Explorer build FINISHED!

greggreg66

I've finally started guitar build number 2, which will be an explorer. Having recently completed my first scratch build a couple of months ago I feel a bit more confident going into this build. I'm not too far into it at the moment as work has been really busy and I also expect it to take me a while to complete, but I'm already immensely enjoying getting stuck into another build. 

The current plan is to have humbuckers and a T-O-M bridge as the flying v I built had P90's with a wraparound bridge, so it makes sense to do something "different" (to my experience). The plans are from John Anthony Guitars.







After cutting the body out I discovered a shake in the body blank



So I lopped it off



Had to figure out how to plane a square edge on a pointy guitar!



by clamping a straight edge on the back and riding this on top of the fence, which worked well. 



Neck pocket routed - the new pointy bit attached to the top left



Had to change router cutters, hence the difference in the corned radii, will chisel these out later. Got the 3° angle spot on which I'm pleased with.
 


Quarter sawn neck blank planed with neck scarfed on. This is where I'm up to right now. Will hopefully get some time in the next fortnight to really crack on with the neck. 



Fun!

PeteC

Great to see you building no.2.  Looking forward to watching the progress 

greggreg66

PeteC said:

Great to see you building no.2.  Looking forward to watching the progress 

Cheers Pete, I'm definitely enjoying getting back into it!

nickaslin

Looking good big man! Avro Vulcan decals no doubt?

greggreg66

nickaslin said:

Looking good big man! Avro Vulcan decals no doubt?

There he is! Ha! We need more guitars with delta wings!

nickaslin

greggreg66 said:

nickaslin said:

Looking good big man! Avro Vulcan decals no doubt?

There he is! Ha! We need more guitars with delta wings!

Damn right son!

MattNovak

Nice one - following! 

normula1

Good stuff, will be watching this

greggreg66

Boring update, I admit, but I'm really enjoying this build! The binding arrived today so I immediately dropped what I was doing and got it stuck down. Working on this second build has been really refreshing as it feels easier to jump in and get going whereas before I was more hesitant. I also got the truss rod installed which was great. 

I went with white as I want this build to be a bit more "modern" and thought the cream might have given it a more retro feel. 

In the coming weeks I'm going to attempt to bind the fretboard too. Anything fret related makes me, err, fret, don't know why, but that's the one area that makes me feel uneasy. 

PeteC

Looking very good ! 

greggreg66

Bound! 

Roland

The binding really accentuates that body shape, besides protecting it from knocks. What colour is it going to be?

greggreg66

Roland said:

The binding really accentuates that body shape, besides protecting it from knocks. What colour is it going to be?

It really does! I'm on the fence between black and a dark brown so dark it's almost black (not too dissimilar to the Grace Potter Flying V I suppose). My reference is an explorer that Bartlett Guitars made.... although there's looks to be a matt finish, but I'm on the fence about matt finish guitars. 

PeteC said:

Looking very good ! 

Cheers Pete!

GSPBASSES

Before you go any further with routing the wire runs, check out the link below it shows you a much better way to run the cables around the guitar.

https://www.electricherald.com/gibson-explorer-guitar-templates/

greggreg66

GSPBASSES said:

Before you go any further with routing the wire runs, check out the link below it shows you a much better way to run the cables around the guitar.

https://www.electricherald.com/gibson-explorer-guitar-templates/

Thanks.... this is on my radar from when you mentioned it before on my Flying V post. I wouldn't have known to do it another way so will be checking that out.

usedtobe

Looking great. Love the binding!

greggreg66

Some progress.

• Fretboard slotted.... so pleased I bought the fret slotting jig, so much better than freehand after a few beers like when I did the last one. 
• Neck tenon cut. I'm going for the @GSPBASSES style of neck joint. My pic shows it loose, it's shown just placed in (ie no clamps) here.... though I'm not too ashamed to say that it could be better and that I think I did the joint better on my V build. 
• Fretboard glued down. 
• Headstock template is cut and I've blocked up the blank on the neck so I can rout this out. 
  

I'm going to bunk off work tomorrow and hopefully might get as far as fretting it, but let's see. 





Everything looking blocky and odd, but the FB is glued down here. 





It's looking gappy... but it shouldn't be, hopefully not. I promise it won't be. 

greggreg66

First major (but recoverable) whoopsies today. 

Was routing the taper into the fretboard and like an idiot I didn't peel one part off the double sided tape so it slipped and I cut into the neck. The fretboard is fine though as I'm binding it and the binding will cover this. I will need to patch in a tiny piece of sapele for where it's not covered by binding. 

Radius'd the fretboard, put the dots in and one went a tad low..... was trying to sand it flush and got a little too excited and sanded through a high one lol. Ah well, new dots on order and hopefully will get back on track before long. 

Routing whoopsee:



Tasty looking board though! Routed for binding and dots installed...



Over zealous sanding whoopsee!

usedtobe

That is a tasty looking board!

greggreg66

usedtobe said:

That is a tasty looking board!

Yeah it's a nice piece of wood! Just annoyed with myself for sanding through the bloody dots haha!!

PVO_Dave

That's going to be a great looking guitar. 

Black with gold hardware Les Paul Custom style would look amazing as a suggestion. I've got a white with gold that I had made from Precision guitars (before Gibson told them off) and painted / finished in the UK, goes well with my custom V in the same style and my Gibson Les Paul