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.

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.

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.

Neck compromise.

Well, for a number of reasons, the neck I'm building is ending up going slower than I had hoped, so I decided I would use a pre-made neck. It was rescued from an acoustic, and I modified the bottom end to have the overhang. I didn't get much in way of pictures, but essentially what I did was remove the old fingerboard from the existing neck (very careful prying - very anxious was I), and take out the truss rod. It had been oriented with the adjustment at the bottom end, so you could work with it from the sound hole on the acoustic. In my case, I want the adjustment at the top end, to be hidden under a truss rod cover. Obviously, my guitar won't have a convenient sound hole down at the bottom end of the board.

I had to extend the cut for the truss rod out beyond the nut region. I looks a bit of a mess right now, but that will clean up and get repainted. After some effort to ensure that the gluing surface was flat and true, I got my courage up and splashed on the glue. In this case, I didn't use the waterproof Titebond I had been using for other parts, mainly because it's quite possible the fingerboard will need to be removed at some point or other.

I wanted the head stock to be "my own", so I re-cut the top end into a new shape. It isn't the shape I originally designed, because it wasn't wide enough.

Fretboard

The fretboard is ebony. I got this one with the slots cut in, I just had to trim it down the size I want. I got brave and did that on the table saw. Got a few minor chips around the edges here and there, but I'll be routing it down for the binding later, so it won't matter. In the first photo here, I'm preparing to cut the excess board off the end. I decided to do this with a metal guide and a narrow saw blade. It worked quite well, especially since I took my time to make nice gentle strokes along the edge of the guide. The tape is just there to help protect the surface of the ebony. I can use the extra portion for something else.
I want to cut one more fret slot in the board, as this one only has 21, and I'm looking for 22. I thought I had a bit that would be the right width to cut a new slot, but it turns out it's a shade too wide (tried it on the leftover piece of ebony first). Guess I'll have to get a proper fret saw for this job.
On the other hand, I discovered that the (thingama) jig I made earlier is actually quite useful. Think I'll keep it around for other jobs.