7 $ body rainbow pine caster

Hi there. In preparation for testing of my new router which will arrive to my house this wednesday. I have started to do "test subject".
So i go to my hardware store and bought some construction pine boards for about 7$ or less. One log was 5,5x5,5cm x 3m, second 5,5x4cm x 2m and third was 6x2cm x 1,9m. I have cut them, pretty knot-free in 50cm pieces and now glueing them together to one body blank.
It is going to be rainbow stripes http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/5291/paski2z.jpg printed top and bottom with black countur. Strat shape or Tele shape with strat set hybrid. White or cream pickguard, and maple neck with maple freatboard. Probably with tremolo bridge on a maple board glued across.

What dou you think?

I, for one, am looking forward to your build. How will you be printing the color?

ok, so there goes
my glued body blank after a little bit of shavinghttp://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8145/image0129tr.jpg
and a3 paper printed with my inkjet (can do even larger up to 33x127cm)
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/6691/image0130h.jpg
and finaly my handy little tool, after my router comes to me, it finaly retire (or not)http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/5598/image0134z.jpg

Decision has been made.
tele shaped or little rounder tele shaped body
strat pickups and pot positions and similar pickguard with smaller rounder horn.

Good choice. This will be an interesting build. Please do not retire that beautiful old plane. It obviously has decades, if not over a hundred years of woodworking stories to tell. Besides, a router won't do all the things the plane can do. (And the other way around, too). You'll find uses for both when your router comes in.

There was raining today, so i have nothing better to do.
I cleaned my bedroom, and couldn't wait for router :P
Some cutting and sanding take most of my time today
Blank itself come out lot better than i was expecting. Most of the joints are either glue-filed or seamles. Only visable glue lines are on the front side, under pickguard.
But most unexpected was that, after sanding it almost flat, it's thickness is still ok. I was afraid, that it will be less than 45 or even 40 mm after sanding down all splinters that i made with my shaver, plus that it was bow shaped rather than flat from the beggining.
Now it looks like thathttp://img88.imageshack.us/img88/7908/image0136l.jpg
And it going to be looking like that
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1658/tizer.jpg
I definitely going with cream pickguard :]

Today I made something drum sander alike, and sanded the sides, body block look now like it going to be a guitar pretty soon and i like like it coming around. If everything goes acourding to my plans, when i got back from work, my new tool will be in my house :]

What do you think about rainbow fretboard and neck?
I was experimenting with acrylic-poliurethane lacker and universal pigments, and the results were interesting. Lacker hold pigments in smal portions and it is still transparent. On maple it looks like normal dye, but it does not go inside (so no flame effect). Color is vivid and i was wondering how it would look on my project. Is it going to be too much? Leave fretbord white and color the back side and head? or the other way around

My router has arrived :P now we can talk :]http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/64/routerbox.jpg
The funniest thing is, that courier took almost half a day to deliver it from a post office 27 km from my house!! He pick up my parcel at 7:51 am, and deliver it at 6:30 pm. On their internet tracking site however it says that my parcel arrived at my house at 2 pm. Funny how it does not match.
http://img862.imageshack.us/img862/6873/routerw.jpg
Ok back to my project http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3517/bigtg.jpg
First time routing with a router and only 2 major tear outs. Not on a horn but an a lowest contour.http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/1124/smal1.jpg http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/6795/smal2.jpg
I am amazed how fast and clean it goes with pine. Last time when i was doing routed edges i was using routing bit placed in a n electric drill mounted to contraption made of photo development kit, lathe parts and few screw. Bit goes from the top, and wood from the bottom , very dangerous contaption, which could tear out a whole body blank, right out from your hands :] I realy like to finally have a router.

The only bad things with this blank are 2 glue joints, which didn't closed , but they are shallow like 5 mm max. and one knot hole, which i already plugged.http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/5779/smal3.jpg

My project isn't dead yet
Yesterday i was routing cavities for hardeware and i figured out that i didn't order tremolo yet so i can't make bridge cavity :] Routing without guide is quite difficult , which i learn the hard way It realy can go in like into butter, pine like to splinter and i shouldn't drill with homemade 23mm drill to close to other holes. Because it can stuck and dance with a whole drill press :] Another crack under a neck pocket ;(
Another thing i done was an alder block placed as bridge anchor.

