# Guitar WIP - And so it begins



## Kalimna (22 Jan 2013)

Greetings folks,
Here are some piccies of my long-gestating project to build my interpretation of Eddie Van Halens' Frankenstein guitar.
The body is padouk, with a selection of maple, walnut and indian rosewood stripes inlaid in 3/4" deep routed channels of various widths.
Unfortunately and due to, I suspect, the use of a crummy BnQ own brand router and cutters that came with it for some of the channels, I will have to do a wee bit of filling later on.
However, for now, the body blank is essentially complete, apart from marking out the various bits of kit (Bare Knuckle humbuckers, wraparound bridge, tone/vol/selector switch), neck pocket and carving/rounding on the top.
The neck I have started work on, but doesnt look anything other than a plank of wood yet. I bought a lovely piece of rippled maple which has either developed, or came with, a twist. So that was (hopefully) planed out today. I shall leave it for a few days in the house before marking/cutting out to make up the heel and head, just in case the twist returns. Hopefully I will get to post fairly regularly, but am not promising anything 

I know there isnt much to look at so far, but I would be happy for any comments, good or bad  And suggestions for anything luthierally related.

Cheers
Adam

The padouk blank glued up, with marked out positions for the stripes






The first channels cut, and strips glued in. I need more/longer reach clamps!










More gluing up - note the Warburtons toastie loaf wrapper - quite the most excellent paper for preventing glue sticking to clamps





A close up of one of the routed channels





The completed body blank





And the body roughly bandsawn out


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## MickCheese (22 Jan 2013)

Looking forward to this. Have played the guitar since I was 12 and still dreadful but enjoy it.  

Mick


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## xraymtb (22 Jan 2013)

I'll second that. Its something I've thought about in the past but never got beyond the planning stages.


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## AndyT (22 Jan 2013)

That looks a lot more practical than assembling separate pieces without a backing board! Watching with interest.


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## Steve Blackdog (22 Jan 2013)

This is going to be fun. Please keep us posted.

Steve


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## stevenw1963 (22 Jan 2013)

Am a bass player & always wanted to make my own so am watching this with keen interest.

Keep going, it's looking good


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## Kalimna (22 Jan 2013)

Thanks for the comments 
Well, I certainly wont profess to being any better than strumming a couple of chords together, but I love playing guitars 
Andy - indeed, a lot more practical. The only issue is that unless I marked things out very accurately, there is no way I could the stripes to match up all around the body by using a router, which is the reason I was originally going to do it by cutting the body up all the way through. However, given that I have gone through 5 sessions of routing, squaring, thicknessing, gluing and planing back just to get the body as it is so far, I reckon if I ever do this again I shall use the same process!
The only real holdback to me starting this project (well, apart from the actual getting-butt-into-gear-and-cutting-some-wood) has been working out how I will achieve the acccuracy required for the neck join. Ive read almost all the books available, and came to the conclusion that it is quite feasible and any problems just sort out when they arise rather than continue to overthink them....

Next job is to glue up the neck blank for the stacked heel and angled headstock. And cutting the fret slots and the rest of the fingerboard prep.

Cheers,
Adam


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## Tom K (23 Jan 2013)

Nice work if you get bogged down during the construction of this just try to remember..If you build it,they will strum.


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## MickCheese (23 Jan 2013)

I know there are a few guitar builders on here who gave me loads of advice when I was repairing a snapped guitar neck. I am convinced they will be along to help if you need any. 

