Something different, IOW, my first scratch build

Hey, guys. So, I've built a few guitars from parts, and I've done setup work for about 14 years, but I've never built from scratch. But I've watched the build threads here closely, and along with what I've learned over the years working on mine and other folks guitars, I'm ready to start. Before we start, though, I need to say a couple of things. Firstly, I don't have a lot of power tools, so there will be a lot of hand work.Files, surform,rasps and sanding blocks will be the norm. This is just the way I choose to do this. There are lots of ways to do it, but in the end, what matters are good joints and solid construction, no matter what it takes to get there. Secondly, the picture quality will vary, since I have a cheap camera. Outdoor shots will be better than indoor ones. I try to work outside as much as possible, but weather and the fact that I have to take work time on this when I can get it will dictate that some of this will be done inside. I apologize in advance for that.
This will not be the standard tele or strat build. Instead, I'm taking feaures and construction styles from many different types of guitars and putting them together to arrive at what I think will work for me.
I'm starting with this.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0017a.jpg
I cut this body a decade or two ago from an old cutting board, but set it aside when I realised I didn't have the skills needed to build it. Now I believe I do, so since I hate to give up on anything.....by the way, the body is poplar.
Let's set that aside for now, and talk walnut. My mother-in -law gave me the centerpiece to an old antique walnut table. It's been sitting in "the old house"(the abandoned house my wife grew up in that sits out front of "the new house" her mother lives in now), leaning against a wall for a few decades. It was dead flat. I thought it would make a good neck, but there were issues. It was only about 1/2"thick, and it was flatsawn. Yeah, I know, Fender necks are flatsawn. Nothing wrong with that. But 1/2" ain't thivk enough. Besides, I want quartersawn. So here's what I did:
I borrowed a friend's table saw and ripped the board up into 14/16" wide strips
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0001-2.jpg

which I then flipped 90 degrees and laminated together
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0005-1.jpg

This solved both problems. By cutting it into strips and flipping them 90 degrees it gave me a quartersawn neck blank 14/16" thick by about 4 and 1/2" wide. But during glue up, the individual strips shifted leaving me with a very uneven surface.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthandblt001.jpg

Using the sanding block you see in the picture, I sanded on it until I got it down close enough to get serious with it. Then to level it, I penciled hash marks across the surface, like this:
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthandblt010.jpg

The purpose for these hash marks is this. As I sand with a flat sanding block with heavy grit paper, the high spots will be sanded off, leaving the pencil marks still on the low spots, like this:
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthandblt015.jpg

As I continue to sand, the low spots will dissappear as well, leaving a nice smooth, level surface.

This process is repeated on the other side, until the blank is smooth and level on both sides. If this looks simple, it is. However, it is by no means easy. If I had to guess, I'd say this process took about 10 hours, spread out over 3 days.
The next step is the headstock. I've chosen to use a scarf joint, which will angle the headstock about 12 or 13 degrees, like a Les Paul or an acoustic. I started by deciding how long I wanted the headstock, in this case, 7 inches. I measured from the end of the board 7 inches and drew a line.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0029-1.jpg
Then I flipped the blank over and measured 3.5 inches(or half ) and drew another line.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0033-1.jpg

And flipped the blank on it's side and connected these two lines.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0031-2.jpg
Which I then proceeded to cut with this:
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0034-1.jpg
Ugly, ain't it?
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0036-1.jpg
Have no fear. All will be well. Using a square, I draw a line so I can clean up and true the edge
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0039.jpg

Using the surform in this picture, I'll do a down and dirty level

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0038.jpg

then proceed to cover it with those lovely hash marks again.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0042.jpg

This will be a recurring theme here. I have no thickness sanders, no planers, jointers or bandsaws. But Uncle Sam taught me to use files and their relatives well. It's slower, and a lot harder, but it can be done.
Here is the result.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0046.jpg

I'll do the other piece the same way, then put them together and work on them like this.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0076.jpg

Here is the result.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0077.jpg

Unfortunately, my computer ate the pics of the scarf joint glue up, so we will set the neck aside for a bit and move to the body.
In the time since I first cut this body my ideas of what I wanted it to look like have changed, so the first step was to draw a pattern on the body to give me a place to start shaping it.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0017-4.jpg

Then... well, a picture is worth a thousand words.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0019.jpg

Again using the surform, I start hogging out wood.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0020.jpg

That's looking more like it!

