2023 Challenge: Crimson Guitars course - X Jr build Build diary added on pg.3

guitargeek62 · August 2023

^ I seem to have 'lost' my first 'proper' build last year during a breakup. I could have sworn it got packed up with the others, but there's no sign of it now that everything's back out of storage and into my new place.

Still, here's the inspiration for the new build - mine will be a different finish, but this kind of vibe:

Image: https://bankerguitar.com/cdn/shop/files/ExcaliburJrFull.jpg?v=1679060732

longjaw · August 2023

That looks absolutely amazing, apart from the 2 knobs - black LP Custom types would look much better IMO!

WezV · August 2023

i always think the guard should look more like this

I don't mind the straight edge following the bass strings, but dislike the way it meets the fretboard on the treble side

guitargeek62 · August 2023

Nice mockup! I’d probably stick with the Banker style as I may well end up adding a neck pickup one day and I’d just modify the existing pickguard if so.

Then again, after finding this black limba locally today I might not even bother with a pickguard now!

*edit* Pic added of the new timber:

There’s enough for three 2-pc Explorers there, or two plus matched necks. I’d have to laminate the necks for stability, but then they’d have similar grain to the two bodies. Besides, the third (bottom) body would have a slight surface crack through it, so I’ll probably keep it simple and just make the two from this board… or maybe the Exp Jr and a matching V Jr…?

TTony · August 2023

[wood envy]

WezV · August 2023

That's a very good deal on the wood. I didn't realise quite how big it was.

guitargeek62 · August 2023

Yup, this place (Yandles, Somerset) gets some great stuff in at very good prices!

There’s a huge selection of sapele, african mahogany, maples, sycamore, oak, ovangkol, white ash*, ovangkol, wenge, purpleheart, and plenty more exotics there too, and they have their own sawmill onsite so it it’s easy which helps keeps the prices down as they process it all there.

Some of these limba boards today were 14” wide… almost enough for a 1pc explorer body! I suspect I’ll go back and get some more next week

darius · August 2023

@guitargeek62 ;
I did the 6day course in May. I turned up with 2 pickups and no knowledge and built a fantastic HH strat. It looks like you really know what you’re doing. If you haven’t done so already I would call Ricky or Sean at Crimson and make sure they know what you need from the course. The 6day is aimed at the beginner and keeping things simple eg bolt on neck. Just check they will happily accommodate a more advanced build / builder. There were guys on my course that arrived with fully detailed plans of what they were going to build, within a day had completely changed their plans to make sure they finished.

guitargeek62 · August 2023

Thanks @darius, your strat looks great! I've had a few chats with Ricky already and they seem happy enough to do what I'm aiming to acheive - I did email them over the weekend to flip the plans from an LP Jr to an Exp Jr, but the construction is virtually identical so that's a bit of a moot point thankfully

Not long to go now, I start on the 4th

darius · August 2023

Good stuff. As said earlier in thread, the tutors are spread pretty thin and you spend a lot of time getting on with it on your own. Ironically they might spend even less time with you if you know what you’re doing so it pays to be a little pushy to get the most out of them. Depending on who is tutoring they really know their stuff.

Enjoy and take LOTS of photos!

TTony · August 2023

*Definitely* take (and post here) loads of photos !

guitargeek62 · August 2023

I’ll try to remember - I have ADD though so I expect I’ll slip into hyperfocus mode pretty quickly and forget to take many!!

guitargeek62 · September 2023

Right, updates inbound... here's the big reveal though - more to come!

guitargeek62 · September 2023

Daily diaries below, plus overall takeaways at the end.

Day -1/0 "Dawn of the inlay"

I was still not 100% on specs right up until the start, so I figured the best option was to take a bunch of timbers with me and see what the ‘teachers’ thought would be best for the constraints of the course. The day before it started I also got around to prepping my inlays by cutting down some brass-rod into ~2-3mm long sections, ready to install once I got to that stage along with the 5mm black MOP centers that I’d gathered.

Day 1: "A New Hope"

On arrival I met the six other ‘students’ (3 of us on the 6-day course, 4 on the two-week one) and we all had a good natter over our respective builds; there was a diverse mix of experience and styles, with no two of us doing anything remotely similar!

The day got going with a quick review of spec sheets, then into wood selection and timber prep. In hindsight, I should have arranged to take my timbers over in advance* to join and thickness them and save some time on the actual course. We decided to go with a 1-pc neck made of a piece of the (rift-sawn) Ovangkol that I’d brought with me - I’d assumed it might need to be laminated because of the grain orientation, and/or reinforced with graphite rods, but the staff reassured me that it shouldn’t have much movement at all so I went with their advice.

We got going with gathering templates (spot the error…!), thicknessing woods, preparing the headstock angle (no scarf joint needed!), and getting familiar with the overall layout and setup of the workshops. I also met Pippin who obviously got lots of attention!

I then thicknessed and rough-cut the body blank, keeping the offcuts to the side, then glued and clamped it up using those offcuts to help with the awkward shape. Side-note: I’m used to gluing up first, then doing the rough cuts, but I was making a point of following their processes more so than my old and rusty habits!

While that was gluing up I moved back to the neck blank, squared one edge (for the required headstock wing), laid out the templates, rough-cut to shape, glued on the wing, then routed the truss rod channel.

Until this point I was already very familiar with the tools and processes being used, and thankfully I hadn’t forgotten much in the ~12 years since my last scratch-build! Next up was something new though, as I’d only used pre-slotted & radiussed fingerboards before to save time.

I’d chosen a 25” scale and 10” radius for this build to give a smidge more tension for down-tuning to D-standard, and the extra radius to match my PRS guitars that I’m most used to. After slotting, it was time to setup locating dowels and glue on the fingerboard.

After that, it was back to the body to remove the clamps and take it down to final thickness (42mm) before shaping with the table router and templates again.

*Note: apparently they’re implementing a similar rule soon for anyone wanting to bring their own woods with them, you’ll have to get the timbers there ~6wks in advance of your start date to allow them to be prepped.

guitargeek62 · September 2023

Day 2: "Sand(ing)worms of Dune"

Today was pretty much entirely going to be spent on the neck and creating a lot of sweat and sawdust… in the middle of a heatwave.

I started off with the same table router and template method to finalise the neck outline, then took it over to a bench along with some rasps and Iwashi (sp?) files to shape the profile. The files are wonderful to work with and leave a brilliant finish, I’ll be getting a set of them for sure.

Now it was time to flip it over and begin sanding in the fingerboard radius (80-grit through to 320). Ebony is hard!

Next were the inlays which turned out brilliantly. Subtle bling in the best of ways.

My 12-fret side dots (2mm brass rod) aren’t perfectly aligned, but let’s keep that between us…

Time to glue on the ebony headplate (already rough-cut too) and prep the truss rod access:

guitargeek62 · September 2023

Day 3 & 4: "The dark age"

These days blurred together a bit, so I’ll just do the one update for both.

I started a little later on day 3 as it was my boy’s first day of school and I wanted to drop him in first before driving over to Dorchester; all week he had been asking for photos and updates of the build, so hopefully I’ll be able to continue stoking this interest in him too.

Not much to share about this day other than I probably spent too long ensuring the fingerboard rad was perfect and that the fretting went to plan - likely due to some low-level nerves about this stage as I’m out of practice and didn’t want to mess it up! Incidentally, after seeing how the inlays turned out, I decided to go with some Jescar EVO wire that they had left to highlight the brass tones even more.

…I then made a bit of a cockup here and put tooling marks into the beautifully sanded fingerboard that I’d spent so long preparing!!! Thankfully, it’s all repairable, but still very irritating and lost me a chunk of time that day - lesson learned!

I took a breather from the neck at that point and started laying out the neck pocket. We went for an angled neck pocket rather than angling the tenon itself, so a couple of conveniently angled blocks and some careful measuring made that a breeze to setup for.

Then Pippin dropped by and wanted some all-important belly rubs, which I of course had to provide!

Now it was time to go back to the neck and finish those frets off to mirror-perfection, and then scrape out the tooling marks (fret erasers/rubbers helped with this too) and roll the fingerboard edges.

