I've finished the easy wins, and the next one in the waiting room (aka the summerhouse) is a little tricksier.
Shared some of this before ... but here's the starting point;
All looking good so far.
That's a nice 3-piece (Mahog/Maple I think) neck with an Ebony (again, I think) board, fully bound and with some tasty inlays. That's the work of Mr
@Wezv.
The neck is set into a nice lightweight and resonant 1-piece Mahog body, with the basic cut out work done. I need to emphasise here that the neck-setting was NOT the work of Wez ...
Unfortunately, the neck was set at the wrong angle, so, running a straight edge along the top of the frets to the bridge position, you can see that I'd need a bridge height of 22mm-25mm (to allow for string clearance.
The other "gotcha" is that the neck was set in place *before* drilling the cable channel from the neck p'up cavity. Steaming the neck out and re-setting it isn't really an option because (a) I don't have the kit and (b) I'd worry about the 3-piece neck becoming 3 pieces of neck. Both the neck AND the body are too nice to sacrifice one to save and re-use the other - ideally.
I guess that sort of bridge height is not impossible, although I'd need to raise the p'ups out of the body a bit to keep them anywhere near the strings? My thinking is that the easy way out won't be a nice enough solution. It also wouldn't help with the gotcha of no cable channel.
So, I'm planning on sticking a cap on to raise the height of the face of the body.
Except ...
... the roundover on the face of the body has already been done.
The roundover is about a 7mm radius.
My thinking is;
- take 7mm off the existing top of the body so that I've got a flat face with no roundover. I can do that with a thicknessing bit in my router, being very, very, VERY careful around the neck (ie I'll leave plenty of safety margin and clean that area up with a chisel or whatever afterwards).
- glue on a cap of c15mm
- sand and carve the cap away so that it's about 7mm thick at the neck and about the same around the edge of the guitar. I'll leave that as a natural binding look when I finish the top.
- leave the thickness of the cap in place in the middle of the body (ie the bridge area)
- that would give me a gap between the straight edge and the top of the cap of (22mm+7mm-15mm 14mm at the bridge position, which should be fine for the bridge. - that approach also means that I can either add a cable channel *before* gluing the top on, *OR* I can just use a bridge p'up and the empty neck cavity is invisible (which is what I'm thinking of doing).
Things to worry about;
- Not damaging the end of the neck when thicknessing the body (that's my main worry)
- Making an accurate template of the neck join area so that I can fit the cap without big gaps around the end of the fretboard (ok, not so hard, allow for a bit of trial and error with some paper/hardboard versions first)
- Getting my shaping of the cap reasonably accurate with a consistent 7mm edge around the outside of the body (take it slow and careful)
- Running out of time before I get it all done!
Anything else oh wise makers and modders?
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so are you essentially planning on a cap that looks a little like this (i.e. top smaller than body shape)
http://www.guitarworld.com/files/imagecache/futureus_imagegallery_fullsize/gallery/Severn%20Tier2%20trembuck%20Spring2.jpg
not a bad way to go but you could get a mroe traditional look by installing a full size top, filling the round over gap and binding down to the level of the filler before doing a proper carve top
its a lot of work either way, and awkward working around the neck.
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what you are saying makes more sense - go with that. although filling the gap and binding would not need really tall binding, it would need to cover the filler and about 2mm of cap, you could then carve down to the top of the binding leaving the new top 2mm thick at the edges.
The way you are suggesting is much easier, and using the router thicknesser around the neck is not too hard. if you use a short milling bit you can use the edge of the neck as your template and go right up to it
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as long as Si didn't glue it in with epoxy its worth a go with the heat - but its not without risk
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I'm not sure about an F-hole though - Hamer made a few semi hollow double cuts with an F hole and IMHO they looked a bit 'odd'. Maybe too much of a clash of styles...
Same amount of sawdust and shavings - but nowhere near the good stuff, and less risky.
Something like this ...
You're certainly going to be ready for an archtop carve after, whatever you end up doing !
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The photograph below shows how you might want cut the cap in the form of a wedge, the line you see going round out side of the cap is how far down I will go with the carving. I think I put a link up last year on how I machined of the top of a guitar body.
This body was going to be a L/P standard but when I started to machine the cap a blemish appeared so the cap will now be planed down to 5mm so the blemish will go, I taken about 5mm off the back and it will be turned in to a single cut L/P Jr. and sold as a "B" grade.The body and neck are Cedrela .
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