Mini-Tele - Part 3: A splash of color

Subtle...

As previously mentioned - my son asked for a gold guitar.  

I said, "Everything gold?"

He said, "Everything!"

I said, "...okay."

I said, "...are you sure?"

He said, "I'm sure!"

(editor's note - when I told him the humbucker wasn't going to be gold - he got upset)

Okay.  Here we go!

Gold digger

Two things:

1) I've never spray painted a guitar before.  This is my fifth build (sixth if you count the incomplete Les Paul that still sits on top of my fridge) and I've finished all of them with stain, dye, or shellac under a Nitro finish.  I've got nothing against paint - it's just that all of my builds to date have been made with fairly attractive wood that I wanted to showcase and not hide under paint.  So this is new territory for me (read: plenty of NEW mistakes for me to make).

2) The medium of a blog is rife with dishonesty.  I didn't take a lot of photos of the process of painting the guitar.  So, it looks like this went swimmingly.  I can attest that it did not.  Also, time is a plaything in the blog medium.  This thing sat for months in my garage waiting for me to get my backside in gear and finish it.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics...

In brief:  I painted this with a generic gold color I purchased at Lowes and neither I nor my son was all that impressed.  It was only after stumbling on a really metallic gold paint (by accident in A.C. Moore) that we got to the color you see now.  Then, as I was preparing to spray a lacquer finish on it - I decided to wipe it down with some naphtha.  ...It had loads of dust (and cobwebs) on it from sitting all summer in my garage and I wanted a clean surface to spray on.  Yeah, it turns out that naphtha will strip spray-paint off like nobody's business.  So, I had to paint the guitar a third time.  Only this time the temperature had dropped and I was spraying in temps way too cold for rattle cans.  So, I'm not confident in how well the paint bonded to the previous coats.

When I finally did get to spraying lacquer - I was using a new brand - Watco - Lacquer, Gloss, Spray

...Let's just say - I'll never be using that brand again.  Stick with Behlan's Stringed Instrument Lacquer, kids.  It works!

I had already started spraying the neck with Behlans so I decided to not mix the streams with a different lacquer on the neck.  In the end, the body got 8 to 10 coats of Watco and the neck got 8 to 10 coats of Behlans.  The neck looks great (even though I used steel wool to dull the finish) and the body looks barely passable.  I never even finished polishing the body as weird black spots were starting to show up under the finish as I waxed on/waxed off.  This could have been the spray-paint I used, the temperature at which I sprayed things, or the lacquer.  Seeing as the neck had none of these issues and the only difference was what lacquer I used - you be the judge.

How you doin'?

With regards to the neck.  I did a fair amount of work to it.  I received it with a badly damaged finish (which I expected for $25).  I sanded off the existing finish and also reshaped the neck a bit.
Knowing that this will be a first guitar and not likely to be used for more than a year or two in this household - I went for comfort over perfection.  I skinny-ed down the neck at the 1st and 2nd frets
so that it would fit in my son's hand and perhaps make it possible for him to play first position (e.g. cowboy) chords.

Can't complain

I also worked on the fret ends quite a bit.  The fret ends were sticking out like barbed wire - so I filed those down and polished the frets as well.  I did a little fret leveling but not much.  If he gets to the point where he's ready to start ripping out an Angus Young solo - I'll dress these frets to perfection.  For now, the neck fits in his hand, won't cut him, and is mostly in tune.

Had some work done?

I also inlaid an Irish coin into the headstock because for some reason that has become my thing.  In this case, this is the first time I've used legal tender.  This is a 10 cent Euro coin.  I used it because it is gold colored.  It was a fabulous piece of good luck that I had a drill bit that was almost the exact size of this coin.  I'm happy with this part of the build.

So, while it's not perfect - the guitar now has a finish.  It's time to assemble it!

Mini-Tele Part 2: Cultural Appropriation

Theft

Never let it be said that a DIY blog about building guitars can't be socially relevant.

Yeah, I can't believe I typed that sentence either...

So what are we looking at?  It's a neck plate, dummy.  No really, it's used for screwing the neck onto a guitar body. And speaking of screwing - it is also a bit of Welsh culture and Druid mythology that I'm taking without asking.  So, for all you Welsh Druids out there - I'm gonna steal your culture.  Look out!

