Rabs Posted December 4, 2013 Author Share Posted December 4, 2013 Hello and welcome to todays update... This will be a fairly big one as I did a good amount :)) So... Inlays and side dots done So there was a small couple of holes around the edges so I decided to add rosewood dust and superglue just to be sure they are all as smooth as possible So while that's drying (I wont leave this overnight.. no need)... I am going to test my fretpress, which I had to make myself from an arbor press and some fret blocks that I bought.. Now these fret blocks or whatever they are called are what its all about.. I have several different radius sizes.. but we want the 12" And goes in like this (but not so blurry :)) So ive never actually used it before so am going to do a test fret on that Build 2 neck (that's screwed) PRETTY darn good.. well happy with that considering it took me like 15 hours to do the frets last time First I need to make sure the fret slots are deep enough you can see here some are deeper than others More below Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 4, 2013 Author Share Posted December 4, 2013 Then I sanded the extra glue off and its all ready for its fretting.. which I really hope goes better than last time :) Then I have to make a small groove, well you don't actually have too but its wise to do as it does two things.. Firstly it helps guide the tang into the slot (the bar bit at the bottom of the fret wire) and secondly if myself or anyone has to re-fret it a few years down the line (assuming it gets finished :)) then when you take the frets out, if it has a groove it will be less inclined to rip the rosewood off at the same time. Without With added groove So here we go.. all ready to fret First I prepared my frets by cutting to rough length required And here we go.. first one done and im real happy with that... no fuss no bother just goes straight in.. And the glue coming out the side is a good thing, mean its filled any gaps which makes the fretboard more solid Here you can see what I was talking about with the body getting in the way.. BUT I managed to get up to like the 17th fret so that's pretty good.. Continued below Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 4, 2013 Author Share Posted December 4, 2013 So instead I used the radius block and a clamp and a soft faced hammer to finish any frets that didn't go all the way in AND all done... :D As I say this took me about 5 hours compared to the 15 hours over three days last time. I also trimmed all the edges down I still need to round the fret edges off but that's good enough for now till I get further down the line but its looking pretty sweet :) Also today I had a look at the body... Need to re-shape that a bit which I will do tomorrow.. (it almost looks like a Wilshire :)) NICE... more soon and thanks for watching Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorod Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 I just 'tuned in' on page 23 or 24! Begs me to ask ...What do you do in your 'spare time' ? Nice project Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 4, 2013 Author Share Posted December 4, 2013 I just 'tuned in' on page 23 or 24! Begs me to ask ...What do you do in your 'spare time' ? Nice project I play my Gibsons of course ;) (and recuperate after all the sanding I have to do :)) Cheers.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 5, 2013 Author Share Posted December 5, 2013 Hello again all watchers :) Today was mainly about body shaping.. Not the actual shape of the body but the thickness was all over the place.. So I started just getting it all level and made a quick start on the neck.. So this is just a series of photos of that.. And over the next few days probably most of this will be shaping as I still have to fine tune the actual body shape itself... This is one of the most interesting bits as you see it shaping slowly.. Its also one of the more painful bits for me as im still using a mixture of sanding machines and rasps/files. And finally.. you can just about see that I have a neck angle :D nice ;) More tomorrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Searcy Posted December 6, 2013 Share Posted December 6, 2013 Its really starting to look like something there buddy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 6, 2013 Author Share Posted December 6, 2013 Its really starting to look like something there buddy! Cheers man... im getting excited about this build now.. for the last few months I haven't been able to get back into my builds properly but ive really got back into it this week and its feeling good :) I think this is the build I am going to put the pups you made in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 6, 2013 Author Share Posted December 6, 2013 Welcome to neck and body shaping day 2. So as I was saying above the levels of this wood are all over the place which you can see here. See the right hand side is too high. I will attack that along the way and heres how the back is looking Do you like my what shall we call it, a