It is currently Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:02 pm

All times are UTC - 7 hours



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 1508 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 ... 101  Next
Go to page Previous  1 ... 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 ... 101  Next
Author Message
Post subject:
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 5:15 am
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:57 am
Posts: 13164
Location: Peckham: where the snow leopards roam
Troublecall wrote:
Randy1 wrote:
Ceri's work on this Pyrocaster continues to amaze. Thanks for the update.

Pyrocaster. Now, I like that...

Great work, Ceri.


Oh yes! Forgot to mention - I liked that one too! Till then I'd been calling it The Burnt Strat to myself. But Pyrocaster is very neat. :D

...And thanks, TC.

Cheers - C


Top
Profile
Fender Play Winter Sale 2020
Post subject:
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:11 am
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 6:51 pm
Posts: 25353
Location: Witness Protection Program
This is a great thread and great work, Ceri. Pictures are worth more than words and you've got them both covered quite completely. 8)

_________________
Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:20 am
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:57 am
Posts: 13164
Location: Peckham: where the snow leopards roam
A small episode today. I'm busy sorting out some silly little things before getting on with the main act. A bit of filling and sanding, tickling the fit here and there, yadda yadda. Nothing very pictorial.

Here's one little job I've been putting off as too tiresome to get round to. This is another of those little spots where the flames have charred an edge beyond the power of mere sanding to save:
Image

So you can see I've cut it out and shaped a tiny piece of ash to stick in. BTW, we know this body is either poplar or basswood (basswood is lime or linden in my part of the world). I have both those trees in my garden, and have trimmed limbs off a couple. But I haven't seasoned any: ash is the only "tonewood" of my own I've produced so that is what I'm using.

When this project has got a little further I'm itching to hear what the tonehounds round here predict it will sound like. So far it's only a poplar/basswood+ash mixture. But stick around...

Anyhow. As so often, finding a way to clamp a glue joint can be a challenge. I've previously found that wine corks have miraculous powers in this area: you can easily shape and size them to squash in and put pressure where cramps won't reach.

Here the blue G-cramp is conveniently reaching up through the topless control cavity (the main reason for doing it at this point in the process) while the bottle corks give the lateral pressure. Not too much: just enough:
Image

After the glue is set the new fillet just needs a little scraping and sanding flush with the other surfaces:
Image

Incidentally, that little block of wood was previously seen on page 10 as a clamping caul. Now I've glued sandpaper onto two sides and it makes a handy little finger sanding block. It somehow works better than just wrapping a scrap of sandpaper round a bit of wood - you can get right into the corners with it:
Image

Then I started messing around. I wondered; what if we wanted to put a natural finish over that repair? Could we disguise the new piece of wood?
Image

Well - not really, seems to be the answer in this case. Close-ish - but no cigar. So: no clear finish...

Now I'm busy building an unusual jig for the tomorrow's work. And I'll show you that... tomorrow.

Cheers - C


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 7:17 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2008 3:57 pm
Posts: 414
Location: Los Angeles, CA
So much masterful craftsmanship you possess Ceri! You break down a treasure of knowledge and spoon feed us lovingly with it. Thank you :D

_________________
"If I don't see you no more in this world I'll meet you on the next one and don't be late... don't be late." -Jimi Hendrix

Image


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 7:52 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 24, 2009 3:29 am
Posts: 305
Agreed, thanks for breathing new life to that strat.

_________________
10-4 good buddy, over and out!


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:04 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:10 pm
Posts: 13467
Location: Palm Beach County FL
[quote="BigJay"]
Ceri wrote:
russianracehorse wrote:
I'm not sure I even know what a guitar with active pickups sounds like.


Well, most recordings of Dave Gilmour live would give a clue: he used active EMG SA pickups in his stage guitars for years. And the midboost that Clapton has used for a long time is also an active circuit.

But I've never owned any kind of active electrickery before - because I hate all the makeshift solutions to housing the 9v battery. Problem solved! :D Cheers - C


Unfortunately, the power plants are only the beginning of the story . If you log on to www.thetonefromheaven.com, you can find your way to the rig Cornish built for Gilmour's "Pulse" concert. That ought to give one pause.

As far a storing the battery....a guitar with a dedicated EMG DG-20 pickguard in stalled, for example, only needs a simple battery routing in the trem cavity wall ala the Clapton guitar. I couldn't do that on my '97 Am Std because of the 'swimming pool' rout. Or one might find an old Powerhouse Strat which already has a battery rout and take it from there.

_________________
"Another day in paradise!"


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:25 pm
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician
User avatar

Joined: Tue Mar 31, 2009 12:28 pm
Posts: 1135
Location: Sitting on my La La
Ceri,
I just finished reading the entire post in one sitting. A bottle of beer and a sandwich later and I have learned so much from your work. When I saw the guitar body you were starting with, I said "no way".
The creative use of dremel bits in the drill press and gluing sand paper to scrap blocks to use for edge finishing are tips I will use around the house for the odd repair.
Cheers,
John.E


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 4:53 pm
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2008 12:44 pm
Posts: 559
Excellent work. As a woodworker myself, I can fully appreciate the artistry shown in this project.

_________________
Calling an illegal alien an undocumented immigrant is like calling a drug dealer an undocumented pharmicist.


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 5:58 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:57 am
Posts: 13164
Location: Peckham: where the snow leopards roam
Thank you all for your comments! :D

Gotta say though: I'm strictly a fumbling amateur. Even though Mr StrayCat113 was kind enough to tell me not to call myself that - it's true. So I'm not in a position to be dishing out lessons: this is just a sharing exercise between friends, far as I'm concerned.

Now. A feature length episode today.

