tklaavo's 2012 Challenge Build Thread -- COMPLETED

[tklaavo]

Hey you inch-minded people, if you look closely my caliper has both scales..
Thanks for the kind words, I'll try to be worth them also today.

[DeepSouth]

I've enjoyed reading your progress so far. Everything is looking great. I'm starting to see the advantage of the spindle sanders for making templates - it seems to do a good job. Keep up the great work.

It looks so cold where you live compared to what I'm used to - but the cooking looks nice and warm which is more important as far I'm concerned.

[telejoseph]

This looks fantastic so far, can't wait for the finished result!

[Olav]

inch-minded people

[Olav]

Originally Posted by tklaavo

[...]

Because Olav doesn't want to see it, I left out a picture of Grandma's pancakes and strawberry jam.
Well, it tasted better than it looked anyway .

Sure, make me feel extra bad! Not only did I not get to taste the pancakes isoäitini made, now I don't get to see them...
For future reference; if I ask you not to show pics of food it's best to remember that English is a second, maybe third language to me and I might not fully understand what I'm talking about and will probably mean to show more detailed pics... Mm-kay?
For now, let's agree to post every scrumptious meal mummi puts on the table for you.

[Olav]

And finally here's a post that's on topic;

I love the idea of rearranging the grain in the neck to make a flatsawn slab into a 'quartersawn' one. With your kind permission I will try that on a future neck.
Good golly, good going there! Keep it up.

[tklaavo]

Originally Posted by Olav

Sure, make me feel extra bad! Not only did I not get to taste the pancakes isoäitini made, now I don't get to see them....

Private message sent.... Don't cry...

[tklaavo]

Originally Posted by Olav

I love the idea of rearranging the grain in the neck to make a flatsawn slab into a 'quartersawn' one. With your kind permission I will try that on a future neck.

Permission granted... can't just now remember who I stole the idea from (without asking...)

[Olav]

Originally Posted by tklaavo

Private message sent.... Don't cry...

I'm a big boy... I don't cry easy.


I just got something in my eye...

[tklaavo]

First of all, thanks for all the support! I've been mostly lucky so far, but today I have faced some reality as well..

My day 3 starts with a spring clean. Two big bags of woodchips, dust and other stuff mostly from the floor:



Last night I changed my mind on the truss rod. I'll route a curved slot from the back and make a skunk stripe. This means that I have to draw the outline on the backside (and erase what I did yesterday on the other side to avoid confusion)



While the blank was still square, I could use some fences on the drill press and make holes right on the centerline. These will help me to align the router later. Drilled also the start and end positions for the slot



But before routing I need a jig. It shall have curved rails. And to make a curve, I need to bend something, and today it is this thin piece of wood.. Drilled tiny holes on it and hammered with thin nails. I measured a 8 mm dip in the center.



Jigsawed



Added a support strip for router base. Routed with bearing. Some little bumps, which I sanded away until smooth.



Need another identical rail. Used the first one as a template.



Jigsaw and router…



While they were screwed together, I planed the undersides on the jointer and sanded the upper edge. Marked one end on both so I won't mess this up



And here's the jig



Neck mounted



I did many shallow passes



This will do for now, it's 18 mm on the nut end and little less on the other.



Yesterday's template holes on the wrong side are still there.. Have to fix them before I glue the fingerboard on or there will be a leak.



Now I can bandsaw the neck close to the line



And smooth with different sanding methods, I'm afraid of tearouts.



Router table rules!



I took it slow and carefully, so got some burn marks but no tearouts!



I didn't even try to route the headstock curves, just sanded that part. It will be finished in final sanding.



But does it fit the neck pocket template? Yes! Can't get any better!



I'll leave the neck for a while, need to think how to proceed from here.
I want to see the body take shape. Didn't change my mind about the top orientation:



The birch piece bandsawed roughly. The back looks ok. Final shaping will be done when the body has been glued together



I need one more template for the hollowing-out. Now things start going worse… Decided to use this thin plywood, because it is easy to sand nice curves on it.



Well, it's too thin to make anything out of



I can't understand why I went through the effort and shaped the body outline on it. Would have been stronger on just a square piece. The screw holes are used for alignment anyway.

MDF version:



Relief holes and jigsawing



After some sanding. Not yet perfect for routing, but can be used to draw the cavity outline...



...Like this. Now I'm going to make a mistake, which I didn't realize until I was driving home. Nothing fatal though.



Forstner bit hollowing shot. Everyone seems to be doing this… The mistake is made already:



This is where I'm at. Have to think about the tip of the horn. The bottom is going to be about the same thickness as the top, 10 mm. (that's about 3/8 inches )



And the mistake?
In my sketch I had designed a taller area under the neck pickup so I can screw the PU to the body and not hang it from the pickguard… Totally forgot that. No big deal, I'll just glue a piece there later. (JUST GOT TO REMEBER THAT! )

Ok, bandsawed the top and made some holes. A bit of tearout on the bottom side when drilling. Should have done this some other way. No panic though..



