Grand Concert for Freegift, Builder Swap

[Dennis Mitchell]

I'm with Colin on the tortois. I used it on my Weissenborn (Mesquite & Mahogany). May give it a shot on the current HG. Who knows. This one's looking real nice Joe! So yeah, what about the neck?????

[Joe Sustaire]

Thanks David!
And Dennis, just so you can see that I haven't gone totally to sleep here---


See, there actually is a neck started here.

I got some nice off quarter hog blanks from Grant that were in my price range. And by ripping them down the center, flipping one piece end for end and gluing them back up, I wind up with a blank that has nice and stable opposing diagonal grain. Would be perfect time to put in a center lam of a contrasting wood, but I personally prefer necks without stripes, so mine stays all hog.

And this is my first scarf joint headstock on this build. I started with Jonathan Kinkead's build book and he stack laminates wood at the headstock just like you do at the heel, and then saws out his angled headstock. Works fine, saves doing a scarf joint, but does use more wood. So this time I happen across Chris Verhoeven's video tute on the OLF, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g29dInBtvcA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, and he refines the scarf joint on the jointer instead of hand planing. So being as I recently came up with a jointer I gave it a shot.




And it worked real slick!

So that's where I'm at now,
Thanks for watching!

Joe

[Joe Sustaire]

Hang on there Dean, it's getting a little bit closer!




Routing the mortise in the box.


Gluing in some walnut splines to strengthen the tenon.




Neck roughed out on the bandsaw, slot routed for trussrod, and attachment hardware in place.


And it's starting to look like a guitar.

Although with that square neck, you might just have to learn to play lap slide!
Joe

[DaveWhite]

Joe,

Definitely looking like a geetar - fabulous!!

[JMPBuffalo]

Hey, Joe,

Looking real cool. I definitely like the vibe of your guitars.

Joe

[Joe Sustaire]

Thanks for commenting Dave and Joe!

It's moving along, slowly, but moving.
I got started on the neck carving and have it looking pretty nice. Usual tools, spokeshave, rasp, and sandpaper. No pics, also laminated the headstock with some bookmatched offcuts from the back. Then it was on to the slots and tuner holes.

I have always done my slots by drilling holes at each end and cutting out the waste with the bosch jigsaw, then cleaning the slots with file and sanding sticks. This time I decided to make a template and route the slots. So I made my router template out of oak and did a couple of test routs with it to iron out the bugs. And almost forget that you neeeeeed to drill your tuner holes before you cut your slots to avoid tearout when the bit breaks into the slots. Luckily a little voice reminded me in time.


So here I'm using a drilling jig to drill each tuner hole on my layout lines.


And here is my routing template.


This shows how I'm routing the slots, just have a cheap straight cut hss bit so I'm taking very shallow passes, and using the next to the smallest bushing.


After I had the slots cut with the larger bushing guide I came back and did a final pass with the smallest bushing on the 1/4" bit and nearly had a disaster.

As you can see the bushing is very thin and got pushed into the bit which could have then gone haywire, but I lucked out.


And it turned out pretty well, just needs a little touchup.

So here is the carved neck with slots,



And a close-up.

And that takes care of today, thanks for watching,
Joe

[Dennis Leahy]

Joe,

Your work has such warmth and artistry.

It just has a sumptuous, "touch me!" vibe. This guitar won't sit in a case.

Dennis

[DaveWhite]

Joe,

Very neat and ingenious - looking great. Here's the obvious chicken and egg question though - how did you make the template - did you make a template first and . . .

Now the serious question - how did you hold the template on the heastock to do the routing?