The work in-between the work

Workin' it!

I occasionally re-read my old posts to check for clarity, correct spelling errors, and to make sure I don't repeat things too much.  I also try to make sure there is a through-line between the disparate posts.  It gives me a chance to critique my writing style and try to tighten things up when it makes sense to do so.  Lastly, it gives me a chance to 'listen' to my 'voice.'

...something something loves the sound of his own voice something something...

One thing has become clear to me through this process: at times I sound like I don't really enjoy this dusty little hobby that I'm spending so much time writing about.  It sounds onerous, tedious, and somewhat of a burden.  And that's not really how I feel about it.  

Like any hobby or art it provides the do-er with a creative outlet, a distraction from other aspects of life, pride in craftsmanship (sometimes just pride in completion), and that inexplicable feeling of Stillness.  It sounds a bit 'new-agey' but the process of working on a craft (whatever it may be) can make the rest of the world melt away.  Your entire mind and body becomes just about the next stroke of the chisel - the next pass of sandpaper.  It's another way to calm your mind while still doing something.

You can see how 'still' my mind gets...

So, in that light, this post is about the most boring but most rewarding part of building guitars - shaping and sanding the body.  I spent two hours last night doing nothing but scraping and sanding (and some minor routing).  It was necessary due to what the next steps require - but it was also the most enjoyable two hours I've spent on this build to date. 

...how interesting a post about sanding will be to the reader, I cannot say...

So, let's start with that mighty big goof in the above picture.  That was caused by putting the wrong bit in the router at the wrong time.  The blade was wider than the ball bearing and as such took out more than I had bargained for.  The chunk missing looked like it was about 1/8th to 1/16th deep.  I can't tell you there's some magic way to undo this - you just sand and sand and sand until the goof goes away.  I used 80 and 120 grit paper and wrapped it around a small flat block.

Much like this one here.

In the curves I used a dowel instead of the block.  You put the body in a vise, take sandpaper to the body like it talked about your momma, and after about 20 minutes it looks like this:

Yes, I skipped a step.  I'm getting to it...

It's like it never existed.  The funny thing is it went away so completely that I couldn't remember which side it was on - so here's the other side - just in case.

Pardon the Emo lighting - my camera autoscrewed me right there

As you can probably see - I also rounded over the edges on the back of the body like this:

Baby, you're so smooth

There are many ways to do this by hand (files, rasps, sandpaper, etc.) I chose to use a round-over bit on my router - like this:

Get bent!

In addition to rounding over the back edge I also scraped and sanded the back of the guitar - which was in rougher shape than the top.  Even after five minutes of scraping and 15 minutes of sanding - there are still a lot of imperfections.  Some are pretty deep (see this post for why they are there).  I need to figure out how I'm going to solve these - as sanding them out might not be practical.

Pictured: Impractical 

It was also long past time to clean up the top carve.  In addition to the arch being too arched there were too many scratch marks on the top.  So first I needed to tame the shape - then I needed to smooth it out a bit.  This called for something new:

Attack of the paisley shaped tools!

That funky chicken up there is a 'goose-neck' scraper.  It's basically a card scraper that is curved.  I bought it at the same time I bought the regular card scraper but this is the first time I've tried using it on anything substantial.  It's hard to sharpen due to all the twisty bits - so I was glad I didn't need to use it a lot (it's quite dull) but it does the job.  The area in the above picture is called the recurve - basically a small valley between the edge of the guitar body and the start of the arch proper.  The goose-neck scraper is perfect for cleaning this area up prior to sanding.  Speaking of sanding...

In case you forgot what this post was about...

There were scrapes like this one all over the arch - and they are tough to get rid of!  I found that if I wrapped a sanding sponge around the sanding block in the above picture and then wrapped sandpaper around that - I got pretty good results.  Still - you end up wrapping a small piece of sandpaper around your index finger to get in the tiny crevices.

Sand, sand, sandy, sandy, sand.

It's probably difficult to see the difference between what the body looked like before vs. what it looks like now from the pictures.  But trust me when I tell you this little piggy is now ready for market.

So, now we can start to dig into things.

What's next...

To be clear - I wasn't trying to get to 'finish' sanding at this point.  I am about to start cutting into the body for binding, pickups, bridge posts, etc. - so I needed the body to be close to final shape.  I won't finish sand the body for a while yet.  But I also won't have to worry about altering the shape too much moving forward.

(yeah, now watch me have to do something like change the neck pocket)

...FYI - I did just that.

...son of a...

