NR Firebird 100 dollar material budget personal challenge ratrod build

[guitarbuilder]

Sometimes things actually work out as planned. In the pile of free walnut were pieces of varying thicknesses. One was just a hair thicker than 1/8". This guys bandsaw for these slabs must be pretty decent to cut wood that thin. Anyway, I cut a hunk off and ran it though my sander on both sides. I can't complain about the price, so I'll live with the lighter color walnut.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Next up was to draw the peghead shape and do a toolpath on the computer. You can just see the 6 hole locations. This will make a hole just a little larger than the 1/4" router bit doing the drilling.

 

[guitarbuilder]

The toolpath was created and the file saved to a thumb drive. I loaded the program into the Universal Gcode sender. Then I taped the wood to cardboard and got that lined up. I need to make some more clamps. These I've run into a little. Anyway I was kind of forced to stay at one end of the veneer because of a check at the other end. No problem.
I did a dry run to make sure it'll stay over the wood and not hit clamps.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Then after the dry run, I adjusted the bit down to the surface and ran the program.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Then I popped it off the cardboard ( carefully) and scraped off any fuzz. I wet it to see what the grain color would look like. All in all not too bad a day.

 

[jkingma]

Nice

 

[crazydave911]

Very

 

[guitarbuilder]

Nice

Very

Thanks guys!

 

[guitarbuilder]

Today the decision was made to use an import truss rod. These are about the same price as making your own from scratch. This one is a one way compression rod, even though they are advertised as a two way rod. True two way rods are threaded at both ends. This one is welded at the front.

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as compared to

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First I line up the fence on the router table to the centerline of the neck. Try to do all your work that you can while the wood is a rectangle. That way you don't have to make special jigs to do it later.

Next I put a couple pencil marks on both sides of the bit diameter. I will plunge the neck down onto the bit and don't want the nut area cut.

Then turn on the router and plunge the wood down and rout. I go forward against the fence to keep the wood against the fence. I also use a push stick and safety glasses. The cut gets made.

Repeat as necessary until the rod fits in there. These cheap rods aren't totally parallel, so cut carefully.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Another decision was made to start using some of the spare parts I've made over the years. This is a Gibson scale maple fretboard I made years ago and haven't used yet. It is radiused, slotted, and drilled for dots. It has machine marks and needs dots. Gibson used some maple boards during the norlin years.

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[guitarbuilder]

My first step to cutting a tenon is to cut the end of the neck off at a 2 degree angle on the chop saw. I did that and came in to ponder things a bit.

The pondering was concerned with doing the tenon with hand tools. This poplar is so nice to work with, I thought I'd give it a go. Worse case scenario I have a bolt on neck. LOL. I used a combination of protractor, bevel gauge, and combination square to layout the lines on the wood. Then I scribed the cuts with a knife.

 

[guitarbuilder]

After scribing I went with a small dovetail saw to depth.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Next I set up the bandsaw to cut the rest along the fence. Bandsawing is not a hand tool. I know that.. but it was there.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Then back to the dovetail saw to carefully remove the waste from the bandsaw. I didn't want to go too far. Here is the rough tenon. I'll use a chisel and other hand tools to fit it to the mortise.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Time to tweak the tenon: Getting there!

 

[guitarbuilder]

Closer...but that's enough for today.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Getting real close:

 

[guitarbuilder]

Switching gears. Fit the rod in and lined up the fretboard with brads.

 

[guitarbuilder]

I jointed the two peghead sides and cut some scrap cutoffs into ears. Those got jointed on one edge and one face. I used a couple spring clamps to hold them in place until I could get the clamps on. I will use the unsaf-t-planer to thickness it tomorrow. The extra wood gives me something to hang onto to keep things flat and keep away from spinning cutters.

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[guitarbuilder]

Today I scraped the peghead top surface to remove the glue squeeze out. I used my coarse belt sander block to just level it again for the next operation.

This is my Wagner Saf T planer in the delta 14 drill press. This thicknessing operation is perhaps the only one I've found that this safety planer is useful on. I've probably had it for 30+ years and only used it a dozen times or less.