WezV - Offset DC Jnr build

WezV · August 2023

Although the idea of doing a fanned fret with old fashioned rule of 18 spacing does make me smile

WezV · August 2023

playing with colour

from this I will see about designing a suitable engraving for the plate - and come up with some custom inlays

Roland · August 2023

Are you thinking bronze metallic or flat colour?

WezV · August 2023

Neither

WezV · August 2023

i've added some wood grain for you

WezV · August 2023

i will also make an engraved metal plate, but do a plain plastic one along with it

Sesh · August 2023

The controls look much better in the lower position.

WezV · August 2023

yes, that had been bugging me, but it does on proper juniors if i look too hard

PeteC · August 2023

Shaping up great. Are you going for fir clear nitro over the Idigbo or going for a tint?

The Idigbo shot early in the thread looked pretty close to a brownish Korina already

WezV · August 2023

I will see how it looks with sealer on and tint if needed.

The neck lams do have some darker sections so tinting may even it all out

Jez6345789 · August 2023

Nice design I played around with something similar recently showed it to a friend he said looks like your PRS and despite owning it for years and heard Prs talk about his love of double cuts I had never really correlated the two till that moment.

Yours is really nice the rear slope and horns subtly set it apart.

As always inspiring work

WezV · August 2023

The Jnr inspiration is more clear when you see those earliest PRS. They are the exact shape, he just made it fancy. Paul is very open about his influences, which I like.

Jez6345789 · August 2023

Cant blame a man for loving Jnr lol

subscribed

WezV · August 2023

I cut some head and heel plates from the spare idigbo, then cut the face plate on the laser.
It will need thicknessing down to 1.5-2mm once the inlay glue dries

PeteC · August 2023

WezV said:

The Jnr inspiration is more clear when you see those earliest PRS. They are the exact shape, he just made it fancy. Paul is very open about his influences, which I like.

Those early handmade solid mahogany PRS’s are some of the his IMO

theres a really early solid mahogany one with a carved top and a thin abalone inlay down the centre seam ( presumably to conceal a glue line or fault or something) - and it looks superb

The DC junior influence is clear and its no bad thing at all.

I really like your offset DC design Wez - builds on tradition but with a new slant ( literally!)

WezV · August 2023

Body is cut out

Neck lams are also glued, and levelled off on the front faces

I've levelled off the heel section on the back too, using a small router thicknesses

And a piece of idigbo is glued on there to make up the heel

I've also glued some ears on the headstock and radiused the fretboard ready for lasering

PeteC · August 2023

The Idigbo looks a good light brown. Whats the weight like ? Ive found that the yellower stuff tends to be a bit heavy and the light brown tends to be lighter and more resonant.

WezV · August 2023

It feels pretty light. I haven't actually weighed it yet though

PhilKing · August 2023

At this rate you will have it ready when I get over!

WezV · August 2023

I'm sure progress will slow down again once the kids mum brings them back from holiday and they go back to school, but I'm making the most of my quiet time

WezV · August 2023

I made a new neck and neck pocket template, since I changed the length of the tenon and scale length from the early design.

I also marked out and routed the board with the laser. Inaly routes are 1.8mm deep. I still haven't decided what material to inlay. I was going to use harvite for a clay inlay look, but wasn't happy with the way the laser was cutting it.

Weight of all the wooden bits so far

WezV · August 2023

This little router jig is proving very useful

I've just used it to level the front and rear headplates down to 1.2mm each.

I've also:
*trimmed the board, still need to plane the edges.
*trimmed the neck to shape.
*routed the neck angle onto the heel
*cut the neck pocket
*routed for a humbucker and control cavity

That brings the current weight down to.....

I think I need to add another route under the guard so I can take the pickup wire well away from the bridge post... it's looking like it will get a bit close if I go straight to the control cavity

WezV · August 2023

I decided to have a play with inlay materials. I could find very little info on whether the diode laser would cut or engrave pearl, so I gave it a go.

I do know CO2 lasers can be problematic with peal as the light refracts inside the pearl and can turn it to dust - make it hard to get clean lines. any success with pearl tends to be with the wafer thin stuff. The same seems to be true from my tests with the diode laser

The engraving is a little fuzzy at the edges, but worked reasonably well - i added filler so you could see it

I could not get it to cut through. I tried 20 or 30 passes, it gets quite far then wont go further. Also the edges start to deteriorate more

This can be a problem with the lasers on some materials. They cut so far, then dust orscorched buildup reduces their effectiveness and they don't cut any further no matter how many passes you do.

It might be good for scoring the pearl ready for hand cutting the final shape - but this pearl is too white for this guitar anyway! Note the more shiny peice of pearl blew out on the edges a lot more

I went back to the harvite I tried yesterday - this is a "clay" type material used in old poker chips. It is basically crushed stone and resin

It does burn a bit and had the same problem as the pearl in that it goes so far, then no further

but this is a crumbly material, so from there I could snap the inlays out of the chip - the rough edge on one side doesn't matter as the good side fits right it

they should look good once tidied up - will let you know once they glue dries and i can level them off

WezV · August 2023

The edges could have been a little neater, but overall I'm happy with how that looks. I didn't want anything too fancy looking, but still wanted something different to normal dots

SteveF · August 2023

Really like the look of those Wez, I think you’re getting your money’s worth out of that laser!

WezV · August 2023

I'm trying to figure eout everything I can do, but it would pair nicely with a CNC for things like this

Penn · August 2023

@WezV I love the stuff you make. I can’t wait to see this finished.

roberty · August 2023

I really love this shape

WezV · August 2023

I've added a wiring route under the guard, routed for rear cavity cover, added a gut cut, and roughed the neck in ready for carving once I have added the front and rear headstock veneers

WezV · August 2023

I've put together a humbucker to go in this. I got some stew-mac kits years ago, the bobbins have been banging around in a tool box for most of that time and have picked up a nice bit of ageing. I still might cover it for this, but i'm not mad at how it looks now

It's 7.2k alnico 5 with offset coils. The screw coil has 10% more winds than the slug. I'm hoping this keeps it spanky

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WezV - Offset DC Jnr build

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