I bought a cheap set from Ebay but the bit was blunt and doesn't cut at all.
That's really you get what you pay for.
Anyway at least what I can do is to drill the tuner holes since I have the jigs ready.
I first plane the slope of the head which I have marked out earlier.
I use my rabbet plane and chisel to get to the final mark and check for squareness of the edges.
After that I mark the center of the head stock and the center line for the tuner jig.
I insert a 2mm plywood to offset from the face of the headstock and align the center line of the tuner hole jig to the marked center line.
Clamped everything together and use a tape to mark the depth of the drill
I started drilling but encounter a problem, one of the tuner jig hole doesn't go thru...
My brad point drill bit which I got from LV broke at one of the side tips...
Argh... I had thought a reputable LMI would do a quality check before the ship.
But anyway I had to improvise and drill 2 holes and then flip over to drill the 3rd hole.
I finished up the tuner hole drill and now to wait for 5/8" bit to arrived.
What's next but to drill the slots and my Freud forstner bit arrived just in time and it's sharp.
Well I marked out the slots and drill the end holes.
After that I thought of drill more holes in between but in the end I decide to use coping saw to saw the in between waste.
Finally I parred the edges to the line and sand it smooth.
Next I proceed to carve the string clearance slope at the slot near the nut.
This is to allow the string to go down to the tuner barrel, without touching the guitar head or at least allow it to go smoothly and not across a corner edge.
I first saw the slot and then chisel the waste.
It's just that straight forward.
Next I began to rough shape the heel area.
First I tried to saw with a coping saw... it's damn difficult due to the width of the neck.
Well I cut some some vertical slots in the heel to allow intermediate breaks for the coping sawing.
For the straight part I use the ryoba to do the job.
After that I use my rotary sander to shape the heel.
Now it's ready to be attached to the neck.
The detail carving will be done after assembly.
I did further shaping of the neck, the curve at the joint of the head and neck.
I use coping saw and cut then shape by the sander.
As the concluding saga of the neck making before assembly, I glue up the heel block and carve the head.
Well after assembly, I still need to carve the heel and neck body profile.
I use HHG for the heel block and align properly with the markings I made.
As the block slips I basically held in place with hand until the glue grabs before I clamp in.
For shaping the head, I use chisel and my rabbet plane.
The rabbet plane works amazing well; partly because I am still not very skillful with my chiseling.
Of course I cut using saw before chiseling the waste to the line and smooth with the rabbet.
And now to assembly...
Well I supposed to leave the carving of the heel to after assembly but I just couldn't help it.
I rough carved it anwyay.
The actual shaping will be done after assembly.
No comments:
Post a Comment