DesmoDog's 2011 TDPRI Build Challenge Thread

[DesmoDog]

Originally Posted by crazydave911

Just thought you might like to see the way this nut did it 20+ yrs ago .I puzzled over that string anchor/headstock for over a month.Wish we'd had a TDPRI back then
Good job on the sidemarkers

I was thinking about doing it with rosewood instead of aluminum, but decided I'd rather have something thicker on there... Looks like your way would work too.

I haven't got any in-process pics today, I forgot the camera when I started and was too lazy to go up a couple flights of stairs to get it. I had a couple "teachable moments" tonight and learned a few things, so in the spirit of my education, I thought I'd present a POP QUIZ!

Ok all you builders out there... what activity have I been doing which would have an effect on a previous activity I did???

Anyone?

Here's hint #1. Check out the side dots after I shaved them down to match the neck. I bought a new toy for this build, the popular ROSS. I used it to make the dots flush. I used it on the plastic ones too. I may have used it when I cut the fingerboard down to size too?


The dots STILL don't look like they're inline in that shot but really they are. I think it's the camera lens or something?

These two shots show a few things. Obviously I cut out the body shape. I'm happy with how the template got indexed front and back, the lines of the body outline look pretty even on each side so the routing locations should be pretty close too. Back side:


Front side:


You can see I routed the neck pocket too, (Hint #2 ) using the template I made from the neck a few days ago, before I glued the fingerboard on.

Answer to quiz: I sanded the neck a touch after I made the pocket template. So now the pocket is loose. Oops. The fit of the neck isn't horrible bit it's looser than I'd like. I can barely wedge three pieces of paper between the neck and the body now (with 3 sheets the fit is tight enough when I lift the neck straight up the body comes with it).


This is a long story that maybe I shouldn't get into, but a few things happened with the neck routing that shouldn't have. Scroll the the pics at the end if you're bored.

Issue 1) Sanding the neck after I made the template. I should have waited to make the template. Ok, so I only sanded the one side. If I push it up against the treble side the alignment should still be good, right? No problem. Then I realized I lose the treble side of the pocket when I cut the body shape. I KNEW I routed the pocket before cutting the neck shape for a reason! That's why the area around the neck pocket hasn't been shaped yet, I want to work this out before I cut away the support on the one side.

Issue 2) I also screwed up the indexing holes I drilled for it. I have no idea how this happened, but using holes I had in there the template sat about 1/16" back from where it should have. I could swear I had pins installed yesterday and it looked fine? In any case, I caught it so no harm done. I clamped the template into position and was in the process of installing a bit into the drill to make new holes when my wife came home. I went up to see her, came back down, grabbed the router and got on with it. Finished routing, unclamped the template and realized there was nothing indexing it to the pocket. The drill bit was still in my pocket. Assuming the depth I ended up with is fine (it should be, I measured it enough times) that's not a problem, but if I need to go back and take a little off the bottom I'll be guessing when I put the template back on.

Issue #3) My plan is to route the main body before I put the 1/4" poplar cap on. Then I'd use the cavities I already routed to guide the flush cut bit. The problem here is, the cavity I just routed is only 3/8" deep. From what I can tell that is just barely enough room to get the router bit in there - the bolt holding the bearing on is a lot taller than I would have thought. And I have no index holes for the pocket template to do them with that... though I can work backwards from the back side of the body with a template I suppose. I'm still going to try the flush cut bit first, I'm pretty sure I can make it work.


But enough rambling. Here's how it looks now. I did a little sanding after dinner so the body is looking pretty smooth in most spots. I decided not to make a 3/4" MDF body template - sanding the poplar is pretty easy so why bother sanding MDF first? If nothing else, I won't get any tear out doing it like this!




To sum it up, no real harm done tonight and I did learn a few things, which was the point of the build, so... I'm calling it another successful evening!

[DesmoDog]

I didn't get much done on this today. I had a long list of things to do but didn't feel very motivated, so I cleaned up my bench instead (it needed it) and then worked on the body some more. I measured the gap in the neck pocket - it's about .01" at the top of the body, goes to about zero at the heel. Then I shaped the bass side by the neck pocket. That area's not done but it's mostly where it needs to be.