What you are actually looking at is the Druid symbol of the Welsh word - Awen.  Awen means "inspiration" - usually of a poetic nature.  I guess the Druids liked the word and decided it needed a symbol to go with it.  And who are we to judge?

Great Expectations

I thought it would make an interesting image on a neck plate and back in 2015 planned for it to go on the first guitar I finished that year - hence the 2015-001.

(Editor's note - no guitars were finished in 2015).

It just so happened to be a gold neck plate - so it's perfect for this build.  Better late than never!

I like the cut of his jib

Speaking of necks - we're gonna need a place to put that thing.  I routed out the neck pocket on this body blank using the process I have used on the last couple of builds that I've worked on:  Trace the outline of the neck shape on a piece of particle-board (or plywood) and cut out that shape with a jigsaw.  Then use that shape as a tracing template for my router.  What you can't see in the above picture is that everything to the left of that last fret is the overhang.  The thickness of the whole neck minus the thickness of the overhang is how deep the neck pocket needs to be routed - so that the overhang sits flush to the body.

Flush

As is quite typical at this point - things fit pretty well.  The neck fits in the pocket nice and tight and the neck is straight and level.  It's only later - when I start monkeying with things - that I'll mess it up!

"Aren't you a little short for a StormTrooper?"

 As you can see - this is a short-scale thing we're building here.  A normal guitar has a scale length (the distance from the bridge to the nut) - or total string length of 24.75 to 25.5 inches.  This puppy will be about 20.5 inches.  Also, the width and depth of the neck are much smaller than a normal neck.  Hopefully, this will make it easier for little hands to hold it.

Diggin' Holes

In addition to the neck pocket, I also routed out the hole for the pickup.  I'm going to go with a Humbucker for this build for two reasons: I already have one left-over from another build and humbuckers are quieter than single-coil pickups (as in they don't hum as much - hence hum-bucker).
I already have a humbucker routing template so this went fairly quick.

Diggin' More Holes

 I also drilled the hole for the input jack (where the guitar cable plugs into the body). If you look at the center of the hole you'll see a little light.  That's the pickup cavity in the previous picture.
The below picture is a detail shot of this.  I chose to go really primitive with the electronics for this build as I didn't want to overwhelm my Son with switches and knobs and I didn't want to overwhelm myself with soldering headaches.

Holes inside holes.

When I'm done with this build it will have one pickup, one volume knob, and an input jack.  Low-tech but just enough to do some damage.

More tools and jigs

Am I a Liar?
Yes.  Yes, I am a liar.

So, I decided to start working on the Les Paul again after a loooooooong hiatus.
I got myself all psyched up to get my hands dirty fixing the neck and neck pocket.  This morning I took the body and neck down from the fridge, took one look at it and decided, "I'm not working on the neck pocket today. " Even though I haven't touched this project in 18 months - I'm going to 'switch gears' and work on the neck.

Okay - here we go...

I had alluded to the fact that I was going to make some drastic changes to the neck in a previous post. Here's where we dig into that process.  My plan is to take the existing neck that I bought from Guitarfetish and add the following:

1. A headstock veneer to match the body
2. Binding all around the neck
3. Replace the existing diamond inlays with standard Les paul 'block' inlays
4. Install an Irish coin inlay (most likely a 1 penny piece) in the headstock

If you've been following along - I finished the headstock veneer a while back.

Today we'll look at how to do the binding around the neck.

The binding was going to be a mixture of easy and hard.  Most of the binding was going to be set in straight runs (with few curves) but I wasn't sure how I was going to route the channel for the binding as I don't own a router table.  This kind of work is hard to do freehand with a router as the neck is curved on both sides and tapered to boot.

After a quick trip to google - it became clear that I had all the necessary parts to build my own primitive router table.  So, first up: build a router table.

Kinda looks like a reject from 'The Lego Movie.'

 The process is actually quite brief.  Take the bottom plate off of your router, trace the outline of it on a flat and wide board (most people use plywood or melamine as they don't warp easily. I used Particle Board which also doesn't warp easily but isn't as durable - it's what I had on hand).

Make sure to mark off where the holes go to attach the board to the router and start drilling holes.  I made a one inch hole in the middle of a sheet of particle board for any router bits to fit through and drilled four 1/8 inch holes for the mounting screws.  I also used a 1/4 inch forstner bit to countersink the screws so that they don't bump into the workpiece.

