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New solid body electric guitar
I hope to make periodic posts through this build, the Day designations will, I expect refer to days of posts rather than day of build, perhaps like some people interpret biblical "days" of creation. Too many other projects happening at the same time! I built a bass with my son most of a decade ago, now he'd like a guitar. He's providing all the hardware, the wood bits are up to me.
Anyway, the first step is to lay up a blank for the neck. Bookmatched hard curly maple with plies of cherry, maple veneer, and a stripe of redheart. The redheart won't retain the bright color, but will still have contrast and look nice as it ages. I know I'm a glutton for punishment with carving and shaping the curly maple, but it looks so nice when it's done!
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It's going to be built to basic Strat dimensions and scale, with Strat style pickups. It is a through-neck design though, and the peghead will be angled, so definitely not a straight Strat copy. I've got a nice piece of cocobolo for the front and back that is thick enough to allow me to resaw it into two bookmatched sets, so both front and back will be bookmatched from the same piece of wood. Body shape, peghead shape, and inlay designs are still to be designed, that's probably the next order of business before I get too far ahead of myself!
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New solid body electric, post 2
Well the project ground to a halt almost as soon as it had started when my bandsaw broke for good. Turns out it had been failing for years with multiple problems. I had blithely assumed that I couldn't turn the tensioner any more because it was as tight as it would go. Wrong. After disastrously failing at resawing some veneer that it used to be able to do I noticed the blade had a wicked curve in it while cutting. That led me to look more closely at the tensioner which turned out to have a completely bunged up thread-- it wouldn't turn because there was marginal thread and it was jamming.
So, I ordered a new tensioner rod (one with a nice big handle on it from Highland Hdw.), after my last Georgia shipping experience which took 19 days I was pleased when it arrived today. Much more robust nut, well machined rod, and, as I said, a nice handwheel. Popped it on, fit perfectly, and cranked the tension up so that the blade barely deflected. Woo-hoo!
That's when I discovered my blade was dull as a hoe, having run off the wheel and into a support member in a previous chapter of this band saw resuscitation that involved replacing the upper wheel hinge, thanks to Creeker's who identified my problem. Fortunately I was practicing on a piece of cheap cherry at the time that I needed for part of the body lamination. OK, had a brand new "wood slicer" blade hanging on the wall, installed it, adjusted all the guides, and wow, the saw was running quieter and smoother than it has in many years. (Leading me to kick myself for putting up with it in lousy condition for so long.)
On to the main show, resawing the cocobolo for the back and front faces of the guitar! I almost couldn't believe my eyes after the first cut. I'd completely forgotten how colorful freshly cut cocobolo is! I know it won't last, but wow!
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These photos really don't do the intense yellows and purples in the wood justice.
With the bandsaw humming it really wasn't the white-knuckle experience I was dreading. The wood slicer worked as advertised and gave me perfect 7 mm thick slices that needed only a minimal passage through the drum sander to clean them up.
Tomorrow it will be on to beginning to laminate the body, laying out and making router templates for the wiring cavities, and perhaps rough shaping of the neck. I'm going to try to use the laster cutter to make the electronics access panel in the back in hopes of a close enough fit that I can make it look seamless. We'll see-- tell me if I'm heading for disaster with that!
We had been thinking about how to lay out the knobs and switches; looking at the re-sawn top we realized that we really have to consider the figure of the wood in deciding how to place them. I'm thinking a clear template is going to be useful for that.
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New solid body electric, post 3
Making some progress!
I wanted the back opening to the electronics compartment to appear pretty much seamless. Attempts to do this in the past with a scroll saw were less than fully satisfactory, so this time I used a laser cutter. Worked like a champ! After I cleaned the char off I have a very uniform ~0.5 mm kerf all the way around.
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I started cutting the neck to rough shape, always a white-knuckle moment
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To laminate the peghead I cut veneers from cherry, red heart and cocobolo then laid them up using a vacuum veneer bag. I think I will wait to cut the peghead to shape until after the inlays on it are done.
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Finally, I routed out the electronics compartment, drilled holes for the pickup wiring, and laminated the main body parts. Here they are, bandsawn and sanded to near final shape.
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It's starting to look like a guitar! Next is to round over the body segments, get them glued to the neck, and then begin to sculpt the heel region and make the transitions between the body and the neck. I've been shaping the neck with a spokeshave, I think I might need a curved tool to better get into the transition areas. As expected I'm getting a lot of tearout on the neck with the spokeshave, I'm probably going to have to just get it close by that method and then transition to rasps and sandpaper for final shaping.