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Day 1 of the next batch, there's a few non standard bits in here that you will see come to life as they go on,
First step of any guitar is to glue up the blanks, I planed them to size a couple of weeks ago to let them rest and today I straight line ripped them on the panel saw and then put them in the sash clamps. I know people say the phrase 'they dont make em like they used to' a lot but this doubley applies to sash clamps. You genuinely cannot get clamps of this style and quality anymore, any modern examples have much finer pitched threads or flexible bars, these are Woden, but I also have them from Record too and would happily still to this day pay £20-30 a clamp at a boot sale.
This is exactly what we are looking for, a perfect even level of squeeze out on the underside - means ive just just the right amount of glue and the joint is perfect.
Throughout the day I was able to get 4 blanks glued up, 3 in Poplar and one in Red Cedar (one of the special orders).
So between the gluing I began preparing the neck blanks, they are cut from a large piece of maple I bought a couple of weeks ago. I first plane them to thickness and then chop them up until blanks close to my final size.
This is it as it arrives. I managed to yield 6 flat sawn blanks from this.
I first roughtly trace out the outline of the templates onto the blanks, and then rough cut them to shape on my bandsaw.
I then attach the template to the blank, I use screws here, the holes made by the screws get completely removed when the truss rod channel is routed. I have used tape at this stage in the past but you cannot beat the firmness of a screw hold.
I then use the template bit on the router table and gently nibble away to transfer the shape of the pattern to the blank.
I advance the bit height in stages so that I get as little tearout as possible
I'm then able to remove the template from the blank and reference the blank itself to complete the shape
And we have a set of complete blanks
Before I leave the workshop for the day, I use my fret scale ruler to carefully mark out the 24" scale fretboard. I typically use a fret slotting jig but the 25.5" pattern is the only one I have with it. I figured as I dont do 24" so often I would just mark it out by hand, and knife line each of the fret slots in before sawing. After checking it against the scale ruler, I managed to get it perfect
Im using my excellent LSS (Starrett) combination square, made around 1900 which to this day is still perfectly square, its a joy to use and I found it in a vintage clothes shop oddly enough.
What an excellent day, so glad to be bringing more guitars to life!
Here's a teaser of that Cedar body, its wonderfully light
I flatten on the blank, and clean them up with my scraper plane, I then transfer the template onto it and rough cut the shape nice and close on the bandsaw
Then nicely pattern routed on the router table, this blank is coming out very light - which was the whole idea, great!
But my Sunday was certainly a little different!
I'm lucky enough to have a bit of background in 3D Modelling, can you see where this is going?
A CNC router is on order..
The current batch will still be 'router' made but I'm gearing up to have the necks and bodies made on my own CNC. Of course this only really takes care of the basic processes, ensuring excellent consistency, but the really important bits will continue to and always be done by hand. The fretwork, finishing, detail and critical sanding will remain just the same!
What I have done though is make excellent progress on the body model for the CNC, im starting to get to grips with fusion!
First job was to get the fret slots into the boards, I use a jig from GMC luthier tools,
It's a great little jig, although having used it for some time now I've actual taken to a hybrid approach with it,
What I do is use it to very quickly establish the saw kerfs, its very accurate at this with the lower guides. I then remove it from the jig and saw to depth with a traditional fret slotting saw and depth stop.
I then set about routing the truss rod cavities into the neck blanks, for this I use a shop made jig combined with the festool rail system with indexing holes. Basically the neck wedges into the jig (being secured with a wedge) and I can just ride the router up and down the track, simple!
Once thats done - and the enlarged section for the adjuster is routed, I mark them up precisely to drill the heel access hole. I do this with a knife and then mount them in the vice for drilling. I set aside and save a specific drill bit for this that's always sharp so I get a perfect surface finish
The rods fit in really tightly, they will never rattle!
Last job of today was to trim the fretboards flush with the edge of the necks, this is just for ease of clamping, the necks get shaped a little more before being married up to their neck pockets.
You make a few guitars in a week ....
Luckily, it’s just a small-part-time hobby for me!
Quick question, is there a reason for having the truss rod adjusting at the heel of the neck? Having it at the head end seems more logical to me in terms of access (although this is an entirely uninformed opinion, as none of my electrics have a heel adjuster), and certainly seems to be the more common choice, is there a disadvantage to this that you're avoiding?
Thanks so much for the kind words.
