Building in a small shop

Today I start to make guitars basically the same way as before from a drawing. After the drawing I make a full body Template with all the routs in it. Obviously I have a very good amount of equipment and I recommend using the best tools available. Below I will go into a step by step process of how I make a body from scratch.

  I purchase the wood in half body blanks, one piece body blanks or board feet and match and join it in my shop. I prefer to do this because I can make the body blanks just as I need them. Most of my woods I hand pick from from various local wood suppliers or at shows I visit. Many of the local mills will also thickness sand and join some woods for me to my exact specifications.

 

  First layout the wood and trace a copy of the body outline on it, so that you can make sure the block is big enough for the body. After the tracing use the jointer to get the sides of the wood ready for joining.

When you join wood you need to make sure that the end grain is running the same way on both pieces other wise the body could twist. If you do not have a good eye for this, look at the ends of the blocks and you can see the direction of the grain pattern. Both grains should run as if the wood was book matched.

 I use a Titebond glue to join the woods. First lay the woods out and check the body joint to make sure everything lines up tight and that the grain looks good in case you will do a transparent color.

   

Next open the wood flipping up the two sides that will be joined. Glue is applied to both sides and then use a rubber, nylon or wooden squeegee to smooth out the glue.

Next lift one of the sides up and put it on top of the other and use two clamps in the middle of the two pieces to keep the wood even. Then use long clamps to clamp the wood together nice and tight, wipe off the excess glue with a damp sponge.

   

After the wood is glued up and dried run the wood through a planer to get the exact thickness needed for the body, always start from wood that is the correct thickness this will save allot of work later on. For hard wood like maples I recommend if you can use a thickness sander that uses a wide belt to thickness sand the wood. My planner rips chunks of maple out so I either use a thickness sander or pin rout the the top thickness down.


 

 

 

  Strat by making a center line on the wood, If it is a two piece body use the glue joint as the center otherwise measure in and make the line.

To attach the template to the wood I use double stick tape and center the template on the center line of the body blank. This is important because the template will also need to be flipped over to do the back routs.I still cut the bodies rough shape with the band saw, it's less dangerous routing the wood.

The next step is to use the pin router to shape the actual guitar using a 12mm pin and a 12mm bit. The depth that I rout on each pass depends on the type of wood and how new the bit is. Harder woods like ash or maple you need to just shape a little at a time but basswood or alder you can get allot deeper in the passes.

 The way a pin router works is fairly simple. The router head is attached to the top of the machine. Directly under the head is a table that has a socket for different pin sizes. This pin is on center with the router collet so if a template is under the work the pin will follow the template and copy the template with the router bit. To make a perfect one to one copy use the same size bit and pin. If you want to reduce the body size you can do this buy increasing the size of the pin while using a smaller router bit. The table or the head will have a depth control on it for controlling the depth of the rout.

   

 Because the template has all the routs located in it I can do the neck pocket, pickups and tremolo routing on the front of the body at this time. After finishing the top, take the template off and put it on the front of the body to do all the back routs

   

To do the body round over use the pin router and the proper round over bit between 2mm up to 20mm depending on the body. If there is binding on the top, figure out the thickness of the binding and reduce the pin size to bring the router bit in. For example if the binding is 2mm I use an 8mm pin with a 12mm bit this will rout a perfect 2mm channel for binding.

   

To cut the comfort cuts in the front and back I made a jig that sits at 15 degrees. The body is held in by two clamps and a band saw is used to cut the front and back comfort cuts.

 

 

  At this point all the routing is finished so final sand out the body with a a pneumatic palm sander and 80/180/220 paper and get ready for finish.

The finish process depends on the type of wood. If the body will be stained or sunburst, use alcohol or water dyes to stain the wood and then either spray the burst in or start clearing the body. (See Paint and Finish chapter for more info)

 

   

On woods like mahogany or solid colors I use a polyester sanding sealer on the wood to seal it before finishing. I have used a pore filler on mahogany before but its a pain to sand and clogs the paper so I prefer the polyester to seal the wood.

The next step is to spray the color on the guitar I use House Of Color urethanes (800-328-5139) for most of my custom work because it is fool proof and they have every color you could need.

 I let the paint dry at least 24 hours and then the type of clear used depends on the guitar. I use Polyester clear over all electric solid body guitars except for white because the poly yellows, for white I use urethane clear.

For jazz guitars and vintage necks I use Lawrence Macfayden (215-624-6333)nitro lacquer straight out of the can. I have tried many lacquers and most crack to early. I used a product called Star Lacquer for a while but it was so hard that the body would get finish cracks if the finish was not applied exactly the way the directions said. The Lawrence Macfayden lacquer is also fool proof.

For Polyester I use at least two heavy coats of clear. For urethane or lacquer it depends on the temperature and the wood. If it is really humid outside I only spray early in the morning so it does not fog up in this case I also use thinner coats.

In the winter I spray the coats a little thicker so that it looks like it is just about to run, of course most of the lacquer evaporates anyway so I just keep dumping coats on.

Drying of Polyester and urethane is at least one week people say they only need 24 hours but that's bull, The harder the finish the easy it is to get a good shine.

For Lacquer I let it dry for as long as possible this could be three weeks to three months depending on how much time I have.

  The finish sanding process I use is first #400 on a orbital sander for the polyester clear some people might cringe when they here #400 but it cuts well and I can get the body level in a few minutes.

Then I use the orbital sander with #600/#800/#1000.
Wet sand the body in back and forth motion with #1000 and #1500 to get the circle scratches out. The next step is I hand rub certain area with a 3M Buffing Compound but a car compund also works well. I do this to areas that are hard to get the buffer in on like some cutaway's or edges.

 

   

For Lacquer I start with #800 and I use mineral spirits to wet sand because with lacquer the water clogs the paper but with the mineral spirits one piece of paper lasts quite sometime. Then I use the #1000 and #1500 on the guitar.

 

 

   

Next step is the buffing machine and Menzerna polishing compound (Grom Gremany) on the wheel, the first wheel cuts the scratches and the second wheel is used to bring out the shine.