Rezin's Brotherhood 2022 build

[rezin]

Hello everyone, for the first time I'll be trying a Brotherhood build. This is only my second complete build, but I've built a couple necks for existing bodies. I really hope to be able to make it in time, but that 90 days will be hard with my crazy schedule at work.
The guitar will be a sort of offset tele in torrefied ash, chambered for weight relief, some sort of cap, roasted maple neck, reverse headstock, fretboard no clue yet but I have a couple options. Spoke wheel truss rod, and a single pickup, a tele blade humbucker ( Dimarzio Chopper T). All the stuff that will be used is stuff I have already. I need to buy a Les Paul jack plate. Anyways, on with the build...
I started with a basic tele shape and tweaked it to make it offset. I've had this idea for awhile.
I got some nice torrefied ash for the body. This thing weighs a ton haha so it will be chambered with either a 1/4 inch maple cap or poplar. The top will be painted in a greenish metallic color I think. Would poplar be strong enough for a top at only a 1/4 inch thick?
So I jointed with my no.5 hand plane (I LOVE using that thing!) and glued up my blank.

Now at 2 inches thick I needed to thin it down to 1.5 inches so I can use a 1/4 top. I build myself a better router sled than what I had for my first build. Wider and longer. Before I'd thickness with the only router I had... a trim router with a 1/2 inch bit!!! This process took forever. So I got myself a nice router (not the best but for my use plenty good enough) and a 2 inch spoilboard bit. Seriously, to the guys using router sled, this is the bit to get! Before, going from 2 inch to 1.5 inch this would take me a couple hours. Now, including setup, it took me 30 minutes... Obviously dont be silly and dive in the board taking 1/2 an inch in one pass but 1/8 is perfect. slow down the speed too, its a 2 inch bit...


And we are done

Now I made a cardboard template. I never route my bodies. I dont have a table router and I dont trust the hand held for this step. What I do is just trace on the blank, cut pretty close, and sand to the line using the ROSS. I will probably never redo the same body (unless someone wants me to build them a similar guitar) so no point in making a template for that.

Now I did make a template, and that is for hollowing out the body. I left alot of meat on the top portion of the body since I will be doing a bellycut and a big forearm contour ala Kiesel. I did that on my first complete build and I really like the visual effect it produces.


Thats where I'm at for the body. Cant really go forward with it since my workshop is out in the open air, and it's raining and will be for the next 3 days.
So right now I just traced the neck with a headstock I came up with. I was going to laminate roasted and regular maple but I might actually just use roasted not laminated and make a recess like design which will be painted the same color a the body.

I will have alot a of questions for you guys in the next couple of weeks
Thanks for looking!

 

[rezin]

Thats the head stock and whole look I'm going for

Here is the first complete build I did. I will be doing the same carve on the front face but paint a certain green I think instead of white

 

[wadeeinkauf]

Nice design for your guitar. The body flows. It’s like the body and neck are pointing.

 

[TN Tele]

Like the design and reverse headstock, good luck with your build.

 

[rezin]

Thanks guys. Today I was able to do a bit more work. It was fretboard time. I chose wenge. Since my fretboard blank was a bit less than 1/4inch /I wanted to do the radius and fret slots before the neck so I can adjust the thickness of my neck blank to get my total of 1 inch.
I totally HATE doing the fretboard. Cutting the slots by hand, the stupid saw always wants to jam in the slot. I've tried 2 different saws and both do the same thing. I cut them before the radiusing because I dont have a miter box and use a machinist's square.
Then after the radiusing. I wasn't going to suffer like on my 3 previous necks, so with what I had laying around I built myself a router jig. This thing rocks! A total of 30 minutes including sanding for the radius, compared to the 6 hours it took me with the block.
I readjusted the depth of the slots, chamfered them and sanded up to 1000 grit. Unfortunately I forgot I had to put the dots in! I'll just put them later then (I need them, I'm terrible at playing guitar).
Thanks for watching!

 

[rezin]

Ok guys I put my dots in the fretboard. Obviously like an idiot I didn't recheck my marks and the 15th fret marker is 1/16 off. What could I do to fix that? Maybe redrill 1/16 in the other direction and have an oval dot? It would be the only one though

 

[rezin]

Looks horrible

I don't really want to restart a whole fretboard. I don't have another wenge blank

 

[rezin]

Haha ok sometimes you just need to breath in a bit and think. So I made myself a plug cutter and tried ti find a matching grain in the end that will be cutoff. Its not perfect but only 1/16 will show. Now I need to make sure I'm straight

 

[RickyRicardo]

Been there and done that. Do I care? Nope.

 

[wadeeinkauf]

Excellent recovery.

 

[rezin]

Well, did a bit more work. Hollowed out the blank and cut the shape. Sanded to the line using the ROSS. I still have some bits to take off the body but I'll be putting a 1/4 inch cap so should even out for the weight. It's now exactly 4.5lbs. I left the back 3/8 thick, but I might make it 1/4. Would it really make a difference in weight?


Now big change in plans. The goal for this build was to use all the bits I had around, build it and sell it. But I like the shape so much that I plan on keeping it, so I bought a nice burl maple top and a Hipshot hardtail bridge. I'll be putting a single humbucker in the bridge position. Not sure on the color yet, I keep changing my mind every 30 minutes . No idea on what pickup yet (well actually I know but I'm trying to convince myself I don't need a 200$ pickup). I mostly play progressive rock and metal with a bit of ambience with washy reverbs and delays so I'm looking for something that will be good for those styles.

 

[wadeeinkauf]

You might consider moving the pickup a bit toward the neck to gain a little more balanced tones if you are going to have just the one pickup. If that works for your playing style.

 

[rezin]

You might consider moving the pickup a bit toward the neck to gain a little more balanced tones if you are going to have just the one pickup. If that works for your playing style.

Good idea. I'll move it a bit forward

 

[rezin]

Worked on the neck blank today. I hesitated on laminating at first because it wasn't the look I was going for. But decided to go with it anyway. I'll change my original plan again . The last neck I did I did not laminate and it developped a short hump near the 12th fret a couple months after I did it. But the others that are laminated never moved and never need a truss rod adjustment. That's the reason I went laminated. Unfortunately I was so caught up in the process I did not take pictures. So I only have some of the blank glued up. It still needs cleaning and thicknessing to the final measurement.

I went with black veneer between the maple parts but I might not do that again. From far away it looks like I have bad glue joints, but actually I made sure everything was tight with my hand plane.
I was going to glue a black veneer between the body and burl maple top to make a nice feature but I'm not so sure anymore...

 

[rezin]

Hey everyone, got enough work done to be able to do a small update. Work has been crazy and I didn't get as much time on my build as I would of hoped. Anyways, received my burl top. I planed on using dyes on it but I might just go natural with Z-poxy and a black burst. I think I'd be crazy to alter this beauty with colors that I'm not sure, and I dont have scraps to test yet. The body is on hold for the moment.



So I worked on the neck. I thicknessed the blank but went a little too much. So to get my total of 1 inch with the fretboard I glued a black veneer on the back of the fretboard. Then went ahead and did the trussrod channel. It was my first time using the spokewheel trussrod and wasn't exactly sure how to proceed. After awhile I just went for it and I think it turned out great.

Onve that was done I traced my neck template and cut it. I sanded to the line making sure the heel would fit in the template I have. It's the Stewmac one that has both tele and strat neck heel, I alwas use the strat now because once I hit the tele side with the router and it is now useless.

When this was done I glued in the trussrod with 2 little dabs on silicone so it would not slide out. I cut the fretboard to lenght and shaped a natch for the spokewheel. I glued on the fretboard using the 2 locating pin trick so it would not shift while beeing clamped on. I wish I would of put a bit more glue because I'm used to getting a bit more squeeze out than what I had, but I'm sure it will do. I'll be sure to take a mental note of using more glue next time.

This morning I trimmed the excess fretborad and sanded flush to the shaft of the neck. Drilled my tuning peg holes and thicknessed the headstock to 9/16. Sanded the transition with the spindle sander using the 1 inch drum and cut the slot for the nut to sit in.


And thats where I'm at right now. Next I'll install the frets and drill for side dots. I always install frets before I shape the neck. Since I press them in it gives me a good resting surface. Should I shape the neck before? It went well the 3 first time doing the frets before. Let me know...

 

[Newbcaster]

Well, did a bit more work. Hollowed out the blank and cut the shape. Sanded to the line using the ROSS. I still have some bits to take off the body but I'll be putting a 1/4 inch cap so should even out for the weight. It's now exactly 4.5lbs. I left the back 3/8 thick, but I might make it 1/4. Would it really make a difference in weight?
View attachment 967938 View attachment 967939 View attachment 967940 View attachment 967941

Now big change in plans. The goal for this build was to use all the bits I had around, build it and sell it. But I like the shape so much that I plan on keeping it, so I bought a nice burl maple top and a Hipshot hardtail bridge. I'll be putting a single humbucker in the bridge position. Not sure on the color yet, I keep changing my mind every 30 minutes . No idea on what pickup yet (well actually I know but I'm trying to convince myself I don't need a 200$ pickup). I mostly play progressive rock and metal with a bit of ambience with washy reverbs and delays so I'm looking for something that will be good for those styles.

You need a dragonforce rail pickup off ebay. basically anything ARTEC. How does anyone know what picup someone is playing thru kemper/Neural/helix/fractal or even a bunch of strymons...??? I bought 3 no name rails from guitarfetish and honestly for most things, they play like Christina Hendricks tatas.... e.g. awesome. I have a strat I put them in for that Def leppard hysteria sound.

Tele pickup voodoo only applies to clean fender amps with reverb.

 

[JohnnyThul]

Hi rezin,

I would shape the neck after the frets are installed. As you said, good resting surface makes it far easier to handle the task imho.

I would also vote for a black veneer between body and top, a) because I like the look of it and b) I never did it

The body shape is really cool btw!

 

[eallen]

Killer build! Lots of innovation.

Both of these are maple burl with Zpoxy for pore fill followed by sealer & nitro clear. Burl color can vary drastically! You probably already know but it is very porous & easily chips with routing. I like to stability none glue surfaces with Zpoxy or CA on real soft areas before routing on it. I often opt for Ross sanding to final shape instead.

You're gonna have a sweet guitar!

Eric

 

[rezin]

Thanks eallen for the heads up. I was going to sand the burl. Do you think the 1/4 inch top will be strong enough since this is a chambered body? Or do I need something to support the top?

Killer build! Lots of innovation.

Both of these are maple burl with Zpoxy for pore fill followed by sealer & nitro clear. Burl color can vary drastically! You probably already know but it is very porous & easily chips with routing. I like to stability none glue surfaces with Zpoxy or CA on real soft areas before routing on it. I often opt for Ross sanding to final shape instead.

You're gonna have a sweet guitar!

Eric

View attachment 973065 View attachment 973066

 

[eallen]

Thanks eallen for the heads up. I was going to sand the burl. Do you think the 1/4 inch top will be strong enough since this is a chambered body? Or do I need something to support the top?

It will be fine as long as it is stabilized/hardened with epoxy.

I lay my thinline route template on the underside of the burl and mark all the glue mating surfaces and tape them off. Warm the wood to open the pores and warm the epoxy before mixing it. Then spatula it into the pores in a couple directions with ample supply to soak in. Once dried flip it over and do the same to the top side in all areas. The epoxy will seep in enough from the top to strengthen the glue areas while not blocking the wood glue for soaking in as needed for a firm bond.

I end up doing a handful of Zpoxy applications before all the pores are filled on maple burl. The stuff is like a sponge soaking it up. Every time you think all the pores are filled sanding reveals they aren't. I often use thick CA to touch up when just random spots are left.

Eric