I've done a kit guitar before which was fun and when I found two decent lumps of wood in my loft when I moved house I fancied making a body from scratch. I'll purchase a neck this time, baby steps and all.
Here is the the end goal:
Some sort of Jazzmaster Les Paul Custom hybrid. Jazzmaster scale length with LP style tunomatic bridge and controls. I have a spare gold covered JB bridge pickup lying around so that will go in, and I'm thinking about a HB sized P90 in the neck.
I can see the main issue having a tunomatic bridge with a Fender style neck angle. Ideas on a postcard anyone....?
Here are the raw materials in all their glory:
They are thick enough that I can cut them in half lengthways and have enough thickness to get a two-piece body out of one of the lumps. This is good as I am bound to mess up the first attempt.
I cut one of the pieces down to size and set about trying to cut them to thickness, approx 42mm. I wanted to do a cut with a jigsaw to give me a line to follow and finish off with a hand saw. I had to rig up a clamping mechanism as I soon realised my clamps weren't big enough...
I got about this far after an hour of sawing and realised that this was enough. The cut wasn't going straight and I couldn't feel my arms. My current situation is trying to find somewhere with a band saw that will cut down the other lump for me. I told you I would need both....!
If not I'll be looking at buying a Jazzmaster body blank.
Comments
You'll need a bit more neck angle for a TOM instead of a fender-style bridge - so your choices are either to re-cut the bottom face of the neck heel (may have to add some extra material first) or angle-rout the bottom of the neck pocket. If you intend to bolt on the neck, though, that latter option presents it's own problems in terms of the screws/plate arrangement, due to the taper. So if you want a bolt/screw-on neck, you're probably better off taking the finish off of the lower face of the neck heel, gluing on a bit of maple and re-cutting the angle. I like to buy the hardware (i.e. bridge) first, to get the measurements/height range etc. , then to get the angles right, draw it all out full-size on the back of a roll of wrapping paper; the shops have plenty of that right now ;-)
Bolt on was going to be the way forward. The neck is on order and should be with me Tuesday. I like your idea of adding material to the neck heel, much easier than creating an angle in the pocket I think!
Whilst I sort out my situation with with the body and the band saw, I will set about cutting and finishing the headstock. I'll be getting a custom water slide graphic made up.
As for shaping the headstock, is the consensus to use a jigsaw or a (handheld) router? I have the Jazzmaster template and some MDF so I could make a routing guide or is this a bit overkill?
After that I'll be sanding, masking the headstock face off, spraying a black coat, flat it back, apply decal then finish the whole thing in a vintage tint clear coat.
Sound about right?
I know what you mean about having a plavlce for handy work... I'm currently working out of my conservatory!
100% on board with your warnings too, currently nursing a decent scar from poorly clamping a pedal enclosure I was drilling into...!
A bit of headstock shaping this evening. I took the scale template and overlaid it on my headstock. Tweaked it to fit and traced the new outline back on a piece of paper. I've got some 18mm MDF, enough to make a headstock and body template and set up a routing table as above.
And lots of practice runs too I reckon....!
I heard back from the joiner I took the wood for splitting and squaring into two pieces to glue together. Turns out the chap he had given the job to was a guitarist himself. He didn't like the look of the wood I had, said it was too soft and wouldn't sound great. He said to leave it with him for a couple of days.
I heard back and he had managed to sort this out for me instead:
A single piece of Sapele which I think is some sort of African Mahogany! All squared up to the dimensions I wanted and flat sanded for the bargain price of £10.
Practically finished....
Hopefully I'll have little planing to do, as I got it fully squared off from the joiner. I'll. Just be cutting, routing and sanding all going well!
A quick note on the shaping; it seems I didn't quite convert my inches to mm correctly leaving me with a body blank around 20mm narrower than I require for a standard JM shape. I contemplated glueing one of the offcuts in position where I need the extra material. However, this will be quite a thin piece and right near the edge so I'm worried about it snapping off. Instead, I've decided just to reshape the body slightly from my template and go with that. It's more unique and also saves a bit more weight!
Also last night I set about starting the routing templates. I managed to get finished the headstock and the humbucker cavity. I'd forgotten how truly horrific and dusty pleasant MDF is to work with...
I also added a nice contour to the back of the template so that it sits up against the fingerboard flat:
Ta-daaaa, two finished routing templates:
Next up will be to make the routing template for the rear control cavity and the body itself.