Mick


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## Kalimna (27 Jan 2013)

Greetings folks,
Here is part 2 of the EVH-a-like WIP...
I have now assembled the neck blank (stacked heel and scarf-jointed headstock), and also installed the truss rod.
A couple of issues have arisen :
1 - the neck blank was a little warped, and removing said warp out of a longish neck blank of rippled maple wasnt much fun. However, the trued-up blank remained flat over 2-3 days indoors, so I carried on
2 - I discovered that I used too much pressure with the g-clamps on the heel - I have left a faint dent/dimple where the clamping blocks were positioned. Most should be carved away, but Im not happy with it.
3 - Not enough distributed clamping pressure on the scarf joint led to a gap, later filled with cyano. Again, joint will be strengthened by headstock veneer and I am hoping wont be an issue.
4 - Messy carving at truss rod adjustment area.
5 - I managed to apply uneven clamping pressure (wooden cam-clamps) for the fillet covering the truss-rod to the extent that a dip appeared when the clamps were removed (possibly to just about see on one of the photos - the one with spuds in the background....) Whether this will be an issue or not I have no idea. There isnt actually much depth of fillet within the truss rod channel, so I am hoping not....

Anyway, I look forward to any comments/criticisms as usual 

Adam

G-clamps good, but a little too much pressure applied





Scarf joint a slipped a little too





Truss-rod installed and fillet glued in. Note the dip in the fillet (purpleheart as I had some at nearly correct dimensions anyway) towards the headstock.





Messy truss-rod adjustment area. Might need to place a trussrod cover here


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## whiskywill (29 Jan 2013)

Kalimna":6la2tsk4 said:


> note the Warburtons toastie loaf wrapper - quite the most excellent paper for preventing glue sticking to clamp



I use the inner bag from an Aldi's cornflakes box.


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## L2wis (30 Jan 2013)

Great progress so far!!


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## Kalimna (18 Feb 2013)

Greetings all,
I have been lucky enough to get a fair bit of garage time recently, and have made a little progress on the guitar. So, here are some photo's of said progress. Essentially, jigs have been made, holes of varying size made, wood rasped away and caffeine consumed. A few issues/errors on the way, but it is starting to look like a guitar....

Wings glued on to the headstock. A lot of swearing as the clamps didnt play ball, what with non-ninety-degree angles. And tidying it up afterwards to ensure a flat surface for gluing headstock veneer was a royal pain.





Gratuitous photo of Bareknuckle Abraxas humbuckers. Not strictly woodworky, but an important part of the build 





Various jigs - a fretwire bender, control cavity + matching cover (quite pleased about the fit achieved there) templates and a humbucker template with control-position holes

















Setting up various straight-edged boards to act as a neck-pocket jig. This follows the method in Martin Koch's book, and I decided to have the neck angle on the neck itself rather than the neck pocket. Please excuse the mess on my bench....





A nice pocket was the result, and the neck required the merest whiff of a flat sanding block to allow a good fit. Beginning to look like a guitar 





At this point I noticed that the guitar body felt a little unwieldy - here's a direct lay-over my Les Paul for comparison. Not much difference in the lower bout, but a fair bit on the horns, and not as waisted as the LP.





Perfect guitar building weather. Who needs humidity and temperature control?





Some more piccies to follow - apologies for the image heavy post......

Adam


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## rileytoolworks (18 Feb 2013)

No need for an apology. 
Loving following this thread.
I'm afraid I have nothing constructive to say but it looks lovely.
All the best.
Adam.


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## Kalimna (18 Feb 2013)

To follow on from my above post, here are a few more images of the neck being worked on.
First up, fingerboard has been slotted, position markers glued in and radius being radiused. It may not come out too well on the image, but a big thanks goes out to a well known plane maker of these here parts.






Possibly the most 'eeeek' moment of the build so far. Taking a nice coarse rasp to the beautifully prepared neck and turning it from a squared taper to a rounded one.





As good a picture as I could get of the nearly - finished neck carve. I used a combination of a very coarse largish rasp, a couple of smaller and finer rasps, and plenty of 80-grit to obtain the shape. Frequent checking with both digital calipers (though not frequent enough, as it turned out), a straight edge and fingers to be sure of correct neck depth and no undulations/high/low spots. Unfortunately I think I have made the neck about 1-1.5mm too thin along it's length. I didnt carve through into the truss rod channel, and the profile is much flatter than the 'v' shape I was aiming for, so hopefully it will work...







So, altogether I am quite pleased with what has been done. The problems are several :
1) neck too thin
2) neck profile not quite right
3) body shape too big - I could have done something, but I couldnt find the right lines to fit within the wood that was left after I routed the body shape out.
4) a tiny 'wobble' when the nut is placed inbetween the fretboard and the headstock veneer.
5) first headstock veneer had a bird inlaid in various mother-of-pearls. I wasnt happy with it, and wasted pretty much a day (and small amount of cash) doing it.
6) I somehow misplaced a mark for drilling one of the control-knob holes. The jig I made is OK (I checked afterwards), but on the guitar is about 2mm out. 
7) Whilst typing this post up, I remembered I hadnt drilled/glued in the side position markers. Hmmm.

Again, sorry for the long post with multiple images. As usual, I welcome any thoughts/suggestions/comments, both good or bad 

Cheers,
Adam


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## L2wis (19 Feb 2013)

We like pics!! Great work with the rasp on the neck it looks good!!


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## Kalimna (19 Feb 2013)

Thanks Adam, Lewis  The rasps (Liogier) were a joy to use, but the 80-grit was absolutely necessary to smooth things out (in fact, I went up to 600grit, and the finish is quite lovely apart from a small area at the heel). The neck does feel nice, but as mentioned, is a little flat in profile for me.

My main concern remains the neck. At the first fret the depth is 19mm, and 21.8mm at the 12th fret. The truss rod channel has a depth of around 12.5mm, with fretboard finished thickness of around 5mm. So, if there are any luthiers out there who could weigh in, I would really appreciate it regarding the neck........

Cheers,
Adam


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## Mike Wingate (19 Feb 2013)

You have some nice tools, plenty of clamps and the skill to use them. A really nice idea and build. But in Padauk it is going to be really heavy. I made an EVH Frankenstein many yeas ago for a customer and the body was made out of 2 laminations of MDF with plenty of paint to seal the surface and edges. It sustained well! Have you considered binding the body to conceal the inlays around the edge?


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## stevenw1963 (19 Feb 2013)

Cracking WIP


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## Kalimna (19 Feb 2013)

Again, thanks for the comments 
Mike - I do have some nice tools (dont think that the BS chisels made it as a drive by though  ), but im not really sure that I have the skills to use them anywhere near their fullest yet. Clamps? Well, there are a few, but the Axi f-clamps arent the best at holding the clamping pressure unfortunately. I might have to replace some of them... As for doing a binding channel, well to be honest I hadnt thought of it as I initially wanted to have a carved effect around the edge, with the inlaid wood showing through. However, it is still an option that I'll think about as I havent finished carving the body yet.

Cheers,
Adam


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## MickCheese (19 Feb 2013)

Looking good, very good. 

Your body does look a little too large and if heavy will make playing tiring so you may want to consider shape before it's too late. 

Mick


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## Kalimna (2 Mar 2013)

Right then folks, time for an update on progress...
So far, the body/neck has been glued up, the frets installed, remaining pockets routed and body carved. 
More issues though, and primarily concerned with the neck. It is definitely a little on the thin side, but of perhaps more concern is the rather poor fret insertion technique I seem to have. Apart from using a lot of cyano to try and keep the ends from lifting, I removed and replaced of them. On the flip side, my rough home-made fret bending jig does seem to work....
The carving of the body was a lot of fun, and quite 'free' in that I kept rasping until I was happy with the curves. It has become a rather tactile body (sanded to 600) and the weight/size issue seems to have mostly disappeared. It is by no means a small guitar, but smaller than a 335. The carving was also an excellent opportunity to give my Liogiers' a workout. They performed beautifully, but I now realise that planes are not the only tools to have a slope 
There is no finish yet, which will be Tru-Oil, and I intend to keep a relatively satin finish. I think the padouk, in particular, looks fabulous in an oiled, pore unfilled finish.
As for electrics - I am still working (well, my father-in-law is) on the schematic, but it will be a 5-way rotary switch over the two humbuckers with various split-coil options. Vol/tone per pickup also.

Right then, the photos :

A quick unglued mock up with neck 






Close up of the uncarved heel join. The fit was good enough that I could lift the guitar by the neck with little movement. I did take a couple of swipes with a rigid sanding block to allow 'glue space' for when it was glued up.





Fret-bending jig





Roughly marking out the curved facets





Helping daddy 





One of many cyano/activator applications. I was quite happy that the final carving would remove the chipped area, but I didnt want the chips to extend further.





Forearm contour first steps





Close up of rear 'belly' curve. Note the duck taped coarse Liogier. This was used for most of the hogging, then I moved to a grain 8 and then a half-round grain 15 before working with 80-grit sandpaper and up through the grits. It truly is a pleasure working with these rasps.





The curves beginning to take shape and flow





The body near-as-damnit finish sanded





(please see next post for remaining images)


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## Kalimna (2 Mar 2013)

And the remainder of this update :


A further shot of the (nearly finished) body :





Frets bent, cut and lined up. Neck radiused.





Triangular file to bevel the edges of the fret slot. I think, with hindsight, I over-filed the slots. I'll know for next time....





The frets inserted. You may be able to notice the lifted fret-ends and copious superglue 'fixer'. Again, more experience for the next one.





Glueing up the neck join. A very definite 'eeeeeeek' moment.





And completely out of linear order, here's an alternative use for a pram whilst i glued the headstock veneer on 






Right then, as usual, any comments/suggestions/criticisms welcome 

Thanks for looking,
Adam


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## MickCheese (2 Mar 2013)

Looking really good and well documented. The shape looks nice, a sort of rounded strat!

The forearm chamfer looks a bit bulbous, I tend to find a flatter chamfer to be a bit more comfortable but it may just be the angle of the photo. 

I like the inlay. Are the raised fret ends going to cause buzz?

Mick


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## marcros (2 Mar 2013)

i didn't like this guitar when i first saw it, but it is growing on me. great wip


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## L2wis (2 Mar 2013)

Great stuff! Looks really nice with all the additional carving done!!


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## Kalimna (3 Mar 2013)

Mick - I think it might be just the photo. The contour is a little bulbous, but I find it quite comfortable when sitting. The shape, if you can imagine it, is more like a cross between a PRS custom and a Satriani Ibanez (one of the earlier models) than a strat. But I see what you mean. As to the fret ends? Well, the replaced ones looked much better and there is a fair amount of cyano there holding them down (not very tidy or of a high craftsmanlike fix, but it should work), so with a fret levelling/dressing they should be OK. As for future buzz? Ummmm.

Mark - Thanks, not all things are to everyones' taste, so that's OK 

Lewis - Cheers, as I say, the carving was fun (too much fun on the neck tho....)

Right then, time to go to work. Grrrr.

Adam


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## stevenw1963 (3 Mar 2013)

Adam,

Cracking WIP & a rather tasty looking guitar coming out of the woodwork.
Can't wait to see the finished article.
Great stuff


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## Kalimna (26 Mar 2013)

Rightyo then, time for another update, and a conversion from a WIP to a WNC (work nearly complete)

Since the last post, I have been busy putting the finish, and the finishing touches, onto the guitar.
First off was the construction of a holding jig to assist the fret finishing. 1" ply with some support strips and hardware from BnQ/Screwfix. Cutting out the 'divots' around the edge took a surprisingly long time, but it makes for an easy to set up jig. Guitar body held down with stretchy cord from BnQ.






A close up of the height-adjustable neck support block (not very pretty, but it works well).





And the jig in use. Pay particular attention to the amount of filing needed to level the frets. I am not happy about that, but I'll maybe do a better job of seating the frets next time...









Marking out the bridge position, and drilling the holes for the bridge studs. Definitely an 'eeeeeek' moment. Again, pay particular attention to the location of the pillar drill. Somewhat less than ideal. And you will also notice the clutter-free and tidy workbench 









A close up of the neck pickup cavity - with help from my 2 1/2 year old. Unfortunately, I did not rout the 'wing' bits deep enough for the pickup hardware, so had to go at it with a 10mm drill later on to allow them to fit. Not visible when pickups installed though, so not really a problem.





