Let's get picky!

Just as something to keep me motivated, I had the pick you can see in the logo of this blog made. Price wasn't too bad, except for the fact that i had to pay half again that amount in customs taxes to have 'em shipped into this country from the United States :(

Well this is what they look like:

And once again.... it's the mailman!!!

Yeah, the mailman's back... and with some good stuff.this time he brought:

• A truss rod and cover
• Some tuners, 6 I believe ;)
• Fret wire
• Pickup rings
• Gibson style pickup switch
• A jack-input cover plate (although I might have a different plan for that, more about that in future posts)
• A tom style bridge and tailpiece

I believe this means I actually have EVERYTHING I need to build the war machine, except for the wood to build the body. Since I have to wait a little before being able to route the templates I need to route the body later, I haven't gone out to buy it, since bringing the template will ensure I get a piece of wood that is the correct size.

Did he stop building?

Ok ok, I admit, it's been a while since I posted some news. Does that mean nothin's happening? Well, ehhhm.... yes, it does!

Well not exactly. Before I stopped blogging I rounded the practice neck I made. I just forgot to take a good picture, so the one below will have to do.

As you might be able to see, I rounded the back of the neck, so it would be smooth to play....if it were a real neck. Having dropped it a couple of times now, the resulting dents make it painfully clear that pine is WAY too soft to make any guitar part, al though its great to practice on.

It almost looks like a neck

After having dried for more than a night, it was time to turn my sawing and glueing project into something that remotely resembles a neck. Since I wasn't all too neat with my glueing and clamping, the headstock wasn't exactly level with the rest of the "neck". No worries, nothing al little planing won't fix ;-)

Since planing just got rid if the enormous differences, it was time for another round (more like 15 rounds) of sanding. To make things a little easier, I turned my workbench, vacuum cleaner and sander into the beautiful (cough) sanding table, shown below. Best plan I ever had: both hands free to sand the neck, and the vacuum cleaner actually got rid of most of the dust because it didn't have to fight gravity as well. Very satisfied with that ;)

After sanding out the rough spots, this is what my neck prototype looks like. I'm not at all dissatisfied with the result. I know it still looks like a stupid piece of wood, but creating it proved to me that I am able to actually do some of the things required to turn a piece of wood into a guitar! Who knows, this project might succeed ;)

I'm in doubt whether I should shape the headstock (which is too small, by the way, so it would look a bit silly) and maybe shape the part where the neck would meet the body, just for practice, but right now the time of day at which I can actually put my neighbors through the noise that would make has passed, so if I feel up to it, I might do that tomorrow.

What?? He's finally started building?

..No, of course not, don't be silly! ;-)

But I have started building (yet another) prototype. Frustrating though it may be, I think one cannot practice enough, before destroying a perfectly good (and expensive!) piece of wood.

So what have I been up to?

Today I wanted to practice building a neck with the headstock at an angle. Multiple sources, including the book mentioned earlier (which, believe it or not, is falling apart by now) describe the procedure for doing this as follows:

I've taken an old piece of pine (I think it was part of my bed once) and sawed this piece of wood in 2 pieces at a small angle (mine is around 11 degr).Than I put the short piece on top of the longer one, in order to be able to sand it to become one plain. This will ensure the headstock will be level later.

Then I put liberal amount of glue on the longer piece and let it dry for approximately 3 minutes.

At last I clamped the short piece to the longer one, as shown below:

I will let it dry overnight, and tomorrow we'll see how it turned out!

The mailman strikes again!

Wow, just on my way out my neighbor stopped me with the magic words "Hey, I got another package for you!". Yes, another one, since whenever I order stuff, I'm not around when it gets delivered, and my poor neighbors have to be the ones to receive it. Guys, if you ever read this: Thanx a lot and I'm so sorry for the inconvenience!

But now, more important matters: what did the mailman bring this time? Well I consider it to be something of a special treat, since I've been waiting quite some time for these:

For the people who just see some stray bits and pieces, you're looking at a brand new EMG 60 active pickup and the wires and pots that go with it! And it's the one that is going to be my neck pickup. I also got an EMG 81 active pickup for the bridge position today, but since I expect the contents of that package to look exactly the same as the stuff shown above, I left it wrapped up, nice and safely, for I don't know when exactly I will be installing these.

One thing this will help me do right away, is finish de routing design for th body, because I now have the exact size of the pickups. As soon as I've finished that, I will pay my colleague Kees a visit and we will use his self made CNC router to route a template of the explorer body. This template I will take to the wood shop, to ensure the wood that I buy for the body will be of an adequate size to make the body.

So why EMGs? Well, the answer is quite simple: these are the exact pickups of the guitar I want the War Machine to resemble.

MAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIL!!!

I'm usually not so thrilled when it comes to receiving mail, since it's bills most of the time. But in this case I'm very happy:

Some of the stuff I ordered came in today!



From top to botom:

• 1 Piece of maple to turn into a neck
• 1 Piece of rosewood for the fingerboard
• One 12" radius block to hold sandpaper when shaping the fingerboard
• One fret saw with depth adjuster

From left to right, top to botom:

• Fretboard protector
• Volume and tone knobs
• Neck plate
• Nutt
• Strapholders
• Neckplate screws

I had actually planned to go to the wood store last weekend, but had some trouble finding time for it. Furthermore, when I go out to buy wood for the body, I would like to bring the MDF template I´m planning to make, using my colleague´s CNC router, to make sure the piece(s) of wood will be big enough. So until that´s done, I'll first see what I can make of the neck.