Once the holes are all drilled - screw the router base onto the bottom of the board, turn the board upside down, mount it to something (I used a black and decker workmate bench), and adjust the height of the router bit until it pokes through the hole.  Voila!

It took almost as long to write this description as it took to make the thing itself.

For any of the more seasoned luthiers/woodworkers out there - this is a temporary router table.  I'm aware that this won't last (particle board warps).  But it got the job done and I didn't have to drop $300 at Rockler.

Anywho!  This particular router bit is larger than the ball bearing on the top - so the ball bearing runs along the work piece and the blade cuts deeper leaving a channel that I can use to install the binding around the neck.

What? Me worry?

As the last several post about binding have proven - I have no idea what I'm doing!  So, we'll see how this goes.  But for now - there is a channel for binding, I have already purchased neck binding, and there's no legal or ethical reason why I can't just bind this sucker at any given moment.

Les Paul Dreamin'

Wow, that went fast!
The last post that I completed for this Les Paul build was almost two years ago.
This is the downside to having too many hobbies.

So, where were we?

I am a patient boy.

The guitar body has been sitting on top of my fridge for all this time (my garage isn't temperature or humidity controlled) so, I didn't want to leave this out there.  The fact that I thought it was only going to be a couple of weeks until I came back to this is neither here nor there.

For good or for ill - we're back.

If you are just joining us I've been working on a 12 string electric guitar for the last few months.  But that one is sitting in my basement while I wait the 2-3 weeks for the nitrocellulose lacquer finish to dry.

The previous five posts for this guitar (from two years ago) were about binding.  Let's be clear: it was about how to fix a bad binding application because even though I'm 44 years old  I still have the patience of a frickin' teenager...

...ahem...

So, in short, the binding took longer than I expected...
...and it didn't come out exactly how I planned.

The thing is - it was really small potatoes compared to the actual problem with this build:  The neck pocket wasn't straight.  I've tried to make a point about how important it is to get this part of the build correct (here and here).  It's kind of a thing...

Funny then ( funny strange not funny ha ha) when I routed the pocket - I thought it was okay. It looked fairly straight.  And that neck pocket was tight! I mean that in the literal and colloquial sense.

Sadly, as I looked closer I found it wasn't quite right.

If you look at the diamond inlay under my thumb in the below picture - it is supposed to be lined up with the purple stripe on the body.

I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait...

You can also see that the neck isn't quite lined up with the laminations either.  In short - the neck pocket is crooked.

...boo...

Now, I know what some of you are saying, "It's really not that bad."  And you're right.  It's not that bad - but it's also not how I want it (as I plan on keeping this one).  And to top it off - did I mention it was a tight fitting joint?  I can't tell you how proud I was of that little bit of craftsmanship right there.

My time is like water down a drain

So it has to be fixed.  How to do it...?

There are a few different ways - the hardest one being to fill the neck pocket with a block of wood (cut to size and glued in place) and re-route the entire pocket completely.  I'm not wild about that option.

The other options I know of are less invasive but they all start with making the current neck pocket bigger so that I can change the angle of the neck.  Those of you playing the Luthier Home Game - I mean the Lateral neck angle. The Vertical neck angle is still fine.

Sitting in the Waiting Room

It's frustrating to have to fix this - but it will bug me if I don't.  Once the neck pocket will accommodate the neck in the correct position you can do one of the following to tighten up the fit:

1. Glue in a shim of wood (or a couple of sheets of wood veneer).
2. Fill the gap (gaps?) with a sawdust and glue mixture.

Sadly, the easier the method - the more visible repair. I'm looking at you sawdust and glue.  So, I think I'm going to go with option number 1 - shim it!
I first need to straighten the pocket and evaluate what comes next.

Sandpaper don't fail me now!

Function is the key

Hey baby, where you been?

I've been right here, fool!

For the last couple of months I've been giving the guitar body on this build all the love.  What about the neck?  I guess it's time to see where we're at.

I bought this neck from Warmoth soon after I started this build - back in 2010.
It was then (and is now) ridiculously expensive.  I would never spend that much on a neck ever again.  But at the time - it made sense.  I was unsure of my abilities as a builder and had precious little experience.  Plus, the mechanics of a twelve string seemed to be overwhelming.
How strong did it need to be to carry the strain of twelve guitar strings tuned to pitch?  I had no idea.

Waiting on your sorry ass...

