Dual Action Truss Rod install

I finished another part of the guitar. It isn't the most romantic or pretty piece, in fact you will never see it once the guitar is finished, it is hidden.

However, it is a vital part of the guitar, It is in the neck, it allows you to bend the neck in either direction to give the correct amount of string spacing. I am including a couple pics because I know you want to see it before it is covered by the fretboard.

I made my own router bit from a 1/4" router bit that I have laying around. As we all know, the slot needed to be 5.5 millimeters instead of the 1/4". A difference of approximately 3.4 hundreths of an inch. It doesn't seem like much however you want it snug to prevent and rattle. Also, there are several places where i put a drop of silicone in the groove, again, to prevent rattling. As you can see i protected the wood on the sides of the groove with tape before applying silicone because i want to make sure there is no residue on the wood when gluing the fretboard on.

I am glad to be done with this, now I am ready to start the shaping of the neck. Stay tuned.

Old and New Tools

I've been reading some other instrument builders blogs, some of them talk about the need to use spokeshaves and other ancient tools that builders in the past have used.


I think the only reason they want to use a spokeshave is so they can say " I used a spokeshave on this ". In my opinion, the only reason the old builders used spokshaves is because electricity hadn't been discovered yet. They were intelligent people, they would have used Dremel tools and belt sanders if they had the chance. True, many of them did beautiful work, but, todays builders do equal and better work using state of the art tools.

I remember years ago working for one of my first employers in the building trades. He was using a handsaw on a 6 inch x 24" beam. I asked him why he wasn't using power tools to do that. He replied that that was they way he learned in the old country and if it was good enough for them it was good enough for him. I found that terribly illogical, but, he was the boss and I let him do it.

Seems to me, that is like having something frozen that needs to be thawed,Not using a microwave oven, but building a fire out of logs because great-grandma did it that way. I will continue to use modern tools and will gladly let others turn up their nose because they used obsolete tools.

Answered Question

I have been slacking a little the last week. Not because i didn't want to work on my guitar but rather, HOW to work on my guitar when i needed a certain tool. I had an idea how the make the tool I needed because I am too cheap to buy a $45 tool to work on one guitar.

The problem is , when i tried making a prototype it was not working the way I wanted it to. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. It was driving me a little nuts to tell the truth.

This morning at about 5:30 I woke up and had the answer all figured out. It turns out that I was just being stupid and not looking at the problem from the right direction. I guess I do my best thinking while I am sleeping. Maybe I should write a list of stuff I need to figure out and read it before going to sleep.

I have no doubt that the answer I came up with will work, 'cause like I said, I was being stupid. But, if it's not correct, I will sleep on it.

exciting

I just found out today that a very good acquaintance of mine makes guitars. i knew he had a big Elvis collection, and plays guitar but didn't know he makes them too. Now i have a brain to pick.!!!!

Fretboard update mountains mostly complete

So, I got to work on the fretboard yesterday :). It still needs to be finished, recutting the slots for the frets to fit in etc.

Everything went well and I am eager to move on to the next step which will be cutting the neck and installing the fretboard on it, etc. Always eager to move on to the next step , makes me feel like progress is taking place.

I am including pics and video of what i worked on yesterday.

HOT Guitar

My friends in Texas probably think I am a wimp because I decided that my un-air conditioned shop (AKA messy garage) is tooooo hot to work in. However, I will wait till saturday morning when I can work on it in the cool of the day.

The Hills Are Alive !

The hills are alive, but not with the sound of music yet. They are alive because i have been cutting and sanding and fitting and routing them into the fretboard. I am liking the way they look, my theory is that if a can't make good music with the guitar, distract people with good looks. (Not mine, the guitar).

The picture shows white lines drawn on the fretboard, that is where the fretboard will actually be cut, it is narrower near the head than the body. While working on it it is much easier if it is the same width, i will cut the angle at a later time.

I used tiny drips of craft glue to temporarily tack the mountains in place after they were fit together. I was very surprised that the glue was strong enough to actually rip off a little of the wood from the mountain backs a little later when I removed them. My wife said she wasn't surprised...it seems I should have asked her opinion. :)



A couple of things.. when you use a router on ebony wood, you make a lot of black dust. I bought a plunge router attachment for my Dremel tool. The router attachment is awesome for $29 and i would gladly spend the money again, it is nice and light, it has a clear base so you can see what you are doing. I can see many uses for it in the future. Not heavy duty enough for all uses but for light duty and detail, much nicer than a full sized router.