The scraping, erasers, and tape can dry out the wood a bit, so a little fretboard restorer brought it back to life.

Finally, it was back to the body to drill for the bridge and get the body cavities ready ahead of gluing in the neck tomorrow.

The neck was just sat in the pocket at this point, and I’m pleased to say that the fit was perfect.

guitargeek62 · September 2023

Day 5

I started the day feeling acutely aware that there seemed to be a lot left to do, and had to keep reminding myself that from this point on I can still do a bunch of stuff at home if needs be. My prioritization tends to fall apart under stress (yay for ADD…

), so I was now trying to be extra careful about sequencing before making any further mistakes that would cost me even more time. Still, onto the fun stuff!

I’d been in two minds about adding comfort carves, as that seemed counterintuitive to the Junior ethos that I was going for but I figured it’s my build so what the hell. I settled on a rib contour and a leg one (‘borrowed’ from Collings), and laid them out using tape to help keep angular lines in keeping with the X shape. I used some funky angle grinder bits for the rough carve, then tidied them up with those lovely Iwashi files that I used on the neck carve too.

Remember what I said about poor prioritization skills? Well, clearly it was time to fabricate a bunch of parts from spare ebony stock that I had with me…

I even found an offcut for the TRC that oriented and matched pretty damn well with the headplate:

It was now time to finish sand the body to 320-grit, then get it stained and glue the neck in at last. I don’t have any pics of the sanding, but here’s some of the finish process at least! I'd initially been thinking of going for a greened-silver fox type finish, but as @WezV had just done that lovely offset Jr, and because this limba had some great figure in it I changed tac and mixed up something more akin to dirty olive. I did think about using some grain-enhancing filler too, but once the stain was on I didn't really feel it needed it. The colour is a bit more muted in-person, but still different and eye-catching enough to stand out... as if the X shape itself didn't already do that. I mixed up more stain than I'd realised, and had enough left for another couple of bodies so I may well end up making a matching Flying V and/or non-reverse Firebird in the new year out of another piece of this Black Limba.

I'd also had the fantabulous and sensible idea to add another unnecessary detail which definitely wouldn't take any time at all...

So, that 'unnecessary detail'...

Had I thought of it sooner I'd have a) disregarded it for a later build, and b) sequenced it better so that making it fit into the build at this stage was somewhat simpler!

Essentially, I wanted to add an ebony heelplate, but I also wanted to inlay it with something sentimental. Because I'd already carved the neck by this point it meant some careful clamping, shaping, and filling (thank f*ck for easy ebony repairs!!!) to make it all work. The daisy inlay itself won't have any meaning to you lot, but it's a reminder of someone very dear to me who's no longer with us. I could have done a better job by saving it for a later build, but I'm glad I did it on this one and it's puts a smile on my face knowing it's there when I've been playing this.

I plan to include heel-plates as a standard feature on my future builds, probably with rear plates on the headstocks too with carved 'stingers' on the neck transitions (Note: future ones will be sequenced better and then carved more consistently as a result!). I feel that they're nice details that are purely cosmetic, and a tip-of-the-hat to more traditional techniques.

guitargeek62 · September 2023

Day 6: "This is the End(-ish)"

We'd glued the neck up overnight, so first things first was to unclamp it and enjoy seeing the fruits of my labours together properly for the first time... for about 10 seconds before jumping straight into all the jobs needed that day!

Still to go: flashcoat finish, oil the neck, make a pickguard and jack-plate, drill some more holes, fit the parts, mount the tuners, cut a nut, setup the guitar, make a wiring loom, plug it in, rock out... all in eight little hours.

As you can see, the body was much more muted once the stain had dried out, but I knew that adding a flashcoat (or any finish really) would bring that contrast and grain back.

First up was levelling off the raised tenon from the neck joint. Initially I'd planned to route for a neck pickup too, so I hadn't been particularly precious about a perfect end-fit of the tenon, but as I'd decided to stick with the Jr vibe later on it was a bit late to sort that out - thankfully the small gap would be covered by the yet-to-be-made pickguard anyway.