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0022-1.jpg

I started most of the contours on this body years ago. Now I've just gotta clean 'em up and define them, starting with the belly cut. I want a huge, honkin' belly cut, so here goes.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0026-2.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0027.jpg

Man, my arms are tired just looking at those pictures. While I admire your perseverance, I'd suggest you get a router or even a sharp hand plane and save yourself some time on the leveling. That body reminds me of Melvyn Hiscock's cover on his revised electric guitar building book.

These are only about 20 dollars.
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00972288000P?vName=Sears%20Pro&cName=Professional&sName=Building%20&%20Remodeling&psid=FROOGLE01&sid=IDx20070921x00003a

:lol: I have a router, but I suck with it. As for a hand plane, I'd also have to learn to set that up and use it. I have no such problems with this method. It works well for me. But yeah, my arms are getting longer as we speak.

That body reminds me of Melvyn Hiscock's cover on his revised electric guitar building book.

From what I read on the 'net, his book is highly recommended. But I cut this body and started the contours 15-20 years ago. It's all me.

So I thought we'd go back to the neck for a little bit. Draw out the neck on the blank.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0078.jpg

Here's my "jig" for truss rod routing.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0080.jpg

Nothing fancy here, just the neck clamped into my workmate and a 1"x4" on either side. I'm just looking for a way to guide the router in a straight line.
This works nicely.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0085.jpg

By the way, the truss rod was free, too. I stole it from an old Epiphone electric guitar neck a friend of a friend gave me years ago. He had somehow managed to rip a chunk of maple off of the heel and cracked it at the headstock. He was gonna trash it, so I took it, stuck it in a corner of the house and saved it until now, although it did do duty as a club the one time a possum managed to get into my music room by digging through the floor underneath the bathtub and clawing through the shower's water pipe access panel(that bath is right against the wall of my music room). Worked well for that purpose. Oh, and don't forget safety when working with routers and such.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0084.jpg

Here's where we're at right now.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthandblt016.jpg


Break out my old, beat up jigsaw
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0006-1.jpg

And trim out the neck.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0007-1.jpg

Then I'll take this

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0008-3.jpg

and with the help of the ever present hash marks I'll get the neck roughed out.

Fantastic work man!!!

Thanks, Mike. I'm having a blast building this!

Thanks, Mike. I'm having a blast building this!

Thats what its all about mate, looking great so far, good work fella.

Got the fretboard on and trimmed to the neck.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0019-1.jpg

Center line is marked.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0022-2.jpg

Marker holes drilled.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0025-1.jpg

But if you look in the pic above, you'll see my mistake. So I had to plug the hole in the 10th fret and move that marker to the 9th. Sorry, no pics of that.

Here it is with markers installed.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0033-2.jpg

And side dots.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0034-3.jpg

If you look closely at the picture above you'll see I added a piece to the heel and that there is a slight angle to the bottom of the heel. This will be a set neck with tuneomatic bridge, which is the reason for the slight angle to the neck heel.

Frets are in.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthandblt029.jpg

Levelled and crowned them. Have yet to dress the corners. That'll be one of the last things I do to the guitar, followed by polishing. Here are some hopefully better pics. Again, my camera's cheap and a better one's not in the budget.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthandblt030.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthandblt032.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthandblt033.jpg

Fantastic work, i love seeing builds like this, I'm short on tools as well and love to see all this handwork.

Keep it up!

Thanks, Scubadoo. I don't have a lot of power tools and I'm not very good with the ones I have. But I like the hand work. One of the things I like about it is that you can't get in as much of a hurry as you can with power tools. It forces you to slow down and think, which is good for me, because I can get into trouble really quick.

Clamping the neck in my trusty Workmate, I began shaping the neck with the surform, rasp, and files.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthndbltneck001.jpg

When I reached this point....

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthndbltneck003.jpg

I switched to sandpaper, like this

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthndbltneck002.jpg

until finished.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthndbltneck005.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthndbltneck006.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthndbltneck007.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthndbltneck008.jpg


I've read on luthier forums that a lot of luthiers consider neck shaping to be their favorite part. To me it was one of the most stressful tasks, because you have to be careful not to take too much, otherwise you risk sanding through to the truss rod channel or making the neck so thin that when you go to adjust the truss rod it breaks through the back of the neck. The only thing I think will be worse is routing the control cavity, since because the body is not uniform thickness, ie; the top is facetted, I need to be really careful not to route through the top(any advice, ideas or suggestions to avoid this will be welcome). At any rate, I'm glad this part is done.

As you can see, I haven't shaped the headstock yet. Every design I come up with either looks bad to me, or looks kind of ho hum or plain jane. I"ll have to wait and keep trying. More later.

Time to fit the neck to the body. Firstly, I apologize for the quality of the pics. This was done inside at night, which as per our earlier discussion was the only time I could get to do it. Secondly, my method for routing the neck pocket has been used by countless people, and is all over the 'net if one were to search for it. My thanks to all those people who took the time to document builds and answer questions so guys like myself could learn from it. Here goes. What I did was clamp my neck onto the body and make sure it was square and lined up to the centerline of the body, as well as as far enough in as I wanted the pocket to be. Then I used double sided carpet tape to place 1"x2" pieces on either side and a block at the end, then removed the neck, like so.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0039-1.jpg

I then routed the pocket and removed the "template". After that, I aquared up the corners with a chisel.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0042-1.jpg

And here is the fit.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0044.jpg



There was a slight gap on the bass side of the pocket(about 1/64" to 1/32" or so) that dosen't show in the pics. My boards must have shifted a little, so what I did was add a walnut shim to that side.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/1sthandblt027.jpg

This gave me a nice, tight fit, and I don't have any problems with a shim. It's hardwood, it's glued in tight, when finished no one will see it, and the neck itself is laminated together. One more lamination isn't going to hurt a thing, however, in the future I'll have to be more careful.

Cut the pickup cavities the other night. Did them with a chisel(actually, 2 chisels). I could have used the router, but a) I would've had to make a template and b) I did them at night in my kitchen, and would rather not fire up the router and sling wood dust all over my kitchen. Been there, done that. This worked out better, and it was also a lot more fun, IMHO.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/pupcavities001.jpg

They are 3/4" deep. I took a 3/8" bit and drilled for the pickup screws. I took these down another 1/2", making the final depth for them 1 & 1/4". Also drilled for pickup wiring from the heel.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/pupcavities002.jpg

Here's another shot of the body.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/pupcavities003.jpg

Looking good! And I like your approach without a lot of power tools. But to me it seems easier, setting up my router than using hand tools. But of course it's also a lot easier to mess things up. So many different ways to get there.
Markus

Nice work! Like the body contours.

Cut the pickup cavities the other night. Did them with a chisel(actually, 2 chisels). I could have used the router, but a) I would've had to make a template and b) I did them at night in my kitchen, and would rather not fire up the router and sling wood dust all over my kitchen. Been there, done that. This worked out better, and it was also a lot more fun, IMHO.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/pupcavities001.jpg

They are 3/4" deep. I took a 3/8" bit and drilled for the pickup screws. I took these down another 1/2", making the final depth for them 1 & 1/4". Also drilled for pickup wiring from the heel.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/pupcavities002.jpg

Here's another shot of the body.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/pupcavities003.jpg

Great work! Keep at it, it's looking really good.
I've stuck a pic in of the first 2 guitars I ever built back in '76, both from scratch. Like you the only power tools I had at the time were a jigsaw and an electric drill, I cut my pickup cavities with a drill and chisels and borrowed a router for the control cavities. Sorry the picture is pretty crappy, the image is scanned from an old postcard sized color print. No digital cameras back then, I think this shot was taken with a Kodak Instamatic!
Enjoy the hand work, it can be hard yakka but I recon it's part of the fun. I still like hand shaping necks today, though power tools took over most of the boring stuff many years ago.

Im liking the chisel work on the pickup cavity. I too chiseled my pickup cavitys and neck pocket!

Nice lookin' guitars, Luvn Guitars! I hope mine turns out as nice. Voozle, Yeah, in some ways the power tools are easier, and in some ways, like setting them up, making templates, etc, they're not. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I like the slower pace the hand tools bring. Treadwm, thanks for the complement. One of the things I've enjoyed the most was carving out the body contours with a surform. The wood is very light colored, and even in the sunlight very hard to make out those contours. I did a lot of it by running my hands across the body until the "feel" was right. Thoroughly enjoyed that. Whether or not I use more power tools in the future or not, I know there are more guitars in my future.
Nicktarnow, thanks for the complement as well. Glad you like it! I routed my neck pocket, but may try a chisel on that in the future.

Drilled for pots and switch. Volume, tone and 3-way. The holes are all 3/8". Per StewMac's specs, the long shaft pots require a 3/8" mounting hole and the 3-way toggle requires 1/2". I'll drill the 3-way out to half inch before finish goes on. Hopefully that will be soon. I'm holding off until I can order the tailpiece(money's tight, as usual) and drill for it and the bridge's mounting posts.
I still haven't decided whether to finish before or after glueing in the neck.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0091.jpg

And the electronics cavity route.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0094.jpg

This was easier than I thought. I was stressing out about accidentally routing through the top. In the end, I simple took several passes with the router at 3/16" at a time. There was a moment where I hadn't got the bit in the router deep enough and it came loose, tearing out a little, but thank God it didn't go through. In the end, I took a couple 1/16" deep passes until I reached final depth.I'm planning to use ebony headplate veneer for the electronics cavity cover, to match the headplate.

OK it's driving me crazy

what does IOW mean? http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h109/oasisespresso/eyebrows.gif

OK it's driving me crazy

what does IOW mean? http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h109/oasisespresso/eyebrows.gif

Welcome to the forum, Meekster! I see you're fairly new. IOW=in other words.

Welcome to the forum, Meekster! I see you're fairly new. IOW=in other words.

Thanks for the welcome Mike and the Terminology

Thats coming along very nicely.

Mike, I have to ask. Are you absolutely sure that neck is walnut? It just doesn't look dark enough, nor does the grain look like walnut. It may be the pics, and yes, I know all to well about not being able to get good light on the parts! Been there, done that. BTW, great job so far.

Mike

Mike, I have to ask. Are you absolutely sure that neck is walnut? It just doesn't look dark enough, nor does the grain look like walnut. It may be the pics, and yes, I know all to well about not being able to get good light on the parts! Been there, done that. BTW, great job so far.

Mike

Well, there's all kinds of walnut. I don't know the particular type, but I've looked up a lot of pics of walnut trying to I.D. it, and it's color is in line with a great many of them. As for the grain, there's a huge variation in that among walnuts as well, I just know that it's got some huge, open grain to it. Gonna be fun come grain fillin' time.:shock: It's also a very hard, stiff wood, and believe me, I've worked it enough to know. The reason I know that it's walnut is where it came from. My mother in law has spent 30+ years dealing with antique furniture. If she says it's walnut (and she does) I'd be almost willing to bet my life on it.
Oh, and thank you (and everyone else) for the comments and interest. And welcome to the forum!

Got the neck glued in today.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0098.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0100.jpg

I'll leave it clamped up at least overnight. I guess it goes without saying that I've decided to finish after installing the neck.

