Shamelessly Copied from Andyjr - Semi Hollow Neck-Through

MARVlN

Inspired by Andyjr's Trini Lopez Tribute build, guitar build #2 started back in early June.

The plan is laminated walnut veneer sides (didn't want to buy/make a bending iron for hobby only use), walnut back, ebony top, and a maple/wenge/walnut neck-through. Headless too.

Bought a 335 mould from Radius Dish, along with the top/back wood, which came well prepped (just had to thickness one of the back halves of walnut on the Safe-T planer).

Step one was to make sure my laminate plan would actually work. I bought some 800x~55mm strips of walnut veneer, glued up five leaves (0.6mm thick each) and placed into the mould.

I know I'm not of the skill level to tackle the fancy Venetian-style cutaway, so left the horns as per the 335, but did remove the centre 'spout' to accomodate the neck-through.

The veneer was able to bend to the required radius dry and at room temperature, so step 1 seems to be a success.

With a trim using a flush-cut saw and a sanding beam (using the template as a depth guide), we have:

Repeat for the other side and there's a pair of bent sides, ready for the next step.

MARVlN

Next up was the other 'unknown' for me - making the neck blank. The plan was a laminated neck, and armed with two Maple bass neck blanks from StewMac, and two pieces of wenge and walnut, I set about cutting this mass of wood to size on the new-ish bandsaw. Definitely wouldn't have attempted this without that, as I just don't have that kind of skill...

The pattern I eventually ended up with was maple/wenge/walnut/wenge/maple/walnut/maple/wenge/walnut/wenge/maple. Now I type that out, it might have been too much, but hey ho.

Gluing:

After trimming:

Looking pretty good if I do say so myself...

MARVlN

Next step was working out the neck angle - the bridge is quite tall, so the neck needed angling downwards by 2.9° according to some handy online calculators, so out with the baby bandsaw, which also removed plenty of material from the back of the neck (more to come off though):

And a first try for size with the Ziricote fretboard (also from Radius Dish):

Next was the neck taper and truss rod channel (cut with a router using an 'ingenious' limiting jig - some wood screws screwed into the bench to act as stops whilst the neck was slid face down along a fence):

Then heart in mouth time as I triple-checked my measurements before drilling the allen key hole:

With the truss rod channel cut and final depth certain, the neck was thinned down to a good starting point for carving:

I then rough-cut and then thickness sanded the fretboard down using my 'Robo-Sander'. With my last build, I left the fretboard too thick, which means the neck is a bit too chunky really (and is difficult to fix because the truss rod channel prevents me from removing too much neck material), but now I'm able to easily remove material squarely, I won't make the same mistake again.

Lastly, a spy shot of the ebony top:

PeteC

This looks like a fantastic second build - great work     Nice neck - nearly as many laminates as the new martins ! You might never use the truss rod.  

MARVlN

Thanks Pete, it's amazing how much you learn in just one build - and crucially, what not to do next time!

I think the neck feels quite bendy actually in its now-almost-finished state, but when it's under tension hopefully it'll be nice and stable.

MARVlN

Next on the agenda is starting to build the 'wings'. The bridge I'm using is a tremolo-bridge, so the neck blank isn't actually wide enough to support the mounting posts. I used some Khaya as extensions, which will be nearly invisible as it'll be under the ebony top - except where the bridge mounting posts go. Incidentally, because it's headless, the tuning adjusters need some clearance from the face of the body. The plan is for the centre section to sit ~5mm proud of the rest of the top (a-la Firebird) between the bridge and neck, then flush after the bridge, to allow for finger clearance.

A rough mock up to start, looking guitar-shaped for the first time:

With the top:

Next step was to thickness the walnut back - one was about twice as thick as the other, so out with the Safe-T planer:

Slow and steady with it, and it can produce pretty good results that just needs a good amount of sanding to remove the worst marks. a decent down-wards featherboard and a properly flat surface helps significantly. Does create an awful lot of mess, even with an attempt at dust extraction. Might need a hood or something...

And a final mock up before gluing commences. The Ebony top will have a maple veneer backing to act as a nice delineating line between top and side. The fit between the khaya side batons and the bent sides is good, but slightly disappointed with the gap at the front. Classic case of taking away too much material too quickly. Ah well, one for the next build to get better at!

WezV

Safe-T planer... one of the most inapropriate tool names ever!!

This looks really good so far.

MARVlN

Next up, gluing the sides to the back, including kerfing and the khaya batons. Went with the time-honoured 'tons of pegs, as many clamps as physically possible and a sodding great load of weight' method.

Deliberately left some extra walnut before gluing, which trimmed nicely with the router. Will need to straighten the khaya as one bowed slightly whilst gluing.

