Stratocaster Build - From Scratch [Archive] - Sawmill Creek Woodworking Community

Julie Moriarty

12-13-2013, 5:11 PM

While I'm waiting for the parts to arrive for the Tele (delivery is slow during the gift giving season), I decided to get a start on the guitar that I've wanted for a VERY long time. :)

I went to Guitarre Plans and downloaded everything I could find on the Strat - .jpg, .pdf, .dwg & .dfx. AutoCAD is acting up so I relied mostly on the PDFs and had to make sure the scale was good. I found what was to scale and went to Staples and had them make up some full sized prints. But before I did that, I took the neck drawings (which were 6"-7" wide) and copied and pasted three of them on a 24x34 sheet so I could have extras in case, or should I say, when, I screwed up and had to make another.

I bought the body templates from Ron Kirn. I allowed myself that luxury in this build. :rolleyes: I checked them against the to-scale drawings to make sure we're all on the same page.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_templ_front_01_zps51b1665a.jpg

Then I took the 1/4" RK templates and made some 3/4" templates from them. And then I rough cut some figured sapele.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_templ_body_01_zpsaef7c57c.jpghttp://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_templ_body_02_zpsece09d24.jpg

Next up was getting the neck template made. RK doesn't sell them so I have to make them from to-scale drawings.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_templ_neck_01_zps70e9d072.jpg
The drawing also had side views and neck curvature at the 1st and 12th frets. I made templates for the neck curvature but I'll probably leave the side views as is and just have them for easy reference.

During all the time I was shaping the neck template, I never thought to test the fit with the body template. Yes, I'm new to this.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_templ_neckfit_01_zps29dfb2ad.jpg

Here's a close up of the fit:
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_templ_neckfit_02_zps02f1c953.jpg
Oops! Too much wiggle. Guess I'll have to make that one over. :o

Here's the rough cut body with a little mineral spirits applied
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_raw_body_zpsac9a51bb.jpg

I'm sure this build will be interrupted many times between now and the end of the year. But I'll keep posting new pics until it's done or they drag me away to the Cuckoo Nest. ;)

Ted Calver

12-13-2013, 7:19 PM

Very nice Julie. Is that a single piece body...sure looks like it...and it's got some nice figure to it too.

Julie Moriarty

12-14-2013, 11:42 AM

Yes, it's a single piece of sapele. It came from this piece (mineral spirits applied)
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Woodworking/sapele_pl-02_zps75c0298c.jpg

I have enough left to make another body and possibly a neck. If I can afford to, I'm thinking of making a jazz bass next. Even if I can't afford the hardware and electronics, I just may go ahead and do the woodwork.

Julie Moriarty

12-14-2013, 12:10 PM

I just picked up a couple of compression router bits for the pattern cuts.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_shape_01_zpsaf2d9731.jpg
So far, so good. It left a really smooth finish.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_shape_02_zpsb1ee48db.jpg
This is where the problems started. The second bit didn't exactly follow the shape of the first. You can see where I started the cut just left of the horn. I checked for square and everything seemed to be good. I didn't check the first bit against the bearing though. I need to do that. I tried two other top bearing bits and neither of them cut to the first profile. So it's either the perpendicular is off (and I can't see it) or the bottom bearing bit cutters are larger than the bearing. That wouldn't be good.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_shape_03_zpsfd95c245.jpg

I ended up taking the body to the spindle sander and gently removed the lip. Then I hand sanded the whole thing. I was wishing I had a hand sander that I could hook up to the dust vac. :rolleyes:
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_shape_04_zpsf4397846.jpg

I had one boo-boo near the neck as the router bit came around a sharp corner. I was able to fix most of it and I'm hoping the roundover bit will take care of the rest.

I'm going to go ahead and cut the electronics pockets in but I think I have to wait until I have the trem in hand before I cut that in. I'm not sure what trem to use. Some say Wilkinson, some say Fender and some say Floyd Rose, though that's a bit pricey. Last time I played regularly, Reagan was president. So I'm a little out of touch. Any suggestions welcome!

Chris Fournier

12-14-2013, 5:30 PM

The neck and body pocket joint is a bit tricky on a bolt on neck guitar. As a woodworker you will want to make a piston fit, shows off your skills right? Well this is a bad idea unfortunately. Don't forget that you will be adding a film finish to both surfaces on a classically finished instrument, also a super tight neck pocke leaves no wiggle room if your neck centre doesn't perfectly match up with the body centre. The old Fenders had some pretty horrid looking neck to pocket fits and they can be improved upon but leave yourself some room. Ho much room? It depends on your finish film thickness but .020 to .030 wouldn't be out of the park once the finish dries. There is nothing worse than cracking or chipping the body finish when the neck is wrenched in the pocket, or forced during fitment etc.

Julie Moriarty

12-14-2013, 6:23 PM

Good point Chris! I guess I can use that first template after all. I love it when a plan comes through. :D

Thanks for the advice!

Chris Fournier

12-14-2013, 11:29 PM

You win! There is a trick I use when using my pin router to get a precise(ish) tolerance between parts or simply to properly size a tear out prone part and you can use it on your router table with bearing guided bits too. I use vinyl tape, the cheap thin red stuff that bulk stores often use to seal up bags (Uline sells it). You could use painters tape from an automotive store too but it is thicker. I wrap my pin router pin with the tape, you would wrap your guide bearing and the thickness of the tape offsets your bits cut. Use this technique to fine tune final dimensions and you will have a touch that nears a machinist's! You can peel off the tape to take 0.001"(ish) deep passes on tricky cuts, very incremental andvery effective!

John Coloccia

12-15-2013, 3:07 PM

Chris Fournier

12-15-2013, 8:07 PM

Julie Moriarty

12-16-2013, 9:58 AM

What did I tell you in the other thread, Julie? Builders either never finish the first one or they go on to build many :) It's a bit of a sickness, actually.

Spoken with a haughty attitude "Well, John, I have a good excuse! I'm waiting for parts for the other guitar!" Harrumph! ;)

Okay, I confess. I know I have contracted the disease. But I learned from all my years playing golf, the best thing to have is a bag full of excuses. :D

What I have that many may not is a 21 year old who keeps looking longingly at that piece of wood that is so close to being finished. Today his trem and pickguard material are supposed to arrive. So my Strat has to be put aside if there's any hope of getting the Tele finished by Christmas. And I was having so much fun imagining being Chrissie Hynde. :rolleyes:

Julie Moriarty

12-17-2013, 8:55 PM

Yesterday I decided to make my first attempt at making a guitar neck. I used some construction pine, rough cut it on the bandsaw then used a template I made to shape it on the router table. Then came the part about which I was pretty clueless, shaping the neck and fretboard. I decided to cut out what I could on the bandsaw and started with a spokeshave.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/neck_01_zps1d002d66.jpg

After a while it looked like Santa's workshop
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/neck_02_zps8f91e80a.jpg

I screwed up on a few things, like making the cuts on the bandsaw too deep and not shaping the head and neck transitions before taking the spokeshave to it. Then I called it a night

Today I took out the rasps and finished shaping it using templates for the back of the neck shaped to the 1st and 12th frets to see where I am. Then I sanded it and laid a shellac washcoat on it.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/neck_03_zpsb0af470a.jpg
Yeah, I know, the headstock is reversed. Another boo-boo. :o

When I got up this morning I was wondering if I bit off more than I could chew trying to make a neck from scratch. I know there's a lot I didn't do like cut in the frets wire slots and truss rod but those shouldn't present a problem if I have the right tools and templates. The hand work was what concerned me. But it wasn't that bad once I did some research on making a neck and applied what I learned. So I'm still in the game! :)

Chris Fournier

12-17-2013, 10:21 PM

Steve Milito

12-17-2013, 11:35 PM

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/neck_03_zpsb0af470a.jpg
Yeah, I know, the headstock is reversed. Another boo-boo. :o
:)
or . . . It's a left handed strat. :)

Julie Moriarty

12-18-2013, 1:46 PM

Order of operations is everything. I would be cutting the truss rod slot and perhaps even the tuning machine holes when you had a rectalinear blank. If it is to be a one piece maple neck then the fret slots too. Don't forget that you have to have registration points to line everything up, rectalinear time as well. Then you would start shaping.
Thanks Chris. Had this been a serious piece (it was just for shaping practice), I probably would have missed some of that. I knew about cutting the truss rod slot and frets first but I probably would have drilled the peg holes after.

Please don't take this the wrong way but your final picture is a club, way too chunky. You can get drawings that give you cross sections of the neck at fret intervals. Get a drawing like this and make templates that you can carve to. As for carving I like to draw the heel and headstock to neck areas with some simple lines on the back and on the "side" of the neck, 2D. Then I roughly carve these areas far from finished dimension. Next take the neck and remove material in facets that approximate the neck contour. Now you are ready to carve go slowly and concentrate on symmetry. Use your templates to refine. Try another pine blank like this and you'll be ready to go. I would strongly suggest a maple neck with rosewood fingerboard for your fisrt neck rather than one piece maple.
After reading your comment, I went back to the shop and checked the neck against the drawings I used as guidelines.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/neck_04_zpsf032420c.jpg
The template on the bottom is for the 1st & 12th frets.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/neck_05_zps4cde99b4.jpg
I don't know if you can see it but I cut the foot way too deep. The rest seems to line up against the drawing. The picture is distorting it but when looking straight down, both top and bottom fall inside the lines. The drawing is to scale, I checked it at several points before using it.

This is at the first fret:
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/neck_06_zps50f7e33f.jpg

This is at the 12th fret:
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/neck_07_zps054e787a.jpg

As for the overall thickness, it's actually less than the dimensions on the fret templates. I did notice a slight bulge between the 1st and 12th frets, which I'll fix, but other than that I can't see what I might have missed. I know it's not perfect but I was really only trying to see if I could actually shape the fretboard and back of the neck to anything close to what it should be before committing to actually building a neck from scratch. But any further help is always appreciated.

You can do it!
Thanks, I'm starting to believe that! :D

Rick Markham

12-18-2013, 5:34 PM

I do that too, actually. I often tape a pattern with several layers, and then remove the tape and do a cleanup pass to get a beautiful surface right off the router bit.

What did I tell you in the other thread, Julie? Builders either never finish the first one or they go on to build many :) It's a bit of a sickness, actually.

I'm afraid I am in the same boat as Julie, I've got a telecaster build (my first) nearing completion, a 69 strat closely behind, followed by a Gibson SG. There are multiple body blanks laying around the shop, as well as a plethora of neck blanks I've been making. I'm off to go work on shaping necks, and the body/ neck pocket fitment... Keep up the good workJulie, some of us are learning with you! (It helps not being alone in this... illness)

Thanks for the Tip about the tape and the router pin Chris, you just saved me a headache! John, as always, tape on the template is a beautiful idea as well. :) Thanks y'all!

Chris Fournier

12-18-2013, 7:39 PM

Julie Moriarty

12-19-2013, 12:42 PM

This is what I didn't do:
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/NeckEndsShaping_zpsfe1897d9.jpg

I just took the spokeshave to the edge of the back and started digging. When I got to the ends, I tried to shape it with the spokeshave. Note to self: DON'T DO THAT!!! :o I also didn't sketch out the lines. Another fail. And maybe the result of that came through in the first photo. You were right Chris. It wasn't shaped well. After my last post here I went back to the shop and worked on it and was surprised how much waste there was on the floor and the bench. And it's still a bit off , but it's better then it was. :)

Chris Fournier

12-19-2013, 8:57 PM

george wilson

12-21-2013, 11:45 AM

Julie: A good tool to use when refining the surface of the neck,to get everything nice and straight,is to take a farrier's rasp. Break it off to make a 4" long piece. Grind the ends square and blunt them some. There is a coarse rasp on 1 side,and a very coarse file on the other side. That file is plenty sharp on the rasps I have seen. You can buy them in hardware stores,or at places like Tractor Supply. The file side really makes a good tool for smoothing out little lumps in the neck.

I repeat,the file side on these is REALLY SHARP,and does an excellent job of filing down slight lumps you might not feel when using a narrower tool,like a spoke shave.

How to break the file: Stick the file upright in a stout vise. You have a nice bench,so to keep from screwing up your vise chops,put a piece of hard maple on each side of the vise,to give the teeth of the rasp something to mess up! This maple should extend down the full depth of your vise's chops. You don't want any waggling going on when you strike the file. Stick the rasp up tang end down. Leave about 5" sticking up out of the vise. The break may be angled,and you'll lose length grinding it square. LAY A PIECE OF STOUT FABRIC OVER THE RASP. An old towel is good. This to keep sharp shards of the file from hitting you.or going all over the shop. Take a good,heavy MALLET,not a steel hammer,which would damage the file's teeth. Give it a good swing. It is surprising how much "spring" a large file can have before it breaks. You may have to whack it a number of times to get it to break. Be careful your knuckles,etc.,are not going to get crashed onto something when the file breaks. You might want to give the job to a strong man if you can't hit it hard enough. A rawhide mallet with a cast iron body in the center would be ideal as they are heavy. Most people don't have them,me included.

If you can't break the file off,and have a 3# hammer,put a piece of hard maple against the file,and strike the maple hard with the 3# hammer. Tractor Supply has a surprisingly good one for $9.00,IIRC. I bought one on the recommendation of a professional blacksmith in Williamsburg. One can always benefit from having a heavy hammer around for the occasional whacking job.

Don't be overly concerned about having a big curve in the truss rod. It will make your neck too deep just trying to bury it. I put a 1/16" thick wedge of wood under the end of my truss rods at the peg head end of Gibson style guitars. Over this,I glue down a piece of hard wood snugly so the truss rod can't rattle. The filler strip makes a curve when it is thoroughly seated due to this little wedge,which its about 1 1/2" long.. It does the job just fine. I plane the extra filler strip off and glue the fingerboard on. I have never had a neck that I couldn't easily adjust straight. I use 3/16" drill rod for my truss rods,threading them myself. at the heel end of acoustic guitars,I drill a 1/2" hole straight down into the heel a little over 1" deep. I drill and tap a piece of 1/2" round brass which the truss rod screws into all the way down TIGHT. You don't want to find that somehow the whole truss rod is revolving when you turn the nut. Loctite of the most permanent type is a good idea to drip into the hole in this brass piece. The brass rod is about 1" long. I made a screwed on neck by request on my last guitar. Most makers screw in those threaded brass nuts with knife blade threads. They drill holes and screw them into the heel. This is VERY WEAK,and liable to split the neck down where the heel gets narrow. What I did was to drill clear down the neck and put in a 1/2" brass rod all the way down the total depth of the heel. 2 holes were drilled and tapped to have screws coming from inside the guitar body to thread into.

This guitar had an extremely powerful tone. Probably my best one,so the brass rod did not hurt anything. Indeed,on an acoustic,a heavy peg head and a neck made of good hardwood of good weight,keeps the vibrations from dissipating up the neck. They go to the bridge,where vibrations are easier to make. The guitar is more powerful because vibes are not wasted. If you get that right,and dozens of other things right (:)),you will have made a great guitar.

Shawn Pixley

12-21-2013, 12:32 PM

Julie, I should have been more specific about my club comment. It is the transitions from the neck proper to the heel and the headstock that look from the photo that look like they could be a bit more refined. could be the photo, could be my eyes. When I carve a neck I do it all in one day, leave it over night and review my work the next day. I always find improvements the second day. I'm just not that good I guess! Sober second thought.

The tape trick is gold!

If you are building a guitar for yourself, I get the neck shape to its base profile and then go on to other portions. When the guitar is 90-95% done, I assemble the guitar and string it up. I'll play it for a couple of weeks interspersed with a little fine tuning with rasps , sandpaper etc. I definately have my own prefernces for what I like in a neck shape. Oddly enough, I have very different opinions relative to whether I play sitting down or with the guitar on a strap.

Julie Moriarty

12-24-2013, 11:11 AM

George, I have a 12" cabinetmaker's rasp that does a really good job rough shaping the wood. The 6" modeler's rasp smooths it out pretty well. Your description on what to do with the ferrier's rasp sounds violent. I'm just imagining shards of metal flying everywhere. :eek:

If you are building a guitar for yourself, I get the neck shape to its base profile and then go on to other portions. When the guitar is 90-95% done, I assemble the guitar and string it up. I'll play it for a couple of weeks interspersed with a little fine tuning with rasps , sandpaper etc. I definately have my own prefernces for what I like in a neck shape. Oddly enough, I have very different opinions relative to whether I play sitting down or with the guitar on a strap.

Shawn, fine tuning by playing makes sense. I recently read where one noted guitarist had four identical guitars - custom made to his specs (with CNC-made necks) - and yet there was one he said was his favorite because he liked the neck of that particular one better than the other three. And when you think about how we use our hands to feel what we can't see...

george wilson

12-24-2013, 4:04 PM

Not at all violent if you lay a towel over the rasp when breaking it. Too good a tool to not have,Julie. Send me your farrier's file and I'll break it for you. PM if interested.

Julie Moriarty

12-27-2013, 3:18 PM

I got back to the Strat yesterday. I made the trem routs, put a roundover on it and made the arm and belly cuts. I'm finding using a sander to make pretty much the entire arm cut and most of the belly cut to be easiest. It looks like this build will have a Fender American Series trem on it as I had ordered that for the Tele only to later find it wouldn't work with the '72 Deluxe version of the Tele.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_shape_05_zpsfa7e9d65.jpg

I have to figure out a way to accurately drill the threaded knurled inserts for the trem posts. My ancient drill press only has a 4" throat depth. I need about another 1/2".

After researching woods for the neck and fretboard, I've finally settled on a curly maple neck and birdseye maple fretboard. When you consider all the factors involved in wood selection, maple seems to be the no fail solution. It should go fine with the finished body.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_shape_06_zps463aa8ed.jpg
I'm thinking a red mahogany dye would liven this up. I'll experiment with the black-dye_&_sand-back method on a separate piece but I doubt I'll do a sunburst effect. I need more practice with that before I apply it to the real thing. And if I have to, I'll wait till warm weather comes to spray lacquer on it. More and more I'm becoming convinced lacquer is the only way to go.

Julie Moriarty

12-27-2013, 9:20 PM

The first (real) neck I'm building will use QS maple for the neck and whatever for the fretboard. I figure the lesson will cost me the price of a truss rod and some fretwire. If it's made right, maybe I can use it on the pine body.

I started with establishing a straight line from the neck template I made to a 27x4.5x.70 piece of QS maple. I planed the piece to .70" to come as close as I can to 18mm. The Fletcher Guitars videos I'm using as a tutorial say 18mm for the neck and 7.4mm for the fretboard to bring the total thickness to 1" for Strats and Teles.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/stratneck_03_zpsea6f4f0d.jpg

From there I went to the router table and routed for the truss rod. The end of the truss rod requires additional room for the spoke wheel. I used chisels to cut them in.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/stratneck_02_zps30b83995.jpg
I set the brass ends just below the surface of the board.

The truss rod is a Hot Rod dual-action truss rod with a spoke wheel for adjustment at the base of the neck, instead of an Allen head at the end of the neck

http://www.stewmac.com/product_images/1lg/1016/Spoke_Nut_Hot_Rod_Truss_Rod_sm.jpg

Installing it only requires a straight, single-depth rout in the neck (for two part necks). The dual rods allow tension to be applied to both concave and convex bows in the neck. I'm rotating the position of the spoke wheel 180 degrees from the pic above and setting it flush with the end of the fretboard, rather than sticking out as the pic above shows. I'll rout an opening just below the 21st fret of the fretboard and let it "peek out" at that point, but it will still be below the top of the fretboard. That should make it easier to make adjustments while hiding much of the spoke wheel and avoiding weakening the neck-body joint.
They say there's a lot of ways to build a guitar. I don't know. What I do know is this is fun...http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/S_THUM1_zps7b71de8b.gif

John Coloccia

12-27-2013, 11:55 PM

Just two things:

1) now that the rod is upside down, it will adjust backwards from pretty much every other rod on the planet....counterclockwise = LESS relief, and clockwise = MORE relief. Be sure to make a note of this or you're sure to break the rod trying to adjust the neck :)

2) If you haven't done so already, and the right time would have been before making the route for the truss rod, be sure to establish the centerline on the front of the heel so you can extend it to the back, and back up to the front, of the neck if you need to. The longer you allow the centerline to go unestablished, the harder it is to reestablish it should you need it....for aligning the fingerboard, for example.

I've used that particular rod before. It's not my favorite, but it actually works pretty well. I would suggest that before you bury it forever, put a SMALL dab of caulk in a couple of spots under the rod. I've run into situations where that style rod can resonate and "sing" if it happens to get into a configuration where it's under tension but just happens to not be touching wood very firmly. The couple of dabs of caulk will deaden that.

Nice to see you building your own necks so soon. To many people put it off for YEARS and then never end up doing it :)

Julie Moriarty

12-28-2013, 6:22 PM

I realize the rod is 180 from what StewMac suggests but you make a good point about noting the difference is making adjustments for future use. The guy who did the videos I'm following shows silicone dabbed at the two brass ends and in the middle to prevent rattling. And I'm keeping very aware of not losing the centerline. As I lose it in one place, I redraw it as soon as I'm done with the work.

Today I made up some neck and fretboard blanks. I made two neck blanks made from figured cherry and about four good pieces for fretboard blanks made from birdseye maple and two more of figured cherry. But I'm not so sure about the cherry for a fretboard. The pieces were left over from the neck blanks so I milled them along with the BE maple. I have some jatoba that I'm considering for fretboard blanks. No rosewood or ebony in stock.

Nice to see you building your own necks so soon. To many people put it off for YEARS and then never end up doing it :)

I'm not sure why there would be any hesitancy to go into neck building. But then again, maybe I'll soon find out. http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/pullhair_zps8852fb17.gif

John Coloccia

12-28-2013, 7:35 PM

Any of the hard maples would be fine. Jatoba is a little off the beaten path, but also makes nice fingerboards. Cherry is not commonly used. It tends to be a little soft and spongy and that may lead to some trouble holding in frets and/or some possible forward neck bowing issues down the line. The whole assembly of fingerboard, slots and frets does a lot more than you might think to keep the neck straight and rigid, and any weakness there invariably causes the neck to bow forward more than you might like. The thing to do with the cherry is make sure that you have clean, very well fitting fret slots, and that will go a long way towards mitigating any issues you might otherwise run into. Sloppy fret slots will exacerbate any tendencies for the neck to bend forward because the poor fit with the tang is a weak point, and is actually a leading cause of that sort of problem, especially in older guitars. Cherry would look nice, though. It'd be very unique. :)

re: building necks
I'm not sure why either. It's just a guitar neck, for heaven's sake. People see them as sacred and it scares them...they spend their whole lives afraid of the big dragon. Newcomers who jump right in slay the beast without a second thought and find it's just a pipsqueak in a dragon costume :)

Julie Moriarty

12-29-2013, 8:22 PM

As to the pipsqueak... I'm looking at it as something I want to try because it would be immensely satisfying if I got it right. And if I flame out, it will only be after a lot of tries.

I'm taking no chances on the fret slot cutting. I bought the overpriced .023 kerf table saw blade from StewMac and their steel fret template which includes the set pin shown in the picture below. I'll be making a sled for it and if I can't get it right with those tools I need to be burned at the stake.
http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/i-4915/4915_1.gif

I also bought their fretwire and a press caul that I'll use on the drill press to set the fret wire. Seems pretty foolproof.

Rick Markham

12-30-2013, 10:10 AM

Julie Moriarty

12-30-2013, 11:24 AM

Julie you and I seem to be about the same place :) I am also using that truss rod, that template, and the same blade. I would encourage you to go and make one of George's tools from a Farrier's Rasp, it isn't a violent operation, it took a single whack from my dead blow mallet to break with a towel over it. Not at all a violent operation, and the tool is definitely worth it! Keep right on going Julie! I'm off to the shop to carve some necks! :D

Cool! Hopefully we'll be able to pat each other on the back for a job well done. Either that or cry in our beer! ;)

Have you made the table saw sled yet? That blade is pretty small and I was thinking of using 1/4" MDF for the base but I'm not sure if that would be too flimsy. If I can find some 1/2" MDF, I'll go with that but I think all I have in 1/2" is birch ply and it's terribly bowed. If you've already made the sled it would be great if you could share what you learned.

John Coloccia

12-30-2013, 11:50 AM

Here's how I did mine. I don't use it anymore because I slot them on a CNC now AND I don't own a tablesaw anymore. My version is a bit more complex and flexible than the StewMac version. It's overkill if you're just doing one but I thought I'd share it anyway :)

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?157009-Luthiers-post-your-favorite-jigs!

Rick Markham

12-30-2013, 9:15 PM

John Coloccia

12-30-2013, 10:29 PM

Johns is a spectacular design. Mine is probably not going to applicable to anyone unless they plan on doing this on a sliding tablesaw ;) I have mine built, but I haven't done a test cut yet, I am going to study John's design a bit. There maybe a redesigned v.2.0 before I make a cut. (Once I have a working jig I will post a pic.) Let me know how the 1/4" base works out.