Jigsawed some:



And routed with the template. Here are my current pieces for this build:



While the router was fixed in the table, I took out my SELF-DESIGNED fretboard radiusing jig (first creative moment in this thread?) It is a collection of ideas from many other jigs I've seen. And best of all, it makes a COMPOUND RADIUS. Here are the rails:



And this is the sled with two different arcs. Goes back and forth and swings - just like all other radius jigs out there. The hole in the other arc is there to fit one piece necks (the headstock sticks out there)



To tell the truth, it is really a barely useable prototype. Is it easy to use? No. Is it reliable and accurate? Definitely NO. Does it make a radiused surface on a piece of wood? Yes, but…
And why do I use it? Because it is the only radiusing tool I have right now! Someone with decent jig-building skills can try to make this better. I have a love-hate relationship with this thing. Some reasons:

First.. i had to shim here with pieces of duct tape, otherwise the beast cuts one end about one mm thicker than the other…



Second.. the only way to fasten anything here is double-sided tape. I'm not afraid it would come loose - I'm afraid i'd break the fingerboard when removing it.



Third.. It is extremely hard to get a symmetrical profile with this. The centerline is off the center of the sled, because of inaccuracies in my construction. After some trial and error, this is the heel end with about 12 " radius. I can compensate and move it a bit to the side (there's a whole of 2 mm extra width!)



This is the nut end with about 9,5" radius. This too needs some sanding and adjustment to make it symmetrical:



But I'm happy when I notice same thickness in both ends. My duct tape shims seemed to work.

I hope I can rebuild this jig sometime in the future. Using it really gets on my nerves.. Time to go home (and upload the pics and write this post!)

That's all for today. More next week someday when I have time. My next weekend is booked for something else, bummer…

[emoney]

Ummmm.....you've got some kind of powdery white stuff all over the ground outside your
shop. Just thought I'd mention it, in case you hadn't seen it.

Great job on the neck and love the compound radius jig you built.

[tklaavo]

Originally Posted by emoney

Ummmm.....you've got some kind of powdery white stuff all over the ground outside your
shop. Just thought I'd mention it, in case you hadn't seen it.

Great job on the neck and love the compound radius jig you built.

I can tell you the white stuff is far from powdery nowadays - it's more like wet and solid, hard-to-get-through icy coating.

Thanks! You wouldn't love the jig if you had to use it...

[RogerC]

Great idea on making the arc template. I'll have to store that one away for late use

[abracadabra]

great thread. I really like how you're documenting everything. and it's looking really nice!

[czook]

Thanks for the truss rod arc template info.

I wish I had read on about the headstock curves before I powered up the router.

I had a chunk tear out but it was easy to glue back and now I too will use the sander for that part.

[tklaavo]

Thanks again everyone!

No progress today. But I visited a recycling place to browse some junk and got these:



A plastic tray of some sort and two metal plates. The plastic has this funky texture, and the plates have some sort of soft material on the other side (the smaller one is more _reliced_ )



Now I could change my mind and make the pickguard out of this plastic instead of _the other stuff_ ....
And just for the sake of DIY Challenge spirit, might do some other parts of the plates. Like a control plate that is very gentle on the finish.

More updates tomorrow. Good night!

[nosmo]

Nice radius jig, really simple, I like stuff like that. As far as the truss rod rout, I would have just routed both sides.....Oh wait....I did that

[JDO]

very nicely done.

[tklaavo]

Today I had only a couple of hours time for this project. Wish I had more time.
New materials, proof pic of course



Let's try the pickguard. Cut a piece with bandsaw, drilled some holes to pickup slot, and taped to template with 2-sided tape:



Routed with the lousy bit:



I don't like beveled edges. Just touched it with the roundover bit. Red areas on the template say "do not round this edge".
Also drilled and countersunk screw holes.
Now I see this material is a real dust collector. I'm not sure if I want to use it:



On to the body hollowing. Made a bigger base for the router to keep it level



Like this



Took shallow passes. First passes on the edge I did very light, not pushing the bearing to the template, just taking out the rough corners.



The end result. Some sanding required.



The famous neck pickup mounting block glued in. Put the grain sideways, maybe it adds some strength? Here you can also see my little tearout inside the horn.



Did some sanding to the underside of the top and brushed on a coat of lacquer there to seal the wood. The template is to keep lacquer out of the glueing surfaces. I plan to do the same to the hollowed birch piece as well.



But then I had to go to work. More to come later this week. Thanks for watching !

[Bowensby23]

you are doing some great work here man. keep it up!