Firebird Progress

Great progress on the Firebird this past weekend. First I spent an entire morning sizing up the route for the neck pocket. Because I was widening the existing route by less than 2mm on either side, I was running into trouble with lining up the the jig for the route. I tried three different methods before settling on using an existing jig. In order to achieve the 4˚, I used shims and double stick tape to raise one side of the jig.

The indention in the photo of the neck pocket was created by accident when my router lowered without warning. This happened because the collar holding it at the proper height was not tight enough. I have since taken to tightening the collar using a ratchet set after locking it in the appropriate height. I should be able to sand this indention slightly by hand. And it will be hidden by the neck once it is place.

After routing the the neck pocket I was able to determine the location of the bridge. The tail piece (if I use one instead of a Bigsby) will be far enough back that I can reach the appropriate location with the drill press after gluing the wings on.

Before gluing the wings to the center piece, I drilled a few holes for wiring tow pickups and the bridge ground wire. The holes lined up with the channel that I routed before gluing the curly maple tops to the wings.

The wings were then glued to the body one wing at a time. I discovered after gluing the top wing that if I masked of the wood close to the edge I could easily remove excess glue without having to use a scraper.

After allowing the glue to cure over night I cut off the excess wood from the center piece with the band saw. The body is now ready for me to route the pickup cavities (see photo at top of this blog post.)

Side Dots and Neck Shaping

The holes for the side position markers have been drilled and the dots places. On the Headless neck I used a 3/32" bit for the slightly larger white dots. On the Firebird neck I used a brad point 2mm bit. I think I prefer the slightly larger bit. Unfortunately the 3/32" bit is not a brad point and has a tendency to drift slightly causing the dots to be drilled slightly off from the desired spot.

On Saturday I carved the back of profile of the headless neck. I started our using a microplane at two spots on the neck, behind the 1st fret and about 4 inches from the base. Then I used a rasp to smooth out the wood. After I finished the two spots on the neck I used a spoke shave to remove wood between the spots I worked on. After taking off the excess wood I used a fine rasp to smooth the wood. Once I finished the rough profile, I proceeded to sand paper, first 80 grit then moving on to 220 and ending with 320. This is still a rough neck and will require more sanding to even out the profile.

On Sunday, I worked on the Firebird neck. I went through the same process as I did above with the Headless neck. Pictures are below.

Latest Update on the Firebird and Headless Necks

Today was a great day to work on a couple of necks. I glued the fretboards to both the Steinberger-type headless and Firebird necks and cut them straight with the router. On the Firebird neck I also cut a piece of curly maple as a truss rod cover. I followed all of this with marking off the position for the dots on the face of the fretboards. I have not drilled the holes for them yet.

Bellow are photos of the latest update. (note to self: I'm a professional photographer, I really should pay attention the the temperature of the lights. Seriously, it's not that hard to match lightbulbs. I guess I'm just lazy?)

Firebird progress

Steinberger-type Headless Progress

The neglected Firebird project

Back to work on the Firebird. This last week I worked on the third neck for this guitar, cutting the headstock, drilling the truss rod hole, and drilling the tuning peg holes. Today, I slotted the fingerboard - a nice piece of curly maple.

Next up will be gluing the fret board to the neck, sanding the heel to 320 grit and re-routing the neck pocket on the body to fit this slightly wider neck.

The curly maple wings have not been glued to the center body piece. I have been holding off until I finished the neck since the location of the bridge will ultimately depend on where the zero fret ends up.

I also slotted a Pau Fero fretboard today for the Steinberger copy's neck. I'll have detail photos of both projects either tomorrow or later in the week.

More Neck work, both good and bad

First the good. Today I did some more work on neck blanks. Above is a neck blank for a headless guitar that I have had on sitting on the shelf for the last few months. The body will be a copy of the Steinberger P series guitar at the top of the frame. I picked up the body off of ebay early in 2011. The body that I am building is made from Ash with a Curly Maple top. I've already joined the two pieces of Ash. The hardware was purchased from JCustom, a South Korean company that specializes Steinberger-like parts. They sell through ebay, and deliver in about 1 week.

The headless neck is only slightly longer than truss rod. I routed the channel today and cut the sides straight.

The neck was constructed out of three strips of Curly Maple with two thin strips of Mahogany veneer. Above is a closeup of the heel of neck.

And now the bad. While shaping one of the Purple Heart necks, it splintered and chipped at the heel. While the Maple and the Bloodwood necks routed easily, the Purple Heart appears to be more brittle. This is the precise reason that I don't work on a single neck at one time. Mistakes will happen.

Not photographed today was the progress on the Bloodwood one-piece neck. I routed the front of the headstock where the truss rod adjustment will be accessed and cleaned up the sides.

New Neck Blanks

Today, I continued working on the three neck blanks that I started on late last week. The neck on top is the one-piece Bloodwood. I routed the truss rod channel to slightly more than 3/4 of an inch deep. The truss rod channels on the two Purple Heart blanks was closer to 1/2 inch deep. I made several passes with the router, taking off about 1/16 inch each time. I still need to route a hole on the opposite side of the Bloodwood neck where the truss adjusting nut will stick out on the headstock.

I also used a neck jig cut the sides straight on the table router for the Bloodwood neck and the top Purple Heart. I still have to work out some of the dimensions on the bottom Purple Heart, since that neck blank will likely end up on the Firebird project.

I will be installing three different types of truss rods in these necks. The Bloodwood neck on the right will be taking a small double action rod. The Purple Heart on the left will be using a slightly larger double action rod. While the purple heart in the middle will be taking a single action rod. The double action truss rods will adjust for both upbow and backbow. On the two Purple Heart necks the rods will be covered by fret-boards. The Bloodwood neck will have a maple plug (or skunk stripe down the center.

My next step will be to cut the thickness of the headstocks down to about 5/8 of an inch. Later, I will sand them down to about a 1/2 inch. I also will drill the tuner holes at that time.

In addition to these three necks I have another piece of Purple Heart that will yield two more blanks and a piece of Padauk and a couple if pieces of Maple, that I'd like to start working on for more necks. Given the number of mistakes that I have made on neck construction over the past two years, it's not a bad idea to have several neck projects going at the same time. Expect more neck updates in the coming weeks.

Firebird

The Curly Maple lays on top of Purple Heart backs. This Firebird is made from Purple Heart and Maple. The wings are book matched Curly Maple.

The Curly Maple lays on top of Purple Heart backs.

The neck is also Maple sandwiched between two pieces of Purple Heart.