Neck-through LP, now it’s a scratch build

[Freddy G]

Nice clean work Chris! That rig for drilling the output jack hole!

I gotta say, I would never be that ambitious.....I just use a hand drill and eyeball it....

 

[pshupe]

Nice clean work Chris! That rig for drilling the output jack hole!

I gotta say, I would never be that ambitious.....I just use a hand drill and eyeball it....

Me too. I have started using a spot facer though, which seems to work really well. 3/16" pilot hole and 1" spotfacer. No tear out or wandering.



Cheers Peter.

 

[Skyjerk]

Nice clean work Chris! That rig for drilling the output jack hole!

I gotta say, I would never be that ambitious.....I just use a hand drill and eyeball it....

Thanks Freddy

To be honest it wasn’t much of a rig. I just rotated the table on my drill press 90 degrees vertical and clamped the guitar to it. Took about 32 seconds to line it up and away I went.

I’ve just rammed it through by hand before but the hole wasn’t as clean as I liked.

 

[Skyjerk]

Stopped at Heane this morning and grabbed a nice hunk of cocobolo. looks nice. Must remember to wear my mask and use the dust collection on my saw

enough here for all 3 necks and long enough for the bass

 

[Skyjerk]

Took a few slices off and left the balance as a hunk for some later date. Cut them at 0.31” thinking I’d have to flatten them before thicknessing and I like a finished board to be 0.25”

In fact it doesn’t appear flattening will be needed, they are all laying dead flat on the router table. No visible warp whatsoever. Not at this point anyway. I’m not going to work them further till tomorrow but if there’s any flattening to do at that point I dont think it’ll amount to much

I’m observing slightly different steps with the cocobolo. For one thing I have heard it can be quite irritating to the skin. I don’t tend to be at all sensitive to things like that but no point in tempting fate. I’ll wear a mask and long sleeves when sanding, dust collectors on anything electric I use, and a good blow out of the shop after finishing work. A shower right away won’t hurt.
I’m more concerned for my dogs than me. I have hairless dogs and they can be very sensitive so I’m not gonna risk exposing them.

Another thing I’ve heard is the oil in this wood can screw up a glue joint if it’s not really clean, so before gluing I’m going to give these a serious acetone wipe on the glue side until the color stops wiping off, and then glue it up right away

 

[valvetoneman]

Took a few slices off and left the balance as a hunk for some later date. Cut them at 0.31” thinking I’d have to flatten them before thicknessing and I like a finished board to be 0.25”

In fact it doesn’t appear flattening will be needed, they are all laying dead flat on the router table. No visible warp whatsoever. Not at this point anyway. I’m not going to work them further till tomorrow but if there’s any flattening to do at that point I dont think it’ll amount to much

I’m observing slightly different steps with the cocobolo. For one thing I have heard it can be quite irritating to the skin. I don’t tend to be at all sensitive to things like that but no point in tempting fate. I’ll wear a mask and long sleeves when sanding, dust collectors on anything electric I use, and a good blow out of the shop after finishing work. A shower right away won’t hurt.
I’m more concerned for my dogs than me. I have hairless dogs and they can be very sensitive so I’m not gonna risk exposing them.

Another thing I’ve heard is the oil in this wood can screw up a glue joint if it’s not really clean, so before gluing I’m going to give these a serious acetone wipe on the glue side until the color stops wiping off, and then glue it up right away


View attachment 544741

I use cocobolo quite alot and never had a problem with irritation or gluing, it's one of my favourite rosewoods and Madagascan.

 

[LtDave32]

Chris, is Heane sort of like a Rockler?

 

[Skyjerk]

Chris, is Heane sort of like a Rockler?

I misspelled that. It’s Hearne Hardwoods.

Its like Walmart for wood

I’m fortunate to live a 30-minute drive from there. It’s where I buy almost all my wood

 

[Skyjerk]

Well I’m kind of at a point where I need to do something about slotting fretboards, so today I’m going to make a jig for my new DeWalt table saw.

 

[Skyjerk]

Chris, is Heane sort of like a Rockler?

actually Dave if you look at post #22 of this thread I posted some pix I took at Hearnes when I bought the mahogany for this build. I actually bought ALL the wood in this build there although not all on the same trip. The mahogany, the maple, the holly, and now the cocobolo.

 

[dcomiskey]

I misspelled that. It’s Hearne Hardwoods.

Its like Walmart for wood

I’m fortunate to live a 30-minute drive from there. It’s where I buy almost all my wood

I’ve only bought one thing from them, but one of my best scores: highly-flamed mahogany neck blank. Part of me is glad I don’t live near any of these places. I spend enough on my wood hoarding as it is.

is it a large place?

 

[Skyjerk]

I’ve only bought one thing from them, but one of my best scores: highly-flamed mahogany neck blank. Part of me is glad I don’t live near any of these places. I spend enough on my wood hoarding as it is.

is it a large place?

yup. Really big

 

[pshupe]

I was down there about 6 yrs ago and it was an awesome place. There are about 3 places similar to that around me here in Canada. One is about 20 mins away, the other two about 40 mins in opposite directions. Similar stock, layout, and feel of the places. I feel sorry for anyone that does not at least have one of these places close to them. I have only ever bought large width Korina body blanks and one piece Korina neck blanks online. Both times from recommended sources which worked out well.

Regards Peter.

 

[Skyjerk]

The jig I made was basically the Dan Earlwine "shooting board” kind of thing. Not too fancy but gets the job done, which I then did for one fretboard. Ive kinda lost my steam for the day but got this much done anyway. Board still needs a radius, inlays, and binding. I think the last board I did with binding was 5 or 6 years ago so im gonna have to actually poke into one of my old threads to see what order I did stuff.
Its a bit different now because previopusly I radiused the board while it was still square with no slots. That radius jig went bye bye so im going to try my hand at doing the radius with a plane and finish with my radiused sanding block....

I'll do that shit tomorrow. Its hot, im tired, and when all your parents are dead and all your kids are dead, fathers day does nothing but suck. Sorry to whine, its a depressing day.

anyway, looks slightly more guitar-like with the fretboard sitting on it...

 

[rockgod212]

wow outstanding work there.

 

[Skyjerk]

I wish I had not waited so long to try putting the radius on the board using a plane. Even taking ridiculously thin shavings, and being super paranoid careful, it took about 5 minutes to get it 95% done, then finished with the radius beam. Worked out perfectly and was significantly faster than my old router jig. Lesson learned. It never pays to put off trying new things simply because you always did it another way…

a little of this:

and a little of this:

and I wound up with this

tomorrow night I’ll do the inlays. Standard trapezoids, only they are MOP as opposed to plastic

 

[dcomiskey]

Gorgeous board, Chris. Looks very rich.

 

[Rapdog]

Great work Chris. I have to say I appreciate the planning you have to do foe all the right calculations on angles. That top is awesome! Definitely deserves props . Looking forward to more progress shots.

 

[Skyjerk]

Gorgeous board, Chris. Looks very rich.

and cocobolo sounds like something I should eat too

 

[Skyjerk]

this is a PITA since Imdomt have a routing template for it, but its not worth buying for one guitar. I don’t expect,to find myself in the replica LP-building game.


anyway it turned out pretty good.

I cover board with tape, spend some time calculating placement and make some marks, then secure each inlay with a tiny drop of CA. Then I cut around the inlay with a scalpel.

pull off the tape

route the cavity with my Dremel and base. I have the board wedged in between two pieces of 1/4” MDF. The Dremel base rides on that and cuts a flat bottom cavity. I set the depth so that it leaves the inlay just a hair proud at the center line. This leaves plenty of inlay Below the surface at the wides points

I use z-poxy mixed with sanding dust for color

Sand

And done.

next up, binding and frets.

NO NIBS.