Book Quartet Bits and Pieces

More Bits and Pieces!

These tuners were supposed to be 3r3l but arrived 6inline (cb gitty strikes again)

I don't mind too awful much, I'll just have to turn one reverse ways.

Solid brass fret markers for the side of the fretboard.

Prewired 3 string pickups from cb gitty.  The wood plate is not stainable and will need to be covered (future post).  Time will tell how the wiring goes.

Gold knobs.  Sadly these don't fit and will need to be modified. 

Jack plates.  I debated flattening them but figured it would mess up the plating.

Knob marker thingys.  Not much to say about them, but I have nothing but good things to say about Philadelphia Luthier Supply.  Everything I've purchased from them has been top notch.

Book Quartet Pickup Rings Part 2

Now that I've got the outline I want, I take off the bigger hunks of wood with the spindle sander.  I think next time I'll glue the stencil on since the tape just got in the way.

Turned out about as well as any first attempt at anything I think.

Next I clamped a piece of 1x over the pickup ring blank to reduce the chance of tear out.

At first I thought I'd need to saw the excess out, but my utility knife did the trick.

Ready for sanding and staining.  I did have to do some dremel work on the inside since the pickup is just a bit larger than the drill bit I had.

Book Quartet Bodies

I'd forgotten to post this before vacation, but here's how I made the channel for the pickup.

CB Gitty pickups (at least the ones that I purchased) are not suspended from a pickup ring and must rest directly on the body or neck.

I chiseled out the bulk of the excess wood.

I used a small square rasp to make a small channel in the larger channel so that the solder points wouldn't scrape against the wood.

All finished.  I didn't bother sanding a ton since it isn't an exposed part of the guitar. 

Future Guitar

I had this idea for a custom guitar a long time ago and even started on it a bit by purchasing the wood dye and ebony fretboard. 

The idea is to dye the wood as solid matte black as possible (though thinking about it now, paint would be a better option), pick a small section of the night sky, and inlay the stars and constellations with different gauges of silver wire.  I'd use flat silver wire to join up any constellations. 

All black or silver hardware would be a must.

Future Guitar

I've had a beautiful piece of spalted Hawthorne for ages waiting for a purpose.  While I'd like to have someone turn them into file handles, I'd first like to use it for headstock veneer and control cavity covers.  That got me thinking of using local thorn producing woods for a guitar. 

I'm not sure what I could use for a fretboard that would be on point though. 

Clockwise we have black locust, osage orange, hawthorne, and devil's walking stick.

It could be a neat theme.  I like using relatively unused woods for accents.  I've used grape vine, myrtle, holly, and apple in the past.

I'd definitely go with all silver hardware and use a simple bridge with a single pickup to keep the focus on the body.

Future Guitar

Walking through the woods, be it foraging or metal detecting, I find a lot of bone and antler.  I've made a few antler nuts already, but I'd like to see what else I could do with the material.

I'd try to use all dark wood for everything.  Something that would look decent without a high gloss so that the polished bone would really pop.

You can buy faux ivory pickups, but I really like the clean look of covered pickups so I don't think I'd go with them.

I'd try out tapering the edges of the body a bit too.

Future Guitar

There are a few guys that frequent the guitar page I joined (Project Electric Guitar for those curious) that produce the most beautiful intricate carved guitars.

I'd love to learn to carve somewhat decently and make a carved top guitar in a floral motif with a carved headstock veneer and control covers to match.

Azure Bluets have always been a favorite.

I'd initially thought all dark wood but now I think all lighter wood with a dark neck would be better.  I'd first thought all brass or gold hardware to go with the darker wood, but now I'm thinking it probably wouldn't matter.

Now all I need to do is learn to carve intricate details flawlessly!

Future Guitar

Since I'm on vacation and away from my shop, I figured I'd spend the week relaxing and brainstorming. 

I'd like to do a sleek hollow body guitar in all white or cream with silver hardware and a high gloss maple neck.

Something like this:

Ideally I'd have hardware from Schaller with Stonewall Pickups.

I'd try to make the body from a single piece of ash except for the top which would be eighth inch wood that I could cut and pull down to create the sound holes.  I think gluing a rib to the center would keep it from raising back up.

The headstock would have the same high gloss paint as the body.

Book Quartet Fretboards

Fixing the fretboard went -ok-

I made a paste from titebond and walnut dust to fill the tear out.  The first batch I made was with loctite super glue, but it smelled like burning and didn't work at all.  Lesson learned. 

When sanding away the excess, another piece broke off =p  Sand with the grain dummy.

Everything worked out eventually though.

Could have been worse!

I'm on vacation now and away from my shop, but I'm going to try to post future guitar ideas this week to not lose the flow!

Book Quartet Fretboards

I got the hunk of fretboard reglued on.  I then removed the excess with a coping saw and sanded it with 80 grit.  I'll need to add some epoxy with sawdust to eliminate the dips shown below. 

It'll get there 

Book Quartet Fretboards

I took my router table outside and set up my flush trim bit and success ....

.... except for those last two frets =/

Super glue and a clamp and I'll sand it down the slow way tomorrow. 

There are a couple more spots to touch up but that shouldn't prove too difficult. 

Book Quartet Fretboards

Getting ready to glue on the fretboard.  Titebond hasn't done me wrong yet.

I use painters tape to make the excess glue easy to remove.  I completely forgot to tape the fretboard but I got lucky and no glue got on it anyway.  I really should make a checklist. 

All clamped up!  I should probably invest in a few more clamps honestly.

Book Quartet Pickup Rings Part 1

The aforementioned CB Gitty pickup rings are low quality garbage so I decided to try and make my own.  I've had a 6' length of giant wild grape vine for ages so I figured 'what the heck?'.

Bandsaw time!  Is grape vine wood toxic?  I wore a mask anyway. 

Made sure the screw holes match with a center punch.

I figured I'd try copying the design on the cover as I did on the headstock.

Book Quartet Bodies

Drilling through the cover to install the tone and volume pots was impossible to do cleanly.  Thankfully a razor got most of the ragged edges and the knobs will cover the rest.

Test fit.

Installed!  I strung it up and got some sound out of it which was great to hear.

I quickly disassembled it because there's a lot more to be done still.

Book Quartet Bodies

I don't know if adding the shielding is a necessity for what's essentially a fancy cigar box guitar but I figure it won't hurt.

Book Quartet Cable Jack

Test fitting the size needed for the cable jack.  Ended up being 7/8"

Next I clamped the book to make sure the pages wouldn't shred when I drilled the hole.  This worked for purposes of drilling, but as soon as I unclamped it, they separated anyway =p

I thought the plug was kind of funny.

Oh yeah, the body.  Ya big dummy!

The blue dots are for the jack plate screws.  I ended up having to put in a dollop of super glue with each one so they didn't pop back out.

No worries, it wasn't an important part.