Today i was trying something else. i started with the neck. First i leveled a fine board of maple and planed it with a router to 25 mm. Then i made a template. And it look better than i expected.

Tomorow it a d-day for the neck

unfortunately i have only a router bit with bearing on tip and i couldn't find copying bits with bearings on the bottom.http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/1357/image0144b.jpg

That's pretty sweet! I like it.

today i got my new hardware. Vintage tremolo, strat jack plate and some more little things. http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/688/image0155.jpg
unfortunately i didn't got all the stuff i ordered online. instead of two neck plates they send me two cat eye jack plates. Well colour is the same, but i probably don't fit it where i wanted.
2nd thing is that i routed neck contour with a templatehttp://img651.imageshack.us/img651/5931/image0156q.jpg. It was realy easy until i got to the head. One moment of distraction was able to make my work a living hell. Tear out was so big that i was forced to level it with a filehttp://img528.imageshack.us/img528/663/image0157.jpg
Don't know if it will work but i gonna fill it with another maple piece and paint the head like the body , ranibow wallpaper plus black contour.
But still it is a shame. it was a center pice from a straight cut board. The finest piece i have.,

today was a succesfull
I was routing a tremolo cavity for the first time in my life and i did not have any problems whatsoever. There it is , working tremolo bridge in a pinecaster body :]
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/7136/image0145j.jpghttp://img51.imageshack.us/img51/1714/image0158t.jpghttp://img811.imageshack.us/img811/6024/image0159.jpg
I also routed some more in pickup selector cavity, so it finaly fits there.I Drilled holes from jack plate to contriol cavity and from spring cavity to controll. and finaly i made 3 boards for a fretboard, they need some more work though.
Next in my plans is making trus rod jig for upside rod, it going to hide beneath maple fretboard and celulose laquer :)

I think it looks good. Have you made your plans for distance from bridge saddles to nut in relation to scale length and routing the neck pocket? Keep up the good work....

Have you made your plans for distance from bridge saddles to nut in relation to scale length and routing the neck pocket? I think i did. It may slides pickup approximately 5mm to the back though. All my guitar projects are basicaly based on telecaster and stratocaster blueprints, but since in my last Becky i moved whole fretboard those 5mm to the bridge i had problems with strings length. it was kind of like i should remove those springs from saddles, to slide them even more. But in the end, springs give up and everything worked.
Since i going to do very similar neck i moved the bridge forward those 5 mm to avoid any problems. if that does not work, i going to recalculate fret positions and see what hapens then.

Yesterday night i made some tuners heads, because stock were simply ugly. Now they are fresh creamy set :] (with one turned upside down, my "becky" special set)http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/649/image0165i.jpghttp://img515.imageshack.us/img515/6629/image0164c.jpg
Today was kind of eventful.
First i made my trus jig. After many calculations and deep thinking it came out as simply router guide and 4 step routing (in 0.6 mm steps)
After that i routed one neck and started to shave another one with my template. And then it happend. I broke a router bit. The bearing simply started to shoot at me with little balls glowing red from anger :\ I was in the middle of secound neck. I didn't get hurt, but because i got scared i jumped off leaving the neck on the table. And it lose its freshly routed horn. Crap :( In the end Router bit was salvagable with transplantation of a bearing from another bit. It was a 0,8 mm larger bearing however, so i have to blocksand the rest 0.4mm from the neck. The neck was salvagable as well. Only a little bit of horn tip was lost, so it looks as nothing ever happend until it get compared to the other one. It looks a little more like a penguin too.
I made another truss rod canal and started to sand front sides of the heads.
In the end i laquered those heads to check if any of them isn't by any chance flame maple, and one is vertical and another one across. Funny, because both are from the same piece of board, one dead center, and another from the very edge howeverhttp://img705.imageshack.us/img705/3913/image0150.jpg. http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/2596/image0162l.jpghttp://img802.imageshack.us/img802/350/image0163.jpghttp://img696.imageshack.us/img696/7816/image0160k.jpghttp://img832.imageshack.us/img832/7660/image0161l.jpg
Which one should i use to which guitar? (i have 2 in my workshop)

I have another question
Which tuners look better?http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8338/image0167q.jpghttp://img855.imageshack.us/img855/9695/image0166q.jpg
Don't mind this green head, it is a reject from 2 years ago. Now it serves as a lab rat. :]

today, i discovered something.
When you glue on printed paper to guitar body, you should paint it white first because paper get somewhat transparent under lacquer. In my case it was kind of painfull experience, because i first painted body black :]
But today my new router bits arrived along with some thin saw blades, so i'm back on track with the neck. The only thing that missing now is the neck plate. they went with reclamation but they didn't came back yet.