It is obvious that we want to put a new top on this Strat. But I don't want to just glue up a thin 0.6 mm veneer, I want to use a proper cap and I want to do it as a "drop top". That is when the top wood is bent round to follow the forearm contour. I don't know who did it first but the likes of Tom Anderson and John Suhr do it a lot on their "Super Strats".

'Course, those boys bend their wood onto body blanks before cutting them out and they use big presses to do it. I've not heard of anyone retro-fitting a drop top to a Strat and I have certainly never tried such a thing myself. Uncharted territory (gulp)!!! You won't find any of the following in the books...

So I have bought some wood - more on that tomorrow. It is 4 mm / 0.16" thick - not as thick as the cap on a Les Paul, but then I need to stand a chance of being able to bend it.

However. First we need to shave that thickness off the front of this body, or it will end up stupidly oversized. How? For starters, we need this chunky fat 25x25 mm / 1x1" router bit, for removal of wide stretches of timber:
Image

Then we need this simple homemade routing jig. You can see that it has a sort of gantry the router sits in so that it can move from right - :
Image

- to left - :
Image

- and back and forth:
Image

I made this jig a while ago for turning glued up pieces of my own home-grown ash from this:
Image

- to this:
Image

(That one is destined to get a solid finish, obviously. Not pretty grain...)

A major problem for the home builder is that affordable thicknessing machines tend only to go up to 300 mm / 12" wide - not quite wide enough for a guitar body blank. Another solution was needed.

Important to clamp the body firmly - and to wear appropriate protection. This gets messy!:
Image

We've done plenty of detail already on how you can control the router's depth of cut in small stages. I'm shaving off about a millimetre at a pass and stopping to brush out all the wood shavings each time. I've stopped this pass halfway through so you can see on the ash center block near the back how much is coming off at a turn:
Image

Using my digital calipers I regularly checked the thickness so as not to go too far. We don't want an undersized Strat. You don't need to see picture after picture of the progress - here is the job done:
Image

And from a different angle. If I say so myself this has really worked well! Nice, clean surface:
Image

And a closeup of the center block. Hey, now we've got most of that distracting burnt wood off my fit on that block ain't so bad, is it?:
Image

OK, that's the top - but there is a problem with the forearm contour. A glance at any of our Strats shows that the contour curves in all directions, it isn't a flat plane. Impossible to glue the drop top to that: I might hope to bend it in one direction but not every which way.

We need to level that forearm contour too.

So, I've been building this odd jig - and I humbly suggest you've never seen another like it!!:
Image

In the previous shot you see how it sits on top of the guitar. A different angle helps see what's going on:
Image

A flat piece is clamped to the guitar top, and the upper section is angled at 20 degrees. It has a hole cut in it a little larger than the forearm contour:
Image

Which allows the router to address the body in this way:
Image

I can't route and hold a camera at the same time: once the job's done it looks like this:
Image

And a closeup shows the cleanness of the cut:
Image

You can maybe see a tiny bit of tearout the router cutter has made on the surface of the contour. I'm not honestly sure why, because I took all appropriate care. But luckily it doesn't matter: it is nothing that will affect the glue-up to come.

I had no idea how that was all going to work out and if I say so myself it is as good as I could have hoped. [Slightly pleased] Hey, how about it? :D

By this stage I was kind of motoring, so I decided to trim those "ears" off the center block while I was about it. First rough cut with a coping saw. We could go at it direct with a router but big lumps of wood like that are exactly when routers suddenly rip a chunk out and wreck the job. Let's not take chances after such a successful day:
Image

Now we can use a router bit with a bearing collar fixed to its far end which will just follow the contour of the body and route the block down to match:
Image

Obviously that leaves some shaping to do, but we'll get to that once the top is on:
Image

So just to sum up, here's the body after a fairly good afternoon's progress:
Image

BTW:
russianracehorse wrote:
If you pull this off, I'll be sending you a bag of sawdust for your next project. :lol:

Thanks mate, but don't worry. I've got some!
Image

Tomorrow: we arrive at the front.

Cheers - C


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:18 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:08 am
Posts: 9034
Location: Louisiana
:shock: :o :) :wink: I knew you could pull it off mate!! 8)
Need to patent some of those jigs!!


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:23 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:57 am
Posts: 13164
Location: Peckham: where the snow leopards roam
fhopkins wrote:
:shock: :o :) :wink: I knew you could pull it off mate!! 8)
Need to patent some of those jigs!!


Thank you very much! :D

I absolutely didn't know it would work out - been a kind of seat-of-the-pants day. :lol:

To me this rebuild job has four big challenges. One was fitting that center block. The second was today's front shaving. The third will be bending the drop top. And the fourth will be - something to do with the finish.

The rest is just tinkering... :roll: :D

1:30 am where I live. To bed.

'Night all! - C


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:32 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:08 am
Posts: 9034
Location: Louisiana
Don't let the little lady see to much or you'll be building new kitchen cabinets and specialized furniture!! :lol:

Good night my friend!!


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:34 pm
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:56 pm
Posts: 3941
Location: Great White North, EH!
Wow!!!

Been working at least one job every day for a while, i missed another epic Ceri repair thread.

I remember Niki losing it on this axe.

Ceri you have really tackled a big job here again. i remember on the old repair thread commenting that building a new body would be less work. that statement is doubly or triply true when applied to this one. Good luck with the drop top, i haven't tried anything like that before. I'll be have to keep a closer eye on he forums!!

Good job.

_________________
I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Image


Top
Profile
Post subject:
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:37 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:08 am
Posts: 9034
Location: Louisiana
Yeah, do that 12B. Haven't seen or heard very much from you lately my friend!!

Cheers!!


Top
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 1508 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 ... 101  Next
Go to page Previous  1 ... 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 ... 101  Next

All times are UTC - 7 hours

Fender Play Winter Sale 2020

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: