BEK'S GUITAR : SO FAR ( 10/10/2007 )
Bek's on tour in europe & not content with being a fine drummer and engineer, is taking up the guitar upon her return to melbourne orbit ... so here's a guitar for Bek
The words 'My Bloody Valentine' & 'wall of sound' were mentioned so of course it's going to look mostly like a Jazzmaster, known around here as the 'Macmanus' or the 'Ikinger' but it ain't going to be built like one
The other thing we have established is that it'll be metallic gold, i mixed up a lovely batch of rich gold lacquer for my lapsteels and am keen to splash it around.
1: Clamping up some basswood under the close supervision of a small red dog
2: Routing the body to template, in this case it's the 'Harvester Macmanus' prepared earlier today ( it's been a good long day in the shed listening to the new Sharon Jones/Dap Kings stuff ... )
3: Routing again with a 'roundover' bit, always a quantum leap towards 'looking like a guitar'
4: The neck blank has a headstock scarf joint of 14 degrees ( prepared a few years ago when i started the ( gatemouth ) f'bird guitars. this one was a few mil's too short for the big-bird headstock but it's a perfect size for the polara shape ...
5: ... mixing in a bit of good voodoo from the best feeling, best sounding guitar i've ever had, my 1967 ( ? ) Guild Polara S100, i love this crazy headstock design and have always wanted to throw it into the mixing-bowl on some project. I do know that the world doesn't need another faithful F****r copy from me.
Here i'm adding mahogany wings to the new guinea rosewood neck blank to accommodate the wonky ol' Guild head shape, then i'll make up a truss rod
back at it ( 12/10/07 )
6: A length of 3/16 mild steel rod is tapped at both ends
7: ... and two tapped endpieces of steel are made up
8: Meanwhile a trench is routed into the neck, using a 'rollercoaster' jig to elevate the router, cutting a slot which is deeper in the middle than at it's ends ( trust me )
9: The rod next to it's future home
10: A strip is sawn from a plank of iron bark to cover the truss rod
11: ... and the 'fillet' strip is then bandsawn to match the curve of the slot and glued and clamped to cover the rod and hold it to it's required curve
What's going on here is ( stop me if you've heard all this before ) a little engineering to keep the guitar neck straight and allow adjustment throughout the life of the guitar. The rod, held in place in a gentle curve beneath the fretboard, has an adjusting nut at one end - when turned clockwise the rod naturally wants to tighten and straighten out the curve, in turn pulling the neck backwards to counter string tension.
This opposition of forces in the neck keeps the whole piece 'in tension' allowing for a thinner neck and an accurate 'set up' later on.
Monday morning before work at the bookshop ( 15/10/07)
12: Routing the headstock to exact shape
13: Sanding the back of headstock to thickness.
Another half a day in the shed ( 17/10/07 )
14: Cutting the side profile of neck on the Woodfast Jr. bandsaw ( Adelaide 1960's, on loan from an old friend )
15: Setting the angle of the neck/body joint, in this case pretty much 60's SG style.
16: The neck volute carved to shape.
17: Shaping the neck by hand with surform.
It helps if it's a cold melbourne day.
18: The finished neck against the bustling Sunshine skyline.
19: Starting the mortise and tenon neck joint.
20: A nice piece of Sheoak, planed to size for the fretboard.
A lazy Friday ( 26/10/07 )
21 : Shaping the 'belly cut'
22 : A bit of doodling and designing.
Bad back, good coffee ( 1/11/07 )
23 : Marking out the fret positions.
All you need is an HB pencil, a straight steel ruler and a clear head ...
Today I've also got Neil Young's new album to try out, it's okay so far, but it's no 'Ragged Glory'
In this case I'm using a standard length fretboard ( Jaguar style 24" ) so i don't even need the calculator, it's all written up in one of my old guitarmaking books ... but just for the record, to find the first fret position, divide the scale length by 17.817. Take the remaining length and divide by 17.817 again and so on and so on ...
24 : Cutting the fret slots with a "gentleman's saw" ... seriously that's what they call 'em, and a very small mitre box. ( after triple checking those markings )
25 : Cutting up an old cream coloured Op Shop knitting needle into little segments ...
26 : And inlaying the pieces into the fretboard as 'dot' markers ( total cost for dots : 10c per 100 or so )
27 : Now the fretboard gets a curve, in this case a lazy, Les Paul-ish 12" radius.
28 : And I plane the top of the body to match the subtle angle of the guitar neck, providing a glueing surface for the fretboard. Most of this will be smoothed out later in the finishing process to a gentle curve.
Oh yeah, looks like the body has been routed out for pickups and other electronic gizmos, this is all done by eye - it's a one-off guitar after all.
29 : The body and the neck, glued together after a few minutes of finessing the mortise & tenon joint with a chisel and some tiny rosewood shims. Anyone who's pulled apart a Ducati bike or a Gretsch guitar will know all about shims ...