the template...

This was set up to have the cutter centre over the line. A few passes with the router resulted in...

There were two criteria for this: The channel must stay clear of the pilot holes for the controls (because they'll be needed later), and it must reach far enough into the control cavity to allow the cutter to fit without having to plunge it into the body, like this...

This is because the channel is quite narrow (cut with a 10mm cutter, and the body rout will be done with a 9.5mm top-bearing cutter). Too close to hope that I'd get the cutter in to bearing depth while missing the template on the way down - much easier to extend the slot to overlap a cavity that's already cut and start the channel from the side of that cavity.

Nomad

That's enough holes in templates to be making a start on the body itself. Template A was placed on it and the cavity outlines drawn in place to act as a check (no-go boundary), and alignment holes added for the forstner bits...

Placed by hand for the switch, and used the control position pilot holes from template B for the control cavity.

The diameter of the big round bits in the control cavity template is 35mm, but for hogging out the waste from the body, I used a 30mm bit to ensure that the forstner cuts were clear of the boundary...

For the switch cavity, the slot is 20mm wide, and a 15mm bit was used for the hogging.

At the control cavity, the lump in the middle was removed by sawing...

...followed by routing to make the shape...

The big 2.1KW 1/2" router ate it for breakfast and farted it out. I used the little router and smaller bits for the switch cavity.

Here, you can see the overlap of the wiring channel slot in template B and the real control cavity in the body...

Clamped down and routed in two passes with a top-bearing cutter...

And here's the body so far...

One little thing I want to do is add a ramp at each end of the wiring channel. It occurred to me that the wires will meet the switch and a pot as they pass through, and there's little point in making it fiddly, so a ramp at each end allows the wires to emerge clear of the components concerned.

Nomad

Did the little ramps I described in my previous post.

At the control cavity...

And the switch cavity...

They were done with a couple of chisels and a mallet. Largish chisel to make cuts at the sides of the slots, and a 9mm one to pare down the ends to make the ramps.

My to-do list then says, "you shall now glue on the cap". I fiddled about for a bit, reinstated centre lines where they had been lost, and got the cap lined up and held on temporarily with a couple of clamps. I then picked two spots on the centre line and drilled a 2mm hole at each, enough to go a few mm into the body. The positions were at places that will be routed away later (neck pocket and a pickup cavity). I then took the cap off, spread glue on the body, broke a cocktail stick in half and stuck one half in each of the holes before bringing the cap back down, using the cocktail sticks for alignment...

The cocktail sticks were put in with the pointy end upwards to make it easier for then to engage with the holes in the cap (whic is done by feel)...

I remember watching a Crimson video where Ben Crowe uses these for aligning a fingerboard, and he cut both ends square and then tried to add in some taper with a file. I couldn't see the point of that since the cocktail sticks are already pointed. The method above worked perfectly well.

They were cut off flush and I then added a couple more clamps...

I think that's it for now. Tomorrow, I hope to rout the cap flush with the body, and maybe look at adding the neck break angle.

Nomad

Now that my workshop tart-up is substantially complete, and after doing a few small woodworking projects to get back into the swing of things, I decided it was time to restart the guitar build, which has been on hiatus since last March due to the arrival of spring (which leads to doing stuff that involves being outside, for the most part).

In the previous post, I said my next step was to put an angle onto the cap in the area of the neck pocket as a precursor to routing the pocket. I did this by taping a bit of wood across the body further down and used that to raise one end of a No7 plane, such that planing over the neck pocket area created an angle. I had also marked a transverse line as a guide for when to stop planning. This was a great plan, with the exception that the angle I got was 7° instead of 3.5°. Probably a brain fart. Undeterred, I then decided to rout some of the wood away freehand with the idea that I would stay well within the boundaries of where the final pocket would be. This was a great plan, with the exception that I managed to run outside the boundary on the 6th E string side. Probably a brain fart.

Realising at long last that my brain was farting, and that I was in imminent danger of fucking things up irrevocably, I managed to stop myself and decided that I wasn't going to touch it any more until I had a rescue plan. I started formulating something, but then the good weather intervened, so it got shelved until today.

Here's the neck pocket as it was after the brain farts...

Somehow, I had just managed to avoid the horizontal pencil line, but went off course on the right-hand side. The basic issue is having nowhere to fit a template for the pocket. After having a think for a while, I realised that I still had the offcut from cutting out the body, which had come off in one piece. With a bit of jiggery-pokery, I could use that as a surface to rest a template on, as well as a way to clamp the body down. For it to work, the body needed to be at an angle while the offcut is horizontal.

To get the body to sit at an angle with the neck pocket end raised, I added a batten of wood to the back...

The same idea as what I had used with the No7 plane to cut the (incorrect) slope on the top. Unlike that attempt, I drew this one in the CAD software to verify that the height and distance were correct. When flipped over, the body rests on the bench at the lower strap button end, and on the batten at the other end, resulting in it being tilted at 3.5°.

The body offcut was then clamped to the bench, with some blocks of wood underneath to raise it up a bit...

When the body was dropped into the space, the block of wood on the right was tapped with a hammer to push the cutaways hard against the matching shapes in the offcut, and the G-clamp fully tightened.

I then added a couple of wedges to make sure the body wouldn't move from side to side...

...and then clamped a template to the offcut...

The routing was relatively painless...

You can see here how much I had deviated outside the boundary in my moment of freehand madness. When the time comes, I'll have to cut some of the wood away from the sides and pretend it was intentional.

With the corners cleaned out with a broad chisel, the neck was tried for fit.

Okay this side...

But not so okay here...

There is also a lack of tightness at the sides in general, even though the fit in the template was nice and snug. There is certainly no grip of the neck by the body, although the amount of play is pretty small - maybe 0.5mm or so. I'll see if I can come up with a shim later.

Here are the body and neck propped up to check the angle...

That looks pretty convincing to me, and a check with a long ruler down the middle of the neck, resting on the frets, indicates that things are back on course...

Almost a rescue job worthy of Thunderbirds, albeit with a bit more bodging needed at the pocket.

I think my next step is to make a template for the pickup pockets.