The guitar is still relaxing. I still haven't ordered the sealer, so it may be a while until I spray.
In the meantime, I've been prepping again for future woodworking projects by building jigs and tools.
Cross cut sled:
I had scrap plywood and a 2x10 segment. I ripped the 2x10 to essentially create two 2x4 for the front and back frame. The main platform is made from a biscuit jointed sheet of 3/4" plywood (i didn't have anything left wide enough). A 1/4" MDF strip was screwed to the back frame over a dado cut along the 2x4. A slot was cut into this to create a groove for a screw head. Poplar strips where used as slides for the sled.
Miters: I cut two plywood 2" strips with 45 degree angles. They are checked for a perfect right angle and are screwed down. It would be better to have them on the opposite side so the angle points towards the cut, but I couldn't afford to cut off the corners of the MDF backing frame to accommodate wide pieces. It's hard to explain, but the corners of the sled were cut so the right angle meets within the cutting area. I have tested this setup and it works perfectly. Care must be taken while cutting to avoid digit detachment.
Another view. The MDF backing allows stop blocks with a wing nut to be clamped in place. For repeating cuts, this is perfect. The 2x4's were glued and screwed in place.
When joining miters, the strength of the joints can be increased with the addition of splines. I've seen a number of jigs for cutting the spline. Some are free sliding jigs that run along the table saw fence. Some, like mine, are part of a sled jig. It's the frankenstein's monster of jigs, using 4 different types of scrap wood. A red oak beam can be clamped to the MDF backer. Pine pieces form the right angle for the workpiece. A thicker MDF board keeps the workpiece upright. A small triangular support on the other side makes sure the large jig stays in line with the blade.
This allows quick, adjustable passes on the workpiece to cut the splines. I had to make sure while designing this (in AutoCAD again), that the screws I use to hold everything together didn't get in the way of the saw blade. I don't much like using glue when screws will work fine.
The bottom. My design has a slight flaw in that it is quite difficult to square. The slight adjustments need to be done on the two poplar runners instead of the backer frame. I have it very close now. Definitely square enough whereas human error may be more significant.
I was eager to try everything out, so I grabbed a length of poplar scrap, cut 4 equal pieces with the stop block, cut the 45 degree miters, and glued the pieces together with a band clamp. I took a scrap mahogany block from my guitar neck and used the sled to cut the splines. This procedure would be difficult to do without the sled, and probably could only be done otherwise on a bandsaw. I attached the spline cutting jig and cut the slots in about 2 passes until the splines fit snugly. They were then glued in.
I used a 1/4" roundover bit to round the small frame, and a 1/4" x 3/8" rabbet bit to cut the glass/picture recess. I have it stained here, and am ready to finish it with poly.
All of this mitering n such was brought forward when I found my EE diploma in a stack of paper from school. I realized I could have easily lost it, so I figured a frame would be nice. They are quite expensive, so I thought I'd make my own. I used AutoCAD...again... to plot the work. Above shows the two piece frame molding with the necessary router cuts on the 1" thick lumber. The outer may be walnut, while the inner being cherry. An inlay channel on the far right of the picture will hold a brass 1/4" inlay.
AutoCAD render. The bitmap is stock from the internet somewhere. The brass is omitted. I haven't bought the lumber yet, but I now have all of the tools since completing the spline jig.
I also hollow ground all my chisels, and sharpened them. I built a one piece fence for my POS router/router table.
Money has been tight since I have started work yet (I was hired in May, and they won't give me a start date yet), so I can't start anything new. It's a bit frustrating.
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.
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.
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.
I've begun finishing work. I chose epoxy again for grain/pore filling. This time, however, I'm using the proper epoxy and the proper procedure. I ordered Pacer's Z-poxy finishing resin. Normally reserved for fiberglassing, this epoxy is much less viscous and has a longer open time (20-30 minutes) than the 5 minute Loctite I used before. The procedure was determined through research on luthier forums and a few youtube videos (mainly, this 3 part series: Epoxy Pore Filling Part 1). One big difference in procedure from my first attempt is to build the epoxy up beyond the surface of the wood, resulting in a thin film. The lacquer will then be laid atop. The result should be a perfect glass-smooth finish, without any wood grain showing as pits on the surface.
Step one, prepare the wood. The acetone I used to strip the existing lacquer left a thin film of finish on the surface that needed to be removed. I started with 180 grit sandpaper and continued to 400 grit, followed by a wipe down of naphtha. Some of the binding needed attention. Removing the old binding tore some walnut wood out, most of which I've touched up before adhering the new. However, some spots got filled with binding glue and now look awful.
