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So I got my top wood in, some quilt maple, just waiting for my jointer to come in before I glue it together, but it's plenty large enough.
I also got the neck wood in, some claro walnut, already jointed and planed. I decided to do my first scarf joint. I found the centerline and mocked up my templates around it, then I got my neck angle dialed in and drew my line and just went for my first cut, while terrifying accomplishing it was also a great relief. Didn't turn out half bad. I dont have a belt sander nor do I plan on getting one, but I will run these through the jointer and get them flat that way then glue them up and rout my truss rod channel.

Good start!
I don't know what you have in the hand-tool and bench dept., but a sharp block plane would make quick work of that headstock scarf joint, once you had the two pieces clamped to a solid bench. You need a good ('Engineers') square to check your progress and keep things straight and square.

PLEASE do not even think about smoothing the angled face of the shorter (headstock) piece on your new jointer; even putting the longer piece on the jointer is likely to be:
a) dangerous
b) unsuccessful due to chipout.
BTW, few small belt sanders will give the really flat surface you need for gluing that headstock scarf.

Check out some of the older books on building to get some ideas of how to do things by hand. It's often the fastest way, and it usually takes longer to hurt yourself badly with hand tools, though it can be done with persistence.

Cheers
John

I second the block plane suggestion. Quick and easy with a SHARP blade, and it doesn't look like you've got much work to do to square things up compared to my first scarf joint.





This is one of the reasons I do as much by hand as I can. If there's a way to hurt myself, I can find it quick, and prefer slow moving hand tools over high speed spinning blades when that occurs.
Good luck and have fun on your first build. Love that walnut!

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I agree with the hand plane. But, if you have having a problem getting it flat, you can do what was suggested in one of the acoustic building books, get close with the plane, then use a flat board with sandpaper and true it up. If you can go over it with a scraper afterward and no mess up the angle, even better.

If you are more inclined to go a power route, use a router. Make a U shaped base that the sides are cut to your chosen headstock angle. These will be the rails that guide the router. When you mock it up, check for clearance side to side, need room for the bit to clear the headstock without hitting the side of the guide. Make sure you can bring the router all the way down to the bottom without running into issues. Sort the details out first with the mock up and then use scrap for your test run.

Use good double stick tape to hold the small piece to the neck. A low fence along the neck shaft helps to keep things aligned and makes it easier to get going the next time you use it.

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Aoibeann

I bought the template set. And I have compared it against my own PRS custom 24 and the template set is about dead on accurate as you can be. The bridge doesn't look centered because it isn't technically. It has the recess at the bottom for a PRS style tremelo arm.
But it has all the centerlines etched into it and everything. It's a must have for someone like me who is doing their first build.

Got the bottom portion of the body rough cut today. It came in THICK. It is 1 7/8" and I got to get it planed down to 1 1/8" thick.

Finally got the scarf joint glued together. For someone who has never done this before, I must admit, this was a total and complete nightmare.

Unless you are hiding something on the other side of the neck, it turned out great. Well worth the effort.

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Aoibeann

Concurr, looks nice. I hate scarf joints with a passion because they take so much time and are hard to do. Yours looks like it turned out nicely.

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John Thiessen
http://www.iszacguitars.com

No, nothing to hide, I just havent cleaned the other side up yet because I still have to route the truss rod channel, and since the outside isn't perfectly flush I'm letting that small leading edge stick out so that I have a uniform route on my truss rod channel when I finally get around to that.


I will admit that I did intially try to glue everything backwards, had to rush and clean all the glue up after I finally noticed
I still need to glue some ears on it, and make a veneer for it.

Speaking of truss rods, I thought of buying one from stew mac, but didn't want to buy their bit to route with, can anyone recommend me a good truss rod that doesnt need a specialized bit for it?

The two-way rods from Allied are good.
You can rout the slot in multiple passes with a smaller bit if necessary.