It was one of those nights I just felt like doing relatively mindless stuff so I sat there and hand sanded the sides a little too. I find it's best to do that sort of thing over time instead of trying to get it all done at once. I'm always surprised when I look at things the next day and find all these flaws I never noticed the day before. Same thing with this. i went back down to take pictures later and found spots that will need more attention that I thought were fine earlier today.


I worked on the horn on the treble side too, but didn't touch that side of the neck pocket yet.


And then I just had to throw a few parts on top of it.


So.. I pretty much blew off all the things I had thought I'd do today and worked on other stuff instead. I feel like I fell behind, but I would have had to do this work sometime so I'm still ok I suppose... I've got a few days to spare according to my plan but I don't want to rely on them. I've realized a TravelTele is no good without a case, so I'm considering trying to put a case together for it during the last week. We'll see how my motivation is for that when the time comes!

I was going to start shaping the neck tonight but that might wait until Saturday when I can hopefully devote a bunch of time to it.

[crazydave911]

Originally Posted by DesmoDog

So.. I pretty much blew off all the things I had thought I'd do today and worked on other stuff instead

I know what you mean.I have a dear friend who still builds wooden boats and (I've been foolish enough to help at times) he says, "somedays, it just pays to go fishing instead.It's better than sitting in the moaning chair realizing you've just epoxied part A to part B backwards". A wise man

[DesmoDog]

Originally Posted by crazydave911

I know what you mean.I have a dear friend who still builds wooden boats and (I've been foolish enough to help at times) he says, "somedays, it just pays to go fishing instead.It's better than sitting in the moaning chair realizing you've just epoxied part A to part B backwards". A wise man

I have study plans for the wooden boat I'm going to build when we move to a lake home...

I learned working on bikes that sometimes you just have to let things go for a day or two (or even a year or two in some cases). It's not really losing time I suppose, I would have had to work on the body at some point. I still feel like I've fallen behind today though. It could have been a lot worse, I've had days where I go backwards with projects, messing up everything I touch. Or, I used to have days like that when I rode a lot where maybe half an hour in I knew I needed to go home and get off the bike, cuz it was just not working that day.

[MUSEfenderTAMA]

Some people really hate traveler guitars (not here necessarily), but I say if there is a time and place for them, this building challenge has got to be it!

You'll separate yourself from the competition and get a unique guitar you might not have otherwise built. I wouldn't gig with a traveler's guitar but I would sure as heck take it with me everywhere.

[MUSEfenderTAMA]

You should finish the guitar like this

http://www.musewiki.org/File:EarlsCourtManson.jpg

Don't think that's been tried before on a small guitar, you'd have a good shot at winning.
Keep up the good work!

[DesmoDog]

Well for me this build is all about trying different things, so a travel guitar made sense. As for that finish, I'll wait until I build a metal guitar.

Hmm... maybe a stainless steel guitar for next year's challenge?

[DesmoDog]

Another day of planning to do one thing, but doing something else instead.

I decided to start shaping the neck tonight. Turns out the tools I have to do this aren't great, I really need to buy something more appropriate for next time.


The surforms I have are from when I used to work with Bondo on the beater cars I drove 30 years ago. They kind of work but they had a tendency to gouge/tear the maple so I switched to the ROSS, a file, a scraper I got from Stew-Mac, and some strips of emery cloth I have around for metal work. The ROSS is very awkward so I stopped using it after the "roughing out" stage. The other things are very slow but don't have as high a risk of damaging anything. I need a spoke shave and a rasp. The emery cloth works like a champ by the way. It doesn't tear, you can do the "shoe shine" routine with it to smooth things out with great results. The scraper is nice too, though I did manage to put a major scratch in the neck with it. No harm done as it was early in the process and the damage was removed as the shaping progressed.

This is addicting. I had intended on just getting started tonight and then working on the body, but I ended up working only on this. I went down to take more pics after dinner and ended up sanding it even more.




The transition at the heel needs a lot more work but the basic shape is right about where I want it.


I went with something along the lines of what Warmoth would call a "fat" profile since all my guitars are more of a thin profile and I wanted to try something different. With all the new to me things I'm trying on this I think the chances of me loving it are pretty slim!

[DesmoDog]

Saturday morning update -

I worked on the neck heel, I think the shaping of the back of the neck is done, just some sanding left to prep for Tru-Oil. I neglected to take any pics of this though.

