I need to read my previous posts before I update

I just realized that I had already posted all the body side crap. oh well, I'll edit that out

Lots to catch up on

So i've been slacking on the posts here. I was out of town thursday and friday skating out in Fort Wayne, and Saturday I had class and began on my archtop. I'll be posting all that jazz (no pun intended) after I finish up this thing, which should be this week.


So I finished gluing on all the sides mid-last week. It was kind of a pain since I only did a couple at a time since i've only got one set of clamps at the moment and can't find my C-Clamps.

So after all that had set and whatnot, I sanded down the tops, and cut out some spots that were too high, and glued on the top section. It took a few tries to get it seated evenly, I ended up having to cut off some overlapping corners, but got it to where I wanted it. Clamped that up and let it sit while I was out of town.



Now today, I finally got around to sanding down the rough spots on the sides and sanding/prepping the top for staining. I just did the same as always, 100/150/220, and then a buffing steel wool pad.





So the last things I did before staining was I drilled the holes for the strings, and I also put in a neck block, to cover my sloppy cutting job.



i'm gonna post the staining in a separate blog, I only began staining a little while ago, so it won't be done til late tonight.

Body sides, "F" holes

So I cut the f holes in the top of the guitar last night, i decided to go with mirror imaged lightning bolts. No idea why, maybe it just seemed easy. I also, between yesterday and today, glued on all the sides. Now thet I think about it, I probably should have glued the sides to the top first, and doubled em up, but then again, who cares. I can always do another one if this thing doesn't work out as well as I planned. I know I'm going to have to sand down some spots, so it will fit together evenly, but I wanted to have some excess anyways instead of not enough and have to figure out how to fill more gaps. Here's all the pics to bring you up to date....

body sides and whatnot

So before I start writing all this, let me remind you that this is all trial and error, just to see what works, before you go jumping all over me telling me i'm doing it all wrong. This isn't a very serious project, i'm just making a half-assed box guitar, not trying to recreate a Maccaferri or something. I'll be doing that later, and doing it the right way. But anyways, i sanded down a few of the sides so they'd properly fit together, and made a cut out for the neck to fit in. Its a bit sloppy, but as I said, this isn't all that serious of a project. I'm doing it more to just get used to my power tools and to see if i can actually make something out of a bunch of crap. Here's the pics.

Neck Bracing

So after letting the glue dry for a bit, I took the clamps off and looked. Sure enough there was some voids from my poor craftsmanship. I cut a couple 1" strips of plywood, and glued them in place alongside the neck. I made sure that they were cut straight and sanded smooth so there would be no clearance this time. Got em clamped on tightly, and plan to let it sit for an hour or two. This will also help later on when I add all the internal bracing.
More later...

UPS just stopped by...

Got the tailpiece for the archtop I'm building at school a few minutes ago. SWEET!

Cutting the body

So before I got around to cutting the body out, I did 2 things. First, I decided to extend the size of the body by an inch and a half. Second, and more importantly, I realized that I had stupidly drilled the holes for the tuners by sight and by no means of measurement. This left the middle tuner in a spot where I wouldn't be able to tune it. Here's how I cut it down:So after that, I started cutting out the body. As you'll see, I went with sort of a trapezoidal shape as Nick calls it. I'm going to add the "M" holes later. I have to get a better router bit for that I think. I can get that cheaply at my favorite toy store. There's nothing really to tell about cutting down my plywood, just used a circular saw and made some 13x12" rectangles to start with. Marked off my middle and drew the lines and cut em out with the jigsaw. I pretty much did the same with the sides, and i'm gonna cut some more strips later for bracings. Here's a bunch of pics. Sorry for the lack of info here, this was just a really simple proccess and not much to ramble about.

So after all that cutting, I cut out a small piece of wood to use as a bridge/saddle, and glued that in, as well as glued the top of the body to the neck. After that all dries, I'm going to add some bracings to the back, which I'll cut later and take more pics for you to see. Here's the rest of what I've got, I'll try to make my next post more detailed or entertaining or something. heh.


And now I gotta let the glue set for a couple hours and see if I need to add more to that messy part of the neck. More later.

Neck/body join

The final step I took today was to cut out the area where the top of the body will sit. I had originally intended to use my wood carving tools, but felt lazy and used the jigsaw. here's the part I mentioned in my previous post about it being a pile of crap that doesn't cut straight. I had to cut one side, then flip the neck and cut from the other side due to the flexibility of the cheap 2 dollar blade, and the saw's inability to cut straight. After I finished, I glued in a few strips to level it out. This will all be covered by a piece of plywood, so it wasn't vitally important to me to cut it correctly or make it look good. I got the length of the cut where I wanted it, so I'm satisfied.

Pretty damn ugly huh? Oh well, Like I said, this section will be covered with the body wood.

Shaping the neck

So instead of buying some lumber for the necks, I noticed that on the back of an old mirror, there were two 40" long 1x2's. I pulled em off and cleaned them up, and they seem to be working well so far. I'm not sure what type of wood they are, however.

So the first thing I did was mark off where I wanted the nut to go, where I wanted the body to join at, and where it will end. I shaved off about a 1/4 inch wide section at the end to use for a bridge, and then trimmed it down further to arrive at a total length of 36".

Above you can see where I slotted the neck for the nut to be placed. i bought some wood carving tools, files and rasps at harbor freight on sale for 15 bucks. I think I got something like 20 different files, half of em with handles, and the larger ones came with 2 large plastic handles so I can interchange them.

So after slotting the neck for the nut, I marked off where the neck was going to join the body on the back, and where the headstock would begin, and started to shape the back with my rasps.

I was trying to get it to a nice rounded C shape so that it will play comfortably, unlike the solid slab of wood I've seen used on all of these how-to sites. Basically what I was doing was just cutting with 3 different shaped rasps, then smoothing it out with a rounded wood file, and going over it again until I had a nice comfortable shape to it. Here's a few more pics of the progress.

After I arrived at a shape I was comfortable with, I took an orbital sander, and smoothed it out with a gradual step down method of grit. I started with 80, moved to 100, 150, and then 300. After this I went over it with some 0000 grit steel wool to get it completely smooth. Feels great now for a first attempt at neck shaping.

As you can see, its a little bit bumpy, but bear in mind, this is my first ever attempt, on a guitar i'm building for fun, and I can't really feel anything while running my hand over it. Here's one more picture after the finishing sanding.

After finishing the back of the neck, I radiused the fretboard using my stewart macdonald 9.5" radius block. miraculously, I got it level on my first attempt, and the radius feels pretty smooth. Just as with the back of the neck, I used 60 grit paper with the block, then used 150 and 300 on the orbital sander, smoothing it with the steel wool afterwards. After that, I used my jigsaw to cut the headstock on an angle to give the strings some break angle, and I used my craftsman drill and a 3/8" bit to drill holes for the tuners.

howdy

Ok, I'm not on my good computer right now so I'll have to make my first real post later tonight. Right now, I'm working on a pair of custom cigar box guitars. I saw some "how-to" videos and decided I could do way better than just a 1x2 nailed to a cardboard box. So far I've shaped the back of the neck to a smooth C shape, radiused the fretboard to a 9.5" radius (halfway between gibson and fender) and I've cut away the portion where the body will come even with the fretboard. I also cut away the section which will serve as a headstock and drilled the holes for tuners. Now keep in mind when I post pics later, that I don't have a bandsaw yet, i'm using my 12 dollar jigsaw from walmart and it doesn't cut straight at all. Oh, also, Instead of going with a straight cigar box shape, i've got some 1/4 inch maple plywood that I'm using to custom shape the body. stay tuned for pics.