Let's Slap This Thing Together

 I'm so busy with three or four projects I barely have time to post about this one. I will try to say as much as I can now, and as time permits later perhaps I can add to what's here.'

I've glued the top to the body of the guitar. I used a whole bunch of those little clamps (I added more than you see in this picture). They can be tightened down gently so as not to exert a lot of pressure, while being secure.



Next came the neck. Since the mortise and tenon were pre-fitted and tweaked to the right angle all I had to do was glue it in place. This didn't mean that I ignored my alignment during the process, it just meant that it was straightforward (so to speak) to get it seated properly. The bungee cord pulled the neck in toward the body, while the clamps provided downward pressure into the proper position.

For added security, I drilled for two hex bolts into the bottom of the neck set.

 Sighting down the cluttered room... er, I mean, down the fingerboard, I can see that the top of the pickup covers line up. The edges have been routed, but not yet cleaned up by the time this pic was taken.

 After cleaning up the routed edges I began to glue on the binding. I used plastic binding, and the Loctite cyanoacrylate (superglue) held in place very nicely. I didn't even need to tape it down to dry, I just held it in place for a few seconds every five or six centimetres at a time.

More work on the paint job being done now. Waiting for that to dry before I can continue with the remainder of the details. I still have to put the frets on the fingerboard, install the tuners, and then I will be pretty much ready to start setting up for stringing it.

The taping job looks pretty sketchy around the sound holes but it actually worked quite well. Difficult to tell, but I essentially taped the inside edges of the holes with the tape sticking upward, creating walls of sorts. Then I covered the openings at the top of the walls with more tape.

New Wires, A Go

Finally, wired up and it works! Yay.

 Red wire goes to the tip, which is what goes into the jack. Black wire is the ground wire, and it's wired onto the body of the jack.

 The pots, volume and tone, came pre-wired, so all I had to do was attach the bare and green ground wires onto one of the pots.

The three way switch. Black is ground, and is wired to the body of the switch. Red wires are both from each of the pickups. White goes to the volume pot.









I'd been having some issues with an annoying hum when I plugged it in to test it, but I discovered it was due to the fact that the Drive knob on my amp was up too high.

Soldering

 Hole drilled through end block. It is 1/2", to accept the Fishman endpin jack.

I'm soldering the "hot" wire to the tip lead of the jack here. I then soldered the ground wire (no pic, sorry).

I see now that I could have made my end block a little thinner, as I only just had enough room to thread the bolt onto the inside and tighten it enough to feel secure. You can't really see in this photo, but I have put a piece of ebony down the centre of the back end of the body, where the endpin goes into the guitar. This will be both decorative and add extra strength.

So that I don't forget which wire comes from which lead I labelled them. Wouldn't do much good to forget which wire is which and wire them backwards to the electronics.

The "tip" is simply the lead on the jack that connects with the plug end on the cable.

In With the Old, Out With the New

I want this thing to give the impression of an antique, so I sanded down the stain and re-applied two times to give it a worn look. Once the surface is fully glossy it should look pretty good, if I say so myself... and I just did.

Quick and Easy Sunburst

 The three way switch required a half inch hole, which I drilled with a forstner bit (flat bottomed drill). It makes a nice, clean cut.

I think most people wait until the guitar is put together before starting the colour finish, but I decided to go ahead with the top. I wanted that "tobacco sunburst" look, without having to source the high priced specialty stains. So, I went to the hardware store and found some spray stains by Krylon (one of my favourite paints for many projects). The lighter colour for the centre is Honey Gold.

 The darker colour for the edges is Redwood.

I placed the guitar top on a 5 gallon pail and sprayed around the edges, aiming the paint outward, away from the centre of the guitar. Gently, I swept over with light sprays until I had the desired effect.

I will sand it all very smooth when it's dry and apply several coats of gloss clear coat after the guitar is all assembled. I want the sides to be dark, and the back to have a similar look to the front. The neck is black, and I will blend that into the sides of the guitar body, and probably add some gentle black spray in the "waist" of the guitar as well.






As of July 22, I have taken the finish a step further. Since I want the feel of an antique item, I have given it a faux finish. The colour seems more muted here, but it's actually a little brighter than this. However, I sanded it down to give a worn look and then applied more spray stain. If you look very closely you can also see where I have started to notch the pickup inset holes to allow for the metal tabs that hold the height adjustment screws. The four little pieces to the right are the decorative covers I made to hide those notches. They essentially do what a pick up ring would do on most electric guitars; which is to say they cover the holes and provide an anchor for the height adjustment screws.

Getting Wired

Wiring is coming along. This pic doesn't show where I am at this point, I've progressed since. It was easier to wire things up with the pots in position, allowing for making sure the wires are long enough and that I'm actually connecting things to the right spot according to the schematic.

All I have left to do is figure out which leads I'm supposed to wire on the endpin jack, and solder my ground wires. You may be thinking I should know how to wire the jack, but there are more connection points than there are wires going to it. When I have more time I will have to refer back to the information on the jack.

Passive ... Agressive Pickups?

There are two basic types of pickup; passive and active. Passive pickups work through simple magnetic properties, sending impulses through wiring going into the amplifier. Active pickups are powered (usually by a battery). I am using the more common passive pickup, specifically DiMarzio DP 103 humbuckers. The humbucker is named for the fact that it's configuration is designed to "buck the hum", or cancel the hum that can happen with a single coil pickup. They are typically wired in series, so each of the two coils of the humbucker is linked like sausages in the wiring. This is not always so, and many different effects can be obtained by wiring in different ways. However, I am going for a standard wiring of two pickups with a single volume and tone, with a three way switch. The switch allowing to select neck, bridge, or both positions.

OK, so the pickups are passive. But the instructions are passive aggressive. The wiring schematic cryptically shows only two wires from each pickup. As you can see above, there are five wires sticking out the end of this thing. Well, after a bit of reading and head scratching, I realized that the black and white wires get tied together and capped (at least with this brand, you will have to be sure the wiring is what you expect before going ahead with the tying of wires), essentially eliminating two wires. And it would seem the green and the bare ground are wired as though they were one wire. So, in effect, we do effectively have only two wires. That's just paranormal stuff to someone who hasn't really done any electronics to speak of.

Now that I have that figured out, it's time to get into it. I spent some time last weekend when I was home doing most of the wiring. I hope to get the remainder done this weekend, and then I can start the assembly of this guitar. Yay.

Identifying Pickup Wires & Polarities - Humbucker

Trying to familiarize myself with wiring. I haven't done much wiring really, so I need to get a sense of what's going on with these humbuckers when I wire it. This vid is actually quite informative.

Happy Birthday Radio Jazz Box

I was just sitting here thinking it must be about a year since I started this blog. Turns out it's a year to the day today! This project isn't going as fast as I'd hoped, but once I realized what I was getting into I'm not surprised it's taking this long.

I've been delayed in getting my wiring done over the last couple of weeks due to having out of town work, but I hope to get it done this weekend.

Thingamatar Label

I had been calling an earlier guitar construction my "thingamatar". It was just a name I gave it because I didn't know what else to call it. It's a strange combination between an electric guitar and something called a Tahitian ukulele, which is not really a ukulele at all, and is more akin to a banjo made of wood.

Anyway, my friend Jeff told me recently that he liked the name of that guitar as much as he liked the guitar. So, I thought I'd adopt it as my "brand name". From now on, whatever guitars I make will be called Thingamatar, each one having its own designation. In this case, Radio Jazz Box.

Here is the label for the inside in place waiting to be glued down.



I simply printed it out on gold/brown paper and cut it out. I coated the back with glue and pressed it down in place using some wax paper to prevent mess spreading from my fingers.

 And, voila! My guitar has a label that will be visible through the lower sound hole. That Michael Gallant guy on the label? Yeah, that's me.

The top has been set temporarily in place to get a sneaky looking pic of the label, as it will appear when done.

Pot Holes

I spent some time deciding exactly where I want the knobs to go. It was difficult to find a balance between functional and aesthetic, but I think I managed to figure it out.

I lightly traced around the knobs as I had them in place on the guitar top, then I marked the centre of each one.

The pilot holes are rough drilled, to be cleaned up and bored to the correct size to accept the shafts of the potentiometers (pots for short).

I was a bundle of nerves when I drilled these holes. One slip and I could have gouged the top. But, now it's done, and aside from having to clean up around the holes they turned out fine.

Not Wired - Yet

I have all the electronics I need for my wiring. I'm not wired yet, but I just made another pot of coffee, so that should change soon.

The humbucker pickups are Dimarzio PAF DP103, which are these, minus the metal covers. I have two potentiometers (volume and tone of course) with black speed knobs, and one 3-way switch. Many of you will be familiar with what the 3-way switch does; for those who are new to this, it allows switching from one or the other pickup, or both. I can chose either a white or black switch grip, which is cool because I won't really know which will be better until I get the thing set up. The jack is hidden in the end pin (the silver shaft-like part near the centre), which will hold the tailpiece in place, as well as provide a strap button thanks to a cool little doodad from StewMac that goes on the end of the jack. Wow, three uses all in one bit of hardware sticking out the back end. Gotta like that.

The humbuckers and the speed knobs came from ebay, but all the other parts came from StewMac. I just got my wiring stuff yesterday and I couldn't wait to rip the box open and see the goodies inside.

Now comes the fun of putting my wiring skills to the test. Time to dig out the soldering iron and grab my glasses. Yup, I recently admitted (to myself) that I need glasses for close up work and reading. Sigh.

Pick Up Cover

 

I seem to have missed getting pictures of the process of making this inset on the neck position pickup cover. Not a great quality image, sorry about that, it was evening - getting dim - when I took it. The white area is meant to suggest a radio dial. 

I friction fitted the white into place from the back, with the face of the cover laying flat on a surface, and then used superglue around the edges. There were some tiny gaps around the ebony (very tiny, really) that I filled with ebony dust and dropped a bit more superglue into.

This was nerve-wrecking. I thought the whole time I was going to destroy this cover by slipping with my dremel or something. The next nerve-wrecking task will be to put the six holes to allow access to the pickup pole screws for height adjustment.

Pick Up Lines

So it begins. I shudder to think about cutting holes in the top I spent so long carving. But here is where I will be cutting for the neck position humbucker. I measured and checked and double checked these lines over and over before starting to cut the holes.

I don't have a proper router, so I chose to go with a somewhat unconventional method. I simply clamped a ruler in line with where I wanted to cut and followed it with my dremel, after drilling out the corners. Sounds crazy, but it worked.

 Here is the first cut.

 After doing the same all around I then began to clean out the hole and tweak the edges to accept the pick up cover.

 And it slides down into place like a dream.

 Next comes the bridge position pick up. Same thing.

I just need to fine adjust for height and angles, which I will do after the neck is set and I can be sure they are the correct distance below the strings.


I will also need to make a hole in the guitar top on either side of the boxes to allow the pick ups to be screwed down into place. I'm not sure yet how I will hide those holes. I might have to get creative.

From a Hunk O' Wood to a Neck Block

 It's a hunk o' wood, that's what you're thinking. And you'd be right. I found it at a local used/rescued building materials place. I'm not sure what it is, but I think it might be mahogany (don't assume I'm that good at identifying woods though). I brought it home because when I picked it up and tapped it with a knuckle it rang like glass. "Oh", said I, "that has a nice tone!" I used it to build the new neck and tail blocks. There wasn't enough usable area on it (knots, nail holes, etc) to do much else, but there is enough of it left to get at least a few more neck and tail blocks.


Why did I make yet another neck block? Well, after I changed the depth of the guitar I couldn't use the one I made before. This is just as well, as I much prefer the wood for this block anyway.

So here's the new neck block in place on the top. I've got the top set roughly in place on the back to check the fit of the join between the forward edge of the neck block and the edge of the upper bout wall section. As you can see, I had some tweaking to do... though the gap you see in the image is somewhat exaggerated due to it not sitting exactly in place for the picture. The fit is much nicer now, though I can't seem to find a picture of it. Well, that'll show up later as I construct further.

I'll have some trimming around the contour of the top and back after this is together. Time to see if I can source me a good quality router, I think.

Those Pesky Knobs are Back Again

After a bit of a talk with the man who will be playing this guitar, it was decided that just two knobs for volume and tone would be enough. This means a less cluttered top, and it also means I got to change things up again! Yay! I love changing things mid-project! (actually, I do) There will still be two humbuckers, but they will be controlled by two knobs and a three-way switch. The switch will be located on the upper bout.


So now we're looking at just the two knobs down at the back end below the tailpiece, following the curve of the sound hole. Once I receive the potentiometers and wiring I will drill the post holes. My pots and wires are coming from www.stewmac.com . Just shipped yesterday. Not sure how long it will take to get here. Pacing. Tapping fingers on desk. Checking time to see if mail is here yet. Remembering it's only been one day since the order got shipped.

Putting Things In Place

 Using some birch dowel around the inset for the neck overhang to provide both a clean edge and strength.

The hole in the bottom of the neck set was where I used a nut and bolt to compress the neck block into place on the underside of the guitar top while the glue dried. That hole won't matter when it's assembled, and it worked perfectly to keep the pressure and alignment right. Unfortunately, pictures of this process were lost when I put my trust in a cheap (read: free promotional item) USB stick.

Using some maple veneer on the undersides of the sound holes to prevent splitting of the laminated spruce strips of the top. Once glued in place I used a sharp blade to cut the holes open again, leaving only a maple rim around the underside of the sound holes. The one in the picture is extended downward to include the area where the holes for the knobs will be drilled as well.

Kerfing

Sometimes I like to try to make funny sounding title for new blog entries, but "kerfing" stands on its own.

 Well, kinda. The sides of the guitar are standing on their own in this shot, but not for long. The glue on the kerfing is drying even as I type.

 I had to run out and get more of those clamps before starting this stage. They are great clamps for this kind of job.

And, just for added security, I'm throwing in some nice pink clothespins as well. Not sure how that blue one sneaked in there. The big clamps take the brunt of the chore of holding the kerfing in place, but the clothespins add just enough extra clampitude to make it all neat and in place.







After the two remaining upper bout sides are in place I will finish the kerfing on the bottom and then glue the rest around the upper edges as well. Once that's done the back will be ready to assemble onto the top. But not before I prepare the top for the pickups, knobs and electronics.

Dot

 Remember when I said I was a low tech kinda guy? Well, that really is true. The inlay dot for my tailpiece was cut by hand, using only an X-acto knife, and bit of sandpaper to clean the edges up (not quite complete in the pic here). I used a flat-bottomed drill to make the recessed cut for the inset (making sure beforehand that my disk and the drill were the same size of course). You can barely see the shallow recess I made in the ebony.

The insert is now in place, and all that is left to do is level it flush with the ebony and smooth it all out. I used cyanoacrylate (super glue) to set it. That is what the little streak down the back end is from, where I wiped the excess away with a cloth. That sanded off very easily, and left no discolouration.

The little drawing you see here is what I want the finished inlay to look like. The dot is essentially a transmission point, and the concentric curves out from it represent "radio waves". I'm considering using the same motif on the fingerboard. The motif also recalls the fermata I was considering using a while back. I liked the fermata, but I found it was too static for the freehand kind of look I was going for.

The Contraption In Use

 OK, so about that side-bending form business I mentioned earlier.

There it is, with the veneer laminated in three layers, being held in place by the clamps and the strip of webbing to even out the downward pressure. Laminates have a tendency to pull apart at the crest of an outward curve; the webbing provided enough tension to prevent that.

 And here is the first side piece formed on my contraption! I'm so excited, it worked. I compared it with the outline of the guitar and it matches. Yay!

This is where I have to trim it back to fit the "puzzle" when the pieces are all formed. You can see the nice curly figure of the maple in this picture. It'll look awesome when it's got a nice polish on it.








More to come.

Guitar Making: A Bridged Version

Old piano keys are wonderful things. The true, solid black ebony of an old piano key is a treasure. I decided to make my own bridge rather than use a purchased one. There are two reasons for this; the first is because any bridge I buy will have to be modified to fit the curve and height of my guitar top anyway, and the second is the fact that I wanted something that evoked an old-fashioned kind of look.

Before cutting the ebony away from the key lever, I fixed it to a straight board and carefully (and fearfully) cut the channel for the bone saddle.

 After a little more shaping (you can see I cut the back end of the ebony to match the angle at the front end) I then cut it away from the wood.

After a few more cuts on another piano key I glued the pieces up. This is the rough shape before refining. The finished piece will be less chunky looking, tapering out toward the ends.







As of May 30, this is what the bridge looks like:

 The ends have been tapered out and I added feet.

The bottom may appear to be flat, but there is a gentle arch between one end and the other. I obtained this arch by gluing sandpaper to a flexible piece of wood and curving is slightly as I ran the feet of the bridge over the surface. I had to stop and check it often to see if the curve was right, otherwise I ran the risk of over sanding it and making it too arched.

Next will be to add the bone saddle, but I'll wait until I have the neck set in place before doing that, so as to be sure the height is correct. Those strings have to be exactly the same distance from the neck all the way down, or the action will be off.