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Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:32 pm
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:shock: Wow. Just when I thought that I had seen it all I see Ceri making a neck out of a slab of wood. Awesome stuff.


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Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 10:12 pm
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I really like the headstock design ceri. Fender has the Strat and Tele headstock design that is easily recognizable to even non musicians. Gibson, Martin, Fender and Ceri. That's what I would rank your designs immortalty with.
Looking forward to the next installment. Good to be back home eh?


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Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 5:35 am
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Hoeycow wrote:
:shock: Wow. Just when I thought that I had seen it all I see Ceri making a neck out of a slab of wood.

:idea: :?: :?: :?: :?

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Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:03 pm
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I am really impressed, Ceri. Although for a little bit I was thinking - maybe he's going to do a pear neck.
I remember that piece of the thread.

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Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 2:32 pm
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Ahh but Troublecall he is doing a "pair of necks" not just one... :twisted:
Maybe he could do a pair of pear necks that way when the first one started to twist every which way he'd have a replacement...I've always thought pear was a very soft wood.


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Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 7:53 pm
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Twelvebar wrote:
If someone wanted to ask you a question without posting here, how would he go about it?

'Evening Twelvebar: drop me a line at palebluestrat@googlemail.com with something like "from Twelvebar" in the title and I'll reply from my regular email address.
Troublecall wrote:
I am really impressed, Ceri. Although for a little bit I was thinking - maybe he's going to do a pear neck.
I remember that piece of the thread.

Hi TC: I am really impressed with your memory! However, that pear wood is for another thread, which will eventually return! The pear is currently neatly sawn into neck blanks and waiting patiently...
tdanb2003 wrote:
Maybe he could do a pair of pear necks that way when the first one started to twist every which way he'd have a replacement...I've always thought pear was a very soft wood.

Hi Dan: though in fact pear is devastatingly hard - even harder than rock maple. I speak as someone who has sawn both lengthwise by hand. It is true that some of my home felled and seasoned pear did warp while drying. Apparently that is a known characteristic and commercially they often steam it as part of the seasoning process, which somehow helps with that. In fact, if you look up veneer sellers you will find that pear is often offered steamed or unsteamed, which gives a different color to the finished wood. Obviously, I am not equipped for that process, so I just have to do the best I can. Enough of my wood dried straight to get good strong hard necks out of.

Or so I hope. We'll see in time!

Very late posting today because I've been out all evening watching this fella do his thing. Antonio Forcione - worth a glance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjL_2Nhi ... re=related

On with the episode, but first a word of explanation. I lead a life constantly on the move. I have tools and machinery in various locations and when I can I carry bits of my project with me to work on. Here is a neck blank wrapped for travel:
Image

So mostly unnoticed work is sometimes going on here in different places, and I am also working on at least three necks simultaneously. So if you notice wood grain mysteriously changing, not to mention different work benches, tools and photographic formats there is no intention to deceive. It is just that the story is being stitched together from bits of work snatched as and when, at different times and places.

Anyhow. We'd routed a channel into our neck blank across the headstock amost as far as the nut. This was probably perplexing to some, because as far as I'm aware nobody else makes a neck this way:
Image

Next, we need to drill a hole at the far end of that channel, out of which will eventually emerge our trussrod nut for adjustment at the headstock end (rather than the heel). Here I've laid a trussrod on top of the blank to show where it will come lengthwise, and a long drill bit coming from the opposite direction to show how far in I have to drill to create the hole for the adjuster nut:
Image

And from a different angle, if that helps:
Image

I'm just going to use this old hand held drill to do the job. Normally it would be very difficult to accurately place and control the angle of that very long drill bit and people often construct complicated jigs to make that possible. In fact, drilling the hole for a nut end rod adjuster can be one of the most difficult things about making a neck - but here the channel we routed does all of that for us! We just have to steer the bit up the channel and get drilling. Neat, huh?:
Image

Don't know if you can just see a small piece of masking tape around the bit near the chuck to show me how far in to go? By the way, if I'm counting right this is the seventh drill to make an appearance on this thread. We must never stint when it comes to drill ownership... :roll: :
Image

And here's our channel with the hole drilled in. Eventually, that is where we'll be shoving our allen key to make rod adjustments:
Image

Now. We should be able to simply flip the neck blank over and route the channel for the trussrod itself on the back. I haven't changed the setting of the fence system, so if we run that against the same side of the blank it should center the channel on exactly the same line as the one round the front, and that all important hole we just drilled:
Image

Important to mark the job up correctly. If I bring the flat side of the router base exactly up to that line with the two arrows against it then the cutter should excavate the channel to just the right length. Vital to measure all of this accurately because it is very hard to see what the cutter is doing whilst it is actually running:
Image

As earlier, we descend into the wood gradually in several passes. The next picture shows the moment we've just started breaking through into the hole we drilled before. Will it line up with the trussrod channel? We've wasted a neck blank otherwise...:
Image

Yes. It worked. :lol:

However, the channel isn't deep enough yet and at this point we run up against a problem familiar to those who use routers. The cutter is now set as low as it will go, but we need to go lower:
Image

This is where a handy (and disproportionately expensive) accessory comes into play: the "router extension collet". We mount our cutter into this gizmo which in turn goes into the collet on the router. It gives us and extra couple of inches of downward cut while still holding the blade firmly and safely:
Image

Like this:
Image

A risk is that without realising it you can run the face of that extension collet along the surface of the work piece and scorch the wood - as I have accidentally done in the next shot. In this case it doesn't matter because all that wood will get removed when we carve the back of the neck. But something to be aware of.

Anyhow, here is our finished trussrod channel with the hole for the adjuster nut pleasingly accurately placed at its far end:
Image

The next thing is to slap a trussrod into place, but there's no point in doing that till we have some fillets for skunk stripes ready to glue into the channel above. Where to get some nice wood for those stripes? A little story...

A few regular Forum users may remember that I have a friend who is a boatwright and owns a nice quay in a scenic spot:
Image

He also rebuilt those hundreds of years old houses/workshops from ruins. Good with his hands! This boat is also his work - I'm pointing for you in case you are in doubt:
Image

As well as building boats my friend also sometimes breaks them. Last time I visited he'd been breaking up an old wooden boat that was too far gone for repair. Over the last few hundred years boats in Europe have often been built from African iroko timber, because of its water resistant properties. A lot of this heap is nice tropical iroko:
Image

Unfortunately, most of that is too small to be of use for guitar making, but I did find this nice plank. Apparently this is from the floor of the little chamber where the anchor and its chain are stored:
Image

A bit of measuring shows that it is just big enough to get a two piece body and a neck out of. My friend kindly gave it to me - a little glance at an online seller shows what I would have had to pay for a lump of iroko that size at market price.

I took it home for processing:
Image

I can't help thinking how fast my brother-in-law's circular saw would do this job:
Image

Still, a few hot minutes later:
Image

(Doesn't look it but those are indeed two separate pieces by that stage.) Even I am not above using electricity sometimes:
Image

And with a workshop like that who wants to be indoors?

Next, various bits of that iroko got processed on my planing machine. What an excellent purchase that was!:
Image

Now, strictly speaking all of that belongs to a completely different guitar building thread that will hopefully come along later in the year. So that's just a sneak preview. However, a side-product of all that sawing and planing was some nice thin pieces of exotic iroko, just the right size for using for skunk stripes. Almost as if it had been planned that way...:
Image

And the good bit is that as "reclaimed" wood the most eco-minded of us needn't worry about using some tropical timber. Well worth rolling our sleeves up for!

So next we need to shape some of that exactly to fit our trussrod channels, put the rods in position and glue the iroko strips in place on top of them. There's a little more to that than meets the eye, and since it is now 2.50 a.m. where I am I'm going to bed.

More tomorrow.

Cheers - C


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Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 8:05 pm
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Ceri wrote:

Image




Cheers - C


Oooh I was hoping we would be revisiting that particular pile of wood for this!!!

oh yeah and i guess Ceri is a lying liar!!! :twisted::twisted:
Ceri wrote:
Trauma wrote:
Ceri wrote:
Oops - and how rude of me...

To Andy and Hop; gentlemen, thank you!

As always.

'Night all - C


Cough...Cough.... :cry:

:lol: :lol: :lol: Hi Trauma! We'll mix you a drink tomorrow! :D

:lol: - C

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Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 8:13 pm
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Twelvebar wrote:
oh yeah and i guess Ceri is a lying liar!!! :twisted::twisted:
Ceri wrote:
Trauma wrote:
Ceri wrote:
Oops - and how rude of me...
To Andy and Hop; gentlemen, thank you!
As always.

Cough...Cough.... :cry:

:lol: :lol: :lol: Hi Trauma! We'll mix you a drink tomorrow! :D
:lol: - C

Ouch!

Been out drinking beer all evening. Now 3.10 in the morning where I am, after all my photo editing, uploading, thread writing and such. I apologise most sincerely but I just ain't ready to start mixing cocktails right now...!

Have mercy on a fella! Trauma will get his drink tomorrow.

There really is no rest for the wicked, is there? :lol:

'Night gentlemen and gentlewomen - C


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Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 8:16 pm
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A Skunk stripe and a Cat walk on the same neck project. Not something you see every day. :lol:
Cheers,
John.E


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Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 5:01 am
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:oops: Ceri I do remember the workout you had with the Pear tree slab...

John E got to the "catwalk" before me but could that possibly be the famous Snow Leopard of Peckham? and how in the world do you distract one long enough to get a picture?

Lastly I was puzzled by the way you routed your truss rodcover over the headstock until I realized that with the angle of the headstock none of that will remain when you start cutting it out correct?
I can't wait to to see the end of this.... :shock: :lol:

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Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 5:47 am
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Ceri wrote:
Twelvebar wrote:
oh yeah and i guess Ceri is a lying liar!!! :twisted::twisted:
Ceri wrote:
Trauma wrote:
Ceri wrote:
Oops - and how rude of me...
To Andy and Hop; gentlemen, thank you!
As always.

Cough...Cough.... :cry:

:lol: :lol: :lol: Hi Trauma! We'll mix you a drink tomorrow! :D
:lol: - C

Ouch!

Been out drinking beer all evening. Now 3.10 in the morning where I am, after all my photo editing, uploading, thread writing and such. I apologise most sincerely but I just ain't ready to start mixing cocktails right now...!

Have mercy on a fella! Trauma will get his drink tomorrow.

There really is no rest for the wicked, is there? :lol:

'Night gentlemen and gentlewomen - C


HaHAHA It seems we all stick together just like a real dysfunctional family........Ceri..... you are an inspiration! The things you do..ie: The lengths you go through to explain in detail what you do is remarkable and thoughtful...I just wanted to give you a true Thank You for all of your hard word entertaining us while you work on projects....hopefully I will have some entertaining of my own to do soon.....if I can ever get my first gig..... :shock:

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Last edited by Toliver-Lyons on Wed Mar 17, 2010 6:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 6:24 am
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Given the alcohol based content of this thread, and it being st Pat's day and all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Dcl2aUzsc&feature=related

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Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 7:08 am
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nikininja wrote:
Given the alcohol based content of this thread, and it being st Pat's day and all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Dcl2aUzsc&feature=related
Keeping in that spirit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdlIKy2l ... re=related

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Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 3:17 pm
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Im so excited this thread is back on the move again! Building your own neck, purely amazing.

Hey Ceri, since your building a few different necks, if theres one that you dont want i will gladly take it off your hands :D lol

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Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 4:36 pm
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Thomas1190 wrote:
Hey Ceri, since your building a few different necks, if theres one that you dont want i will gladly take it off your hands :D lol

Hi Thomas: it's a promise. IF there is one I don't want you can have it. If... :lol:

It's all about the smell of skunk today. Here are the strips of iroko I prepared previously:
Image

I planed them down till they were a fraction thicker than necessary for my trussrod channels. That's so that I can do the last fine tuning by hand and get a perfect fit. Perfect means snug but not too tight. There has to be space for the glue to occupy between the two woods. If it is too tight the glue is just squeezed out and can't do its job.

Here's one of my iroko strips prior to final shaping:
Image

I did the last little bit of thicknessing with a cabinet scraper, as has been seen several times already on this thread. That gives quite speedy stock removal and also ultimate control:
Image

Then I got to the ends. I over cut the fillet lengthwise by a few mil to allow myself scope for getting the curve wrong before I got it right (hard won experience...). I've previously tried doing this on a sanding drum with fair success, but in fact I find I can be more accurate using the flat file seen in the previous picture. The important points are to make perfect half-circles and to keep the ends at precise right-angles. Otherwise, though it might look like a good fit on the surface when we come to carve the neck back we might expose gaps we didn't know were there:
Image

And here's one of my skunk stripes finished and slotted into position. Plenty of excess sticking out the top of the channel. There's method behind that madness, but you'll have to wait for tomorrow to see what happens there...:
Image

And now we just drop the trussrod into its channel. Well, not quite "drop": because the hole for the nut is such a close fit it is difficult to get the rod inserted into it at the shallow angle you see here. On a recent thread about fitting tuners we saw what bad news it can be when you need to hit anything with a hammer to get it into place. However, there are always planned exceptions to rules and this is one such. We just need to apply a light tap on the far end of the rod to shove the nut into its hole and get the thing seated. Of course, this is a point of no return: if there is anything wrong with the rod's fit it will be almost impossible to get it out again. So everything is measured repeatedly!:
Image

The measuring worked: here is a rod in place in its channel:
Image

And a different angle shows the nut disappearing into its hole. The other end of the nut is now visible from the headstock end:
Image

Now there is an issue I have mixed feelings about. These days it has become the mode to bed the trussrod in with one of the modern sealers that come in this kind of applicator:
Image

The idea being that it will prevent stray rattles or sympathetic vibrations on certain notes played on the neck, which is a very rare problem one can have. I have strong reservations about this, however. We all know that these sealers don't last for ever, and once this has perished there is no way of ever getting it out. If we use the sealer it is in there for life, even after it has ceased to function. To be sure, it will be well hidden from UV light deep in the middle of the guitar neck, so its life span will be longer, but...

Still, it's what everyone seems to be doing nowadays, so I shall reluctantly fall in line. Here is the rod embedded in sealer. Getting as neat as that down inside that channel is a lot more fiddly than you might think:
Image

Here's a close-up of the other end from the nut. At any rate there will be no stray vibrations here...:
Image

Now, I've drawn a line round my iroko fillet to mark how deeply it will sit in the channel and slathered it in glue beneath that line:
Image

And into the channel it goes. Plenty of glue squashing out is a good sign because it means every surface is completely coated - though too much glue would mean there was none left in the join. So it is just the right amount we're looking for! The excess cleans up with a damp cloth:
Image

Incidentally, with glue we normally coat both surfaces to be sure of really good bonding. In this one case however we only put the glue on the fillet, not into the channel. That is because glue in the channel would be pushed down by the fillet descending into it and would travel down around the trussrod, mucking things up in there. We don't want that.

The fit is so good it really doesn't need clamping. But for form's sake I'll clamp it anyhow, just to be sure:
Image

And by now everyone knows what that means. We have to wait overnight for the glue to cure thoroughly.

See you tomorrow.

Or in a minute. I believe I now have to go find a drink to mix for Mr Trauma, right? (How bizarre is that??)

Cheers - C


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