spalted

Plain Reign or Spalted Reign  (not sure yet)

 

Here you can read the report of the built of this Reign. I will be building this guitar for my girlfriend ( ok, she's my wife but I still can't use that word). The only problem is that she can't play a single note yet..

But she promised me to learn how to play when I build this guitar for her. So let's see how this turns out... I mean, if she won't learn, I can add another guitar to my collection, right?  And if she does, that would be great!

This guitar, like the Green Reign, will be a flat top but solid. I have to give it some thought about the bridge. I think it will be enough for Miranda to learn how to play the guitar, so playing with a tremolo might be too much. On the other hand, if she gives up and gives me the guitar, I won't have one... hmmmm, what to do, what to do???  Fortunately, I can decide later. I have a beautiful spalted flamed maple top picked out for this one. Well, actually Miranda did..

you can see a part of my stock of neck blanks and fretboards too..

As you can see there is a part of the top missing on the upper side.. I took this part out because I want to use that to get a bookmatched veneer for the headstock.

It will get a black binding, at least on the front side. can't wait to see this finished. There will be no color on this one, just a clear lacquer to protect the wood..

Here is a pic of the roughly cut top and the body.. and again, maybe I will use "ordinary" pick up rings or straight into the top.. the black ring in the pic is a little too much I think.. too much contrast.. 

Miranda wanted a maple fretboard but I'm not sure about that.. It depends on what I decide in the Green Reign. Or just a normal ebony fretboard...   I have some time to decide...

I wanted to see what the guitar will look like with the neck and head stock.. so here it is..

Now imagine a maple fretboard and black binding...hmmm don't think so!

 I think this looks like it should!

For now, there is nothing more to report.. 

So until further notice...  Talk to you soon!

 

@je

 

Hi, it's been a while. Today is the first day of February. Last weekend I did some work on the body of this build. I routed the pick up cavities, did the cavity for the pots, and decided to mount a non trem bridge.

 

On the Green Reign, I put the template directly on the body and started routing until thebearing of the router bit reached the height of the template. Which resulted in pup cavities that were too deep. So this time I put the template above the body. and now the depth is exactly deep enough. learning all the time!  Because the body will be covered by a top, I could screw the template on to the body.

You can see this swamp ash body is a 3 piece blank. On the back it's harder to see. Almost no difference in colour.  After I routed the pup cavities, I used a jig saw to take out the wood for the control pots.

 

Just for fun I sanded the inside a little to make it look good as well...

 

I routed the back for the cover as well.. it's very easy when you have templates for all routing jobs!

 

After that was ready I drilled a hole for the wires from the pups to the control cavity. Routed a channel too..

 

 

Soon I will do the neck joint. I started with drawing the shape of the neck onto a blank. I am using a non trem with a little difference in dimensions than the wilkinson ones I have been using so far... so a little measuring was needed!

 

to be continued soon!

 

well, it's sunday 7 february 2010.

Today I found the time to work a couple of hours and I have to say it's a shame really flies when you're having fun!

What did I do this cold afternoon? 

I routed the channel for the truss rod. I did it with a new router. And it has some extra's which should be there for the better but makes it less visible what you're doing.  So that took a little getting used to but it came out fine.

 

 

just 2 small routing accidents.....

after this I took my band saw and cut out the neck from the blank.  As you know I wanted to glue a bookmatched top on the head stock. The problem was that the top was a little too thick. So if I would make the head stock thinner and leave the top the way it was, the strength would have been too weak for the string tension. I decided to make the top thinner which is of course the obvious thing to do. When I thinned it down a couple of millimeters I was getting worried that it would get too thin and break. You know this spalted maple is very fragile.  To avoid this, I glued it to the head stock after I thinned this down to the thickness I need for the tuners. 

 

I sanded the sides so they would connect seamless to each other. And eventually they did. At least, in the beginning. Once the glue cured I used the safe t planer to get the top to the thickness I wanted. 1.5 mm. Unfortunately the seam wasn't that seamless after the top was thinned. But luckily for me, there will be no stain on this guitar, just clear laquer. So I filled the gap with "gupa"  with about the same colour as the maple.

Then I used my drum sander to sand down the exces wood of the top. This wood is really soft. It sands very easy. I hope the clear laquer will protect the wood a little...

Then I prepared the top of the body for glueing. I thought it would be nice to glue in a piece of black binding between the to halfs.  There is also going to be a binding around  the front of the body.

 The back will have no binding but the edges will be rounded and it will have a belly thing...  what's it called??  I keep forgetting... but you know what I mean..

Just before I left for today I glued this half of the top onto the body.

