Green

Building of the Green Reign

As you may know I started on the second and third Reign. The build of the 2nd one is reported here and you can read all about the 3rd one under the "spalted" link in the menu.

The Purple Reign has a carved top and is a solid body guitar. This one will be a semi hollow body with a flat top. I haven't decided if the guitar will get 1 or 2 "f" holes. If I can figure out a way to get both the f hole and the knobs together nice it will be 2. And if not, it will be just one like a thin line. The top will be stained dark green and golden hardware will be mounted... I am thinking about a black or really dark green burst too.. like this one:

I really like this color but mine will be just a little darker ...and this quilt is amazing.. Someone recently gave me some tips how to get this depth... keeping my fingers crossed!! but for now, let's start with sawing the body...

Here below are the 2 body blanks for the Green Reign and the Plain or Spalted Reign.

Anyway, I have already bandsawn the body and sanded the edges to its final shape.

I am so happy with my bandsaw, I don't know how I managed to build without...

and here is my drum sander, this thing has already proved it's worth the money!

I am thinking about making one of these myself but without the up and downwards motion. That way I can use a template to sand it to the final shape... or use a router with my template.. I don't know... still thinking!

After the sading was done, I took a "drill" to get rid of the most wood to spare my router bits...

It's hard to see but the lower part of the body is already done. I first planned on doing only one side but after some consideration I tought why not all? So that's what I did...

After there was not enough wood anymore to use this drill, I had to get my router!

Looks weird huh? haha

but after routing it looks a lot better...

I already mounted the template for the pick up so that is next

It's a shame that it will be a while before I can do some work on this.. my christmas holiday is almost over so I guess it won't be until half way Januari before I can do some work...

yep, that's me routing the pick up cavity! You can see the body for the plain reign on my work bench as well.... Note the safety glasses! I had some wood splinters in my eye once and believe me, that ain't fun!!! And some ear protection won't hurt either! But please decide for yourself if you wear it... Here you see the quilted maple top I picked out for this guitar. I still haven't decided if I should glue this strip of snakewood in the middle. The fretboard will be snakewood too! Or makassar ebony.. as pictured below the quilt. If I take the ebony, the strip will no longer be an issue of course...

decisions, decisions..

So, let's talk "f" holes... I don't want to use a tradional one, obviously! So I used the search function of google to get some pics of different holes. But nothing I found was what I was looking for. Not even one that I could alter a bit to what I have in mind... So I had to design my own.. but when I was rehearsing with my band the other day, I noticed an old acoustic guitar hanging on the wall and it had about the holes I wanted.. So I copied them and cut the shape from the paper just to see what it would look like on the top itself..

this is still a rough version but I think it will be something like this.. I have to check how it will look on the right side as well.. Maybe I won't use the pick up ring on this on.. if it is too hard to get a f hole to match its shape..

I did manage to start on the neck, and I used the safe T planer to make the head stock thinner. Great tool !!

The fretboard in the pics is for rough measements. I want a dark freatboard on this one..

Just before I stopped working for today I routed the neck pocket. I didn't have a template so I did that first. That will speed things up in the future ( i hope)...

No pics of that, sorry!

Something else I did a while ago was binding the body of this guitar. I only did the back so far because the top has to be glued on the body first. Since I never did this before it didn't work out like I wanted to but at least I now know what to do. So I am thinking about removing the binding on the back, and just make a rounded edge out of it. I'll just use a binding on the front side of the body. I guess you have to make mistakes in order to learn....

Here is a pic of the body covered in tape to hold the binding down. I first had my doubts about the glue which I bought from a store that sells guitar supplies.. It looks a lot like the glue you use for plastic scale models so I thought it wouldn't stick to the wood but it did..

that's it for now, more updates coming soon ( maybe...) bye bye

@je

Hi There, HAPPY 2010!! well, it's 1 januari and what a great day to work on a guitar! No more "oliebollen" and champaigne, just the sound of a bandsaw and the smell of wood.... I love it! Today I drove to my work shop with my wife and kids. I knew they were only dropping me of because they were going to see the movie Avatar. So I had a few hours to spend alone...

The last time I worked on my guitar I took the piece of wood I wanted to use of for my neck and with my band saw I cut out the lines I drew on it. After I was done I realized I forgot to route the channel for the truss. Shit!!! Normally I use the side of the neck blank to guide the router to get a straight channel but now I already cut it so there was no way I could do it like this... So i had to make a device to fixate the neck and be able to route the center of the neck..

I forgot to take pics, I was having so much fun working, it completely slipped my mind!

When I was building this thing I was constantly adding some extra features so time flew by...But eventualy it was done and I routed the truss channel. Somehow I did manage to do some extra work on the binding I did earlier. There were some small gaps here and there. I glued in the last piece of binding to complete the backside of the body. Now all I have to do is take some aceton and desolve some binding into it so I can smooth out the point were the 2 pieces of binding meet. I have to say that for my first binding it's not bad at all...

I sanded the sides of the neck down to the line I drew on it. I cut just outside the lines with my bandsaw just to be safe. After that I sanded down the height difference between the top of the neck and the head stock. I had used the Safe T planer to graduatly lower from up to down but now it's all smooth.

Again, no pics...

now lemme think, what else did I do? oh yeah, I did some cleaning up in and around my work shop because last night my brother in law threw a party so there were bottles and plates all over the place. We gathered 3 bags of fireworks left overs, eventhough we burned most of it last night in the fire...

Before I could start on another proces of the build, I heard my wife's car pulling up on the drive way. So that's where it ends for today.. cleaned up the shop and off we went...

tomorrow's another day!

@je

ps. will take some more pics next time!! promise!

So here we are again, 2 Januari 2010:

Today was an unexpected day to work on my guitar. My wife took our boys to the swimming pool for some r&r so that gave me the opportunity to go to my workshop.

I took some decisions after sleeping on it a few nights... I decided to go with the snakewood fretboard, a smaller stripe of snakewood between the bookmatched quilted maple top, the shape of the F hole and its location and 1 or 2 holes.

I started out by picking the shape of the F hole. I had drawn a few options. Here are a few:

So which one did take?

Here is a pic:

I changed it a little when I put the paper one on the top.

Because I wanted to glue some cream binding in here I didn't make the points too sharp.

Here I am sanding the edges so they are smooth. It's difficult te keep the edges straight. It's very easy to sand them round and that makes it hard to glue the binding. Here you can see the shape just before binding.

After trying to fit the binding seamless (..yeah right!) in the corners I was ready to glue it in.

Getting ready for glue, just getting some more tape ready to hold down the binding while the glue sets.. Let's hope my first "inside" binding job succeeds..

While I let it cure, I made the stripe of snakewoon I wanted in between the 2 halfs of the topwood, a little thinner.. and I glued a piece of binding to both sides..

I even made a small start on the neck. I made a template of a neck shape I like so I know what to carve to...

My girlfriend came to pick me up. So had to to finish what I was working on, clean up and go home.. My oldest son came in the shop and asked me if I wanted to teach him how to build a guitar when he is 16... So no worries for the future of my workshop!

So since he was in my work shop I asked him to remove the clamps I placed on the body and the top.

so he did... better start as soon as possible!!

which way do I have to turn it, dad, left, right?

I was so anxious to see how it would like like so I put the parts together to see what it would look like..

Now imagine the top dark green with some real deep quilt, stunning golden hardware and cream binding.... looks awesome... I hope..

In the coming period I wll shape the neck, glue it in after drilling the holes for the tuners. Still thinking about the binding on the fretboard. It might be a little too much.. Anyway, I still have to get the fretboard to the right thickness, it's a mm too thick. I hope I can start staining it soon...

stay tuned for more.. soon!

@je

Hi, it's me again...

Made some progress today, I glued the other half of the top to the body. I cut the rough edges of the top so it is flush with the body.

The pics look a bit different becuase I took them with my phone... forgot the camera.. anyway, here you see my collection of clamps... somehow this is a must... hahaha

Routed the pick up cavities and the sides of the top... starting to look like it's supposed to...

I shaped the neck, not completely yet, I still have to do the heel.

I like my necks nice and thin...

I should not have done the stripe with a marker... the ink penatrated the wood and now I can't get it out... SHIT!! next time use a pencil!!!

When I needed a rest from shaping I dissolved some binding in aceton to fill the small gaps that were left from my first inside binding job.. works great!

After this I thought I'd glue some binding together as well for the front of the body. On the back there is just the cream one, but on the front it will be cream/black/cream..