The binding on the left has been untouched, while the right side has had its walnut/binding seam scraped. You can see the bottom left binding with a little filling of glue. I used an X-acto knife as a scraper and 'picked' out the glue mess-ups.
I planned ahead and applied the black dye to the headstock before I seal it with epoxy. Letting the dye 'cure' for a few days will prevent any dye from smearing during sealing.
I built this stand for the guitar to elevate it off of the table for sealing. This allows me to epoxy the back, top, and sides of the guitar at once without waiting for one section to cure.
It's very well balanced. The back end of the guitar has a screw set in the strap hole which sits on the support.
The fretboard has been taped off, only to see the light of day once the finish is complete. The wood is sanded and waiting for epoxy.
Mix ratios are important, as improper mixing can result in uncured resin/hardener left on the surface or an improper cure in general. I am using a little medicine cup for mixing. My batches are very small so it is difficult to get the ratio right. I will eventually invest in a gram scale for precise measuring. This is difficult to find in a store due to the usual market being 'drug-people'. I got a couple funny looks in the UPS store for asking. My best chance would be to order online. Meanwhile, my spoon method seems to work fine.
After mixing, briefly heat surface with magic heat dispenser.
And then...do it. Sorry I couldn't take any pictures during the process, but it only involved pouring a little epoxy on and squeegee-ing it over the surface. After full coverage, squeegee off any excess and remove any drips from the edge.
Once I get one coat over the entire guitar, I will use the stand I built. For some dumb reason I flipped this image around.
The grain looks great. Further coats of epoxy will make it look more gooder. Yes, more gooder indeed.
Sides will be done next.
I've done a few test pieces, and the first coat merely seals the pores, while the later coats fill up the grain. This shows the guitar top and the sealed surface.
New updates will probably include the result of sanding level the surface after all coats of epoxy have been applied.
Some fretwork updates to present. The process is virtually the same as before, with only a few differences which I will highlight in this post.
Beginning where I left off from Update 7, I first used my 35 degree file block from Update 12 from 2010 to bevel the ends of the frets. It is a loud and barbaric process, often shocking onlookers. However, with a delicate hand, the destructive might of the bastard file can be tamed, and used for good rather than evil. I beveled the metal until the cream fretboard binding just gets grazed by the file. With this done, the frets now need dressed, for they are naked and unlevel.
I used my homemade fretboard level to check for a flat neck. If I see light shining between the aluminum level and the rosewood fretboard in the middle, I know the neck has a slight up-bow. Tightening the truss rod will straighten the up-bow. Too much, however, will lead to a back-bow. I was worried the neck, without strings and a completely loose truss rod, had a back bow. This would make fret leveling difficult/impossible without some sort of jig. Fortunately, the neck had a slight up-bow and straightened with one or two truss rod quarter turns. I glued more 400 grit sandpaper to the same block of aluminum as before, and did an initial leveling of the frets. I did this until all frets get some contact with the 400 grit. I used a Sharpie as before to see which frets are being sanded. Now onto some new stuff...
I figured since I have a second chance to fret this guitar, I may as well one-up my previous work. The frets weren't bad before, but some fret buzz showed they needed a little more work. The neck of this guitar is quite long (neck/body joint is at the 19th fret) so it is, I assume, more susceptible to string tension induced neck warping. This is were neck jigs like the Erlewine jig and machines such as the PLEK machine come in handy. They allow the frets to be leveled properly with the strings tensioned. Thus, slight neck warping and fret height variations can be leveled. I do not have any of these, so I thought I'd figure something out on my own.
I first determined the string tension the neck faces tuned to standard tuning with 10 gauge strings. This is roughly 120lbs of force (~20 per string...). I planned to simulate this string tension with only 5 strings, meaning each string needs to exert ~24 lbs of force to equate to 120lbs. Tuning all 5 strings up 1 semitone equates to something like 115 lbs (I lost my calculated values). This is close enough for my purposes. I would use the stringless channel of fretboard to level with the aluminum block.
Yay, pictures. I string up the guitar with five strings tuned up 1 semitone (G to Gsharp, etc). Check for a level fretboard, then sand with the aluminum block. I'd take the next string off, add the previous, and repeat until all Sharpie is removed. There really wasn't much sanding too be done. This tells me the neck doesn't change much with tension.
I unstrung the guitar, taped the fretboard, and re-Sharpied the frets.