That's an excellent question! You'll see the majority of guys who make guitars do the adjustment at the heel. For me the reason is twofold. Firstly, getting the headstock access looking clean and consistent can be a frustrating process when you are making guitars on a smaller scale. Without a machine dedicated to boring the holes precisely each time you often get different appearances on the hole. For example if you drill at a different angle you can end up with a longer looking access as the angle is steeper or in a worse case you can drill at a steeper angle and end up with a hole that goes too low into the truss rod and removes wood unnecessarily. The second reason is that having it at the heel allows you to leave more material at the headstock transition. Not that maple fender style headstocks break all that often but it's certainly nice to end up with more material around there. Fender does a great job with their headstock adjust truss rods by having the walnut plug there and making the access hole only as big as it needs to be.
I definitely agree it's a little more of a pain to adjust, but thanks to using threaded inserts on the neck it's certainly much easier than having to worry about stripping the wood out of the neck joint every time when using screws alone. I think overall though having such a clean headstock is definitely a plus and it certainly make manufacturing them more consistent in the absence of some kind of angled drilling machine.
Thanks again
https://graingerguitarparts.com/products/grainger-truss-rod-wheel-adaptor-gtwa-0001
The thought of having to take the neck off to adjust relief gives me the heeby-jeebies, it would just allow for so many more opportunities for me to damage something!
First was getting the boards radiused, like before I do the rough part of this with the scraper plane. It gives me the best balance of reduced tearout and good amounts of stock removal. You might notice I've glued the boards to the neck blanks first this time and after doing it this way I certainly prefer it.
Great shavings means a sharp plane!
I then sand the radius, which doesnt take a long time thanks to the previous stock removal
The slots are then re established to depth
I then layout the fret markers on the board
Carefully drill the holes to just the right depth
And the finally bonded in
They are then flushed up carefully to the surface of the board with a couple of swips with the radius block, and job done! Now ready for fretting
I then gently sneaked up on the neck fitment. I use really fine carving files and a block plane to bring the fitment nice and close
I then move onto fairing the transition between the two levels of carves
I then do the final finish sanding and the body is pretty much ready for paint!
In other news, the CNC is arriving on Monday! My body paths are looking really tidy, too
Got the CNC in and really went to town with it.
So the pallet arrived first thing (great start) and I got to unpacked the box and accounting for everything. I then got to lifting it onto the table I made for it over the weekend. This wasn't the easiest task as even with a few lads this thing is a backbreaker! Luckily the pallet stacker we use for our sheets came in perfectly here,
It's a proper industrial little CNC, water cooled spindle with everything on it being made to run all day all week. Huge ball screws and beautiful linear rails to compliment them - great!
So after I'd wired it up, hooked up the coolant pump and got myself familiar with the controller I was able to start my first go at this. I have no history with CNC but thankfully Fusion 360's CAM toolset is excellent and very simple to use. After spending the last 2 weeks in all my spare time in front of the software, I had a full list of programs ready for the guitar bodies. First job was to mark the centre of my stock and then zero the origin of the X+Y over that spot. This was because the origin I had specified in my drawings was also in the dead centre of my stock.
After zeroing the X&Y I used the provided sensor puck to 'touch off' the tool, so the machine knew the zero of the Z axis.
So with optimistic caution I ran the first program, this was to cut a shallow outline of the body so that I can bandsaw off the waste to give the machine less of a hard time trenching out the material.
Success! It was so exciting to see this coming to life after having it in just the digital world for the past couple weeks.
Next program was for the pickup and electrical cavities
I then ran another program to clean the edges of the cavities - I left 0.5mm from the first roughing pass
Then onto the neck pocket as its own program, I wanted to be able to do this in finer increments to ensure the best finish
https://youtu.be/VWwBhgRPB9g
And the final program with the straight bit was to cut the perimeter. I actually didnt have a bit long enough so I took it as deep as I could (by adjusting the origin Z up a bit) and then flushed trimmed the remainder on the router table.
https://youtu.be/RMf_Px5icBo
So for the final process I installed my 8mm round end bit, for some 3d carving,
First job was to do a very rough pass with large stepovers
And then a much longer program to smooth it all out - I need to adjust this one as It seems to be cutting a little too deep. I fixed this on this process by peforming a flycut after the fact but I will fix this for the next body.
I then took it off the CNC, flush trimmed that last bit of border off and lightly sanded the top,
So pleased with the outcome!
All the work learning all this has paid off, it really isnt a process of click and comes out a guitar, this simply just takes out a bulk of the manual labour process. The fine hand finishing all still remains but this just means I end up with an even more consistent product.
Can't wait to cut more, and get onto the necks!
Apologies for the mega long post!
I did some CNC'ing today.
For some reason, the machine changed the zero point mid-way through the cut. I noticed the cut going a little astray, so stopped it, told it to go back to zero (as a first step in diagnosing what went wrong), and it definitely went back to a different zero to the zero it started from.
Hmmmmmmmm ......