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Welcome to page two of this build log page 1 |
The next phase is finishing the body and the primary task is to cut the neck mortice. There are a few preliminaries that will be dealt first such as machining the body to correct thickness, cutting the roundover etc etc. Once the mortice is cut and the neck glued in it will be time for the all important location of the bridge studs. The control and pickup cavities will follow. Last of all the output socket and wring holes will be cut. When all is complete and the guitar is sanded and ready for finish a test run setup will be done. This will be very close to the final setup after the lacquer is shot and polished out. |
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| A lot of work here to cut 5 wedges exactly the same at exactly 1.8deg angle. The mortice cutting jig will be setup on these to give the 1.8deg angle to the floor of the mortice and to the neck when fitted. |
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| A rough idea of the neck heel size |
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| Tuner holes drilled out from exact fit at 1/4" to 6.5mm which is slight O'sized hole for tuner shaft . Step drilled to 11/32 x 12mm deep and then bored out to 8.8mmx12mm depth for exact tuner bush fit. Top of hole is rebored to 9mm x 3mm depth to exclude chipping when bushes withdrawn after bridge location / final dry run setup. |
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| Back to the body momentarily. Control rout cut, Edges refined and roundovers done. |
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| The body is now finish sanded and prepped to spray sealer coats. |
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| The mortice cutting jig. |
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| How the mortice cutting jig is constructed. |
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| Ready to cut the mortice. A lot of time and effort goes into preparing for this moment. It is the guts of the build really. After this stage is done I'll have a guitar. |
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| A mere 10 minutes later the job is done with incident. A perfect cut mainly because the prep was done very carefully. No room for sloppy work here. |
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| The great moment arrives and YES!! perfect fit and exactly where I wanted everything. |
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| Worthwhile gloating for a moment. |
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| Half an hour later it's glued in the hole with original titebond my favourite wood glue. Next job will be locating the bridge post holes and cutting them. Straight after that I'll locate and cut the pickup rout. Last job in the build phase is cutting the holes between the control and bridge cavity and another from the bottom bridge post hole for the bridge earth strap to runm into the control cavity. Not much to come after this. There'll be a pic of the guitar after I've completed the tasks above. Another of the guitar during dry run setup and another shot of the colour. last of all will be the completed instrument ready to ship. |
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| Checking the board for level |
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| Perfectly level after a small adjustment of the truss rod |
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| Frets levelled crowned and polished. didnt take much to level the frets they went in pretty sweet./ |
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| Slotting the bone nut |
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| Strung up first time to set the bridge position |
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| Happy Days!! the final holes are cut and the pickup rout is in. A few more pics of the bridge and strings on for final setup and it's finishing time. |
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| Set up for finding bridge stud bushings position |
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| The bridge exact position known so the pickup cavity is now cut. Just two more holes. One to earth the bridge through the control cavity from the bridge stud bushing hole. the second from the pickup rout to the control cavity. That's it build complete |
| A few coats of finish on so we can decide to go natural colour or the seafoam originally chosen |
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| Colour is on |