Building your own guitar

martinedwards

I've used barrel nuts and the long bolts used by the likes of IKEA to hold knock down furniture together.

I drilled holes parallel to the truss rod for the nuts.

worked well.

JCJCJC

martinedwards wrote: »

I've used barrel nuts and the long bolts used by the likes of IKEA to hold knock down furniture together.

I drilled holes parallel to the truss rod for the nuts.

worked well.

That seems interesting and novel Martin. Are the barrel nuts more or less in tunnels then? If so, did you put in a dowel as a spacer/void filler between them?

I'm itching to get a spindle/bobbin sander at the moment. Does anybody know if they come up in Lidl or Aldi every now and again? I'm very tempted to buy a Ridgid one from Homedepot in the US for USD200 and have my friendly cousin mail it to me. I know that as soon as I do that, one will pop up in Aldi for ten cents. Anybody here flogging a used one?

martinedwards

haven't seen a spindle sander in any of the euromarts.....

as to the barrel bolts, its fairly common in the acoustic building world



I did similar with a strat style neck with the tunnels running parallel with the truss rod and the barrels pushed in from the end. no need to dowel the holes because they're hidden anyway, and the bold holds the nut in place anyway.

stuchyg

Thought I would throw up a pic of my own home made beauty, not quite as fancy as others but I like it

JCJCJC

Here's one I'm working on these days:



I'm thinking of french-polishing it eventually after a lot more work - any opinions, especially from Nialldabass, the expert!!

JC

martinedwards

looks nice!

JCJCJC

martinedwards wrote: »

looks nice!

Thanks Martin. This board has gone quiet, what are guys up to? I'm still working on that stripey guitar, I had some "issues" getting the neck right - I'm on the third neck now, zebrano fingerboard on beech and I think it'll be ok. I'm also working on a Bitsacaster - made from bits I had lying around my shed with no particular purpose. It has a sycamore tele-shaped body with an arm relief cut and a belly cut, one pickup, a cherry gibson-scale 25.5" fingerboard and pink position dots! Rear control cavity, scratch-made brass tone bar to deal with a ragged ferrule hole, spalted beech headstock, abalone knobs - you get the idea, a bit of everything. The person I'm making it for is an electric guitar novice, I think she'll like it and that's really all that matters.
I also have a more pure tele build to get back to, walnut top on an elm back, it doesn't need a whole lot of work to finish.
Boards.ie is a nuisance the way it operates pictures - it doesn't automatically resize them like other forums and boards do. To post a pic here means seperately uploading a small copy, that's a pita when you have a lot of pictures. Only for that, I'd post more material more often.

Regards JC

martinedwards

I haven't posted anything new as I haven't DONE anything new.

All my building is done in work, and I'm off long term sick with back problems.

ho hum!

JCJCJC

martinedwards wrote: »

I haven't posted anything new as I haven't DONE anything new.

All my building is done in work, and I'm off long term sick with back problems.

ho hum!

Sounds fairly nasty Martin - get well. I remember hurting my back once, stupidly, just lifting a spare wheel out of a car boot first thing in the morning. Something went and I had to lie flat on the yard and watch the clouds for a while until the pain subsided - it was intense. I'm pretty healthy generally now, I was on life support ten years ago with meningococcal septicaemia and pneumonia, but I've come from it and I'm not going back any time soon. All that happens now is my right elbow gets a bit sore a few hours after a session shaping a neck with a spokeshave.
On the guitars and general woodwork front - I recently was lent a dremel and a Black and Decker powerfile, on a long open-ended loan. I have to admit the dremel is handy. I bought a box of assorted bits for it in Lidl and it has done a few little things very neatly. I haven't used the powerfile yet, I'm thinking there will be a role for it sanding the concave curves on a tele etc, time will tell.
How do people here feel about buying and selling on this board? Some of the other boards I'm on have strict no-trading rules. I think it might be helpful in building our small Irish guitar-making community if we did a bit of trading on tools and materials, things like exotic woods etc.

martinedwards

I've swopped bits and pieces with folks from all over the place on other forums. I've been the recipient of wood, tools and jigs and have sent similar stuff off too.....

JCJCJC

Now, for anybody with acute 'wood stash envy', how about this:



Guess what kind of tree it is - hint- carvers and turners go nuts for it...

JC

martinedwards

going by the look of the countryside, I;m guessing walnut?

but if it IS walnut, it;s only a little 'un!

JCJCJC

martinedwards wrote: »

going by the look of the countryside, I;m guessing walnut?

but if it IS walnut, it;s only a little 'un!

No - it's monkey-puzzle, and it's in Cork. I hope to pick up a bit of it in the coming week. The tree was 100 feet long with diameter of 4 feet, there ought to be enough for a guitar or two in that.

JCJCJC

Is anybody here the builder of two t-style guitars on adverts.ie?

link

JCJCJC

I've posted a build thread on tdpri on a nice simple guitar I built recently, here's the link:

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-depot/366968-g-scale-tele-lady-who-likes-pink.html

It's a pita re-sizing pictures for this forum on boards.ie, once is enough to upload them. The tdpri forum automatically resizes them.

On a related note, I've bought a RIDGID EB4424 edge belt sander in the USA, it'll be here in a few weeks. It's the one all the American builders swear by for shaping bodies. Does anybody else in Ireland have one for making guitars?

JC

JCJCJC

This discussion has gone far too quiet. Here's a tele I built recently with a book-matched Irish elm top and a walnut back:

It turned out nice, it has Fender 2012 Tele pickups in it. Is anybody here about to enter the 2013 Tdpri build challenge? I think I'll enter this year.

Celly Smunt

JCJCJC wrote: »

that walnut looks beautiful