So, I bought the neck and other than installing the tuning keys and putting a finish on it - it needed nothing.  That certainly is one upside.  The build for this was done by professionals - so it looks good and it functions well.  No arguments there.  But I did want to personalize it a bit.  And of course that's where I got into trouble.  Back in 2010 I added the black stripe and the Irish 5 penny coin..  I was new to these things and as such - it didn't go as well as I would have liked.  Knowing what I know now I would do things a little different.but since fixing these errors would take a looooong time and I'm not sure the coin could be fixed (it's epoxied in there) I'm going to move forward and accept that the headstock won't be perfect.

...to finish what you started.

So, what are we doing?  I'm adding some color to the face of the headstock.  The neck is made of maple (the fingerboard is ebony) which is the same wood as the guitar top.  The difference is that the maple of the body is figured/flamed and the neck is not.  Also, the neck is quarter-sawn wood whereas the guitar top is plain-sawn wood, and finally, the two maples were of different colors - as happens when taking wood from two different trees.  So, my goal is not to match the two woods but rather put them in the same ballpark (I'd be happy with the same zip codes to be honest).

Shellac in esse

To put the headstock in the same color palate I needed to dye the headstock with the same dye and also use shellac.  It became clear to me that the shellac added a lot to the color.  So, I mixed up a small batch of dye and shellac.  You may have noticed in the above photos that I also taped up the neck and filled the tuning peg holes with paper towels to keep the dye/shellac to one area - the face of the headstock.  I'm going to spray the whole neck with nitrocellulose lacquer but I just want color on the face.

Shellac in potentia

I tried to grind up the shellac flakes as fine as I could - to minimize the time it took to dissolve in alcohol but there is no substitute for making this stuff 8 to 12 hours ahead of time.  Next time I will do so.  One other thing that you can't see here is that I added a little dye directly to the shellac to darken it up.  It worked a bit to deepen the color of the shellac - which was good as the neck didn't soak the dye up like the guitar top did.

Wad

Wet

Repeat

After a few coats of dye and about four coats of shellac I was left with...

Whatcha gonna do now?

A slightly brown face.  And all of my mistakes highlighted by the dye.  Oh, goody!
In these last few pictures you can see where my chisel slipped, where the black strip was chipped, and basically everything that isn't quite right.  Ah well...

1970 Irish 5 penny coin

To help things out I used some pore filler to even out the rough spots.  As I wait for that to dry I'll do some soul searching to see if I want to try fixing some of these "beauty marks."

Hmmm...

Let's go shopping!

The source of much debate

There are many things you can fabricate yourself when building a guitar but there are some bits that (to me) just make more sense to buy.  I've seen builders who do build everything from scratch (knobs, pickups, even bridges).  I am not one of them.  

My opinions may change if I ever find myself with copious amounts of extra cash and oodles of spare time.  For now - I'm good with adding to the GNP.  

To that end - I use a variety of suppliers when sourcing parts:

StewMac is a high-end guitar builder's website that has all the parts you could ever need (and all the luthier tools you could ever want).   Luthier's Mercantile (LMI) is a phenomenal site for luthiers that build acoustic guitars but obviously many tools and supplies are transferable to electric guitars. They always have interesting decorative bits that no one else has.  I use Guitar Fetish for mostly necks these days - although I used to get all of my pickups/humbuckers there.  I have also used Greasy Groove, All Parts, and Warmoth for everything from knobs to potentiometers to guitar necks.

Since I'm on the topic - these days I'm getting my lumber from a few places: Woodcraft, Boulter Plywood (in Somerville), and Downes and Reader Hardwood (in Stoughton). 

As you can see - there's no shortage of places to shop.

Every purchase then is a choice when building a guitar and there are usually more than a few options. Go Google, "humbucker" if you want to see what I mean.

And with every choice comes plenty of opinions.  There are people who have strong feelings about the first image on this page.  Strong enough to then turn those feeling to an intense like or dislike for yours truly.  

...although if all emotions in the 'morass of personality' that is the internet are this intense - is anything really intense anymore?

Sorry, I digress...

The first image on this page is what is known as a Tune-o-matic bridge or TOM.  TOM's come in two major flavors: ABR-1 and Nashville.  The one up above is an ABR-1.  The original Les Pauls from the 50's to the 70's used them - so they are the more traditional Les Paul bridge.  The more modern 'Nashville' style TOM is used on most production Les Paul guitars today.  