Took it out of the clamps. Here are some pics.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0110.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0111.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0112.jpg

Drilled for wiring to the electronics cavity.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0106.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0107.jpg

And for the jack.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0103.jpg

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0104.jpg

The only drilling I have left to do is to mount the bridge, and after that drill for a wire to the bridge post bushing for string ground. I had planned for a tuneomatic bridge(which I have) and a stopbar tailpiece(which I have yet o order). However, that may end up with the tailpiece only about two or three inches from the end of the body, which might look strange. I may instead go with a wrap around bridge like an LP junior. I haven't decided yet. Here's a pic of it as of now.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0108.jpg

By the way, for those who care, the guitar weighs 4.5 lbs right now. I have no idea what it'll weigh after pickups, bridge, tuners and electronics, but I imagine it'll be fairly light. I have never been one to worry too much about weight, and most of my favorite guitars have been around 8 or above(LP). My main guitar(my avatar) weighs 8lbs and sounds incredible. Since I generally only "perform" in church, and the most I might do is about 4-5 songs in a row(on special occasions) I don' have too much of a problem with heavier guitars. If I had to do 4 45 minute sets twice a week like the old days I'd probably worry more about it.

Well ,it's been a while since my last post, so i thought I'd update everyone on the progress of this guitar. Pretty much, I'm waiting on weather to warm up so that I can apply finish. I have mounted the bridge hardware and strung it up "in the white", ie; without finish. Here's a pic.
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p227/bamaboy_bucket/DCFC0024-3.jpg
Tuners are Schaller with ebony knobs. It will also have ebony control knobs, 1 vol, 1 tone and a 3-way toggle. Pickups will be either a couple I have here used, if I can find pickup rings to fit them. They are the ones that have one hole on one side for a mounting screw and two holes on the other side to keep the pickup from tilting in the ring. I need one high and one low ring with flat bottom and tapered top. If anyone knows where to get them, I'd appreciate a heads up. If not I'll be going with either GFS or StewMac's Golden age, depending on my budget.

Stained the body yesterday. Minwax red mahogany 225. Came out decent, I guess. It'll look better with clear coat.

42160

42161

42162

Looking good to me!

Thanks!

Ok, so again, it's been a while. I've got some bad news, kind of. After staining the body, I did not like the fact that certain parts of it were splotchy, so I sanded the body down and went to start over.
I had read somewhere that a coat of shellac would help the stain absorb more evenly, so I tried that. Should have left well enough alone. The result was,shall we say, less than impressive. No pics of that. I could have sanded that off and tried to stain again, but in my opinion the top over the control cavity was getting close to being too thin, so I went with another option.
I had some Krylon acrylic lacquer in their Castle Rock color. This is basically a grey color. So i went with that, followed with Duplicolor clear. Here are some pics of the finish process.
53297

53298

53299

53300

And some shots after buffing.
53303
The wire you see in the pickup cavity is string ground to the bridge.
53305
Front of the headstock. The nut is a stand in. It will have an unbleached bone nut fitted. Tuners are Schaller minis with ebony knobs.
53304

Back of body and headstock.
53307

53308
It will be a while before I can afford to purchase the rest of the hardware and electronics to finish this guitar. I have some medical bills that require my attention first. But it's coming along slow but sure, and I think I'm gonna like it. Thanks for looking.

That really looks great man! Just my opinion, but I much prefer how your paint job turned out compared to the look of the stain, and the gray color looks fantastic up against your natural dark wood colors and the hardware. It also makes the body contours and carve stand out proud. And, I think the headstock shape is very nice. Thanks for sharing your methods here! Make sure you post again with finished pics when you get the pickups installed.

Best regards,
Craig

Thanks, Craig. Yeah, I had originally planned to go with this color but thought I'd try the stain. I kinda got caught up in the wood grain with the stain, but the grey is growing on me. I think my first choice might've been right to begin with.

Finally finished. Here's a pic. Go here for more.
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-depot/231328-my-first-scratch-build-finally-finished-pics-inside.html#post2718396
Thanks to those who persevered and followed this thread. It is appreciated.