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.