This weeks progress

Well, this week, for the first time, I was able to work for several hours. I worked about three hours on Wednesday, three on Thursday, and about seven on Friday. I was hoping to get out to the shop today, but the day got busy and I did not get over there. I did have the camera, so I have pictures of this weeks work as well as the pictures I took of the little bit of neck work I did last week. This week, I was hoping to get the tops glued to the tops as well as the binding put on. I was also going to do more work on shaping the necks, but one of the guide bearings on my bandsaw broke, so I was not able to . Instead, I started routing the control cavities, neck pockets and pickup cavities.

The following images are for the Telecaster style guitars I am working on. The first picture just shows the back of the necks slotted for the truss rods. The second shot shows one of the neck blanks with the outline traced on for both a Telecaster and Stratocaster style headstock (with the cross inlay drawn in). The Telecaster style will have the narrower headstock and the Strat style will be wider with steeper angles. These will be one piece necks (no glued on fretboard), so the trussrod slot is on the back and the front will be radiused and slotted for the fretboard and nut.

These pictures show the neck pieces being put together for the chambered Les Paul style guitar and the two mahogany necks I am starting from the same neck blank. The middle picture shows the template for the correct profile of the Les Paul style neck. You can see the outlines traced onto all three neck blanks on the third picture. Once I get a new bearing for the band saw, I will start cutting out the necks and start shaping them.

Here are some pictures of the tops being glued to the backs for the bodies after they were routed flush with the body templates.

Once the tops were glued down and dried, I stared routing the edges for the binding channel and I glued the binding in. I did both Telecaster style guitars first and then the Les Pauls. I did not get to gluing the binding on the mahogany/maple Les Paul until yesterday, so it is still at the shop drying with the masking tape securing the binding in place. I had to use a soldering iron to bend the wood binding before gluing it on. Supprisingly, it was not as dificult as I expected. I did have some issues on the ash/maple Les Paul, but I think it will work out fine. Also, on the alder/maple Telecaster, the maple binding does not show up real well, but when finished, the binding will be masked off and will not be colored with the rest of the guitar.

The first four pictures are of the alder/maple with maple binding Telecaster. You can see the router I used for routing the binding channel as well as a close up of the binding channel. Next are pictures of the binding taped down over half the guitar and over the entire body. The next two pictures are of the ash/maple (chambered) with curly koa binding Telecaster. You can see the dark binding through the green tape (this tape is used because it stretches to give it a tighter bond). You can see the strip of curly koa that has been bent (using the soldering iron) to conform to the cutaway.

These three pictures are of the two Les Pauls. The first two with the curly koa binding laying on the routed ash/maple chambered body and the same guitar with the binding installed all the way around and some clamps helping a few spots where the binding did not want to conform to the edges or where the binding cracked. The last picture is the mahogany/maple Les Paul with the traditional cream plastic binding. I had to use a hair drier to heat the plastic binding to get it around the tight edges of the cutaway.

Once the binding had dried overnight, I spent much of the day yesterday, removing the tape, binding the mahogany/maple Les Paul, and routing control/pickup cavities/neck pockets, and shaping the edges. I took some of the hardware that I have already purchased for these guitars (and pickups that will not be going into these guitars that I had around) and put in on the bodies to see what they will be looking like.

The first picture shows the chambered Telecaster with the routings on the top. You can see the nice contrast of the dark curly koa on the maple/ash body and if you look closely, you can see that it is hollowed out. Next, you see it with on the back with the edges rounded over. Last, is a picture with some of the hardware on the body to give an idea of how the guitar will look once completed.

Next are the same pics (the top routed, back routed, and top with hardware) of the alder/maple Telecaster. The picture taken with the hardware actually has two bridges. The traditional box bridge with pickup mount will be cut and I will use the pickup mount and the tremolo system to give it a traditional look, but still allow the use of a tremolo. In the first picture, you can see there is also a middle pickup rout. The pickguard is not yet routed for the middle pickup, but this configuration is known as a "Nashville Tele" and will have a five-way switch instead of the traditional three-way. Aslo, you can see the tremolo cavites routed in the first two pictures.

Lastly, here are pictures of the chambered Les Paul. The binding does not come all the way up on this guitar because the top is going to be carved down to the binding on the edges and give it an arched top look. The first picture shows the top with all of the cavities routed and holes (for bridge, tailpiece, volume and tone pots, and toggle switch) drilled. Next shows some of the hardware placed in position as well as the pickups. I am not sure if I will be using the black pickup rings or cream ones. The pickups are similar, but not the same as the ones I will be using (humbucker in the bridge position/humbucker sized P90 in the neck position). The back pictures show the control cavities routed and the cavity covers placed over the top.

Well thats all the guitar pics I have for now, but I decided to take some pictures of the shop I work in since most of you who read this are not familiar with my father inlaw's shop. We have spent a lot of time fixing it up recently. It is not finished yet, but it is much more open and workable than it was before and we have a lot more storage than we had before. He decided to do this largely due to my taking over his shop for my guitar stuff, so he decided that it needed to be more usable for both of us. Here is what we have so far.

First picture shows half of the wall of cabinets and the second picture shows the other half. The third picture shows the work bench with more cabinets underneath. You can see that the cabinets do not go all the way to the back of the shop. That is where my spray booth will be going once we design it. The bottom picture shows the band saw, drill press, and power tool row (radial arm saw in very foreground, router table, and two scroll saws). I also have a table saw that I did not get a picture of and a bunch of hand tools and smaller power tools that are put away in the cupboards. You can see in a couple pictures (bench and power row) some black hose. That is for the dust collection system I bought and my father in law plumbed in. That has been a great tool for cleanup and will also be used to create suction in the spray booth.

Well, thanks for checking out the blog. Please, give me some feedback. Do you like what you see? Is there something you would like to see that I haven't posted? Let me know and I will try to accomdate you. I am having a blast doing this and would love to be able to do more, so if you know anyone that is interested in a guitar, let me know and we may be able to work something out. Lorri has given me yet another contact for an interested person. I would like to thank her for helping me get started in this as she has bought my first two and now has gotten me another possible order. I will keep posted if anything comes of that. Take care and I'll keep you posted when I get more done.

Aaron