Archtop & Solidbody. Languedoc inspired

WezV

Found a good plank for the solid body idea

Its some flatsawn Afromosia.  It's most often used as a substitute for teak, but is less oily and a bit easier to work.  Not used it for a guitar before, so that should be interesting.  Teak is usually avoided for guitars, but Warmoth have used Afromosia for necks before i think

marked up, along with the poplar that will be used for the body


and roughly cut into grain matched blanks for the main parts

PhilKing

Looks like an interesting bass neck in the background.

I have a Warmoth Afromosia Strat neck, though it looks more like a darker maple than the plank that you have.

WezV

the bass neck is an old Ibanez one that's in for a new skunk stripe.

WezV

the solid body idea is going to need a lot of templates to work, but should be easy once they are done

I need

Body outline
Plate outline
Plate recess
pickup outline
Pickup Bobbin
Tailpiece outline
Tailpiece recess
control cavity
Control cavity recess
Control cavity cover


This is where a CNC would come in handy, but I don't have one so its all going to be done by hand

I have just made plate outline, pickup outline and pickup bobbin outline - slight change of shape on the plate from the initial drawing


a few other unusual design decision have been made too.

The tailpiece will be decorative, with string through holes going right through the body   It will also be partially recessed, and hide a small cavity so I can use an end pin jack

I'm also planning on adding a radius to the front and back of the guitar, after all these other routes are done

5redlights

WezV said:

the bass neck is an old Ibanez one that's in for a new skunk stripe.

Hooray, she's famous! 

davros

I'm excited to follow this one progress. Is it a commission, a build to sell or one you're planning to keep?

WezV

The hollowbody will be a commission, likely starting properly next year once wood had settled in a bit more.

The solid body is just me playing around.  Won't decide what to do with it till its done 

davros

Feel free to tell me to piss off as I'm an admirer of your work and you have a great eye, but I think the pickguard could be tweaked. My thinking is the body is offset, so not sure about the straight across LP Special DC style horn. The end of the pickguard also doesnt seem to mirror the curves on the body, perhaps it could mirror the horn shape.

A bit like this (again, feel free to tell me to piss off or entirely ignore me 

WezV

I like the suggestion.

My plan is to carve and bevel it into a more flowing 3D shape, imagine a peak in the carve  not far from your yellow line

WezV

Managed to get a lot done on the solid body today

Poplar body is cut out and neck has been trimmed to size

Neck has been routed for truss rod and trimmed to size

Plate has been routed to size and had the p90 routes front and back.... 8 can hand carve it to shape from there.

WezV

The afromosia is odd to work with.   Routes great, but double side tape doesn't stick to it at all.  We'll, you think it's stuck, then it suddenly releases itself on a whim.   That almost caused some router slips!!! 

ThePrettyDamned

Loving the scratchplate. 

WezV

Pickups for the hollowbody arrived.   Placed on the soldibody here to give an idea how it will look



The neck is a Charlie Christian, bridge is a PA Bigbsy style, both in matching nickel dogear bezels.   Marc at mojo pickups really rose to the challenge here, I think they look awesome!!

Roland

WezV said:

The afromosia is odd to work with.   Routes great, but double side tape doesn't stick to it at all.  We'll, you think it's stuck, then it suddenly releases itself on a whim.   That almost caused some router slips!!! 

Good to know. I was thinking of using that afromosia neck blank you gave me for the 1Q22 project. Maybe I’ll keep things simple, and use maple instead.

PhilKing

Hi Wez, pickups look great, just one thing, Marc had said Charlie Christian bridge and Bigsby neck, because of the relative outputs.  It will be interesting to see how the solid and hollow work out.  Are you putting P-90's in both positions on the solid body?

WezV

Yes, although I haven't decided what yet.  I may go for a blade option on that too

WezV

Routed for the plate and tailpiece  also done control cavity and drilled for slightly recessed knobs







Also routed some ledges in the top  and smoothed them out to guvve a subtle radius


The back is marked up for the same, just need to make a wooden cavity cover first so it can all be radiused at the same time.

PhilKing

That's some precision routing.   I hadn't realized that you were going to have the afromosia inset into the body.  It will look very interesting as you get things more assembled.

WezV

It's not CNC precise, but I'm happy with how it went.  Can't have it too precise as the whole plate needs to be able to be raised and tilted as needed.


It will also have a recessed string block and cavity cover round back. Along with recessed wooden knobs on the front.

With a block colour for the body  it should make the afromosia really pop.   Likely plain white or plain black I think, I might try a milk paint finish too.

WezV

I turned a couple of Afromosia knobs on the drill press

I used a basic holesaw like this



  I started with the drill bit in the holesaw and went half way through, then removed the drill bit to cut all the way through.  I left them tall at first, then cut down to size after double checking the depth of the center hole to make sure I didn't drill all the way through.

once that was done I drilled them out for some knob inserts, and a recess for the washer and nut (slightly off center, not on purpose) mounted them on the wrong end of a drill, put it back in the drill press upside down.  Then i could turn them to shape with a file and various grits of sandpaper and finally a bit of boiled linseed oil

simple, but i think they will suit the guitar.  They feel great so I'm really hopeful the neck will be similar