Cheers
John

And now im gonna have to buy new top wood for the guitar. The quilt maple has been reduced to nothing more than veneer stock.
I bought a jointer, and it jointed my boards crooked. I took it to a pro shop, they said they could fix it, they tried to joint it, it still came out bad, he said he would joint it flush and plane it then. Well, he cut a groove down the middle inside of both boards and biscuit jointed it, thereby eliminating any chance of me carving it.
So that 35.00 set of boards I got turned into 100.00 unusable set.

Dang! I'm sorry.

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Aoibeann

I am going to try my hand at a headstock inlay on this first build. I got my logo designed and drawn up. What do you think?

You may want to use a drum sander on that kind of wood instead of a planer because of chip out. Just a thought though. I don't use a planer at all anymore. I re-saw my blocks of wood down to rough thickness and then drum sand them to just about finish thickness.
Just my .02

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Barron Wesley Guitars

I have a tabletop belt sander and an oscillating spindle sander, which would you recommend?

I mean something like this. http://grizzly.com/products/18-1-1-2-HP ... nder/G0458
You can run through your glued up boards and make them perfectly flat.

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Barron Wesley Guitars

Like the logo.

Do you have a router? If so, you can use it to joint your top plates. Clamp them to a board that has a straight edge and use a straight bit with a bearing, either on top or bottom, depending on your setup. A router table works nicely for this. You can make a fixture that you can use as a sled.

Check your library or drop in on a woodworking store and look for a router book. Lots of ideas with jigs and fixtures.

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Aoibeann

I've got a router, router table, and table saw. I am just going to use the table saw to joint them from now on.

Noticed a mistake I made today when I was using my belt sender to flatten the scarf joint on the face of the headstock. I inadvertently moved where I glue the nut back by ab out 1/4", no bigger will just compensate by shortening the tenon length by 1/4".

Got the other new top wood in today and got it sanded down. I need to go get it planed but I did wet the grain and trace my template to give you an idea of what it should be barring any problems.
I also scored this awesome maple neck piece for 30.00

Made my top cut, and glued it and clamped it to death.

And I'm done.
Had a massive tear out with the router, the plunge router was very stiff and I kept eating into the template anyway, then it tore out the wood and template.
In case you're wondering I had the router set on the highest rpm, and it was a brand new amana template routing bit.
So I am officially done with this. Not gonna go through the expense of more wood and templates just to mess it up again.
I tip my hat to all that can do it, because I just don't have the heart for it.

Dang. I'm sorry.

I think you can do this, but you need to step back and work on a few things.

But first, don't buy another template. Use what you have to make another one. Yeah, I saw the upper bout. But that's okay. Its a mirror image of the other side. Start by getting something to fill the divots, like JB Weld. Get it close to its final shape while its still soft but leave it proud and then let it dry. Once its dry you can sand it back down. If the upper bout piece is usable, use it. If not, pick up a 2x2x1/2 MDF and carpet tape the template to the MDF. Draw the outline and rough cut to within a 1/4" of the line. Then route out your new template using the old one as a guide. You'll have to mark the body and the template in a way that will allow you to realign it after you flip it to do the upper bout. Maybe use the pickup cavity somehow. Carpet tape a block that fits in the pick up to the MDF so that becomes your key.

And while you are at the store, grab a nice piece of 2x10, a not so nice one will do if it doesn't have knots. Joint it and use it as your practice body. Make an LP Jr. and paint it.

But before you turn on your router, you need to become more comfortable using it. Learning when its best to clockwise and when to go counter-clockwise. How much is too much of a bit. Check out SmartFlix. http://smartflix.com/store/video/196/The-Versatile-Router

I did pretty much the same thing the first time I tried to use a router. Scared the begezzus out of myself. After I turned it off and could breath again, I walked out of the shop for a couple of weeks. Because of that afternoon's lesson in excessive router damage done in the blink of an eye, I picked up a pattern sander, the robo sander. It's available in three different diameters and two different lengths. Sanding takes longer, but then again you have to be more determined to mess something up with it to the same degree that can be instantly achieved with a router. I don't have that much determination.


Take a break, but don't quit.

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Aoibeann