My 2023 Brother-Hood Build - BB-MMXXIII

[old wrench]

With all of the discussion about routing and sanding the body perimeter, I'd like to show some of the methods I use for hand sanding, in particular - sanding the body's perimeter

It seems that no matter how fine the grit is on either the belt or the drum sleeve I use on my ROSS, it still takes a fair amount of hand sanding to get the perimeter of the body ready for a finish - especially the areas with end-grain

I like to keep my guitar sides perpindicular to the top, and keep an even and consistent radius on the edge round-overs

I make up some simple sanding jigs to help me do that, and make the job go a little smoother - hand sanding seems to be one of those jobs that most of us aren't too over-eager to tackle



This simple jig below keeps your sanding block nice sitting nice and square to the body - sitting the body up on some scraps of 3/4" wood or whatever, allows you to easily sand the whole edge -

The sanding block slides back and forth on the work table easily, and the added piece of wood that sits at an angle helps stabilize and hold the sanding block square to the work surface

You can flip the sanding block over to efficiently use the entire sandpaper surface, and it's easy to change-out the sand-paper too - the sandpaper is held in place with a couple of little shims











I made up this other little sanding gizmo below for sanding the edge round-overs - this one is made for the 1/2" radius round-over on the Strat body

I rout the cove into the jigs face with 1/2" radius core box bit (I think that's what it's called)

For a different sized edge round-over, you'd use a different size core box bit to correspond to the radius of the edge, of course

It's made from two pieces of wood which allow a piece of sandpaper to get pinched and held in place so all you are sanding is the round-over - not the face of the body

The two parts of the jig are held together by a couple of 8-32 machine screws that go into the embedded 8-32 T-nuts

The best part about the jig is it allows you to maintain that same nice consistent radius that you took the time to rout in the first place

















For the edge roud-overs, I also use one of these little rubber gizmos below - I've heard them called "sanding tadpoles" - they back up my sandpaper when I'm sanding a tight area - like the inner part of the bout horns

I have a set of four of them that I bought from Wood Craft - they are sized for 1/8", 1/4" 3/8" and 1/2" radius - they cheap and actually help a lot to keep the radius true













For sanding inside curves, I made up the real simple little jig below - it's nothing more than a scrap of plywood for the base, and a piece of 1/2" wooden dowel for the upright "shaft"

I used 1/2" dowel because the sanding drums for my ROSS have 1/2" diameter holes to match the 1/2" shaft on the machine

The plywood base holds the shaft perpendicular and also slides easily back and forth on the work table

This jig works best, and lets you sand the entire edge when you set the body up off the table on some scraps of 3/4" or whatever

You can either use a sanding sleeve on the drum, or just wrap a piece of the appropriate grit sandpaper around the drum, that's what I usually do

I have drums up to 3" in diameter - I've found I get the best results by using the biggest drum I can as long as it's a little bit smaller radius than the curve I'm sanding





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[old wrench]

Too many dog-gone pictures !!!




Those are just a few ways I try to make my sanding come out better, and also try to make the job a little less tedious.

I've also found that when sanding I always need to pay the closest attention to the end-grain areas

It's easy to put deep scratches in the end grain areas that take a lot of sanding to remove

I always end up sanding the end grain areas with a finer grit sandpaper than I use on the face of the guitar in order to get a comparable nice smooth finish, as well - it's just the nature of the wood that it requires more attention to the end-grain

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[old wrench]

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

You can tell that the guy in the saw video is a real safety-minded professional -

He wearing a dust mask!

Hell, I suppose I'd also be covering my face up - so no one could identify me !!!

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[old wrench]

In addition to all of that sanding, I'm also trying to build a guitar

I use a simple template to lay out the belly cut

The belly cut's perimeter outline on a Strat is just a segment of a circle with a 7-3/4" radius

The template indexes on the body's center-line










I made up this little jig below out of some 1/4" thick aluminum flat stock

I've drilled it with 1/8" holes to fit the different string-through spacings on Strats and Teles - modern, vintage, etc.

It's useful for drilling the holes on the front face of the body, but especially useful for drilling the holes for the counter-sunk string ferrules that fit the back of string-through type bodies.

