Black limba and quilted maple guitar build

[Jsil13]

Put the nut in the six string neck and marked straight lines to mark where the tuners will go. Then I put the Hipshot back plates on and marked them on center.

Since I'm drilling by hand I use the drill block and start at 1/8" and work my way up. By the time I get to the actual size it's freehand, but I have around 1/16" of an inch left by that point.

And finally no tear out on the back. This time I double clamped it to make a tight seal with the wood underneath it. It looks like you can also see some of my music notes. Trem picking and 3rds.

 

[Jsil13]

Tomorrow I'll do the same with the seven string neck. Then I can move on to thicknessing the headstocks and making my facet drawings for carving.

 

[Jsil13]

Drilled the tuner holes for the seven string neck. The bit wondered a bit on one or two of the holes. I think I'll use the plethora of gift cards I'll receive for Christmas on a drill press. Luckily these tuners use a mounting plate so the tuners will still line up. Then after I screwed that up I thicknessed the headstocks to 5/8" using a combination of my spindle sander, orbital sander, and then block sanding. Then I changed the shape of the 7 string headstock to make it a bit thinner, sanded off all the burn marks, and fixed all the straight edges. They both have some nice figuring, but that 6 string neck is going to look crazy.

 

[Jsil13]

Got a bit of a late start today and I have to go to work soon, but I started carving the six string neck. One day I'll build a jig for neck carving. Right now it's load bearing black limba. I got the first side of the first set of facets carved. The second picture has some naphtha on there because I wanted to see what the figure was looking like.

I'm going to end up changing the heel shape to match the curve of the neck plate and the heel on the body. As for the headstock transition I'm going to try something a little different. This neck was 1 1/8" so I had a bit extra to work with, so I'm going to add a small volute. Potentially anyway. If I mess it up I can just carve the normal Fender style transition.

 

[Jsil13]

Now I'm glad that I couldn't say no to 25% off for Black Friday. Not sure what I'll do with it yet, but I do have another black limba blank.

 

[Jsil13]

Got the other facets carved in. This one definitely feels much better than my last few. Not as beefy and more of a C shape than a D shape. There is a bit of a V feeling, but I’m going to sand that out to a more typical C. I still need to do the heel and the headstock transitions, but I’m happy with it so far.

 

[Jsil13]

Carved the transitions in. I might tweak the heel a little bit, but I'm really happy with how this neck feels overall.

Then I started prepping the 7 string neck for carving. The mistake I kept making before was doing the facets and carving before I got the neck to thickness. That's why I ended up getting D shaped necks all the time. I missed a step on the "Let's Build a Neck" thread repeatedly. So to get these one to thickness I used a spindle sander. I should have bought the spindle/belt sander combo. So it isn't perfectly flat, but most of it will be getting carved off anyway, and I didn't go to full thickness.

 

[guitarbuilder]

i could tell by your tapered facet lines in neck #1 that you were going to end up vee-ish down at the nut end. They really get close to the centerline, as opposed to a bit more gradual. You might want to consider drawing cross section drawings with the 45 angles, and you'll see a difference. This is assuming you didn't do that.

 

[Jsil13]

i could tell by your tapered facet lines in neck #1 that you were going to end up vee-ish down at the nut end. They really get close to the centerline, as opposed to a bit more gradual. You might want to consider drawing cross section drawings with the 45 angles, and you'll see a difference. This is assuming you didn't do that.

Thanks Marty. I'm rereading that section of your thread and will try something different on the seven string neck. I'm more of an English Lit. major than a math guy, so some of the numbers stuff is tricky for me. I was using the Stew Mac strat modern C template thing, but it definitely won't fit the width of the 7 string.

 

[Jsil13]

The Hipshot tuners came in for the 6 string while I was at work today. I've been using these tuners on my last 4 or 5 guitars. They work well, have a high gear ratio, and I think the open gears look cool. This is the first set I've had in chrome. I do dislike those buttons though, but at least the Grover style buttons are $14 for the set.

 

[Jsil13]

Woke up a tad late to make dust today, so I decided to do some mockups with the walnut top and various fretboard woods that I have.

Roasted birdseye

Birdseye

Curly maple

Roasted hard maple

Bocote

 

[Jsil13]

I'm more into darker fretboards these days, so I think my choices would be the bocote or the roasted birdseye. The bocote matches the color of the walnut well, but it's also pretty busy. The neck itself is the same curly maple that I've used on the 6 and 7 string star necks.

 

[Freeman Keller]

Thanks Marty. I'm rereading that section of your thread and will try something different on the seven string neck. I'm more of an English Lit. major than a math guy, so some of the numbers stuff is tricky for me. I was using the Stew Mac strat modern C template thing, but it definitely won't fit the width of the 7 string.

For what it is worth I establish the thickness of the neck shaft from the heel to the head by shimming it and running it under a Safe-t-y planer on my drill press. You can see in the first picture that the head end is shimmed more than the heel. In the second picture the neck is in the carving jig and I've put masking tape down the center and the sides while I start carving the facets - I want to keep those flat for as long as I can

 

[Jsil13]

For what it is worth I establish the thickness of the neck shaft from the heel to the head by shimming it and running it under a Safe-t-y planer on my drill press. You can see in the first picture that the head end is shimmed more than the heel. In the second picture the neck is in the carving jig and I've put masking tape down the center and the sides while I start carving the facets - I want to keep those flat for as long as I can

I don't have a drill press, so no safety planer for me. I had thought of using my router sled. I could shim it the same way that you did. It's definitely tricky keeping it flat with the spindle sander, but I don't go down to the final depth with it. Reading the neck building thread Marty mentions that he used to do it with a router, and that he's used a bandsaw, and then realized that most of it ends up being removed so it might not be as crucial. So I used the spindle sander and then go over it a bit with a sanding block and my orbital before drawing the facets on there. Aside from the initial V shape it's the best neck that I've carved so far. It's not a baseball bat which is nice.

I just got done with work and was planning on working on the 7 string neck this evening, but I've actually been playing guitar.

 

[Jsil13]

Got the 7 string neck carved today. Still need to work the heel transition, but it feels pretty good. It is a little wider than I'm used to, but it's thin so I don't think it will be a problem getting used to.

 

[Jsil13]

Finally got around to carving the heel contour on the 7 string neck.

 

[Jsil13]

I also made some leather strops for my coworkers so we can use them after we water stone our work knives. Both are made from roasted maple/birdseye maple and one with a black limba handle and another with bocote/purpleheart.

I had to resand them a bit, so I’ll have to do the tru oil again.

I also made them some hats with patches from bands they like that I sewed on.

 

[Jsil13]

Got the frets leveled and started working on the crowning. It's tedious work, but I just throw on an audio book and get to it. I'll finish up the crowning tomorrow and may move on to polishing. I also still need to carve the heel contour on the 6 string neck, but I need to reshape the heel on the body first. The neck plate was a totally different shape than the one I used to shape the body.

 

[Jsil13]

Finally got around to shaping the heel transition on the 6 string neck. Still need to do some more light filing and sand out all the file marks, but I'm happy with it. I also got the frets filed to the edges of the fretboard, leveled, and did the fret bevel.