Andyjr1515

I can't seem to copy the Axminster tools web link but if the budget stretches to £90 or so this one is a simply wonderful spokeshave: Veritas Flat Spokeshave - PM-V11

Perhaps - and that's actually what the longer allen key is effectively doing. The only way though, in either case, is to get your hand fully into the chamber with the soundhole around your wrist. It's a bit like squeezing your hand into a ladies bangle (so I'm told)

Hi John. Very kind of you but an allen key is actually the easiest way. There's so little room, the bulk of even the mini ratchets don't really help. I had another bash today having found an allen key with a longer long side and a shorter short side. I now have the basic neck angle where I need it - I now just need to go through (hopefully) one more time to get a gap free joint. The really encouraging thing is that - now I've got the strings at a playable action height - it sounds as good as I'd hoped

I've done a build and a number of mods for @wwcringe (Tom) where the tone circuit is completely by-passable or isn't in place at all. Tom's preference is, in any case, to use rotary switches rather than potentiometers so, in most cases, the signal is going straight from the pickup to the jack. My view is the same as @Hellzero 's in terms of an A/B comparison but I doubt if you'd notice the difference as the volume and tone difference from different venues has a much bigger impact than any bypassing of a full-off pot would. Very easy to try it - it's just a single disconnected wire from the volume pot to the tone pot.

It's in the nature of acoustics that, even when they LOOK close to being finished, they often AREN'T all that close to being finished. The thing that makes it look pretty close is that the strings are on: and the neck looks OK: But, in spite of me having had 3 or 4 goes at the neck angle - which is a right old b***ache because every time you have to get the neck off (not easy fiddling about with allen keys through the soundhole) and then chisel evenly and at the right angle the shockingly hard rock maple and ebony - nevertheless, it STILL isn't right. It isn't far out - probably a couple of degrees - but the action is far too high with a test saddle sitting at the lowest practical level, and thus the intonation and playability is pretty shocking. A couple of degrees, including the flush fit challenge and the multiple re-assembly to see how close it is (this is essential because overdo it and you have a REAL problem. Getting that right can change the scale length!!!) will take a disproportionate number of hours. I'm tempted to make up a custom sanding block so I can sand both sides and the bottom of the tenon at the same time. However, there is very little left to do beyond that - truss rod cover, tweak of the nut, final polishing up, heel strap lock - and, I have to say, the tone sounds promising So ETA for finish remains end of next week, albeit with allen-key and set-screw shredded fingers.

Yes, indeed - looking good!

What - you mean like the other one did.... ?

The body varnishing passed the three day rule: after three days the varnish will have dried sufficiently to reveal if there are any nasties that would mean a sand down and a few more coats So we are now definitely on the home run. Today was completing the sanding and shaping of the neck and starting to apply the finish: The extension blocks on the heel are the same walnut as on the rosette, headstock plate and tailstock and so should provide some visual links. The heel and back/top of the headstock will be gloss, with the playing area of the neck slurried-to-satin with Danish Oil. Bone saddle is on order, tomorrow I will make a truss-rod cover and then, once the finish on the neck is complete, if will be ready to assemble and string up.

It will be interesting to hear what the others feel. For me, I come away reminded to always use Switchcraft jack sockets and to take great care soldering. I can't imagine how it would feel if silence suddenly descended...

Thrilled. This is what they're built for - I love seeing my builds played Great gig today, Neil. I was on a tight time schedule so didn't have chance to catch up after you finished but the Daz Kelly Band just goes from strength to strength. Bass sounded great, too

And, on the same principle, it's time to STOP for the top and sides: Again, not flawless...but I know that if I try any more I will add more issues than resolve them I will leave this for the best part of a week to harden enough for general handling - by which time the neck will be fully sorted. Then assemble and string it up to make sure it all works OK and do the final setup. And then wait another week before it's hard enough for its final polish. And then it can go to Matt

Great summary of your quest! There are gems of wisdom within it, too.

I shouldn't laugh. It's just the timing... you understand. Well...we got past bin day so I suppose anything else is a bonus Until next week's bin day, of course....

With my method of finishing, the principle is "wherever you think you are in the process, nevertheless if it looks OK then STOP" The reason is that 'just one last coat' almost always goes wrong and then you have to sand down a couple of layers and build back up to where you had been a few days earlier. Am I right, fellow builders?? So for the back, I have stopped : It's got there a couple of coats earlier than I expected, but trust me, it can only go downhill from here so I'm stopping. The top, on the other hand, is NOT yet there. It has had one less coat than the back and so might be OK at the next coat...or it might take a few: The sides are actually OK but, at this stage I do Back & Sides and then Top & Sides to ensure there is no varnish edge round the periphery. So as I have to do at least one more coat on the top, the sides will have to be done more also. But that doesn't worry me - the sides are a lot less fussy to varnish than tops or backs and so the chances of it all going to pot are lower. This is how the sides are looking at the moment:

Found it! Rookie error. The capacitor was wired up right. But the other pole of the rotary wasn't going anywhere at all Ready to return

Pleased it seems to have done the trick, Si. Looks good, all back in one piece!

3 coats done on the back and sides and 2 so far on the top: So far it's behaving itself. With finishing, though, I always think it starts great, then goes horrid and then pulls back to OK. So I've still got the horrid bit to come The back is definitely getting more Mordor! The bookmatched bear-claws on the top really stand out now. I once saw a beautiful Guild covered in them! The other thing I like to see are the grain ripples (chatoyance?). It's a good bit of spruce - David Dyke done us proud again 3rd coat on the top will go on this evening. While this is drying, I have chance to start finishing off the jobs left on the neck. I have made the headstock a touch bigger than my last build, knowing that I wouldn't be able to keep completely straight string runs but, doing the mandatory full-size drawing to work out where to drill the tuner holes, have decided I need to slim the treble side just a touch to balance the visuals of the two sides of tuners: It's only the middle two strings that will have a slight angle, so not too bad. I used the template to drill the holes and to check whether I need to take the couple of mm off the bottom...but yes - I do. They operate fine but I think they will look better filed down to the sharpie line: I'll do that tomorrow and that means that I can start the final finishing on the neck too I reckon this will be playing tunes within 2-3 weeks, depending on how quickly the varnish fully dries.

And so to the finishing. Those of you who have followed previous threads will know that, after trying allsorts, I prefer good old-fashioned Ronseal Hardglaze polyurethane varnish for my gloss finishes. I say old-fashioned - it actually is a new formulation to reduce some of the volatiles and that has given me some issues. Suffice to say that I don't find the new formulation conducive to wipe-on application. It really doesn't like the % of thinners I would normally add for doing it that way. The way that seems to work best for me is max 10% white spirit and then a cheapo artists fan brush from Hobbycraft: I don't grain fill as such and I don't use conventional sanding sealers. If you remember, I use a tru-oil slurry and buff approach to serve both of those purposes. As always, I'm not saying that's what should be used, just that it consistently works best for me. Of course, it does need to be fully dry (a week minimum) before the final sand and then the first light coat of the slightly-thinned varnish. This is after the first coat: I'll see how it goes, but I should be able to do a coat a day - morning for the back and sides and evening for the top - with a few two-day drying and scotchbrite sanding sessions in between. The second coat of the back of sides has been done first thing and is in the cellar drying as I type

Rock-hopping a bit, back to Tom's ( @wwcringe ) second refurb, the Squier, it's pretty much done. Just got to make sure the tone rotary is working properly (I don't have a bass rig and it sometimes takes a bit of imagination through an electric guitar amp to see if there's a difference!) and then it's ready to give back to him next time he's passing. Here it is: The controls (all rotary switches), from the neck to the tail are: On/Kill Tone cap off/tone cap on Parallel/Series Neck/Both/Bridge Tom and I were looking for something to fill the original toggle-switch hole (this model originally had an active EQ). An adjuster from a 6-string electric Floyd Rose was perfect You can see a bit of 'mojo' at the back here The battery hatch is glued. The control chamber hatch has magnets: In the meantime, @Sibob 's neck should have arrived at his this afternoon and - to complete the circle because it doesn't get much spookier than this - yesterday, @Sibob was at the PLASA show at the Olympia. And while he was there he watched a live performance by Nyah Grace (great singer/songwriter). And accompanying her was a bassist. And @Sibob thought he recognised the headstock logo. See the beginning of this thread. Yes - it was Tom. And yes, he was playing the refurbed Ibanez that started this whole thread off: Small world….

You are most kind Yes - Matt is quite exited about it...

Yes - that's a bit of a problem here too. My 'workshop' is the width of a small bench butted up against the wall Still - might be worth me having a look at if I could build one if I do any more acoustics.

The problem is the spheroidal curvature of the top and the back, John. And the curvature varies around the different parts of the periphery. Because of that, a standard router base - even a palm router - used 'normally' cannot reliably sit square to the sides. This is why the LMI jig and similar are so complicated (and expensive!): With these kinds of jigs, the router sits in a low-friction vertical slide and a roller follows the rises and falls of the edge of the body, with the body having been clamped to keep the sides vertical. The body clamp also needs to be able to traverse left and right and rotate to allow the router bit to reach the different areas of the top. It's quite complicated. If I was making loads of acoustics I'd invest in one or try to make one, but I don't generally make acoustics. The idea of the little Dremel jig is that the surface following the top is very shallow and thus the curvature is fairly small at the very edge. But you still have to keep the assembly vertical and that - in practice - is the difficult bit. With a decent and 'proper' drill bit, the Dremel cuts just fine - it's knowing whether it's vertical that's the challenge.

It's not superstition. It's just the fact that they are jam-packed full of evil ogres just waiting to grab you and suck your brains out of your nostrils. That's not superstition - that's just plain fact!

Thanks I'll let you know - shouldn't be too long now - maybe 3 weeks or so...

I know it looks a little bit Rowan Atkinson, but this is the mod I did to the Stewmac binding channel Dremel tool. I used it on a previous build, forgot all about it for the top binding of this one and then remembered so did it again for the back binding channel. And yes, it's just a couple of strips of maple super-glued to the jig But the problem with the jig is that, with a top heavy Dremel on top, it is almost impossible to keep the tool vertical - there is no datum. And if it isn't vertical, the channel comes out either wrong dimensions, or out of square, or both. All these couple of sticks do is make it easier to see if the tool is vertical as you go round the dished top and back. And then, like the top binding documented a few pages earlier, I ironed it on again. And yes, that's a bit weird but, for me, it works. For both the top and back - this is the best binding job I've done on an acoustic so far: And a bit more sanding to do, but the tail stock detail could now be completed: And then, all of a sudden, it's time for final sanding and application of the finish