Rebuild: Update 2

I began work on adjusting the neck tenon to achieve a proper neck angle. This was accomplished by manufacturing a precise wooden shim to place on the back side of the neck tenon. For the shim, I needed to use a hardwood to preserve the rigidity of the mortise/tenon connection. Since the tenon is mahogany and the mortise is maple, I would assume to use one of these. I chose to use some left over maple veneer for the shim. It was already thicknessed to 1/16", so all I'd need to do is taper a small piece that is profiled to the shape of the tenon. I did so against some sandpaper.

Maple shim tapered from 1/16" to 0", ~3" long.

To assure the shim brought the neck angle to the proper position, I loosely placed it under the tenon and used a C clamp to hold the neck in the mortise. I strung the high and low E strings to observe the action. Here's my setup:

C clamp temporary setup

The shim will need final shaping to assure the tenon and mortise sitting flush. Otherwise, the neck angle seems perfect. The bridge sits a little high, but I assume after applying full string tension, the neck will pull forward slightly and I can lower the bridge just a bit. It isn't hilariously high. Below are some pics.

Down neck view with new neck angle and action. Looking good so far.

The string elevation looks much better. The string angle from the bridge to the stopbar should apply more pressure to the body, increasing sustain and tone while reducing buzz at the bridge. 

Next step is to glue the shim to the tenon, use graphite coated paper to find high spots on the shim. After leveling the shim, I will tidy up the surrounding neck surfaces around the joint. It will be ready for gluing. Before this, however, I'll need to strip the finish and do binding work.

Updates soon.

-Mr. B

Rebuild: Update 1

Well I got bored and immediately began removing the neck on my 335 about 6 days ago. I'm already planning a full refinish, so lacquer damage isn't a problem.
Using the following link,
http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Dec/Removing_a_1952_Goldtop_Les_Pauls_Neck.aspx
I attempted to mimic this process (same for both LP and 335). As I mentioned before, long tenon neck removal like this is difficult. There is a lot of surface area of glue to soften. I began... thusly.... :

Remove a number of frets at different intervals along the tenon.

Drill 3/32" holes along the fret slots and in pickup recess.

Apply heat and add boiling water to the area. Adding the boiling water with a syringe and removing it wicks away some of the hide glue in the joint.

Then this happened. After two solid days of adding boiling water and removing it (hundreds of times), I decided to try and steam the joint. Using my trusty pressure cooker steamer, I attempted to get the neck off. Unfortunately, I don't know how to properly make steam and the hose just sputtered hot water into the holes. After all this fuss, the wood near the neck mortise swelled and pushed up the end of the fret board. I took this opportunity to remove this part of the fret board to gain direct access to the neck joint.

I went crazy with the drill and added more holes. 

At this point in time, I assumed the guitar was no better than firewood. I was in shambles and on a downward spiral to a dark and suffering depression. I let the neck sit as it is for 2 days to allow the wood to dry and shrink again. I began applying light heat for 3 hours, followed by a bigger bulb and more heat. I took the guitar to the steamer again, and ramped the stovetop up to 6/10 (crazy medium/high shit). The output of the basketball needle was a supremely hot jet, rid of sputtering. At this point, the heat/moisture ratio was better balanced, and I let the joint cook. I took about 30 seconds to each drill hole, cycled through 2-3 times, and I began to see movement. This opened up more gaps in the joint and the steam penetrated more deeply than before. After applying a terrifying amount of manual pressure on the neck, towards the front of the guitar, the body was finally rid of its blessed neck.

Any professional seeing this probably threw up in something. 

I used the steamer to blast away any glue leftover. Below is my steaming setup.

Pressure cooker, vinyl hose, heat-insulating dirty sock, basketball pump needle, pile of scrap wood.

Observations:

-The lamp heat, steam, and moisture caused some Titebond glue near the joint to soften. Some of the laminations separated about 1/64". I am not concerned. The glue is still there, so I plan of reheating the area and clamping the wood back into place. The existing Titebond should hold everything .

-The lacquer damage was moderate. The whole finish will be stripped.

-The swelling wood also broke away some of the binding. I've never been pleased with my binding work. As nobody probably remembers, I used 0.090" cream binding instead of 0.060" like I should have. This required a lot of scraping, resulting in a very uneven thickness throughout. Since it is coming off fairly easily, I plan to remove all the body's binding (not the neck's), and replace it with the proper size. This should really make the body look much nicer. 

-The removal of the bottom few frets actually makes the neck angle fix much easier. I can shimmy a strip of sandpaper completely through the neck/body contact to sand the neck flush. Further updates will illustrate this.

-The detached fret board portion also requires me to re-radius the board, and, of course, re-fret it.

-Drink plenty of water while dealing with steam and heat lamps n such. I sweat like a pig in the middle of Juuuu-ly. Yes sir.

Next step:

Let the wood dry completely. Heat the creeping glue areas and clamp to original position. Afterwards, the tenon and mortise will need re-squared and possibly shimmed for a better fit (chisel and router work). Afterwards, I can properly shim the neck angle.

-Andrew

ES335 Update and other junk (boring text update)

Well it's been a while, almost a year. I graduated college with a BS in Electrical Engineering, and currently have an awesome job lined up. Being out of college and home, I have been thinking of plans for future projects. Once I start working and have some income flowing, I plan to kick start a few projects (along with paying off loans, o' course).

The Bauer 335:
Well the guitar looks great, except for the lacquer spots I've mentioned. I haven't gotten to fixing that for a big reason. Since adding the hardware and stringing the guitar, I've noticed my action was a little high. The bridge is lowered as far as it can go, so I've just had to deal with what I got. I'm not alright with this, however. I've contemplated lowering the bridge by machining it slightly, but that would become a problem as the stopbar would also need to be lowered to prevent loss of pressure to the bridge saddles. My only sure-to-succeed solution would be......

A neck reset. 

This is rather insane with this particular guitar, due to the number of contact points of the mahogany neck with the rest of the body. I'd need to modify 5-7 different surfaces of the neck/body to get it to sit right. I'm only looking for possible maximum of 1/16" of wood removal/addition to achieve the proper angle. I've seen the process done online on different guitars and I have all the tools, so my only fear is just passing the initial hump of temporarily destroying my pride and joy.

Once repaired, I should be able to set the bridge to the proper height to allow adjustment to below perfect action. More importantly, the increased bridge height will increase the angle of the strings from the stopbar, reducing buzzing I've been hearing at the bridge. I will do any lacquer touch ups needed around the neck joint and the rest of the guitar, and respray the entire thing. I will let the new lacquer cure for a much longer period of time, so after buffing the finish won't get hazy like it did.

The high action has been haunting me and is the only thing that is preventing the guitar from being comfortably playable (besides the fact I don't have a functioning amp). Plenty of research will need to be done.

Another 335:
Well I have all the tools, jigs, molds, and material. Why not?
If I were to build another, I'd make a couple modifications:
1) Change the outline shape of the guitar. The blueprints are crap in representing the original. The body's 'ears' are too pointy and the cutouts need to be more rounded. The joint of the neck to the body should be smooth, without a 'discontinuous derivative'. Meaning it should be flush. This only affects the outer jig I made. Easy fix.
2) Reconstruct the contour mold. Changes would include more defined contours around the 'ears' and a smoother belly on the main body. Nothing ridiculously different. I may just get some Bondo and better contour my existing mold.
3) Practice better building techniques. This includes: Using the proper binding width on the body, drill holes perpendicular when they need to be (bridge pins are crooked), use glue other than Titebond III, spray lacquer thicker and let dry longer...

Accordion Bellows:
On my diatonic accordion I built a while ago, I used too thick a material for the bellows. This caused problems with finding the proper parts, so the project has been on hold since almost 2009. I plan to rebuild the bellows with thinner material and dress the instrument up nice.

Sitar:
I found a couple plans for a sitar online, which are detailed enough  to give me a possible direction to head with a project. It would certainly be interesting. First step is to obtain a giant gourd.....


I will keep updating here as long as I have time to do so. I have slight plans to start my own website, but that's further down the line. I will let the 1-2 people following this know if I plan to move elsewhere.

I did college.

Thanks everyone.
-A Bizzle.

Music

I haven't much touched the didge since my last post, as I haven't had time. I did find time to record this. It includes tracks of my built 335



Enjoy,
Andrew

Didgeridoo/Piano update or somethin.

Since the beginning of this blog, i had set aside an ash branch to season for a didgeridoo. I was finally able to get to it and carve it out.



This first image shows how I split the branch. I would like to recommend not doing such a task by hand, such as this. This is much more suited for a bandsaw, which i do not possess. I started out with the small 6" Marples saw shown in the foreground. About 1' into the branch, which took 6-8 hours, it snapped at the handle. It was incredibly flimsy anyway, so this was expected. I then purchased the giant Japanese pull saw shown sticking out of the branch. With a sturdier build and course cut, i finished the job in 1/3 the time (which still took over 3 days of cutting).


Once split, I employed this King Arthur Lancelot 4"carving disk to hollow out the didge. This thing is a beast. Brand new and sharp, this blade removes a lot of material, very very quickly.










It attaches to a standard angle grinder as shown. I marked with a pencil an even amount down the side as a stop mark for carving. I made sure the cut was as round as possible on both sides.









A finished half. A propane torch to the inside removes any loose wood shavings sticking out. A light coat of polyurethane seals the inside before the halves are joined.










An ample amount of Titebond I was applied to the seams and the entire didge was held together with a few clamps. The cuts made earlier to split aren't the best and leave some large gaps in the seam. This will be sealed later with epoxy before final finishing.

Since this, i've shaved at most 1/4" off all around, and sculpted the mouthpiece. I will eventually put in a beeswax mouthpiece after finishing.


Here's a sound bite of me playing the didge.
Didgeridoo sample
Still haven't gotten circular breathing down.


*****************************
I learned the piano to a decent degree since last christmas when i got a cheap walmart keyboard to practice. I found ragtime to suit me very well. It's very similar to my guitar playing style in the sense of bass and melody structure.

Here's me playing Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag on a Yamaha upright piano:
Scott Joplin - Maple Leaf Rag (Andrew's cover)

Build Update #20

My roommate allowed me to use his good SLR digital camera to take some 'professional' pictures. I figured i'd upload the full resolution pictures via external linkage. They're all great, enjoy

Full in stand by desk

Body close-up in stand

Body close-up on bed

Body close-up on bed 2

Peghead close-up

Body back showing excellent bookmatch

Neck and body candy coating. Shows back contours

Guitar front with roommate for scale

The walnut is amazing

On blueprints 1

On blueprints 2 (holographic grain)

I was going to make this post include my didgeridoo project and piano 'experimentation', but that'll have to wait until my next post within the next few days.

Enjoy the craftsmanship

-Bauer

Build Update #19

This post may be the last major post of this build. Yes, it's been over a year since I began. All the planning in the beginning was well worth it. Would I build another guitar? Absolutely.

Here are some pics.


Oh, it plays nice. The nut still needs rounded and glued down. Without gluing it down, the strings go in and out of tune do to the nut moving around.


Still need to touch up that area near the bottom.


The mahogany grain is absolutely spectacular. In direct sunlight, it shows a holographic soft red pattern, while indoor lighting gives it a brown/red candy look. Love it.


The lacquer has hazed a little bit since I buffed it, more noticeably on the walnut. No big deal. I can rebuff in a few months again if i wish. The string alignment is spot on, as shown. The neck pickup mounting ring was probably slanted for a Les Paul, so it places the humbucker a bit out of wack (not parallel to the strings). No big deal, again.


I would love a 3 or 5 ply short black cream pickguard with gold mounting brackets, but for the life of me i cant find anything relatively cheap (it's plastic, why should it cost more than $50?!).

Will post a video soon once I adjust the nut and the humbucker ring.

I would like to thank everyone for following this blog. Hope those who were looking for help with building found what they needed here.

As a side note, I measured a ~16-18% MC in the didge branch so I stripped off the bark and will split and hollow it once I get the angle grinder chainsaw attachment. Expect updates for that too.

-Peace

Andrew Bauer (bauerb2)