Official Luthiers Forum!

Well....2 -5 if I don't count luthistic atrocities committed as a youth.

The new headstock design is going pretty much as planned. I like this a LOT better than my first design.

The position markers are toasted maple surrounded by hard roack maple. The logo is bloodwood surrounded by toasted maple surrounded by a thin wenge keyline.

Also take a look at the heel. I made these necks take a long, smooth transition into the body. I think this'll feel good playing up high. I've never seen this done...I hope I don't find out why.

Just fretted the first new neck. Nothing makes fretting easier than starting out with a STRAIGHT fretboard surface. I made a spiff gluing caul for gluing the fretboard to the neck which made a big difference in how straight everything was prior to the frets being installed. I got my first one to play really nice but this made arriving at that point much faster and easier.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I'll give you the same critique you gave me on my latest electric build....
00000000.

The skulpted headstock reflects the same carved layering idea as the body. On the last guitar I threw a bunch of ideas together...more concerned with making tooling than art design. This time, the curly maple top on the body and the headstock will match and so also will the layered contours...which I hope will add some design continuity to the whole thing.

I'll get a shot up when the bodies are done to show that heel/body transition better.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I'm sorry I said that, Zlurgh.
The necks are absolutely beautiful.
I really like those fretmarkers.
Once again, sorry.
I was in a mood.
Alan

No worries, Mate.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Looks good,very clean work, I also like the stopped slots.
What tilt angle did you put on the headstock? It is hard to tell from the photo.

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How long is that in luthyears?

i really really like the headstock! very nice.

Thanks, gents.

The headstock is at a twelve degree angle to the neck.

I just finished fretting all these yesterday. All four of them have the exact same tiny backbow due to the hard coco fretboards. I believe they'll set up nicely.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Hi Stuart!
Sorry about bringing up such an old post, but I was doing a search on "backbow" and found this - After installing the fretboard on my neck on the Silver Willow build - I noticed a little backbow going on - unfortunately I didn't put a 2-way trussrod on this build, but already have one for build #3 - anyways, I too have a cocobolo fretboard - did the backbow go away after you stringed it up? Did you string it up for a few days before doing the fret dressing? Curious newb wants to know! I did put it under some clamps for a few days to try to straighten the neck out a bit and that seemed to help quite a bit, but there is still a slight bow when checking with a straight edge - thanks, V

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Ah...I'm setting up #'s 4 & 5 at the moment and have fully setup and played #'s 2 & 3. #2 was sold and has shipped. #3 has about 100+ hours of playing time (me).

First....all four guitars had the fretboards glued onto the neck with a VERY rigid, very straight, massive aluminum gluing caul that conformed perfectly to the neck surface and fretboard curvature. Then the fretboard was sanded with precision radius blocks..so the fretboard surface was more or less perfectly straight prior to pressing in the frets. I believe this fact had the most affect on the overall outcome of these setups. When viewing the installed frets...or checking with a straightedge...not a single fret was out of place....owing to the straighness of the fretboard and the hardness of cocobolo. There was a tiny backbow in all four necks and the amount backbow was consistant.

I strung up #2 with .042 - .009 slinkys without leveling or crowning...out of curiosity. The string tension pulled the neck such that no truss rod tension was necessary.
It setup and played rather nicely with the action at about a 4 on a 1-10 scale....1 being as low as you'd ever want and 10 being as high as you can tolerate. It was nice but I knew it could be better so after 10-20 hour of playing it I leveled and crowned the frets.

So far....#2 & 3 are both operating with no truss tension. On #3, 4, and 5 I did the fret leveling and crowning prior to the final polishing and I believe all four of them will pull to the right position with little or no truss tension. But that's a lucky outcome. In the future I'm going to widen the fret grooves to .023" and I expect see see almost no backbow as a result.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Man, that Alan guy sure is a ich!

Thanks Stuart - My neck & FB were perfectly level before the fretting and I DID notice it was a bit tight installing them - I did spent quite a while widening the slots with jewelers files - mainly because of the inlays - the further I went along, the more I widened them, the easier they hammered in. I might try to do what you did and just put stings on it and playing it for a while before sending to the painter and see what it does. I may be forced to remove the FB and try clamping down to a more level surface, as well as swapping out the 1 way trussrod for a 2-way - where did you get your aluminum brace that you clamp everything to?

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Yeah Alan - you got mean to Stuart on this thread - you should send him a complimentary mastodon nut to make-up.