Jumping forward a bit, the guitar has now had about 14 coats of Tru-Oil and I am setting up for the wiring of the guitar. Note the essential wiring-up items - freshly brewed coffee, chocolate and iPad for easy access to wiring diagrams.





Some wiring photos, note the neatness of the finished job (!?!)





continued on next post......


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## Kalimna (26 Mar 2013)

Continuing.....

Selector switch cavity - blue masking tape is my marking system for identifying wires





Main control cavity. Bask in the neatness of the job!





And now, the finished article. Ladies and gentlefolk, let me introduce you to the "Pinta LG" guitar, one of a kind 





















So, things I am happy with :
The body is very tactile and sits extremely comfortably, and the weight is no worse than a Les Paul
The finish is just about the right amount of satin for what I was after. I think full gloss would have looked wrong, especially as I was after a pore-not-filled look.
The sound from the Bareknuckle pickups (Abraxas) is superb - creamy overdrive and very clear clean sounds just dying to be played in a pentatonic scale 
It works and plays like a guitar.
Almost no fret buzz on first stringing-up

Things not so happy with :
Tru-oil build up around the neck join.
Neck angle too shallow leading to a 12th fret action of 2.5mm. Playable, but a llittle high for my liking.
Many, many mistakes made along the way - neck depth, neck angle, mis-drilled holes, thin neck, bad fret insertion, poor soldering on the pots, off-centre routs, wiring everything up and plugging in to hear only a buzzing hum (Damn You, missed-out ground wire!), messy side fret-markers, less-than-ideal bridge placement (chalk it up to experience, but a couple of strings wont intonate correctly as the bridge studs are too far forward for adjustment, etc

I dont have any sound clips yet, but when I do, I shall post them up.

So, thats guitar no.1 finished. The second has already been started, so I shall post another WIP for that one. I dont think it will move along nearly as quickly though, as I have had a lot of spare time this past month or two.
As usual, I welcome any comments/criticisms/queries/suggestions and thank you for all your comments so far in these posts.

Cheers,
Adam


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## L2wis (26 Mar 2013)

Fantastic work!! Guitar looks great! If you make a thread for the second guitar build please put a link in here as I'd love to follow it.


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## stevenw1963 (26 Mar 2013)

Adam,

Top marks for the WIP & the guitar - absolutely fantastic both of them.

Something to be justly proud of - well done


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## gasman (26 Mar 2013)

Great work Adam - a real labour of love from start to finish.
Cheers
Mark


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## MickCheese (26 Mar 2013)

adam

I like that a lot.

Could you redo the neck at some later date? Seems a shame to do all that work and have it spoiled by something that could just be shimed to the correct angle.

Well done for taking on the challenge.

Mick


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## Kalimna (26 Mar 2013)

Thanks for the comments folks 
I really must learn how to upload a sound clip/Youtube, as the sound coming out of those Bareknuckles is what it's all about, whatever it looks like.

Mick - I really dont know whether that would be feasible. I know that titebond 1 (almost universaly used in the construction, excepting a couple of areas that cyano reigned supreme) responds fairly well to heat as a means of un-glueing, but it would be a helluva lot of work with quite a risk to damaging the finish/body/neck. Unless the neck warps a little now that it has been strung up, I dont think the effort (even if I had the experience to attempt such a thing) of trying to remove the neck would be worth the results. I mean to say that it is perfectly playable (not perhaps up with a PRS or Tyler or Anderson or suchlike), and it is, after all, my first attempt, so I suspect I will keep it as it is. If you are ever up in Scotland, you are more than welcome to look it over in the flesh (and that goes for anyone!)

Cheers,
Adam


P.s. As for the next one, I shall sort out some photos and start up a new WIP shortly


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## barkwindjammer (26 Mar 2013)

Incredible build Adam that thing looks baaaaaad!  
I do believe you can now add 'Luthier' to your CV -tenacious man, tenacious


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