Andyjr1515

Like @owen , somehow only just found this thread. Absolutely fascinating. A lot of info - I'll set some time aside and read through it all again tomorrow

You can get teeny dots...I think from stationers like Ryman's - maybe even WH Smith - which are pretty discreet. Around 2mm diameter.

...and so were all of those

And that, of course, was also a special one

The stick on glow in the dark ones work pretty well. Not so great for gigging because with heavy use they can start moving out of position, but for practice, etc, they work fine

Thanks, folks. I'm pleased with any build I do that actually makes it to the owner in half decent form, @Paul S ... but this has, indeed, been a rather special one

And so to the humble cabinet scraper. Even though they are very cheap, the cabinet/card scraper is one of the tools that would be on my 'if you only had one hand tool' list. The burr that is along the edge turns it from a dust generator to a wood plane and, from quite early on for a neck carve, I move to this for the controllability (because, let's face it, you don't want to take too much off on a neck carve! ) Here you can see that what is coming off is a proper shaving: But yes - it's slow, and particularly with a timber as hard as rock maple. But nevertheless, after an hour it's starting to get there: It's not often you get the chance to do a side by side profile comparison - this is at the 1st and you can see that the shape of the curve is starting to get there (The one on the right is the Lull) : But, for example, at the 10th you can see that the new one is still a little flat-topped and steep sided on the one side. Doesn't look a lot, but that represents a lot more scraping still to go

Thank you for your kind words, @Hellzero Much appreciated!

Dreadful light today so no good doing the 'finished pics' but, cosmetically, it's done. Still got all the set up stuff to do and I need a tweak (or the OK to do it myself) from Marc at Mojo to get the phasing right for the 'both' pickups (they are braided earth, single conductor and so not as simple as swopping the wires round...it needs one of the magnets flipping). Individually, by the way, the pickups sound GREAT!!! So we'll have to wait for a 'not having to have all the house lights on in the middle of the day' break in the cloud before the arty farty shots but here's a couple of poor light shots to be going on with :

Spent some time working out how to secure the pickups and achieve decent height adjustment. I'm direct fixing them to the pocket bases with firm sponge underneath - a bit like bass guitar pickups tend to be done. For the positioning of the bridge, I have strung it up with a 'proper' set of electric strings and packed up the top of the roller bridge to get it to the correct action height. That way, I am able to position the optimum position and angle of the bridge, given the adjustment range of the saddles, giving plenty of further intonation adjustment for alternative string gauges or tunings. With a 6mm bradpoint through the two bridge adjuster holes, I have then marked the centre point for the bushes drill holes (11mm...that's meant a 24hr hour Amazon jobee for an 11mm bradpoint which should arrive later today) And while I'm waiting for the bradpoint for the bridge bushes, on to one of the other last scary bits - drilling holes in the top for the controls! It will be fiddly enough as it is...but thank goodness for that hatch at the back!

Excellent

Proper woodworkers can sharpen chisel and plane blades without a jig... I need a jig I use the Veritas sharpening jig and then just a couple of diamond stones and finish on a small leather strop. This is the spokeshave blade in the jig: There is actually very little time spent with the spokeshave because it takes wood off at a considerable rate - this is after only around 15 minutes. The squiggly pencil line is the measured spine depth that I work towards but don't cut into : You can tell if the blade is sharp by the chippings - each one here is unbroken for the whole length of the neck: Over too quick but very satisfying. And yes, I know what you're all thinking - just like a small bag of Maltesers. And then I move onto a razor plane without the handle, used two handed when I'm hot holding a camera - very effective and very controllable. And yes, I should be wearing gloves: I check the shape as I go along with a joiners profile gauge. You can see here that I already am starting to get the nice 'C' shape of the Lull but at the moment it's a bit asymmetrical: So this is where I am at the moment: Tomorrow I will finish the rough carve and then move to cabinet scrapers to creep up to the shape of the fretted neck.

And a little bit closer. With a through-neck, there is a lot that has to be basically right so that everything lines up and the string geometry is in the right place. And pretty much the only way of checking that in the end is to fit a set of strings to see if it does, indeed, line up. So back on went the tuners and on went the vibrato working bits (I'll leave the nickel cover until I've finished messing about). And, with a packer to lift the bridge temporarily to a clearance height, on went a 'sacrificial' set of strings (actually oddments of acoustic sets from my bits drawer). And it lines up pretty well. PHEW! The other thing I've done is prepare an offcut of the body ebony to the same sanding stage and tried one side with Lord Sheraton beeswax balsam and the other side with a decent food-grade mineral oil (preferred to, say, lemon oil, due to the lack of acidity and other additives). Both work fine and give the same satin hue. Both feel great. Bit of a toss of a coin, but I'm going with the mineral oil. I'll apply it this evening and so tomorrow's photos should give a decent idea how it will turn out. The other thing I can do with some strings on is work out - given the whammy bar - the accessibility of the knobs in the planned positions. Still stuff to do - but it is looking like a guitar now

That, of course, is my secret. That, plus troll's spit

I bet you all thought I'd forgotten about this one I've been a bit heads down to try to get the ebony guitar build finished - on track with that and so thought I'd better give @Happy Jack 's neck a bit of love (in a manner of speaking ) The plan is - as far as possible - both necks to feel very similar. On that basis, I have measured the Lull neck depth to include the fret thickness. On a 'measure 14 times and cut once' basis, I first took the bulk off on the band saw and then moved onto my trusty spokeshave: Clearly the volute will be much, much smaller than this below but this now has the 1st to 10th frets to within 0.2mm of the depth, including the fret depth, of the Lull. At the moment, the neck thickens a little early from the 11th fret towards the heel, but I will leave it there for the moment and straighten it up a touch when I start the neck carve proper: You can see how even this small headstock angle gives me a helping hand with the break angle and the ability to use Hipshot/Sandberg type string retainers. I think I've said before, but there will be an extension to the fretboard the other side of the nut, carved to meet the scoop of the headstock. Next job is the neck carve which, with luck, will start tomorrow. But first I'll have to sharpen the spokeshave blade...rock maple is tough stuff!

Main job over the weekend was fret ends/level/recrown/polish. For levelling I use a box section of aluminium with emery cloth double-side-taped to one side and use it as both the level gauge and leveller: For the fret ends and recrowning, I find the Chris Alsop crowning files just right...clearly designed by someone who's done the job himself... In this shot I'm just holding it for the camera - in use it fits nicely in your palm giving great control, but is short and so it much easier to use as you get to the over-body section than the longer types of files. I rough crown it using the diamond edge itself and then run through 400/800 emery and then 4000/6000/8000/12000 micro-mesh cloths using the Chris Alsop file as the former: And - you'll have to forgive the appalling winter/full cloud cover light - done: For the back and sides, I've been doing the initial Tru-oil slurry and buff stages as I've been going along, which has given me the drying time while I've been able to be do other stuff on the finish list. But on Sunday I was able to give it its final slurry with 2000 grit emery. A break in the cloud gave me a rare bit of winter sunshine: I've hand polished the fretboard and headstock ebony (again, using the micro-mesh, running progressively through the grades of 3200 to 12000) and will do a final buff later today. For the main ebony panels, they need a final Mirka sand and then the same treatment. All going well, both jobs will be able to be done by the close of play this evening. I'm pretty sure that gets me to the stage of progressively positioning and fitting some of the hardware.

And before, I only had Workshop Envy!!!!

It's been a bit 'head down and battle on' with this one. Added some luminlay side dots and top MoP dots to the fretboard: Made some knobs: Fixed the magnets to the control hatch and the flush-fit truss rod cover: I'll be staining the spruce under the thumbnail cutaway so it blends in better: Note the headstock swifts also added. The positioning was thought up by Jack and his good lady. I think it's great And that's the basic build done Still to do is the final finishing, the fret ends/levelling/etc and then just the installation of the hardware and electrics And so, just a couple of gratuitous mockups and then, sometime back end of next week, I should be able to show the completed guitar

That looks VERY nice. Worth posting again

By the way, you can do all of the above a bit at a time - it doesn't all need to be done in one go.

Thanks @Maude for flagging this Welcome, @Cubinston ! What you have described is perfect for the alternative way of applying Tru-oil - the 'slurry and buff' method. It gives you a satin, silky smooth but organic finish. It lightly grain fills at the same time but leaves most of the grain features still showing. It's also VERY easy to do: - wipe on a coat of the Tru-oil and let it dry overnight - wipe on a second coat of Tru-oil and let it dry overnight - take a small piece of (best to wear latex/nitrile gloves - it's a messy step) c 240 grit sandpaper / wet and dry and sand it along the grain using the Tru-oil as the wet bit. This will create a slurry of oil and wood dust. After no more than 10 minutes, wipe this off, across the grain, with a lint-free cloth. Leave it to harden overnight - repeat the last step above, this time, wiping ALL of the slurry off, sanding and wiping with the grain. Let it dry. - repeat but this time with fine sandpaper/emery (500 grit or finer) sanding and wiping with the grain. Take a second lint free cloth and buff the surface with the grain. Let it dry - repeat the last step once more. Buff vigorously with the grain. Let it fully dry - couple of days - then buff it again, dry. Done This is my Bubinga bass done that way. Four years later, it still looks like this: It feels like wood but is silky smooth. I do ALL of my necks this way, even if the rest of the guitar or bass is gloss...

I haven't discounted that yet

Yes - they will be on the fretline... but, based on the previous discussion, where is that? (which is a tongue in cheek question that doesn't probably need an answer )

To be honest, everybody's right (after all, it's Christmas) - @Hellzero is right that, if they are totally different types of strings (especially major differences in tension), then the intonation is going to be different - @Happy Jack is right that, for a fretless, intonation tends to be a little more 'flexible' . Remembering that violins, cellos and double-basses don't have any individual intonation change capability to start with other than angle-ing the thin, high bridge and therefore everything is an approximation anyway) - @Andyjr1515 is also right - because it's his thread Actually, I hadn't really thought about string type change and therefore my explanation of getting that nut in exactly the same position turns out to be a bit of builder's blarney But (because I can blarney with the best) actually, even if I'd thought about that, I would have still measured it the same way. Why? Because the general rule for both guitars and basses is that the top string usually intonates within 1mm of the scale length and the thicker strings are (usually, but not always, progressively) further back. So I still need the nut in pretty much the same place. The interesting thing might be...where should I put the 'at the fret position' side dots? I'll get my coat before the mods close the thread

I used a variety of tools for adding the angle and thicknessing the headstock, but the coolest is the spokeshave so that's the pic you're going to get So I still have a slight 'Fender' scoop but shallower than normal due to the benefit of the modest headstock angle. There will be an ebony fillet fitted the other side of the nut: Next, the two-way trussrod fitted: And, with a thin strip of masking tape stopping the glue filling the trussrod slot, the gluing commences: