Rabs Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 Wow. Awesome... As I have always said.. None of this is rocket science... You just need to try it a few times to understand exactly whats going on, after that its just good tool use and planning :) Great stuff And yes, I too got some amazing wood cheap by not using traditional luthier suppliers.. I found a local joinery company who make massive frames and stair cases and stuff like that.. Their offcuts are more than big enough for luthier work and they almost give it away to me :) and we are talking, oak, beech, maple and several mahogany type woods. Its like when I first started.. I went around taking old doors out of skips and picking up pallets from industrial estates.. just to get wood to work with and practice on.. Its amazing (and rather sad) how much perfectly good wood is thrown away just to be scrapped and burned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kent04 Posted June 14, 2016 Author Share Posted June 14, 2016 Wow. Awesome... As I have always said.. None of this is rocket science... You just need to try it a few times to understand exactly whats going on, after that its just good tool use and planning :) Great stuff And yes, I too got some amazing wood cheap by not using traditional luthier suppliers.. I found a local joinery company who make massive frames and stair cases and stuff like that.. Their offcuts are more than big enough for luthier work and they almost give it away to me :) and we are talking, oak, beech, maple and several mahogany type woods. Its like when I first started.. I went around taking old doors out of skips and picking up pallets from industrial estates.. just to get wood to work with and practice on.. Its amazing (and rather sad) how much perfectly good wood is thrown away just to be scrapped and burned. a few days ago i was jogging through my neighborhood and stumbled across some houses being developed. I found myself in the "trash bin" pulling out perfectly good pieces of pine for jigs etc... some people looked at me funny for good reason, i was shirtless wearing sunglasses, sweaty, in short shorts carrying a bunch of wood through my neighborhood. i embrace the crazy.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kent04 Posted June 15, 2016 Author Share Posted June 15, 2016 Figuring out how to apply a fretboard radius has been occupying my mind for weeks. Ive watched so many videos, each with a different methodology. again, Cheapness is the mother of invention. I have a fire pit ring in my backyard made of steel. Its machined and coincidentally has a diameter of 23 inches. i rolled this baby into my shop and found its lip perfectly fits into my bench vice. i cut a piece of adhesive sandpaper and viola, perfect fretboard radius between 11" and 12" inches For other builders out there. I bet most standard trash cans have a similar diameter. this method is cheap and easy, just like me! i started to cut the neck taper last night. once its cut i can sand in the fretboard radius and start shaping the headstock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kent04 Posted June 15, 2016 Author Share Posted June 15, 2016 Figuring out how to apply a fretboard radius has been occupying my mind for weeks. Ive watched so many videos, each with a different methodology. again, Cheapness is the mother of invention. I have a fire pit ring in my backyard made of steel. Its machined and coincidentally has a diameter of 23 inches. i rolled this baby into my shop and found its lip perfectly fits into my bench vice. i cut a piece of adhesive sandpaper and viola, perfect fretboard radius between 11" and 12" inches For other builders out there. I bet most standard trash cans have a similar diameter. this method is cheap and easy, just like me! i started to cut the neck taper last night. once its cut i can sand in the fretboard radius and start shaping the headstock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kent04 Posted June 15, 2016 Author Share Posted June 15, 2016 Website hiccuped, Double post apology Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted June 16, 2016 Share Posted June 16, 2016 Interesting... ive never seen that before.. A unique way of getting your radius on :) That's one of the things I did pay up for, a radius block...... I do wonder how the big companies do their radiusing... In all the videos online of the factory tours for various big companies ive never seen how they do that... Id love to find a faster way of doing it, especially when I work on an Ebony board, seems to take forever Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kent04 Posted June 21, 2016 Author Share Posted June 21, 2016 Is this body too thin? with the carve its about 1.60 inches im gonna start a new thread on the topic, if it is too small ill have to either start over or add a few layers to the backside and route them flush with my table router What is everyones thoughts on this headstock does it look too Jeston's? i kinda like it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pesh Posted June 27, 2016 Share Posted June 27, 2016 Headstock design looks pretty cool; I like Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kent04 Posted July 12, 2016 Author Share Posted July 12, 2016 Its been a hectic summer, wife and i are going through IVF which means i get to routinely take off work and sit around the house, used my time to finish up the neck. i am extremely satisfied with how its turned out so far. its dimensions are intentionally closer to a classical guitar than any of the Gibson i have. i like the room a classical guitar gives you between the strings, i also have really large hands which is why i prefer a wider neck. cut the neck pocket a few days ago. I don't know if splintering is specific to cedar or if its just the cedar boards that im using. the neck fits the pocket snug enough to support the body when lifting the neck, but there are obvious gaps in places. im not concerned about the gaps, ill just fill them with sawdust and glue when i install the neck. theyre not really visible unless you get up close. pretty good considering i used a hammer and chisel after reading through everything i could find, i found it was easier to put the neck angle into the butt of the neck and not in the neck cavity in the body. i plan on using a floating bridge, i prefer them to tuneomatics because they intonate more reliably. i measured the height of my L4 floating bridge and nut and mocked up 2 of sanding stones as reference (bridge and nut). getting the neck angle perfect was much easier than i thought it would be. strings sit exactly 3 8ths of an inch above the fretboard not including frets at fret 0 and fret 21, action should be perfect. im really liking the look of this first build, ordered 2 P90 pickup kits last night. now its time to build a winder. i ordered a cheap counter from china, dont know if it will work yet. what are some tricks to getting the correct number of winds without a counter? i could use math to figure the weight of 10k winds and put the spool on a sensitive scale measure out the exact distance 10k winds and spool only enough per pickup pray that using the counter i bought will work effortlessly buy a cheap calculator and put together a digital counter like others on the internet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kent04 Posted July 18, 2016 Author Share Posted July 18, 2016 Tried to use the analog counter i purchased from China this weekend. it worked, just not very reliably. so i ordered a cheap reed switch and $1.00 calculator from amazon. soldered the leeds from the reed switch to the "equals" function of the calculator and rigged up the reed switch magnets to count each wind. it can accurately count 400 turns per minute. the p90s im building have alinico 5 magnets so i plan on under winding them a little. 8,500 winds should take about 20 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 That's really cool.. Ive never even considered making my own pickups... Maybe one day... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kent04 Posted July 29, 2016 Author Share Posted July 29, 2016 havent had a ton of free time to finish this project. Its soooooo close to being completed but things just keep coming up. i wanted to create a control cavity unlike antyhing else ive seen. I have an obsession with magnetics and have seen a few luthiers use magnets to hold down control covers. I didnt want to recess the cavity, so i installed 6 neodydium magnets in the body cavity and cover pate. They hold tight, but because there is no recess, the cover is compromised by lateral movement. So i put three oak 1/2 inch dowells to anchor the plate latarally. It works perfectly, looks really cool and has a very low profile. I still need to sand the dowells so that theyre flush with the top of the cavity cover. They will end up looking like knots in the wood heres a video of the control cavity held on by magnets I chiseled out the pickup cavities. the diagonal lines in the face make it appear offset, its just an illusion, but i am still going to clean up/sqaure up the edges and use wood filler before staining Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kent04 Posted August 9, 2016 Author Share Posted August 9, 2016 Finished winding the p90s I'm putting in this build. Alnico 5 magnets,neck is wound to 7.1, bridge 8.9 Winding was more fun than I imagined, and didn't take long at all. 20 bucks for a high end pickup is cheap Checking DC resistance Winding the pickup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted August 9, 2016 Share Posted August 9, 2016 Cool.. are you going to wax dip them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kent04 Posted August 17, 2016 Author Share Posted August 17, 2016 Finnally finished my first build. Spent this evening setting it up. The action is perfect and i cannot believe how good it sounds and plays I recorded 2 videos with my phone, first one is normal volume, second is low volume, both dont do it justice Sound test Low volume sound test Huge thanks to everyone Ive always wanted a PRS.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted August 17, 2016 Share Posted August 17, 2016 Impressive You did a lot better than I did on my first build which failed cos I did the neck angle totally wrong.... Very cool =D> I tell you what as well.. You guys in the states have way more selection of nice flamy tops and wood than we do over here, and its cheaper than I can get it over here... im always perusing ebay for tops and stuff.. and im jelous of what you guys can get.. the postage and import tax makes it not worth it for me to get from the US.. Check this http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/adktonewood/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from= Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pesh Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 Very cool; congratulations on the completion! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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