I did some more body contouring today. I like the feel I'm getting... sort of like a tubby Ibanez S-series I'm taking time over the next few days to work on this little sculpture for my wife and I's 5th anniversary. It's good practice for little detail work. Speaking of practice, always watch your off-hand- particularly on small pieces. Lesson learned!
This T-handle thing threads into the bolt insert so I can put it into the neck without marring anything like a screwdriver might. Cleaning up the area to be patched. I just used a sharp chisel to cut the sides straight. Found a scrap chunk of walnut that fit almost perfectly. Cut to size. Glued and clamped. With any luck, this will be all okay by tomorrow afternoon!
Uh, be carefull of your toes. LOL That bandaided finger was right over them and sure wouldn't like to see a matching set in your next post of pictures.
I'm going to use my small router plane to make a bigger, better patch. Routing done! The filler piece has been cut and sanded to fit. I got some serious epoxy mixed and clamped up. The package says it'll be fully cured in an hour. We'll see!
May I suggest you put something on the end of your neck before you screw in the insert? Butt the end of it next to another board, so the wood can't move out of the way so easily. I usually put the neck in a vise to keep the sides from blowing out. Haven't had an insert so close to the end before.
The sides are ok, but that little bit near the end did flake off a tiny bit at the surface again. Needless to say, I'm using this thing as a prototype to make a lot of adjustments to my design. I appreciate all input
While I was waiting for the neck patch to cure, I unboxed my neck pickup. It's a Mojotone Knockout Strat pickup. Wound like a strat, but with a double magnet underneath like a P90. Demo here: Mojotone Knockout Strat Pickup Demo - YouTube Cavity is properly sized now. Looks good, feels solid. Trimmed flush, insert inserted. There was still some tearout, but I think at this point it's a flaw in my design that needs correcting. It is nicely anchored, though. All together for the first time! Here's the back. I need slightly shorter bolts for the neck, I can't quite tighten them all the way. So here's where I'm at for the day. Overall, a decent amount of progress. Still a bit of an ugly duckling, but maybe it'll turn out pretty one day. I have a good feeling
So at this point, I'm pretty much waiting for a few days to order some stuff that I need in order to make more significant progress. It's my anniversary tomorrow and I didn't want to be the guy that says "nah baby, we can't go to the nice restaurant, I had to buy a truss rod and fret saw"
Nice restaurant? Anniversary? We had a civil wedding with my wife, just two of us, the judge and two witnesses (officials from the bureau)... I was wearing shitty jeans and a t-shirt. After the wedding we went to restaurant and had steaks and pints. Bonus feature: Our anniversary is during the Finnish midsummer fest, so no need to worry about remembering anniversary. ...it's all about finding the perfect Mrs. who doesn't mind at all if you say "nah baby, no nice restaurant today, luthier (or other) crap to do. Maybe next week?" (What a lazy, rude bastard I am. Shame on me. )
Hahaha that's awesome! We got married in a similar way, just us at this crazy old lady's house- Betty Love's Wedding Chapel. She doesn't mind me doing stuff 99% of the time, I just want to surprise her and take her out for a good time. Steaks and pints sounds pretty excellent.....
Hey guys, I'm back from a relaxing weekend in Ocean City, Maryland. It's the off-season for the little beach towns here, which is a weird concept for a lifelong Florida boy. Anyway, it was pretty deserted and cheap! Our view. On the way back, we visited the PRS factory in Stevensville, MD. It was Sunday, so no one was there. I was a little surprised at the lack of branding, but I can't blame a guy for being discreet. Definitely the right building, though
Anyway, back to the good stuff! I'm using this guitar as a testbed for a bunch of ideas; here is today's experiment. I'll be integrating Dunlop Straploks into the body for a cleaner look than standard strap buttons. This does prevent you from using a regular strap, but I think the result might be worth it. Here we go! Marked my desired location, drilled with a 1/8" bit. Switched to a 1/2" Forstner bit, drilled out the depth to match the Straplok post's height. Brought out a 3/4" countersink. I beveled the edges a bit, checked with the post, beveled some more, etc. It doesn't take any more than a few seconds to get the right depth, I was being careful. Ta-da! Now all I have to do is screw it in. And there we go! I don't like extra bits hanging off of my guitar Strap still works perfectly. Take it off, it's nice and clean for display.
That's one way to make the buttons flush. Dunlop also makes a version of the buttons designed to be flush mounted.
