Andyjr1515

Looking great

I'm sure Mike will be posting the links anyway, but Gillett Guitars have just posted this - shows my own Rocklite and the production Mahogany versions of the Contour 6 string in comparison - and played by a fantastic player, Ben Fletcher:

Great blog, Silvia Thanks for all the hard work.

That's enough of an upper body workout for one evening! Starting to get there, though:

Excellent! On both counts

Well - I've got nothing to compare a 31.5" scale with but it certainly doesn't match my 34" bass, nor my 25.5" guitar, or my 24.75" guitar, or even my alto sax - so I presume it's right! @eude was after some lighter figure in the ebony. This should do nicely. This is where the fretboard will come to at its full 24 fret lines and a bit: Quite a bit of next week is going to be a bit of a disaster time-wise but before then I should at least have got my head around the neck angles, etc, to be able to start working on the heel.

Cutting frets by hand on a wide ebony board is b****y hard work! I'm about halfway through and having a rest Using the Stewmac on-line calculator, I marked carefully with a tiny pinhole each position - always from the nut. To double check, I then measured the dot to dot lengths against the calculators 'fret to fret' measurements. Happily, they matched! Then got the G&W mitre block out. These are the pin dots: The types of clamps I use on my bench are great for this rig, but they do tend to drag the board slightly as you tighten. It doesn't affect it when you are using a template, but with this it can drag it a couple of 10ths of a mm. So for each position, with a lamp shining directly down the blade, I tightened the two clamps until the dot disappeared from both sides of the blade. Then I knew the blade would be directly over the marker: The other thing I do is fit a couple of sized packers to fully fit the width of the jig. With a wood like this, the saw even pulls my heavy workbench away from the wall so, without packers, the fretboard can easily loosen from under the clamps. Eleven slots done. I'm going to have a cup of tea and then get down to the rest of them Andy

And it's time to start doing actual stuff preparing the neck. There's also a bit of buying - the carbon rods and a suitable router bit to cut the slots. First thing was working out what size of rods. Anyone who has cut a neck at the nut or seen a neck break will know just how little wood is actually there. @eude would like me to get to a similar feel to his favourite 6 string bass in terms of slimness, which is 22.5mm running up to 23.5mm. What I do is to draw full-size the cross section, with 'don't go beyond lines' to see how much leeway there is: 22.5mm with a 10mm fretboard (could be slimmer but I think I might stick with this) leaves 12.5mm maximum depth of wood. Cutting out the slot for the trussrod leaves 3.5mm wood underneath the rod in the middle and a touch less either side. That should be enough to prevent the rod bursting out of the bottom to say hello But it's a wide, slim profile so I have to be careful with the position and depth of the rods. I'll take the rods up to the 1st fret and have concluded that 4mmx4mm rods should give me what I need with a margin of error laterally and vertically. That done the rods and router bit are on order. Because it is going to be a flush-fitted heel, the neck angle will have to be set into the cutting of the tenon and heel - a bit like an acoustic. Therefore, the neck angle needs to be known pretty well before those surfaces are cut. Therefore, the sequence I am going in is: Fretline and top finish the fretboard. Then I know exactly what thickness it is Work out the required neck angle using full-size drawing and double checking with actual mockup Cut the heel Based on that, todays job is marking out and cutting the fret slots

I rout the weight relief chambers once I've carved out the back and know how deep I can go. It would be embarrassing to rout through into fresh air! Starting with the lower wing, I started with a No 5 Stanley plane: Then started the curve with my Veritas pull-shave Then put my newly acquired Ibex thumb plane into action. They are diddy and quite expensive, but they are brilliant! That's got the bulk out. Tomorrow, I will deepen the curve, then start on the upper wing. Finally, I will smooth it all off with a swan-neck cabinet scraper

Welcome back! I'm sure it won't take you long to brush off any remaining unwellness and get back into the swing

Yes - good suggestion. Taking old guitars and basses to bits makes you realise how many times oopsies appear in hidden places

And now both back wings are glued to the through-neck and are level with it so that the whole surface now incorporates the neck angle: Once all of the chambering and control cable routes have been sorted, the top will then glue onto the flat surface, and flush with the top of the neck: In between the two is another layer of 0.6mm veneer: So why bother bookmatching the veneer when no one will ever see it? Well, gosh - a chap's got to keep up certain standards, don't you know!

Can't wait!

If you are referring to the London Plane Tree version of Lacewood (I think there are a few species called that?) then the photo of the Sycamore looks very close. The London Plane Tree is apparently closely related to the American Sycamore and might even be a hybrid of it. Whatever, I think Mick's chart is from exotichardwoodsukltd - and that's where I got this from below, so they certainly do hold it sometimes:

Looks a great design! And some nice woods Just a detail to watch out for - cocobolo is a stunningly beautiful wood but is VERY oily. Even with acetone wiping before gluing, I couldn't get titebond to hold it tight and ended up using Z-poxy to glue the structural pieces. Also, when filing or sanding, you need to steel brush the file or sanding block frequently as it gums up very quickly! But, the result will be worth it. Look forward very much to seeing this one progress Andy

I will be using a dark, thin veneer as the demarcation line for all of the major components. Even with this, I need to be careful that the woods I use are not on any endangered lists that US Customs might get sniffy about. So the veneer I am using might look a bit fancy for something that will never be seen, but it's walnut - not on any lists! Here it is next to the first strip - that will separate the wings and the neck - being glued to the neck blank: Pity the only bit of this below that will be seen is an edge-on 0.6mm strip... And with both sides veneered, the first wing is now being glued: You can see in that shot just how much wood will be removed when I carve the concave scoop down to the neck's surface...

Me too!

Drop @scrumpymike a PM - he will have all the details.

And it is fan-flippin-stupendously-awe-inspiringly FANTASTIC!!!!! I am SO excited. And very, very impressed with the Rocklite. Before I get my sticky mitts properly on it, it's going to be at the London guitar show at Kempton Park this weekend (I'm in Aberdeen on grandparent duty, drat it!). If you let Mike, Michael or Simon know that you're on Basschat (and I've said the same to TheFretboard forum members, Mike), they may even let you play it! JUST DON'T DROOL SLOBBER OVER IT! Andy

OK - the update. I think @scrumpymike will be doing a more detailed post but on Thursday I went to the Gillett Guitars workshop to see the progress on their brand new 6-string mahogany electro-acoustic range...and to see the one they've made for me in the equally brand new Rocklite Sundari. I may be wrong, but I think this is one of the first guitars made from the material using it for not only back and sides (there are some of those around) but also the top as well. So the top, back, sides and fingerboard of this is a man-made wood: The two cutaways are carved walnut blocks but the rest is Rocklite. Just look at the grain where it's been sanded into the cutaway! As most of you know, I work with wood - but I would never have known this is not natural if no-one had told me. The guitar, by the way, sounds GREAT! Everyone is keen to know how Rocklite fares in real use and I am very happily going to be Gillett Guitars' guinea-pig on this one. This guitar, and examples of the new standard mahogany versions of the 6-string, along with their equally amazing basses are going to be at the Kempton Park guitar show this coming weekend. If you're at the show, drop into Gillett's stand - but don't leave drool marks on the guitar! I'm typically in Aberdeen that weekend (grandfather duties) but get my sticky mitts on it soon after Can't wait!

Lovely

Blast! I'd better go and empty the dishwasher, then!!! That's surely got to be worth SOME points....

And the top's on! Lightly dampened to show the colour it will be when it's finished: You can see the ebony veneer demarcation here: The ebony is very, very thin but it still makes quite a difference to the look of completeness. It will also widen as it is sanded round the curve of the carve. I think I first saw veneers this thin for demarcation (at the time I was generally using the thicker 2mm constructional veneers for demarcation and this thickness for veneering tops) used on one of @Jabba_the_gut 's builds and thought how classy it made it all look. I will sort the neck before I do the final carve - reinstating the curves of the original - and then I can make sure the curves all blend with one another. BUT - based on the fact that this was the 'fill-in project' - first I'd better do a little bit more on the full build for the guy in Hawaii!

Well - over the sandwich I decided yes - it could do with a 5mm slimdown. Actually, it will balance the look of the top and the back better. So out came the home-made router rig again: Weight-wise it's broadly where I wanted it to be. Including the heavier bridge, the body is now 3/4lb lighter than the original. That will feel quite different So next job is gluing the top on

I have one more decision before gluing the top on - do I take a bit of thickness out of the body to reduce the weight a touch more. To assess the current state of play, if you remember: I chambered heavily the body but the katalox is much heavier than the equivalent 10mm of ash I removed off the top and the Warwick bridge is also significantly heavier than the previous bridge. So, apart from the curving of the katalox edges once fitted, the other things I have now done is: Rounded out the angular sides of the control chamber: Then deepen the new neck pocket (it will be final shaped once the neck has been done): And finally chambered the underside of the katalox top (including the final thicknessing for the control chamber roof): Final tally is that, even with the new bridge, this is now 1/2lb lighter than the original body. So while I have a sandwich, my pondering will be - should I take another 5mm off the thickness of the body. Weightwise it's a no brainer. Functionality, it makes no difference. My only reason for pondering is whether aesthetically it changes the vibe by being a tiny bit slimmer. Not sure it will but these things are always worth a ponder before committing!