It looks a bit messy but with a scraper you can get it nice and clean again.. just needed to cure some more before putting pressure on it..

So what to do in the meantime?

I made a fretbender.. I am so glad I didn't buy one because this was the easiest way to safe money.. all parts I found im my collection of bolts and nuts and 2 small ball bearings.. nothing fancy..

The big washers were perfect for the job, normal washers are flat but these were a little warped. So put them together with the round backs together, it left a spacing for the tang of the fret.. left bearing is adjustable in height to change the radius..

I will need it soon because today I thinned the fretboard, made the fret slots today (for the first time, I've always used pre-slotted ones...) and it was vey easy with the milter box from Stew mac.

After that it was obviously radius time! that was hard work to do! but I managed to get it right! I noticed that the under string radius devices also have a use for checking the fret board radius...

You know me, always anxious to see what the end result will look like...

I must say, I have seen guitars that looked .. let's say ....not so damn good!!!... Pretty satisfied so far...

Well, that was it for today... upcoming update expected this comming saturday!!

stay tuned!

@je

Damn!!!

my work took all of my attention I completely forgot to take pics again!!

I already cut the fretboard to the normal size without binding when I decided I did want to do the fretboard with binding... so I had to trim the width with 2 x the binding size.. I used a setup with a straight edge and tape that sticks on both sides to stick the fretboard to the straight edge. The part that needed to be removed overlapped the straight edge, ran the router with a router bit with a bearing on the bottom against the straight edge... ( hope this makes any sense...) and removed that part of the fretboard.

I thought a drawing would give a better idea of what I did...

That's better I think...

So next thing I did was glue the binding to the sides and to the neck pocket side of the fretboard. I scraped it flush with the fret board and tomorrow I will fret it..

Or glue it to the neck first..

what else is planned for tomorrow???

Shaping the heel of the neck, drilling the tuners holes, route the front of the body for binding, and maybe the headstock, glue the neck to the body, sand the body for staining... so, I won't be bored I guess... oh, and I'm bringing my son, he wants to learn already....

should be a fun day!

bye for now

@je

So, here I am again... another day, another dollar, I'm back again, don't make me holler!

let me tell you what I managed to do today... it's not what I planned to do but I think it was a nice day..

first I started to scrape the remaining binding of the fretboard. That turned out better than I hoped for..

Unfortunately some things don't go as hoped for...

shit happens, I guess...

After glueing the small piece of binding back to its place, I cut of the frets I needed after putting them through my home made fretbender..

I know it's probably better to fret after glueing it to the neck but I ordered a pre fretted fretboard once so I guess this way is ok too..

Here you see the fretboard without frets but with the binding ready to be fretted.

So I had to prepare the frets for putting them over the binding. I did it with a dremel because I don't have the tool to cut it away. This works too, you just have to be careful to grind away only the tang and not the the bottom of the crown. Otherwise the fret won't fit to the binding nicely and leave a gap.

Here is the freboard, frets installed

I didn't glue the frets, I know some do and some don't.. I decided not to... Let's hope I won't regret it... You can't really see it but the wood is so nice that I will place only side dots, no markers...

I beveled the frets a little but I will finish the fret job after I glued it to the fingerboard. So the next thing I did was watching my son design his own guitar. As I told you before, he wants to build one with me in a couple of years. I could do it for him but I want to do it together. Today he started out to learn how to use a drill..

He drilled to holes for my fret holder. On the werk bench you can see a part of the drawing he made..

Here's a close up:

I see some Ibanez influence... Although I still have to wait about 4 years before we can do this, I am already looking forward to doing it... should be a nice father/ son thing..

I had some time to kill so I started out with some clamps for a Stewmac kit I bought..

You know what this will be in the near future....

just before we went home I routed the body for the binding..

I made a start on gluing the binding. Unfortunately one of the cream layers didn't glue so well so I now have just cream/black instead of cream/black/cream. I hope it will look nice..

I hope I can finish it tomorrow. Let's see what the mrs has to say about it when I tell her I want to go work on my guitar ( again...) should be interesting...

talk to you soon!

@je

11 januari 2010

Because my girlfriend needed the laptop yesterday to work I could only do the updates on the guitar forums and not on my own website..

So without further delay, here it is...

