Chambered like a Nautilus Mahogany Thinline

[FSJazzGuy]

Well, there's what you start out to build, and then there's the changes you make along the way. Hopefully, the rest of it will go more according to plan. Yeah, I know, like that's gonna happen.

I intended this to be a regular thinline, but ended up sanding the top and bottom caps too thin and didn't trust them to stay intact unsupported, so I left a bunch of braces in the core for strength. OD'd on routing.

The mahogany core started out at a porky 5 lbs, 11 ozs, as you see it here, it's just under 3 lbs, so there's close to 2 1/2 lbs of mahogany chips and shavings on the floor.

Top cap is cherry with 2 cocobolo stripes, back is cherry, both are a little over 1/16" thick.

After I cut the top for the neck HB, I realized it won't work like a pickguard, and that I'll have to cut it out some more on the sides for the HB brackets.

Planning to try my hand at making my first ever neck for this one, 3 pcs mahogany, 2 pcs walnut with a rosewood fingerboard, as I go about making use of the materials at hand instad of buying better wood as I make my way up the learning curve.

[iansmitchell]

I like the nautalis reference, but it's a bit closer to a hollow core door. :P
Nice work!

[ponticat]

Reminds me of a Fender Custom Shop piece:

[BigDaddyLH]

1/16" thick? When is a thinline cap "too thin"? That seems paper-thin to me.

[FSJazzGuy]

Hmmmm, interesting piece from the Fender Custom Shop there, not seen that before. I"ve got a bunch of acrylic plexiglass laying around in varying thicknesses, but I have yet looked at a piece of it and thought, "That'd make a nice guitar" the way I do when I spot just about any old piece of wood I have laying around.

The caps started out at 1/8", which I knew was half what the norm seems to be, but did I let that stop me?? Anyway, some sloppy work by the joinery department (that'd be me) left some uneven seams, so by the time I had gotten rid of those, the caps were just a hair under 3/32" Holding them in place over the webbed core, them seem pretty strong. I'm sure they might flex some if squeezed, but I don't fear putting a finger through them just by holding the guitar. In the end.......we shall see.

[RodeoTex]

Your weight reduction cuts look very nice. I've done a couple of those and mine didn't look anywhere near that nice. Of course, I knew no one was ever going to see the mess inside again and that was before I knew anything about documenting a build.
Yes 1/16" for the caps does seem awfully thin.

[sean79]

Your thinline (and that custom shop strat) remind me of a tele project jwells did some time back.

[hackworth1]

Beautiful chambering work. Did you use epoxy to glue the cocobolo? I'm doing a mahogany thinline myself. My chambering is more typical with the back fully intact. I'm going with a single f-hole and the traditional tele control plate (like yours). My body is still 5 pounds after chambering every conceivable area. I have retained approx 1/2 inch thickness for the back. I've got a knot or two to be concerned with. My guitar body - bandsawn to shape - was near ten pounds b4 chambering. You got to run with what you brung.

Now, my bookmatched flame maple top is easily 1/8th" thin. I cut the f-hole with a dremel and a spiral cutting bit following a template "freehand" inside the lines of the template. I had previously done a successful practice session on the 3/16 plywood prior to today. I made my template from the same 3/16 plywood. I am pleased with my f-hole results. Sorry no pics.

[FSJazzGuy]

RodeoTex: Thanks, I had one pretty serious blow out while routing the inside, fortunately, I was able to eliminate that brace pretty cleanly. The perimeter I actually wanted to be a bit thicker, but I couldn't get Corel Draw to do what I wanted, so I took a chance on the thin border and got lucky.

Sean70: Thanks for letting me know about jwells build, I'll have to hunt around for it. Need all the pointers I can get.

Hackworth1: I used medium viscosity CA to glue the colobolo. I put a strip of tape all along the seam on one side, folded the two pieces back and filled the groove with glue, then laid it flat. Seems pretty strong. At this point, my plan is for no control plate on the front, but if after putting the controls in, I feel the wood there isn't up to the stress, I'll either put a doubler on the inside (if I have depth to spare) or go ahead and put a control plate on top. Controls will be installed from the rear hatch to start.

Regarding F holes, as thin as my cap is I don't dare use the traditional ones.

Yours sounds pretty heavy which actually wouldn't bother me much, strictly a sit down player here. Haven't even put strap buttons on my last build. Get some pics man, we want to see......

[Casual_Reader]

Originally Posted by FSJazzGuy

Sean70: Thanks for letting me know about jwells build, I'll have to hunt around for it.

It was in my browser history from searching thinline chambers:
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home...ml#post1098278

[FSJazzGuy]

Originally Posted by Casual_Reader

It was in my browser history from searching thinline chambers:
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home...ml#post1098278

Thanks for posting that link, as I hadn't been able to find it. I sort of got stuck going through the thread of another awesome jwells build however.

My hat's off to him. I do a fair amount of work with acrylic, and it can be very unforgiving. Lot's of "gotcha's" hiding in the stuff. The smooth, clear as glass rounded edges he managed are remarkable.

I have enough trouble with wood.

[Casual_Reader]

Originally Posted by FSJazzGuy

The smooth, clear as glass rounded edges he managed are remarkable.

I'd imagine a fair amount of buffing went into them, but yeah... he's shown us time and again that he's got a few tricks up his sleeve.

[Jack Wells]

Here's the one Sean was referring to ............

......
......

[FSJazzGuy]

Wow. Jaw dropping workmanship there. How's the acrylic holding up and how is it as a 'tonewood'?

Very impressive.

[FSJazzGuy]

Well, I've slowly made some progress. At the point now on the neck where from this point on I'm in new territory.

On the body, I decided to go with two humbuckers since I already have them, rerouting the standard Tele bridge pickup meant going with some slightly oversize pickup rings, so I cut some from the same cocobolo that the stripes are cut from.

The neck is laminated, and I took a chance and cut part of the truss rod channel in the center lamination prior to gluing it up. Hopefully I can drill the holes in the heel and headstock to match up. That's where I am now, so I'm thinking through how I'll construct some sort of jig to get the angle right. The thinking part is harder than the doing part.

[FSJazzGuy]

I did some tests with using a laser to cut fret slots and marker inlays and I managed to come up with a technique that needs only minor touchup with a saw for the fret slots.

On the position markers, I don't care much for overly ornate inlays like birds and such, but would like to do something a little out of the ordinary. I've attached some of the options I'm considering. I'm leaning towards the second one down at the moment. Using maple for the marker material. Hope to get the truss rod holes drilled, fret slots cut and position marker inlay cut out this weekend if life doesn't interfere.

Oh yeah, I count 4 thinline variations being built at the moment. Really enjoying following all the build details being posted.

[spannerman]

looking really good so far, really nice wood :)

i like the top 2 inlay ideas personally, can't wait to see it all put together

[BigDaddyLH]

Originally Posted by FSJazzGuy

I've attached some of the options I'm considering.

I like the bottom one -- sort of a negative effect with a lozenge shape and a dot cut out of it. You could cut two dots out for the 12th fret!

[FSJazzGuy]

Thanks spannerman, yeah, I can't wait either, lol.

On the markers, I think I like two best, but will go with the bottom one as it will be easier to get cut accurately accounting for kerf and all. Also, the pointy parts of #2 are likely to get burned away.

Got the truss rud holes drilled in the heel and headstock, next is making the truss rod so I can plug the hole at the headstock and get it sanded down.

[68thinline]

This thread got me thinking about using 1/32" veneers to make a 3-ply skin over chambered body like yours. Hmmmmmm.....

Looking good JazzGuy! I'll be interested to see how this develops.