Andyjr1515

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

With @Sibob 's neck sorted and, with the remaining bits now arrived, just before the final TLC bits of @wwcringe 's Squier recon, there was a gap wide enough to do the neck two important bits of the dreadnought. First the installation of the pickups. It's interesting - just after coming to the conclusion that the most flexible solution for Matt's studio and live work was to have two outputs, I found out that his present Faith guitar has just that. In my case, it whittled down to the L R Baggs Anthem mic/piezo and the K&K Pure Mini. Now you can probably see why I opted to leave the back off at this stage! The two jacks will be unscrewed and taped to the inside while I do the back binding the finishing, but those are pretty easy to fix in place with arm through the soundhole. With the other stuff, it's difficult to get everything in exactly the right place and securely glued when you can't reach and can't see! The battery fits in a pouch velcro'd to the back. Also not forgetting the all important label! And so, finally, after many dry-fit checks, the glue's on and it's too late to change my mind

Sounds like my post was a tad too late!

Clearly the best way of finding out is to find one and try one (maybe GuitarGuitar would get their Edinburgh one shipped to your nearest branch?) But, design-wise, it should balance fine - and there's a couple of reviews I've found that say that it does. As @ahpook says, there is a sweetspot on bass guitars and electric of where the front strap button sits that is a bit of a 'goldilocks' zone - ie, level with the 12th / 13th fret. It is unlikely, with anything like orthodox designs, that a bass with the strap button here isn't at least going to balance on the strap. This is the 34" Lakland that MusicRadar reviewed: As you can see, the strap button is in that goldilocks zone. The next thing I generally look for is the size of the headstock. Because of the leverage effect, small weight changes at the headstock make BIG differences to the balance. This one is comfortingly small. Another thing I would look for is where the lower waist sits and how wide it is. This affects the balance over the knee. This also looks pretty good to me. And actually, I'm not sure that the Lakland is particularly light-bodied. I can't get the numbers, but comments from various forums seem to indicate that it is not a super-lightweight. This one I designed and built for @Len_derby is less than 6 1/2 lbs and this one - following the same principles above - balances just fine : By the way, the MusicRadar review that the Lakland photo came from was comparing 4 semi-basses. They said that the Lakland was in a complete different league to the other 3 ...

When's bin day your part of the world? Wednesday?

And finally ready to return: Machine heads refitted and nut lowered ( @Sibob may want to tweak them when he resets it but it is at a level where those tweaks should be pretty minor). Because the nut / nut slot is lower, I've chiselled a dropaway angle behind it to ensure the strings have a clear run to the machine heads: It'll be in Monday's post back to @Sibob . No doubt we'll all find out if it's done the trick or not soon

Indeed! It's got half a chance. The fretboard is now completely flat with the trussrod loose so the full movement is now available to counteract the string tension. But fingers crossed anyway

Thanks. It might be...but only if it sorts the problem Fingers crossed!

Frets all done. Just have to reset the nut, pop back the tuners and this can be shipped back to @Sibob

And trimmed. Next job is levelling, recrowning and polishing the frets and resetting the nut. And then...well then I think it's done

Great save! Excellent job