Electrajet-inspired build

[flatfive]

Have you seen the Grosh Electrajet? They are gorgeous
guitars. Guitar Player gave them an excellent review a couple
of years ago.

I'd like to do something inspired by the Electrajet, using
alder as the body wood, a veneer top, and maybe a sunburst
finish.

A couple of months ago I found a plank of alder.



I don't want to give the impression I just found it on
the street. It was a hardwood store, actually.



There was a nasty knot on one end, but about 34" of good
wood. I think I need about 18" on one side, and 16" on the
other.



I'm going to base the body shape roughly on the Electrajet.
Some of the features of the Electrajet that I want are
a belly cut, 2 p-90 pickup config., and simple tele-like controls.

(I've got a couple of other builds in progress, but winter's nearly
here in Chicagoland, and when it is I'm done with routing,
sanding, sawing, and lacquering for 4 or 5 months. Guess it
will be a good time to start practicing again .)

[jkingma]

That Electrajet is a cool looking guitar... except for the LP knobs.

I'm looking forward to seeing your version.

[flatfive]

Originally Posted by jkingma

That Electrajet is a cool looking guitar... except for the LP knobs.

I'm looking forward to seeing your version.

Good point about the knobs. Looking at various
finish options for ElectraJets on the Grosh site, I think the
knobs look okay in some cases -- like with the tortoise shell
pickguard -- but not others.

[flatfive]

Using Gimp I made a figure of the electrajet on 8 1/2 x 11
paper. Each grid represents a square inch.



Transferred the design to a piece of 14" x 18" paper the
old-fashioned way (drew a grid on it with 1" between grid
lines, and mapped points from the small paper to the
large paper). Made some changes to the body shape,
and then glued the paper to 1/4" MDF.

The template-to-be sitting on top of the body-to-be:



Winner of the most primitive mock-up award.

[Colt W. Knight]

Originally Posted by flatfive

Winner of the most primitive mock-up award.

I don't know, you did extrapolate from your computer image.

[flatfive]

Originally Posted by Colt W. Knight

I don't know, you did extrapolate from your computer image.

Hi Colt. Not sure I understand. Yes, I did extrapolate in
the sense that I drew lines on the plan (freehand) between
points I'd mapped out.

I was thinking as I did this that I should've picked up a
french curve at the art supply store when I bought the
paper.

Edit: Oh, I think I see what you mean now. You were responding
to my 'most primitive mock-up' joke.

I thought it was funny to think of the unfinished template
laying on the clamped wood as a mock-up -- in contrast to
the mock-ups you see in build threads where parts are
layed out on top of a finished body.

[hockeygoon]

Looks like a Jaguar married a Strat and had a kid. Kinda cool, looking forward to how this turns out.

[pulaifaz]

cool project - subscribed

[flatfive]

In last week's episode flatfive glued the plan to 1/4" MDF...

Next thing is to turn that MDF into a template
by sawing and sanding, and then make a 3/4" template.
You start with a 1/4" template because it's very easy
to shape 1/4" MDF. You end with a 3/4" template
because you need that 3/4" for the router bearing to
follow when you route the actual body in multiple passes.

Here's the 1/4" MDF after sawing with a jig saw.



Before sawing I sprayed a little lacquer around the body line
so that the jig saw wouldn't tear up the paper.

After sawing I used the Ridgid belt/spindle sander to remove
material until I was close to the line.

This step is a little tricky, because you want to get
a really smooth edge on the template, and you need to correct
any minor problems with the body contour NOW!

Looking at the back of the template helped in seeing the
outline clearly.



Here's the front after sanding was complete. I think I used
100 and 180 grit paper, with a small block and a 1" dowel.
Maybe 220 grit on the final pass around.



Next I picked and drilled the spots for the pilot holes for 2 screws
that will attach the template to 3/4" MDF. Screwed the template
to the MDF, penciled the outline, removed the template, and sawed
the MDF.



Again I used a jigsaw, and I didn't get too close to the line because
the blade can wander a bit from side to side.

Here's "the shop" on a really nice afternoon in the 'burbs
of Chicago.



Then the 1/4" template was screwed back onto the MDF, and the
MDF was routed. I use a separate bit for routing MDF because
TDPRI'ers warned me that it's full of rat feet and old tin cans.



Okay, that was all straightforward but it does look pretty good.
I'm liking the body shape more and more.

[tnt423]

Man, how many irons you got in the fire? Looks like you'll have to shut down operations when its gets frosty up there.
This should be very cool. But, it doesn't win the primitive layout award, I laid out the VLB directly on the template by hand with a pencil and refined the curves with a 3/16ths piece of oak bent and taped in place. Took about an hour and a half. Primitive but then again this wasn't a copy of something, just things I liked in other guitars thrown together to try to come up with something original.
Looking forward to more.

[portugal]

That body shape would make a prime candidate for tele style pickups/bridge. It would by like a telemaster but more unique. And with extra mojo!!

[flatfive]

Yeah, I'm frantically trying to get stuff gone while it can
be done without a down jacket!

Originally Posted by tnt423

Man, how many irons you got in the fire? Looks like you'll have to shut down operations when its gets frosty up there.

[flatfive]

Thanks for the idea -- I hadn't considered that. At the moment
I'm still leaning towards p-90's, the biggest problem being that
I apparently can't route the cavities without knowing exactly
which p-90's I'm going to use.

Originally Posted by portugal

That body shape would make a prime candidate for tele style pickups/bridge. It would by like a telemaster but more unique. And with extra mojo!!

[flatfive]

I've got a bunch of nice veneer and had to figure out which
would best suit this body. I decided on kerlian burl, which
is really distinctive and I think fits the 50's/bowling alley/
rocket ship styling of the body.

While getting ready I discovered this veneer has lots of
small holes. I was worried how this might affect the
vacuum clamping of the veneer. Here's a piece of the
veneer held up to a window:



So I tested the gluing first with a small piece of veneer
and had no problems. So then veneered the body blank.



The wood is really unique. It looks a lot more like flames
than flame maple ever did. The tentative plan is for a sunburst
emphasizing flame-like colors: yellow, red, orange.

By the way, I used Titebond Cold Press veneer glue.

[flatfive]

Today I screwed the 3/4" template to the veneered body
blank, drew a line around it, removed the template,
and then jig-sawed the blank to within about 1/8" of the line.

The jig saw was breaking up the veneer edge, so I flipped
the blank over and sawed with the veneer side down.

Then I sanded with the Ridgid belt/spindle sander to get
to within about 1/16" of the line.



Sorry for the crummy pic!

Then I re-attached the 3/4" template and outside of the
body on my cheapo routing table, first with a bit having
the bearing on the bottom, then -- after flipping the body
over -- with one having the bearing at the top.



As I was routing I was thought about a lot of things:

1. jeez I could lose some fingers!
2. why didn't I just sand right to the line?
3. why are there always a few rough spots, even if I route downhill?
4. this takes longer than the sanding does
5. watch for tear-outs!
6. I will need to sand again after this to take care of the rough spots
7. a routing table may actually be more dangerous than a hand-held router.
8. maybe those TDPRI'ers who suggest not using a router for this step are right!

[flatfive]

After routing there were a few minor problem areas, so I cleaned
them up today with the Ridgid belt/spindle sander.



Just a couple of tiny areas to hand sand left now.

The veneer, of kerlian burl, is definitely going to need filling,
which I've never done. I thought I might try both epoxy and
super glue on my test piece. Before doing that I thought I'd
stain the body with some very diluted orange stain.

Then I tried filling with epoxy. I used Titebond 5-minute epoxy,
in those double-syringe things I don't like. I applied with a
credit card -- seemed very easy.

Here's the result after one application of the epoxy, and no
sanding:



Kind of nice, but too much like the kind of tacky, highly-flamed
and stained maple tops that folks were recently complaining
about in another thread. I'm thinking maybe a trans-black
finish might be nice.

I made another test piece (so easy with the vacuum press --
took me all of 10 minutes to cut the veneer, glue the MDF, and
throw it in the vacuum bag). I plan to use epoxy to fill it, and
then spray black-tinted lacquer. Maybe a tiny bit of purple
added to give a sort of dark wine color.

[crane550]

Very interested in this build. Will stay tuned!

[flatfive]

Today I made a neck template for this build out of 3/4" MDF.
I used the method that's been documented very clearly by
Jack Wells:

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-tech...-template.html

Here's an uninspired pic of the template:



I discovered earlier this year that you want to make the template
3/4" thick, not 1/2" thick, if you need to route a 5/8" deep pocket
with a 1" flush trim bit.

You can see the gory details of that discovery here.

I also filled my new finish sample piece with epoxy filler. I'd
previously stained the veneer orange before the filler and
didn't like the color. Here's the color of the veneer after
the epoxy was applied.



Pleasant but a little dull. As mentioned above, I'm leaning toward
a trans-black tint with possibly a touch of add purple.

I'm annoyed that I can't do the P-90 pickup routes until
I get my hand on the pickups, as P-90 dimensions seem
to vary from one manufacturer to another.

[Reverend D]

Thats pretty cool, as mentioned its sort of a jag/jazzmaster with a strat bottom bout and switch. Should be real neat with the P-90's, but then again I'm a real fan of 90's. One of the coolest little guitars I gave my stepson was a cheap SG Jr which was a single pick up bolt neck SG with a wraptail tail piece. It has a dogear p90 and despite it being a cheap guitar had the nastiest P90 I've heard just a rude little guy, used to use it for slide. Watching this one with interest hope we get to hear it! Good luck.

Regards,

Don

[flatfive]

Having a neck template made routing the neck pocket easy.



I'm happy that the neck pocket lines up just right with the
body outline -- there's just a paper-thin bit of wood left on
one side of the pocket.

I also sanded the epoxy-filled sample veneer. It sanded pretty
easily. Next step is to put another application of epoxy on
the sample and see if I then sand to a perfectly smooth surface.