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

I'm never shy about showing off my ideas but I get a little shy about an idea that really works well if I'm at all certain that you can't replicate it. In this case the caul is two skulpted aluminum plates. One plate conforms precisely to the neck contours and the other conforms to the fretboard contour.

I designed these plates from the cad surfaces that created the neck and fretboard and made them on a cnc milling machine. The fit is created by offsetting the original neck surfaces by .005". When the neck sets in the caul it fits into it like a glove. The neck surface, the tongue, and area of the fretboard overhanging the tongue are all supported evenly. Since the caul started out as a 4" x 4" extruded retangular aluminum bar, and since is was stress relieved as is was cut....it just a REAL straight, stable, and unbendable hunk of metal...so I doubt you'll be able to make or buy anything that is quite this accurate. But....anything you buy or make that functions like a gluing caul...and avoids using numerous independant clamps to glue the fretboard to the neck will be better....imo.

I'll get some pics of the caul up so you can see it....maybe it'll give you some ideas. I think one could make a very functional gluing caul from wood using conventional tools.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I think they're beautiful.
Just makes me want to play one.

Thanks....when I'm going through the grades of sandpaper in the finishing stage I get really antsy to get it done so I can play it. This is the time when disipline really counts.

On one hand...I hope that feeling always stays with me because it motivates me to get it done. On the other hand....a little less anticipation might improve my craftsmanship.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

You're a million miles from that, Alan. To be perfectly honest...I like to know where I stand with people. You let me know how you felt about things and I took notes. That's the best way to be....imo.

Now....if I do it again...I'm doing it on purpose...




....maybe

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Here's a pic of that gluing caul for Virgil.

Note that at the heel I have included a little removable block. When gluing, that block is not used. When fretting that block supports the fretboard overhang when the pressure of the fretting caul is applied.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Someone get me a bib for my drool -

I have a friend who had a machinist make him something similar, but it is for the fretboard only and he clamps the neck upside down to the fretboard to the aluminum casting and it comes out perfect every time. I may go for the same thing down the road - you had all of this done already just for your 2nd through 5th guitars? I thought I was a go-getter! WOW

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Hehe.....after the first guitar I sat down and made a list of things I wanted to fix/change. There were twenty-seven things on that list...and a way to guarantee a straight fretboard was one of them.

I'd note also that this gluing caul doubles as a holding fixture when doing cnc machining operations on the necks. That plate on the bottom of the neck portion unbolts and the main block is set into vices which are mounted to the cnc table.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I like the aligners machined into the wood.
BTW in the mid 70's Ibanez introduced a "smooth heel" design, very similar to yours, it was quite a success. They accomplished this by making the tenon a little smaller, possibly even smaller than yours, though I can't really tell from your pictures, to facilitate smoothing the heel without carving into the tenon.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

What is with the pockets in the neck blank on the bass side?

Nice Jig! How about some pictures of the jig without the neck and Fingerboard in it.

Scott

It's a little hard to see but there are corresponding bosses on the fretboard that fit into the slots on the neck. The whole guitar was designed on cad. These positioning bosses make sure that when the fretboard is glued to the neck the fret slots maintain their position relative to the bridge to within a few thousands of a theoretically perfect postion. Also...I used stretch compensation when plotting the fret positions and this is an easy way of guaranteeing that the frets fall perfectly into their theoretical position.

I say "perfect" a lot but I don't want to be misunderstood on this. You can easily screw stuff up using cnc to make things. "Perfect" can be legtimately used to describe the cad drawing (model). A cad model is perfect to whatever demical place you want to set it to. But if you don't do things like this "boss and slot" registration thing you can start to lose all those theoretical relationships pretty quickly.

When I drill the holes that mount the bridge...the whole guitar is mounted onto a precision vacuum plate and the position of those holes is plotted and the holes are drilled from a cad file which places those holes to within a few thousands of the theoretically perfect position.

Of course, there are variables which are covered by adjustable bridge saddles...but after a few more guitars I'll be able to see if there is a "consensus" postion for those saddles after setting the intonnation and then I can redesign the bridge to move each saddles into a nominal position. At that point I'll call the design completely done.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

...make a dozen more, of course.

I sold #2 for a decent price. I'm still trying to decide what a good retail price should be. Any opinions would be appreciated.

I'm currently playing #3.

#4 & #5 were both built from the exact same boards throughout but one is chambered and the other is a solid body so that's an experiment to learn from.

I'm going to have to make an effort to sell some these pretty quick.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Stuart, you're one of my heroes.