Bling a Ling Ling

When it comes to guitars - a little flash never hurt anyone.  One of my favorite ways to customize a guitar is with a custom neck plate.  The funny thing is that in the normal course of playing a guitar neither you nor an audience member can see the neck plate - so it's more of a mental thing for the player than anything else.

I've used a couple of different vendors for custom neck plates over the years.  The most recent one is http://www.customneckplate.com/  You provide them with a decent quality image and you get back something like this:

Celtic Love knot

I don't normally go for the gold.  But I figured it would be a nice compliment to the warm tones/figure of the Mahogany wood. A cool new feature of this vendor is the ability to put serial numbers on the neck plates.

...whether or not I actually finish these three guitars in 2015 is anyone's guess.

...okay I wouldn't put a lot of money on it...

Awen - Welsh symbol for inspiration.

See kids!  This is what trolling around on the internet for hours at a time will get you:  You spend your money of some really strange stuff.  

Another fun tip: When you type "Celtic Symbol" into Google you get a lot of craptastic tattoo pictures but sometimes you strike gold.  I liked this symbol - the Awen - from the moment I saw it.  It doesn't really appear to be "Celtic" but I like what it stands for and since I'm about  1/16th Welsh -  let's run with it!

Three.  It's the magic number...

I'm pretty sure that the Celtic knot is going on the Les Paul and the Awen symbol is going on the PRS (whenever I get back to that build).  But where is that black neck plate going to go...?
Hmmm...
...I do wonder...

Doin' a Jig

No, not that kind of jig.
I mean a woodworking jig.

What's the difference between a template and a jig?  I think it's flexibility.  Having never done this before - I'm just guessing.  But it seems to makes sense...

A template is for making the same thing over and over in the same way every time.
A jig is for doing the same process over and over but with variable outcomes/outputs.

When is a wooden box and a couple of clamps considered flexible?
When it's a jig.

Take this angle/router sled jig.  It's just a box made with 1x3 stock that is big enough for the guitar to fit inside and a router to fit over.  The neat bit is if you add hinges to one side.  All of a sudden you can now use the router to make all kinds of cuts.  They are repeatable but also variable.
This jig is for adding a 4 degree pitch (or angle) to the guitar bodies.  The jig is supposed to be on hinges but I didn't have any on hand when I worked on this. If I add them I could make a 3 degree or 5 degree (or 22.5 degree!) pitch.

Once again - I'm adding the 4 degree pitch down near the neck pocket.  Les Paul necks (and PRS necks too) are angled away from the body so that the strings are parallel with the neck.  Take a look at this graphic.  It really explains the mechanics around why a Les Paul needs a neck angle but a Tele/Strat doesn't.

For this jig you have to make a temporary modification to your router.  Most routers have a removable plate (usually plastic) on the bottom.  The plate has four screws that you remove and the plate comes right off.

 Because it's removable it is also replaceable.  Usually you remove it and replace it with a new one when the old one gets worn out. But you can also use those screw holes to swap the plastic one for a wooden one (or attach it to a router table).  It's best to use a piece of plywood for this - as plywood is less likely to warp.  Keep in mind you want to be able to move the router laterally and horizontally, so it should be considerably wider than the box.

Do not attempt to adjust your monitor. There is nothing wrong with your computer.  

I used clamps to keep the jig in the right place.  It took a bit of looking but I was able to find a piece of wood in my scrap pile that when placed under one side of the jig made a 4 degree angle.  Not pictured is the angle gauge that I used to determine when the angle was correct.  There is a way to do this with trigonometry if you don't have a angle gauge.  Just google it.

The other thing that I did not take a picture of is how I secured the guitar body to the box.  There are a couple of ways to do this but I chose to use wooden shims to clamp the body to the box.  

Stick a couple of shims in the jig in-between the box wall and the guitar body  (see my crappy drawing below).  I put two at the neck and two at the tail.  Then tap the shims toward each other.  The pressure will clamp the body to the jig.

This is why I don't draw any more.

Just make sure the guitar is centered and squared up to the box or all of your cuts will be a little off.

Yes, I know.  There are two lines.  Look at the one in the middle.

I then drew a line where the router blade should start digging into the wood.

Then you lower your router blade until it just barely touches that line.  Anything between that line and the front of the guitar body should be removed at a 4 degree angle.

I found it easier to go side to side (left to right in the above picture) taking off small amounts on each pass.  The first couple of passes you remove a hair's width of wood but the cuts get deeper very quickly with the 4 degree slope.

If you do go back to front - you will find your cut becomes fairly deep fairly fast.  I think it was between 1/4 and 3/8 of an inch deep at the very end of the guitar body.  That's probably too much for one pass and you should reset your blade depth.  Also for this I used the largest/meatiest straight bit I had.  It also happened to be one of the sharpest bits I own - which is always helpful.

You may find that the sliding action of the wooden jig and the wooden router base plate may not be totally smooth.  It didn't bother me but if it bothers you you can try putting some bee's wax on the jig rails to make them glide a bit better.

It's kind of hard to see if you just look at the body - but if you look at the straight board behind the body blank - you can see how much was taken off.  The pen line on the side of the body matches up with the start line on top of the body in the above pictures.  

It's now time to shape the top!

So round, so firm, so fully packed

I have yet to make a router template for the Les Paul body blank - so this build is on the back burner for a couple of days.  In the mean time I started working on the other body blank, which will be a PRS shape.

As you can see, I followed the same process for this build as I did with he last one: trace the body shape, make relief cuts all along the trace line, and follow the trace line with the jig saw to get the rough shape of the body.

The good news is that I already had a PRS template from an earlier build.
In brief, you trace a real PRS (or whatever guitar you want to duplicate) onto a workable medium that won't warp easily.  I used MDF wood but plexiglass would also work.  Then you cut it out using a band saw, jig saw, or similar sharp-toothed device.  You can then smooth out the lines/contours with sandpaper - either using a belt sander, drum sander or even just a a bit of sand paper wrapped around a dowel.  Being able to get into the curves is important - so a square block won't take you the whole way.
I used a "drum" sander attachment for my drill press and sandpaper wrapped on a dowel.  It worked well but the template is still made of wood (in my case).  If you are not careful you can damage it - which I did on a previous build with the router.  So my template is not perfect - but it is good enough to work with.

The usual way to use a template like this is to tape it to the body blank using double sided tape.  I probably used too much for this template (about 6 pieces running from the horns to the butt).  It made removing the template a bit harder than I had planned on - but I didn't have to worry about the template coming away from the body!  I ended up using three different router bits with this body blank.  All of them had ball bearings on them to trace the template.  You can buy them at Stew Mac, Rockler, or Woodcraft.  You can also get them at big box stores.  Click on those links to see what the router bit looks like.

The first router bit was 1/2 inch in diameter and a 1/4 inch long.  The second was 1/2 inch diameter and 3/4 inch long, the third was also 1/2 inch diameter and 3/4 inch long but with the ball bearing at the bottom of the bit vs at the top like the other two.  (BTW - I'm talking about a 1/2 inch diameter blade - not the shank/collet - all of these are 1/4 inch shank.)  By switching blades this way I was able to make small passes with each and not take off too much wood on any one pass.  The 3/4 in bit was too big (too long) to start with - so that's why I started with the 1/4 bit.  But the 3/4 but wasn't long enough to finish the cut because the body blank is over 2 inches thick.  If you are using thinner body blanks you should be able to get away with just using the first two bits.

The reason why you want to take your time and make small cuts is threefold:  The router doesn't have to work as hard, the bit doesn't get too hot,  the cut is smoother/better.  Routers and router bits aren't cheap - so making more passes will ensure they have a long life.  Also, if you work the router bit too hard you could break it.  The idea of a sharpened steel blade flying through the air at great velocity gives me the willies.

So, how much is too much?  I try not to cut away more than 1/4 of an inch at a time.  There are plenty of people who would tell you that's too conservative and plenty that will tell you that's too aggressive.   I'm just telling you what works for me.

As you can see in the pictures above and below - the different bits have left their mark on the body blank.  Those fine lines come from three different things: where I switched router bits, where there were imperfections on the template, and when I removed the template and used the body blank).  They are pretty minor and will sand out fairly easily.  Also, as you can see in the picture below - at some point you can remove the template and use the body blank as the template.

I do like the PRS shape and it's pretty comfy to play.

Seeing as this body isn't going to have a pick guard and is going to be carved in some way - I think I'm going to put binding on the body.  It's another step to add but I think it'll make it took pretty tasty when it's done.

So, up next is to make a Les Paul Template so that I can get that body up to speed with this one.  Then I think I'm going to have to make some router jigs to shape these two bodies a little.
Stay tuned!

Tear Outs (my hair outs)

So, until I decide what kind of a guitar I'm going to carve this body blank into - I shall dub thee: Number 2.  And to be honest - that's how I felt about this one after I spent some time with it - a little poopy.

This sat in the clamps for about 24 hours.  As I was taking the clamps off I knew there were three things about this body blank that were different than the other one (dubbed #1, for now).

Maple laminations that needed to be worked against the figure.

Yellow heart - which I've never worked with before.

The Mahogany was not as square as it should have been.

First the maple.  Maple is the R. Lee Ermey of luthier woods.  Maple is like, "Come in, sit down, and have a hot cup of 'shut the f--- up and do it my way!'  Flamed maple in my (limited) experience has a mind of it's own.  It's much harder than mahogany to chisel, scrape, and sand.  It's a denser wood.  And the kicker is that the beautiful figure (sometimes called tiger, flamed or curly) are the wood fibers turning and twisting - which seems to make tear-out a common occurrence.  Fun!

Second?  Yup, Yellowheart also has a propensity for tear-out it too.

I dodged a bullet with number three.  I was able to get a good joint with the Mahogany.  There are some noticeable gaps in one spot - but they will be scraps on the floor when I'm done.

So, let's plane those high spots...

Looks pretty, right?  Almost like I know what I'm doing, hmmm?  When you use a wood plane - you want those long, thin, curly shavings.  If you get really good at it they can be so thin they are translucent.  Take a closer look.  There are about four or five good passes in that pile.  The rest are closer to wood chips than shavings.  And that's because I have no idea what I'm doing.

Okay, maybe not "no idea" but close.  I'm still learning how to use a hand plane - so there were a lot of digs, dings, and tear-outs to the surface.  Take a look at the below picture.  This is the better of the two sides.  See all those dark spots on the Yellowheart?  Those are all tear outs.  The maple is in similar shape - just not in this spot

I tell you this not because I like beating up on myself - but rather as a cautionary tale: practice on scraps.  Learn to use your tools before you viciously attack your work pieces.  I am (as anyone who knows me will attest) a slow learner - just making the same mistakes over and over.

Here endeth the lesson.

I will say that this body blank will look good when I figure out the best way to work with it.  The wood combination is pretty sexy - and is only going to get more so when it's got some relief to it.

Hmmm...

Those clamps are free to glue up another lamination. 

...and I do have enough of this mahogany left for one more body blank...

 Sadly, this is going to have to wait a bit.  That wood in the middle (the reddish-brown one on the right) is called Cocobolo.  It is my favorite wood but it is also like trying to work with sticky steel.  It's hard as a rock (the wood doesn't float - it sinks) and it is so gummy it clogs up sandpaper and files.  That piece is rough sawn.  I'll need a thickness planer to even begin to work with that wood.

...hmmm...

I do not think that word means what you think it means...

I know what you're thinking...

"What kind of a flim-flam-scam are you running here? That's not a Tele!"

This is true.  The shape drawn on that body blank is not a Telecaster shape.  It is an altogether different animal.  It is, in fact, not even in the correct Genus (Fender).  That is a Gibson Les Paul body shape.

I have turned this blog into a Den of Lies!

Come along with me - let's have some fun...

For those of you coming here for the first time - the original Telecaster build can be found 'below.'

By that I mean - see the older posts from 2008.  For those of you who have not closed your browser window - let's see what's going on here.

First, why am I building a Les Paul?  The easy answer is, "Why not?"  The slightly longer answer is that it is more challenging to build a Les Paul than it is a Tele because of the carved top.  It's also usually harder to build a guitar with a 'set' (e.g. glued-in) neck.  ...but I'm not doing that.

I'm building this with a bolt-on neck (as I'll explain in a later post).

So, because it's not a real Les Paul - I don't have to worry about copyright (or is it trademark) infringement then - now do I?  Fingers crossed!

There's one guy in the peanut gallery shouting, "Why don't you just carve the Telecaster top?"  

I'm ignoring him.  La la la la la la - I can't hear you!  

Enough with the 'why' let's move onto the 'how.'

I own an Epiphone Les Paul - so I used that to trace the shape onto the body blank.  In this post I'm just going over the first pass of creating the body outline.  There are two steps when doing this with regular tools.  I say 'regular' because the major guitar manufacturers have specialized tools that do this process in a few minutes unlike the below process which is measured in hours.

The first pass it to remove 90-95% of the excess wood.  You can do that with a band saw, jig saw, or even a hand saw if you have that kind of time (I do not).  The idea is to get close enough to the final shape that you can easily finish it (smooth it out) on the second pass with a router.

I'm using an inexpensive jig saw to remove all the excess wood.  The process for a band saw is different (but as I don't have a band saw I'm not qualified to tell you how).

My process (stolen from somewhere online) is to make multiple cut-ins so that I'm making a series of small cuts.  See the above picture for what I mean.  I then cut along the trace-line with the jig saw - going from cut-in to cut in.  It makes the process slower but much more accurate.

For the first build I did (the Tele) I just went around the whole body in one go - right up against my traced line.  Let me tell you why that was a bad idea...

It's called flex.  And jig saw blades have it in spades.  If you try to make sharp turns, corners or switchbacks with a jig saw - you end up with ridiculously sloppy cuts because the jig saw blade bends as you cut.  It's very difficult to keep it straight (or square).  On the Tele I was very close to the line on the surface of my cut - but the back (or bottom surface) was 1/4 of an inch bigger or smaller.  Because of that I had to modify the body shape a lot with the router.  So now I do it this way.

What you see there (above) is not the top of the line tool for this job.  It doesn't need to be.  Take it slow and it'll be just fine.  You may be able to see that I didn't go right up to my trace line with the jig saw cuts.  That's because I'm not going to go that close to the line on this first pass.  My goal is to get about 1/4 of an inch from the line and use the router to clean it up.  It would probably be better if I got within an 1/8th of an inch - but I have a better router than jig saw - so that's how roll.

Well, what do you know.  I think there's a guitar in there after all.

Image is everything

The lamination sat in the clamps for about 48 hours.  I then brought everything back to the workshop - took off all the clamps - and was left with...

...at this point you may be questioning my taste.

Looks pretty ugly, huh?

Hold that thought...

There.  That's better!

So, what just happened?

After removing the clamps, I took a small surface plane to the thinner laminations (the lacewood, basswood, and purpleheart) because they were about an 1/8th to 1/4 of an inch proud of the mahogany.  Once all of the pieces in the lamination were roughly the same height I busted out the sander and some 60/80 grit sandpapers.  It's dusty work (and not really necessary at this point as we'll see) but it's hard to argue with the results.

Results.

Results.

Full disclosure - I also changed the lighting a bit and wiped the piece down with mineral spirits.  That's the real reason the grain is popping so much.  The mineral spirits gives you a preview of what the wood will look like once a finish has been applied.  The nice thing about using mineral spirits is that it evaporates quickly and doesn't raise the wood grain like water.

In the close-up images above you can really see the figure of the Mahogany and the 'laces' of the Lacewood.  

The truth is though - that everything after taking the piece out of the clamps and planing the lamination flush was a waste of time.  I am going to be carving the top of this guitar.

See the image below for what I mean.  See how there is a sculpted aspect to the shape of the top.  That's a carved top - and they are purdy.

This particular image comes from http://williamsguitars.co.uk

I'm not ready to carve this top yet - so sanding it was not really necessary.  I did it more for inspiration than anything else.  Hence the title of the post.  Image is everything.  Seeing what this is going to look like when it's completed is a motivating factor for me.  I want to see that final finish. That's why I've done this on each of the guitars I've worked on to this point.  Psyching yourself up can be the difference between the woodshed and the couch.  At least that's what I tell myself...

Back to business!

When I planed down the laminations I created a few-tear outs.  Mostly because I've never tried using a hand plane to smooth a surface.  Previously I've used card scrapers, rasps, and sandpaper.  But sanding 1/4 of an inch just takes forever - so I figured I'd try using the hand plane.  Once you get the blasted thing sharp enough and set up properly (and you are using it correctly!) - it's wonderful to use.

You can see one tear-out in the Mahogany in the below picture.  It's the little black spot just above the laminations on the right.  At some point I'm going to need to sand, scrape or fill that hole.  

It was caused because I was planing against the grain of the Mahogany.  I was planing with the grain of the lacewood - but when I glued the Mahogany to the lacewood - I glued them with opposing wood grains.  Would an experienced woodworker have done that?  Probably not.  But also remember that plywood is stronger than regular wood because the laminations have opposing grains.  So, what I'm saying is: Could be good.  Could be bad.  Time will tell.

I was concerned that there might be gaps in the laminations - either because I didn't prep them well enough (read made them square) or because I didn't squeeze them hard enough when clamping them.

I seem to have done okay.  There are a couple of gaps but if I play my cards right - they will be scrap wood on the floor once I cut the body shape out of this blank.  Again, time will tell.

In short - I'm happy and ready to move forward with this build.

So, now that I've freed up all of those clamps I guess it's time to look at that other body blank...

Hmmm...

Round 2: Fight!