My 2023 Brother-Hood Build - BB-MMXXIII

[old wrench]

BB-MMXXIII will be a Swamp Ash Stratocaster-type guitar

I like using Swamp Ash for guitar bodies -

For some reason, probably because he could get a good deal on it , Leo Fender used it for both the early Teles and also the early Strats

For my purposes - I look for nice and light, one-piece blanks that have a nice grain pattern

Unfortunately - these sorts of blanks are getting pretty scarce (and very expensive!) - lot's of the Ash trees are getting wiped out by the Emerald Ash Borer and the infestation is being pushed by climate change, just like the massive kill-off of Spruce trees by borers in Alaska and west Canada

So even when I end up with less desirable Swamp Ash blank like the one I'm using for this build, I feel compelled to try to put it to good use

I don't know for sure, but I think the tree this blank came from was first killed-off by the Emerald borer by being attacked under the bark, and then after dying, it was further ravaged by borers that drilled all sorts tunnels throughout the rest of the wood before it was finally harvested for lumber

I ended up with this blank by mistake - I paid for a nice clean-looking, blond-colored blank, but was shipped this one instead - the vendor was real good about making it right, but I still had this ugly-duckling of a blank

After shuffling it around for a couple of years when I rotate my lumber stash, I finally realized that it has its own sort of beauty - bug holes, bug staining, spalting, and all



It'll be a hard-tailed version of a Strat

I've already collected most of the hardware for it and thought I was decided on the color - white-blond, but now I'm not so sure that white-blond is the right color - maybe just natural with a clear finish?

I'll need to do quite a bit of grain-filling, especially all the holes and tunnels left by the borers - maybe I should use a color of grain-filler that accents the bug holes instead of trying to conceal them?

I'm also a little undecided about whether to use a pickguard or to rear-mount the controls

I have a nice piece of quartersawn Pau Ferro that I think I'll use to make a one-piece neck - it's not traditional like maple would be, but even so, should be pretty nice



* It feels good to participate in the BrotherHood Build again this year, especially after not participating last year because I didn't bother to take the time to document any of the guitars I built

Sure, it's a bit of extra work to take the photos and do the typing - but it's also a lot of fun to participate along with all of the rest of us

So for you folks that are thinking about taking part and joining in - go ahead and jump in - there aren't any judgements made - it's just a good learning experience

There aren't any onerous rules either, in fact, there really aren't any rules at all, other than you have to start, and hopefully finish a build over the six months or so - and even that rule isn't strictly enforced !!!

.

 

[eallen]

Looking forward to seeing it!
If I can get one in process finished up I may have to see what shows up in my build cue.

 

[old wrench]

Looking forward to seeing it!
If I can get one in process finished up I may have to see what shows up in my build cue.

Jump on in with the rest of us Eric !!!

It would be great to see the process of one of your fine builds

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[crazydave911]

Welcome!

 

[Jim_in_PA]

I think that "chewed on" body blank is going to make for an outstanding instrument for the BB!

 

[old wrench]

Before I built my first guitar, I spent quite a bit of time perusing some of the old threads from the Challenge Builds that used to take place on this forum

I garnered a lot of good info and saw how different builders used different construction methods to arrive at a nicely finished guitar

There are many different ways you can take and still arrive at the same destination - or, the same finished product

The way I do this guitar building stuff is certainly not the only way, and it may not even be the "best way" - so please bear with me



It's looking a bit more like a Strat now -



I cut the body loose from the blank with my bandsaw ^^^

My bandsaw is set up so it cuts nice and accurately - it's pretty easy to cut to within about 1/16" of the line - the bodies final shape



And then I took the body down to the line for the final shape ^^^

Usually, for this step I'll sand to the line using my ROSS - it's a good method and there is really no chance for the sort of tear-out that usually happens when ya try and route to the final shape, especially if you use a tall router bit and try and make a full-thickness cut -

I've got a nice tall $100+ template bit and I've tried that before - making a full-thickness cut to take it down to the line, but I've almost always encountered some degree of tear-out - tear-out is a beetch, it's just not worth it - so I usually sand instead of rout

Even so, I wanted to try a different approach this time -so what I did this time was to take very conservative, small bites instead of a full-thickness cut -

I made sure my template bits were sharp and then routed the body down in small steps - about 3/16" or 1/4" of body thickness per pass - it took about 8 passes around the body to trim it to the line, but I had zero tear-out, even on the tips of the bout horns which is usually where I've run into tear-out problems before

You still need to be careful doing it this way - make sure that you are moving your router in the best direction as you make your cuts -

I found this image on the web - it's a pretty good illustration of which way ya want to push your router to try to avoid tear-out

But - if you sand to the line - you won't get any tear-out

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[guitarbuilder]

For informational purposes only as Jwells deserves the credit.