Frets are freshly fashioned with felt-tipped marker. The leveled plateaus will need re-rounded with the rest of the fret. This is where the Stew Mac fret file comes in handy. I filed each fret until only a sliver of marker remain.
I found a square, 3 sided file (i.e. one side is smooth) in my garage. This is perfect for rounding fret ends. A few passes smooth them out.
The frets can now be sanded and polished. I used the following steps: 400 grit dry, 600 grit dry, 600 grit wet, 1000 grit wet, 2000 grit wet, 0000 steel wool, polishing compound w/Dremel pad. On each fret. The picture above shows pre steel wool (right) and post steel wool and Dremel (left).
***VERY IMPORTANT NOTE:
For those who are actually reading this. Buffing the frets with a Dremel induces loads of heat if done for even a few seconds. I found out quickly that this wasn't a good thing once I started. I began Dremel-ing my first fret to a shine (20th fret) only to see it got too hot touch and began pulling away from the fretboard. I muttered a panicked "oh shit" under my breath. The heat melted the glue on the fret, and it began coming loose. I pressed it down with a block of wood and squirted a little more superglue under the fret. It dried and the fret didn't budge anymore. Luckily, the fret leveling wasn't affected at all. Crisis averted.
My solution to this was to use 0000 steel wool followed by a very brief buffing on the fret ends and fret tops. I mean very very very brief. Just a quick touch to smooth out any little imperfections.
Nice and shiny once again. Taped being removed.
All done. This picture is kind of pointless. It doesn't really show anything, but whatever.
Shing. Sparkle, Sparkle.
Only had one fret that didn't seat 100%. The only result of this was more sanding off of its top. Not even noticeable.
Fretwork is such a worthwhile task that is really enjoyable. A new and shiny set of frets can make any guitar look loads better.
Next step would be prepping for pore-filling and finishing. huzzah.
I leave you with what NOT to do while fretting a guitar.
I'm serious. His lack of precision and care for the fretboard is scary. Not to mention his nasal whistling. Do not do anything he does.
The binding on the fretboard needed patched. I used scrap binding and binding glue to patch the spot, and it turned out seamless. The woodwork done around this 'extension' of the bottom 4 frets is actually better than the original work. It looks great.
I sanded down the fretboard with 220, 400, 600, and 1000 grit sandpaper. Despite the slight glare, the rosewood fretboard displayed it's excellent, purple figure that has been hidden under finger grease and grime.
Seamless. Like it was never butchered.
Using the modified Husky cutters, I cut the fretwire to length for each fret.
Cut wire.
The Husky cutters were dull and couldn't cut the fret tang. I gave up very quickly with them and finally caved and ordered Stew-Mac's fret cutters and a medium/wide fret crowning file. My last fret job with this guitar took quite a long time with only a triangular file and sandpaper. The file should make the job take seconds rather than 15 minutes per fret. Regular super glue was used to hold the frets in considering this is a re-fret. The hammer is a nylon/rubber hammer from Home deux Pot.
The frets initially pounded in. I used the nylon hammer for seating, and a few light, quick taps with a steel hammer (carefully). Before each fret was seated, I put a small line of glue on the fret wire. But even before that...
...I bent this scrap fret wire and filed the tang 'teeth' off. This was used to test each fret slot for obstructions by sliding it along the slot. Notice the nipped fret tang and the 45 degree angle at the end of the tang. This allows the fret to seat more completely. (The glob of binding on the fretboard is from the patch. The patch before shrank so I had to add more glue).
I could just level the frets without assuring a flat neck. Results would be acceptable, but I'd rather make sure the neck was as straight as possible before leveling. I bought a 1.5" x 1/8" aluminum blank for $8 from the H.D. I marked the frets and used a triangular file to cut slots in the metal. The straightedge can now be used to assure the neck is straight, even with the frets on.
Straightedge on fretboard. Notice the trimmed and beveled frets.
Not bad. Will be useful.
The fretboard is essentially completely flat without any strings nor a tightened truss rod. I will do a preliminary leveling without any strings, then I will put on 5 strings, tuned up a half step, and tighten the truss rod accordingly. With the neck as flat as possible, I will re-level the frets along the stringless segment of fretboard. This will be repeated for each string. The material removed during the stringed leveling will be minimal, but this is what levels the frets to a degree most optimal for playing. There are jigs (Erlewine jig) and machines (PLEK) that do this more efficiently, but I'm not too enthusiastic on making the investment for a proper jig. The half step up tuning is required to keep the tension on the neck the same for 5 strings as it is for 6. Not the best method, but it should give a more positive result, rather a negative.