I glued the halves together for the top after sanding the edges flat


I also finished shaping the body. There is still some sanding left to do but the major shape work is done.


Now I'm off on some non-guitar related activities, but I hope to get back to this later today. There are a lot more things I want to get done on this before Monday!

[DesmoDog]

Turns out I didn't get much done yesterday... and today is going a lot slower than I planned too. I don't think I'm in trouble yet but I'm not as comfy as I was.

I finished up the routing template for the back side.


After I drilled the corner holes, I thought I'd weigh it.


After routing. The front route will just break through in some spots.


I roughed out the tuner mounting parts. Turns out the ROSS 1/2" sanding roll that I used on the routing template isn't 1/2" after all. Chalk it up to leaving space for paint. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.


Pre-routing full frontal for those of you who are into that sort of thing. The through-hole will be covered by the top when it gets glued on, I haven't decided yet if there will be a slot or individual holes for the strings to pass through. I don't think I'll route the front until after the top is glued on, I think the tuner ovals would be too shallow to use a flush cut bit on. (Just like the neck pocket...)


Post- routing weight. The top still needs to be glued on and the front still needs to be routed so who knows where it will end up when it's finished.


Next step will either be to make the template for the front routing or start radiusing the neck.

[DesmoDog]

I decided to radius the fingerboard next since there are a lot of things to do before I need the template for the front routing.

First I aligned the neck and drilled the mounting screw holes in it. As it turns out, I won't need to shim the neck pocket. After I drilled the first hole I screwed the neck to the body and everything is centered when the neck is pushed all the way over to the bass side. So, that's cool. I drilled the other three holes and then screwed the neck onto the rear route template since it had the neck holes in it already (they're what I used to position the template).

Under way with some 60 grit paper.


After the 60 grit I switched to 100. When that looked good I touched up the marker dot holes and glued the dots in. I may have messed on this step... I got a few glue smudges which I cleaned up with acetone (like it said on the container). I thought the dark patches would go away when it dried. That was two hours ago... I hope they come out when I finish sanding the neck. I may end up wiping down the whole fingerboard to get it all dark???

[Zatar]

Is it me or is this a no-working-pics thread? :)

[Travst]

I can't see the pics either.

[crazydave911]

Originally Posted by Travst

I can't see the pics either.

They were here. Probably a problem with his photo hosting

[DesmoDog]

The guy who hosts my site on his server didn't pay the bill... He's fixing it right now...

[DesmoDog]

Should be working now.

[Travst]

Originally Posted by DesmoDog

Should be working now.

Not quite yet. ;)

[Attu]

Working now, for now anyway :)

[DesmoDog]

Yeah... the site was back up when I posted the second time. If the pics aren't showing up try refreshing the page maybe?

Not much progress tonight. I used slow epoxy to glue the dots in (I had no idea what would work best?) The problem is, my basement is still relatively cool so the epoxy is taking forever to cure. It was still a little tacky when I went down there and I don't want to try to sand the dots until the glue is completely cured. Hopefully tomorrow, though that puts off my final sanding and tru -oil application by another day. The good news is I spot sanded some of the dark sections of the fingerboard and it looks like it will clean up fine when I do the final sanding.

Instead of sanding the neck, I finished sanding the body. Now I can round off the back edge whenever I have time. I also discovered where the error came from in my indexing holes for the neck pocket. Another case of line thicknesses catching me off guard. I sanded the original template to the outside of a line, then sanded the body to the outside of that line, then set up the heel of the neck to the outside of yet another line, and there's the error when I put it all together. Makes no difference in the end, other than pulling the bridge forward a bit.

I also found the cable housing I'm going to use for the string routing. It was hiding in plain sight, not sure how I missed it the first time around. I actually have three different sizes of it, which was a surprise. I need to pick up a couple more things and then I can work on the guides for it. I can't glue the top on until that's worked out.

No pictures today since nothing looks any different than it did yesterday.

[DesmoDog]

Finished the fretboard radius


Finished the shaping and sanding. I got the first coat of Tru-Oil on it too.


And then I started on the string routing gizmo. It's en evolving idea and I decided to build a removable version of it first to try a new idea out. If it works I'll build another one attached to the body and then glue the top on. The new idea involves some routing I'm not too sure about but it's going to be a solid color guitar so there's room for error.