Other than the above information - I don't have an opinion about which is better/worse.  If I ever build another Les Paul - I'll use a Nashville TOM and let you know which one makes me sound more like a rock god.  Until then - let's just run with the idea that it's a bridge and it'll work.

Abbondanza!

This pile of tightly coiled linguini is binding.  I've messed around with binding twice before.  I used very thin plastic binding (and incredibly thin purfling) on an acoustic guitar build.  I've also used wood binding on a twelve-string electric build that is still unfinished.  The above binding is unlike either.

Kinda looks like a 'Messenger' icon got drunk and fell down..

The thin plastic binding I used on the acoustic build was like handling spaghetti - it took a lot of concentration to keep all the pieces together and in the right place because they were so flexible.  The wood binding was very stiff and would break if you tried to bend it right out of the box.  As it was cocobolo wood - it bent with the application of heat.  The above binding is not thin but it is also not brittle either.  I will likely have to heat it to bend it around corners but no where near as much as I had to heat the cocobolo binding.  Also, it's unlikely that this will break - it is plastic after all.  So, I'm hoping for good things...

The funny thing is that this guitar doesn't strictly need any binding.  Binding us usually used to hide or protect the point where two woods are joined together.  This guitar doesn't have a top or cap - so it is strictly aesthetic on this build.

Really pretty but also really tiny

These beauties are fret marker inlays that may or may not find their way onto the PRS build. They are made of wood (boxwood I believe) and glued to a flexible backing.  When you add them to a fretboard and fill in the cracks and crevices with black epoxy they look like this.

I was going to use them for the Les Paul build but then I saw the below knockouts and thought,"You know, I haven't made this build difficult enough yet."

Shiny

Those are mother of pearl fret markers.  They are the same style used on Les Paul Standard necks and because they are made of shell - they are quite iridescent.  They are purdy and they will make this look more like an actual Les Paul.

Everything's shiny, Cap'n. Not to fret

But they are also a major pain to install.  The above wood fret markers are circular and small.  All you need to do is drill a shallow hole with a forstner bit (preferably on a drill press), drop a dollop of glue in the hole, put the marker in the hole, and you're done.  

Not so much with these guys..

I see a lot of inlay work in my future.  Well, I guess this is better than watching re-runs of The West Wing (...okay, but just barely...). 

Not so shiny

There are other challenges  - like how do I cover up this unfortunate situation at the 12th fret?  I'm thinking maybe something like this but we'll see..

And last but not least - I had to buy some money...

Thankfully I didn't pay face value

I bought these two Irish 20 pence coins on eBay a few years ago (along with another 30 - 40 coins of different denominations).  Since the Irish moved from their own currency to the Euro these things can be had for pennies.  Which is kind of funny - seeing as they are worthless.  

But "a fool and his money..."

I haven't come up with a brand or logo yet for what I'm doing - so in the meantime I've decided to use these as a temporary logo.  It has worked out so far (here, here, and here) so I'm sticking with it for now.

While this particular shopping excursion was fiscally painful it was also successful:

Bridge - StewMac

Binding - StewMac

Celtic dot fret marker inlays - Purflex

Mother of Pearl fret marker inlays - StewMac

Irish 20p coins - eBay

(not pictured) Fretwire - StewMac

Now I just have to save up for those Humbuckers...

Covering my assets

Those are some big clamps

This picture may be deceiving.  I am not, in fact, gluing up another body blank.  The above photo is documenting the first stage of making a veneer for the headstock overlay.  I did this once before on a lapsteel guitar that I built.  But in that case I was using store-bought paper thin veneer and it was to cover up a rather glaring mistake.  This time I'm making it from scratch and it is to tie the neck and the body together in an aesthetic way.  The above laminations are some of the scraps left over from gluing the body blank together.   The two outer pieces are Lacewood, the middle pieces are Basswood and center piece is Purpleheart.  Instead of using the extra mahogany I had left over I just turned the Lacewood on its side - to really show off the laces - as I felt this was missing from the body blank.  I glued and clamped just like with the body blank and was left with this:

Hey, look at that...

A chunk of wood!

Since this was going to need a lot of work - I didn't sand or scrape it much at this point.  I did scrape away any excess dried glue (aka squeeze-out) on the face - but only enough so that this would be flat - not finished.

All your fetishes, nightmares, and guitar plans can be found on the interwebs.