I passed the guitar over to one of the tutors (Sofia) who took over for prepping and applying the acrylic PU flashcoat on the body (but not the neck). This finish would be just enough to seal the body and add a satin sheen, but still leaving an open-pore and tactile feel that I'd wanted.

The neck will get an oil finish in a bit once the acyrlic had cured enough to work around again (~60-90mins).

While that was drying out I got started on the pickguard template, based on a standard X one plus measurements of my build.

All important notes to myself for adding the bevels in selected places only!

I left the final shaping of the pickup and neck-join on the pickguard until the body had cured so that I could get the lines just right. I think I'll make another though as I want to re-work the outline very slightly.

My collection of DIY ebony parts grew some more, with the addition of a jack-plate to match the TRC and coverplate. It'll probably crack in usage, but they're fun details to craft and I'll enjoy it while it lasts. I purposefully left it reasonably thick (~3.5mm), so who knows - it might surprise me and stay in one piece for a while.

Another first for me was using neo-mags to affix the control cover, along with a notch for lifting it out. These are fiddly little shits to use, but it does look very tidy once it's all mounted... I could be convinced to use them again.

Then it was back to the heel-plate to tidy up some of the transitions and fill a couple of spots to blend it in better with the neck-join. The whole ebony-sawdust & superglue trick is simply magical, these fills were invisible once I sanded them back.

Time to add some oil to the neck...

...and then discover a problem while mounting the tuners. Do you remember I mentioned that I had the wrong neck template back on Day 1? I only found this out here, when I then realised they'd given me a hockey-stick type by accident instead of the proper Explorer one. ALWAYS CLEARLY MARK YOUR TEMPLATES!!! What this meant for me is that my tuners were quite a tight fit on the headstock, and that my top-e string's break angle isn't where I want it to be. However, it's all structurally sound and won't affect playability at all so not much of an issue in the grand scheme of things. For this build I'm using some nickel Guyker 18:1 ratio locking tuners for a nice balance of Jr vibe and convenience.

I decided not to rush the rest by trying to get it all wired and setup too that day as I was now pretty pushed for time, so I got the rest of it together, cut the nut, and went for a beer with the group instead!

guitargeek62 · September 2023

Post-course / day 7+ tasks

So I walked away from the six-days with an unwired guitar that needed a final setup, but otherwise was essentially complete. I'm happy with that, especially given the number of unnecessary bits I made there too when I could have used off-the-shelf parts instead and saved myself a good few hours. Even unplugged the guitar had great sustain & clarity, it's loud too which I'm sure the dense Ovangkol neck and the simple bridge both help with!

Still, here's what is/was left over to-do at home:

Wiring (now completed)
Setup (now completed)
Source different knobs and a nickel pickup cover
Settle on a pickup (Amber vs BKP 'Pig 90 vs...?)
Adapt/make another pickguard that highlights the P90 and fretboard-end V detail a little better
Add a headstock logo, maybe try out a silk-screen one after experimenting on scrap first

Final specs:

Body: Black Limba 2pc
Neck: 1pc Ovangkol || ‘58 C profile, comfortably chunky
Fingerboard: Ebony || 10” radius
Frets: Jescar 47104 EVO Gold
Pickup: Amber Dog-ear P90 (tbc)
Bridge: Faber compensated wraparound & locking posts, nickel
Tuners: Guyker 6IL locking, nickel
Inlays: Brass w/black MOP centers, brass side-dots
Finish: Custom stain using Crimson’s water-based stunning stains || Acrylic PU flashcoat on the body || Crimson oil finish on the neck

guitargeek62 · September 2023

Overall course thoughts

I went into this course with two particular goals in mind;

Figure out if I still want to build guitars for myself
Learn what I can from Crimson's process

You'll notice that walking away with a guitar that I've built wasn't actually a goal, but a happy by-product of the process for me! Thankfully, I'm pretty damned happy with the 'by-product' though, and even more happy at how much I enjoyed being at Crimson and working with my hands properly again. I am definitely going to be setting up my workshop now over the winter with a view of beginning builds from ~Easter again. I've already got my next ~4-5 builds roughly planned out (and I've got most of the timbers here for them too!), with each one focussing on a particular new skill or technique that I've not really used before.

