Inlays 1

I want to make bat shaped inlays for the fretboard. And I want them to be all different, and made of mother of pearl. That's hard it turns out. mother of pearl is expensive and really fragile to cut. I need 12 inlays in total to do a 24 fret neck. I can get away with 10 if I skip the 24th fret.

I found some mother of pearl (pieces of polished oyster shells) on ebay and it came in about a week and a half.  There weren't very flat and there weren't very white.

I traced the fret board and drew out the inlays.

I cut the paper inlays out and glued them to the backs of the mother of pearl.

After a miserable attempt to cut them with the scroll saw I switched to this set up. That's the pearl clamped between two pieces of wood and a manual coping saw. It's slow going and they crack easily in the vice. It's the least worst way I've come up with to cut them so far. They're way too small to hold onto while cutting them anyway. 

I got 4 cut out that are usable so far. I ruined 4 in the process. When this is finished I'll need to carve holes in the fret board to match these exactly. I think that'll be even harder. This might have been an ambitious design....

Cut Away

My original design had a cut away that kept part of the lower right wing but still allowed access to the higher frets. After actually cutting it out and doing a little testing it turns out that its not a big enough space if you're hitting the high strings. I cut it out a little more and I think its much better. The curved style fits in better too I think.

Here you can see the original design and the pencil line for the new cut. 

Now there is lots of room..

Finger Board

I started into the fingerboard today. I planed it down and cut the fret slots. I needed to make a couple of jigs to do that. I also tapered it down to fit the neck.

The measurements of the frets were pretty fussy. They are identified right down to the 1000th of a millimeter.

The first jig i made was to clamp the finger board against a square surface to cut the slots.

The second one was a depth stop camped onto my fret saw. I will need to do this one again after sanding the curve into the fingerboard.

 Here is all cut out from the nut.

....and from the bridge.

Here it is trimmed to match the mahogany portion of the neck

Pickup Holes

I routed out the pickup holes and fit them into place. They're not screwed in yet so they're a bit crooked.

Bridge Routing - Tremolo

Back side is all ready. This is where the springs will attach to the bottom of the bridge and strech out to be bolted to the far right side. So now I have a fair sized hole right in the middle of the guitar.

 

 

 

Bridge Routing - Top

I routed out the bridge hole on the front side of the guitar today. I made all the routing templates by hand so they're not all exactly straight everywhere, but it fits in there nice and snug and it looks right. Tomorrow I'll try to do the back side of the routing.

Here it is, there are 3 separate depths, each different shapes and two 10mm holes for the mounts. The back side is 2 separate depths and part of it will overlap with this one, so you will be able to see through when its done.

 

 

Here is the bridge sitting in place. It will sit higher then that when its done.  

 

Bridge Routing Plan

This is the routing planfor the bridge. I'm a little reluctant to attempt it. I think I might try a trial run on a 2x6. I'll need to transfer this design to several actual routing templates since the different sections are all seperate depths and they'll need to be done one at a time.

 

 

The Pickup template is much more simple. The placement of these is just as important as the shape - and you only get one try.

Mail Order 3

Another mail order arrived today. The Floyd Rose Original and all the do-dads that go with that as well as two humbucker mounts. All in black.

Pickup Selector Switch

The pickup switch is now in place. I cut a big hole in the back using my doorknob hole saw which seemed to be the perfect size. I then took the middle of the hole in a little deeper using a forstner drill bit and then routed out around that. Just need some pickups to select now.

 

 

Mail Order 2

My order from www.stewmac.com arrived. The truss rod was the main item. I also ordered a truss rod cover and strap buttons. It all came in a box that could have held a volkswagen. Oh well, it didn't get lost at least.

Metal

The guitar got a little bit electric today. The 4 knobs and jack will all need to come out again to paint of course, but they all fit and look pretty good. I'll clean up the routing on the component cavity and make a cover later.

I decided to put the jack facing straight out like an SG. Also, you sort of need to hold this guitar like a classical guitar due to the pointiness, having the jack out the outside edge would get in the way. I think this is cooler anyway.