As I am building a Les Paul style guitar - I wanted a Les Paul style headstock.  The Epiphone that I have been using to model/measure doesn't have the traditional Les Paul headstock - so I went digging (or is it trolling - I can never remember) on the internet.  The above image is what I found.  I don't love the above image.  It's close to the shape I had in mind but it's not exact.  The very top of the headstock looks like an open book (or a mustache).  This version is a bit too voluptuous for my taste. I think it should be a bit more subdued.  So, I'll probably modify this.

Anywho!  Depending on which headstock you are creating an homage to, you would: find the image, print it out and then take an exacto blade to it.  And you are left with:

No trademark infringement is intended or implied

One other issue that is a bit of a problem for me is that the headstock on the neck I am modifying isn't the same length or width as the above template.  So, I will need to nip and tuck a bit - on both the existing headstock and the template.  That may cause havoc with the tuning peg holes (the six circles in the above picture).  But we'll burn that bridge when we get to it...

You know the drill...

You trace!

It's the same as about...

You cut with a jig saw!

50% of the posts on here...

You sand!

It's all a bit repetitive, no?

Ah!  Here's something new and dangerous...

You are left with a big frickin block of wood.  How the heck are you going to add this to the headstock?  It'll be two inches thick...?  

Now is the time that you make yourself a veneer (aka a really thin piece of wood).  The best way to do this in a home shop is with a band saw.  Sadly, I don't have one.  And I wasn't wild about the idea of using the jig saw for this.  A jig saw would just make a mess of it.

You could try using a table saw and running the piece through once then flipping it over and running it through again.  But how do you hold such a small piece of wood with a spinning blade of death so close to your fingers?  (No, seriously, if any wood workers want to share that bit of wisdom - I'm open!).  The safest way (and the most time consuming by far) is to use a hand saw in a miter box.  

...so, of course I didn't do it that way either...

I covered the whole thing in double-sided tape, stuck it to the end of a 4 by 4 piece of stock, and ran it through the chop saw.

Kind of like this...

Lessons learned?  

Well... It worked!  

And the saw didn't kick the wood out and hit me in the teeth.  So, I'm kind of happy about that.  

In truth - even after it went through the saw - the workpiece was still pretty stuck to the 4 by 4.  So, it was fairly safe.  I didn't take pictures of this because I was concerned that someone would try it and lose an eyeball (wear your eye protection, you whippersnappers!) but I thought I should come clean - as a big part of this blog is to share my experiences - not just the outcomes.  

Having said that - just as a way to cover my own, ahem, assets - please test the adhesion before you try this.  I made sure that the workpiece and the 4 by 4 were strongly adhered to each other.  I kept my body and face away from the most likely kick-out path of the workpiece.  And I wore enough protection that most of my face was covered (eyes, ears, and nose/mouth).

Another thing that I didn't photograph (but should share) is that I had to do this a second time because the above veneer was too thick.  The second one was about two thirds as thick as the above veneer - and that's the one you see in the photos below.  I used the same process and had the same results.  

I'm always open to safer methods - so please feel free to comment if you have an opinion.

I mustache you...
Do you know how to use that thing?

After the veneer was cut to thickness - it needed to be reshaped to fit the headstock of the neck I'm using.  I used a coping saw to cut the rough shape of the top and also remove a bit from the bottom (where it meets the neck/nut) with the chop saw.  It's hard to see in the below picture but the existing headstock is asymmetrical - so that's why it had to be shorter - as the new headstock shape is symmetrical.

Pictured: Fiddly Routing

Once the headstock veneer was close enough to the shape that I want (yet still fit on the existing headstock) it was time to bust out the router.  Now, with such a thin template (the actual veneer) and the intricacy of the shape - this was some finicky (nay fiddly) routing.  I tried using the double-sided tape to adhere the veneer and the existing headstock - and it worked like a champ.  So, I didn't need to break out any clamps for this job - which made it easier.  Be careful though - if you don't use enough tape - the router will turn that veneer into a missile
.

That's when it goes from fiddling about to flinging about

As you can see - there is some clean up work to be done.  Much of it can be done with the belt sander. Some needs to be done with a coping saw, micro files, and a very sharp chisel.  

How sharp?
Very.

When we get to the part where I glue the veneer to the headstock I'll tackle this properly.  

There's still loads to do (tuning key holes, final shaping, binding, etc.).

Until then here is a preview of things to come.

Dirty Irish Money

Dirty Sexy Guitar