Jack wells posted that pic in about 2007.

I would add: For people new to routers:

Disclaimer: Router Safety rules say to feed wood into the cut, not with the cut direction. This procedure violates that safety rule. Cutting and sanding is a better option for avoiding tear out and sending the body and your fingers across the room.

Tele from scratch - A Construction Diary!

Hey everyone! Decided to document the making of my telecaster, since I'm building it virtually completely 100% from scratch... Mostly i wanted to show everyone how I'm making my neck, but then Jack Wells beat me to it! Either way, mine will be a rosewood fretboard and a homemade truss rod...

www.tdpri.com

The prototype of that drawing LOL.

 

[RickyRicardo]

It only takes one time to find out how dangerous downhill routing is. Been there. Sanding to the line, a good router bit and routing into the wood is the safest. YMMV.

 

[old wrench]

For informational purposes only as Jwells deserves the credit.

Jack wells posted that pic in about 2007.

I would add: For people new to routers:

Disclaimer: Router Safety rules say to feed wood into the cut, not with the cut direction. This procedure violates that safety rule. Cutting and sanding is a better option for avoiding tear out and sending the body and your fingers across the room.

Tele from scratch - A Construction Diary!

Hey everyone! Decided to document the making of my telecaster, since I'm building it virtually completely 100% from scratch... Mostly i wanted to show everyone how I'm making my neck, but then Jack Wells beat me to it! Either way, mine will be a rosewood fretboard and a homemade truss rod...

www.tdpri.com

The prototype of that drawing LOL. View attachment 1093578

Thanks for giving credit where it's due Marty

I picked that illustration out from a bunch of others on the web because I thought it showed most clearly what I wanted to express - I had no idea where it originated

It figures that it originally came from Jwells, one of the forum members here - it's a small world!!!
.

 

[old wrench]

It only takes one time to find out how dangerous downhill routing is. Been there. Sanding to the line, a good router bit and routing into the wood is the safest. YMMV.

I agree with you 100% Ricky

That's another good reason why I'm an advocate of sanding to the cut-line instead of routing - as I mentioned above

I was also careful to emphasize in post #6 the fact that on this body I was routing off very light cuts of just 3/16" to 1/4" of height out of the total body thickness



Maybe it's best to just go ahead and make the -

Obligatory Safety Warning and Disclaimer -

Anytime ya pickup a power tool, or a sharp hand tool, (or maybe more importantly, a dull hand tool !!!) there is the potential to injure yourself or someone else -

Be a responsible craftsman and educate yourself about safe working practices -

Some of the working methods you see in this thread may violate commonly or uncommonly held safe working practices - if so, mea culpa, - in post #6 I warned ya'll that my ways may not be the "best ways"



But, putting all kidding (and my sarcastic manner as well - it's all in jest ), aside -

If something doesn't look, sound, seem, or feel safe - it probably isn't !!!

If it doesn't smell or taste safe - don't eat it !!! - you might give yourself food poisoning!



One of the most important responsibilities of the job I retired from was to hold a weekly safety meeting and to make sure the entire worksite was as safe as possible -

It's a very serious and heavy responsibility, especially on a construction project which is a hazardous area by its very nature -

How safe can you make and keep it, and still allow work to progress in a reasonable way?

Sometimes, I miss the work and the camaraderie, but I surely don't miss carrying that responsibility

Please work safely

.

 

[Jim_in_PA]

If one is careful with the initial cutout, leaving just a bit to remove, sanding to the line can be pretty easy...but remember to not rush. It's better to spend an extra hour sneaking up on it than to try to get it quickly and make a really nasty, hard to recover from gouge with the spindle sander or other format of sanding device. That can really bite! The sanding to the line method has little risk of tear out, less challenge with material grain direction and no spinning tool dangling proud of a machine at 18K RPM to bite you.

 

[eallen]

Looking good George, and thanks for the public service warning.

Have you ever tried a full height spiral bit for the edge routing? If I had time to do more than a handful of builds a year I contemplated how well a spiral helical bit would do, but that's some bucks.

In my contribution to your safety warning, this is how NOT to use power equipment. Here's when you have to hire a new guy because no one else in the shop still has hands.

Eric

 

[peterg]

Looking good George, and thanks for the public service warning.

Have you ever tried a full height spiral bit for the edge routing? If I had time to do more than a handful of builds a year I contemplated how well a spiral helical bit would do, but that's some bucks.

In my contribution to your safety warning, this is how NOT to use power equipment. Here's when you have to hire a new guy because no one else in the shop still has hands.

Eric
View attachment 1094064

That’s got to be a clip from a horror film.

 

[envirodat]

I am looking forward to following this.

 

[old wrench]

Looking good George, and thanks for the public service warning.

Have you ever tried a full height spiral bit for the edge routing? If I had time to do more than a handful of builds a year I contemplated how well a spiral helical bit would do, but that's some bucks.

In my contribution to your safety warning, this is how NOT to use power equipment. Here's when you have to hire a new guy because no one else in the shop still has hands.

Eric
View attachment 1094064

I bought a nice solid carbide spiral template bit back when I built my first guitar

It has a 1/2" shank and a 2" cutter length with a double-bearing guide

I mounted it in my big router table that uses a 3-1/4 hp variable speed Porter-Cable router - plenty of power and variable speed too

When I cranked that baby up with that big spiral bit spinning it sounded like a big turbine spinning up!



I remember very well what happened the first time I tried cleaning up the edges of a guitar body with a full-height cut with that bit-

I took a Tele body that I'd cut to within 1/16" of the cut line and eased it into the spinning cutter right at the narrow part of the waist of the body - it cleanly buzzed-off that 1/16" like no-bodies business.

I thought, wow-this is great, but as I came up to horn on top of the treble bout - and even though common sense told me to be braced and prepared for the grain change, the bit grabbed the body and ripped it right out of my hands, and the body went sailing across the shop

I wasn't hurt - just sort of shocked, but the bit had torn a piece torn out of the bout, and the body had a few scars from flying across the shop as well.



After that first experience, I experimented with a couple of other different approaches to using that nice big bit that I paid over $100 bucks for - I was stubborn and didn't want to give up on it

I found that it worked well at taking a 1/16" full-height cut off of the sides of the body - but at the top and bottom of the body where the grain changed direction, I could only take off the barest whisker of thickness without the bit grabbing

So - in other words, to be safe, I ended up sanding right up to the line at the top and bottom of the body, leaving maybe about 1/64" for the router bit to clean up

In the end, I decided that if I was already doing that much sanding, I might as well just sand the entire body perimeter to the line and be done with it - not even mess with that nice, big, expensive, solid carbide, spiral router bit

I cleaned the bit up and put it back in its storage container, and there it sits - I haven't used it in years

I know there are folks who use those tall template bits and make full-height cuts with them - but I'm not one of them - they can be very dangerous




Looking at that video that Eric posted up makes me cringe and my butt-hole shrinks-up !!!

It reminds me of ninth-grade wood-shop class when my buddy sawed his thumb off on the table saw

He was ripping a board and had his thumb laid right across the cut line - no push stick

He sliced his thumb right off -

He ended up passing out, but I grabbed his thumb and rinsed the saw-dust off it and wrapped it in wet paper towels and sent it along with him when the ambulance came -

Amazingly, because this was nearly 60 years ago and surgery wasn't as sophisticated as it is today, they were able to surgically re-attach his thumb -

But it was just for show - he never had use of his thumb again, it just sort of hung there like a dead thing.

.

 

[old wrench]

Taking care of the body contours and routing the edge radius



A piece of sheet metal makes a good guard to protect the body in case I get a little wild with the file

The Shinto rasp with its coarse and fine sides really works good for this sort of stuff

It makes it easy to keep nice consistent flat plane

I used the Shinto rasp to put in the belly cut too



I used a 1/2" radius round-over router bit to make the edge radius

I'm going for the look of the early Stratocaster bodies that have the deeper-cut contours and the more rounded edges

.

 

[TheZ]

Looking great so far!

 

[Steve Holt]

Looking good George, and thanks for the public service warning.

Have you ever tried a full height spiral bit for the edge routing? If I had time to do more than a handful of builds a year I contemplated how well a spiral helical bit would do, but that's some bucks.

In my contribution to your safety warning, this is how NOT to use power equipment. Here's when you have to hire a new guy because no one else in the shop still has hands.

Eric
View attachment 1094064

Great Googly-Moogly!!

 

[DrASATele]

Looking good George, and thanks for the public service warning.

Have you ever tried a full height spiral bit for the edge routing? If I had time to do more than a handful of builds a year I contemplated how well a spiral helical bit would do, but that's some bucks.

In my contribution to your safety warning, this is how NOT to use power equipment. Here's when you have to hire a new guy because no one else in the shop still has hands.

Eric
View attachment 1094064

Did this guy get to keep his hand? Good lord!

 

[Bob J]

looking great so far! I'm going to bookmark this thread, I'm considering building a strat too for this years "contest", and I'll need all the tips and tricks I can find. I probably ought to finish the neck from last years build first though...