Yeah right... Only one John? You know us better than that ;)

I stole the basic idea from Benedetto. He has a similar design with a stop, but it's a bit more primitive. I updated mine so that I could use more or less arbitrary patterns...even shop made ones...and slide the stop back and forth. That's very useful so you can very precisely set exactly what part of the fingerboard you want to use. It's not uncommon to have blanks that are pin straight for most of the length, but with a grain that has lots of run-out at one end of the other.

Julie Moriarty

12-31-2013, 11:19 AM

Thanks for the link John. I was trying to think of something a little more versatile than turner's tape. Your jig gave me some ideas or how to proceed and I won't have to buy any new parts and pieces. :D

Yesterday I did something that was long overdue - I routed in two T-tracks for fence hold downs on the router table. And I finally admitted my prototype router fence wasn't a one-and-done prototype. So for routing the truss rods, I dusted an old router fence and attached a couple pieces of MDF to it so I could more easily do the work.

I took the piece of cherry (for two necks) and routed out the truss slots. Then I chiseled out the wood for the spoke wheel and used a router plane for the final depth of the truss rod. And on to the bandsaw to rough cut the necks. I had the two cherry necks and one QS maple neck to cut. Once that was done, I attached the 1/4" template to the maple and profiled the neck at the router with a compression bit. WOW! That bit left a surface so smooth it almost didn't need any sanding! Then I used the maple neck as the template for the two cherry necks.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/neck_09_zps77f2116a.jpg

The top neck has mineral spirits applied.

I found I didn't perfectly align the routing template on one of the necks and the center line was about 1/32" off. Once that turner's tape grabs hold, it's tough to reset and I must have missed I was a bit off the line.

Here I added the BE maple to the pic I'm thinking of using for the fretboard. Before I milled it, the board looked like it had decent eyes. Now, not so much. I'll have to train my own eyes to see that next time I'm wood shopping.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/neck_11_zps243ddb6c.jpg

Next is the fretboard sled...

Julie Moriarty

01-02-2014, 4:02 PM

I took a page out of John's book and started putting together a sled with what I had on hand.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/FretboardJig_03_zpsbb6524b6.jpg

I liked John's idea of ditching the turner's tape and making something that could take any fret template. I used Rockler's 36" Multi Track as the foundation. I had that and the wood blocks in the pic above on a dovetail jig that never made it to the big time. :rolleyes: I drilled in some threaded inserts so I could attach the end guides to the block. I wanted to reduce the chance of the fretboard moving. Once I was satisfied (and checked John's build a few times) I secured the front and back plywood fences to the base.

When I set the jig on the table saw, I realized the blade would be slicing right through the Multi Track. http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/eusa_doh_zps03302b01.gifSo I ripped a piece of 1/4" ply and secured it to the bottom of the Multi Track. I also had to attach pieces to bottoms of the end guides. Using the sliding table, I made sure everything was square and made a cut with a plywood blade about 1/8" shy of cutting through the bottom of the sled. The StewMac fret blade is thicker in the middle so I cut clearance for that before installing the fret blade. Once installed, I let the fret blade cut through the rest of the plywood to create a zero clearance surface to lay the fretboard on.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/FretboardJig_04_zpsecb349f4.jpg

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/FretboardJig_06_zps265c5d3a.jpg

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/FretboardJig_07_zpsbaf82e41.jpg
I used a piece of the 1/4" ply as a depth guide and to make sure I didn't cut too deep and hit the Multi Track with the blade (inset pics).

Before I tried it on the real thing, I did a test cut on it. It looked great, though I didn't like using the sliding table for this operation. As you can see in the last pic above, the jig has to extend out past the stop on the fence and you lose the stop. With the blocks I have, there is no good way to clamp the sled to the fence. And every time you go to use the fret sled, you have to set it all up again. I'm going to get a couple of adjustable miter slides and attach them to the bottom instead of using the sliding table.

The first multi fret cut on a test piece:
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/Fretboard_01_zps270389d0.jpg

The cuts came out chip-free. If you see what looks like chips, it's sawdust left from the cut. I cut one piece of fret wire and hammered it in place and it fit very snug.

Next up is making a jig to radius the fretboard. I feel like I'm getting somewhere! :D

John Coloccia

01-02-2014, 4:22 PM

You trying to show me up?? Very nice, Julie! :D

Julie Moriarty

01-02-2014, 9:31 PM

You trying to show me up?? Very nice, Julie! :D

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/guitar-03_zpsd4aadd95.gif

george wilson

01-02-2014, 10:52 PM

Julie Moriarty

01-03-2014, 11:16 AM

Be careful of HOW SNUG your frets fit in. They can,and WILL bow the neck over backwards if they fit too snug. It can stay bowed back,too,under string tension. You can squeeze the tang's teeth down some in a smooth jawed machinist's vise if necessary. Stewart MacDonald sells a jig to file off the teeth some too,I believe.

Do you know that Fender originally had a guy who would shove the frets in from the side? He was pretty skillful,getting them snug down against the curved fingerboard like that. This was on maple fingerboards. Fender after while decided they could not reasonably expect workers to learn how to do that,and began pressing them in the usual way.

I'm relying on StewMac's claim that their blade and fret wire are compatible. I'm going to install them on the short piece I did and check for bow.

That's interesting you should mention the side install method on the fret wire. When I first started learning about all this, about two months ago, I was thinking how that would be the best method but couldn't imagine a way to do it by hand. Thanks for the fun fact George. :) Keep 'em coming!

John Coloccia

01-03-2014, 12:04 PM

Believe it or not, they did it like that until about 1985, or so. Any Fender older than that, you'd be advised to tap the fret out sideways or you'll really destroy the fingerboard getting it out.

Julie Moriarty

01-03-2014, 12:20 PM

Making the sanding sled was easy enough. I ripped the bottom piece to the same width as the radius beam, plus a hair, and then ripped some narrower pieces which I attached to the sides. What took the most time was making the handle for the radius beam. I used the handle from one of my planes as a template.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/RadiusBoard_01_zpse2e3d8e4.jpg

After about 30 minutes of sanding...

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/RadiusBoard_02_zpsb09a8a51.jpg
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/RadiusBoard_03_zpsede67f8e.jpg
And I still wasn't done. You can see the sawdust isn't collecting evenly in the fret slots.

I've read from men little more than half my age say this was bull work. They won't get any argument from me! And trying to keep even pressure is much harder than I expected. I decided I would prefer an easier and more precise method for putting the radius on the fretboard.

I saw on an acoustic guitar forum, one luthier employed the router method and used PVC pipe as guide rails. It looked pretty simple to make. He screwed the PVC pipe down. I decided to rout half-round grooves in each side of the MDF base and attach the PVC with construction adhesive and let it sit clamped overnight.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/RadiusRouter_01_zpsf18e8b24.jpg
I'm going to use a mortising router bit. This one leaves a very smooth finish. And I'm going to install some sides on the router base and fit one side with a dust collection port. Not sure how much good that will do but it's something.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/RadiusRouter_02_zps86748f36.jpg
You can see the construction adhesive oozing out from the side of the PVC. The half-round groove positioned the PVC exactly straight and parallel to each other.

I woke up around 3 AM, wide awake. I realized that with the same radius all along the fretboard, after the fretboard is trimmed to fit the neck, the headstock end will be thicker on the sides than the tail end. I was looking into a Floyd Rose trem and learned they supply a locking nut with their trems. While the bridge has a fixed radius of 12", the locking nut has a radius of 10". Making a conical radius fretboard would be difficult. And I couldn't use the sanding beam for fret leveling. But the luthiers I've gleaned most of my information from seem to all use a consistent radius all along the fretboard. :confused:

Do I need to be concerned? Should the side thickness of the fretboard along the neck be the same all the way? Do I need to compensate for that? I'm kind of stuck here.

Back to the library...

george wilson

01-03-2014, 12:43 PM

You are a good mechanical designer,Julie!

Stew Mac recommendations or not,if you are bending the fingerboard back a lot,be aware of what I have said. I learned some things the hard way,starting to build in about 1954,without available books.

I might also warn you that using a consistent curve all the way up the fingerboard will cause the strings to buzz against the next higher fret when you slur them sideways in the higher registers. I recommend a compound radius,or you may find yourself trying to file the frets flatter in their centers in the upper registers. This is the advantage of a compound radius fingerboard. I have had to do this to Fender guitars which have the same radius all the way up the fingerboard.

I have always just hand planed my fingerboards into the radius,leaving them flatter higher up the neck. What I have done takes skill. I plane an angle up the edge of each side of the fingerboard,making the width of the angled area the same all the way up. Then,planed the peaks off the angles,gradually making the fingerboard rounded. This practice,if your planeing has been done consistently and accurately,makes a compound angle fingerboard. It also makes the edge thickness the same all the way up.

I actually knew Herb Sunshine,the guy who coined the name "Orpheum" for banjos. He was working for Guild Guitars when I knew him. He was pretty inventive,and was bothered by the fact that the fret slots on a curved fingerboard are deeper in the center than at the ends. So,he invented a curved drum to lay the fingerboards in so they'd roll while having the fret slots cut on a gang saw. I think I'll Google him and see what turns up.

I also knew Jerome Zoeller(sp?),an old Gibson salesman. He appointed me an authorized Gibson repairman in the 60's. They had some of these scattered around to help avoid shipping delicate instruments all the way to Kalamazoo.

Edit: I Googled Herb Sunshine Guild guitars. Herb Sunshine by itself gave no yield. I was reminded that Herb also invented the "frequensator" tailpiece(which I doubt made and difference in the guitar's playing,and the attachment places were prone to breaking). More importantly,he also designed the adjustable pole pickup. He worked for Epiphone earlier.

John Coloccia

01-03-2014, 12:46 PM

Details, details :) You've done it right. With a straight radius, the edges of the fingerboard at the heel will be thinner than at the nut. You CAN make a conical radius, but the reason has nothing to do with the edges of the fingerboard. It was advantageous to have a conical radius on Fenders because their 9" radius (and earlier on, 7 1/4" if you can believe that) was so extreme that when you bent notes higher up, you would fret out because the string sees a rising fingerboard as it bends towards the center. Solution? Make the radius conical so the string mostly sees straight lines no matter where it is. It's really not necessary on radiuses 10" and higher though some people do it anyway. It's a matter of preference.

The way you make a conical radius (what we've come to call "compound" radiuses in the biz) is sand along the lay of the strings instead of parallel to the center line, and you would level the frets the same exact way. It's easier done than said, actually, and in the end the exact radiuses really just don't matter that much just so long as you're reasonably accurate and you've sanded somewhere between parallel to the centerline and along the lay of the strings. Just stick with a straight radius for now and keep that sanding bar dead straight with the centerline when you're leveling the fingerboard and frets. It will feel funny at first because the sanding bar will run off the neck near the nut before running off the heel end. That's CORRECT.

Ignore any difference in radius at the nut for the Floyd. Just be sure the shelf you make fits. I forget now, but I think the bottom of the nut is radiused too, right? I believe Floyd nuts only come in 2 radiuses: 10" and 15". I think you have a 12" radius, right? With the 10" radius nut, the center strings will be about .005" higher than ideal. Not bad for a mechanical contraption, so don't worry about it too much. I doubt you'd do any better than that by hand for your first couple of dozen bone nuts, so everything looks good to me :)

george wilson

01-03-2014, 1:11 PM

You echo what I just wrote about the strings buzzing when bending notes higher on the fingerboard. I have always just naturally made my fingerboards compound curved. I don't know when factories started also doing it. Doing a compound fingerboard precludes the use of a radiused sanding stick.

I tilt my block plane a bit,and plane a slight angle along the edges of both sides of my fingerboard about 9/16" wide. Then,gradually plane off the peaks and sand smooth. I can't tell you the angle. I just do it by eye and long practice. Like John said,the exact curve isn't important. The compound angle is superior in the higher registers. I have examined D'Angelico guitars from the 50's,and believe they were done the same way.

You are correct John: The bottom of the nut is radiused.

John Coloccia

01-03-2014, 1:19 PM

You echo what I just wrote about the strings buzzing when bending notes higher on the fingerboard. I have always just naturally made my fingerboards compound curved. I don't know when factories started also doing it.

Fender's been doing it for a while now, though you can still get a "vintage" radius....but you get 9", not the real vintage 7.25" monstrosity. I think you can get the real one now too if you want it. Gibson is a straight 12" radius. PRS is a straight 10" radius (on a 25" scale). I believe Taylor is a straight 15" radius. I forget what Martin does. I refretted an OM a year or two ago, and I seem to recall it being very flat....16" maybe. A lot of the Fender style builders use, or at least offer, a conical radius, but most others tend to use a straight radius.

george wilson

01-03-2014, 1:26 PM

It must be remembered that Leo was originally NOT a guitar maker!! He had to make it all up as he went along. I wonder if he was looking at a violin when he came up with that severe radius .

Julie Moriarty

01-03-2014, 6:51 PM

I added the sides to the router base, drilled a hole for the DC hose and attached the router. Using the sanding sled as a base to raise the router radius jig, I attached a scrap piece of milled fretboard wood with turner's tape to the radius jig. I set the max depth of cut at the center of the rough cut wood and started routing.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/FretboardJig_08_zpsc2317bb6.jpg

The first pass I cut a little too deep and it chipped the edges but all that would have been cut away anyway. The whole process took less than FIVE MINUTES! :D I placed the radius beam on top of the newly routed board to compare...
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/FretboardJig_09_zpsc7754337.jpg
30 minutes of sanding and I didn't get these results.

I hand sanded lightly to 320 grit and I was pretty pleased with the results. All in all it took me 10 minutes to get there. When I do the actual fretboard, I'll remove it from the router jib and put it in the sanding sled to finish the hand sanding. In less than the time it took me to ALMOST create the radius by hand-sanding with 80 grit, I'll be able to have the fretboard ready for the fret wire.

One of the things I like about this jig is I can fine tune the thickness of the fretboard. The one above is 7.58mm. To get to 24.5mm (1"), with the neck and fretboard together, I need 7.4mm on the fretboard. I will probably get there after hand sanding, but if this was thicker, I could easily plane it down to a pre-sanding dimension. No need to ask cuz you already know, I won't attempt to radius the fretboard by hand again. :)

Next jig will be the fret wire bender...

george wilson

01-04-2014, 8:00 AM

John Coloccia

01-04-2014, 8:09 AM

Looking good,Julie!!:) P.S.: I have a StewMac fret wire bender. It works very well and saves a lot of messing around. Most of my life I had none of these nice little devices. I'd just hammer fret wire into curves with a plastic hammer on a wood block.

Though I haven't played Fender style guitars since high school, you guys are starting to get me interested in making one again. I had a Fender standard and traded it off. Had a real nice Tele reissue. Traded it off. I wish I hadn't.

There's something real nice about feeling an unfinished all maple Fender style neck. I haven't enjoyed making one of those for many years now. Not since about 1957. Maybe I should get back to it.

It would have been nice to have foresight. In the 60's I owned a 1952 Tele,and let it go,too. Back then,these vintage guitars weren't worth anywhere what they are now. They were just used guitars. Almost overnight things seemed to jump in price about 1986 or so. I had wanted a Gibson Super 400. You could get a vintage one for about $1200.00 in Washington,D.C.. By the time I made my mind up to go get one,they had doubled.

Back when I lived in Yonkers, I ran across a '57 Strat at a small music store in White Plains. He was asking $4000 for it...maybe $5000. I thought to myself, "Gee, that'd make a nice investment...I can probably get $10,000 for it one day". LOL. Should have snagged it. It was in perfect condition. I think I was a freshman in college, so I definitely couldn't buy it myself. This was maybe back in 1991. Incidentally, I played it and I didn't think it was anything special. Didn't sound very good either....meh, at best. I don't care what anyone says....the best guitars we've ever made are being made right now, today. We're in a golden age of luthiery, IMHO, at least as far as guitars and basses are concerned.

But that doesn't hurt as much as your '52 Tele. :eek:

george wilson

01-04-2014, 8:11 AM

I paid $75.00 for that 52 Tele. It is surprising what an incredible amount of excitement had been generated back in the 90's. I went to several guitar shows back then. Wonder if things have cooled of by now? I haven't been involved in collecting for years by now. My worn out left thumb joint has prevented me from playing for over 10 years. It is very painful,and I need to get it fixed.

I did buy myself a Standel 25L15 amp a few years ago,thinking that its tone would inspire me to get back into playing. It is an amazingly clear amp. All the greats had one back in the 50's,though only a limited number were ever made. Buddy Merrill,with Lawrence Welk,got incredible tone from his. Chet Atkins used one,so did Joe Maphis and Merle Travis. Buddy lost his in a flood. I think only about 68 were ever made. Mine was made by the guy who now owns the company,Danny Mckinney It is called Requisite Audio. He learned from Mr.Bob Crooks(?),the original founder of the Standel company. He's a very,very nice guy to deal with. He goes about finding original JBL 15" speakers,the same ones used in originals. He pays a lot for them. I don't know how he keeps finding them. My speaker is just like new. The amps are exact copies of the old ones,and are not real cheap. Even the PLUG is a joy to look at!! I asked him where he found such quality plugs? He uses hospital quality plugs. The 25L15 is About $3400.00,IIRC. The JBL does not "propagate" a lot,and does not put out a lot of bass. Surprising for a 15" speaker. It puts out huge treble. I jack it through my Roland Jazz Chorus and get the most amazing tone,and all the bass you'd ever want. Incredibly clear tone. But,it shows the teeniest mistake in your playing!! I have several of those Roland speakers with the aluminum dome(which put out the most sparkling treble!) I've thought about making an extra speaker box and just jacking the Standel through that,to make a lighter weight outfit.(The Standel weighs 55# IIRC. That JBL is a heavy speaker!) The builder will sell me everything I need to make a repro speaker cabinet. What I need to do is make a plywood "mock up",put a Roland speaker in it and hear how it sounds before committing to a serious cabinet.

By the way,the newer Roland Jazz Chorus amps do not have the aluminum dome speakers. I am sure the tone suffers. Those domes put out very high notes.

Julie Moriarty

01-04-2014, 11:12 AM

It's crazy what vintage Fenders are going for today. Fender is even making "reliced" guitars, like beating a perfectly good guitar with chains and hammers and charging a premium for them. And people are buying them! Go to the Fender forums and you'll see the relic craze. I don't get taking a new guitar and making it look aged and well worn. Actual playing has to created the wear, IMHO.

When I got the bug to do this, a whole lot of memories stirred up inside. I was back in 8th grade with my Sears bass and Silvertone amp playing in a band called "The Novi's", the "i" is long. Our drummer thought of the name. He said he read about what happens when a star explodes and said it's called a novi. It was many years later that I learned he didn't quite have it right. :rolleyes: I slaved away for a year to buy the bass and amp. My dad sold them because he didn't want me to be a musician. :( But we had fun while it lasted.

This is the most fun I've ever had woodworking. If the guitars put out decent sound, I may sell them at cost to those who can't afford the Fender decal. That would be a pretty special if that worked out.

If you guys are going to take the plunge, take a lot of pics and post them here. This student has an insatiable appetite! :D

Joe Leigh

01-04-2014, 11:24 AM

Great thread so far. I'm enjoying Julie's rapid progress as well as John and George's insight and expertise.

Great stuff!

Julie Moriarty

01-04-2014, 12:11 PM

Curious about how the radius jig would work after the slots were cut, I took the partially sanded piece and put it in the jig. No chip out at all. I was surprised at how out of whack the sanding method had left it. Then I figured why not take it all the way to finished so I taped it to a neck and profiled it on the router table. I was taking too big a bite and a piece of the fretboard splintered off. I think I'll back-feed future fretboards.

I chiseled out for the nut...
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretboard_02_zps6bb753c9.jpg

and sanded to 320 and put a coat of amber shellac on it then prepared for the fret wire. I bent the wire by hand.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretboard_03_zpsaa383c3f.jpg

I cut the wire and trimmed the tangs back with a tang nipper. Then used a caul on the drill press to press the rest of the fret wires in place. The pre-bent radius on the fret wire wasn't enough and some of them were up slightly on the ends.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretwire_01_zps01bb3bbf.jpg

With the four fret wires and unfinished nut in place, I had reached the point where I felt ready to tackle the real thing.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretboard_04_zpse2550184.jpg
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretboard_05_zps4b850785.jpg

I installed the miter slides on the fret slot sled last night. Then my son came down and next thing you know he's cutting the slots. I showed him how to use the radius jig and he did the whole thing. Not one to miss out on a great opportunity, I brought out my power sander to finish sand the fretboard.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/BrianSander_01_zpsd39d2cb9.jpg
:D

Anxious to see the progress...

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_01_zps09acfedd.jpg
"We're on a mission from God." ;)

And a little test to see how we're doing...

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_02_zps244378c7.jpg
Not bad!

Still on the list is the fret wire bender. And I have to figure out a way to accurately drill for the dot inlays. Then I can do the final sanding on the fretboard. I'm thinking of laying shellac on it. Any problems with that?

george wilson

01-04-2014, 12:22 PM

Why do you want to shellac the fingerboard? I always just sprayed nitrocellulose lacquer on mine. Nothing underneath. I didn't want a different looking finish to start showing up after the lacquer got worn. Maybe it doesn't matter. The fingerboard will still look bad after the lacquer is worn through. Shellac has a tendency to get sticky when handled,too. Personally,I'd avoid it. If you DO use shellac,lacquer won't adhere to it unless the shellac is de waxed. Mixing finishes can lead to big trouble.

Make sure you bend those frets enough. It's nearly impossible to get them all the way down if the ends want to lift,especially on a maple fingerboard. Hit hem too hard,and they will just pop up worse. Learn your mistakes on this chipped fingerboard,then go forward.

Perhaps you could just compare their bend to the curve in the bottom of your router jig,and then bend them tighter than that curve,if you don't want to make a special jig to bend them to. Think about getting the Stewmac fret bending jig. It works really well. Unlike some of those endless gadgets they keep dreaming up,the fret bender really is a useful tool.

For nipping my frets off, I take a CHANNELOCK(NOT a Black Diamond) end nipper and grind the end down to make a flush cut. Then,use them for NOTHING else. Stewmac sells this tool,but I just made mine with my belt grinder. I made a couple from Black Diamonds,and they just chipped out badly as if the tool was made from cast iron!! Channel Locks are so much better.

John Coloccia

01-04-2014, 12:27 PM

Shellac's fine. Maybe even preferred, though it's not as durable as lacquer. The feel of a shellaced neck is very nice, though.

Just read what George wrote. LOL. This is why there are so many different guitars out there. None of use can seem to ever agree on anything :D

It's looking good!

re: fret wire
Take a needle file and SLIGHTLY chamfer the edges of the slot...and I mean slightly. Fretwire is extruded and there is a tiny radius between the tang and the fret. Also, always overbend the wire a little unless you're using stainless...then it has to be a perfect match. With the overbent wire, hammer in the ends first, and then gently work you way in to the middle from both sides. As the middle seats, the wire straightens out and drives the tangs sideways for a really solid fit. It also makes sure the ends will never come up. A sure sign of a loose fret end is when you file them down, you'll hear a "squeak squeak squeak" as you pass over it :)

For pressing, do everything the same....over bend and at least start the ends by hammering them in a bit. A plastic hammer would be best....brass face would be second best but it takes practice not to mar/dent the fret. Then for your 12" radius board, press the frets down first with the 9" caul to seat the ends....then the 10" caul to seat more of the middle. Drive it home with the 12" caul. You may even want to follow up with the 14" to make sure the middle is seated, but in practice the frets are sitting at a slightly larger radius than the fingerboard....the height of the fret larger, to be exact. The 12" caul won't actually fully seat the middle of the fret and my OCD would never allow that, though it's probably fine :)

As you're hammering, it works best to align yourself parallel to the fret, not at 90 degrees to it. It's just easier to keep the hammer aligned properly. Use many light blows instead of few heavy blows.

That's what works for me.

george wilson

01-04-2014, 12:36 PM

Shellac not being as durable is a good reason to avoid using it on a surface that takes so much MORE punishment than anything else I can think of. Also,I HAVE had it soften with handling and get sticky. This is an important decision,so think carefully about what you decide.

Making a lacquered fingerboard in the first place is not one of the greatest decisions that Leo ever made. But,he was not a guitar builder in the first place. However,a slick,lacquered neck and fingerboard does feel really nice until it wears out,which might be a good while if you aren't constantly playing hard rock on the neck.

John Coloccia

01-04-2014, 12:38 PM

[QUOTE=george wilson;2203303]Wonder if things have cooled of by now?

Hard to tell. Some prices seem to have come down. Old Les Pauls are still in the stratosphere...asking price at least. I've seen a lot of guitars with high asking prices just simply not sell. My general sense is that it's maybe cooling down a little, or at least things are maybe moving slower, but there's no going back to the 80s and 90s. Shoot, even my 1989 American Standard Telecaster, that I think I paid $500 for new, is now worth more than $1000. I think my 1990 '57 strat reissue might be worth even more if it wasn't beat to hell. I think that's pretty ridiculous.

I should post a picture of it as what a real "relic" looks like. The neck looks nice now because I refretted it and put a 12" radius on it, but it was absolutely BLACK at one point from playing....pretty much no finish left.

george wilson

01-04-2014, 12:48 PM

In this economy,lots of things shown on the Antiques Road Show have lost considerable value. Sometimes that show past values compared with today's. Pawn Stars is always mentioning what he no longer can get for stuff.

I gave up on buying my Vintage Guitar magazine several years ago. (Was that the correct name?) Because my thumb has kept me from playing. And,I got tired of spending big bucks on guitars and amps I didn't need or use. I kept coming back to the 6120 repro I made in the 80's. It is my ideal guitar. Just sounds very right. he Roland Jazz Chorus with the Standel is as good as amps are getting,too,IF you play clean(Jazz C. sounds terrible distorted,I understand). I had 19 amps at one time! I still have quite a few. I always managed to find something wrong with most of them. On a Vox,for example,I found it played 1 particular note more prominently than the others. That drove me nuts. One had a tweeter that buzzed like a bee. I can't recall the name of that amp. I still have a mint Matchless first generation amp. It needs to get sold.

Julie Moriarty

01-04-2014, 2:27 PM

I was thinking of shellac because I have some made from amber flakes that I mixed up. It brings out the figure of the wood nicely and gives it a warm tone. I've read a number of comments by guitarists who said they like an unfinished neck and fretboard. I was thinking that's the way I'd go but there's a part of me that want's the guitar to LOOK good too. From the start I wanted to build something that always said, "Pick me up and PLAY ME!" I've known so many people in my life who owned guitars that eventually ended up collecting dust, or at least the case did. I wanted to make something so beautiful you'd feel guilty putting it away.

Maybe that's a bit over ambitious, but that's my hope.

George, I already got the ChannelLocks and ground them down. They work pretty well. I'll need to decide if I want to take one of my finer files and use that to put the bevel on the ends or buy a StewMac toy. I've seen the fret wire bender in videos. It work really well but it's $125. They probably charge that because it's a tool that, like you said, "Unlike some of those endless gadgets they keep dreaming up,the fret bender really is a useful tool." But this thing is tempting me. If my attempts at making something fail, I may be calling Stewie. ;)

John, that's some good advice about how to use the caul to set the fret wire in place. I was thinking maple would hold them well but that's not what happened. I have a plastic tip hammer that I used to drive in a test fret wire on a flat board and I did use it to tap in the ends.

I took a triangular file and made a slight groove in the fret slots of the test piece. I was wondering if that had anything to do with the wire popping back out. I didn't know that stainless steel needed to be the exact radius. Thanks for that tip.

John Coloccia

01-04-2014, 2:35 PM

I took a triangular file and made a slight groove in the fret slots of the test piece. I was wondering if that had anything to do with the wire popping back out. I didn't know that stainless steel needed to be the exact radius. Thanks for that tip.

It's because the stainless won't really flex at all, so it pretty much needs to be dead nut or it will never seat right.

It's very easy to make the chamfer at the fret slot too wide. It just takes the lightest touch. Honestly, it's better to under do it than over do it. If you over do it, the fret will not hold well. If you under do it, the fret will just stick up ever so slightly....not perfect, but not fatal like a fret that doesn't hold. You can always rebuild the fret slot if you have to with the StewMac teflon strips and superglue, and you can even put the frets in with glue (or fix a fret that won't stay down with glue. The glue won't stick to the frets, but it will form around the tang and hold it in tightly. There are lots of ways to do it. I tend to fret with no glue if I can avoid it. Some people use Titebond as a matter of course. Some people wick in superglue after fretting (you must be sure to keep it off an unfinished maple board!). Some people use hot hide glue. There was a small fad for a while of epoxying the frets in...went hand and hand with some whacky fretting system...not my cup of tea :)

If I'm working on a customer guitar with a proud fret that won't stay down, I wick in some superglue and that keeps it down, and that also works to tighten up a fret end that's loose and squeaking...but it won't do much to hold down fret ends that don't fit right. Once that end pops up, you may as well remove the fret, fix the slot if necessary, and start over IMHO.

george wilson

01-04-2014, 3:24 PM

An unfinished neck will soon look dirty and gray as I'm sure you must know. Years ago Gibson came up with the idea of having an unfinished neck on a classical guitar. It had wood filler in it,but no finish. No one would buy it,and soon dealers who could were spraying finishes onto their necks. This was in the 60's. They also used a DECAL for the rosette!! some were sloppily trimmed near the fingerboard and could be seen for what they were. How CHEAP could Gibson get????

I have mentioned this before,but in the 60's I found a source for spruce tops,already smooth and joined down the middle for $1.50 each. The supplier told me they were selling the same tops to KAY guitars. Thing was,those tops were a 1/8" thick sliced veneer. Every grain had been broken during the slicing process,and you could literally bend the tops into a circle!! No strength at all. They were all made from an extremely tight grained Sitka spruce,but it must have been soft spruce to have allowed cutting into veneer like that. I think the hard and the soft grains were nearly identical in softness. I have seen plenty of wide grained spruce that was plenty hard. It depends upon the minerals the tree grew up with more than how tight the grain is.

So,I wouldn't buy any Gibson newer than the 50's,unless it is a new Montana made Gibson.

Oh,I also saw a Hummingbird with brash thickness planer marks all across the back. Even came through the finish. Not sanded at all. What miserable garbage they were apparently turning out in that era. Just my opinion,based on what I saw. But,I wasn't stupid.

Julie Moriarty

01-05-2014, 10:32 AM

Just ran across this video on shellac from Dan Erlewine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d8cY087Au4

The shellac I have made up is garnet. We're in the midst of a nice winter storm. Good time to do some experimenting. :)

george wilson

01-05-2014, 8:11 PM

The use of shellac on a finished surface like that is to be highly advised against,unless the whole rest of the surface is the same shellac. We had to use it as well as oil based violin varnish(which is a fine finish) for years in the musical instrument maker's shop for historic reasons. However,be advised that it is a very cheap finish. The cheapest finish ever devised. In the 17th. C. they knew this,and I read a treatise about it from that period cautioning how treacherous it is. It does not stay glossy,and it is not good with moisture.

I knew this perfectly well when we finished the spinet in our instrument making film. The spinet started out beautifully glossy,but over some few years,it lost that gloss. (We were under a great deal of pressure to get the film done,and could not wait for an oil based varnish to dry.) The same thing will happen to that guitar,especially if it is used to "patch"an existing surface. Eventually,the shellac will stand out like a sore thumb. At least,the spinet looks consistent all over. Looks o.k. for now,but what about the future? Personally,I hate to have to spend my time on warranty work. I try to get it right the first time.

There are some shellacs that do better. My favorite is Siam seedlac. I was not aware of it in 1973. It has not been processed like the more refined shellacs. Indeed,it comes in the form of crusty bits peeled right off of twigs. It has to be dissolved in alcohol,and not disturbed while a brush is carefully dipped into the top surface. It could be strained,but it is very difficult to get rid of the little tiny bits of debris in it no matter what I have tried. So,I just use it as described.

I think some essential ingredients are lost during refining. Seedlac does retain its gloss. I have shellacked some things with it 20 years ago,and it is still glossy. I made a little quartered oak tool cupboard for my milling machine that long ago,finished with Siam Seedlac. For how much longer it will stay glossy,I don't know,but it definitely out lasts the few years of gloss that regular refined shellacs last.

During my 39 years in the museum,I was able to learn a lot from the World class group of furniture conservators we have there as well as other conservators and master craftsmen. I spent so much time recreating old varnish formulae that my boss got a bit tired of it. However,that did not stop me. He did not understand the importance of violin finishes. Finishes are indeed an essential part of instrument making,and I was especially interested in them. This included formulae for various French polishes as well. They generally include some other resins such as gum sandarac,
mastic and other resins to help with hardness and gloss. These would be worth your time to research.

Julie Moriarty

01-06-2014, 2:50 PM

It seems to me George, that the finish part is the Holy Grail of building the guitar. If lacquer weren't so toxic, it would be a no-brainer. If it was warm outside instead of -15, I'd probably do the lacquer spraying outside. And waiting until spring isn't appealing to me like it was earlier in the thread.

The green end of the spectrum is using waterborne products. Target's EM6000 has been mentioned earlier but, if I recall correctly, it just couldn't compete with lacquer. It's interesting to note StewMac used to sell EM6000 as a WB alternative but now sells 7000HBL. I think it was Chris who said you can't repair that stuff. They also sell the WB Color Tone brand. On their website, the 7000 gets reviews from 1-5. They don't feature it in their latest catalog though.

I made a chess board about 12-15 years ago. I used a WB gloss poly to finish it. It was my first foray into WB finishes. Today that chess board hasn't yellowed a bit. It's held up to hundreds of chess games and the occasional mishap. I didn't go through all the sanding, flattening and polishing usually associated with guitar finishing but it still looks pretty good. So why doesn't anyone use WB poly on guitars?

It's easy to see why finishing is so confusing.

I still don't know what I'm going to do. I want something to bring out the figure in the neck and fretboard woods. I won't dye those woods but I do want something that enhances the natural properties of the wood without detracting from the playability of the instrument. And what that will be, I don't know.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After two days messing around with making a fret wire bender, I think I finally have something to rival the StewMac version. When it's done, I'll provide pics.

george wilson

01-06-2014, 5:55 PM

I guess I'm old fashioned,but I like the looks of Nitro. Probably I have COPD from breathing it. Got downright sick from a kidney infection in the 60's from spraying it frequently.

I bought a big bottle of water base from Woodcraft years ago. I put some on a block of very dry maple,where it sat for several months without drying past a rubbery,sticky stage. Probably never did dry. It looked like water with ground up rice in it,cooked to death. When it did get reduced to the rubbery stage,it still reflected the lumpy texture it had when wet. Boringly featureless,too. Like a permanent splotch of water. At least the rice went away.

As long as I can still get it,I'll keep on spraying nitro,and TRY(usually the wind gets fickle as soon as I start to spray!) to stay up wind from it. I have never enjoyed the luxury of a spray booth in my home shop. Just don't have the room.

I wonder why Grizzly wants so much money for theirs? The filters will run you into the poor house too.

I could run down to the paint shop at the museum and use theirs,and have done that before. But,hanging around the paint shop all day isn't my favorite thing to do. They have great booths there,though.

I have a new Brian Setzer Gretsch guitar that is finished with some kind of poly finish. It looks cool and un interesting. They offer a nitro sprayed one,but it costs a LOT more. Besides,I traded for it anyway. The necks on these new Gretsch Japanese guitars are too narrow to suit my large hands. I still prefer the repro I made before they revived the Gretsch name. I didn't care to pay $10,000 for an original plywood guitar anyway. Plywood is better for an electric,but it is still plywood,not a carved arch guitar. The only reason they are worth much is because of Chet Atkins.

Julie Moriarty

01-06-2014, 6:12 PM

I finished the fret wire bender and it seems to work well.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/FretWireBender_01_zpsc8cf1a57.jpg

The hardest part was making the center wheel and axle. I had to thread the end of a piece of 3/8" rod, drill two (2) 1/4" pane washers (thick ones) for tapping a 3/8-16 thread. Then I inserted spacers between the washers to allow for the fret tang and the barbs to pass through, without flattening the barbs. The threads on the washers were a bit off center and not perfectly perpendicular. I ended up taking it to the lathe and filed it round, did a little fudging to make it almost perpendicular to the shaft and used a hack saw to make sure there was enough clearance between the washers. The other wheels are from a patio door screen bottom and run on ball bearings.

I made a 3/4" x 1-3/8" round spacer for the back of the shaft, cut an arm for the handle and glued them together. Then I added the plastic handle. On top I found some bracket material lying in a parts box and cut a 1/4-20 thread in it. Can't put much pressure on that or it will bend, but it's strong enough to bend the fret wire. I used turner's tape to adhere another piece of the bracket material to the top of the sliding center. The tongue and groove joints were cut on the table saw and trimmed with a plane.

It took way too many hours to do the R&D and then make the thing but it was better than paying the $125 StewMac was asking for theirs.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I decided to do a test run on drilling for the tuning machines. I needed to drill a hole .385" diameter. I only had a 3/8" and 1/2" forstner bits so I drilled the 3/8" in the test piece. It wasn't enough to even get the tuning shafts started. Hopefully the peghole reamer will take care of the rest. That's on order.

In the meantime I can rough cut the fretboard and glue it to the neck.

I'm guessing making the jigs and templates has probably taken up 1/3 or more of the time invested so far but I'm really happy with how they turned out. Testing probably took another 1/3. Making the next one should be a breeze. http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/roflrofl_zps6889582c.gif

george wilson

01-06-2014, 7:50 PM

Julie,you are a very good mechanic!! You mention a lathe. Is it a wood or a metal lathe? You have made so many jigs ,you could go into guitar production!!

Julie Moriarty

01-06-2014, 9:48 PM

Julie,you are a very good mechanic!! You mention a lathe. Is it a wood or a metal lathe? You have made so many jigs ,you could go into guitar production!!

It's a wood lathe. I used a metal file and a hacksaw to do the fine tuning. But I once worked in a factory where they put me on a metal lathe for a couple of weeks. I was fascinated seeing it cut metal!

As for the jigs, the thought did cross my mind to make them and sell them. :rolleyes: I've made a few jigs before but they all ended up being one time jigs and some I never used. I came to hate making them. But this time I'm actually enjoying it. Maybe I was a luthier in another life. ;)

george wilson

01-07-2014, 9:36 AM

I used to be a methodist but now I am a luthier. I used to tell that to the public. My first thought would have been to make the fret bender out of all metal. That would have been much more work. That happens to your mind when you have machine tools!!

Julie,with the large building I have,it is so full of tools,machines and wood,I would not be able to find places to put all your jigs. Seriously! If you want me to make you a thicker brass bar with 1/4-20 threads in it,send me your mailing address in a PM. Include all dimensions. I could also make you a better grooved top wheel if you send the dimensions. I have plenty of fret wire,so don't need the width of the groove(or,I can just measure my Stewmac wheel's groove.)

One thing I wouldn't mind making is a guitar that looks like the tele bass. They are cool looking. Obviously there would be alterations due to the scale length,but I'd keep the pick guard and other details. I need to get my book out and look at it again.

One problem in making real close sounding repros of the tele is their steel bridge surrounds used to be hardened steel,I am pretty sure. That affects the tone,as well as pickups,etc.. Am I mistaken? It's been quite a while. Why did Leo do that? Hardened steel holds magnetism better than soft steel is the only reason I can think of. But,the magnets are in the pickups,of course. Some residual magnetism might have been picked up by the surround,I suppose. However, the sound is produced by fluctuations in the magnetic field going through the pickup coils. So,it sort of seems counter productive to try to set up a permanent magnetic field. Hope this makes sense. I wonder if those real early Rickenbacher
"horse shoe magnet" style pickups that went clear around the strings were hardened steel? If so,he could have gotten his idea from them. The actual magnet was down below. My first amp,bought about 1956 well used, was a Ricky off a bakelite frying pan steel guitar. It was VERY weak,and hummed too. It had a field coil speaker rather than a permanent magnet speaker that gave a constant 60 cycle hum. It looked like an ugly 19th. C. suitcase,or something. It was so ugly,I made a new cabinet for it,not realizing that many decades later it would be collectible. I could have waited 40 years and asked $800.00 for it!! At the time,I paid $35.00,which was probably too much.

Julie Moriarty

01-07-2014, 9:36 AM

Yesterday I went to rough saw the fretboard my son had prepared. The light raked off it and I saw some chip out at a fret slot. Closer inspection revealed even more.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretslots_01_zpse7ab7f02.jpg

Some of the chip out would be hidden by the fret wire but the chip outs around the nut won't. Maybe he ran the router over it too fast. This didn't happen on the trial piece. I'll need to find out why.

george wilson

01-07-2014, 11:11 AM

You will have to do a lot of sanding. Hope your fret slots don't get too shallow.

Julie Moriarty

01-08-2014, 12:08 PM

Can't go any further unless I want to delve into "less than 1" thick Fender neck" territory. It's right at 1" now. Not a big deal though. I'm still in school and we students make a lot of mistakes. :) I wasn't really crazy about the figure on that wood anyway. Today I milled four pieces of jatoba for fretboards. Once this cold snap eases, I'm going shopping for some more traditional fretboard and neck woods.

Earlier today I made a board for running the fretboards through the planer. That's the jatoba in the pic below. I think it works better with the guitar woods.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/planerboard_01_zpse136b9b6.jpg

We'll be tunneling a new east wing into the basement to store all the new jigs and templates and wiring it with 220, 221, whatever it takes... ;)

John Coloccia

01-08-2014, 12:17 PM

Shawn Pixley

01-08-2014, 10:50 PM

One thing I wouldn't mind making is a guitar that looks like the tele bass. They are cool looking. Obviously there would be alterations due to the scale length,but I'd keep the pick guard and other details. I need to get my book out and look at it again.

George, I like the idea. I was thinking of doing a blackguard style Bajo Sexto. I think the baritone scale and the single coil tone would sound great.

Julie Moriarty

01-09-2014, 10:23 AM

You can fix the chip-out AFTER you finish the neck with a little bit of CA. If you do it now, you might discolor the neck. The other solution is lay some lacquer down over the chipped areas to seal it, and then fix with CA. THEN fret and finish as usual. It won't be invisible, but no one will notice it. The trick with maple is the first finish that touches wood needs to be consistent along the whole neck or it will be obvious. After that, you can drop fill with CA if you really need to.

Thanks John. I'm learning a lot here. :) Unfortunately, Murphy decided to stop by and wreak havoc, probably a result of the mind-dulling effects of a nasty cold. It's affected my enthusiasm. I'll give the CA fix a try and see how it goes. If only I could figure out a way not to waste so much. I'm guessing 90-95% of all the CA I buy gets tossed. Either the tip becomes too clogged to use or the contents go bad. Nothing I've done seems to prevent that.

This morning I went to prep for the inlay dots and something didn't look right. I swear I ordered 1/4" dots but found out this morning they are 5/16". I laid them out on a fretboard but they look too big at the lower frets.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretdots_01_zps360354a8.jpg

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretdots_02_zpsb145c861.jpg

Do I need to get the 1/4" dots or will this work?

John Coloccia

01-09-2014, 10:38 AM

Julie Moriarty

01-09-2014, 11:14 AM

I would order 1/4". 1/4" is tight up high, but I've used it down to a 25" scale length and it will work nicely. Your supplier probably won't have a problem doing a simple exchange. You can also order just 6 1/4" and do the dots from the 12th to the end, leaving the rest large. I don't like that look, personally.

I agree, 1/4" all the way. After looking at my son's Tele, I realized once the frets are in those 5/16" dots will look all wrong, so 1/4" is the only choice. And I'm going Murphy hunting too. That guy has to go!

Julie Moriarty

01-09-2014, 4:05 PM

Julie Moriarty

01-10-2014, 9:33 AM

I think I know why there haven't been any replies - I've gone so far out of the box it's become tragic.

Last night my SO said the red pickguard will never work with the sapele body. I hated hearing that but I had to agree. That pickguard looked so cool in the pictures! :( After some discussion we both felt a cream pearloid pickguard would be the way to go. But I'm thinking you'd have to change the hardware to gold. I had initially planned for gold hardware and bought a few pieces but when the trem for my son's guitar didn't work with the Tele, I ended up with that so I switched gears. I think the hardware is part of the problem too.

Consensus at home was that contrasting wood fretboard dots would look nice. With the sapele body, use a maple fretboard with sapele dots, lose the cherry neck and replace it with a curly maple neck. Then add a cream pearloid pickguard and gold hardware.

I still have some 8/4 curly maple. I could make another body from that and use black and red dyes to compliment the red pickguard. But that's for another time.

John Coloccia

01-10-2014, 10:00 AM

I thought it would look nice no matter what, Julie. I thought the brushed hardware was nice too. I think you didn't get any responses because there was really nothing to say other than pick whichever on you like more :)

BTW, I'm on the fence if I would finish the Jatoba fingerboard or leave it bare. I've never used Jatoba.

Larry Fox

01-10-2014, 11:03 AM

Julie - firstly I am amazed (and jealous) of your progress. Given that this is your first from scratch build it might be worth just plowing through with what you have and getting it done so you have one to completion and apply what you learn / mistakes you make on the next build and make that "the one". Sometimes those Franken-guitars with seemingly mismatched parts end up looking really cool.

Another thought, while I don't have a ton of experience with jatoba, I do have some and what I have observed is that it is: HEAVY, splinters easily, and has a tendency to warp or twist more than other species I have worked with so you might be inviting unnecessary problems using it as a fingerboard. I have had seemingly straight and stable boards twist as they are being ripped on the saw. I have also had freshly face-jointed boards come out of the planer very twisted. Just a thought though - ymmv.

george wilson

01-10-2014, 1:09 PM

Julie,keep your CA glue in the fridge and it will last for months. Looks like a high class set of pickups. What make are they? I am not a Fender style builder,so haven't kept up on parts and things.

Julie Moriarty

01-10-2014, 2:40 PM

John, I've been taking what I have in stock and thought I'd give the jatoba a try as a fretboard. I've got some fingerboard finishing oil from StewMac I was going to try on the jatoba but close up it looks too porous. The wood is heavy and I thought it would translate into a good fretboard wood but after sanding it to 400, I have my doubts.

Larry, I agree that I need to finish the first guitar and test it out. I was thinking I'd just put this one together, without finishing it, and check it out. I'm not good enough to really know how good it plays (but I could tell how bad it plays :rolleyes:) but my son could give it a good test run. And I agree with your thoughts on jatoba. As I was saying to John, close inspection of the wood told me it was suspect for a fretboard wood. Tomorrow I plan on getting out to the hardwood store and see if I can find some rosewood or ebony for the dark fretboard woods.

George, thanks for the CA tip! The pickups are Seymour Duncan Everything Axe. With a name like that, how can you go wrong! ;) I read a number of reviews and they rated them pretty high and described them as a great all around Strat-style pickup. I think you got into my head with the lacquer. Every time I think about going another route and every sampling I've made with non-lacquer products, they just don't seem right. I may lay down garnet shellac on the fretboard to bring out the grain, but I'll finish it with lacquer, but I'll also see how the finishing oil works. I'm seeing a lot of necks that are finished in satin while the headstock is gloss. If my talents permit, I'll look into going that route.

Thanks guys for the replies and all the help. If it weren't for the members here, I'd too often feel like I was lost on an island. :)

John Coloccia

01-10-2014, 4:08 PM

John, I've been taking what I have in stock and thought I'd give the jatoba a try as a fretboard. I've got some fingerboard finishing oil from StewMac I was going to try on the jatoba but close up it looks too porous. The wood is heavy and I thought it would translate into a good fretboard wood but after sanding it to 400, I have my doubts.

The vast majority of fingerboard material is open grained wood. All of the generally used rosewoods, and fake rosewoods, are. The only ones that come to mind that aren't are Maple, ebony and Pau Ferro, and the only wood that is commonly finished is Maple. Everything else is left bare. I'm on the fence about jatoba because I've never used it for fingerboard before, but I would be most inclined to leave it bare.

If you use StewMacs fingerboard oil (which is mostly just BLO, I think, or maybe even raw linseed) GO SPARINGLY. You're not trying to build up any sort of finish with it. It just makes non-finished (i.e. non maple) fingerboards look nice and helps condition it. Useful after a new build. Generally, if the guitar is played, you don't need ANY oil at all, ever. It's only when it hasn't been played in a long time that I ever apply just the tiniest amount. I just put a tiny dab on a paper towel, spread it around, let it sit for a minute, and then buff it out with a soft cloth. Also, do it AFTER you fret. Keep that oil out of the fret slots!

george wilson

01-10-2014, 6:49 PM

Gibson used "coffee wood" fingerboards in the old days. They were rather porous. I never thought anything about them. Gretsch originally used Brazilian rosewood. It has long pores in it. My 6120 I made has an ebony fingerboard,though. A dense fingerboard is supposed to help sustain. I believe in a heavy peg head,too. It keeps vibrations from leaking away up the neck,and directs them to the bridge on an acoustic guitar. Not much choice for your Fender style peg head.

For what it's worth,hard as it might seem to be,Brazilian rosewood has poor wear resistance when used to patch the worn mouth of a wooden plane. Gets grooves in it,too,when used for a fingerboard.

John Coloccia

01-10-2014, 8:23 PM

Every older guitar I get in my shop with brazillian is horribly worn. I wonder if east indian will fair better. Not a real rosewood, but very nice.

george wilson

01-11-2014, 9:05 AM

I'm pretty sure it will wear better.

Julie Moriarty

01-11-2014, 12:19 PM

I was reading a guitar building book last night and the author mentioned that rosewood is an open grain wood. The only rosewood I've ever seen is on a guitar and I never bothered to look that closely. The jatoba I have has long open grains in it. But it is certainly dense. I haven't given up on jatoba but I'm not at the point I'm ready to glue it to a neck yet.

I tried some of StewMac's fretboard oil and it sure smells like BLO. If it is, they have diluted it. In his video, Dan E. claims it cleans the fretboard. I've never thought of BLO as a wood cleaner.

I was doing a test run on tuner drilling with a step bit that is designed for Schaller, Gotoh and Grover tuners. The ones I have are Fender brand but made by Schaller. I drilled a few holes with the step bit in a piece of 1/2" maple. I then marked the pins that keep the tuner from spinning and drilled holes for them. When I went to insert the tuner, it stopped short of seating fully. The bit left a little to be tapered. Problem is, the smaller diameter hole on the top of the head prevents the reamer from going deep enough to ream the taper needed to seat the tuner fully.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/tuners_01_zpsfaf4fb4f.jpg

I took the reamer and inserted it to the point where it hit the smaller hole and then used it to scrape in the taper. Not a very precision method. :rolleyes: In the top picture you can see I got the third tuner to seat fully but the other two need more work. What I really need it something shaped exactly like the tapered part of the tuner. I don't want the tuners racking in the holes. Of course, they don't make a tool designed to ream a stepped hole.

These parts come without instructions or diagrams. Sometimes you can't even find them on the Internet and even if you find them, they may not be reliable. (The diagrams I downloaded from Schaller's website doesn't show the taper that is on their tuners.) The parts are made in such a way as to often require special tools to properly install them. Most of those tools are available, but some are not.

They don't make this easy...

Julie Moriarty

01-11-2014, 12:28 PM

Every older guitar I get in my shop with brazillian is horribly worn. I wonder if east indian will fair better. Not a real rosewood, but very nice.

Your comment got me to wonder if using hide glue to glue the fretboard to the neck would be the better method when using woods that will need replacing down the road.

John Coloccia

01-11-2014, 1:16 PM

Your comment got me to wonder if using hide glue to glue the fretboard to the neck would be the better method when using woods that will need replacing down the road.

Nah. We never replace them. We remove them rarely to fix trussrods. When they get worn, we just sand them down at the next full fret job.

Guitars really don't last more than 75 to 100 years or so, if you take care of it and you're lucky. Things like violins are built so stoutly that they can last hundreds of years and then you might worry about the service life of the fingerboard material.

Chris Fournier

01-11-2014, 7:35 PM

Every older guitar I get in my shop with brazillian is horribly worn. I wonder if east indian will fair better. Not a real rosewood, but very nice.

East Indian Rosewood or Dalbergia Latifolia is most certainly a real rosewood! It may be grown on tea plantations to provide shade but Dalbergia is Dalbergia.

The specific gravity of both Brazilian and East Indian Rosewoods is 0.85, I would suggest that the BR boards that you see in your shop that are worn are not worn because they have not faired as well as EI, quite simply they are on older instruments and are more worn due to age and useage. BR has been banned from trade for a long long time and any guitar wearing it is old and likely worn. I have used both species in my guitar endeavours and I would judge that they are very close in all working/wearing properties - except that BR smells like maraschino cherries when you work with it.

The violin family is not really built in that robust a manner compared to guitars, it is the string tension that creates the two very different life expectancies - decades for guitars and centuries for violins. The higher string tension of guitars really tears them apart - violin 50 pounds steel string guitar 150 pounds plus!

John Coloccia

01-11-2014, 7:57 PM

East Indian Rosewood or Dalbergia Latifolia is most certainly a real rosewood! It may be grown on tea plantations to provide shade but Dalbergia is Dalbergia.

The specific gravity of both Brazilian and East Indian Rosewoods is 0.85, I would suggest that the BR boards that you see in your shop that are worn are not worn because they have not faired as well as EI, quite simply they are on older instruments and are more worn due to age and useage. BR has been banned from trade for a long long time and any guitar wearing it is old and likely worn. I have used both species in my guitar endeavours and I would judge that they are very close in all working/wearing properties - except that BR smells like maraschino cherries when you work with it.

The violin family is not really built in that robust a manner compared to guitars, it is the string tension that creates the two very different life expectancies - decades for guitars and centuries for violins. The higher string tension of guitars really tears them apart - violin 50 pounds steel string guitar 150 pounds plus!

You're right, Chris. I had Pao Ferro ("bolivian rosewood") on the brain...that's what I happen to use most often.

Julie Moriarty

01-11-2014, 9:41 PM

The shopping trip today was interesting. I just have to keep reminding myself that a piece of wood that appeals to me for it's beauty may not work in concert with other woods that do the same. But, I still can't resist buying by emotion... and I did. :o Our stop at the hardwood store struck out on curly maple. This is their satellite store and the selection is a fraction of their big store. But the curly maple they had had nice figure but had deep planer chipout. And, after smoothing that out, there wouldn't have been the 3/4" thickness I need.

In the exotics section I saw a beautiful piece of ebony and another attractive piece of cocobolo. My SO loved the ebony but not so much the cocobolo. I ignored the snub. http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/eusa_snooty_zpsbe980426.gif And put it in the cart. They had some Santos rosewood and some other kind of rosewood but neither did anything for either of us.

On the way home, we stopped at Woodcraft and picked up some Behlen Stringed Instrument Lacquer, Vinyl Sealer and mahogany Water-Based Grain Filler. I actually felt like I was a luthier. Stradivarius has nothing on me! :rolleyes: I also picked up a 1/4" plug cutter and some fine sandpaper. While I was trying to figure out what I forgot :confused:, my SO drags me over to some curly maple. I never buy wood from Woodcraft because it's usually more expensive. But this was on sale for $6.99/bd.ft, about half what I would have paid at the hardwood store. It was a full 4/4 and almost no chipout and really nice figure. Now I'm thinking I need to go back and clean them out. :D So, here is today's catch:

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/EbCbCm_02_zps796e67f5.jpg

The picture doesn't do the wood justice but gives a good idea of grain patterns. The ebony and cocobolo would most likely end up as fretboards, but probably not on this build. I was ready to glue up the BE maple fretboard to the cherry neck last night but discovered I had over-cut the nut. It was my fault, I wasn't paying attention. So right now all I have milled for fretboards are the cherry and jatoba boards. I have another piece of BE maple in the queue.

I'm sure one day I'll look back and call this quest for the most amazing, stupendous, heart-stopping guitar build of all time as the time in my life when insanity had a firm grip on me. Until that day comes, I'm happy in my bliss. :D

george wilson

01-11-2014, 10:31 PM

PLEASE do NOT use that vinyl sealer unless you want your guitar to have a cold and lifeless look about it.

what I use is 5 minute Devcon clear epoxy thinned out with alcohol. I did use this on my orange dyed Gretsch 6120 copy with no problems with the dye bleeding. But I urge you to dye some scrap and try it first because I don't know what the difference in your dye might be. I squirt a blob of the 2 part epoxy into a jar lid. A blob about the size of a silver dollar will do for a coat on your small solid body guitar. Add enough alcohol(the same alcohol you thin shellac with) into the lid and stir it with a stick until it is mixed. This only takes a minute or less. Thin the epoxy with about a tablespoon of alcohol OR LESS. Try less at first. Quickly determine if the epoxy is thin enough for you to brush,and add a little more alcohol CAUTIOUSLY. Don't try to add epoxy. You have a maximum of about 15 minutes to get the body and neck painted. I advise you to practice on some similar size object first.

Be careful of using any plastic lids. Some plastics will melt on you. I use a metal lid and toss them out (this is why I just use disposable lids).

Brush on the epoxy,working to get it all over your guitar in 10 minutes at most. The epoxy will start to thicken,and you don't want it to drag. It takes about 2 hours for the epoxy to get hard enough to sand with 220 garnet paper. At this stage,it will ball into little "footballs" and you brush them off. This stage is called "leather hard". Wait overnight and it will be terribly hard to sand.

You should wait overnight to apply another coat so as to not trap the remaining alcohol in the first coat. On rosewood,it takes a number of extra coats,but you should be o.k. with 2 coats on maple. BE CAREFUL to not sand through. Nothing will melt the epoxy. It is an ideal filler for anything you put over it.

I'd wait at least overnight to apply any lacquer. The epoxy will give a beautiful,warm appearance to your guitar just like the lacquer does. But,that vinyl will give a cold look regardless of any finish you put over it. You might just as well be painting thin white glue on your guitar.

I have done this with every guitar I've made for the past 20 years or so. It allows you to make a thinner finish look like 20 coats,and an acoustic sounds a lot better with a thin finish. Too much finish can really kill tone badly on a flat top guitar.

As I have mentioned, Behlen lacquer melted the colored inlay on a guitar I was spraying,and the color went bleeding onto the top. I had to strip it . This was the only lacquer I ever saw this happen with. So,it certainly needs to be sealed for more than just to fill the wood.

Chris Fournier

01-12-2014, 1:19 AM

John, pau ferro is nice stuff indeed!

I use vinyl sanding sealer on all my guitars, one coat. I haven't found them to be lifeless. I actually oil my solid bodies before they get hit with the sealer. Finishing is like a magic potion!

george wilson

01-12-2014, 8:33 AM

Too simplistic an explanation,Chris: What mostly makes a violin last a lot longer is it is an ARCH top and back instrument that is THICKER than a guitar and MUCH SMALLER. The smallness helps a lot on durability. String tension helps too. It has only about 29 pounds of down bearing force on its top. It can get away with a very simple neck joint,so small is the string pull. ALL the 6 strings pull up on a flat top guitar,with its thin top.

The violin can get away with this heavier construction and less string pull because ENERGY is CONTINUALLY pumped into it by bowing. Made as thin and flat topped as a guitar it would howl uncontrollably. An ancient Rebeck is an example of a flat top bowed instrument. Old Spanish writings mention "El Rabe gritador"(The shrill rebeck) A guitar only gets the string plucked to excite it enough to produce a good deal of volume. To do this,the guitar has to be made more more delicately than the violin. The violin also has a sound post on the treble side that makes the back share some of the down bearing load,and a brace on the bass side that is shorter and stouter than a guitar brace.

Chris,haven't you noticed how "cool" recent rosewood Martin guitars look. They use vinyl sealer,and it takes the richness out of the color of the rosewood.

Julie,you should listen to me. I have been building since about 1954,and was a paid master craftsman for many years in the competitive atmosphere of a World class museum. Vinyl is a quick way for commercial makers to make more money,nothing more. The old rosewood Martin guitars look so much better,if you have an example of one to look at. I suggest pre 1969. Older Martins look like the finish I am applying to my last built guitar,seen below. Newer ones look grayish by comparison.

Oiling will help,but the vinyl will mask some of the richness even though oiled. The finish will suffer loss of visual depth also. BTW,I don't oil rosewood as SOME OF it can turn black if it is dark enough to begin with. Certainly mine will turn as black as ebony. It depends upon your selection of rosewood. My rosewood is from the late 50's.

Observe the pictures: You will not get this richness with vinyl sealer. Once you put it on,it will be murder to get it off when you see how it looks. The inlaid ebony strip monogram that I designed for the customer is RWM in 17th. C. style. The Viola daGamba is still being played today by the professional.

John Coloccia

01-12-2014, 10:40 AM

Personally I don't use vinyl sealer either. If I use anything at all under the nitro, it will be a wash coat of shellac, and then a quick, light wipe sanding to cut back the fuzzies and anything else that happens to be standing up. As I mentioned in another thread not too long ago, as far as I can tell the typical sanding sealer or vinyl sealer seems to negatively impact adhesion. I've NEVER seen nitro over bare wood or shellac come off in big sheets. I've seen it just delaminate from the sealer, though. I'm not even talking about looks because just this alone is a non-starter for me. If you search around, you'll find others that have seen the same thing. I know Howard Klepper has written about this. I believe Frank Ford has written about this too. Robert Benedetto also just sprays directly onto wood. There are many examples of amateurs online that have had similar problems too.

george wilson

01-12-2014, 11:19 AM

Correct,John. Vinyl sealer is,as I have mentioned,like thinned out white glue pretty much. You had might as well spray your lacquer over Formica. Over time,the lacquer will get drier and drier. It takes quite some time for it to truly get fully dry. When it does get real dry,it can begin to lost its grip. An example of true lacquer drying time: Back in the 60's I made a rosewood guitar,relying on lacquer sanding sealer to fill the rosewood as an experiment. I rubbed it to a pore free,perfectly smooth finish. 6 months later,I saw pores. I rubbed it again. 6 months later,I saw pores again. That was a full year of the lacquer drying!! When the epoxy sets,it is not going to keep shrinking like that. It is DONE. Shellac will also take a long time to really fully dry. It dries by evaporation just like the lacquer. This is why I have been using the epoxy method.

A sanded finish over dewaxed shellac or epoxy will give a "mechanical" grip. Vinyl sealer is pretty slippery stuff.

I,as I said,have been using the epoxy method since the 80's. The 3 arch top guitars I posted here before were made back then and I still have them. None have had any delaminating problems. My favorite electric,the orange Gretsch repro,has been played a lot over the years without any problems with the finish coming loose.

If Julie decides she is afraid of trying the epoxy method,because she hasn't done it before, or for whatever reason, I encourage her to at least use a few coats of de waxed shellac instead of the vinyl sealer. The finish will look so much more deep and interesting if she stays away from that vinyl.

Julie,if there is any doubt about what I have said,make a dyed piece of the same wood your guitar is made of. Put the vinyl sealer on it,and spray lacquer over it. You have been very organized in your approach to building your guitar. This extra trial will show you what I mean about a "cool" and lifeless finish.

Chris's guitar is shaded so dark it might not make a big difference to the looks of that Tele he just posted. A lighter colored,or,especially a natural finish,will show it up real big. Your blue color will show it too.

For porous woods like mahogany or rosewood,I put down as light coat of my epoxy. Then,I fill the grain with dark walnut paste wood filler(Or you could use the newer water based filler). I fill twice. The first coat of epoxy is to keep the oil from the filler out of the wood,which oil will turn it extremely dark on my very old wood. Next,another coat or 2 of epoxy,sanded 220 grit to leave an abraded surface for the nitro to bite into.

Frankly,the reason I use the old,oil based filler is simply that I have it on hand. And,it is REAL DARK,not showing up on rosewood at all. It lasts forever if you keep the can closed. The new,water based stuff might really be easier to deal with as it will sand off more easily. Just so it does stay in the grain,and does not get pulled out by the sanding. And is dark enough to not show.

Julie Moriarty

01-12-2014, 11:32 AM

Thanks for the heads-up George. I've never used vinyl sealer before. I had read something from a luthier recently that recommended using it. Trying to cram in all the information I have these past weeks, I still don't have the confidence I hoped to have about the direction I take in every step of this project. Of all the skills and knowledge I have in the area of woodworking, there's little doubt in my mind that finishing is the most deficient.

Watching videos from professional guitar finishers, I gathered that you need to grain fill porous woods and you need to seal before the final finish. Jewitt recommends spraying a washcoat of sanding sealer thinned with equal parts of lacquer thinner as a sealer but he doesn't say what the sanding sealer product is. There are so many different products on the market, how do you know which to use? It seems he's saying grain filler, sealer, finish - in that order. Is that right? There's so many different ways to do this but is there one right way to finish a guitar?

So let me ask you George, would you take the Behlen Instrument Lacquer back? I'll take the Vinyl Sealer back but what about the rest? I want to do this right. But I want to keep it relatively simple. The epoxy concerns me because there seems little room for error. I don't want this project to become my opponent.

I have guitar building books by Melvyn Hiscock and Martin Koch. I have a guitar design book by Leonardo Lospennato. I have finishing books by Jeff Jewitt and Teri Masasachi. And I've read practically every page in their books and learned a lot. They all have a lot of great information in them but all of them leave me still asking questions. That's why I said before, the finishing part of this seems to be the holy grail. I'm forever searching for it.

george wilson

01-12-2014, 11:54 AM

Julie,I just finished adding info to my above post. Go back and read it again. There is full info about sealing.

I sensed that you might be a bit cautious about the epoxy. I had no trouble with it my first time out,but I am very experienced and good about getting out of slippery situations.

Then,go ahead and use a few coats of de waxed shellac. Give it a few days to dry and sand it with 220 paper. Put on enough shellac that you will not be in danger of sanding through and wiping off your blue stain. Leave the 220 grit surface on the shellac to give a mechanical grip for the lacquer.

Since you are not spraying directly onto naked dyed wood,I would go ahead and use the Behlen's lacquer since you have it. The lacquer cannot melt the shellac to get at the dye. The vinyl sealer can be returned. You will screw a longish wooden handle to your body where the neck goes,won't you? You need some way to hold and rotate the body while you work. Drill a hole in the end of the handle to hang it up,of course. You cannot just try spraying 1 side of the body at a time. Overspray will get on the unsprayed part. Spray it all. And,work fast so your lacquer doesn't start getting dry where you first started.

You could also put a narrow handle on the bottom of your neck,where it screws to the body.

How do you plan to rub the lacquer? I'd wait at least a few weeks. They wait a LOT LONGER in factories to rub the finish. They wait months. I also did,last guitar. The longer you way,the better it will polish. Plus,it will shrink less subsequently. Many,many are the guitars I have spent 40 long hours rubbing by hand. Most of my life,actually,save for the 16 years I was in the historic area,using varnish and French polish. Now,I made a slow speed buffer to use with those large muslin wheels StewMac sells. I took a 1725 motor,and slowed it to half speed by pulleys,to the shaft with the wheels on it. Too fast,and you will melt the lacquer and ruin it. Still,be careful of heat build up when buffing. Put your hand often upon the place you are buffing. It can get pretty hot. Too hot,and the guitar finish will get ruined.

I found, last guitar,that I could get a much higher gloss with some bright yellow bar of buffing compound I got from Gesswein some time ago. I don't know the number off hand,but it is as yellow as a Piper Cub airplane. I have the German stuff,but this yellow just did better,leaving a "wet" gloss. Draw up a Gesswein catalog on line and order the bar of bright yellow compound to use after the finest German polish. Even if it is stated that this yellow compound is for metal,try it out. I can't recall its stated use right now. I CAN tell you,the yellow stuff removed hardly any lacquer,not even 600 grit wet sanding scratches. Get rid of those first with your other compound.

John Coloccia

01-12-2014, 11:57 AM

Personally, Julie, if I do any sealing at all, it's before pore filing and the only reason I seal is to keep any dye in the filler from staining the wood. At a minimum, I'll seal around any wooden binding, but I often just wipe on a coat of shellac on the whole guitar. Most of it gets sanded off anyway. I'll also put down a "sealer" coat over bare or dyed wood before I start spraying color. Again, it's really being used as a sealer to protect the wood from colors bleeding. That's usually lacquer, because I'm spraying anyway so why not. The seal coat before filling is just wiped on shellac, strictly for convenience.

If you use the epoxy method of pore filling, there's no need to seal anything unless you dye the epoxy. Personally, I would use a Pacer product called Zpoxy Finishing Resin for that. It's available in most hobby stores, has a long working time, and sand like a dream. I personally pore fill with thinned Timbermate, often mixed with transtint liquid dye to get the color I want. If I don't seal with shellac first, the dye will discolor the wood.

I just lent Koch's book to a friend's son. It's a good book. :)

george wilson

01-12-2014, 12:40 PM

I'll have to find some of that Zpoxy,John. Easy sanding is always helpful. Afraid every hobby shop near here is long out of business. Apparently the only hobbies are video games these days.:(

I just watched a Timbermate video. Looks good. I had some water based filler at my shop where I worked,but did not have the opportunity to use it as I was making maple guitars at that time. My stuff was from Luthier's Merchantile. I'm only planning to use maple for the foreseeable future,too. It makes a great sounding guitar and is just easier to deal with in finishing.

Julie Moriarty

01-12-2014, 1:16 PM

Julie,if there is any doubt about what I have said, make a dyed piece of the same wood your guitar is made of. Put the vinyl sealer on it,and spray lacquer over it. You have been very organized in your approach to building your guitar. This extra trial will show you what I mean about a "cool" and lifeless finish.

I had begun the previous post before reading the last two posts made today. But to let you know, I am heeding your advice.

I had planned on doing two grain fillings, a washcoat of shellac then spraying lacquer over that. When I was at Woodcraft yesterday, I had picked up a quart of Behlen lacquer. Then I saw the Stringed Instrument Lacquer. Of course! This is it! When I read the directions it said:

1. - Surface should be finish ready (properly sanded and clear of oils, dirt or dust). Note: If applying over filled and stained woods see those Behlen product labels proper application and drying times.

2. - Apply ONE COAT of Behlen Vinyl Sanding Sealer

3. - Allow to dry 1 hour and scuff sand to 320 - 360 grit smoothness. Clean well the surface of any dust.

4. - Apply one wet uniform coat of Stringed Instrument Lacquer at ready to use strength. Allow at least ONE hour dry time. Scuff sand with 360 grit. Clean the surface of any dust.

5. - Repeat the step (#4) above 4 more times to give a total of five (5) Lacquer coats. & after each coat: Allow at least 1 hour dry time. Scuff sand to 360 grit. Clean the surface of any dust.

6. - Allow to dry 24, or better, 48 to 72 hours.

7. - Wet sand with 400 grit wet / or Dry Paper & Mineral Spirits, clean surface & remove sanding residue with denatured alcohol on a clean white cotton rag. Allow at least ONE hour for drying.

8. - Apply one Final coat at a 1-to-1 ratio of Lacquer & Behlen Lacquer Thinner 631 (this assures better flow and leveling of the final lacquer coat.)

9. - Allow Stringed Instrument Lacquer to Air Dry for 48 to 74 hours prior to final rub out.

Special Note: (For the BEST Result, when polishing out to a high sheen, the finish should cure for at least 21 days prior to any polishing operations.)

And so there it was, simple, easy to understand instructions for applying a finish to a stringed instrument. And it coincided with what I had recently read. I had a stringed instrument, a product designed for that and easy to understand, step-by-step instructions. The clouds parted and the sun shone brightly! :cool:

I have come to believe Behlen is highly regarded by many professional finishers. In fact I thought it was their go-to product. Now I'm back to to where I was - still unsure. :(

-----------------------------------------

I just read the latest posts. Thank you guys! I don't feel so lost now.

Taking what I have read here and elsewhere and throwing in some of Behlen's instructions, tell me if I have these steps right (this will be for the sapele body, not the blue-dyed maple body):

Wet the surface to raise the grain and let dry
Sand the fuzzies to 220
Apply the dye
Apply a shellac washcoat to seal the dye
Rub in grain filler, allow to dry, sand, apply a second coat filler and sand to 220
Apply a shellac sealer (I want the garnet shellac to impart its tone to the wood)
Apply one wet uniform coat of Stringed Instrument Lacquer at ready to use strength. Allow at least ONE hour dry time. Scuff sand with 220 grit. Clean the surface of any dust.
Repeat the step (#4) above 4 more times to give a total of five (5) Lacquer coats. After each coat: Allow at least 1 hour. Scuff sand with 220 grit. Clean the surface of any dust.
Allow to dry 24, or better, 48 to 72 hours.
Wet sand with 400 grit wet / or Dry Paper & Mineral Spirits, clean surface & remove sanding residue with denatured alcohol on a clean white cotton rag. Allow at least ONE hour for drying.
Apply one Final coat at a 1-to-1 ratio of Lacquer & Behlen Lacquer Thinner 631 (this assures better flow and leveling of the final lacquer coat.)
Allow Stringed Instrument Lacquer to air dry for 21 days, or more, prior to final polishing.
Wet sand the finish with soapy water through progressively finer grits - 800, 1200, 1500 and 2000 – cleaning and checking progress along the way.
Apply rubbing compound with water and bring to a high gloss.
Apply wax if desired.

I do want this guitar to look good but at the same time I don't want for the process to become so laborious that it becomes self-defeating. There's been a lot of skill learning along the way and I'm enjoying that but for skills that have a deep learning curve, I'd rather not make that part of the first build. So if these steps will work, I'm fine with that for now. I'll dive into epoxy later. But if there's something I need to change in those steps, by all means, please let me know.

You guys have been great! I only hope I can absorb all the information you've provided and apply it correctly.

George: I built a rotisserie kind of holder for the guitar body finishing. I posted a pic in the Telecaster thread. I'll be using that for this body too.

george wilson

01-12-2014, 2:42 PM

All looks well,Julie,except I would sand wet and not use mineral spirits on the guitar. Water will dry off better and leave no residue.

Julie Moriarty

01-12-2014, 2:59 PM

All looks well,Julie,except I would sand wet and not use mineral spirits on the guitar. Water will dry off better and leave no residue.

Great! Looks like we got a plan! :D

I'm running some dye tests today. That figured sapele looked amazing when it was a big slab. But since I turned part of it into the smaller format of a guitar body, it's lost some of that pizzazz. I'm trying to get it back.

george wilson

01-12-2014, 4:21 PM

I didn't mean to say John's suggestions weren't valid,Julie. I'm taking some of his myself. Just tired today.

John Coloccia

01-12-2014, 4:27 PM

I didn't mean to say John's suggestions weren't valid,Julie. I'm taking some of his myself. Just tired today.

I think we pretty much follow a very similar schedule except for a couple of small details that don't really matter much. I think it's pretty standard because it works and it doesn't waste a lot of time trying to fix what should have already been fixed in prep.

One thing I generally don't do, though, is sand in between coats unless I really screw something up :)

george wilson

01-12-2014, 4:38 PM

John,your mailbox is full.

John Coloccia

01-12-2014, 5:21 PM

John,your mailbox is full.
Sorry about that. Go ahead and try again :)

John Coloccia

01-12-2014, 11:47 PM

Hey, Julie. Just reading through your finish schedule, I just wanted to make some comments. Just take these as suggestions, and hopefully others will chime in with their experience as well.

The things that I'm not really that hot on are the number of coats, the sanding and the time to final polish. Personally, unless there is some sort of significant flaw in the finish...a run, or maybe some major orange peel, I'm not hot on sanding between coats. I guess it doesn't hurt but be really careful to not try and do too much for the early coats or you'll just sand right through and then you'll be fixing...and however hard finishing is (it's not, but it can be), FIXING is 10 times harder.

I also personally don't think that 5 coats of lacquer is enough for the typical guitar finish. We like to get these finishes sanded flat...and I mean FLAT. No shiny spots left when you're done. Unless your prep is perfect, and your spray technique is perfect, I don't think that you'll get there with 5 coats. My general finish schedule has me spraying 3 coats a day, for 3 days. That's 9 coats. They're spread out over 3 days so that the finish has plenty of time to outgas between coats, and between sessions. You absolutely do not want to trap significant amounts of solvent. The finish will take FOREVER to outgas and shrink back. I'd go less on a flat top acoustic, but my prep work would be absolutely impeccable to begin with and I would still go the full schedule if I had to if I botched up my spray technique.

And that takes me to the final polish. If you wait just 72 hours, I will pretty much guarantee you that however perfectly you flatten and buff that finish, in a month it will loose a good portion of that sheen. If you sniff the guitar, and it still smells anything at all like lacquer, keep waiting. A minimum of 1 to 2 weeks is reasonable, and as George said a month would be absolutely normal. If not, the finish will continue to shrink and squirm around as it looses that last little bit of solvent, and your finish will go from a beautiful, buffed high gloss to a somewhat duller finish. It's just the nature of the beast. Behlen's schedule seems more appropriate to something like a violin where you're really not looking for that ridiculously, glassy finish that some idiot long ago decided guitars should have.

None of the stuff I'm mentioning is fatal. You can follow that schedule and have really great results, but if you want this thing to look that vision you probably have in your head, I think you need to modify it just slightly.

That's just my opinion.

george wilson

01-13-2014, 8:23 AM

I agree about not sanding every coat. I have not been clear enough about that. Thank you,John. In post #100,I did mention to get a few coats of sealer on before sanding. A "few" is a vague number. Sorry. You could put on more than that before sanding. Certainly you do not want to sand through. As long as the last coat of sealer is sanded,all is well.

John is absolutely correct about getting the sealing operation impeccable before spraying the final lacquer. I do that too, VERY CAREFULLY, because any flaws till telegraph right through the final coats. As I mentioned in an earlier post,,when that finish shrinks EVEN FOR A YEAR,any pores or other defects left in the under coat will start showing right through.

The number of finishing coats may need to be more than 5 ,depending upon how thick you are spraying your lacquer. I mix my own,and have never wanted to use the pre thinned stuff(I don't think you get as much lacquer for your money when it is pre thinned. You are paying lacquer price for extra lacquer THINNER in the can). So,the number of coats is open to question. I spray my lacquer on as thickly mixed as possible. There are so many variables that numbers of coats,etc. can get confusing. Certainly,with the way I mix my lacquer,and with the solids content(which varies with brands) I haven't been putting 9 coats on an acoustic. but,that's totally just with my methodology. Your mileage may vary. As I mentioned,I stayed away from Behlen after it attacked dyed inlays. But,that was in the 60's. It may have totally been re formulated by now. I have used Star brand for many years. It's the prettiest stuff I have ever tried. And,I got it wholesale with a large order I'm still using.

Certainly you don't want any shiny spots after sanding. But,on acoustics I do keep the number of coats to a minimum. The thicker the finish,the more it kills tone. Also,the worse the finish will craze if it ever gets real cold. A few years ago I had to refinish a guitar I made because the power was accidentally turned off in a mountain vacation cottage where the guitar was left. At least the guitar didn't split open. It really froze though,and crazed the finish.

Julie Moriarty

01-13-2014, 10:08 AM

Thanks again guys! When I tell people John and George are helping me build the guitar they looked startled. "Where's Paul and Ringo?" http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/guitar_01_zpse5f59873.gif

Yesterday I was laying down some coats over five different samples - Trans Tint dye in yellow, orange, golden brown, red and no dye. I just wanted to see how the colors looked on the wood. I cut a lot of corners because the finish didn't matter, only the color.

After the dye, I wiped a 2# cut of garnet shellac then waited a couple of hours. I lightly sanded with 220 then started spraying gloss lacquer out of a can. I probably laid down 4-5 coats. The orange peel was substantial and made it hard to get a really good image of the different tones. So I sanded the lacquer smooth with 220 and laid down another coat on each of the five samples. Orange peel wasn't as bad but it still impaired the view. Lacquer was still seeping into the pores.

I didn't use any grain filler. And maybe that was the problem. I'm going to do some wet sanding on the pieces today, for experience as much as an attempt to decide what dye to use.

Last night I was delving again into Jewitt's Finishing book. He pointed out that alcohol-based dyes create greater contrast than water-based dyes and showed a picture, which showed a substantial difference. I've only used water when mixing dyes. I'm going to sample the dyes I like the most with alcohol and see how they turn out. He also mentioned water-based fillers are a good choice if using alcohol-based dyes.

When I was spraying WB finish on the kitchen cabinets, I laid down several coats before the first sanding. I plan to do the same with the guitar body. With all those curves, I don't want to sand through. John, I planned on using your spraying schedule. It's easy to follow and if it works for you I'm sure it will work for me. But I'm still a bit on the fence about when to do the grain filling. I've seen it both ways in Jewitt's book - before and after the dye - but have no idea which way would work better here.

The video series I've been using for the project, from Fletcher Guitars, shows using Timbermate, watered down and mixed with black dye on an ash body. He brushed it on, let it dry, sanded it and came back for a second coat. I'm leaning towards a yellow dye so I was thinking maybe using Fletcher's method but with yellow dye instead of black and not using the mahogany filler at all. I tried the black dye method on a sample piece of this wood and it looked awful! That wood is just too dark. But maybe Timbermate with yellow dye mixed in will help pop the grain. Of course, that would take the alcohol-based dye out of the picture, or not?

Finishing also had a few pics of spraying a Strat body. :D In one section Jewitt covered spraying a sunburst pattern and was using a standard HVLP gun, like mine! :D:D So I'll be experimenting with that too. I suspect Leo Fender (or whoever) came up with the dark borders so they didn't have to deal with the dark end grain problem. Then they called it sunburst. I'm sure the sapele end grain will soak up the dyes like a sponge.

I'm getting anxious to put this thing together and play it. I really want to work on the neck. But since the body will be sitting for 3-5 weeks after the final lacquer coat, I need to get that done first. So I'll be good and stay in the finishing shop till the body is done. ;)

Larry Fox

01-13-2014, 11:13 AM

John and George certainly seem to have you covered on the finer details of the finish schedule and I definitely can't add anything useful to that part of it. However, I do have a practical question which is -- do you have the setup to be able to spray lacquer safely? Lacquer thinner is extremely flammable and carries all sorts of exposure risks. If you do - great - the results will be fantastic. If not, you might want to rethink it and go with maybe something water-based. Just my $0.02.

http://www.wsc.edu/facility_services/msds/lacquer_thinner.pdf

george wilson

01-13-2014, 12:42 PM

Sunburst was around for many,many years before Fender came along. People we're very conservative about what things looked like. Even when I was young,if you owned a red car,you would be ridiculed by others.

Julie Moriarty

01-13-2014, 9:39 PM

do you have the setup to be able to spray lacquer safely? Lacquer thinner is extremely flammable and carries all sorts of exposure risks. If you do - great - the results will be fantastic. If not, you might want to rethink it and go with maybe something water-based. Just my $0.02.

No, I do not have a proper, explosion proof spray booth. I know about the volatility and toxicity of lacquer and that's why I initially planned to go the waterborne route. But research into the experience of others in doing guitar finishes told me I'd be rolling the dice. While I have read many accounts of people who have been unhappy with the results of applying WB finishes to their guitar, I have yet to read a single account of that with lacquer. Maybe Mother Nature will accommodate me and give me a couple of warm winter days so I can spray outside.

Work in the finishing shop has been going slow. I've been trying out a number of methods to determine which one I'll use. I diluted some Timbermate and tinted it with yellow dye and laid that down. I had to completely sand it off to get the yellow streaks out. Then I laid on some yellow dye, then shellac, then lacquer.

I then took out the Behlen Mahogany Filler to give it a try.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/BehMahFil_zps81be0d4d.jpg
Must be the new 21st century mahogany. :rolleyes:

The can had already been opened so I initially suspected someone had tinted it. But research proved otherwise. That's what you get from Behlen when you buy mahogany filler. I tried a little and sanded it down to smooth and got most of the salmon color out but you could still see it in the pores when you looked closely. Some have taken this back, some have used it and liked the results. I'm going to take it back and get their neutral filler and dye it. I liked the way it filled the pores better than diluted Timbermate. I just don't like the salmon color.

I do like the chatoyance from the piece I used filler on. It's a lot deeper. And it took less coats to level out.

Now I have to find out how to fan out the different tones to give the burst effect I have in my head. Right now I'm thinking I'll be tinting the lacquer to do the burst. I'll be shocked if I pull this off!

Chris Fournier

01-13-2014, 10:36 PM

George, I think that you need to keep your finishing recommendations within the context of this thread. Julie is making a rock and roll guitar for her son, it is not a commisioned museum piece from the violin family. On top of this, literally, Julie is using a waterbased finish which will be many coats thick - this will contribute to a cold lifeless finish (if not compensated for with a shader/toner treatment etc.) long before one thin coat of any kind of sealer will. I would use a thin coat of vinyl sealer over the coloured instrument and then again over the pore filler, all told thin as a bees wing.

I certainly would not use modern finishes on instruments intended to be reproductions of early stringed instruments. I agree with you 100% in this regard.

As far as sanding between coats goes any advcie needs to be based on the quality and thickness of coats that are being laid down. I like to spray carefully and sand as little as possible but still build ASAP. Using NC I would think that 9 to 12 of my wet coats would do the trick. I spray three coats a day, alternating 90 degrees on the spray axis, sand the next day and once I have my final coat on I wait until I can't smell solvent (thumb nail test on a tester board as well I should add) - 1 to 2 weeks hanging and then sand/buff/polish by hand. Machine buffing is too risky to my way of thinking. Lack of skill? Maybe.

John Coloccia

01-13-2014, 11:54 PM

I believe she's switched to a NC lacquer finish. Anyhow, the main problem with the vinyl sealer is delamination. Guys that use it successfully tend to hot coat at least one coat of lacquer within an hour of spraying the vinyl. That said, I know of quite a few delamination failures over vinyl. That just never happens over shellac or bare wood. I think the finish schedule she's settled on is pretty much straight from the book how most people do a basic guitar finish.

re: pink Behlens
I don't get that at all. I have a customer that used that on a guitar of his, and there was no magic trick involved...all of the pores turned pink, just as you'd expect. I'm not really sure what they're expecting you to do with that other than to dye it the proper color....but then why wouldn't you just by the natural color base? What a strange product.

george wilson

01-14-2014, 8:29 AM

Chris,I don't know what you are talking about,frankly. I am not recommending violin finishes to Julie. I have shown a few pictures of the richness and depth she should expect to get even with nitro cellulose. It is a beautiful finish if used with proper sealers. Gloss considerations aside,I could have made the same beautiful finish with NC lacquer on that Viola DaGamba with some tinting in the lacquer. I have used the methods I described on my modern guitars for many years. No "museum masterpiece" type stuff involved at all on my electric or acoustic guitars. Simple nitrocellulose lacquer,which is what Julie has purchased for her guitar.

I really don't need to learn guitar making again,but thanks anyway for your concern.

You need a real dark brown walnut filler. I just do not see how that filler is going to work. A lot of the mahoganies you can buy these days do look so light,I think that filler was made to match natural "Honduras mahogany",which is rather pinkish brown. That filler will darken a bit when it dries, to match the light mahoganies, but it is never going to match that dark wood you have.

Old timers actually used plaster of Paris,tinted with dry stain powders on mahogany finishes. I know one old English guy who still did in the 70's (Roy had his tool chest on his show). It worked then,and would still work now. I would recommend testing a small batch first,to make sure it still would dry with the stain powder in it. And, the stain powder needs to be water based,of course. My point here: Old timers knew how to get by with nearly nothing. In the Anthony Hay cabinet shop in Williamsburg,they STILL use ground up brick dust on their mahogany,which was also used in the 18th. C.. It gave a lively reddish color to the wood which was prized. Before mahogany,the English were largely confined to the more drab appearance of their oak and walnut furniture. They loved the new colors.

These are off hand tips to store in your memory. Just interesting information to know. I am not giving you this info as "museum masterpiece" info for you to follow. Best for you to get some properly colored water based filler like John recommended.

Chris Fournier

01-14-2014, 8:48 AM

Julie Moriarty

01-14-2014, 11:44 AM

While waiting for the test pieces to do their thing, I cut slots in three different fretboard woods. I routed and sanded the radius on the maple and cocobolo but only did the slots on the ebony.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretboard_01_zps4d73d70c.jpg

The short piece of cocobolo has a thin coating of fretboard finishing oil on it. If you can't see it, there are streaks of yellow in the cocobolo. No doubt a guitar would have to be designed around this wood. Both the ebony and cocobolo are glass smooth. I can't get that on other woods, but maple does come closest. If one decides not to finish the fretboard (other than oil), so far I'd say these three woods are all good candidates.

I'm learning of all the processes one goes through making a guitar, the one that requires double and triple checking EVERYTHING before you begin cutting, shaping, gluing, etc is the fretboard. It HAS to be perfect! I have more screwed up fretboards than good fretboards

I'm finding it very difficult to choose between yellow dye and golden brown, both Trans Tint dye colors. They are so close in final color, once applied, but each lends different characteristics to the wood. When we were deciding on the right mix for the kitchen cabinets, it took us a month as we went through 20-30 samples. Eventually I realized most of them looked pretty much the same. I'm not going through that again. K.I.S.S. - keep it simple, stupid.

My SO ordered a cream pearloid pickguard and some gold hardware. It was the right thing to do. The new parts will be here long before I can install them anyway. I've already got plans for the red pickguard and chrome parts. :)

As to the finish, yes, I'm going the lacquer route. I liked the surface the Behlen filler left after sanding, but not the color. So I'll exchange the mahogany filler for neutral. The filled wood soaked up much less finish and left a smoother surface. This is my first foray into fillers.

The cherry necks are losing in the polls. Curly maple has passed them and is now in the lead. Oh, and one other thing, this guitar is MINE! :D My son has enough... although he doesn't think so. :rolleyes:

John Coloccia

01-14-2014, 11:55 AM

Looking good, Julie. Please be very careful with that Cocobolo. It's one of the worst woods out there for developing sensitivities and irritations. It's no longer allowed in my shop. Every wood does that to some extent or another, and especially rosewoods I guess, but Cocobolo is just about the worst. Please be sure to stay covered up, wear gloves, wear SOME sort of breathing protection and keep the shop air clean :)

george wilson

01-14-2014, 12:22 PM

I heard of one guy who went blind for 2 weeks from turning coco bolo on a lathe. Many of these tropical woods have bad stuff in them that enables them to survive in the jungle where everything wants to eat them.

Julie Moriarty

01-14-2014, 3:24 PM

I knew cocobolo was toxic but not THAT toxic! But I always wear gloves, a respirator, work apron, collect as much dust as I can at the source and I vacuum after working like a Suzy Homemaker, no matter what wood I'm working with. But even with all that, you guys are scaring me :eek:

While reading Jeff Jewitt's Finishing, he said something to the effect that if Murphy is going to show up in the course of a project he will show during finishing. Maybe that's why I've always had an aversion to it. I was in the shop messing around some more with different finishes and felt like I was just spinning my wheels. I ended up back working on the neck. Maybe I'll just oil the body...

John Coloccia

01-14-2014, 3:29 PM

Its like working with epoxy. Some people are more sensative than others, and sensativity can increase with exposure and time. I worked with enough of it that it started bothering me.

george wilson

01-14-2014, 6:59 PM

Well,cocobolo never seemed to bother me,but I never went to extremes to breathe it that much. There are people who are allergic to all kinds of woods,even the more common ones. It depends upon your allergies.

Julie Moriarty

01-15-2014, 9:26 AM

Yesterday, I applied alcohol-based yellow dye to the guitar body (the sapele one). Later, I wiped on a coat of garnet shellac. When it dried, it felt bumpy. After several hours, I lightly sanded with 220 paper and then brushed on a coat of water-based filler with yellow dye mixed in.

As soon as that dried, I sanded it back with a foam padded 320 paper. I'm not sure how far I got, but I don't think I went past the shellac in any areas. I was very careful when sanding and stopped as soon as the filler was off the surface.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/body_01_zpsca434f48.jpg

The color resembled the unfinished wood but with less grain character visible. The yellow dye in the filler was evident in all the pores that were filled so, before the filler cured to a rock hard, I wiped on a coat of alcohol-based golden brown dye.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/body_02_zps1b8e9176.jpg

When it was going on, the wood gave off a chocolate brown color. I immediately noticed how smooth the surface was. I could see this being able to take a very glossy finish and have no issues with pitting.

BUT...

The wood was too dark. And I'm worried about the filler hiding the chatoyance.

george wilson

01-15-2014, 9:42 AM

Julie,I love your jig building!!

My last guitar had dark brown walnut in the rosewood,and chatoyance was fine.

Julie Moriarty

01-15-2014, 10:09 AM

Julie,I love your jig building!!

My last guitar had dark brown walnut in the rosewood,and chatoyance was fine.

I'm Irish. We love jigs! ;)

I took it to a vote here at home. No more trying to mess with Mother Nature! It's fine. Just go with what you have and move forward.

I'm mixing up some fresh shellac...

John Coloccia

01-15-2014, 10:14 AM

I think you'll find things look different after that first coat of nitro, and then you'll understand why we keep coming back to it :)

John Coloccia

01-15-2014, 6:50 PM

Julie,I love your jig building!!

100% agreed. I have to say, Julie, I think you have some real talent for this. You've made incredible progress in a very short time, and you really have some great instincts.

I don't have time right now, but at some point I'll do a little write up about my basic nut filing and setup routine. There's a lot of bad information out there about this sort of stuff. I'll give you a procedure that will reliably get you from a completely fresh build to a world class setup easily and most importantly, RELIABLY. There's a definite order and technique that will allow to decouple things like saddle height, truss rod setup and nut height so that you can reliably adjust anything you'd like even if everything else is all out of whack...and that's the situation you'll have on a new build :)

PM me your address. I'm going to lend you some of my Erlewine videos. There are some things he does that I don't agree with, but in general I think you should watch them. I'm going to send you nut videos and fret work videos. Just send them back when you're done :)

Julie Moriarty

01-19-2014, 2:05 PM

I don't have time right now, but at some point I'll do a little write up about my basic nut filing and setup routine. There's a lot of bad information out there about this sort of stuff. I'll give you a procedure that will reliably get you from a completely fresh build to a world class setup easily and most importantly, RELIABLY. There's a definite order and technique that will allow to decouple things like saddle height, truss rod setup and nut height so that you can reliably adjust anything you'd like even if everything else is all out of whack...and that's the situation you'll have on a new build :)

I am looking forward to this! Thank you so much! I have a lot of info I downloaded from Dan E. and have watched many of his videos but he doesn't put his fine tuning vids on YouTube.

Back to the build...

I started playing around with applying the shellac sealer. As I had applied alcohol-based dye, I wasn't surprised to see some of the dye come up with the shellac. I was prepared for that and had already tinted the shellac with dye.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/body_finish_01_zps5c406cf0.jpg

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/body_finish_02_zpsefef283e.jpg

The pictures show yellow that I don't see under normal room lighting. Maybe it will be different in a sunlit room.

In order to get some idea which fretboard I'll be using, I put on the pickguard assembly, jack plate and trem and took pictures of each of the three fretboard woods I felt were good candidates - ebony, cocobolo and maple.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretboard_comps_01_zpsfccfd6fb.jpg
None of the fretboards have any finish on them. All will be darker and richer in color. Here at home, ebony has been voted off the island. ;)

I'm still in a quandary about how I'm going to spray the lacquer. Mother Nature isn't cooperating but it is January in Chicago, so I'm not expecting much help for a while. In the meantime, I got back to the neck...

Julie Moriarty

01-19-2014, 2:42 PM

The lack of any kind of reliable drawings really challenges anyone going into this. The vintage tuners are pretty straightforward, so long as you get them properly aligned. The German made tuners (Schaller and Fender American) are a bit trickier. They have alignment posts on the back instead of screws mounted on the back.

I mentioned in an earlier post you can't buy a tapered reamer for stepped pegholes. Yesterday, I found I was wrong. I found them in the StewMac catalog. I have already made a sanding-type reamer that works OK. I had to turn a dowel on the lathe and then wrap it with PSA sandpaper. I had to guess on the taper when turning the dowel.

But the real challenge was making sure the holes for the tuner pins were in proper alignment. It's very easy to spin it off being perpendicular to the edge of the headstock and parallel to each other. I still haven't done that to my satisfaction. And yes, Stewie has a jig for that too. (Twist my arm!)

I did, however, get the drilling of the pegholes down pat.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/pegdrill_01_zpse759a727.jpg
I found the location for the top of the headstock to be butted against for drilling the first hole.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/pegdrill_02_zps2f1fa99d.jpg
So I turned a dowel on the lathe to the exact size of the smaller diameter hole in the stepped hole and used that to set the spacing between successive holes. The hole to the left in the MDF is spaced the exact distance between the pegholes on the headstock. The arrow is where the drill bit sets.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/pegdrill_04_zpsb3ef35f7.jpg
Perfect! By moving the pin to the newly drilled hole, it's easy to drill the rest of the holes.

From there I took the neck to the bandsaw and cut just shy of the eventual 14mm thickness the headstock needs to be...

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/headstock_cut_01_zpsaaaf5aeb.jpg

Then on to the spindle sander to take it to 14mm. (These two pics are from sample necks. These step would not normally be done until after the fretboard was glued on.)

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/headstock_cut_02_zps20f8a7fa.jpg

I used turner's tape to attach the block to the neck to keep the lines of the nut parallel to the sanding drum. I also found out you need to keep all the pressure against the fence, applied at the head. I placed my hand on the tail of the neck and, without realizing it, I had pulled the head into the drum and created a gouge. :eek: You can't even touch any other part of the neck than the headstock if you don't want that to happen.

I rough-installed the tuners and they all fit snugly. I also checked string alignment (tangent off the tuner posts) and they all lined up very well with the anticipated location for each string. I'm feeling pretty confident about this part of the build.

Once we decide which fretboard to use, I'll glue it onto the neck and start shaping the back of the neck. I'm actually looking forward to this part. :)

Shawn Pixley

01-20-2014, 8:25 PM

The pickguard and pickups arrived today. Trying to see where I'm going with this, I "assembled" the guitar. It's not screaming, "PLAY ME!" yet.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_03_zpse12d9934.jpg

I'm trying to figure out if I go with the jatoba fretboard (the bottom one has a few coats of lacquer) or BE maple. The piece under the fretboards is a cutoff from the body. It's been dyed with bright red Trans Tint and has a few coats of lacquer on it. It should be a fairly close representation to the final color of the body, but I'm not sold on that yet.

The tuners are Schaller in a brushed finish. Seeing it all together now, I'm wondering if I should have gone chrome. Here's a better shot of the pickguard:
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_04_zps48281862.jpg

It's just not making my heart skip a beat. When my SO and son get home tonight, I'll see what they say. That slab of sapele looked so gorgeous but I'm just not seeing it here. I'm thinking a black boarder spray might work better than natural wood throughout. Maybe if I used the maple fretboard and made sapele dots for it, that would tie things together better.

What do you guys think?

Sorry not to have replied earlier, but I've been traveling. I like the matte hardware! On the neck fingerboard wood, I would go maple. The sapele looks green relative to the finished body below. To me it seems to clash a bit. For the pickguard, I would go either white (Ivory?) or black. I think the pickguard clashes a bit. You've got a lot going on in this guitar. I might try to keep it simpler. Of course the real judge is you and your son.

Then again, I don't have very flashy (appearance) guitars myself. In fact my favorite, is an old Tele Custom with the worst finish Fender ever put out - "Mocha." Ugly guitar but it does sing!

Julie Moriarty

01-21-2014, 9:11 AM

Yeah, the red pickguard just didn't make it. I set that aside for a curly maple body. My original thoughts were to go with a cream color pickguard and gold hardware. I've got that now. The other hardware will go with the next build.

Last night we were talking about which fretboard wood to use. The ebony was voted out immediately. I was leaning toward the cocobolo so I rough-cut the cocobolo fretboard and placed it on the curly maple neck. My SO, son and I all agreed the cocobolo was the better choice.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/sapele-cocobolo_fret_zps5916a596.jpg
I'll be using pearl inlay dots to finish it. That should tie in the pickguard.
I'm also thinking of dyeing the headstock to blend better with the body. I'll leave the neck natural.

I installed these pickups in the pickguard:

Seymour Duncan SSL-5 Custom Staggered Bridge Pickup
Fender Custom Shop Custom '69 Middle Pickup
Fender Custom Shop Fat '50s Neck Pickup

I'll be adding a SPST switch to activate the neck pickup and wiring it like this: http://www.stratcat.biz/documents/dgbswd-03282013.pdf It's kind of a David Gilmour Black Strat setup. Now all I have to do is practice for about 20,000 hours and I can play as good as him! ;)

george wilson

01-22-2014, 12:32 PM

Julie Moriarty

01-23-2014, 11:21 AM

I remember as a kid,I had to go to a friend's house to use their electric drill. We didn't even have that at the time.

So,I was drilling my Fender style peg head(I think it was my first Fender type),and talking to him. I drilled SEVEN holes!! Boy,was I aggravated. But, I saved the neck by taking the center hole and using it for a string hold down I made from coat hanger wire. Not the best job in the World,but it worked,at least.

I love it! http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/lol06_zpsca3773db.gif My dad had something like this:
http://www.grandpastreasureschest.com/defiance%20drill.jpg
I remember thinking it was so ingenious that you twist off the cap at the end and store the bits.

Julie Moriarty

01-23-2014, 11:32 AM

The point of no return!

This was hard for me. I've been so afraid I'd forget something that it's taken me several days to do this. But now it's done. I first applied silicone sealant in the truss rod slot (just a dab top, middle & bottom), inserted the truss rod, cleaned up the excess and let it cure overnight. This morning I checked to make sure the parts that are supposed to move actually do.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/glue-up_01_zpse39e7d6f.jpg
I placed a piece of tape over the truss rod so I wouldn't get any glue in there.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/glue-up_02_zps341a2138.jpg
And now it's done.

I'm going to shape and sand the neck before spraying lacquer on the body so I can do both at the same time. It's 10 today and it's going to stay in single digits for almost a week, so there will be no spraying outside. Still trying to decide how that work will get done.

george wilson

01-24-2014, 3:09 PM

I have a few of those eggbeaters,Julie. Sometimes it is easier to reach for 1 and drill a hole than it is to get out an electric one,uncoil the wire and plug it in. I don't keep battery operated power tools.

Have you seen this bronze one I made? A very few owner made pieces of this ilk have turned up over the years. Usually made by someone who had access to a foundry,I think. This one I made in the 80's for a wealthy collector who recently gifted it back to me. He was going to build a museum for his huge collection,but kept at work in his business till he got too old and tired to undertake it. It has been buffed a lot over the years. I need to go over it and flatten the surfaces back.

Julie Moriarty

01-25-2014, 1:20 PM

That drill is amazing! You seem to have a lot of talents George! Stop by the shop anytime you're bored. ;)

The other day I did something I hope I don't regret. It was late and I should have retired to the "reading room" (my bedroom) and picked up the novel I'm reading. Instead I scratched an itch that's been bothering me for a while.

The farther I get on this project, the more I want to separate myself from making just another clone, but with different clothes. One of the signatures on most guitars is the shape of the headstock. After I had the neck shaped and sanded smooth, that Fender-style headstock just bothered me more and more. Rather than taking any of several practice pieces I had laying in the shop, I took the finished neck to the bandsaw and cut off the offending sections of the headstock. I won't even post a picture because right now it's ugly. But I think I have a solution that will work... I hope...

george wilson

01-25-2014, 5:35 PM

Oh,but the Fender guitars do have a classic look about them. I played a Strat in 1954 that must have been one of the first made. My brain was very plastic back then,and I picked up how to play "Brazil" just watching the guitar's owner play it for a few minutes. He played in a local bar in Ketchikan. I don't think there were any "clubs" in that waterfront town at the time. That guitar would be worth fortune now!!

I hope you did well altering it. I like the early shape you were using,as opposed to the fatter,curvier shape from the later era guitars. The guy who did the designing used French curves a lot. Hence the nice curves the instrument has in general.

I always used to think the Telecaster looked cheap and unfinished. But now,I have gotten to liking them better. I did own a used 1952 for a while. Paid $75.00 for it. If only we had known the future values.

Julie Moriarty

01-26-2014, 11:32 AM

I too thought the Fender headstock classic looking but, like you George, I didn't like those big heads. That's why I went with the '62 version. But after the neck was shaped and sanded and all I had to do was the dots, fretwire and tuners, I looked at it and something that's been nagging me for a while came to the surface. All I've been doing is making a clone. Outside of the woods used, nothing was from my imagination. It was going to be just another copy. And that bothered me.

So I went to the bandsaw with a neck that was 95% complete and began cutting. :eek: I didn't take out one of the many practice pieces I had. I took the almost finished neck. It was crazy insane. I should have walked away but I knew this was inevitable.

The newly cut headstock compared to how it started:

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/rehead_01_zpsf75d8d3b.jpg

I liked the shape but that shape didn't work with the body shape and I knew I had to do something to beef up the headstock so it could take the string tension. I had been thinking how I could incorporate sapele into the headstock to tie it into the body. Now I had the opportunity. Or should I say the need? :rolleyes: But I first had to make templates and match the joints perfectly for profiling and glue-up.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/rehead_06_zps527acb57.jpg

Getting those two pieces to match perfectly was a lot of work! It took me at least two hours to get to the point I could no longer see light between the edges. Where's a CNC when you need it? http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/O_SUNG1_zps233ed4f5.gif

I then took a piece of sapele from the same stock as the body and rough cut it on the bandsaw. Then I profiled the glue joint edge on the router and did a test fit. I had to make the thickness closest to the head thicker than the rest of the head to accommodate the the transition into the neck.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/rehead_05_zps10da46f7.jpg

The pencil lines are different shapes I was experimenting with to finish off the headstock. The red pencil is the original shape. Nothing was working for me.

After sleeping on it, I think I just need to stick with the original shape. It fits the body and provides the necessary support for string tension. The different woods will hopefully fool the eye away from being just another clone and the sapele will tie in the maple head with the body.

george wilson

01-26-2014, 12:57 PM

Julie,I think from several feet away,the pegged will not read well. The audience,if the guitar is on stage,will only see the whiter part of the neck.

Also,it makes no aesthetic sense to partly cut away the round top end of the peg head. Sorry. That is what I think,and I am a very experienced designer. I'm sure this will not be very welcome news.

The hardest part of becoming a great craftsman is learning to design. I have seen MANY knife makers whose knives are impeccable,but from a design standpoint,are terrible. They learned the skill part,but not the artistry. Even if something is small,you need to look at it from a little distance and see how well it reads. We make jewelry with images in the pieces. We always have to look at it from a few feet away to see if the image is confusing,or if it still comes across well to someone standing in front of the wearer,trying to tell what it is. Your guitar needs to read well from the audience's view point. Even if you aren't making it for use on stage,it could eventually end up that way.

John Coloccia

01-26-2014, 1:09 PM

george wilson

01-26-2014, 3:06 PM

Why wants a MIMIMALIST guitar peg head (or minimalist jewelry?) We know someone who makes minimalist jewelry. She sells hardly any,earning a minimal income.:) By its very nature,jewelry is meant to be decorative. And,guitars need style.

Shawn Pixley

01-26-2014, 11:57 PM

It's very similar to the Parker headstock design. I have a build kicking around on SMC where I ended up with something similar, just as an experiment. I wanted to see what would happen if I removed everything from the headstock that wasn't strictly needed. That's about what I came up with too. I ended up ditching it, but it was fun to play around with :)

I agree with John here. The first alteration does look like the Parker Fly (which is a nice guitar).

I get your reticence about building a clone. I too prefer the smaller Fender headstock (however, I'm not a Stratocaster fan).

George's point around the two materials has some merit. Maybe try a different shape than the stock Fender but add a cap veneer (with a balance veneer on the back)? You could match the body material / color.

george wilson

01-27-2014, 9:02 AM

Agreed,Shawn. I think the peg head will now have to be veneered. But first,remake the fill-in with maple to make it show the least on the edges. Try fitting it closely as possible,and making some hide glue from a packet of Knox unflavored gelatin. It makes a glue so refined,it can make a nearly invisible joint(If the joint really fits tightly.) Lyon and Healey harps are made with this for glue,and the joints in their blonde maple harps are remarkably hard to see.

Next guitar,design another shape from scratch. Do you know that Moseley said he just flipped the strat body over to make his shape? It doesn't make much shape since the cutaway would then be less deep,but that is what he said. Maybe he mounted the neck differently. I haven't made a study of Moseley guitars. Moseley was a small maker. He got the Ventures to play his guitars,and got drowned in orders he couldn't fill. Dealers got tired of trying to order his guitars and it sort of ruined him.

I agree about not just making clones. This is where the going gets tougher. There have been a million amplifier makers out there making amps that look like Fender amps because they can't manage to design their own cabinet. Come on,can't design a BOX????

The Parker Fly is a deviation of the Strat shape. But,at least he deviated some.While not my cup of tea,I don't think the fly has a bad shape from an aesthetic viewpoint.It's edgy,but not bad.

Julie,your thread has made this part of the forum come alive!! I haven't come here much until recently even though I spent the first part of my life making guitars. When I became toolmaker in 1986,I started down other paths as well.

Julie Moriarty

01-27-2014, 11:33 AM

Well, here it is...

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/neck_shaping_04_zps53a73219.jpg

I really like the way it ties in the head with the body. The light color of the maple neck just didn't work. My SO, who is usually great with constructive criticism but short on compliments, loved it, without reservation. That's rare. Anyway, I'm very happy with it and am glad I made the alteration. And since I won't be on stage any time soon :rolleyes:, I won't worry about how it looks from a distance. :D

Yesterday I did all the soldering for the pots, pups and switches. I added a neck-activate switch (circled in red), which is supposed to be a Gilmour-Black-Strat-like setup. Making the bracket to recess it was a bit tricky but it all works (mechanically) now. I'll test it electronically later.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/elec_01_zpsbe27d5aa.jpg

The Arctic Circle will be relocating to Chicago soon so there will be no spraying outside for a while. I still have to finish the neck and I'm looking into doing a bit of inlay work for a logo on the headstock. But this time I'll start with a practice piece. :)

John Coloccia

01-27-2014, 12:15 PM

I actually think that's pretty cool, Julie. You may want to just do that as your "thing".

george wilson

01-27-2014, 12:16 PM

Julie,I am CERTAIN you are headed for stardom. Please bear this in mind!!!:)

I'll bet the strat is the most copied guitar in the World. And Fender amps are the most copied.

Julie Moriarty

01-27-2014, 2:23 PM

On display right now in our family room http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/popcorn-1_zps2be5c0dd.gif
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/strat_06_zps86af87c6.jpg

Tours daily at 9AM and 1PM, $0.25 M-F and $0.35 on weekends. :cool:

But really, I'm thinking I may just finish everything but the lacquer and put it together. I'll be tickled pink if it sounds better than an alley cat that just got hit with an old shoe. Then when the weather gets warm, I'll take it apart and spray the nitro.

Since retiring, I've dreaded winters. I go stir crazy looking at the four walls. But here it is, one of the worst winters we've had in a while, and I look forward to every day. I think I must have been a luthier or a musician in another life. :rolleyes:

John, I think that headstock just might be my signature thing. I'd like to do a re-design but is there really anything that already hasn't been done?

George, I think the reason the Strat is the most copied guitar in the world is because when Leo, Freddy and George collaborated with those musicians in the 50's, the focus was to make a guitar that fit the body. The Strat, with its arm and belly cut, came pretty close to fitting like a glove.

I have everything to make another Strat-style guitar and my SO wants a bass. So there will probably be two more in the works in the next year or so. If I ever get any good at this, I just might take a bold design step or two. :D

John Coloccia

01-27-2014, 2:58 PM

John, I think that headstock just might be my signature thing. I'd like to do a re-design but is there really anything that already hasn't been done?

Not really...somethings, I guess, but it's like painting. Is there anything subject that hasn't been painted? There's still plenty of room for self expression. That two piece headstock is honestly something that I can't recall ever having seen. I'm sure SOMEONE must do something like that, but I don't think I've ever seen it before.

george wilson

01-27-2014, 6:21 PM

Julie, if you don't want to just make a clone,you will have to design a guitar that is all yours alone. I think other reasons the Strat is copied so much is it is not terribly hard to make,and was played a lot by bands. Gibson made their Les Paul guitars with arched tops specifically because they knew that Fender did not have a carving machine. When I was just beginning,I couldn't bend sides without them getting wavy from top to bottom. So,I made solid bodies for a while. And what did I copy? Strats,of course.

The originator of a style gets all the allocates. I have known banjo players who could play rings around Scruggs. But,he invented the style and is famous,not his copyists. Not that you are trying to be famous,but being original is the best thing. I was PAID for years to make copies of 18th. C. tools,but it was not what I really wanted to do. In the evenings I made things like that drill,which is unique.

Joe Leigh

01-27-2014, 8:14 PM

Great job Julie! Love the two piece headstock.

Whenever I think of a Stratocaster, two words come to mind immediately; Ritchie Blackmore.

Nuff said.

Julie Moriarty

01-28-2014, 8:24 PM

Yesterday and today were taken up mostly by the fret videos John generously loaned me. Seems like there's still a lot of work to be done!

After watching two of the videos I checked what I learned with the neck and did some fine tuning. I'm feeling a lot more comfortable moving on to the installation of the fret wire.

I wrote David Fletcher of Fletcher Guitars and thanked him for the videos he posted on YouTube. He responded saying if I need any more help to just ask. You meet the nicest people in the music world. :D

Julie Moriarty

01-30-2014, 5:33 PM

While at Woodcraft yesterday, I picked up some 5" Micro Mesh pads (1500-12000). These were intended for polishing the lacquer. Today I was doing the final prep on the neck getting it ready to fret. On a whim I took out the 1500 Micro Mesh and used it (by hand) across the fingerboard. I took it all the way to 12000 and WOW! The bare wood looked like polished lacquer.

I know some players don't like any finish on their fingerboards but all players like the fingerboard smooth. So I have a question: Would taking a bare wood fingerboard to a high polish, without any lacquer, oil, etc on it, be an acceptable way to finish it?

John Coloccia

01-30-2014, 5:38 PM

I would never finish ANY fingerboard except maple. The only exception might be if it were something unusual, like cherry, and then I'd have to weigh the pros and cons. I forget...what did you use? Every common fingerboard material, except maple, is almost universally left unfinished. In fact, I wouldn't even polish it. I would sand it to about P400....maybe P600, and call it a day. TOO polished can feel sticky. The only exception is maybe something like ebony, where some builders do like to polish it, but that's it.

On new guitars, I do the final fret polish on my buffer. I go out of my way to tape off the fingerboard before buffing specifically so I don't accidentally buff the fingerboard.

Personally, I also wouldn't buff a maple fingerboard. Even with finish on them, the neck and fingerboard feel better when they're taken to a satin finish. High gloss almost always feels sticky.

Julie Moriarty

01-31-2014, 10:34 AM

Just rambling through my thoughts...

Why would only a maple fingerboard be finished? It's a very hard wood so it should stand up better to play than rosewood. And rosewood is an open pore wood so I'm not getting why it's such a go-to wood. I get ebony being a good choice though.

In the first case, the lacquer would present a slick, non-porous surface until the strings wore that away during play. Skin oils and dirt would have no place to imbed while the lacquer finish was still intact. Why wouldn't that become sticky?

With unfinished woods, the pores in the wood would be places skin oil and dirt could imbed and fill the pores, creating a smoother surface. It would seem with the oils and dirt, that surface would get sticky.

In both cases, through play, the strings would wear away whatever finish was there. It seems like no matter which way you go, an equilibrium will eventually be reached. So the perfect finish to a fingerboard would be whatever that equilibrium is. Am I close?

John Coloccia

01-31-2014, 11:39 AM

Exotics are typically oily woods. There's nothing you really need to do to protect them. In fact, just the act of playing the guitar, and getting oils from your hands on the wood, keeps the playing surface in good condition without having to do anything to it at all short of maybe gently cleaning it every now and then. Bare tropical wood fingerboards pretty much always feel good with practically no maintenance required.

If you did that with maple, the maple would almost immediately turn black...and does when you wear through the finish. That's partly why Fender switched to rosewood necks in the 60s. Also, maple is not an oily wood and bare maple doesn't really feel all that nice under your fingers.

Glossy lacquer isn't as slick as you might think. Do this. Rub your hand against a clean window. Now go into your shop, and rub your hand against a sheet of plywood. Which is stickier? If something is too smooth, your hand against it has a tremendous surface area and almost acts like zillions of little suction cups. I've never had anyone ask me to gloss up their neck, but quite a few have asked me to knock back the gloss and take it to a nice, dull satin.

I can tell you that I don't know of any guitar made, anywhere on the planet, that has a finish sprayed over any fingerboard other than maple.

Patrick McCarthy

01-31-2014, 12:05 PM

Julie, John, George and all others contributing to this thread: THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! This thread has been very educational and enjoyable. I love guitars but

I am musically challenged; so much so that when I sing in shower the neighbors call 911 . . . because they are sure someone is dying.

Best regards, Patrick

Sotos Patistas

01-31-2014, 1:33 PM

I can tell you that I don't know of any guitar made, anywhere on the planet, that has a finish sprayed over any fingerboard other than maple.

From what I've read, Rickenbackers have a finished bubinga fingerboard. Vinyl sealer, then varnish. I'm not saying it's a good idea, just saying.

Now that I've un-lurked, I'll add that I appreciate all of the knowledge that everyone posting in this thread has been generous enough to share. I have aspirations to turn a slab of walnut I've had stashed into a tele one day, and this thread is pushing me to make that sooner rather than later.

And great build Julie, your slow steady approach seems to be paying off in the quality of your build.

Thanks again to all.

Jim Creech

01-31-2014, 1:56 PM

No one has ever called 911 on me but I have been visited by PETA a few times. Something about strangling a pig. I don't understand?

John Coloccia

01-31-2014, 2:21 PM

From what I've read, Rickenbackers have a finished bubinga fingerboard. Vinyl sealer, then varnish. I'm not saying it's a good idea, just saying..

I forgot about them. I'm not sure they actually use any sort of rosewood. I see specs that say "African Rosewood", and I can only assume they mean Bubinga. I would have to think if I'd finish over Bubinga. It doesn't really have much in common with a real rosewood. But you're right that they DO put finish over all of their fingerboards, apparently.

Julie Moriarty

01-31-2014, 2:43 PM

I can tell you that I don't know of any guitar made, anywhere on the planet, that has a finish sprayed over any fingerboard other than maple.

What I'm talking about is polishing the bare wood of the fingerboard, without any finish. I do not plan to put any kind of finish on it and never have. Sorry if I didn't state that clearly. And thank you for the info on why maple is finished. That makes sense.

Here's what I did on the cocobolo. It's just bare wood polished to 12000 Micro Mesh. I could probably get a mirror finish on it but for this "experiment" I just wanted to see how the wood polished so I went through the 9 grits pretty quickly. But I do love how it polished the pearl dots!

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/polished_zpsa0d498b0.jpg

I could easily knock it back to 600 or even 400. But before I do that I just wanted to understand the physics involved.

John Coloccia

01-31-2014, 3:45 PM

With stuff like this, it's always a matter of do whatever feels right to you, Julie. There's really no right answer. A lot of people like their ebony fingerboards with a high polish on them. That Cocobolo looks great like that and probably feels great too. It's a very oily wood...so oily it can sometimes be difficult to glue. It really doesn't hurt to try it and see how you like it. You can always come back later and rub it out with some steel wool if you'd like. Eventually, it will all become whatever you get by rubbing your fingers on it, anyway :)

I have to say that it looks very cool like that, though :)

Julie Moriarty

01-31-2014, 8:29 PM

Well, I decided to keep the fingerboard polished. Funny thing is, as I handled it, the sheen began to fade. Maybe it's the oil in the wood. Or maybe it's just trying to become accepted as a normal fingerboard. ;)

Time to do the fretwire (took long enough, didn't I? :rolleyes:)

I wanted to clip the tang back a bit so it won't show once installed. I'm going to lay some cocobolo dust in the slots on the sides and dab a drop of superglue on it to finish the edges.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretwire_01_zps6e32f29c.jpg

I cleaned the fretwire with acetone then ran it through my homemade bender to put a radius bend on it. In all the videos I've seen, the luthier cuts all the fret wires and lays them out or puts them in a holder that has numbers on it to correspond to which fret it is. I decided to tap the ends in on each one then take them to the press.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretwire_02_zps653203e9.jpg
The black "pliers" are tang nippers.

I found a sand-filled bag in the garage my older son left from working on his '72 Mustang and used that for supporting the neck during the press-in. I started with a 7.5" radius insert, then finished with a 12" radius. The bag was iffy. You have to set the neck firmly in place but the sand still moves under pressure.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretwire_03_zpsdc5a7651.jpg

After all the fretwires were pressed in place, I took a file and went over the edges until the file just kissed the wood. Then I finished each fret with a small fret end file. John "Erlewine" ;) showed me how to do that. :D
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/fretwire_04_zpsba837c92.jpg
I'm thinkin' I might actually have myself a geetar one day.

The neck bowed back a bit but not enough to cause concern. I'm guessing the string tension will pull it back pretty easily. There's a nice .005" fall off just after the 15th fret. It's all looking pretty good so far. http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/guitar-03_zpsd4aadd95.gif

John Coloccia

01-31-2014, 9:23 PM

That looks good, Julie. Just so you know, the neck almost ALWAYS bows back when you glue on the fingerboard. That's what you get for introducing moisture to the front of the neck. A lot of builders have switched to epoxy for just this reason. I still use wood glue. You will have to be careful when you level those frets. The neck will also back bow after you finish carving the back. That's why I don't radius the fretboard until after the neck is at least roughly carved. It will be easy to rock on the high spot in the middle and just keep making it worse, or to end up with a big taper that will make crowning the frets a pain. Did you notice if it bowed only after you fretted, indicating a fret slot that was perhaps a touch too narrow for the tang? I don't think that's the case if you used the Stewmac blade. Generally you want to true the fingerboard one final time just before fretting. It just makes things easier down the line. You'll get it figured out, though :)

I do that with my fret ends too. I hate the tang hanging out there...there's no reason for it and it causes nothing but trouble. As you've already found out, a sand bag for pressing is no good. I have the StewMac neck cradle...I cut it into different lengths to use for different purposes. I also made some various sized cradles in my shop, and lined them with leather. If you're clever, you'll make a little flat piece of wood to go under the heel. Then when you press down, that will keep the neck from wanting to rotate :)

I often use lacquer sticks on my fret ends now. The reason is that the superglue can make a mess and interfere with the finish if you fret before finishing...sometimes it even runs out the other side. I also TRY not to glue my frets in if I don't have to. I still do the dust and glue thing too, though, and I have little prescription bottles that I keep around the shop. When I'm sanding the fingerboard, I save some of the dust and label it. Then when I fill it back in, it's always a great match in color because I'm using the dust from that board. That's a good habit to get into, especially if you ever do any sort of repair work. Any time you take off "clean" wood, save some until you're done. It can come in handy later :)

You should have a playing guitar pretty soon! This is very exciting. I need to get around to writing my setup procedure. It's nothing earth shattering, but it's well thought out and very reliable to go from random setup to great setup. I really love that headstock. That was a hell of a nice save and I don't recall ever seeing that done. Nice!

John Coloccia

01-31-2014, 9:33 PM

BTW, I've noticed the amount of guitar specific tools on your bench increasing on every post. The turners have their vortex...we have ours...

Julie Moriarty

02-01-2014, 12:15 PM

BTW, I've noticed the amount of guitar specific tools on your bench increasing on every post.
I don't know what you're talking about. :rolleyes:

Before I did the fretwire, I had the neck perfectly flat with a .005" fall away from the 15th to the 21st fret. The back bow the frets put in was so slight I don't see it being a problem. I can easily bow it forward with the truss rod. I've got some baggies that have dust from the different woods I was experimenting with as well as the cocobolo. I had to look up "lacquer sticks". I had never heard of them.

I found a piece of plexiglass in the garage and planned to make one of those neck alignment tools.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/Centerfinder_05_zps315576fd.jpg

The plexiglass was standing up against the garbage can when I hit it. It fell over, hit the workbench and broke cleanly in half. :mad: So a straight-edge will have to do. Last night I aligned the neck, drilled the holes and screwed it to the body.

I strung up the bass E and it buzzed like a bee hive. For all the attention I've given to detail, I didn't give enough to the overall neck thickness. The neck itself is 3/4" and the fretboard is supposed to be 1/4". I left it a little high thinking I'd be doing some final adjustments after I glued it up. And I did. But it wasn't enough. And I didn't bother to measure it before fretting. Novice mistake! I'll have to shave a bit off the heel. I just have to make sure I take it off evenly. I'm calling in the surgeon. :cool:

John Coloccia

02-01-2014, 2:31 PM

I have that plexiglass tool. I don't like it. Ill sell you mine cheap. When I get home, ill email you. It works but I have better ways these days.

Julie Moriarty

02-01-2014, 4:44 PM

I took gossamer thin shavings off the heel and did several checks until the neck was 1.00" and the fretboard and the body of the guitar were parallel. That part went without a hitch.

Curiosity got the better of me so I strung it up with a pre-cut nut and an untouched fretboard. Brian is playing it right now. He's actually making sounds that don't sound like an alley cat in heat. :D

After stringing it up, the neck flattened to almost dead flat with no tension on the truss rod. There's still buzzing but none of the frets have been leveled and the nut is right off the shelf. I think all this means, so far, so good.

Thanks for the offer on the Plexiglas tool, John. But at this point, I'm thinking it's an unnecessary expense.

John Coloccia

02-01-2014, 5:07 PM

Thanks for the offer on the Plexiglas tool, John. But at this point, I'm thinking it's an unnecessary expense.

Good call. The big problem with the tool is in order to be precise, the neck taper has to be more or less perfect. There's also wiggling that goes on because the sides of the neck aren't flat, and there's a little play and flex in the tool itself. It's a good concept in theory, but in practice it falls a little short.

Chuck Raudonis

02-03-2014, 2:42 PM

Julie Moriarty

02-04-2014, 12:25 PM

Maple just gets so grungy very fast if it is not finished. Look at some vintage Strats and Teles where the finsh has been worn away from fretting and bending and you'll see what I mean. It gets almost black. I think that is the reason.

When I am building with maple I have to be sure that my hands aren't grungy during construction or some unanticipated sanding is on the agenda.

Initially, I got the impression maple was the preferred wood for necks because of its hardness and ability to hold up to the stresses and wear the neck gets from playing. Yesterday I was reading a book on guitar finishing and the author made numerous mentions about mahogany necks and bodies on Gibson guitars. From that, I got the impression mahogany was Gibson's preferred wood. I don't know that as a fact, it was just my impression.

In his book Electric Guitar and Bass Design, designer Leonardo Lospennato has a section where he addresses different woods used in guitar building and states what part of the guitar they are suited for. For necks he lists basswood, bubinga, koa, lacewood, Honduras mahogany, African mahogany, sapele, maple, Indian rosewood, Indonesian rosewood, Brazilian rosewood, and walnut. Most of the woods are rarely seen on guitar necks. Maybe it's just a cost issue.

The progress on the guitar is on hold until supplies come in. But I did get the pearl side dots installed and the fret cuts filled in.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/side_dots_01_zps5d1518c7.jpg

The pearl side dots required more precision than the front dots. The drill bit depth needed is so minute you have to stop drilling almost as soon as the bit hits the wood. I had to use tweezers to hold them over the hole then use another tool to push them into the hole. A pair of Optivisors would have helped me see what I was doing. :rolleyes:

I've been preparing to make a pearl inlay for the logo on the headstock but I'm just too inexperienced at the moment to tackle that for this guitar. What I wanted to do was lay the logo half way along the line of the two woods and have the top half be dark and the bottom pearl. I just don't know what material I could use for the top. I haven't found any black pearl for inlay use. So for now, I'll probably just go with a waterslide decal so I can get it together and see how it sounds.

Shawn Pixley

02-04-2014, 4:13 PM

Julie Moriarty

02-04-2014, 4:30 PM

In addition to John's point about performing the final shaping / radiusing after the fretboard is glued on, I refine the fretboard / neck joint and shape to avoid any "break" in the curve. (I hate feeling the joint, I makes it feel like a cheap guitar) My preference is to have no discernable feel to that joint especially on the thumb side. After fretting and filling, I'll go over the neck with much higher grit sandpaper than normal (1000+) to insure a very smooth transition. After finishing with the fretboard masked off (I mask both the top and sides of the fret board), you'll need to smooth the finish edge again.

I hear what you're saying Shawn. Some of the pics & vids I have seen looked like there wasn't a smooth transition between the neck and fretboard. The way I have the neck now, your hand can't tell where that transition is. I do plan to mask the sides along with the top of the fretboard when I spray the lacquer and I've thought about the edge that will create. I've become a big fan of Micro Mesh lately and I figure I'll use that to smooth the lacquer edge and make it disappear.

John Coloccia

02-04-2014, 5:52 PM

Some manufacturers just tape the top of the fingerboard, and just spray the sides. I see Fenders like that, though some of them don't seem like that. Be aware, though, that a lot of that finish will chip on the first fret job and/or when you file the fret ends if you allow the finish to go right to the edge of the fingerboard. The trick is to make sure that the finish is feathered before you get to the top of the fingerboard. Doesn't matter where you feather it, but you can't let the very edge of the fingerboard intersect edge of the finish because it will eventually just chip there.

Personally, I don't worry about it too much. The last thing I do is fret leveling and the through the process of doing that the edge of the fingerboard just seems to take care of itself.

george wilson

02-05-2014, 9:23 PM

Basswood for necks? That proves that you should not believe everything just because someone wrote it in a book. I have met a few well known authors who actually knew very little. They just bothered to take good pictures of every project they made and turned them into books. Rosewoods for necks? Way too heavy if you don't want your guitar to be neck heavy. I made a few banjos with rosewood necks. But,banjos have narrow necks and heavy bodies. Grand Pa Jones had one of my rosewood necks on his Vega banjo. It had very distinctive inlay. I never got around to writing him to tell him I made the neck. I had not put my name on it. Maybe it's in the store room of the Nashville Hall of Fame. I was asked out there years ago to advise them on setting up a repair shop to repair donated instruments.

One such was a well known author of guitar and instrument making books. Initials were ES. He visited my shop in Williamsburg years ago,wanting to use it to make a book about instrument repair. We did hardly any repairs though. Just made new instruments. I advised him to try Martin. We got into a discussion about instrument making,and I was nearly shocked at the gaps in his knowledge.

John Coloccia

02-05-2014, 9:34 PM

I wasn't going to say anything about the basswood :/

I did work on an Ernie Ball Albert Lee model that had a rosewood neck. The balance wasn't that bad, but I think that has more to do with their stubby headstock plus the guitar is designed for it. A strat built like that would not balance well at all...at least not the ones I've played. The thing is, they sprayed some sort of finish on it that was so incredibly, unbelievably thick that....well, it was unbelievable. They left the back of the neck unfinished, but the transition from unfinished neck to the finished headstock was just insane. I will say that the neck felt very nice at first, but very tacky once my hands started to sweat just a little bit.

Have you seen what ES is selling his guitars for these days? Shipping not included.

george wilson

02-06-2014, 8:33 AM

The ES I referred to died several years ago. Actually,it might have been IS. I get Eric and Irving mixed up. It's been a long time. One wrote books about early American tools and life in the 60's,one about instruments.

John Coloccia

02-06-2014, 8:48 AM

Different guy then. :)

Julie Moriarty

02-06-2014, 1:14 PM

So I think I'm going to build a balsa wood neck... ;) Welcome back George! I missed you. :)

I thought the basswood a bit suspicious. There's a lot in that book that makes logical sense. But how he arrived at certain woods being good for certain parts of the guitar, I'm not sure. In his credits, he lists three websites that he received permission from to reproduce "the properties of the different species of wood used in lutherie..." I've been to those sites and didn't see anything specifically pointing to certain woods being acceptable woods for use in parts of a guitar. I do know one luthier who made a guitar with a wenge neck. Lospennato lists wenge as a NO for necks.

On another front... I'm in day two of spraying lacquer. It's a very different experience than waterborne finishes.

The only problem I've been having is with the sprayer. First the check valve was blocked. I replaced that. Then the sprayer started dripping, and not from the top. I can't see where it's coming from because I have goggles on when spraying. It lays a drop about every 2 passes. This morning I was setting up and found the new check valve was partially clogged. So I had to replace that. I've got three more left. If this keeps up, I'll have enough to finish spraying but it's crazy to need to replace it every day. I just have no idea how to keep lacquer from creeping up the tube and into the check valve.

Anyway, the finish is going down well, except for the occasional drip. I've got a rag wrapped around where I see it collecting, that's been keeping the drips off the guitar. Two more coats today and three tomorrow. I'm starting to become a believer.

John Coloccia

02-06-2014, 1:23 PM

Check the packing, Julie. If it's dried out or damaged, the gun will spit and you'll leak there too. Do you have some spray gun oil to put on the packing?

Julie Moriarty

02-06-2014, 1:54 PM

Check the packing, Julie. If it's dried out or damaged, the gun will spit and you'll leak there too. Do you have some spray gun oil to put on the packing?

http://www.fujispray.com/images/fuji_xpc_spraygun_diagram.jpg

When I cleaned the gun (going from WB to lacquer), I changed the needle and air cap to a smaller size. I did not put anything on the new needle when I installed it. I don't have any spray gun oil. Is there a substitute?

Where would I apply the oil (or substitute)? On the needle before inserting? At the packing adjustment? Fuji's user manual does not cover this or drip problems while spraying.

John Coloccia

02-06-2014, 2:21 PM

I wouldn't substitute anything but spray gun oil. Look online for automotive paint supplies in your area. Guaranteed you have at least a shop or two, and they'll carry a little bottle of the oil. Take out the needle, remove the packing adjustment nut, put a couple of drops of oil there, and reassemble. The packing is what seals the around the needle, and if that leaks there's nothing that's going to work right. Stick the nut on, stick the needle in, and snug up the nut. There's only 3 places the gun can leak that will really screw you up....the cup, the cap and the packing.

Julie Moriarty

02-06-2014, 2:44 PM

Thanks John. I took everything apart and cleaned it up again. I realized the needle was getting no resistance when inserted through the packing gland. When I put it back together, I tightened the packing nut so I was getting resistance. I just sprayed on the second coat and had no problems. But I'll run out later today and pick up the oil. I'm learning more about this gun in two days spraying lacquer than I did throughout the 3+ gallons of WB I sprayed on the kitchen cabinets.

george wilson

02-06-2014, 7:39 PM

The truss rod ends would sink right into a basswood neck. Peghead would snap right off if the guitar fell over. Lastly,a basswood neck would not have the sustain even on a solid body that a maple neck (or a hardwood neck) would give. Someone should make a basswood bat to klonk guys on the head with who offer such advice. I have found that a substantial peg head gives better volume to an acoustic guitar. It directs the vibrations to the bridge because a heavy peg head is harder to vibrate than a bridge. So,use a good,hardwood neck. But,don't go crazy and use TOO heavy a wood,or you'll be holding up your neck all the time.

Ae you aware that some builders help eliminate dead notes by inletting some carbon fiber bars into the neck,under the fingerboard?

Grizzly offers some acoustic guitar kits with basswood backs and sides(possibly necks,too). I'd pass on those!!:)

John Coloccia

02-06-2014, 8:01 PM

Ae you aware that some builders help eliminate dead notes by inletting some carbon fiber bars into the neck,under the fingerboard?

Like me..... :)

I discovered that on a prototype I made. It had a very small heel and attached to the body pretty high up on the fingerboard. The guitar sounded absolutely dead. It took some experimenting, but I figured out that stiffening the neck around the heel area, made a vast improvement. I've been inlaying carbon fiber ever since.

BTW, here's another interesting experiment I did. I was curious just how active the neck was, especially on an acoustic. So I took a tuning fork and started touching it to various parts of the guitar. No surprise that when I touched it to the bridge, the fork was pretty loud. Big surprise was when I touched it on the neck. The instrument vibrated just as loud when the fork was on the fingerboard just behind the first fret. That neck can be pretty active. I really didn't expect that result at all, but it seems that necks can vibrate pretty strongly. I have some journals here that studied this a bit more scientifically, and it seems to back up just how much acoustic sound actually comes from the neck. I went into that absolutely sure that the neck would be more or less dead, but I was 100% wrong. Just one data point on one guitar, but still kind of interesting.

Julie Moriarty

02-06-2014, 9:31 PM

Two days spraying, six coats on...
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/lacquer_01_zpsb293b2bc.jpg

Three more tomorrow. Then do I spray one last coat with 50/50 lacquer/thinner? Would that smooth out orange peel?

george wilson

02-06-2014, 9:47 PM

No,the orange peel will not go away. You need to let the guitar dry as long as possible,then sand it with 600 wet or dry paper,used wetted with water with a few drops of dish detergent in it to remove the orange peel. Be careful to not sand too hard on edges or corners,where the finish can easily be sanded through.

Then,you need to hand rub the lacquer with rubbing compounds. Stewmac sells Menzerna(sp?) rubbing compounds. You will need 2 grades. One for starting,and one for bringing out the high gloss. Called Swirl Remover,I think. I haven't used these for some time since I made myself a slow speed buffer and use cakes of buffing compound to buff guitars. I did it by hand most of my life,and would spend most of a week sanding and hand buffing a guitar.

John,of course you would know about the carbon fiber neck info. I was telling Julie. Perhaps you are more up on the rubbing compounds than I am since I now use a slow speed buffer. I must warn you,Julie,the buffer is a most excellent static electricity generator. I got a spark every time I touched anything while buffing that last guitar during this very dry Winter weather. Those shocks CAN potentially stop your heart. You need to ground your buffer to bleed off that static.

John Coloccia

02-06-2014, 9:53 PM

John,of course you would know about the carbon fiber neck info. I was telling Julie.

Ha ha...no, I meant that I actually HAVE started inlaying CF into the neck, just as you described. Count me in as some of the some :) Have you ever played with it? It's miserable to work with. After 5 minutes of working with it, I look like a coal miner.

Julie Moriarty

02-07-2014, 6:48 AM

I must warn you,Julie,the buffer is a most excellent static electricity generator. I got a spark every time I touched anything while buffing that last guitar during this very dry Winter weather. Those shocks CAN potentially stop your heart. You need to ground your buffer to bleed off that static.

Don't know if you knew this but I'm an electrician. I was on a job one time and an iron worker came up to me kind of excited and told me the steel safety cable, that was temporarily installed around the roof perimeter, was live. I walked out onto the roof with my tester and saw the supports for the cable were welded to the building steel and grounded, therefore they couldn't be live. He insisted he got a serious shock from it. I took my tester and showed him it wasn't live. When he touched it again, he got a major shock. I saw the arc in broad daylight and heard it too. It was substantial. I told him it was just static electricity. He couldn't believe it at first. He swore it was 120 volts. What was happening was there was a rubber membrane on the roof and as he walked over it, he was picking up static electricity. My shoes isolated me from most of that but his were picking up everything. So I can see how the buffer could do that but had never thought of it until you mentioned it.

Question:
After the last coats are on and before the curing process is complete, could I assemble the guitar and do the setup? I was thinking of waiting a couple of days, putting the whole thing together and doing the fret leveling. I would probably intonate it and see how it plays too. Then in 3-4 weeks, I'd take it apart and buff it out. Would the finish be too soft to do that? Do I need to wait for it to fully cure before I do the setup?

John Coloccia

02-07-2014, 7:18 AM

I would wait. You'll risk damaging the finish in the heel area, both on the neck and especially on the body from the plate. Last thing you want is to take it apart and take bunch of finish along with it. I DO recommend you do the setup before leveling and buffing, though. Why risk damaging a nice, shinny finish when you can do all that work with the rough finish, and then any minor blemishes will sand and buff out. At least wait a week before assembling anything.

re: rubbing compounds
I use a buffing wheel too, with Menzerna compounds. You might be interested to know that Menzerna also makes Jescar fret wire :)

Stewmac sells some liquid rubbing compounds. I've use them on spot repairs and they work very well. I would definitely recommend hand rubbing for the first guitar or two. You can get a 3M Finesse pad (and similar from StewMac) and chuck them in a drill press or hand drill, but it is VERY easy to go right through the finish, especially on the edges. A real buffing wheel is much easier to use, at least once you've learned to respect it and not get a catch. The trick with the rubbing compounds is the same as any other abrasive process....don't move on to the next grit until you get a uniform scratch pattern from the previous one. With sandpaper, if you cheat a bit an move on early the next grit will eventually get the big scratches out with some elbow grease, whereas with rubbing compound if you leave a mess and move on, you'll basically be rubbing that one spot more or less forever.

You can probably get rubbing compounds cheaper through an auto paint dealer, but it's not important enough to me that want to bother wading through a see of products to select ones that work well. The Stewmac products actually work really well.

george wilson

02-07-2014, 8:24 AM

Actually,John,I have not used the carbon fiber stuff. I don't want to breathe it. I have COPD,and very quickly get winded as it is. I have not had problems with dead notes in my necks. Ebony fingerboards help that,and good,hard woods in the neck.

Julie,stay away from that OZ polish. It is not something you want to try getting OFF surfaces if you decide you want to go back and re do something. OZ was developed I understand,for politicians to see their reflections in their desk tops. For real!!

Julie Moriarty

02-07-2014, 1:20 PM

Julie,stay away from that OZ polish. It is not something you want to try getting OFF surfaces if you decide you want to go back and re do something. OZ was developed I understand,for politicians to see their reflections in their desk tops. For real!!

OMG! You're right George!
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/politician_polish_zpsf75302ba.png
;)

Julie Moriarty

02-07-2014, 4:05 PM

No spraying today. Basement is too cold and I'm still working on sanding the neck and body. We are having the coldest winter in 30 years. The temp in the basement was 57 this morning. I turned up the heat and turned on all the basement lights (that alone raises the temp 4 degrees) and all I could get was 63 degrees. Brrrrrrrrr!

george wilson

02-07-2014, 5:26 PM

Be careful that you don't let your lacquer get too cold or spray when the air is too damp. You will get a PERMANENT foggy effect inside the lacquer called blushing. It is tiny water vapor trapped in the lacquer because the lacquer cooled too quickly in damp air. Lac. cools some because it dries so rapidly,allowing water vapor to condense in it. Only removable by removing the lacquer.

I'd avoid real cool temps too. The lacquer might craze or get seams in it(on a guitar that has binding,or possibly on the seam of the fingerboard) when things warm back up. I can't be certain of this because I don't spray when it is real cold,but I think it is a possibility. The blushing I HAVE had happen,though,when I was young and inexperienced.

About the OZ polish: How VAIN can these politicians get? But,it has been around for many years before Bayner(sp?) came into office. Good stuff to stay away from.

By the way,I have been getting perfect results with a $35.00 Chinese DeVilbiss copy spray gun for many years now. I had a Binks years ago,but it got stolen. My el cheap gun atomizes perfectly for beautiful sunburst finishes.

Here's an "ice tea" sunburst done with my cheap gun.

So,if you don't like to take chances when changing from a solid color to a clear,just buy 2 guns and only use them for 1 or the other. I can save a lot of pain in the neck when you get a little speck of unwanted color in a clear or tinted finish later. I don't know why these pictures are tipped over.

Julie Moriarty

02-07-2014, 10:05 PM

That's gorgeous George! Can I call you Gorgeous George? http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/N_SEND1_zps42005c1b.gif

I've been learning all I can about spraying a burst. On this guitar, I don't think it would be right. But I have others in my head and I'd love to become proficient with the burst effect. I saw one video where the guy took my spray gun and did this very fine, light coat around the perimeter of a solid body. I'm going to work on that! :D

I got some waterslide laser decal paper and I'm working on a logo for the headstock. My 21 year-old is influencing me to stay thinking young. So tonight I was playing with some headstock logos on Photoshop.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Logos/radaxe_05_zps27120915.jpg
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Logos/radaxe_06_zps53b5f5a9.jpg
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Logos/radaxe_02_zps1ee84420.jpg
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Logos/radaxe_03_zpse5f8c1b6.jpg
I know. I need to get a life. :rolleyes:

george wilson

02-07-2014, 10:12 PM

I'd leave the axe out. The rest is O.K.. Nice play with the color shift.

Julie Moriarty

02-07-2014, 11:33 PM

I'd leave the axe out. The rest is O.K.. Nice play with the color shift.

I agree. After I posted it, the axe really looked out of place. Funny how you can't see that until you let the world see it.

george wilson

02-08-2014, 8:56 AM

Your guitar body is too dark to do a sunburst on. I think some sunbursts are over done. If you have nice figured wood,don't make the burst so dark that you completely hide the figure of the wood. Gibson was bad to do this. I have an old 1947 L7 arch top that has a nicely figured curly maple back and sides. They dyed the maple a dark purplish brown color,then sunburst over it so bad you can hardly see the figure at all. It was crazed all over. It was in horrible shape,so I stripped it down. That dye is in the wood so bad,I don't know if I can get it out. I hate to resort to powerful 2 part wood bleaches.

Shading can be used just around the edges of a solid body that has a glued on top layer of figured maple. It is used to hide the glue line,but should not extend out all over the body,hiding the figured wood.

The use of extremely dark sunbursts comes from the old days,where things were wanted to be very conservative looking. Now,we want to see the wood.

Julie Moriarty

02-08-2014, 9:34 AM

No, this guitar will not have any bursting effects. The next one (I already started) will have a curly maple body that I'll dye black and sand back but less so on the perimeter. What I won't do is hide the figure by making the perimeter black. It will be dyed black but the figure will still show through. Can't hide all that nice figure that I paid so much for!

george wilson

02-08-2014, 9:54 AM

"Can't hide that nice figure that I paid so much for ?" Do you mean you've had whole body plastic surgery?:)

Julie Moriarty

02-08-2014, 4:06 PM

"Can't hide that nice figure that I paid so much for ?" Do you mean you've had whole body plastic surgery?:)

After I become famous for making the Rad Axe, I'll move to Hollywood and do that. Don't want to be weird...:rolleyes:

Julie Moriarty

02-08-2014, 4:20 PM

Well, I took the no axe logo and printed a full sheet of them. Once cured, I tried my first attempt at a waterslide on the head. As soon as I pulled the backing paper away, the light colors completely disappeared on the sapele. I tried a lighter color - same thing. Then I tried just changing the font color rather than using bucket fill. Strike three! I'm out!

I was originally thinking of a pearl inlay but I knew that could take quite a while to master. The decals offered an easy way out. So now I either have to place the entire logo over the maple or go with an inlay.

Julie Moriarty

02-09-2014, 12:54 PM

This morning I was greeted by a dry-to-the-touch guitar body and neck. I still have a bit of work to do on the neck finish, like flatten the decal and some more coats, but I couldn't resist giving her a photo shoot. :D

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/finish_01_zps0848786c.jpg http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/finish_02_zps27c5d05f.jpg http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/finish_03_zps4cd732f7.jpg
Everything is just laying in place. I didn't try to put the tuner bushings in - lacquer in the holes.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/finish_04_zps3fc1b2bf.jpg
I didn't try to fully seat the tuners. Don't want any tragedies at this stage.

I have to make the nut, level the frets and then, in a month or so, buff it out. Then I'll be ready for the tour. :p

Shawn Pixley

02-09-2014, 3:49 PM

Beautiful Julie! I especially like your name at the top of the headstock.

george wilson

02-10-2014, 9:09 AM

Do be careful about leaving the guitar laying on fabrics. I assume you are not doing that. When I was a teenager,I left a guitar I THOUGHT was dry on my bed spread. The guitar was badly printed by the fabric. I should have not done that!!

WHAT nut material is that? If it is any kind of plastic,take it out and use BONE,or metal. Plastic will dull your tone significantly,especially if used as the bridge saddle on an acoustic guitar. Aluminum will make a good nut. My 1958 Gretsch copy has an aluminum nut,as did the original of that year of Gretsch production. It works fine. Chet Atkins had wanted a zero fret. I guess they didn't have fingerboards cut for zero frets at Gretsch,so they used the aluminum nut that year, to simulate the strings resting on a zero fret of metal,and went to the zero fret the next year. Chet had seen that Django Rheinhart's(sp?) Selmer guitar had a zero fret,and thought it was a good idea.

Julie Moriarty

02-10-2014, 1:03 PM

Thank you Shawn! It's beginning to seem real to me. I just hope it plays well. That name, BTW, has had both good and bad reactions. Traditionalists seem to hate it. All I knew was that I didn't want my last name in a script-type font. I did, however, place a decal on the edge of the head to identify the builder. It's more as something to remember me by than giving me credit for making it.

George, no, the guitar was just set there for the pictures. I have the body on a stand, secured in the neck pocket, and it will stay there for 3-4 weeks. I'm doing the last bit of work on the neck, mostly leveling around the decals. That will (hopefully) be done today.

Right now there is no nut in place. I have a cream colored Graph Tech Tusq XL nut for it that I have to fine tune once the neck is cured enough to work on it. The Tusq nut is supposed to be great for guitars with tremolos. I think it's a Teflon-based material. I have some bone blanks but I've read they are not the best choice for trems.

I read on StewMac that a quart of finish should be enough to cover 2-3 electric guitar bodies or 3-4 necks. I just poured the last few ounces of lacquer in the gun cup today. Is it normal to use an entire quart on a neck and body?

John Coloccia

02-10-2014, 2:04 PM

I read on StewMac that a quart of finish should be enough to cover 2-3 electric guitar bodies or 3-4 necks. I just poured the last few ounces of lacquer in the gun cup today. Is it normal to use an entire quart on a neck and body?

At first? Yup. You'll get better and more efficient at it. For example, it literally takes me less than one minute to completely apply one coat to the entire guitar, including the neck. I'm probably somewhere around 30 seconds. Like just about every other skill you can learn, when you start out you're a little clumsy and hamfisted, but after doing it a couple of times, your motions become elegant and efficient.

Tusq is really not a bad nut material. It's the only material I install if I don't install bone. It's more like Ivory than bone, IMHO. I like bone, though and if you cut the nut well it works with a trem just fine, but the Graph Tech nuts really are pretty good, if not a bit pricey. They're miles ahead of the nylon, corian and other materials that people use. Really, though, it's going to come down to cutting the nut well, and that just takes a lot of practice. The material only helps a little here and there.

But 95% of what I install is bone, and usually I can talk the customer into using unbleached bone. It's a little harder than bleached, IMHO, and that helps it last longer. I can also nail the setup a bit more exactly because I don't have to worry about the small strings dropping so much.

edit:
Duh...I just realized something. With a name like Tusq, of COURSE it's more like Ivory than bone. I don't think I ever thought about it until just now when I just absentmindedly wrote that and then thought, "Hey...wait a minute!"

Julie Moriarty

02-10-2014, 6:20 PM

edit:
Duh...I just realized something. With a name like Tusq, of COURSE it's more like Ivory than bone. I don't think I ever thought about it until just now when I just absentmindedly wrote that and then thought, "Hey...wait a minute!"

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/eusa_doh_zps03302b01.gif You're in good company John. Until you mentioned it, it never crossed my mind.

Now I gotta brush up on that nut vid you sent. Lots to learn...

John Coloccia

02-10-2014, 6:54 PM

Here's a little trick. Forget about measuring the string depth at the nut. Fit the nut, slice a pencil in half, and run it along the frets to mark the top of the nut. Bring the nut down just a little above that line. Then make your slots. When you make the slots, after you've gotten them started enough that you can tune to pitch, fret at the 3rd fret and look at the clearance under the 1st fret. You need to have a sliver of clearance. Other than that, you may go as close as you'd like. I often get it close enough that I can't really even see the clearance. I tap above the 1st fret and listen for the string to go "clink". I definitely stop at that point :)

Leave them slightly high at first. It's easy to go too low, and those Tusq nuts are expensive, but remember...fretted at the third you may go as low as you'd like without the string actually hitting the 1st fret. You've made a straight edge with the string laying on the 2nd fret and the nut :)

And definitely do this after leveling the frets.

No offense to Erlewine. The videos are great, but he overcomplicates this part with feeler gauges, micrometers, etc. Forget that. Fit the nut, and use your eyes and hands to setup the heights.

george wilson

02-11-2014, 9:15 AM

Yes,I don't know how I ever made a guitar without all those micrometers,dial indicators,feeler gauges and string spacing rulers that they offer!!:) I think I'll give up and go sulk in the corner in disgrace.

John Coloccia

02-11-2014, 12:34 PM

The string spacing rule STINKS. I get the point...it narrows the top strings and widens the bottom strings so that you get equal space between strings instead of strings spaced on center. It's never right, though. That's #1...you still have to fiddle with it. #2, I'm not sure I like equal spacing between the strings. The bass strings seems monstrously far apart from each other. It looks nice, but I really dislike the feel. I generally start with the strings spaced on center, and then slightly widen the bass and slightly tighten up the treble side, but it's nowhere near equal spacing between strings and if I had to choose only one method, I'd space them on center.

Stewmac's tools generally work well, but they definitely have some stuff that really over complicates otherwise simple tasks and this particular tool misses on all counts, IMHO.

I'm so embarrassed, George. In a moment of Home Shopping Network disease, I bought one of these:
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Nuts,_saddles/Special_tools_for:_Nuts_and_saddles/Nut_Slotting_Gauge.html

I don't know why...I've never used it. It's the dumbest tool I've ever seen. I've tried giving it away and haven't been successful yet. I was going to just re-purpose the indicator on it, but there's no return spring, so that's useless too. I really can't figure out what possessed me to buy it. I DO have the neck jig, though, that thing works like magic! I've been able to save several necks that really go funky under string tension. That one was worth every penny.

george wilson

02-11-2014, 1:38 PM

$60.00+ flying away on wings!!!:) Plenty of my money has flown the coop too.

Julie Moriarty

02-12-2014, 7:00 AM

The string spacing rule STINKS.

And here I was, just about to post how I made a nut from a bone blank and used that ruler to do it. It was on the practice guitar - a Palmer Deluxe! The thing had a plastic nut and it was shot. But I think the guitar sounds better now. Brian said it felt different from his Tele but didn't know how to describe why. Maybe it was the string spacing. But what I found I shouldn't have followed was StewMac's instructions about spacing the E strings 1/8" off the edge of the neck. The frets on the Palmer are severely beveled (about 45 degrees) and now they ride right on the edge of the bevel. I guess that's a lesson in trusting the eye.

What I did find nice was working with the Hosco tapered nut files I picked up recently. Based on what I've seen on StewMac, these are much easier to work with than their nut files.

John, how does the spacing work out on the pre-slotted Tusq nuts? Is there anything I need to be aware of before I begin working on that?

John Coloccia

02-12-2014, 7:22 AM

re: spacing in from the edge.
You'll get a feel for it, but I never space from the edge of the neck. You need to space from the edge of the usable playing surface, and that's usually the end of the bevel. If I had to guess, I'd guess I'm normally somewhere around .100" in from the bevel, but that's just a guess.

As you get better, you'll start getting pickier and the ruler will annoy you. Post a picture of the nutwork. Aim the camera right at the front of the neck so we can see the nut and a couple of frets and we'll see how you ended up. :) The rule isn't unplayable, but as you get pickier you'll start to see that it also isn't right. You nut may have come out dead nuts perfect, but if not it would be really valuable for you to see what we see before you dig in to that strat.

It spaced your strings closer to equal space between strings. His Tele is spaced from the factory with equal space on center. If you look at the Tele, it will look like the bass strings are closer together and he treble are further apart, but that's because the bass strings are thicker.

I don't know what the Tusq spacing is. I generally use blanks.

george wilson

02-12-2014, 10:39 AM

Julie,I have not used Tusq nut material,but bone is the preferred material that is very hard. I used to use ivory,but now I use bone since it is harder,and gives better tonality(plus,you can take it across international borders). I encourage you to use bone. The hardest plastic I know of is phenolic,which may be what Tusq is made of. But,even that is not as hard as bone.

Julie Moriarty

02-12-2014, 11:48 AM

This is on the Palmer Deluxe... I had already leveled the frets but the plastic nut made it unplayable. It's going to be my practice guitar until the Axe is cured.

I placed the Tusq nut down for comparison. I aligned the center strings to the Tusq nut but the angle of the shot doesn't show that. It also makes the bass E look closer to the edge than it is. When I was cutting the treble E, I discovered it was too close to the edge and cut it at an angle, away from the edge. So the "V" cut is a bit more plumb on one side.

The nut isn't finished, only the string height is complete, and I left that a couple thousandths high. The nut needs to be shaved on top, the edges haven't been trimmed, the roundover hasn't been done and it's not glued in. The height at the 12th fret is almost right on and I was easily able to intonate it. And it doesn't buzz at all. But those tuners are awful! I think Brian got this when he was 12 (my SO bought it for him as a starter).

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/nut_01_zpsd2fa6cf7.jpg
This is a wide angle shot so there's some distortion.

I realize that bone is very hard but I've read a number of comments saying the action of the trem will cut the strings into it. And, since bone is a natural material, there are inconsistencies in the hardness. Tusq is supposed to be self-lubricating and consistent throughout. The one thing I don't like about bone is dust toxicity. Sometimes I like to be free from wearing the respirator while working in the shop. :)

george wilson

02-12-2014, 12:24 PM

Are you really generating that much dust making a nut? Is Tusq less toxic? I don't know what it is made of,but,I'll bet it does not get dissolved by the body as soon as bone dust(which is organic) does,if it gets dissolved at all. I have not noticed any inconsistency in the bone I have bought from Stewmac. The pieces I have are about 3/4" X 3". They select it pretty carefully to not be near marrow,or "spongy". If you are happy with the sustain,that is all that matters.

It might be the angle,but yes,the bass string on the Palmer is way too close to the edge.

John Coloccia

02-12-2014, 12:24 PM

So ignore the Tusq nut for a second. If you look at it, and it always happens with the string rule, look at the spacing with the D, G and B strings. That always ends up wide, even for equal spacing between the strings. You may have trouble seeing that at first, but that's what it looks like to me. The spacing always goes funny around the middle of the nut. That's why I stopped using the rule. I have to fix it anyhow, and it's easier to just get it right the first time than to file sideways to get the slot to move over.

The spacing on the Tusq nut, just eyeballing it, looks to be about spaced on center, though it's very hard to tell without strings. I think the high E is a little scrunched in, but it's probably fine. They sell a LOT of these :)

Just keep staring at the nut from above, and really concentrate an seeing the spacing. It took several nuts for me to really start seeing it, but once you see it you can't un-see it :) Now, that could all be the camera distortion.

Anyhow, there's really nothing wrong with the nut you cut, other than the obvious spacing to the edge that you already know about. I'm just nit picking.

Mel Fulks

02-12-2014, 1:33 PM

John, it's obvious you have given the spacing thing a lot of care and thought. Do you do them by eye on every instrument? Can't it be reduced to a measured on center dimension measured from one side? Or have you done that and prefer to keep your formula proprietary?

John Coloccia

02-12-2014, 1:44 PM

The problem is that the bevels on every instrument are different. The bridges are different...that effects the string spread as it goes down the neck. Neck tapers are different. I just measured 3 guitars here that I like, and each one is a little less than 1/8" away from the beginning of the fret bevel, so that .100" number is probably in the ballpark.

I don't have any secret formula, though. I just eyeball the distance from the edge. For the spacing, I just use whatever technique is convenient at the time. Sometimes I measure. Sometimes I step it off. Sometimes I even use that stupid ruler to get something workable, but then I fix up my pencil marks by eye before I ever make a cut. Sometimes, I use the old nut as a guide if the spacing was comfortable when it came in. It's really not super critical since equal spacing between strings works, spaced on centers works, and anything in between also works. I just set it up so it feels nice to me and it doesn't look goofy. For me that ends up being mostly spaced on center, but I do allow the bass strings to widen just a hair. Other than that, there's quite a large amount of room to play without being "wrong".

Mel Fulks

02-12-2014, 2:08 PM

I hadn't thought about varying necks,thanks.

Julie Moriarty

02-12-2014, 2:39 PM

According to StewMac, and I'm sure you know this John, the spacings between the strings on their rule shrink by .004" from left to right, as you move along the rule. That means the spacing between the bass strings is greater than between the treble strings. Though I don't know how many players could feel that difference while playing.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/nut_02_zps750acd66.jpg

In the above picture, the E strings lined up perfectly with the marks on the rule. The camera distorted that because they were on the ends. But the strings in the middle are pretty close in the picture to what they actually are. I measured between the notches in the Tusq and they are evenly spaced. That makes me mad that StewMac sells them like that when Erelewine tells you the bass strings need to be spaced farther apart than the treble strings. To get the almost 50% discount, I bought 6 of them in black and cream, each. I don't think there's enough height on them to shave the pre-slots off. :mad: But it's obvious the rule does some of that spacing you've been talking about.

George, when I was cutting the bone nut, I didn't see any dust go airborne but it did collect around the cut and I smelled it. I figured if I smelled it, it was airborne. I've read that bone dust works its way into your lungs and the body has no way of getting rid of it, kind of the same way shell dust does.

John Coloccia

02-12-2014, 2:53 PM

Julie Moriarty

02-12-2014, 4:45 PM

I would start there, and then tweak it when you've built a few and have something to compare it to.

When I've built a few? Are you trying to make a luthier out of me? ;)

Thanks for the reassurance the Tusq nuts won't require spacing re-work. There's very little extra to work with.

I was playing the Palmer with my Marshall 1959HW stack, er, I mean Brian's Fender Squire amp :rolleyes:, and it sounded pretty good. Before it was awful. Frets 15-21 are not in the same place as standard Fender 25.5" scale, they are stretched out a bit. But other than that, it plays fairly well for a cheap knockoff. I leveled the frets and created a falloff at the 15th, replaced the plastic nut with bone and installed new strings. And that made all the difference. It gives me some confidence that I'm doing something right. :)

george wilson

02-12-2014, 5:00 PM

Julie,have you read anything about the body's ability to get rid of plastic? I am sure it is worse. Smelling the bone only means you are smelling molecules of it, if you could see no visual evidence of it. I've been smelling ivory and bone all my life and never thought much about it. (Hang on a minute. I have to turn my oxygen cylinder back on!):) Really,plastic HAS to be worse. What in your body is going to dissolve it?

I think the worst thing to smell is lacquer fumes. I got nephritis from that back in the 60's,when I was very active spraying lacquer. Building new guitars and refinishing them,too. In the 50's,I refinished guitars for the music stores in Norfolk. By the 60's,I think it had gotten to me. I am now 73,and my kidneys are still working. Perhaps you should wear a surgical type dust mask when filing stuff of dubious health benefits.

John Coloccia

02-12-2014, 5:50 PM

Working bone is just like getting a cavity filled at the dentist :)

But I agree with George. Bone is still the best material I've found...and unbleached is best IMHO. I still think that Tusq is OK...very ivory like, but I'll take bone over ivory any day. The standard plastic nut that comes with Fenders is just absolutely terrible, though. That's just my opinion, but anytime you can rip one of those things out and replace it with anything else is a good day.

re: buzzing on fenders

The G string especially on Fenders are ALWAYS a problem if there's not a string tree there. The angle of the nut slot has to be just about perfect. It will help if you put extra winds on the tuner to get that break angle over the back of the nut as steep as you can. It OFTEN rattles on the headstock side when you get that string down where it belongs. It's not unusual for me to go to take 2 attempts (or more) to get that G string playing right on the Fenders. Mute the string behind the nut with your hand. Does the rattle go away?

A lot of Fenders can use a second string tree on the D and G strings. A common solution that some techs do is make the slot tight at the bottom. It fixes the rattle, but it screws up your tuning stability. Another common solution is to leave the strings high at the nut. Bah... You'll figure it out, but don't be surprised if the D or G strings give you a hard time. They still give me a hard time and I've made a lot of Fender nuts.

george wilson

02-12-2014, 7:57 PM

I saw that at Sandy Pond lumber in Pennsylvania,they made thousands of maple neck blanks for Fender. They were about 1"x 4"'s.

Shawn Pixley

02-13-2014, 12:48 AM

Yes, exactly what I was talking about. It's a matter of preference. Some people pride themselves on spacing the strings so that there is equal space between the strings, and that's what the rule is trying to imitate, but it doesn't do it that well. I prefer them spaced on center, though I do let the bass strings get just slightly wider...but only slightly. I would stick with the center spacing on the Tusq nut. It's very traditional and I've found most people prefer it, especially on Fender style guitars. Forget about what Erlewine says about it. We've been cutting them on center for a century. I would start there, and then tweak it when you've built a few and have something to compare it to.

i go with John here. I have tried the equal spacing between the thickness of the strings. It felt wrong so I cut another nut and made them centerline equal and centered on the neck. I hate over-beveled frets. Even if brand new, you want to immediately re-fret (applicable to purchased guitars only).

Shawn Pixley

02-13-2014, 12:55 AM

John Coloccia

02-13-2014, 8:17 PM

They like to break right at the G string especially. Sometimes the D. A deep slot combined with not get the radius on the bottom absolutely perfect, and it will snap every time right at that spot when you try to seat it. I'm especially careful to perfect that radius these days, and I no longer have a problem. What I SHOULD do is just flatten the slot. What a crappy design. Pretty much everything from the nut on back is horrible design on Fenders. I suspect that the slot is curved because maybe they used a gang saw on the frets, swung the neck to make the slots, and just cut the nut at the same time? I'm not up on my Fender factory lore, but I can't think of any other reason to do it like that, and as far as I know they're the ONLY ones that do it like that other than knockoffs.

Can you take a picture of that 3 string tree? I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. I would love to have access to something like that. It would fix an awful lot of problem guitars without having to permanently modify anything. All they really have to do, though, is what John Suhr does. He just starts with a thicker piece of wood and makes the headstock a little deeper. It doesn't need much. It just often times needs more than the practically ZERO that the G string has now.

george wilson

02-13-2014, 9:03 PM

A Gretsch arch top guitar frequently has nearly no down bearing from the bridge to the tailpiece or vibrato.

Ted Calver

02-13-2014, 9:26 PM

My Fender American Deluxe Strat came with a LSR roller nut. They allow adjustment of string height at the nut without surgery. The main drawback seems to be that you can't revert to a regular nut, but that doesn't bother me. Have you looked at them?

Julie Moriarty

02-13-2014, 10:06 PM

I suspect that the slot is curved because maybe they used a gang saw on the frets, swung the neck to make the slots, and just cut the nut at the same time?

John, check around 1:35

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_ayKlYfeZ8

John Coloccia

02-14-2014, 3:38 AM

Well there you go...that was a good guess, huh?

george wilson

02-14-2014, 10:21 AM

I don't know how many of you know the name Herb Sunshine. He worked at both Epiphone and Guild. He was a sort of salesman/engineer. I met him back in about 1963. He coined the name "Orpheum"(That doesn't sound right this morning)for a line of banjos.

Later,at Guild,someone expressed concern that the fret slots on curved fingerboards were deeper in the centers. So,Herb designed a rotating drum for the fingerboards to be rolled in as the frets were cut on the gang saw,making the fret slots the same depth all across.(Why this was a big concern,I don't know). So,the concept of cutting fret slots this way is not a new one.

Shawn Pixley

02-15-2014, 12:58 PM

Can you take a picture of that 3 string tree? I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. I would love to have access to something like that. It would fix an awful lot of problem guitars without having to permanently modify anything. All they really have to do, though, is what John Suhr does. He just starts with a thicker piece of wood and makes the headstock a little deeper. It doesn't need much. It just often times needs more than the practically ZERO that the G string has now.

John here is the G&L tree.

282522282523

The string tree is so simple, you wonder why others didn't develop it earlier. The bridge on the G&L is also really good.

G&L is Leo Fender and George Fullerton's company they formed in the eighties after their associations with Fender and Ernie Ball. Leo wanted to make a better version of earlier guitars. The ASAT was his new Telecaster. This is a guitar from the first year's production. In many ways it is superior to many Telecasters. I have this one set up for G tuning. The pickups are "wide field" single coils with a sound slightly darker than a fender single coil but not quite as gravely as a Gibson P90. I have another G&L that was the 1989 NAMM guitar.

Julie Moriarty

02-18-2014, 1:23 PM

Yesterday I did the copper shielding. That tape REALLY sticks! And it doesn't like to be put in a corner either.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Stratocaster%20Build/shielding_zpsd3cf0de3.jpg
It's like some sort of shrine in our family room. :rolleyes:

When I was installing the shielding, I set the guitar body on one of those foam pads made for working on guitars. Fender was even kind enough to put their name on it. I spun the body around to get the tape into all the little nooks and crannies but then I wondered if that was putting any scratches on the finish. I turned the body over and, sure enough, that foam was scratching the finish. It's been about two weeks since I put the last coat on the body and it's still a bit soft. Maybe I'll have to wait the full month. Or maybe that foam Fender sells isn't so good for a guitar's finish. :confused:

Julie Moriarty

02-21-2014, 10:55 AM

Julie,keep your CA glue in the fridge and it will last for months.

I need to thank you for this tip, George. Up until I started doing that, I HATED all CA glues. They were great once newly opened but useless in a week or two. I've not had that problem since I started keeping CA in the fridge. Why don't they say that in the directions?

I've also "discovered" the beauty of using an accelerator. I got that from the videos John sent. Two days ago I glued up a plastic lens from one of our landscape lights. Nothing I had tried before had worked, including CA, and I had resigned myself to the fact I just need to buy new lenses. (These lenses have a metal top hat attached to them, held by a single screw.) When I tried gluing and then used the accelerator, it bonded the pieces instantly. And that metal top hat has been holding up to 30mph winds.

http://img0115.popscreencdn.com/162392028_new-4-malibu-low-voltage-led-landscape-lights-bronze.jpg

Now I can glue more than my skin. :)

Shawn Pixley

02-21-2014, 4:14 PM

Get old cloth diapers to rest your gutar on. Cheap and non-scratchy.

I put foil on the pickguard as well. No hum here....

Julie Moriarty

02-22-2014, 3:08 PM

It's been a long time since there's been old diapers in this house... :rolleyes:

Here's where #2 is right now
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Radocaster/radicaster_42_zps836669b9.jpg

And yes, I thought I had it all down pat and didn't need to double check to make sure I'm doing everything in the right order... and I forgot to drill the tuner holes before gluing the fretboard and tapering the headstock. http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/eusa_wall_zpsac9a1a31.gif

John Coloccia

02-22-2014, 5:21 PM

I like the new headstock shape.

Andy Cree

02-22-2014, 5:47 PM

The wood is beautiful and you are doing a great job!! I have always wanted to build my own guitar. The body looked like it was thicker than a normal strat. Was that jus the camera, or are you going for a bit heavier, Les Paul like tone?

Andy

Julie Moriarty

02-22-2014, 9:14 PM

I like the new headstock shape.
I had to. You threatened to tell Leo on me! :p

The wood is beautiful and you are doing a great job!! I have always wanted to build my own guitar. The body looked like it was thicker than a normal strat. Was that jus the camera, or are you going for a bit heavier, Les Paul like tone?

Andy

Actually, the body is a bit on the thin side, just under 1.75". The piece of maple I had was a bit rough and by the time I got it smoothed, I was hoping the trem would fit.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Radocaster/radicaster_39_zpsdf632d85.jpghttp://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Radocaster/radicaster_40_zpse6e93567.jpg
It might look thicker because the roundover and arm and belly cuts haven't been done.

Right now I'm doubting the ebony fretboard. It just isn't working for me. When I was polishing it with the Micro Mesh, I couldn't get what I got with the cocobolo. I'm just hoping once the black dye/sand back/red dye thing is done on the body, it will all work.

I haven't done anything with the bass because my SO hasn't given me any answers. :rolleyes: But one thing I do know - my arms are too short to use a spokeshave on the neck like I have with the guitars.

george wilson

02-23-2014, 8:57 AM

Is that some of that $300.00 wood that Grizzly sells?

Julie Moriarty

02-23-2014, 12:21 PM

Is that some of that $300.00 wood that Grizzly sells?

No. I bought a slab from Owl Hardwood Lumber. They have three stores in the area and probably the best selection in the Chicago area. I think the 8/4, 7+" x 80+" slab ran about $225. I looked up the Grizzly wood you're talking about and they don't even give you the dimensions. Something I learned about wood used for lutherie, they use terms like "flame" instead of "curly" or "quilted". And they use a rating of A to AAAAA which is rated by the seller and has no set standards like we're used to seeing from the NHLA or AHEC.

george wilson

02-23-2014, 1:10 PM

Grizzly does give dimensions,Julie. I don't think you looked in the right place. I think they want too much money for their wood. And,for some reason,they do not sell spruce for guitar tops,though they sell sets of spruce struts. I don't get it.

They are very bad to never give specifications of many products such as metal lathe chucks and other precision devices. I will not buy a chuck if I do not know how many thousandths it runs out.

Julie Moriarty

02-24-2014, 10:10 AM

One happy family, basking in the sun!
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Radocaster/radicaster_43_zps23dcb8b3.jpg

I had put the new body in the sun to speed up darkening the grain. Then I figured why not do a photo shoot? I just wish it was warm enough outside for ME to bask in the sun!

I was working in CAD this morning, trying to settle on a new headstock that wasn't designed after I already cut a strat-type headstock. :rolleyes: I'm thinking of making some subtle changes in the body too. But I'll seriously have to look into selling something if I plan to keep building guitars. There's roughly $600 in materials for each guitar, and that doesn't include the tool investment. A Rockefeller, I'm not.

Julie Moriarty

02-24-2014, 1:36 PM

Today I went Neanderthal :rolleyes:

Sometimes you get tired of making dust and wearing a haz-mat suit (it seems like it) to protect yourself from the dust. And sometimes your basement is so cold you can't feel your fingers or toes. Today, both applied. So I decided to put the edge tools, and me, to work. There's something peaceful and satisfying about working with hand tools. http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/meditate_zps5a80fe25.gif

I started with a jack plane on the arm cut.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Radocaster/radicaster_44_zps291bee53.jpg

The top pic was just after planing, the bottom pic after using a RO sander on it. It always amazes me how such a small area of wood grows to such a large shavings pile.

I then turned it over and used a spokeshave to make the belly cut.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Radocaster/radicaster_45_zps0f8e8bda.jpg

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Radocaster/radicaster_46_zpsb79e5439.jpg
I'm beginning to feel my fingers and toes.

I can't get in deep enough with the spokeshaves I have so I'll have to resort to the rotex. UGH! The tranquility and beauty of working with the hand tools loses to noise, dust and mayhem.