Rebuild: Update 11

Not much to update on the actual guitar, so this post title may be a little misleading. All to report is the body has 4 coats of epoxy, and the neck has 2. Everything seems level so I will soon order some vinyl sealer and prep for spraying in a few weeks (the more time, the better).

I've been researching dedicated luthier jigs lately, and decided to build a few. I figure it'll be good for the future to have the special tools ready, and not have to keep rebuilding them.

Here's the router jig shown previously, along with six mounting brackets made from more 3/4" birch plywood. They will soon be mounted to a large base. A note on the routing jig: The pine I used for the parallelogram isn't the best material for the bolts to be riding on, and this causes them to rock. I'm going to need to either replace the wood with a harder material (plastic/metal), or order some bearings and recess them in.

 These brackets were made from 2" rips from birch plywood. I plotted some common guitar profiles (a 'standard' acoustic, les paul, es335) in AutoCAD to see where the optimum placement and length for the bases of each bracket. Thus, as you can see from the previous picture, each bracket base has a different length. A wingnut on a bolt with a lock washer is used to adjust the height of the support. Cork was used to cushion the guitar from the birch plywood. These will be perfect for securing and leveling the guitar body for binding routing.

 One problem I recalled having was joining the 12" wide sheets of 1/16" veneer together for the laminate tops (Update #3 from May 2010). The process of doing so was inspired by methods others use to join acoustic guitar plates. I decided to build a more permanent jig for joining. Above is the bottom half of the jig. The holes on the left are for threading the rope, which I will explain later.

The center of the bottom section has a flat surface of 1/4" MDF and plexiglass, held down with some countersunk screws. Also notice the counterbored screws at the plywood intersections. The 2" wide lengths of plywood were joined used a dado? joint, with the counterbored screw. I cut the dados with a few passes on the table saw.

The top portion sitting on the bottom. The purpose of the plexiglass is to prevent the glue at the joint from sticking to the surface and to provide even clamping pressure. 

Here is the joining jig in action. The rope is anchored in the drilled holes to the left. It is then loosely wrapped around the jig 'arms'. With the other end tied off, the rope is tensioned using a 2 foot long wedge. This provides downward and compressive clamping force on the two work pieces (the two shown are just scrap, without a true edge). This will be repeated for all 4 'arms'.

Alternate view. Remember, the sample work piece is only scrap, and not true (it's crazy false). 

A view of the other wedges. I routed all the edges with a slightly lowered 1/4" round-over bit. Doing this eases the sharp, splintering edges along with making the jig look more professional.

I'm moving further into the finishing stages of the guitar, so progress will be slow.

-Andrew

Rebuild: Update 10

I've done more epoxy work along with some jig building. Check it out.

Here is the guitar with the walnut body sanded down to 400 grit, and wiped with naphtha. There's currently 2 epoxy coats on the body, and 1 on the neck.

 Here i'm applying the third coat to the body with a squeegee. As more coats are applied, and the pores are sealing more and more, the amount of epoxy needed per coat decreases.

Left: 1st coat unsanded. Middle: 2nd coat sanded. Right: 3rd coat unsanded.

3rd coat applied. The epoxy now makes the surface reflective as it becomes more level.

More looks at the reflection.

The sides are leveling nicely. I may need to apply one more coat to the entire body, especially the back, as I can see a few spots of grain still showing.

I figured I'd wait until the epoxy cures a lot first before applying a third coat. In the meantime, I decided to build a jig. I was rooting through my scrap pile from the original build and found my makeshift binding router jig. It was terribly inaccurate and prone to making errors. I decided to do some research to find alternatives. I've seen this jig (http://blackwaterriverguitars.com/Tools%20-%20Binding%20Routing%20Jig.html) along with other similar ones online. It looks relatively simple to build, so I began my design. I used AutoCAD to design the jig and give it dimensions. This was based off of mostly pictures and a few dimensions other luthiers listed on their websites. The resulting dimensions from the CAD file were accurate down to 0.01". I virtually drew a 4' x 2' board of plywood in program and laid out each jig piece out to determine the future cuts. I bought the board, some hard pine, a 12" lazy susan, and a 20" drawer slide. I then made each cut on the table saw, using test pieces to check for the ~0.01" (give or take) accuracy. I had all the pieces, and then pretty much screwed it all together. No reshaping. No filing. No mistakes. It went together exactly as the CAD drawing showed. It took about a day and a half to begin research, design, and build the jig.

Ain't she a beaut. A laminate trimmer will soon be mounted to the end of the arm to the left.

The docked drawer. These beefy 20" slides have almost no play to them. The back portion here is nice and flush.

 The arm extended fully, with the 'parallelogram' raised. She has quite a reach. With a router/laminate trimmer mounted, a small counterweight will inevitably be placed on the back end. The router, when used, will have its entire weight supported by the guitar's edge, so the only true purpose for this jig is to keep it perpendicular with the work surface.

Cheesy DOF picture. Them there's some 1/4" 20 4" bolts with locking nuts on the parallelogram. 

The clearance on the drawer is quite small. However, since everything I build is perfect, the sliding drawer wood never comes in contact with the stationary outer drawer.

Mounting a laminate trimmer (handheld router) to the end will be easy. I just need to get one first. I will then test on a scrap piece of wood. The semi-hollow epoxy job will soon get level sanded and recoated.

-Super duper.