guitar build progress thread

[zim]

finally doing it after years of talk. for my first build i'm doing a kind of jackson soloist inspired guitar. solid mahogany body, one humbucker, floyd rose (probably overkill for a first build but i'm doin' it), maybe a neck pick up. i also plan on building a neck but waiting until i finish the body.

one.jpg

before i did the rough cut i had to smooth the surface with a belt sander, it didn't ship completely flat

two.jpg

roughly shaped out with a jigsaw since i don't have a band saw

three.jpg

[zim]

these pics are about two weeks apart.. turns out i don't know much about woodworking and kept buying the wrong router bits and had to keep waiting i had to use two different 1 inch router bits due to the size constraints on the router i have access to. the results were a little odd, it makes the wood look like it's two separate pieces that were glued together. there's also a small raised line through the middle of the cut due to the router bits being slightly different.

i am super happy though, it feels like an actual guitar body at this point. still a lot of work left but i feel really good and inspired now

i needed to raise the template up a little bit so i used these pieces of aluminum i found nearby

six.jpg

first pass with the 1 inch bit, at this point i had to switch out the bit and flip the guitar and remove the remaining wood

seven.jpg

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[iamgoat]

Cool ja!

[Olden Polynice]

[User]

how did i miss this thread, this is super cool

keep at it zim it looks 1337

[zim]

FUCKIN' UPDATE

i've been kind of scared of routing the important bits, especially the floyd rose stuff. if i messed up the routing i'd have to pretty much start over. experimented with some scrap wood and finally felt comfortable doing the scary parts.

i need to finish routing the floyd cavity, and then the back cavities. i think the pickup / neck pockets need to be a little deeper as well. but the hardest part imo is out of the way.

used a drill press with forstner bits to remove most of the wood before routing



junk neck i have, fits probably too tight right now but i was able to cram it in there for a pic


also hit it with a round-over bit, needs some sanding though


not sure how to fix this yet but we'll get there

[Hitoshura]

this is fucking sick zim i am legitimately excited to watch the progress here

how long until you can build bespoke guitars for elite MABB clientele

[Lavabug]

Congrats zim.

I've been shadowing over a local luthier over the last year and have been building a 6 string multiscale baritone as my first project. This is the latest pic I have:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt1EDVuHeBQ/

It's a fun although nerve wracking process at times, woodworking is something I had never done before and routers scare the piss out of me. Multilaminate neck

The pickup and electronics cavities have all been routed out, at this point I only have a few fuckups to fix (misaligned side dots, adding a little wedge of sapwood between the fretboard and neck humbucker, and a bit of blowout from routing them). Then we'll glue the set neck and do frets, stainless steel.

[zim]

this is fucking sick zim i am legitimately excited to watch the progress here

how long until you can build bespoke guitars for elite MABB clientele

i'm already thinking about my next build.. i'd love to build guitars for other people eventually

Congrats zim.

I've been shadowing over a local luthier over the last year and have been building a 6 string multiscale baritone as my first project. This is the latest pic I have:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt1EDVuHeBQ/

It's a fun although nerve wracking process at times, woodworking is something I had never done before and routers scare the piss out of me. Multilaminate neck

The pickup and electronics cavities have all been routed out, at this point I only have a few fuckups to fix (misaligned side dots, adding a little wedge of sapwood between the fretboard and neck humbucker, and a bit of blowout from routing them). Then we'll glue the set neck and do frets, stainless steel.

that's dope lava, didn't realize you were helping with that build. also, the router is terrifying, especially on the table. i must have watched 20 videos about it before i tried it myself.

[zim]

mini update

I routed the scary part of the floyd rose (this is usually done by a cnc machine). the screw platform is only about ~6mm deep and the back part is ~16mm. this sucked kind of hard because i had to use shims under the template to raise it up. it's not perfect but all the routed parts will be hidden by the floyd.

i doubt i'll ever have my own cnc machine but i have some ideas for 3D printed templates that will solve almost all of my problems and make things easier in the future

[zim]

last night was my first real frustrating night.. god damn I did not anticipate how difficult it would be to route for the floyd rose. the next guitar should be a breeze

while I was drilling the back of the guitar the handle on the drillpress fell out of the machine and I nearly pissed myself. during the routing I had a piece of wood tear out in a spot that will be problematic to fix.. at least it's on the back I guess.. never drill straight through wood



fucking shit


overall it looks good but i'm grumpy

[Lavabug]

yikes. I've had a few scary blowouts but they were minor. If you can find the chip you can probably glue it on. Or just make sawdust and glue, pack it on there to excess and then sand it down flat.

I put in stainless frets on the neck of my build, shit's insanely hard to work with but it'll be worth it in the long run.

Can't wait to start building my stainless-steel fret 25.5" ironbird Probably gonna go with a richlite fretboard.

[zim]

I haven't worked on the guitar in awhile. I don't have a control cavity template and need to make one myself which I'm kind of iffy about. after I finished all the challenging stuff I got kind of lazy

[arborist shrub tarkington]

how did i miss this thread, this is super cool

keep at it zim it looks 1337

[Lavabug]

you can get acryllic templates for routing the cavity pretty easily on ebay and other places

[zim]

you know I was being stubborn about it but just went on eBay and bought one, gotta get this shit finished

[arborist shrub tarkington]

so you can write some heavy \m/etal riffs

[zim]

fucked up the routing on the floyd rose cavity today and briefly considered disappearing into the woods forever luckily it's just aesthetic and not functional but i'm still pretty upset... lesson learned

IMG_20190726_193810.jpg

started routing the control cavity and then realized i'd lost my $40 router bit and again considered leaving civilization (i managed to find it later)

IMG_20190726_202721.jpg

[zim]

finished that route this morning

[zim]

YO LOOK HOW FUCKING COOL THIS IS, I MADE THIS

control cavity plate made out of acrylic - i'm shocked how well this turned out also working with acrylic fucking suuuuuuuucks

1IMG_20190728_182650.jpg

2IMG_20190728_181545.jpg

[zim]

drilled a lot of holes today: volume/tone pots, input jack, floyd rose ground, pickup, and made the floyd mounts deeper

just realized i will still need to do neck mount holes, gaaah

may try to assemble it tomorrow with a temp neck just to see if everything is lined up

[zim]

tested a neck today and the strings line up a little funny, feeling kind of an existential crisis right now and want to give up

i will persevere

[arborist shrub tarkington]

zim is doing neats

[Lavabug]

Lots of progress on my build. It is currently playable but much fretwork and tweaks to the nut are needed. Will be getting some kind of stain finish but we haven't decided yet.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0mQ_Ygn8XJ/

[zim]

Lots of progress on my build. It is currently playable but much fretwork and tweaks to the nut are needed. Will be getting some kind of stain finish but we haven't decided yet. :squarsh:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0mQ_Ygn8XJ/

saw this last night, looking amazing

really wish i had a nearby luthier i could shadow and ask questions. i keep running into issues lately and get really stressed

[shadowalk]

i'm a shadow and you can ask me questions but i'm not a luthier

[Lavabug]

Lots of progress on my build. It is currently playable but much fretwork and tweaks to the nut are needed. Will be getting some kind of stain finish but we haven't decided yet. :squarsh:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0mQ_Ygn8XJ/

saw this last night, looking amazing

really wish i had a nearby luthier i could shadow and ask questions. i keep running into issues lately and get really stressed

I can try to help out with what I can, where are you stuck?

[zim]

tool / material haul for neck build

[arborist shrub tarkington]

zim you are doing so good

[Lavabug]

Japanese rasp

Slotting fret slots by hand with one of those was a pain in the ass, but had no other choice on a multiscale. There are jigs you can easily make that'll help you tremendously sawing in a straight line.

[zim]

Japanese rasp

Slotting fret slots by hand with one of those was a pain in the ass, but had no other choice on a multiscale. There are jigs you can easily make that'll help you tremendously sawing in a straight line.

i hear the first fret job is worse than carving the neck but i'm looking forward to it. still need to acquire some tools before i start work on this, thinking about using a spokeshave to do the majority of the neck, also need another rasp

i'm working on a small list of questions i'm hoping you/your luthier could shed some light on, been a little lazy on posting

[Lavabug]

Fret leveling done, took about an hour setting up the neck jig but about 20 mins of sanding which felt like very little for stainless frets. Moving on to crowning now and it should be playable with no buzzing. The special centered file I'm using makes it idiot proof. Gonna have to get a multiscale bridge with a bigger angle tho, current one doesn't allow full intonation range.

We should have the guitar completely done in under a month, gonna be showing it off at a guitar expo in Pitt in September.