Flat top LP - Koa on Mahogany

[Cagey]

Wow! That's coming along very nicely!

I was concerned about finishing out the last body without a big floor-standing buffer, but it turns out you can do it by hand without killing yourself. The big buffer would be nice, but I think you only need it if you want to save a lot of time because you're doing so many parts. For occasional finishing, the hand works quite well. It just requires patience.

 

[bagman67]

Patience, indeed, Cagey.  I put in about four hours last night - two feature films worth of grinding down the orange peel and then progressing through to 2400 grit, then did the 3200 and the swirl remover this morning in about half an hour.  It's no way to make a living at guitar building, but fortunately I'm not trying to do that.  It certainly does a lot to make it my axe, though.

 

[Cagey]

Another plus is that if you make it through the final levelling stages without cutting through the finish, you're home free. With a power buffer, you still have the opportunity to wreck several week's work.

 

[bagman67]

THat's a lesson I learned on the green telecaster - burned through in several places, so I just kept going with the lacquer on this one far beyond what I thought was reasonable. 


Wiring it's gonna be an SOB, though - I'm splitting the coils on the humbuckers with push-push knobs.  That should get me into a creative mood when it comes to inventing swear words.

 

[Cagey]

You might save yourself some grief by fabbing up some sort of "pot holder". That is, a flat piece of plastic or stiff cardboard with holes drilled in the same pattern as the guitar's control layout. Wire as much of the thing as you can that way, where things are out in the open and easy to get at, then transfer the whole wad into the body and finish connecting the pickup switch and output jack.

 

[bagman67]

How about doing it on a piece of sheet metal that will also go into the cavity and serve as the ground for all the pots?  I foresee leaving a little tab dangling of that i can run a screw through into the guitar body as a central ground point for all the miscellaneous ground wires.  Thoughts?

 

[Nando Vallart]

Getting nice, Koa is a really pretty wood, even when unfigured!

 

[Cagey]

How about doing it on a piece of sheet metal that will also go into the cavity and serve as the ground for all the pots?  I foresee leaving a little tab dangling of that i can run a screw through into the guitar body as a central ground point for all the miscellaneous ground wires.  Thoughts?

That could work well. You could even use aluminum, which is much easier to work in your average home shop with common drills/files/etc.

I could see that inspiring new cuss words, too, though. Getting your holes drilled in exactly the right places might be a challenge, and control cavities aren't always as uniform as you'd like. But, long-shaft pots allow for quite a bit of depth adjustment and you could over-drill the location holes a tad to account for location slop. Certainly something to think about, especially if you were going to do multiples of a particular design.

 

[bagman67]

Getting nice, Koa is a really pretty wood, even when unfigured!

Thanks, Nando -


It's actually slightly figured, but you can really only see it in person, when you rotate the body in the light.  I have a friend who's likely to buy this one the moment it's done, which is fine - I have lots of ideas I could really use some funding for.

 

[bagman67]

How about doing it on a piece of sheet metal that will also go into the cavity and serve as the ground for all the pots?  I foresee leaving a little tab dangling of that i can run a screw through into the guitar body as a central ground point for all the miscellaneous ground wires.  Thoughts?

That could work well. You could even use aluminum, which is much easier to work in your average home shop with common drills/files/etc.

I could see that inspiring new cuss words, too, though. Getting your holes drilled in exactly the right places might be a challenge, and control cavities aren't always as uniform as you'd like. But, long-shaft pots allow for quite a bit of depth adjustment and you could over-drill the location holes a tad to account for location slop. Certainly something to think about, especially if you were going to do multiples of a particular design.

Here's my proposed solution to the hole-placement problem, Cagey -


I cut out a lozenge-shaped piece of basswood that I picked up at the hardware store, and I'll use that as sort of a clamping-caul to hold the aluminum sheet in the right place in the body - and then I'll drill down through the aluminum and the basswood through the holes in the top of the guitar.  Whee!


Bagman

 

[Updown]

:icon_thumright:  Yum ... that's looking very nice indeed.

The table almost matches too.  :icon_biggrin:

 

[Cagey]

Here's my proposed solution to the hole-placement problem, Cagey -

I cut out a lozenge-shaped piece of basswood that I picked up at the hardware store, and I'll use that as sort of a clamping-caul to hold the aluminum sheet in the right place in the body - and then I'll drill down through the aluminum and the basswood through the holes in the top of the guitar.  Whee!

Sounds good except for the drilling through your body holes part. I'd just mark the hole locations and then remove the plate and drill it on the bench.

 

[ThePhilosopher]

Ok, so now I'm certain I want a Koa over Mahogany guitar. :help:

 

[Death by Uberschall]

Ok, so now I'm certain I want a Koa over Mahogany guitar. :help:

Love mine, it's quickly becoming one of my favorites.  ccasion14:

 

[bagman67]

Okay, so we're underway again.


Turns out the shielded cable I bought to wire things up is too fat to fit through the holes between the switch cavity and the pickup cavity, and between the pickup cavity and the control cavity.


So I took finer wire and jury rigged a solution:  Four strands (from the bridge volume pot, from the neck volume pot, ground, and hot out), wrapped them in kitchen aluminum foil, and passed them through a heat-shrink sleeve.  So now the switch is wired up, and off we go to start wiring pots.  Should be fun... two humbuckers, 3-way, two volumes, two tones with push-pull pots, wired for series/parallel.


Off we go...

 

[bagman67]

By the way:


David Lean accompanies guitar wiring quite well.

 

[tylereot]

Good luck with it, Baggy.  I think that's going to be a really great guitar, even if not quite your style.
Great to play with you today, too.  I think there's some creative synergy here.  :icon_thumright:

 

[Cagey]

So I took finer wire and jury rigged a solution:  Four strands (from the bridge volume pot, from the neck volume pot, ground, and hot out), wrapped them in kitchen aluminum foil, and passed them through a heat-shrink sleeve.  So now the switch is wired up, and off we go to start wiring pots.  Should be fun... two humbuckers, 3-way, two volumes, two tones with push-pull pots, wired for series/parallel.

You did ground the aluminum foil wrapper, right?

For the future, you may want to consider getting a set of 12" long aircraft bits...

They'll allow you to place or open up holes in places and at angles that might otherwise be difficult or impossible with standard twist drills.

 

[bagman67]

Dad blammit...


Got 'er all wired up, sounded right when I held it up to another guitar's vibrating strings, verified I had signal in all positions, and then when I attempted to push the knobs on the first of the volume pots, the thing fell apart.  Shaft pushed through and out of the pot.  Being an idiot, I figured, hey, why not try another - and ditto.  So it seems likely the push-on bell knobs I got from Warmoth do not actually fit the knurled-post pots I got from Warmoth, or my knob-pushing-on technique is hosed (which seems more likely to me, but I lack the spirit to verify at the moment).  Or maybe I weakend something during the soldering.


Anyway, gotta rewire the sombitch... some other weekend.  If I get moving on it now, I'll likely just put a gouge in the guitar that will make me want to throw the whole thing on the barbecue.  Those tiny little lugs on the push-pull pots are enough to piss off a saint in the first place. 


These disasters at the finish line really don't help my mood any.


I am most put out.

 

[tylereot]

D'oh!!