ROSE

[Hbom]

Time to get off my duff and start a winter project.
Last winter I got caught up in the moment and made one of those 'unbelievable ebay buys'
Solid rosewood tele, way cheaper than I could stand.

Like most ebay bodies I've bought, not everything worked out as planned.
Turned out the center piece of my 3pc body was a bit less dry than the wing pieces.
10 days after it got here it started to crack!
Body builder came out of his garage long enough to tell me that he had never had that happen before.
"Put a hard finish on it" he said. "That should stop it"
Seemed to me that finishing at that point would just get me a guitar with cracks in the finish.
When I set a straight edge across the face of the body sideways and I could watch the center part raise and lower from week to week. I figured a bit more drying time might be in order.

So I waited a year and I think it has quit moving. So I'm ready.
I thought the 1st thing I'd do is ask for thoughts and advise here.
This a Halfmoth so I hope you don't mind.
Beautiful rosewood Jazzmaster neck had another destination planned, but really seems to go with this body. So, so be it.

1st question is about the cracks.
The most noticeable is on the base side of the top and runs in a varying line just off of the glue joint.
It leaves a visible crack at the bottom & again in the turn of the upper hook.
The other is right on the treble side glue joint, just looks like the glue may have not held for 1st 1 2/2-2" of the joint.

My plan is to sand the side of the body enough to get some dust, then mix the dust with epoxy to fill the cracks.
As deep as they are I will probably use air to force the fill all the way in.
Then I'm up in the air about finish.

I know most of you are strong believers in unfinished necks.
Me too. I love my unfinished rosewood neck!
Can I get away with it on a full body?
Or should I even try?

I'm really thinking of just sanding it.

Hardware plan is probably chrome but still considering black.
Schaller tuners
? bridge.
Roadhouse pickups.

Lots more pics here so please take a look and tell me what you think.
http://s1193.photobucket.com/albums/aa352/dReit/The%20Rose/
Any and all advise comments or snickers would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you all
Doug
:rock-on:

 

[greywolf]

I would stabilize the crack with epoxy , then use French polish to seal it . ( Zinssers clear shellac works well) .  buff it to a satin finish and rock on

 

[Hbom]

Greywolf, thanks. I think you're right, fix the crack and then shellac. But I was looking for ideas. Rosewood is pretty oily and I was checking for alternate finishes. I have also thought about an epoxy finish to help seal it, I used CA to seal the pickup & control cavity but I don't know if I want to try that on the whole body. I've never done anything that big with CA.

I'm suprised I didn't get anyone saying unfinished. It works so well on rw necks.

After sealing the cavities and doing a little sanding I found that I wasn't as lucky as I had hoped.
All that expanding and contracting has left the body humped on the back. WARPED!

Since I'm not quite ready to deal with that, I have decided to shelve this one for a while.

Bummer.
:rock-on:

 

[tylereot]

Yeah, I don't know why you WOULDNT leave the whole thing unfinished.  You could work some epoxy into the crack, and sand it out, and just leave it to expand, contract and do whatever it wants to do without cracking a finish.
It's a lot of heavy, dense exotic hardwood, and I think to finish it, especially with it's...um... peculiarities.. would be a shame.

Is this the crack you're talking about?  That's not bad...

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Great Googly Moogly that is gorgeous!  DON'T FINISH IT!!!!!!

If the pic above is indeed the crack, I'd say leave it alone.  A ton of super fine sandpaperin' and you've got yourself a work of art.  I think it's a shame it's got the extra routing for the humbucker & wiring channel - that thing does NOT deserve a pickguard.

 

[Hbom]

Thanks to tylereot and ihnpts for the unfinished votes. I think it would be fun to do it that way, BUT,
The damn wood won't settle down! I watched it all summer and measuring showed that it hadn't expanded or contracted in over 2 months.
So I was thinking I was good to go.
Last week I started some prep work and I notice that it was rocking like a teeter totter!
On the same bench that 3 weeks before it was fine, or at least flat enough that I didn't notice any rocking.
?How long should I expect to wait for this piece of rosewood to dry?
I have worked with lots of green walnut over the years and usually 2-3years has been plenty to have all the twisting and checking done with.
I'm thinking the center piece of the body is the one creating all of the havoc, but that is just an uneducated guess.
I bought the body in March so was thinking that it would have been at least a year old before Mr. Guitar Maker glued it together and cut it up. But that's just a guess.
Next ? What am I going to have to do to be able to see if this body is straight enough to become a guitar?
The way it's moving around now I'm wondering whether it will ever be flat enough.
If I wait it out, then set a neck in the pocket, will I be able to measure off of the neck to see if it is flat?

I am SOOOO confused.

Posted by: tylereot;Is this the crack you're talking about?  That's not bad...
That is one of the cracks, but is not too bad as it just follows the glue joint a couple of inches.
If you look at pictures

You can see the cracks that are on the bass side. To me these are the worst cracks but I was thinking they had stabilized.

Thanks again to all. Still looking for answers.
:rock-on:

 

[Cagey]

I don't really have any advice, but here's something to consider: it's a bolt-on neck. The bridge and pickups bolt on. What's the worst thing that could happen? If the body deteriorates from where it's at to an unacceptable point, you take off the good parts and get another body. The neck is the thing you play - the body of an electric is more of a platform/anchor point than anything else. It doesn't contribute a great deal to the sound/character of the thing like an acoustic body does. Other than another super-picky guitarist looking at it up close and personal, who's gonna see those little cracks?

 

[Hbom]

Cagey, Thanks for your reply. My big concern now is not so much the cracks as the bowing.
If the center piece of the body bows front to back, humped on the back,concaved on the face side, will it shorten up the distance from the bridge to 12th fret enough to become a problem?
Or am I just over thinking all of this?

 

[Cagey]

If it did warp that way, the shortening effect on the strings would be so miniscule that it would probably be difficult to even adjust out at the bridge.

If I was going to worry about something, it would be the body twisting axially relative to the neck. But, even that could be adjusted out at the bridge, so no worries.

Just build it. It'll rock.

 

[Scuffcakes]

Just build it. It'll rock.

QFT!

 

[Ddbltrbl]

Really intersted to see how this is going! :cool01:

 

[Hbom]

Unfortunately I am still stuck in neutral.
When I went to work on this last month it seemed like the wood was still drying out. :dontknow:
So I put it back in the box with a note to check again mid-January.
Really depressing as I would love to get it going.

I think that I have decided to go with black hardware.
Any opinions?
:rock-on:

 

[AutoBat]

I'd go with Black or Chrome/Nickel.  Gold will just look tacky.

 

[leo12.]

Doug  it seems there is movement on the base side, does that crack run the full length?
Can you clamp the body firmly on a solid bench leaving the base wing over hang & see 
how much movement there is.
Next can you get it to a shop with a heavy cast iron table, & lay it on the table both sides that would be the way to check how twisted it is. bring a flash light to check the gaps.
Here's a link to a PDF template from TDPRI, take it to a print shop print it as is no sizing,
http://terrydownsmusic.com/Archive/tele_body_drawing_revD.pdf
Its a great reference check a few sizes to see it printed correctly.
You can see how your  body sizes up, neck pocket to through holes will a control plate
cover the cavity . Is the p/u hole big enough to take a p/u etc. Dont worry about perimiter.
Here,s a build that needed a lot of work but it came out good in the end.
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=15373.0
What weight is that body? Good luck.

 

[Cagey]

I think that I have decided to go with black hardware. Any opinions? 

I like black a lot. I also like gold a lot. They both tend to add class to a build. Chrome or nickel has been done to death and tends to look somewhat pedestrian, although on the plus side it does wear better.

 

[swarfrat]

Gold should be used sparingly. But Walnut and Rosewood are two of the cases where it looks really good. (It also works against gloss black, but you have more options there). I'd either go black or gold, but against this top, never chrome.

 

[Ddbltrbl]

Despite AutoBat's on-going Au allergy, I would go with Gold, or Black, or a combination of the 2!

 

[Hbom]

Sorry to take so long to get back to this but I've been trying to find a way to fix this thing.

Unfortunately, after talking to everyone I can about it; I have decided to leave it alone until summer. I just don’t have the proper equipment to straighten it out. I am trying to bum some wood shop time but so far haven’t been successful.

There are just too many issues for me to try to correct with the limited shop that I have now days.I don't have a power plane available, so the best I can come up with will be a router sled, and I’ll have to build and learn how to use that.

The wood is warped, twisted and has some cupping on the face side of the center section.
If you look at the top pic. in reply #5 above, you can see how the grain of the center piece runs. If you extend those grain lines out to the edge, you can imagine the way the body has cupped forward.
The face side of the center piece is fairly flat front to back. Between the neck pocket & the bridge holes, I can get a .0110 shim under a straight edge but a .0125 won’t go. Going sideways it will take a .0125 but not .0150 shim stock on either side at the outside edge. So I think I can fix that and I will be able to get a bridge to set OK and get proper intonation.

The back is where the big issue seems to be. There’s a high spot that runs the length of the body pretty much centered on the reddish stripe that you can see on the bass side of the center piece. It’s about ½” wide and is the part that has expanded the most. It really puts a hump in the back.

This pic. Shows how much it is wobbling, almost 3/16th” at that point!

I just can’t take care of that with a file and sand paper.

Also the body weighs 7 lbs. without a neck or any hardware, so I want to look into maybe carving the top to reduce weight. I’m not sure how much I can take off with a ½”x1 ½” carve but I might try it.

So this one is back on the shelf until I can do a proper job.

Fortunately, I have another project to keep me busy until summer. Since the Big W hasn’t seen fit to put up a pau ferro tele neck I like, I have decided to try canary.
But that’s another story. Look for it soon.
:rock-on:

 

[leo12.]

I think a router sled is the way to go. Runing it through a thickness planer won't straighten
the body, finding a surfacer that wide will be tough. I have a Tele build the body is 1 1/2"
its made of Teak, you could take yours close to that thickness.You would probably have to
switch to a LP style switch don't think you will have the depth in the control cavity after the sled for a Tele type switch. Here's a link to a Sled go to post #39
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-depot/145847-some-my-jigs-templates.html
the neck & p/u cavity will need deepening.

 

[Hbom]

leo, Thanks for the input.
I know what you mean about the planer, just laying a body in there and running it through won't work. I would need to build a box that had a neck extension so that I could bolt the body up off the table, then run for flat, flip it over and do it again. Repeat until problem solved.
Actually that's pretty much what I'm thinking I'll have to do with a router sled too, but I'm not sure as I've never used one before.
Thanks for the link to TDPRI. There are a bunch of different sleds on that site that I have been looking at. I still haven't decided on which design to use.
I also agree that switch depth may become an issue. It really pees me off too, as I had planned to use 2 concentric pots, but they probably won't work with this body now.
But summer is coming, hopefully I'll be able to figure something out.
:rock-on: