Andyjr1515

There are relatively few steps left before I can start the finishing process...but most of these final steps will tend to take a proportionately longer time because there will be lots and lots of accurate measuring involved, trial and error assembly and disassembly, etc.. And none more so than fitting the neck. I'm going to break from convention for the neck fitting. My preferred method is mortice and tenon with sturdy bolts and threaded inserts, which is also what I will be doing here (I did succeed in one build with a dovetail joint but can't afford the post-trauma psychiatrist bills again!) : But I have found - on my own OM and a dreadnought I built for a fellow band member that over time the bolts slacken. It's an easy thing to fix - just a quick nip up with an allen key - but I don't want that to happen to an instrument that is a few hundred miles away. I think that it is that the mahogany - great quality and lightweight from David Dyke - simply compresses a teeny bit over time and temperature change and, eventually, this lessens the friction on the machine screw head. So what I now do is do everything in the conventional way with a bolt-on - up to and including finishing and a fully strung-up test of the action, intonation, etc, and then as a final step, take the neck off, add some wood glue to the joint and re-bolt. And so what about if in the distant future it ever needed a neck re-set? Well, see the heel? I will drill a small hole from here into a small chamber at the joint to allow a luthier to use their steam needle (that's what they use to remove set necks) to be able to insert it to soften the glue. Normally, a luthier would have to remove the fretboard for access to the joint (that's what they do to fix a Gibson Les Paul and SG set neck), but providing access here, all that needs taking off will be the heel end cap: And the flaw in the scheme? Well, as far as I know, no-one else provides this facility and, as a neck reset is only usually needed after around 30 years or so hard playing - and even then rarely needed - then P will have forgotten that this facility exists and almost certainly I won't be around to remind him Anyway - next task is getting the neck joint accurate and at the correct up/down and side/side angles. It's a shame that it is needed because, as a roughcut-straight-off-the-router, this is the best fit I've ever achieved(and it's just as close a fit the other side) : And is it needed? Well, it would be most unusual if it wasn't. I have found that the best way is to use a carbon stiffening rod - they are dead straight - to line up along the frets and centre-line of the fretboard. You can see here that the left right angle needs a tweak (a very small tweak in the angle at the heel makes a BIG difference at the bridge): And now I have the actual fretboard with the actual frets in place, I can fine-tune the up/down angle - which needs a small adjustment to end up with the bottom of the rod flush with the top of the bridge: So that's the next job

Yes - I think that is OK. Phew! Clearly, the fretboard will be eventually properly finished and the binding will be rounded - which I will do once the neck is carved. But you can see the overhang of the binding here (which will slim just a touch when they are rounded off) which should mean that sharp fret-ends won't happen even as the neck and fretboard ages. The demarcation stripes should also show up nicely once the neck is carved: Oh...and, of course, the obligatory mock-up

Nice touch!

The frets were de-tanged at either end, ensuring that none of the tang metal was proud of the un-bound fretboard. As usual, I fitted the frets with a teeny thread of titebond, hammered in and then clamped with the 12" radius block: The frets force the fretboard into a mild curve and so, to sand down the fret ends to the exact overhang, I first clamped it to a straight edge beam, with the fret ends clear for sanding: Then I could turn the whole assembly round 90 degrees and sand all of the fret-ends straight and accurately along my long sanding beam: This made it quite easy to get the fret overhang even along the whole length and accurate to 10th of a millimetre. I repeated for the other side and then rounded all of the fret ends. So now, if my calcs are correct, I should have the target width of fret, and the binding less than 0.5mm deeper than the overhang - which they are and which it is : So now I just need to plane the top of the binding so that the bottom feature line is flush with the bottom of the fretboard. And then glue the bindings on each side: So tomorrow, I should have: - a silky smooth set of fret ends - a teeny binding overhang to round off - a trio of feature lines to set it off against the maple neck Fingers crossed!

Absolutely splendid

I'm pleased with this.

Done. Time for a cuppa, I reckon. Been on with this most of the day

And so it starts with pencilling around the shape and routing with the Dremel in its precision router base: Then some diagonals, parallels and perpendiculars to mark the centre-points of the other dots: And then the key dots routed for a set of diamonds: And glued using 30 minute epoxy mixed with the sanding dust from the fretboard which will glue them and invisibly fill any gaps, including the diamond cross-cuts: And so later on, I will be able to sand these flush and that will mean that, soon, I can start tapering and fretting the board But before I put the Dremel away, there are three more swifts to rout for - the heel end cap (1) and the headstock plate (2). In both cases, I will rout the chambers before I cut out the components shapes so I have a larger surface for the precision router base to work from.

Now look what you've done...

A quick look out of the window to remind myself what swifts look like as they scream round the house before they go off in the next few days back to Africa: That's strange...that looks like woodgrain in the sky!! Oh - hang on...let me just invert it... So guess what I'm going to be doing over this weekend

Normal stuff - happy to show what I do and why...but don't assume this is the way it should be done Binding. The problem I have with wood binding is that - even when it is bent to shape (which mine always is) it is very stiff and it is very springy. So the traditional way is glue it - tape it tightly - wrap the whole body very, very tightly with a fabric strip or bicycle inner tube like an Egyptian mummy. Then leave it overnight for the glue to fully dry And usually - in my experience - when you unwrap it the next day there are gaps. And you burst into a rage and jump on the almost complete body until it is a pile of matchsticks and start everything all over again. And, folks, life is just too short for that. So what I have done the last three or four builds is iron on the bindings - in the same way that I iron on veneer. Basically, - I use Evostick 'Resin 'W' PVA wood glue: - I put an even coat on both the binding AND the binding channel - I let it dry. (30 mins or so) - I then get a hot dry iron (I use an old heatshrink iron but any iron will do) and iron it on. (I forgot to take a photo while I was doing it but hopefully you get the idea): - the heat melts both layers of PVA which merges and when it cools holds the components tight. It's repeatable so if there's a gap, I just heat it up again, hold the joint tight with my gloved hand for a few seconds and it is done And here it is...done, ready for final sanding: No tantrums. No firewood. Not the way the books say to do it - but it works for me!

No problem. There are some excellent bass and electric solid body kits on the market - and some at unbelievable value for money (have a look at the Gear4Music ones!) And onwards...to the next scary bit, the end graft rout. This required again the body to be suspended over the concrete floor clamped by the modified workmate - this time to be routed with my Dremel: From the offcut of the fretboard, I have been able to slice a thin strip that will contrast with the back woods, but key in with the fretboard. It's generally best to avoid too many different species so we have: Red Gum Walnut: Back, Sides, Rosette, Headstock plate Spruce: Top Macassar or lookalike (ie, the bindings): Fretboard, bindings; end graft Should all coordinate nicely. I'll decide whether the heel plate would be better in macassar or Red Gum Walnut when the rest is sorted Anyway - the above slot had to be cut at this stage, but the end graft can't actually be fitted yet. But eventually it will link into the binding feature lines with its own lines something like at the top left corner here:

There are some great kits about and it's a great, great way of starting to understand the geometry and what matters and what doesn't matter for both solids and acoustics. And I mean, if you're talking acoustic...Martin do some superb kits...

For the herringbone purfling, the gaffa tape it is, @MacDaddy Or at least the masking tape. And not an iron in sight - yet! Before I glue the binding, I first have to rout the slot for the end graft - and before I do that I need to decide what I'm going to do for the end graft - and I have to make sure that the corners of the binding slot are absolutely square and that the sides of the binding slot are absolutely flush with the herringbone. I do that with a tiny square wood block with some emery cloth stuck to it, a very sharp chisel and check all is OK all the way round with an offcut of the binding: Next job is sorting the end-graft and then I can get the iron out and glue the binding Oh...and as @Si600 is bound to ask what an end graft is...it's this bit at the back!

OK - I've come across what I think is a 'new kid on the block' in terms of guitar hardware, parts and tools. And I'll be very irritated if you all know about them and haven't told me! Glued To Music - gluedtomusic.com I had ordered the Schaller M6 mini tuners (I needed 3 sets), all shown in stock at Gear4music (usually a reliable supplier). After a few days got message that they were delayed. Waited another week. On further checking, the estimated delivery was late September!! Gluedtomusic - in stock, received in 2 days I wanted the improved version of Stewmac's dremel binding jig. Tried Tonetech Luthier Supplies. Out of stock - no estimate of when back in. Gluedtomusic - in stock. Received in 2 days So a positive call out to Gluedtomusic.com - thanks, folks And so - what is this modified binding channel cutting jig? Well, the Stewmac one unmodified is pretty much unusable. There is no way at all you can keep the top-heavy Dremel vertical. And if Dremel isn't vertical, the binding channel is too deep or too shallow. So Andyjr1515 a few years ago made a simple mod. He glued a stick onto it. It's here on the left: Now obviously the CEO some enterprising concern saw this, saw that it was Andyjr1515 who had modded it and made a phone call to the Chairman. "What...THE Andyjr1515?? Do it! Get it into production!! Quick!!!" OK...maybe they found the same issue and just did a better job of it So the modded version is the one on the right. And WHAT a difference. Because cutting the binding channels on the top of a acoustic build is, without any doubt, THE most scary bit of any of the aspects of any of the builds I do, and THE most likely for it to go irreparably wrong. And even with this modded jig, it was still scary. But, other than a bit of tidying up with a very sharp chisel, it's done: And why the two cuts? Because on the inside I'm going to put some herringbone purfling, bent to shape over the bending iron: And outside that, the Rocklite Sundari binding, complete with feature line: Couple of things needed to be done before these are glued but they are ready to be attached. Oh yes...and I'm going to iron them on

I like that very much

Like @Jabba_the_gut says on his recent build, a question is always what to do about fret-ends. I usually do what Jez has done - de-tang the frets, fill the tang slot and then round off the fret ends. So what does 'de-tang' mean? It means nipping or filing off the tang (the strip on the fretwire that hammers into the slot) at either end of the fret. You can see that here: And why would you want to do that? Well, over time, the fretboard can sometimes dry and shrink a tiny bit and the fret ends start feeling a bit sharp. But this is easy to fix with a small needle file and is a routine annual 'set-up' job for many guitars and basses. The advantage of nipping the ends of the tangs, as Jez has done, is that you don't get the tang corner itself ever exposed - because that is more tricky to fix...you basically have to sand them smooth but that can impact on the neck finish. You can put binding on the sides of the fretboard and that covers the fret slots and the tangs and the fret ends but sometimes changes the overall width. I am also always troubled on a neck by creating a demarcation line with veneer. Great fretboard wood; great neck wood; and then a strip (or strips) of veneer glued in between. Should be OK but always better if you don't have to do that. So on a few of my recent builds, I have experimented with a win-win-win method of binding. It's worked well and so I'll be using it on this. Basically I: detang the fret ends; fit the frets with the ends overhanging; round and finish the fret ends; add a binding with a feature strip; round off and and slim the binding. This is what I mean: So the frets are overhanging - to an exact measurement (easy to do - you just sand the whole fretted board edge on to get to sub-tenths accuracy); the fret ends are rounded; the binding is sanded to exact height and glued on; the binding is rounded off and slimmed a touch so it is around a mere 0.25mm proud of the fret. So the win-win-win is that you get a demarcation line for free, you get a lovely rounded edge to your fretboard and you don't get sharp fret ends even if the board dries over the years. Anyway, that's the theory, and it does seem to work I have one more thing I have to check/do before any of that but, in preparation, I have a binding that couldn't have matched the macassar better if I'd tried!: And the same binding will go on the body edges (it's the Rocklite Sundari product) The final thing that P and I have sorted is the headstock. Here the intention is, if at all possible, to keep the string runs straight and to get the whole thing to fit into a standard OM/OOO size guitar case. Happily, while I was drawing it all up, the tuners (Schaller M6 mini) arrived and so I could see if it was going to work. I think it will. And have room for a couple of swifts There's a few things to do and to check before I do any of this...but, anyway, that's the plan

Over the internet, between us P & I spent a bit of time double and triple checking the intended neck depth and width. P already has a much loved Guitar Bouzouki and ideally wants this one's neck to be just a few mm wider and just a few mm shallower. That has meant that I can taper the neck blank widthways and depthwise. Within a mm or so, this is how the proportions are going to look. To my eye, quite pleasing: And getting the depth in the right order of magnitude meant that I could rough-carve the heel - I will creep up on the final shape once the neck has been profiled. I find the least damage I can do while removing the greatest quantity of timber is using microplanes. I hold them scraper-wise in gloved hands rather than using a handle: Then move onto a gooseneck cabinet scraper: As I say, the heel shape will be worked on over a period of time, but it gives me a head start: You can see here (although this clearly isn't carved and is a mm or so oversize) that the neck on a Bouzouki is quite a bit deeper than a guitar or bass. In terms of the profile, I always try to make sure - even though every instrument has its own feel - that a build has at least a comfortable feel of familiarity to the owner. So I send a profile gauge for them to take a few profiles off their favourite players and try, as best I can, to replicate that: The gauge is on its way to P as I type

It's all learned from places like here...

And to one of the mildly terrifying bits. Is that really the body, clamped in the modified jaws of a workmate, suspended over a towel over a concrete floor and a router pushing down on it????? Yes it is And I'm smiling mainly because it didn't fall out. Or crush. Or bruise. But there are few other ways you can accurately cut the mortice... And I've got to do it again soon, the other way up. Because there are few other ways you can accurately cut the tailstock plate slot... The workmate is a home-made version of a jig that is featured on the excellent ObrienGuitars 'Luthier Tips du Jour Mailbag' series for cutting mortices, and neck angles and tenons. The template is a G&W one. The result: But, Andy. I thought you hated routers? I do. But there are times when it's pretty much the only way to do a task. And did it go faultlessly? Of course not. The mortice is longer than I intended because the template slipped as I was routing. It doesn't matter, but it confirms I hate f*****g routers!! The same rig is used to cut the neck angle and the tenon. For this, the neck is clamped to a board, located by a couple of pegs that fit in the trussrod slot, and hinged so I can rout different angles onto the heel: And what angle? Well - a straight edge on top of the fretboard should ideally just sit on top of the bridge - and then the action height is set by the saddle that will sit proud of the bridge. And that's why I had to make the bridge first. My straight edge is the offcut from the fretboard: And the gap at the top of the heel in the photo below shows the angle the neck has to sit at for the straight edge to lie in the right place: So I tilt the hinged plate to that angle and route that into the heel end. And this time when I check, there's no gap at the top of the heel: It will be actually finished by hand once the bridge is fitted, but this will get me at least into the right ball-park So - ignoring the fretboard taper that hasn't been done yet, and the neck thickness that hasn't been done yet - it continues to progress:

I guess so (I have no idea ) Actually, just a guess, but I suspect it doesn't make a whole lot of difference provided the bridge area doesn't exceed the bridge plate area underneath. The bridge is clamped pretty firmly to this plate when it is glued and therefore I am guessing that the flex wouldn't change unless and until the bridge went beyond it. This one is well within it because it is narrower. Feel free to add to or challenge this presumption, folks.

Thanks Just put a better photo of it on the post. The previous shot wasn't good - it's gone awfully dark here. Lets hope that's just the thunder cloud and not pandemic oblivion creeping up...

I need the actual bridge to work out the neck angle - and so it was time to make the bridge. I got hold of a bog-standard 12 string guitar bridge as much to check the peg stagger as anything. The bouzouki bridge will end up around 10mm narrower. I then did a number of sketches of bridge shapes on photos of the top to see if anything jumped out relating to the overall shape. Of all of them, this was the most pleasing - just adding more of a curve at the back to give a passing nod to the rosette shape: And after some stuff with band saws, chisels, microplanes, cabinet scrapers and sandpaper, this is it in the ebony. Bit of tidying up to do when the light's better but I think this will look quite nice:

Ah, @SpondonBassed - that'll be the Greek Bouzouki. This one's an Irish Bouzouki. Clever idea, though

I'm getting better at flattening two surfaces to glue together - and better at matching grain. The 1" heel extension is on: The bit that made me smile was that the grain in the walnut splice actually matches the maple! What's the chances of that This heel extension gets the neck to the correct height. The slightly more scary bit is getting it to the right angle - but there's quite a few things I have to do before I can work out the angle and start cutting mortices and tenons. Nevertheless, that's a few more of the basic components starting to come together: The great big lump of brown-tinged ebony is what I'm going to try to carve a bridge from - when I can work out how to do that Thanks for looking folks. I know it's not a bass - but it is fun, isn't it