Whilst all that was gluing I thought I might as well get on with the fretboard. Cut the slots whilst it was flat, then sanded the 16" radius in, then recut the slots.

Next up, gluing the maple veneer to the ebony. Despite putting loads of clamps and weight on it, I totally forgot the effect that glue has on thin pieces of wood, so remedial action required:

That's brought the curvature under control and is definitely 'gluable' now...

Next, gluing the fretboard in place (no picture), and drilling/gluing the dot inlays, plus another mock up:

See the top-end alignment pins (some nails) to ensure the sides stay in the right place when working. You can also see how the sides were sanded level and the step for the bridge mounts created. Not gluing the wings to the body until the neck is fully shaped and finished. Gluing the back to the sides left a couple of small gaps which means I'm going to do some binding to 'fix' that issue.

Andyjr1515

Excellent

I very much look forward to seeing how this goes.  Looks great so far

Roland

Impressive work. Which tuners are you going to use?

MARVlN

Roland said:

Impressive work. Which tuners are you going to use?

I've gone with the Nova Guitar Parts headless tremolo (from Brazil). Looks very nicely designed and made, and was a bit more affordable than the Sophia 2:92 I was considering.

Andyjr1515 said:

Excellent

I very much look forward to seeing how this goes.  Looks great so far

Ah, the man himself! Thank you kindly - lots of firsts for me with this build, so hopefully it turns out ok. Won't be a patch on your build though. I'll be happy with 'reminiscent of'.

WezV said:

Safe-T planer... one of the most inapropriate tool names ever!!

This looks really good so far.

It's safer than my attempts with a 'proper' manual plane! Big thick gloves are de riguer I've discovered. Especially around the router (I've cut my fingers on two separate occasions on router cutters just removing them from packaging. Taking no chances with them actually rotating!).

MARVlN

Accepting that I need to do some binding to hide the less than ideal join between the back/sides, I ordered a rebate bit from Wealden (just down the road from me), and cracked on with the neck. I want to shape it as much as possible before permanently attaching the wings for the 'swing room'. Thought I'd hammer the frets in first though whilst the back of the neck was flat and easy to support.

Learning from my first fret job, I got them all seated, then used my straight edge to deal with any high frets/uneveness with the hammer, so levelling should be a much smaller job than it was the first time round. Went with an unusual combination of tools. I had a brass 16" fret caul, but never bought the adapter to use it in a pillar drill. I got tired of using the little hammer quite fast as the Ziricote seems to be very hard, so went with the ball-pein hammer that I'd usually use for removing suspension components from cars. Applied carefully (or as carefully as you do 'apply' a whacking great hammer) with the caul, I was able to get a very even and controlled finish. Suspect that might not have been true on a softer wood though!

I then seemed to totally forget to take any pictures until this weekend, so we'll catch up to today in this post.

Once the ebony tops were flattened, I marked the outlines and then had a go cutting the 'not-f-holes' with my free-way saw, then finishing with many many files. Once one side was done, simply a matter of transferring the design to the other side. Whilst there, I also needed to cut a small notch for the bridge-mount to poke through. Bit heart in mouth, measure 12 times cut 11 times kind of deal, but it's turned out ok!

I did this whilst doing the binding. I went with plastic binding as I wanted the best chance of doing the job neatly and well enough, and chickened out of using real wood. Used UHU Hart, which doesn't seem to adhere quite as well as I'd like on the ends, seems quite easy to break the adhesion, but not sure if that'll cease being an issue once the ends are 'captured' by the neck, or whether it just needs a long time to dry. It'll have a week now, so hopefully the latter.

Once it had dried it was time to do some scraping, which is such a satisfying job, especially as there were no pesky gaps!

Also, the cabinet scraper is a tool I only discovered when I first decided I wanted to build a guitar, and they've rapidly become my favourite tool I reckon. So satisfying, and especially so when it just looks like an unassuming square of metal.

Whilst waiting for an 8mm collet for my router, to do the binding (more fool me for assuming I had an 8mm collet - turned out I had a 12mm), I cracked on with carving the neck, and then failed to take any pictures. I've gone with an offset v-shape, semi-inspired by the Strandberg (I happen to own one/have it for sale right now in fact). It's just about visible in the following mock-up shots:

I should also mention that I tapered the sides today, so the outermost edge at the widest point is about 10mm shallower than the deepest point (the inside edge, and the horns). This should make it more comfortable to hold than 'just' a box, which it would otherwise have become, with a flat top and back.

Next week, I'll tackle one/some of the following: internal wing bracing; bringing the tops closer to size, so I can glue the wings to the body without the tops in place, after which I can start routing the tremolo pocket; creating the cavity access (don't fancy trying to wire this with the wiring design I've got in mind through the sound holes).

Andyjr1515

That's looking really nice.  I like the f holes very much.

Sesh

This is looking really good.

But, wearing gloves when using powered rotating tools is a bad idea. It's better to lose a chunk of flesh than have the glove catch on the tool and Swiss roll your finger, deglove your hand or worse. 

DartmoorHedgehog

Andyjr1515 said:

 I like the f holes very much.

Makes the elephant look a bit tired though.

Joking aside @marvin that's looking superb - love the fretboard wood.

MARVlN

DartmoorHedgehog said:

Andyjr1515 said:

 I like the f holes very much.

Makes the elephant look a bit tired though.

Joking aside @marvin that's looking superb - love the fretboard wood.

I see what you mean - will hopefully look slightly less elephanty when done. Can't unsee that now though...

Just a note about usernames - mine is actually marvln (lowercase L instead of i) because Marvin was already taken! That today's dull fact dealt with (who am I kidding, I did that by about 7:30am).

Sesh said:

This is looking really good.

But, wearing gloves when using powered rotating tools is a bad idea. It's better to lose a chunk of flesh than have the glove catch on the tool and Swiss roll your finger, deglove your hand or worse. 

That's great advice and makes a lot of sense - I'll abandon the gloves where rotation is involved. I did have a pair of gloves where the fingers were designed to tear off if grabbed, but they didn't fit too well.

Andyjr1515 said:

That's looking really nice.  I like the f holes very much.

Thanks Andy!

DartmoorHedgehog

Ah, sorry about the username mixup @MARVlN. The other Marvin will be wondering why he's been summonsed.

The elephant thing was a joke I made while @Andyjr1515 was making his guitar, so it was more aimed at him really. Sorry for dragging you into the silliness, just ignore me!

I really do love the look of your build though, that part wasn't a joke. 

MARVlN

DartmoorHedgehog said:

Ah, sorry about the username mixup @MARVlN. The other Marvin will be wondering why he's been summonsed.

The elephant thing was a joke I made while @Andyjr1515 was making his guitar, so it was more aimed at him really. Sorry for dragging you into the silliness, just ignore me!

I really do love the look of your build though, that part wasn't a joke. 

I do remember that from Andy's thread - I took it in the spirit in which it was meant, so don't worry!

It's getting there, but the scary bits are coming up - making sure I get the bridge route right is my main concern. I bought some Floyd Rose templates which are the right kind of size, but the mounts are slightly different from an FR bridge, so I've got to place the top cavity precisely without knowing exactly how much clearance front/rear is needed. I think I've got it, but it'll be a bit heart in mouth until its strung up.

Whilst I'm here, a question/advice would be appreciated, one of the ebony tops has developed a crack about 15mm from the inside edge, probably caused when cutting the notch. It's still one piece, probably due to the maple veneer, and the crack hasn't extended the whole length yet either. What's the best way of fixing? I was thinking either using a scraper to get some Titebond in there, or using some thin superglue and wicking it into the crack. It's not noticeable when the top is clamped to the sides and installed, so I don't need to fill the gap as such, just a bit worried about the strength and it worsening over time.

WezV

MARVlN said:

Whilst I'm here, a question/advice would be appreciated, one of the ebony tops has developed a crack about 15mm from the inside edge, probably caused when cutting the notch. It's still one piece, probably due to the maple veneer, and the crack hasn't extended the whole length yet either. What's the best way of fixing? I was thinking either using a scraper to get some Titebond in there, or using some thin superglue and wicking it into the crack. It's not noticeable when the top is clamped to the sides and installed, so I don't need to fill the gap as such, just a bit worried about the strength and it worsening over time.

ebony can shrink and crack. often just keeping it well hydrated is enough to stop it, but you may be sufferings with the extreme weather swings at the moment.  Or its just a  crack not related to weather and wood

use the wood glue.  CA and dust is great for filling the cracks, but if you can close them without needing filler that is even better.    I would also cleat the inside of it if possible before it is glued onto the sides.  Don't just cleat where the crack is, but where it would extend to if it carried on.     Just make sure its all stable and strong before gluing the plates on.

WezV

although i guess the maple veneer is acting as one big cleat anyway 

MARVlN

I can't say for certain all the causes for the crack, but I'd imagine gluing a full sheet of maple veneer on the back would likely be the biggest cause as it forced the ebony to curve. I straightened it before the glue cured, but it still has a slight curve. Combined with some slightly rough-handed sawing, chiselling and filing creating the notch and I suspect that's the major reason. I've been keeping the wood upstairs and out of the basement when it's not being worked on for exactly that reason, by ironically I suspect that keeping it in the basement would have kept the wood more hydrated.

Regarding a cleat, there's the maple veneer which is still in one piece holding the split together - do you reckon that would be sufficient to keep it stable, or shall I get a maple offcut or something down to size?