I started out with glueing the rest of the binding. As I told you, my plans for the cream/black/cream binding didn't work out because I used 2 different brands of binding and somehow it didn't glue together so well. I guess one brand dissolves sooner in aceton than the other. Anyway, what was left was a black/cream binding. Because I planned to do a black or dark green burst a c/b/c binding would have been nice but now I only had b/c so a burst would make the black binding dissapear. Leaving only a cream binding to be seen. I decided not to do a burst and leave the top all green. Also nice but not as nice as I wanted it to be...

But as I ran out of binding, this was the only option I had left.

Here I just glued the binding to the front of the body.

After the glue cured, I started scraping the binding to get it flush with the body.

(and yes, there are the camels again!!!)

My son asked me why I didn't use my router to do this. So I thought that was a good idea..

Adjusted the right height for the router bit and off I went. On the first contact with the binding, the router pulled out the binding and even pulled out some wood from the side of the body... DAMN!!!

So to make this dissapear I had to use my drum sander but this of course made the binding on the back a lot thinner... very bad idea...!!

After the body was repaired I pulled off all the binding that was left on the front.

Yesterday I ordered some new binding from Stewmac so make sure I have only one brand and the same color of cream... (main music's cream binding is more yellow..)

After this major dissapointment I drilled the holes for the steinberger tuners.

I also made a truss rod cover out of 2 pieces of snakewood. I didn't have a piece that was big enough.

Once the glue was dry, I sanded it to the final shape and it was done.

I like it.. I know some of you don't like the head stock but to be honest, I don't care... as long as I like it.. ;-)

So, I have to wait now until I can finish the binding. Maybe I'll do the back again, so the binding won't tell my mistake I made using a router instea of a scraper..

I can't wait to do the stain.. should give a totally different look...

Hop I can show you soon!

here's the final pic for today, I have to cook some spaghetti now... enjoy your dinner!

@je

So, it's 14 January today and I had another great building day. I received my package filled with binding last week from Stewmac. Last friday I glued some binding together like I wanted it in the first place. Cream/black/cream. When I started working today the binding which I glued earlier, really sticked together. I had to make the routed edge for the binding a little deeper because the combination I used was a little deeper than what I planned in the first place.

Before glueing, making sure the edge has straight edges so the binding will fit nicely.

I bought a heat gun today to bend the binding where needed. And I needed it...

The curves on the lower horn were a pain in the you know what... I tried it without heating/ melting it but it's just didn't work. After I bought this gun it was a lot easier.. If you look close at the binding, you will see I could have done a better job but hey, I'm still learning!! Here you see the heater in action...

No pics of the taping because you've seen those before...

Here is a picture of me scraping after I removed the taped that held the binding while the glue dried...

Once I was done scraping I glued 2 small pieces of binding to the side of the body. Right next to the neck joint. That's what the blue tape is holding...

When I completed the binding, I could finally start on staining the top. I was so anxious to start that I forgot to drill the second hole for the tone pot. Luckily for me it doesn't matter that much... When I was staining, I noticed that there were a few spots that the stain didn't work. I guess there was still some glue left. And I thought I sanded it all down.. guess not! I have to sand it again anyway to cut down the black because I have to stain it green eventually! And another lucky thing is that I will spray a black burst on the edges. The most of these spots are along the binding so it should cover them up easily... I hope...

I did some scrap wood as well to see what will give the best result with the green.

Here you see the top completely black... Maybe I will do a black guitar too some day..looks nice...

bon, n'est pas?

You can see the unstained spots mostly one the left and right horns. A little on the snake wood stripe in the middle.. Tomorrow I will sand the black down and do those spots as well.. I scraped a little bit of binding just to see what it would look like. And it looks great! There were a few very small gaps between the body and the binding but they have dissapeared now. Hope they won't show after the laquer is applied...

In the meantime my son was changing his design after I told him it looked like an excisting model. After I told him about the option not to use peg heads but a kind of Steinberger system his imagination went crazy..

The Head stock ( he didn't like the idea of no head stock) will look somewhat like the batman logo..

The body has a very metallish look to it, I kinda like it although it is a typical metal axe...

I told him he would have to wait until he's 16 and he can build it on his own but I can't make him wait 5 years... So I told him we can start soon and I will help him. I won't let him use my router or bandsaw but he can drill holes and sand... make him sweat a little...

He want a finish where you put water in a big bucket, pour some paint in different colors into it en dip the body slowly into the bucket so the paint will stick to the body. This proces has a name but I don't know what it's called.. sorry! Now he want to use black, green and gold... I wonder what it will be tomorrow.. When it's time we start this build I'll start another page on my site.. keep an eye out for that one!

Anyway,here are 2 more pics of my project...

I hope the green will look as good as this quilt shows already...

one more for the road:

And for the sponsers, there are the camels again ;-)

TO BE CONTINUED!!

Sunday 17 January 2010,

Today I started with cutting back the black stain. The best thing of doing it with this stiff sanding block is that the quilt becomes absolutely flat. Normally you can feel the quilt but now it's totally smooth and flat.

But I wanted to cut the black down some more so I thought I'd take my small sanding machine which I got from my father in law. But I had never used it before but it's an Hitachi and I know they make some fine machines..

I changed the sanding paper that was on it because 80 grit was a little too coarse. After putting a piece of 320 grit on it I started sanding. I wasn't paying attention to the stained top so when I looked, I got scared.. The sole of the machine seems to be worn and 2 of the 4 screws which holds it sticked out the bottom.

Which resulted in a loot of deep scratches!!! I was mad as hell! I threw the machine in one of the corners, cursing and shouting the most horrible things.. with my kid next to me.. He didn't say a word... I guess he knew he'd better keep his mouth shut... poor kid...

The scratches were really deep and I wondered if I could ever sand them out.. after a lot of machine sanding with another machine with a good sole, they dissapeared!!! I felt so good! as you can imagine...

After I cut down the black to the point which I wanted it to, I routed the cavity for the tremelo bridge. After a bit measuring to make sure I was doing it right, of course... When this was finished I did the cavity on the back for the springs.

Then it was time to mix the green stain!!!

After some mixing and some trail stains on some scrap wood I thought it was time to do the actual body!

It took some attempts but after a few tries I had the color I wanted.

Of course I made some pics to see how it will look when it's finished. At first I forgot that I will put gold hardware on it so first you see it with a black bridge. The second pic has a gold bridge. The stainless steel saddles should sound great but for the looks I prefer all gold...

Note that the dome knobs are standard green abalone ones..

and behold, green pearloid matching knobs!!

and as usual here is last pic of today, talk to you soon!

saturday 23 January,

I haven't done a lot lately... busy busy busy!! Like last night, my youngest son had to perform 2 songs to show the parents how they are doing on the music school.

He only played 2 songs but I just had to see it! Besides, it would have broken his little heart if I'd missed it...

Anyway, here is a pic to show you that I am a little afraid what he wants to have when he wants a piano...

I guess this means start selling some of my guitars... hahaha!!

anyway, I glued the truss in the neck today. I never did that before but it seems you could get a kind of rattling sound if you're not lucky.. so to avoid the rattle, I thought I'd glue it.. better safe than sorry!

I hope I can glue the fretboard soon!

You may have read it on the guitar forum already but I promised to show some pics without the pickguard/pick up ring thing and with some ordinary ones..

I only had one gold ring so I used photoshop to double it. It looks a bit strange but it's just to give you an idea...

I have sanded the first green stain I applied over the black. And did another green layer... main reason was a drop of tite bond that didn't stain. and second reason was I wanted to get more depth from the quilt..

anyway, here are the pics of the different pick up rings...

So, tell me which one you like best... I still like my original design of the head stock shaped rings, altough I like the gold ones as well...

Difficult call!!

Hope I can post an update soon!

for now, bye bye

@je

Well, what happened in the meantime..??

first I decided I will use my custom design pick guard/pup ring but made of brass. Polished to high gloss of course!!

A lot of ppl thought normal rings look too ordinary and I have to agree...

But first I have to tell you about my fretboard. As you know I did a lot of work already. but when I drilled holes for the side dots, they were too close to the edge and you could see them from the front of the fret board. I used a little bit bigger dots than usual and obviously they were too big. So I decided to take of the binding on that side. Glued on a new piece but of course glue ran on the fretboard. And to take it off, I needed to sand it but that was impossible because the frets were already on it. So off came the frets! And of course this damaged the fretboard..

I had to sand the total fretboard on the bottom as well because the new binding wasn't flush with the board. And since the frets were gone, I decided I wanted an inlay on the 12th position. here are some pics of the work I did..

I used some teflon strips to protect the fret slots from epoxy during the glueing of the Mop..

After the glue is cured, I will sand it all down and then some...

I also inlayed the headstock. You have to be able to tell it's a "EJ".... right??

I mixed some epoxy with some grinded maple.. came out perfect...

Here it is stained again...

I will spray paint a thin black line to get a smooth line between the stain and the natural bindin with an airbrush. I did stain the binding to match the cream binding on the body... no pic.. sorry!

So, soon to be updated again!

bye 4 now!

@je

I did manage to get some work done on this project. I did do a lot on the spalted Reign today.( Miranda started to ask me why I was only working on this one)

So, what did I do? Last time I glued the MOP into the fret board with epoxy and grinded snake wood. I was a bit anxious to see it the gaps between the mop and the wood because snakewood has more than one colour.. I loaded up my 12" radius sanding block with some fresh sanding paper and started sanding. It came out perfect.. if I do say so myself..

here it is...

I routed the inside of the "@" with my dremel and filled it with the same mix of wood and epoxy. I had to wait until the glue cures but I will post some pics of the final result...

well, I guess this is it... 4 now

byebye

@je

Here we are again, tuesday 9 Feb.

First thing I did today was sand the epoxy down to see how the inlay turned out. Besides a curve on the inside of the "@" it came out nice. Even the colour of the grinded snake wood matches pretty good. So since I have to repair the fretboard and fill the pull outs of the frets I might as well fix that curve..

Take a look:

As you can see the left inner curve of the "@" isn't perfectly round. I will have to route it a lil more and fill it again.. And fill the damage on the fretboard.

I made some very thin pieces of teflon to put in the fret slots to prevent glue running into them.

I bought a piece of brass to make a pup ring/ pick guard. I can't wait to see what it will look like. Maybe a little too much with a golden bridge.. perhaps a black one looks better... we'll see.. first things first!

Here you see the brass, 25 x 35 cm. I paid a f*cking fortune for that. It might as well be solid gold!

The surface was already scratched so I could use my jig saw. This normally scratches a lot but this time it didn't matter..

I roughly cut it and sanded it down to the edge..

and of course here is pic of the (not yet ready) ring on the green body..

hi, I'm back!

made a little progress today...

I sanded and polished the brass to a high gloss piece of metal!

A few very small scratches are still in here but I have to give it a final machine polish! So far it has been manual labour! I can still feel it... pffff....

anyway, here is a pic of what it will look like.

I am still thinking about the bridge. Should I take a gold or black one? I am leaning towards a black one, because I think a gold one will be too much..

It's a shame the pic doesn't show the green how it looks like in real life.

Imagine the sides being black and a small black burst on the top. And a high gloss finish of course!

Too bad the fret board isn't ready yet...

I am repairing the chips I pulled out when I removed the frets.

tomorrow is another day! hope to show some more!

bye 4 now

@je

Soooooooooooooo, here is another update. 14-02-2010

Today is the day I have to make up my mind and decide which colour bridge I will use on my Lean Green. I finished the pick guard/ pup ring in brass. Drilled the holes and gave it a final rub with polishing compound..

Here you see my problem, black or gold?

I was thinking, maybe I'll change the saddles from stainless steel to black ones and use the gold bridge. I think the black bridge is too much black and I hate the stainless steel on that one too! So it will be a gold bridge with black saddles or the other way around.

But the ring looks great, don't you think?

I made a cover for the output of brass too..

the finger board still isn't ready, well most of it was but I tried to repair some spots when the epoxy was already starting to cure and it didn't stick to the wood.

hmmm, what else? lemme think....

I used some double sided tape to stick this piece of cloth to my router.

I wanted to route the edge of the top of the guitar. The binding has a sharp edge which didn't feel nice on your arm while playing. So I routed it to a nice curved edge but I didn't want to damage my nicely stained top. This worked great! very smooth action!

I know I always close my update with a pic of the guitar which shows all the progress I made that day... I forgot ... I'm sorry!

Better luck next time!

@je

So, it's been a while since my last update.

The problem with this site, that it is getting very slow because it's getting too big, I think...

I will open a new page called green 2 and you can read all progress there.

see you there!

@je