today i was lazy, so no photos again.
But i done two things:
First I "painted" the body with my printed picture and laminated it in urethane laquer.
Secound is that i thined a maple board from about 11 mm down to 7, i cut the fret slots and cut off the ends so it is now exact length of my neck fretboard with deep thin slots
It is kind of stratocaster build ,so it is going to be 22 frets, one on extended over the pickguard part of fretboard.
Pickguard is also almost finished, it has no pickup holes and no shielding, but pickup selecyor, potentiometers (500k) and knobs are in place.

I think the hexagon tuners fit the headstock design quite well.

todays work was a trus rod :] No much to show one threded rod , termic-shrinking pipe and 3 nuts.
So instead i show you how it going to look (let's pretend that those fret polish plates are pickups)
http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/43/image015455.jpg
http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/4806/image015555.jpg

Today i glued the fretboard to the neck. And in the result i got the thickest squere neck in the world :P over 32 mm , how can i play on it? I discovered something also. The fretwire i bought is made in my neighboring country Belarus :] kind of wired to find that out, not china but worse. Fretwire look ok tough. It going to be 2,8 mm wide frets with moderate height, kind of round guys. They look much better than the fretwire made in cccp (ussr) i used last timhttp://img36.imageshack.us/img36/4383/image0175h.jpghttp://img600.imageshack.us/img600/6504/image0173p.jpghttp://img256.imageshack.us/img256/5995/image0177.jpghttp://img256.imageshack.us/img256/5995/image0177.jpghttp://img545.imageshack.us/img545/8083/image0174w.jpghttp://img6.imageshack.us/img6/6618/image01568.jpghttp://img407.imageshack.us/img407/62/image01578.jpghttp://img846.imageshack.us/img846/5743/image0180a.jpghttp://img37.imageshack.us/img37/9072/image0179b.jpghttp://img217.imageshack.us/img217/9899/image0178m.jpg

This weekend i was quite busy with my test subject. First of all i almost completed the neck. Back radius is now nice flat "D shape" made with router bit, the same as edges of the body. (38mm in diameter 13mm radius) It goes super smooth with no tear outs, but i made a small mistake and routed head a little bit too much. I should end in the middle of first fret area, but instead i go up to nut, and the neck is kind of thin on the sides. No big deal. The neck is freted, tuners are in places, and big black markers make it look pretty good. Only things to do with the neck are the nut, fret leveling and polishing, and 2 coats of nitro laquer :P
Today i was working on the body. I rolled down 3 coats of poliurethane laquer but first i made back cutaway. it look pretty nasty right now, but at last laquer hide paper edges
To do list
dry it up, and laquer polish, drill holes for pickguard and tremolo plate, set it up.

Other little things are to make holes for pickups in the pickguard, and that will be it. http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/7239/image0186y.jpghttp://img812.imageshack.us/img812/7567/image0181c.jpghttp://img502.imageshack.us/img502/8927/image0182x.jpghttp://img43.imageshack.us/img43/589/image0183g.jpghttp://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2764/image0184.jpghttp://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8476/image0185.jpghttp://img827.imageshack.us/img827/9123/image0187w.jpghttp://img809.imageshack.us/img809/2285/image0189g.jpghttp://img43.imageshack.us/img43/9869/image0190o.jpg

I didn't write much letly because work keep me from the "project" and in a while i only polished the neck , leveled and crowned frets and made a tremolo plate. Nothing special.
But now "project" lives again.
A little snapshot from my pickup factory :]
http://imageshack.us/a/img706/8572/image0191h.jpg

So today i can say ,that i almost finished my trail and error router test :].
Rainbow play pretty much like stratocaster, don't know what else can i say. Neck adjustment work, pickups work, even tremolo hold it's tuning, and it look pretty amazing as for scrap wood. Now to do is a little debugging and probably another laquer coat on the body, because i messed it up big time yesterday.
http://imageshack.us/a/img18/3944/image0165d.jpghttp://imageshack.us/a/img710/6280/image0162p.jpghttp://imageshack.us/a/img269/7074/image0164t.jpg

Really cool build! :grin: