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Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2010 4:47 pm
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Very nice...I am watching to see what happened as I have some questions, but am very sure they will be answered very shortly.

Can we have your permission to do the volcano talk without jumping too far off the thread? :wink: Safe travels Mr C. 008......

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Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2010 5:25 pm
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Ceri wrote:
'Zactly. Doing something for money so often drains the pleasure out of it. Just ask Heather Mills-McCartney...



Cheers - C
Wow!!

Ceri you surprise and delight us in new ways all the time!!

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Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2010 6:12 pm
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Nice work thus far Ceri. Hand making the neck was an unexpected treat for us viewers watching your progress. As you are done for the day please allow me this commercial break.

I am especially impressed with your improvisation when performing work that may be completed more quickly with tools you admittedly state you don't own. I am sure this is most likely true of most of us who tinker with guitars from time to time. I have one recommendation that I think may help some of the other people watching this thread who may have had a similar concern.

You mentioned that when using your Dremel that the photo was not indicative of the angle that you would be drilling since you were shooting the photo at the same time. Getting a correct angle on the drill to the surface is really important as you state. Often without proper tools we "eye" up that angle and most of the time drill a fairly accurate perpendicular hole for whatever it is we are looking to drill into. It's also fairly easy to just grab the drill or the Dremel and drill away.

I recently had to repair (move) holes from a 6 screw vintage bridge that were incorrectly drilled into the body. After plugging the bad holes, I decided that I was going to assure that the new holes were drilled properly so those bridge screws didn't start to go in offset because the holes were off by just a hair going in. You know what happens. It starts out looking good but the more you screw down the more the incorrect angle appears. I want those screw heads to be perpendicular to the bridge plate.

I like many here don't have the room for a full shop or a drill press to align a drill to the surface. I don't get any where near the kind of work that our man Ceri is here but for many of us, bridge or peghead holes are not outside our capacity. I also didn't want to spend a ton of money for specialized tools, because that would take away from my GAS money.

What I did find that worked really well was a Dremel 335-10 Plunge Router attachment.

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/AttachmentsAndAccessories/Pages/AttachmentsDetail.aspx?pid=335-01

I bought it for about 25.00 US and it works with my existing Dremel tool that I already owned. They are fairly easy to find, at least here in the US from any Hardware or home repair store. There are two attachments that Dremel makes, one being a 220-01 Work Station and the other being the 335-10 Plunge Router. I went with the Plunge Router because it can work on top of the guitar surface without restriction from the shaft holder. The work station has a post that limits how far into the piece the Dremel can drill. That would work fine for the screw holes similar to the ones that Ceri drilled into the edge of the peghead, but it's about double the money and I felt the Plunge Attachment would be useful for more areas on the guitar.

When redrilling the bridge holes I simply used the proper size drill bit and lined up the Plunge Attachment on top of each hole being careful that it aligned properly to the mark where I wanted the hole accurately drilled. I determined the depth of the hole that I need to drill and set up the attachment to stop at the proper depth, much like a regular plunge router. This allowed me to drill holes square to the top, with a lightweight tool that didn't cost a lot of money. I also can use this attachment for other areas such as the peg head when you want to be sure of a square hole where your Dremel tool works well.

Sorry to take up so much thread space but I thought that I'd share what worked for me since we were on the topic.


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Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2010 10:45 pm
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Ceri wrote:
Twelvebar wrote:
Now I use a shorter router cutter, also with a collar at the shaft to follow the template. Which, set to the required depth, gives us this:
Image

There's a nice 22nd fret overhang for ya. And since he's around again perhaps Mr Shredd can explain why I'm getting that burning on the wood, regardless whether I run the router fast or slow, and as it happens using a nice brand new sharp router cutter? The burn marks will sand out easily enough - but it's a pain to need to...
I'm not Shred, and i guess he is going to tell you what is really happening here, but I find when I get burns using a router it is usually one of three things:

1) dull bits. You have eliminated this as a possibility.
2) running the router at too high a speed. Again you say you get this at all speeds so likely not your culprit.
3) I have a tendency especially at the tricky bits where I worry about ruining the cut(which this certainly appears to be,) as an amateur to pussyfoot around. i either move tre router too slowly, spending too much time in a certain spot, or I hesitate or stop.

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Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 1:37 am
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Once again Ceri, just the nature of the beast. A certain amount is common and normal when working with end-grain.

You can minimize it by doing the whole procedure in 1/2 depth increments. Set the jig about 1/16- 1/8 long to start. Then set it at the required length and do the procedure again, hitting the corners first.

There's also a procedure where you run the router bit backward on end-grain (pulling the router toward you).

It takes practice to run a bit backward however. I would recommend practicing that procedure a bit on a longer run before trying it. If you try taking off too much material, the bit will want to run on you. It requires a stronger grip, but still needs to be a smooth flow. After a while, the fear of the bit running goes away and you'll find good results on end-grain routing.

On a run as short as this, with the bit being exposed at a pretty good length, I would have just hit the corners and run it forward myself in 1/2 x 1/16 passes at the finished result. The less material being shaved off, the less resistance, thus the less the bit has a tendency to hang in one spot enough to burn. The routing procedure may take a little longer, but I'd personally take that over having to sand out end-grain burns. They generally burn deeper than edge-grain burns due to the openings of the pores.

Running a bit backward is a good thing to know for other projects though. On drawer fronts for example, I always hit the corners then run the bit backward for the decorative shaping on the end-grain. It eliminates most of the burning and chipping that may occur.

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Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 4:26 am
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Quote:
. Still, you can all talk about volcanos again - while I go and climb one!

Take a bottle of gin with you as an offering. :idea: Pele lives everywhere. 8) Pics please.......and watch your step. Keep out of the VOG.

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Post subject: ceri
Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 7:03 am
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what an amazing job your doing there, cer.

that is very honorable sir.

im speechless....... :shock:

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Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:05 pm
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Wow Ceri, thats just amazing. I thought rebiulding/refinishing a body would be really hard. But now building a neck, It would be impossible for me. Making sure all the angles and measurements etc are exact, it's just too much :lol:

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Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 6:09 pm
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Thomas1190 wrote:
Wow Ceri, thats just amazing. I thought rebiulding/refinishing a body would be really hard. But now building a neck, It would be impossible for me. Making sure all the angles and measurements etc are exact, it's just too much :lol:

Hi Thomas: my attitude to this and most things is; someone somewhere can do this stuff. So we can too. We can't let these things beat us! Have at it... :D

To Xhefri: volcanoes? It's taken for granted. And I'm going to be very disappointed if I haven't some sort of pictures to show when I get back, though I hear Etna is in a quiet mood at present...

To Chicagoblue: I really like your Dremel plunge router idea. It is particularly useful for doing bridges because even those who have a pillar drill will like as not find it won't reach far enough across a Strat body to do those holes. The throat on most pillar drills isn't big enough. So yours is a very cool technique.

To Shredd: I'm very interested in what you say about grown-up routing. Gladly noted - words from the coal face! I shall try it next time. Thank you.

And to Twelvebar: I have little doubt that it was option 3) of those you listed... :wink: :lol:

And to everyone else: cheers! :D

Today we move round the front of the neck to the fingerboard.

Way back (can't find it - this thread needs an index!) there was talk of a neck with a bound fingerboard. That threw me into paroxysms of indecision, because I somehow just saw this guitar as having a simple one-piece neck in wood that would match the faux binding. Seemed to me that on top of that stripe round the body additional lines on the neck might look too much - there is meant to be something "blue collar" and workmanlike about a Strat, after all.

On the other hand, the exhibitionist in me wanted to do some binding just to show I could! :lol: So for those as are curious here's how I would have done it. This is part of my real wood binding collection (no ABS here, thank you very much):
Image

You're seeing different sized strips of maple, rosewood and walnut there. To apply them to a neck is very easy. I have two different tools that can create the rebate for bindings. One is this simple Stew-Mac "binding router guide" that just screws right on the end of my Dremel:
Image

A close-up maybe helps:
Image

As you see, an adjustable bearing guide controls how far into the edge of a body or neck the little router cutter can go. You simply run it around the work piece and it creates your channel for you ready for the binding to go in.

...Well, there's a little more to it than that, but...

Alternatively, that tool's big brother is this:
Image

That's my "precision router base". Stew-Mac sell that too, though I bought it from a local supplier - I have no idea who actually makes it. Again, another shot might help:
Image

Like the previous tool, a bearing guides the router cutter round the edge and determines how far in it can cut. Vertical adjustment is by the two "legs" and is very accurate indeed. Essentially, this does the same thing as the other tool, but better.

With either of those I could just whip round the neck, make a channel, and glue some binding in.

But I'm not going to. Another time...

Instead we'll leave the fingerboard nude and get on with radiusing it. Here's some radius guides. For no special reason I shall be doing a 12 inch radius on this neck - just to see how I like a flatter 'board on a Strat. I did like the EJ Sigs I've handled, so...:
Image

By placing the guide on the top of the neck we can see how much timber will have to come off:
Image

There's a fair bit of stock to remove before we start getting precise, and a nice tool for that is this little "block plane", so called because it has the blade set at a very shallow angle and is really intended for planing across the grain at the end of planks and such. But it sits beautifully in the palm and also works very well on this kind of job:
Image

If anyone can remember how I planed the curve from the front of the guitar body into the forearm cutaway - well I'm going to do pretty much the same thing here in miniature. I have marked out the neck and covered it in pencil hatching so that I can see where I've removed wood. Then first I shave off the outer edge, up to my working line:
Image

Then I scribble all over the surface again and this time plane off the intermediate section between the edge and the middle, at a more shallow angle:
Image

This doesn't need to be super accurate. We're just removing stock before the fine shaping. By the way, the top of the neck blank is the side produced by my supplier's saw, not my planing machine. So we can't guarantee it being perfectly flat. And indeed lying a steel rule along it reveals a few humps and dips. You can perhaps see a sliver of light coming under the rule just to the right of my thumb:
Image

That's something we need to be aware of whilst sanding the 'board, and we need to constantly recheck with the steel rule to make sure we are removing imperfections rather than adding new ones.

Now we take a fingerboard sanding block set to a 12 inch radius and attach some coarse (P80 I think this was) sandpaper to it with double sided tape:
Image

Then it's just a matter of sanding up and down, taking strict care not to put more pressure on one side than the other, nor sand harder at one end of the neck than the other. This is now very slow, boring work, constantly watching the pencil lines fade away as a guide to progress:
Image

The weather was bad at first, but it cleared a bit so I then moved outside. Less sweeping up to do. You can see by this stage the pencil hatching is only in a line down the middle, which means the rest of the neck has the radius sanded into it. However, that last little bit of pencil takes the most work of all to remove:
Image

I'm afraid this next picture doesn't really show what it's meant to. If you look very closely you will see that the pencil lines in the middle have now vanished everywhere except from about the 10th fret position to perhaps the 15th. That is because there is a slight dip there. It is only a few tenths of a mil, but the whole of the rest of the fingerboard has to be lowered by that much to obliterate it. A lot more work!:
Image

I've been checking flatness against the steel rule all the way through, but as we near the end it is important to do that constantly. Here you see the ruler in the middle of the neck, cos it is easiest to hold and photograph like that. But of course I'm checking the whole neck from bass to treble side too:
Image

Of course, as we get to the end we switch to finer sandpaper. This is now P180, if memory serves. That is fine enough for this task.

Here's another photo that doesn't do justice to what I'm trying to show. This is the finished fingerboard:
Image

I gotta tell you, that fingerboard just invites touch! :D

Very sexy as you run your fingers up and down it. Smooth and creamy - it is at this stage I start wondering about the possibility of doing a fretless neck, because it seems such a pity to spoil that thing by cutting slots into it.

However, that is what we shall be doing next.

Unfortunately, it seems our house has to be cleaned from top to bottom ready for the person who is coming to house-sit for us while we're away, so that is all I have time for today. :(

Only away for a week. Back this time next week, and then we really will bring this thread to a conclusion!

Have a good week, y'all - C


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Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 6:40 pm
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Oh it will be an excruciating week to say the least Ceri!!!

I'll gladly take credit for the idea of you binding a board. I have an almost infinite tolerance for your workload!!

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Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 6:40 pm
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Thanks C...Over and out!!!!!! Now on to Volcanoes???? 8)

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Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 6:36 am
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Bump 8) Where's the volcanoes? Need to keep this thread on the 1st page till Ceri gets back... :lol:


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Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 2:04 pm
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I just finished wading through 74 pages. I love it. This is by far the most detailed build thread ever. I love that headstock shape!

Your work is awesome,
Scott


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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 1:16 pm
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Bumpity Bump :wink:
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Ceri did you see this guy while at the Volcano?


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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 2:00 pm
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I wish I was with Ceri! But I did see this guy last time I was in Vanuatu!
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