First, I just screw it to the front face of the body - and then drill the front holes

Then, I use a 1/8" diameter pin set into the drill press's table that is centered up with the drill bit in the press's chuck

That 1/8" pin protrudes about 3/16" or so above the drill press table

It is then a simple matter to flip over the body with the body's back facing up (with the template still screwed to the bodies front face) - and engage one of the 1/8" string-through holes in the aluminum template with the 1/8" pin that is up out of the drill press table

Since everything stays centered, this guarantees that my string-through holes in the back of the guitar will be perfectly centered and spaced to correspond with the holes on the bodies front

This little jig has saved me a lot of time - no fussy layout - no worries about keeping the string-through holes centered

It takes a bit of time to initially build the jig accurately, but the amount of time you save every time you use it is well worth it - especially if you build a lot of Teles !!!

You don't necessarily need to use aluminum - you could also use some good plywood, or even MDF










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[old wrench]

Nothing much to see here - just a little bit of laying out pickup and control cavities - and then hogging out most of the waste wood with forstner bits

And then using a template and template bit in the router to clean up the cavities -











And finally, a little mock-up -

I found that set of cool solid brass control knobs and switch tip from a guy that machines this sort of stuff up - Forney from California - very nice and precise machining work on these solid brass knobs!




deleted some blah-blah-blah

Ther's already enough of that from me in this thread

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[old wrench]

Things sometimes go hay-wire and I do something that's really bone-headed

For instance -

This Strat body has a bunch of bug holes in it, and some of them look an awful lot like a dot mark I'd make to indicate the center of a hole that needs to be drilled - I was very aware of that similarity

So, when I went to drill the holes through the neck pocket for attaching the neck - I should have been more careful to clearly mark them extra clearly

Well, after drilling four holes, I noticed that something looked a little bit "off"

So I drilled a fifth hole - and had to plug that errant one - Doh!!!



First I had to take a piece of Ash and turn a skinny little 5/32" diameter dowel -





Then glue the little bugger in place -





And then finally cut the dowel down and sand it flush

I did get lucky (this time), since the neck plate will cover up my boo-boo

Mistakes and screw-ups are sometimes a part of doing stuff - even the very best craftsmen, if they do enough work, will have an occasional screw-up - but they will also have learned a better way of concealing or hiding the mistake

Say la vee, Daddy !!! (As my friend's little son used to say)


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[eallen]

I made up this little jig below out of some 1/4" thick aluminum flat stock

View attachment 1094709

View attachment 1094710

Great little jig! Do you also have it marked to index off the neck pocket in some way for distance?

 

[old wrench]

Great little jig! Do you also have it marked to index off the neck pocket in some way for distance?

Yes, I do !!!

On all of templates and on whatever jigs that I can, I have two screw holes for attaching the jigs and templates to the body

Those two screw holes are located in the same consistent location on the templates and jigs, and I index all of my layout relative to those same two holes

They all get one screw in the neck pocket and one screw at the ~ intonation point - 25.5" from the nut for the Fender stuff - the one screw hole is hidden in the neck pocket and the bridge plate always covers the other screw hole

If I use a different scale length for the neck I just make an adjustment to match

Doing it this way saves me a lot of time and cuts out a lot of the potential for error - I don't have to do all the regular layout for each individual guitar - it all helps, especially with the errors


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[Newbcaster]

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 -

View attachment 1093422

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

View attachment 1093424

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

View attachment 1093439

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whiteside has the mother of all bits for this its an upcut spiral bit. i made a template for a monolithic style superstrat out of doug fir. Cut close tot he line with a bandsaw then finish with this bit. use the arros in your pic. NO tearout.

 

[old wrench]

I did my final (I hope!) hand sanding on the body - it has some nice graceful curves to it










Then I put it on the scale - this one will be nice and light - the body weighs a little under 3 lbs












This piece of wood has a ton of bug holes and tunnels - way too many to try and conceal them

It almost looks like it got blasted with bird-shot !!!










I've decided to use a dark grain-filler to fill the holes, but I don't want to darken-up the body more than it is right now

So, I'm thinking if I give the body a few coats of lacquer before I apply the grain-filler it'll help keep the wood from absorbing too much of the dark color of the filler

I'm going to go with my old standby finish - Sherwin Williams Lovoc nitro-cellulose lacquer

The little spray-gun I'm using is a Harbor Freight "HVLP" trim gun - for a quick little job like sealing this body, it works great

I have a decent-sized air compressor that always has a good supply of "shop air" on tap, so instead of firing up my Fuji turbine HVLP, all I have to do is plug the trim gun into the air supply and spray - when I'm done spraying, it only takes a couple of minutes to clean out the trim gun - handy!









I'm fortunate to have a small spray booth, so I can apply finish when I want to - even at night in the winter-time

This really isn't a very good picture of the spray booth - those wooden cleats screwed into the booth's sides support a removable work table-top that I use when routing - the suction from the booth's blower sucks up all the dust and chips that the router generates and transfers them outdoors - nice!










Here are some pics of the body after of few coats of lacquer -











The lacquer sealer really warmed up the color of the body and accentuates the grain, yhe spalting, and the bug-holes, as well as that black staining which might be some sort of bug poop -





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[TheZ]

This is a killer looking build so far! I can't wait to see the finished product but watching your methods has been really fun.

 

[crazydave911]

I once knew a guy who blasted a body blank with steel birdshot (12ga no less) and spent months with the help of a huge magnet picking them out. He showed up at band practice with it and it was amazing looking. You go guy!

 

[old wrench]

I got to looking at things, and realized that I had no provision for grounding the bridge plate

Instead of just laying a bare wire under the bridge plate like you sometimes see - I wanted to use a more concealed approach

So I broke out the real long 1/8" diameter drill bit and drilled a hole from the bridge pickup pocket to the center screw that secures the bridge plate -





Now, I'll be able to snake a wire with a stripped end through that 1/8" hole, and get enough of it into the pilot hole for the bridge screw, so the screw's threads catch it and make a good ground









While I was at it, I cut some relief space in the back wall of the output jack cavity

I'm using a PureTone jack assembly, and they take up a bit more room than a regular Switchcraft jack

It's always a tight fit for the output jack and wiring at this point on a Strat anyhow -





Looking at this picture below, it's clear to see why a little extra room for the jack is needed




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[crazydave911]

I love that body

 

[gb Custom Shop]

Big fan of your work and hugely admire your approach to building George!

 

[old wrench]

Big fan of your work and hugely admire your approach to building George!

Thank you very much for the kind words Greg!

There's actually very little that I do that is truly original -

Almost all of it I picked up from someone, somewhere along the way -even though I may no longer be able to remember exactly who it was, or where it was

If I can pass some of that further on - I'll be happy

It's amazing how much can be learned by just paying attention and keeping our eyes open - a little curiosity can go a very long way

And by checking out the small details - that's where I see a lot of the "magic" happening

There is a lot of collective knowledge in the old threads on this forum - some of the old Challenge Builds are really pretty amazing !!!


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[Bob J]

I agree, the challenge builds from the early 2010s is what convinced me that I had to (and could) build my own tele.

 

[old wrench]

This thread has been sitting idle for quite a while - but I haven't been idle

I've been working on a truss-rod design that will work in both directions, two-way, so proper relief can be dialed-in under any circumstances - but still be light in weight, while at the same time also be affordable

It's pretty difficult to find a truss-rod that incorporates all three of those parameters


I've used the Hosco rods that use titanium components, both the "hybrid" steel and titanium version, and also the all-titanium version

The hybrid steel/titanium rod is pretty nice - it works very well and is a little lighter than the average two-way rod, but they are also rather expensive

The all-titanium rod is also pretty nice - it works very well and is about half the weight of a regular two-way rod, but they are very expensive and I haven't seen one in use for a long enough period of time to assure me that there won't be any problems with possible seizing of the titanium threads - the threads feel a little "gummy" to me - if you use one, make sure to lube the threads with a reliable and long-lasting lubricant.


I researched truss rod info on the web and I also looked at the info available in the archives of this forum searching for ideas for a light-weight, efficient two-way rod, that could be built cheaply

I found an old PRS "shop video" that shows a few shots of a single-rod truss rod that is as far as I know, supposed to function as a two-way rod - and then I found an old Ed Hawley thread where he describes a two-way rod made from a single piece of rod, he also mentions seeing something like it while on a shop tour at PRS

I took what I found from PRS and Ed Hawley and filled in the gaps with educated guesses and imagination and went to work



The first neck I tried the rod in was not a total success - the rod operated the way I figured it would, but the truss rod rout was too flat for the rod to function properly and develop its full power

It still worked, but it didn't have the range of motion that I hoped for - it also took more torque to turn the adjuster than what I'd consider "normal"

This wasn't totally un-expected

There wasn't anything in the PRS video or Ed Hawley's thread that indicated that the truss rod channel needed to be curved or have a radius - but I had a feeling that I was missing something very much like that and that it was important piece of the puzzle . . .







At this point, I was certain that the design was going to work, but I needed some help

I remembered that @Peegoo (Geno) works for PRS - who could be better to ask about a design that PRS uses?

So I messaged @Peegoo -

Geno jumped right on board and said yes - the way PRS does it the truss rod channel needs to be curved or "scooped" for the rod to work properly

Then over a period of a couple of days we tossed some ideas back and forth . . .

Geno also pointed out that if one of anchor plates was left un-threaded, but still trapped in-place by some method, the rod might work even better - I thought back to the degree of extra effort it took to turn the adjuster on my proto-type, and was quick to see his point.

Here is the result of our joint effort -









I ended up going with a 12"-0" radius for the truss rod channel channel radius or "scoop"- which works out to a 2.5 degree angle for any drilled holes for either the headstock or the heel adjuster

Round rod is 3/16" steel

Threads are 10-32tpi

The "anchor" plates are 5/16" wide X 1/2" tall X 1/4" thick - drilled and tapped (or not), as required

Truss rod channel is 5/16" wide

You can see how the anchor plates sit in pockets cut into both the neck and either the skunk-stripe or filler strip, depending on whether it's a one-piece or two-piece neck with a separate fret board

The collars that trap the stationary anchor are silver-brazed in place, just as the adjuster is silver-brazed to the truss rod - TIG weld would work just as well, maybe easier, but I'm all out of .040" tungstens

The adjuster is simply the end of a 1/4" diameter allen-headed bolt that was cut off, and then drilled through with a 3/16" drill bit - a 1/4" allen-head bolt has a 3/8" outside head diameter, the same as regular Fender truss rod adjusters



This two-way single-rod truss rod works really well - both ways - to compensate for any neck condition, and precisely dial-in the desired amount of relief

It's light-weight -

It's also relatively easy and cheap to build -

It meets all three of my requirements


As far as I know, it's a novel design - a joint effort between Geno and myself

Vintage style - but enhanced

Vintage-enhanced !!!


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[Peegoo]

Oooo that looks good.

I'd imagine it would be a cinch to fab a jig, drop all the parts in, and tack everything in place, and then take it out and finish all the way around. You could knock out a bunch of these in short order.

Since the rod rotates in operation unlike a Fender type, it's probably a good idea to spiral wrap it with Teflon thread tape--the thin stuff--before you drop it in and glue everything up. This would prevent glue from getting on the rod, and it would also work as a bearing to make rotating it really easy when it's under tension or compression.

Some non-creeping/non-separating grease like Super Lube 21010 PTFE applied to the anchor blocks would be permanent and keep the rod working smoothly for many years.

That is nice work!

 

[guitarbuilder]

Stew mac used to sell a rod like that decades ago. I can't recall how many years ago it was. They used two blocks that were half moon shaped. The flat side faced up. I bought the rod and was a bit stymied how to make a half circle rout without some sort of industrial machine or saw. This was before the internet. Anyway I sent off a letter (Note/envelope/ postage stamp) to them. Dan Erlewine replied to me a few days later via the USPS mail, saying that the slots were routed and then filled with bondo ( it could have been epoxy or some other gap filler). The other alternative was to chisel out a half round slot, which would be more impossible given what I had to work with for tools at the time. So I routed the slots and filled it with something. I made the neck but never used that type of rod again. I guess they started coming out with the Hot Rods to replace it. It just seemed like an unfriendly DIY rod compared to everything else. These days with a cnc router, it would be a piece of cake.