stabilising sustain enhancing neck lip? :P lol im not even sure why I did it, it just sort of happened.. we will see if I keep it or not, what do you reckon? So I just kept at all the bits I need to do the neck, and the back and front levelling and body shaping Then I really go at the neck Still a chunky monkey Still not level YET.. but getting there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 6, 2013 Author Share Posted December 6, 2013 Im still not quite happy with the body shape... but I wasn't sure exactly what to do, so I decided to take pictures and come back home and really make sure I get it right.. At this point if I were to take off too much wood.. well we wont go there yet ;) I think its the top back curve that's out.. but I will think on that a bit More neck :) Starting to look nice :) So we are getting there slowly (not as slow as last time) but surely :) More soon (probably Sunday) Have a good weekend.. Peace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quapman Posted December 6, 2013 Share Posted December 6, 2013 Awesome dude,, I'm diggin the Rabswood signature 12th fret markers. Happy to see that return. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 6, 2013 Author Share Posted December 6, 2013 Awesome dude,, I'm diggin the Rabswood signature 12th fret markers. Happy to see that return. Haha.. cheers man, I was wondering if anyone would remember that :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 8, 2013 Author Share Posted December 8, 2013 Hello again. Today was neck and body shaping day 2... Plus I decided to cut the headstock which was the last bit not cut... So I mark out the dimensions.. At this point I cant really decide what shape I want so I will just go with a rectangular one for now until I make my mind up on that :) And cut :D Hows that for a volute ;) So I was like how am I going to get that extra wood off?? Too thick for my jigsaw.. a normal saw or hacksaw wont quite fit.. Then I remember that im meant to be a carpenter lol so decided to go the chisel route Nice :) Soo now back to the neck.. lets get out the calipers and see where im at head end body end So they are about 10-15mm out.. so back to the sanding and rasping Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 8, 2013 Author Share Posted December 8, 2013 So after about 30 mins or so I check again Lol so you can see... it takes about 30 mins (maybe 40) to take off 5mm :) phew its hard work but rewarding as you see results quite quickly NICE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 8, 2013 Author Share Posted December 8, 2013 So heres how its now looking .. what do you reckon? Its gonna be a fairly slim guitar The body shape is getting there.. im almost happy with it, but not quite Its still not flat either lol... I must now concentrate REALLY hard and make sure I don't take too much off But all in all im pretty happy :) More tomorrow :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 10, 2013 Author Share Posted December 10, 2013 Hello again fellow guitar watchers.. Today I decided to work on some of my other builds going on... The reason being that I really want to try and get 3 or 4 guitars done all about the same time. Plus it also gives me a bit of breathing space on Neckthrough 2 so I can come back to it fresh (sometimes you can get TOO involved in a project so its good to step back every so often). So here we have Neckthrough 1.. This will be the zero degree neck style. Looks like this at the moment Im not gonna go through all the steps again lol :)... So trussrod channel drilled and fretboard Is on and drying. back to this tomorrow. So now for something new (I know I know I should stick to one thing at a time lol ;)) I got this wood from a local supplier who also cut my last lot of mahogany like in 10 mins, which would have taken me more like an hour lol.. He sort of threw it in with the cost of cutting the wood.. I will have to go back there soon :) Anyway, he gave me this nice piece of Oak.. And again its big enough for a neck through body.. So I mark it out and cut to (very rough) shape :) And I have made this an angled one.. NICE piece of wood this and my lord was it hard to cut through And trussrod channel cut and in .. (this is my best looking trussrod access hole yet :P) So more on these or Neckthrough build 2 tomorrow (depending on what I decided to work on :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 10, 2013 Author Share Posted December 10, 2013 Ohh yes.. And check this out.. I want to use this as a part of one of my guitar builds at some point... Its something I found at a car boot sale.. cost me £5..... Now take a closer look... It is what is called Tumbridging or Tumbridgeware and is most often found on antique furniture and boxes.. You don't see this sort of thing much these days.. So when I saw it I thought Ohhhh I could use that.. Have like a stip going along the top of a guitar body or something. Cool :) so watch out for that on one of my builds.. It think it will look very cool. Kinda like this but with Tumbridgware More soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted December 11, 2013 Share Posted December 11, 2013 Just caught up with the updates, Rabs, and delighted to see you have made so much progress! Have you decided exactly what neck-thickness you are after? And FWIW..... http://en.wikipedia..../Tunbridge_ware Hey! Who knows? You might become the new Tony Zemaitis! Keep it up! P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 11, 2013 Author Share Posted December 11, 2013 Just caught up with the updates, Rabs, and delighted to see you have made so much progress! Have you decided exactly what neck-thickness you are after? And FWIW..... http://en.wikipedia..../Tunbridge_ware Hey! Who knows? You might become the new Tony Zemaitis! Keep it up! P. Cheers man... I am getting there slowly.... and as Searcy said to me a while back "paying my dues" :) Neck thickness... well I like slim necks so it will be about 22mm at the head end and about 24-26 at the body end, but that is a very rough idea, it will come down to how it feels and I will see along the way. And yes that would be a nice thought about being so popular that I end up making guitars for the stars (which is what he did)... but I doubt that.. At the moment I will just be happy to complete one that plays and sounds good :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 11, 2013 Author Share Posted December 11, 2013 Hello.. So today is just another quick one.. just did a few bits and bobs.. then I actually got too cold even with all the physical work I was doing and wearing gloves.. Anyway :) So with Neckthrough 2 the one I have worked most on I still wasn't quite happy with the body so I decided to tackle that today.. Its just so hard to see if what you are doing is right when its out of shape like this.. you can end up taking too much off.. This is what it looked like And after cutting... im ALMOST happy with that now. I took a tiny bit off the bottom horn too And heres Neckthough 1 with its fretboard on Here you can see them next to each other.. looking good me thinks :) Here you can see how much ive taken off Neckthrough 2 And with their soon to be Neckthough 3 brother Which also has its fretboard on and drying And don't forget the other bodies I have waiting for necks Ohh and two acoustics to do up :D So that's all for today.. I will get on with the pickups and routing on Neckthough 2 quite soon now. More soon.. Peace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 13, 2013 Author Share Posted December 13, 2013 Hello.... Today is yet another small update... im kinda preparing to do 4 at once now so im getting more necks done.. Wednesday we saw Neckthrough 3 being made from oak... Today I needed to start making a neck for one of my set neck bodies of which I have three ready. I quickly started with neckthrough 3, getting the neck shape right Now for my last big bit of wood which I also got from the same guy as I got the neckthrough 3 bit.. So I decided to make a set neck type from this one.. and I may use the left overs as body wings for the oak neckthrough build So I marked the shape And cut.. and wow this is Oak again and its just crazy hard.. So tomorrow is fretting day.. for neckthrough 1 and the neckthrough 3 :) Its gonna be a long one I also cut up that Tumbridgeware thingy I have.. I still think this would look pretty sweet somehow included into a guitar design.. Still working out exactly how im going to use it. More soon and thanks to all who are still watching.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 14, 2013 Author Share Posted December 14, 2013 I just did a mock up of a design using those tumbridgeware strips.. what do you reckon :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosemarie Posted December 14, 2013 Share Posted December 14, 2013 I just did a mock up of a design using those tumbridgeware strips.. what do you reckon :) I personally LOVE it! The black of the body make the detail of tumbridgeware pop! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted December 14, 2013 Author Share Posted December 14, 2013 I personally LOVE it! The black of the body make the detail of tumbridgeware pop! Thanks... :) Still early days yet... but that's the best one I came up with... I did try it on a red colour and a natural wood colour and yes what you say is right the dark colour goes well with it .. If I can make something that even looks remotely like that mock up I will be happy :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quapman Posted December 14, 2013 Share Posted December 14, 2013 I just did a mock up of a design using those tumbridgeware strips.. what do you reckon :) I reckon I may need a Rabswood in my flock one day... Looking great dude. Love watching, Hey, I had a friend who built himself a fine guitar when we were still in high school. He formed his neck with a spoke shave. May be faster than sanding to get down to your thickness quicker. Just a thought. Looking awesome Rabs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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