Walnut SG

[pshupe]

Merry Chirstmas everyone. I might as well start a thread for this build. I cut some test bodies for an replica SG body I modelled and cut for a friend. One was a curly maple and the other was a Black Walnut body. I want to build this Walnut body up and give it to a friend's son for a birthday gift. So the body is pretty much done. It's a replica of a '65 SG that I measured up.

I started out with a nice walnut slab that I had cut from a tree and slabbed and kiln dried.

I marked out the body location and set it up in the CNC machine. Here is my SG model in my CAM software -

Thanks to GooCart for sharing his model way back when!

and the CNC process -

and we are left with this -

Cheers Peter.

 

[61LPSG]

I like it

I did an LP body with black walnut and also found some hidden surprise holes.
that's gonna look nice.

 

[pshupe]

I have had the body done for some time and have been thinking about neck options. I really like laminated necks so I will stick with this as it seems to become my go to.

I was at the wood store a while back and found some really nice sycamore. So I picked up some of that and I will use walnut skunk stripes for the laminates. I'm going 5 piece and may use walnut for the ears as well. Here I have cut the rough sycamore to length.

This piece is wide enough to get the 3 laminates of the sycamore and I grabbed a chunk of walnut for the two stripes.

I'm starting to get a bit quicker at this and ripped up the sycamore into the right width.

jointed and planed to the correct thickness.

then the walnut and got them ready for glue -

Get out the clamps and I glued them up last night -

and now it's Christmas morning and while my family are sleeping with visions of sugar plumbs dancing in their heads I fired up the jointer / planer and jointed the face, then thicknessed the neck blank.

.

I love this machine and it made short work of this. I probably have about 1 1/2 hrs in this neck so far from rough lumber to how it sits now.

The helical head makes a nice surface as well.

Well I'd better get ready for the family Christmas. I might be back on this tomorrow. I hope eveyone here has a great Christmas and gets to make some saw dust over the holidays!

Holiday Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

Some more work on the neck. This time on the computer for a bit. I usually use a jig to cut the head stock angle on my band saw but I've been using the stew mac hot rod double action truss rods lately and to get them to fit perfectly I have made up a three level truss rod route and thought I might as well cut the angle on my CNC as well. I'm also using index pins in both sides of the neck so I can locate in my CNC correctly and then will also use the same holes for alignment pins when fastening the fret board.

Here is my basic neck model with the necessary toolpaths for the truss rod, index holes, and head stock angle.

and the resulting neck after the toolpaths were machined -

and test fit the truss rod -

So that is the top half and now I can flip it over aligning using the indexing holes and cut the back neck carve.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

So I cut the head stock thickness on my bandsaw and then cut a lot of the neck wood down. No point in using the CNC machine just to take a couple inches of wood off.

back in the CNC machine -

There should be no surprises when I cut these, as long as I pick the right tool path, put in the correct bit, and align with the correct starting work point. My CNC program shows me the tool path and also simulates the cut.

tool path -

simulate -

actual -

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

Then just run the finish pass and I have a nice smooth neck carve. I still have to do some cleanup at the head stock neck transition but not much sanding is required.

fine tool path -

and the finished neck -

Cheers Peter.

 

[emoney]

Great work, Peter. We were due for a good SG build.

 

[pshupe]

Great work, Peter. We were due for a good SG build.

I just finished a spalted maple SG build here - Other SG build. I ended up selling it to my friend's wife to give him for a Xmas present. You can thank FreddyG. He was kind enough to let me help him out a bit with his Monkey SG build and I cut a few SG bodies over a year ago now.

Neck looks pretty good. Fits very snug lined up at the 22nd fret. I'll defintely have to fine tune that join as it is much too tight right now but makes it good for mock ups and measuring for bridge height.

Grabbed a tail piece and a bridge. The height looks good. Might have to take it down a hair but the angle is good.

Cheers Peter.

 

[mistermikev]

View attachment 428532


Cheers Peter.

man... I bet it smells goooooood in that room right now! will be watching as walnut sg is def on my build bucket list - looking great!

 

[dcomiskey]

This looks awesome!! I’m drooling over your CNC...

 

[guidothepimmp]

That looks fantastic. Excellent clean work

 

[valvetoneman]

Really nice work Peter, I will have a body of you at some point next year, if I've got time and more importantly the money, they look fantastic

 

[lpfan1980]

man... I bet it smells goooooood in that room right now! will be watching as walnut sg is def on my build bucket list - looking great!

25000 Angus Youngs + squirrels agree thats a great SG - keep the great work

 

[redking]

Then just run the finish pass and I have a nice smooth neck carve. I still have to do some cleanup at the head stock neck transition but not much sanding is required.

fine tool path -
View attachment 429017

and the finished neck -
View attachment 429018

Cheers Peter.

Love your Multi Lam necks!!

 

[pshupe]

Thanks guys. Got some more time on this one. I glued the ears on yesterday. I went with walnut ears as I thought it would look cool as a 7 piece laminate at the head stock. Clamped them up and then planed flush. I also cut a little block to go on top of the truss rod adjustment nut. I do not like having just the bare rod under the nut and I also like having wood in there so I can mark a centre line for my head stock template.

clamped ears -

planed flush and gluing in block over truss rod -

I'll let that set up for a while then trim off and take a look at thicknessing the head stock and veneer to the correct size.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

Trimmed off the filler strip and thicknessed the head stock and marked out the head stock shape.

I took the majority off with the oscillating sander -

and then used the head stock template and a template bit -

a little bit of hand clean up and head stock is all shaped up.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

I thickness the head stock veneer and glued it on. I cut this one a while back which it was basically a negative of the veneer I put on my spalted maple SG.

It was about 1/8" thick so I stuck it to a flat board and thicknessed it down to about 1/16". Forgot to take pictures but here is the veneer before thicknessing.

I used my head stock template as a caul and used the holes as index pins with wooden toothpicks to align the veneer. I remembered wax paper this time as the glue wicked through the tuner holes and stuck my template last time. It makes quick work of alignment and doesn't shift while clamping.

Cheers Peter.

 

[rockgod212]

wow that looks awesome, im liking the neck laminate

 

[pshupe]

wow that looks awesome, im liking the neck laminate

Thanks. I like the laminate necks for a few reasons. One is that they are relatively easy to purchase flat sawn boards that you can rip to the right dimension to easily make one piece necks.. Once you rotate them and put them together they become quarter sawn. I also like the look of them.

Cheers Peter.

 

[nuance97]

Nice looking build!