1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Take us through building your guitar step by step. Post pictures and tell us what you're doing.
BEJ
Posts: 171
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:38 am
Location: Seattle

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by BEJ »

Great looking build, seems like the last 5% takes about 25% of the build time. Nice work on the bridge, I've started to like making the bridge about the most of any of the really labor intensive/detailed items of a build. I have slot cutting jig similar to yours, a big help getting a tough job done right. Do you have any back angle built into yours? The one I copied I think has about 8-10 degrees, seems to help ease the break angle from saddle to pins.
Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

I didn't put any angle in it this time. I want to say I'm trying to 'keep it simple' but that ship has sailed a bit. This is one spot where I figured I'd do it the old fashioned way for the first guitar and get more adventurous later. The one thing I wonder about with the angled slot is how you figure out the string length for intonation. Depending on where you end up on the saddle as you file it lower, the string length will change. I understand that the theory is that higher action needs more compensation so the angle self-adjusts. I'm just not sure what you do when you are getting ready to glue the bridge.

I've actually now got the bridge glued on, tuners installed and pegholes reamed, but I'll post a bit more of a detailed update when I have some time.

Getting close! My wife asks every day if it's done yet. It makes it hard to keep calm and patient!
BEJ
Posts: 171
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:38 am
Location: Seattle

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by BEJ »

It's good to stick to the basics until mastered, sounds like your wife is finally beginning to see the slow freight train come around the bend, still a ways to go but moving forward.
Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

Happy Canada Day! Here's an update:

I took a piece of pine and sanded it in my radius dish so that I had a convex surface. I glued sandpaper to this and used it to shape the bottom of my bridge to the top radius. A little scraping afterwards and everything seemed perfect.

I measured many times to get the bridge location. This should be a definite measurement, but I was a bit uncertain because there are many ways that people locate the bridge and it's easy to get confused. I used the Stewmac Fret calculator number and put that measurement very close to the front of the saddle on the high E string. The Stewmac number is from the breaking point of the string, and I know that most compensated bridges have the high E fairly close to the front edge of the bridge. I drilled holes through the two outside pin holes to register the bridge.

I had a caul I had made that was the exact shape of the bridge plate. I figured this would be perfect for gluing the bridge down, but I realized that it should extend past the X brace legs so that I could have a caul under the bridge wings. I shaped some additional pieces and glued them all to a piece of 1/4" MDF. I taped this inside the box.

I purchased clamps ages ago from Harbour Freight for gluing the bridge, but my dry-run showed me that the two for the bridge wings were too long. I ended up purchasing a couple from Lee Valley. They are nice and light. I made a little support for the heavy Harbour Freight clamp out of MDF and a piece of foam from a flip flop. I also made some cauls for the top of the bridge out of MDF and cork. These were shaped to match the bridge contour. After all this setup the bridge glue up went fairly smoothly.

When the glue had dried I drilled out the rest of the holes (with a backer on the inside) and carefully reamed them for the pegs. To do this I used a tapered drill bit that I also purchased from Harbour Freight. I wasn't sure how this would work, but it has a hex shank so I put it in a screwdriver handle and went slowly. The taper of the bit actually matches the pin fairly well. I was extremely careful with this so it took awhile, and I had to touch up the countersink on the holes afterwards, but the pins fit really well.

I made two slotting tools from a piece of Sawzall blade and a piece of hacksaw blade that I cut narrower with tinsnips. This worked, but was a bit slow. I finished shaping the slots with needle files.

I'm getting close to the end! I actually have the nut and saddle complete too, but I will make that another post.


I carefully located the bridge and put down some blue tape to keep it from sliding around
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jread
Posts: 560
Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2019 9:52 am
Contact:

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by jread »

i've prob commented above but I've watching this closely and it sure is beautiful. There are 14 pages of great information and advice in this blog. Worth going through from top to bottom for anyone new planning a build.
Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

Thanks Jread. I personally love build threads so I'm happy to hear you are enjoying mine.

Here's quite an update: it's done! Or as done as it's going to get for now. I've been so wrapped up in the last stage of this build that I feel a little weird about it being over. Almost like it's going to leave a guitar shaped hole in my life. Well, that's a bit dramatic, but all of the sudden I don't have to try to make time for the build every day and I am almost stalling, polishing one last little bit ect. I've made my wife wait to post a facebook update just to get the last few things sorted. And here's a bonus: it sounds great! OK, i'm not much of a guitar connoisseur but I'm a bit surprised. It is a lot more even sounding than my Alvarez and has more pop/punch and clarity. My Alvarez sounds great in the middle of its range, but is weak in the upper and lower registers. Someday I'll have to give it to someone who has played more nice guitars and get an honest appraisal. Doesn't matter in the end though, I'm pretty thrilled that it is actually a guitar.