  

 Next time ( i hope coming tuesday) I will glue the other half of the top and the binding in between, route the pup cavities, route the neck joint and I hope the binding on the front of the body.

 

So keep an eye out for he next updates... should be soon.. I hope..

talk 2 u L8er!

@je

 

And we're back...!!

Today I realized I shouldn't have glued one half of the top yet... stupid stupid!!!

I am not explaining what problems I have because of this 'cos it would take too much writing and reading...

 

Anyway, I glued a piece of black binding on the half that I glued to the body.  So the top will have a black stripe in the middle of the body.. Miranda wanted this feature.. I don't think I would have done it myself but hey, it's hers to decide..

 

 

The last thing I did today was glueing the neck to the body.

 

 

This coming thursday I will continue.. I have to shape the neck yet. Maybe I better could have done this before glueing..  we'll see...

 see you next time!

@je

 

It's been a while since I wrote an update. That's because there was little to report about. I did do some small things but not enough to write about.

But today ( valentine's day) I managed to do some constructive work on the guitar.

I made some pick up rings. Just ordinary ones. The only reason I did it was that the cavities for the pick ups somehow were too big to be covered by a standard pup ring. So I had to make them a little bigger than usual. It seems so easy to do but it's very hard to get 90 degrees angles and straight lines. And then you have to grind some corners which have to be the same.. all 8 of them! Not to mention the holes for the screws..  And of course, the ones I made are not perfect. But if you don't look too close, it won't show..  so DON'T LOOK TOO CLOSE!!!  ;-)

I calculated where the bridge has to be placed, and drilled some holes for that too!

It is starting to look like a guitar.. I think...

 

My wife wanted a truss rod cover made of brass so I could have in engraved with a special message for her.  But when I made one of brass and screwed it on the head stock it just doesn't look right. I didn't even have to convince her to change it to a black one. She agreed with me.. So I will have to do a new one in black plastic.

But I will do it gladly. Besides that I think the guitar looks great. This spalted wood is very fragile and has some very soft spots. And during sanding I made a mistake. Now there is a very big difference in heights on the upper horn. I hope I can fill this with epoxy to flatten in out. All I have to do is drill a hole for the pick up switch which is going to be a mini switch. black of course..

Oh yeah, before I forget, I have to do the neck! still haven't shaped it. I think tomorrow will be a good day for that! And do some inlay work. I already changed the top of the abelone dome knobs and now they have bronze perloid covers. The same pics I will use for the inlay of the position markers and the "EJ" on the headstock.

 

that's all for now, talk to you soon

@je

 

tuesday 16 feb

man, it feels like I am spending more time updating my website and the forum of which I am a member.. 

so, it's updating time!

What did I do? I routed the head stock for the "EJ" trademark. Miranda wanted an inlay made of bronze coloured perloid pics. So that's what I'll do..

I routed very shallow because the pics are very thin. I hope it will look ok. I normally use mother of pearls which is a lot thicker.

 

should come out ok...

Here is the inlay itself..

When it's glued to the head stock, I will take out the inner parts. I was afraid it might break if I did it not glued to the wood..

Here is a pic just before putting the epoxy and grinded wood on it..

Looks classy to me! Good idea of Miranda..

It was probably too soon but I just had to see what it would look like with the back and sides stained.. so that's what I did..

 

I think it looks great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I tried to match the stain to the darkest colour of the top. On my scrap piece it matched but on the actual body it came out a different colour. To be honest, I think this looks better...

I can't wait for the weather to get a lil'bit better so I can start finishing all 3 Reigns..

 

 

talk to you soon... Friday I think..

@je

 

No, not friday but sunday 21 feb.

last few days and today I tried to repair the mistake I made with my sanding machine. I saw too late that I sanded into the wood too deep. Ordinary puddy wasn't an option because it will be finished with clear laquer. So I thought I'd give epoxy a try.  I poured the gap with epoxy and it ran out smooth to a flat surface.   I did the entire body with it to smooth it out.  I just have to wait for it to cure so I can sand the body down. Can't wait!

 

here is a pic of the body freshly covered with epoxy:

It darkened the wood a little but I think it looks nice!

I also did the head stock. You can see the inlay but it didn't work out like I wanted it to. The lines were not ok so I took a black marker and drew a line around the inlay to hide it. It's ok like this, altough I am not totally happy with it but Miranda likes it..

The color looks different but I think it's because of the flash or something..

I will try to get the guitar ready so I can glue the fret board to the neck and start fretting it. I have to sand it first because I did some inlays on that too!

Miranda thought it was a nice idea to drill 3 holes in different sizes instead of 1 position marker. They are drilled in random places. 2,4 and 5 mm. And there is a "M" on the 12th position.

pics next time, ok?

bye bye

@je