Luthier altert: building your own guitar

[ken_j]

Be cautious when applying your dye/stain to open end grain it will turn extremely dark in a hurry. If this happens you can pull it back with denatured alcohol.

[kiramdear]

I would suggest that an opaque finish might be in order, as it would let you patch and successfully hide that neck joint. Unless you have another way to resolve that area, that is ...

[brammy]

I'll be sure to do good testing on spare Alder pieces before I do anything. For starters I have no idea on the percentage of alcohol/die to start with. I'll start out light as I figure I can always make it darker, and that will allow me to do a subtle sunburst effect.

[brammy]

I would suggest that an opaque finish might be in order, as it would let you patch and successfully hide that neck joint. Unless you have another way to resolve that area, that is ...

I'd like to see some of the wood grain showing through

[ken_j]

... I'll start out light as I figure I can always make it darker...

Good plan, you can only stain to go darker.

[johnallg]

Kent, what kind of finish do you have in mind?

Blood red......



Sorry.......... nice work, Kent.

[brammy]

Hey, not a bad idea.... since I've officially bled for this guitar, maybe I'll mix a drop or two into the dye. yea.... I'LL DO IT!

Who was the band who did something like that with the release of their fist album?... Blood in the vinyl or something like that?

[clearblue]

I hope you didn't cut yourself too badly.

[brammy]

Not too bad... got the tip but none of the nail. thanks.

Well, things are coming along.... I'm doing the last sanding on the back of the neck and have permanently glued in the 1.5 degree wedge into the body's neck pocket.

One small note about fret wire. I ordered med/med fret wire from StewMac http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Fretting_su ... twire.html along with a couple of other things. The wire arrived is a smaller rectangular box (not a long skinny one) and the wire was bent into a circle. Natually, this bend was not in the desired plane and made the wire unusable. It could have been fixed with a real fretwire bender but I wasn't about to go buy one of those. I called StewMac and they were very helpful and promised to resend the wire in the proper box. In the meanwhile, I've ordered pre-bent wire from Musicians Friend http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/ ... sku=361346 which should make life easier.

[brammy]

[brammy]

The current situation is that I've discovered that the bridge is slightly out of line with the fretboard. This misalignment results the low E octive string (12-string guitar) is too close to the edge. What I plan on doing is routing out the bridge mount holes so that they are slots instead of holes so I can get the strings aligned with the neck.

Ugh, wish me luck.

[doctorwho]

The current situation is that I've discovered that the bridge is slightly out of line with the fretboard. This misalignment results the low E octive string (12-string guitar) is too close to the edge. What I plan on doing is routing out the bridge mount holes so that they are slots instead of holes so I can get the strings aligned with the neck.

Ugh, wish me luck.

april_2-a.jpg

april_2-b.jpg

april_2-c.jpg

april_2-d.jpg

Gee, it's as if you need to make a full-scale mock-up to get everything positioned right.

IIRC, a number of years ago there were guitars made with a performer's DNA (blood?) mixed in with finish (color coat?). Thought it pretty bizarre at the time.

[brammy]

Gee, it's as if you need to make a full-scale mock-up to get everything positioned right.

Yea, just about. Reminds me of working in an R&D environment.... some managers who were completely unclear on the concept... would bi-otch (the RR censors bleeped the actual word ) and moan when the first efforts were not perfect. Mass manufactured guitars have all their associated jigs and fixtures and templates fine tuned, but you know the companies went through some trials and errors to get to that point.

I'm seeing that the bridge needs to be shifted over about 1/8th inch. Small slots for the bridge posts will allow me to position it just right - I hope.

[8mileshigher]

Kent, how's your progress ??

[brammy]

Thanks for asking.... as I said the bridge needs to shift position 1/8"-1/4". I've gone by the evening guitar class place, but apparently he didn't get enough students to run it this term. I think I'm going to have to go buy a router...... but that is a good tool to have anyways. Once the bridge is in the proper place I should be good to go get it wired by my local expert at the music store.