The nut was a bit of a trial. I carefully shaped my Stewmac blank and took out my fancy nut files. I took my time with the string spacing, basing it on Brian Kimsey's tutorial on his website (highly recommended if you don't have the Stewmac ruler) I came in .115 from each side of the fretboard to the outside edge of the high and low E string and then devided up the spacing with my calipers. I successfully lowered the high E string and was working on the B string when I learned something the hard way: You need to tune up fairly close to the string's pitch before checking your results (or at least closer than I was). What was a perfect nut slot at low tension quickly became too low when tuned to pitch. I played around with trying to inlay a little square of bone to fix it, but quite soon realized I'd have to start with a new blank. This blank was from Timeless Instruments and when I cut into it, I found that the bleaching was uneven and the inside of the blank was a bit darker. Next time I will go with unbleached bone, I like the look of it. The bleached blanks were just a random choice. Making the new nut went way faster than the first and fit better to boot. Bringing the slots down took forever though, because now I was gun-shy. I think a pro would take them down a bit more, but I have no intonation issues, and I don't find it hard to play for now. I broke 3 strings with all the tuning/detuning/retuning to get this right.

I straightened the neck with the trussrod and was surprised to find the relief was a bit more on the low E than the high E. I stopped with .010" on the low E and .006" on the high E. I'm really not sure why this is, but I've read posts where people go to some effort to make it happen this way so I'll leave it alone. Maybe a bit of neck twist or an unevenly sanded fretboard?

The saddle was quite a bit easier for me. I roughed it into the slot just like I had with the ebony fillers for my bridge making mishaps. I put a rough radius on the top at a height I knew was too high. Cumpiano has a great procedure for lowering it where you measure each height, subtract your desired action, and multiply by 2 to get the amount you need to remove for each string. Mark it on the saddle, connect the dots with a curve and file the bridge down. It worked like a charm. At this point I could tell the guitar was sounding really nice (and hadn't flown apart) but I got a bit scared because everything was really buzzy. As it turns out, having a flat top on the bridge blank makes everything buzz. I used a little chunk of B string to find the intonation point for each string and marked it on the flat top. I was pleased to find that all the intonation points landed nicely on my bridge. Surprisingly, the B string didn't have to go all the way to the tail side of the blank. It only went about 3/4 of the way, perhaps because of the string set I'm using. Most compensated saddles you buy have the B fairly far back. I filed the blank until the intonation points were at the peak of the saddle. I opted for an S-curve shape rather than the straight lines that some other saddles have. At this point I taped off the bridge and saddle where I didn't want them any thinner and polished them up, first with wet-dry sandpaper to 1500 and then to 12000 micro mesh. They gleam like crazy, it's very satisfying.

At this point I really wanted to string the guitar up, but decided to finish touching everything up. I filled a tiny gap under the fretboard at the neck joint, and polished the finish (I had added a few coats of Tru-Oil to try to cover the sand-throughs from earlier. This is the main part of my build I'm not happy with: there are still little sand-thoughs and a fair number of scratches on the finish of the top. The back and sides look great, but the top could be a bit better. At this point I'm accepting it as being how it is. I think once I put on a little playwear I won't really care. Next time I will try a different finish I think, and I'll be more careful not to scratch it.

For now I'm going without a pickguard (I love the look of guitars without) but if the playwear bothers me I'll put one on later. I also need to put strap buttons on at some point.

The guitar plays really nicely. I love the neck and the string spacing. Most of it plays with no buzzes, but if I hit the low E a bit too hard it will buzz a bit. I'm thinking in a couple of months I will reassess the setup. I may even take it to a pro to get it dialed in. For now though, the playability is already better than my old guitar.

I'll attach some quick pictures. It would be nice to get some better ones. Any tips on taking pictures of a guitar? I only have a point-and-shoot camera but it is a fairly nice one. A sound file of some kind will follow if I can figure it out.
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Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

More pics:
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MaineGeezer
Posts: 1711
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:14 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by MaineGeezer »

Congratulations!!!!

You'll probably be messing with the action for quite a while, trying to get it "perfect." At least, that's my tendency. I'm constantly tweaking it because changes in humidity from winter to summer affect the action significantly. (Yeah, I know -- I ought to pay more attention to keeping the humidity closer to constant.) I now have a "summer saddle" and a "winter saddle" to adjust the action height.

The sound will change over time, as the wood settles in to being a guitar instead of a tree. If you think it sounds good now, odds are you'll be amazed by how good it sounds in 5 years.

So...when are you going to start the next one? :-))
Don't believe everything you know.
Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.
When things are bad, try not to make them any worse, because it is quite likely they are bad enough already. - French Foreign Legion
ruby@magpage.com
Posts: 1564
Joined: Thu May 24, 2012 8:03 am
Location: Chestertown Maryland

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by ruby@magpage.com »

Lovely instrument - well done.

"You'll probably be messing with the action for quite a while, trying to get it "perfect." At least, that's my tendency."

I have to go back after a year and redo these things`

And here is something fromBill Cory on taking guitar pictures

http://www.nichebooks.com/guitarpix.pdf

Please go to his website and give him $5 for it

Ed
Ed M
Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

MaineGeezer wrote:Congratulations!!!!

So...when are you going to start the next one? :-))
As you will see in the picture, I actually have the parts for my next build! I think I may take some time to do some things I've been putting off for the last little while though.
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