...the quickie (though it's dodging a few other projects, so the elapsed time making shouldn't be that much, but the elapsed time total due to the project sitting may be much more).
I was going to make the whole thing cherry, but I forgot that after getting the last guitar body out of the far end of the slab (the objective was more or less two guitar bodies and half a dozen necks), the remainder of the center had split. I thought this was 3 1/2 to four inches thick, but it's 3, so it's not worth taking the time to cut out another body.
Years ago, I roughed out some les paul style bodies. two mahogany (macrophylla) and one khaya. I like khaya even though the guitar community sees it as second rate. for a while, it was available in great quality for the same price as poor quality honduran blanks. Those seem to be gone now.
Of these three, the african blank is too nice for this project, so it's back on the rack. The second of the two hondurans (both came from stew mac on a deal price years ago- they looked like a steal. Once I found out what quality they are, they were just "fair" price. In the tradition of stew mac, the picture of the blank in the listing was much better than these). Both were not well seasoned, and both cupped. The second of the two cupped so much that it lost a lot of thickness.
I'm not the only person that found this, but they were $85 each, so you get what you get when you're a low volume buyer. I'll make use of them - the comments at the time will filled with disappointment in the reviews, but if you've ever bought something from stew mac, you'll find that they solicit feedback from new customers. Now that I'm no longer a new customer, and for years now, they haven't asked for feedback on anything outside of automated prompts (a real person contacted me with my first ever purchase). Call me a cynic, but I think it's better for them to try to get feedback from starry eyed beginners.
Back to these - this is an LP special, no drop top, so the thin blank is out, and back goes the afro mahogany blank and I'll use the middle quality one here. It's the light colored one - not surprisingly, these all had their share of metal dust and dirt and a few scratches.
you can see the wonderful ribboning on the afro blank. One of the humorous things I've heard from guitar buyers in the past is that they "know that honduran mahogany is always better and more resonant". Some of this is because gibson uses it - and at this point, gibson uses it because they have a source in fiji for second growth wood - well, you guys planted it (the English).
One of the assertions is that "you can tell african mahogany is cheap by the bad color, it's always lighter".
I sent a few sample pictures to a guy who was giving me that line to trick him, and he guessed wrong. The grain can be pronounced on khaya, but sometimes the only real way to tell them apart is end grain (and khaya is a little more dry feeling if you can get a tool into it, but there's no definites. I'm sure gibson likes honduran - even though I've had poor experience with stability of any of their recent guitars - because it's easy to machine and it splinters less than khaya.
...so, the cherry table blank is relegated, I guess, to being cut into necks.
And rift from the end of the board. I could turn the sawing orientation a little bit, but it's not worth the trouble. It may be possible to get two necks out of this blank, but we'll see it's close from the template markout.
For people who think you can't work entirely by hand, look at the cut quality - this is not slow, it's as fast as I could saw - you get good at hand sawing like this is very little time. My portable TS wouldn't handle this slab, but I wouldn't use it for this, anyway - it's somewhat less accurate than working by hand and I save it for things that I don't really want to work on.
to "bandsaw" these neck bits out, I'll use a frame saw with a coarse bandsaw blade in it.
All of this is only about 15 minutes of work. I spent another 15 grinding chisels and then back here - abbreviated lunch and back to regular work.
I was going to make the whole thing cherry, but I forgot that after getting the last guitar body out of the far end of the slab (the objective was more or less two guitar bodies and half a dozen necks), the remainder of the center had split. I thought this was 3 1/2 to four inches thick, but it's 3, so it's not worth taking the time to cut out another body.
Years ago, I roughed out some les paul style bodies. two mahogany (macrophylla) and one khaya. I like khaya even though the guitar community sees it as second rate. for a while, it was available in great quality for the same price as poor quality honduran blanks. Those seem to be gone now.
Of these three, the african blank is too nice for this project, so it's back on the rack. The second of the two hondurans (both came from stew mac on a deal price years ago- they looked like a steal. Once I found out what quality they are, they were just "fair" price. In the tradition of stew mac, the picture of the blank in the listing was much better than these). Both were not well seasoned, and both cupped. The second of the two cupped so much that it lost a lot of thickness.
I'm not the only person that found this, but they were $85 each, so you get what you get when you're a low volume buyer. I'll make use of them - the comments at the time will filled with disappointment in the reviews, but if you've ever bought something from stew mac, you'll find that they solicit feedback from new customers. Now that I'm no longer a new customer, and for years now, they haven't asked for feedback on anything outside of automated prompts (a real person contacted me with my first ever purchase). Call me a cynic, but I think it's better for them to try to get feedback from starry eyed beginners.
Back to these - this is an LP special, no drop top, so the thin blank is out, and back goes the afro mahogany blank and I'll use the middle quality one here. It's the light colored one - not surprisingly, these all had their share of metal dust and dirt and a few scratches.
you can see the wonderful ribboning on the afro blank. One of the humorous things I've heard from guitar buyers in the past is that they "know that honduran mahogany is always better and more resonant". Some of this is because gibson uses it - and at this point, gibson uses it because they have a source in fiji for second growth wood - well, you guys planted it (the English).
One of the assertions is that "you can tell african mahogany is cheap by the bad color, it's always lighter".
I sent a few sample pictures to a guy who was giving me that line to trick him, and he guessed wrong. The grain can be pronounced on khaya, but sometimes the only real way to tell them apart is end grain (and khaya is a little more dry feeling if you can get a tool into it, but there's no definites. I'm sure gibson likes honduran - even though I've had poor experience with stability of any of their recent guitars - because it's easy to machine and it splinters less than khaya.
...so, the cherry table blank is relegated, I guess, to being cut into necks.
And rift from the end of the board. I could turn the sawing orientation a little bit, but it's not worth the trouble. It may be possible to get two necks out of this blank, but we'll see it's close from the template markout.
For people who think you can't work entirely by hand, look at the cut quality - this is not slow, it's as fast as I could saw - you get good at hand sawing like this is very little time. My portable TS wouldn't handle this slab, but I wouldn't use it for this, anyway - it's somewhat less accurate than working by hand and I save it for things that I don't really want to work on.
to "bandsaw" these neck bits out, I'll use a frame saw with a coarse bandsaw blade in it.
All of this is only about 15 minutes of work. I spent another 15 grinding chisels and then back here - abbreviated lunch and back to regular work.
