Renkenstein's LP Build Thread

[Renkenstein]

Patch trimmed flush. No one will ever know it's there. Keep my secret safe.




Tenon fits. Success!





Visited the local antique mall. Poro must have come in and bought all the hand tools, because all I could find was this #4. She was incomplete, missing an iron and lever cap, but I had those parts at home waiting. Damn good plane for $10.





I went to Woodcraft with this crazy idea of making a blue guitar. I found a couple promising acrylic pen blanks, and a couple bottles of dye.





Cut myself out some Standard inlays. It was a breeze on the Ridgid sander.





Routed and chiseled my first inlay cavity!





Fast forward to the end, here's the completed inlay. I used the dremel base MLP member rusdfh made, and cleaned up the edges with the 2 chisels pictured here.





Cavities, no inlay.





Let's glue in some inlay!!! Superglue in the hole, inlay in the hole. Nothin to it. After this, I sanded the inlay flush, but sanding doesn't make for any interesting pictures.





After sanding the inlay flush, I still had some iffy edges. I dusted the gaps with maple sawdust and wicked in superglue around the edges.





After sanding to 220 and hitting the board with naptha. This guitar finally has some color to it! I honestly love the blue on that maple. If the blue-burst goes well, this is going to be fkn awesome.





I decided that a 0.666" top on the guitar wasn't enough mojo...I took a single strand of the recently deceased epic Renk beard and layed it in the truss rod channel. Fk yeah.

 

[Ben Umlaut]

Those fret markers are really going to pop. I like how the color turned out. Penn State Industries has just about the best selection of pen blanks I've seen, if you're ever looking for more ideas.

 

[scottop1972]

kick ass inlays! i love it! cannot wait to see this done.

 

[scottop1972]

do you have a spray booth? you gonna spray outside? gonna pay someone to spray it for you?

 

[Renkenstein]

No spray booth. I'm going Tru-Oil over a water based dye burst this build, and probably on my next build as well. The intention is to focus on woodworking and tackle advanced finishes later....especially the finishes that will shorten my life expectancy in the event of an error.

 

[Renkenstein]

Thanks Ben and Scott. When I saw it with that naptha, all my doubts were blown away. I'm stoked with the way it looks. I'm very happy I chose an easy material to work with. Shaping the acrylic was just too damn easy compared to MoP and a jeweler's saw. I'll graduate to the REAL stuff on a later build.

The inlay job is FAR from perfect, and it got a little jaggy on a marker or a few, but I'll take the end result.

 

[tnt423]

That blue looks great against the maple! Wished I would have thought of it before I did pearl blocks in rosewood.

 

[Renkenstein]

Well folks, the GD plane has crashed into the mountain.

I glued my fretboard on to my neck, and I have some serious gaps toward tenon. I wouldn't be worried about it, but it's as bad as 1mm in areas, and there's more than just one gap. I've almost decided to pull the board and see if I can't salvage it, but I'm not optimistic. The acrylic inlay will most definitely melt, and I don't like my odds of the fretboard retaining a flat shape to reuse after removal.

This has caused me to step away for a week to decide what to do.

What I was considering doing was to finish up the body(binding rabbet, binding, dye, tru-oil) and then possibly make a new fretboard with some inlay that will definitely match the post-tru-oil finish.

I haven't seen many examples of our peers finishing an LP body before gluing in the neck joint. In fact, the only examples I've seen using this process is in the case of assembling guitar kits. Is this a serious no-no, or can I get away with it if I mask off the finish before gluing? Also...will I have to mask the area that will fall under the fretboard to keep finish from affecting the glue between the FB and the neck plane?

I've got plenty to do in the meantime to keep me busy, I just could really use a little guidance here.

 

[Ben Umlaut]

That sucks.
Is there any way that you could shim and glue the gaps and then hide it all with binding? I don't know if it would mess up the truss rod, but it might be worth a shot if you're going to scrap it anyway.

 

[Renkenstein]

I'm not sure, which is why I set it aside to think on it and ask for advice. I had thought of binding it, but I don't like the idea of hiding a critical flaw like that. Since this was never intended to be a one night stand in the luthier world, I'd rather learn how to make it right.

I think removal really is the only way to go. Pretty sure I can salvage the neck, the FB...mayyyybe. Honestly, I've resigned myself to making another fretboard anyway. The inlay wasn't THAT good a job, and I could use more practice.

Hey, at least the material was CHEAP!

 

[scottop1972]

If you are unhappy then remove it and re do it. i had some small gaps after i glued up the board < 1mm and they were due to not being precisely flat when binding the board. the back of the board was fine, but the binding wasn't flush to the base....

my "fix" was to go with it and sand it, filled it with grain filler and sanded it again, i was going to go with a black finish on the back of the neck anyway..... so i will be sure to hit that area pretty good with the black and clear so that it is flush.

hope that helps....

 

[tnt423]

If it's only towards the tenon just lift that end and reglue. You may get a little uneven feeling in the top of the fretboard, but after you get it good and stable again you can sand it out. Then you only have to replace some of the inlays, if they melt.

 

[Mike M]

Agreed, I bought this one too and it changed my life forever. I cant believe how much easier builds have been. Highly recommended!

+1! One of the best tool purchases I've made too!

 

[Ben Umlaut]

...I took a single strand of the recently deceased epic Renk beard and layed it in the truss rod channel. Fk yeah.

Have you considered that all of your problems may be a result of your beard trying to escape its prison. At any point in the time since have you heard a train a comin', comin' round the bend? Have you ever trimmed your beard, just to watch it die?

Just something that you may want to consider.

 

[Renkenstein]

Oh man...that thought NEVER occurred to me!

Will your genius never end, Ben?

 

[Renkenstein]

What's that smell?!?! Oh, that's Renk's progress getting stale and moldy. Let's put up a tiny update.


Routed for binding. I didn't do the vintage route in the cutaway. No need to complicate things unnecessarily, since this isn't a vintage spec build.


That'll do!


Here's how I did it. I had some scrap oak plywood that I threw together and made a little makeshift binding router setup. I used a 1/2" Whiteside flush trim bit and put a 3/8" bearing on it. Worked quite well. I had to give the body a boost with a piece of 3/4" MDF because I made the box a little too high for the bit to reach the workpiece.

 

[scottop1972]

^ so does the box ride up and down for the contour of the body? or did you do the whole thing one depth and use wider binding?

 

[Renkenstein]

One depth, wider binding. The big stuff SM sells.

 

[scottop1972]

^this will be infinitely easier to bind and probably look ten times better than trying to bend it.... i had nothing but problems doing that.

hey i am gonna have a ton of material left after spraying these guitars if you wanna use some you can....

 

[grohlstheman]

Renk we need updates!