The course itself is pretty forgiving to those coming in with little to no experience, so don't let that put you off if you're considering it. Two of the guys there had barely held power tools before and yet they've walked away with fantastic builds and really enjoyed themselves. Yes, you will absolutely make mistakes, but that's also part of the journey - one of the fun parts (imo at least) is figuring out how best to solve those hiccups when they happen, though in an ideal world they wouldn't happen at all of course. The staff at Crimson are very knowledgable and do tailor the level of instruction to your ability; they're not overbearing at all, but will happily stay with you through the various stages as much as you need. You'll have your own workbench and set of key tools to hand, plus there's enough of the rest to keep everyone busy without having to wait around for things. There's also a great set of instructions under each workbench to follow and sense-check against too which get sent onto you via email after the course.

I'm pretty fortunate that this place is just 30mins from my door, I didn't need to factor in accommodation costs*, and because I sourced my own timbers and parts I managed to keep the entire build down to a pretty reasonable cost. I'm planning on going back there to do one or two of their other courses, particularly the pickup winding one as that's something I've not tried before. I also asked if they have any plans to offer courses on more fundamental skills like tool sharpening and finishing, and they seem to be things that are being mulled over there. On top of that, if I wanted to I can rent bench space/workshop access too, so that will greatly accelerate the rest of my builds and also simplify some of the kit I was planning to acquire for my own workshop.

*Incidentally, I could probably put someone up if they wanted to do the 6-day course from mine, but Crimson can also set you up with local accommodation for some very reasonable rates in the ~£140/wk range.

stickyfiddle · September 2023

Nice! I missed the Aug updates so glad I'm in first for the completion. Looking forward to seeing more details.

I'm dying to do one of these one day

WezV · September 2023

Looking great. That Limba is lovely

roberty · September 2023

Wow mate top stuff

TTony · September 2023

Love the way that the Limba has taken the stain. Very unusual, and very nice.

guitargeek62 · September 2023

TTony said:

Love the way that the Limba has taken the stain. Very unusual, and very nice.

Cheers! It’s mixed from a couple of the Crimson water-based stains - I was aiming for a dirty olive kinda colour, though it doesn’t look quite as vivid as this in-person.

@Roberty I’ll bring it along to the SW Jam in a few weeks too

Chris.B · September 2023

That looks like a fine guitar, I hope you had a great time building it.

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the course, tuition, facilities, worload against available time etc.

davros · September 2023

Chris.B said:

That looks like a fine guitar, I hope you had a great time building it.

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the course, tuition, facilities, worload against available time etc.

Me too, I did the 6 day course in 2019 and that set me off with building. The tutors have all changed now, so interested in your experience.

WezV · September 2023

Good updates, although this placeholder method does mean your thread doesn't get bumped when you do one.

I made quite a few ovankgol necks on my early builds. I agree with Crimson that you will get away without it being perfectly flat or quatersawn. It feels great with an oil finish too

Chris.B · September 2023

Very much enjoyed your diary, thanks for taking the time to write and post it.

guitargeek62 · September 2023

More to come! Day six, overall thoughts, and post-course updates to come once I get through my morning meetings

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2023 Challenge: Crimson Guitars course - X Jr build Build diary added on pg.3

Comments

Day -1/0 "Dawn of the inlay"

Day 1: "A New Hope"

Day 2: "Sand(ing)worms of Dune"

Day 3 & 4: "The dark age"

Day 6: "This is the End(-ish)"

Post-course / day 7+ tasks

Overall course thoughts

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Become a Subscriber!

2023 Challenge: Crimson Guitars course - X Jr build **Build diary added on pg.3**

Comments

Day -1/0 "Dawn of the inlay"

Day 1: "A New Hope"

Day 2: "Sand(ing)worms of Dune"

Day 3 & 4: "The dark age"

Day 6: "This is the End(-ish)"

Post-course / day 7+ tasks

Overall course thoughts

2023 Challenge: Crimson Guitars course - X Jr build Build diary added on pg.3