2010 TDPRI $210 Challenge: We're there Dudes!

[CJFearn]

kennyh - thanks for the kind words. The pick guard is for a Martin style acoustic guitar that my friends Rudi blazer and Willi Henkes at Antique Acoustics down in Tübingen build (http://www.antique-acoustics.de/en/index.htm)

jeremyb - thanks! I see you're in New Zealand. I've been greatly inspired over the years by another New Zealander, John Britten, best known for building a Superbike by hand and then going to Daytona and beating the world's best with it. And when I say building it by hand I mean he designed and built every single part from the wheels to the frame to the complete engine! What many people don't know is that he was that way about everything, having built his house himself even down to casting the brass handles for the cabinets. Here's a picture of John and one of the ten bikes he built.

[CJFearn]

Time to get some more pictures up here!

[CJFearn]

Time to get back to working on the body. Maple and pear are fairly heavy (though not quite as bad as concrete ) so I'm thinking it would be nice to lighten it up somehow. On the other hand I would like to keep the regular Telecaster sound and not have this turn into an Acousticaster (not that that's a bad idea, actually we'll probably build one sometime soon), but today's objective is to build a standard Telecaster that's light but still has that great Telecaster sound! After casting about a bit I recalled that Boeing came up with the honeycomb sandwich for aircraft construction some years back. The honeycomb sandwich principle allows you to keep the volume and stiffness of an object while at the same time reducing the weight. I like that! And because the holes are pretty small it shouldn't have too much of an effect on the acoustics... maybe. OK, so back to the drawing board and here's what we came up with...

[CJFearn]

Before we get started with the honeycomb we have to stretch the top a little as it was an inch or so too short. I thought a wavy line would make it more interesting so off to the jigsaw and presto, it's longer!

The trick in doing this is to stack the boards on top of each other with a couple dabs of glue to hold them in place, then cut them both at the same time. Remember to go slowly and carefully!

[CJFearn]

So now all the wood is ready. It's time to start making shavings! Well, almost. One little thing before we fire up our good 'ol Router on Rails, we have to generate some G-code to tell her what to do. Notice I didn't say "what we want her to do". That's because the computer doesn't care what we want, but only what we tell it, so it's up to us to figure out how to tell it what to do in a way that it will result in it doing what we want. Two and a half hours and three cups of coffee later and I think I've got it all ready without having overlooked anything. Push the "Generate G-code" button, save it to the USB stick and we're finally ready to do some woodworking again!

Back soon!

[Moggl]

Just a thought, Cab: If the weight allows for it, wouldn't it make sense to leave the middle portion solid (greyed out here)?

PS: Great idea with the jigsaw design. :-)

[CJFearn]

Originally Posted by Moggl

Just a thought, Cab: If the weight allows for it, wouldn't it make sense to leave the middle portion solid (greyed out here)?

PS: Great idea with the jigsaw design. :-)

Yeah, I originally had the same thought, but on further contemplation (and having a look at how airplanes are made) I discovered that it doesn't make it any stronger. Think about how an I beam works. The engineers here know a lot more about this than I do, but as I understand it the top and bottom surfaces are the main load bearing areas and the center is under relatively little stress.

[CJFearn]

We're off to see the Router,
the wonderful Router on Rails!
Because because because because...

OK, sorry about that, I just couldn't help myself. We clamped the wood down, lined up the router on the center of the wood and let her rip. The centers were hogged out with a flat cut bit and the edges were done with a ball end bit so that the bottom of the holes are chamfered 3 mm. We also used the ball end to cut a groove for some 6 mm aluminum tubing to run the wires through.
The tubing acts as electrical shielding as well as aligning the top and bottom when we glue them up. Saves having to use some kind of locating pins. After the top was done we did the same thing to the back but in reverse.

[Moggl]

Just to clarify: I wasn't thinking in terms of load-bearing but rather in terms of sonic propagation. Too late now. :-)

[CJFearn]

The aluminum tubes were glued in with superglue (I got a little carried away with the superglue there, I'll have to watch that ). Then I used a little paint roller to spread wood glue on the top and bottom. I hope I have enough clamps on there. Let it dry overnight and presto! A big block of wood! Are we ready for Tool Time or what?

Time to get to the day job here, but we'll be back, so stay tuned!

[CJFearn]

Originally Posted by Moggl

Just to clarify: I wasn't thinking in terms of load-bearing but rather in terms of sonic propagation. Too late now. :-)

Hmmmm, I'm thinking that would be the same as the stress vectors, but who knows? That's one of the reasons I'm doing this, so I can find out. Be assured I'll let you know how it works out (and put up some sound clips for your enjoyment as well). I heard somewhere that Thomas Edison tried out over 5000 different ideas before he got the light bulb to work. I hope we can get there a little sooner!

[CJFearn]

Yesterday we went to Frankfurt for the Musikmesse (music trade show) for the day. Wow! Lots of stuff!!! I should have probably stayed a week! More guitars than you'll ever see in your life! And... they had a display in hall 4.1 of classic electric guitars that was just outrageous! Every famous guitar ever made, one of every style Fender guitar in cherry red and both Eric Clapton's Blackie and Stevie Ray Vaughn's Lenny! On top of that they had a copy of the Beatles original stage setup from the Star Club (check those amps!). Now how cool does it get? I only had my cell with me so the pictures aren't the best, but here you go:

[Moggl]

Thanks for the heads-up, Cab! :-)

[CJFearn]

Wow! It's been a long two days and I'm about to fall over, but here's your weekend report as promised.

I got started yesterday morning and between then and nine o'clock this evening got the following done:

1. went to the hardware store and got some nice looking stainless steel screws for the pickups and switch, brought them home and polished the heads

2. routed all the cutouts for pickups, neck, electronics etc.

3. filled all the cracks in the wood with superglue

4. scraped everything flat

5. routed the edge with a 6 mm bit

6. sanded the body (took forever... )

7. applied Tru-Oil to the neck and body and hung them up to dry until tomorrow when I'll steel wool them and apply some more oil

8. collapsed in total exhaustion

Here you can see the patient clamped to the operating table. On the left is my $25 special made in China variable speed orbital sander with dust sucker and dust bag. It works just like an expensive one (don't know for how long ). I got some Abranet sanding disks in 120, 180 and 240 grit for it which work like a charm. The blue bottle is a large size superglue and behind it is a spray can of superglue accelerator. (These are probably my two most important tools )

[CJFearn]

It's ten o'clock in Central Europe, the neck and body are oiled and hung up to dry and we're off to bed. Maybe if I leave a bowl of milk and some cookies out on the work bench it will be all done when I get up in the morning...

[alias23k]

Absolutely Amazing!

My builds like a VW Dasher compared to your Maserati

[CJFearn]

Originally Posted by alias23k

Absolutely Amazing!

My builds like a VW Dasher compared to your Maserati

Thank you for the kind words, but I really like your build! The idea with the tailpiece is pure genius! (I'm going to steal it soon. )

By the way, my friend Rocky wants to know if he can get Molly's phone number?

[guityak]

Impressive.

[jay1970]

Wow!!!!!!!!!

[jlee45]

looking great!