Tonemaster Part 2!

[rapfohl09]

So for the longest time I have been googly-eyeing the woodshop that we have within the art department here at school. I have tried time and time to get access to it, but as an engineering student the answer has always been no. Recently the tech in shop changed, and the new one is a super cool guy who finally said I could come in whenever I wanted. Bingo.

I packed up a bunch of stuff from home that I needed, and grabbed some wood I have been collected and here we are.

I actually have 2 of these going at the same time. 1 is a 1-piece pine body and another is a 2 piece walnut body with a zebrawood laminate up the middle. I wasn't really crazy about the zebrawood laminate, but it looks ok. It would have been a nicer body as just walnut, but I bought it a long time ago before I realized that you need to join wood to make body blanks, not just order wood that is only a few 1/16s of an inch bigger than you need.

I will post pictures of the pine one a little later on, because my camera has a terrible white-balance problem in the woodshop, and I haven't taken pictures of it yet with my cell phone. Tomorrows job is routing the walnut one to shape. The last picture shows off some of the figuring in the walnut body that the lighting in the wood shop just doesn't bring out.

Wow, super long post.

 

[Cagey]

That's gonna be sharp. I've always liked Walnut.

 

[rapfohl09]

Here she is all routed up. There is quite a bit of color in this walnut, it should look really good with some oil on it. Next step is to drill the control holes where I want them, and then the rest should be cake. I made a new set of templates (well I still have to add the humbucker routs to them) so I can stick one template on the back and rout, and then stick another on the front and route and bam, done. The controls are the only thing I have to place without at template. I just think it is easier to spend all your time matching stuff up on the template, then when it comes to wood it is just as simple as lining the templates up. I will post a couple pictures of them when I'm finished with them.

Work on the pine one will continue next week. The top isn't flat....I'm not quite sure how I missed that before I cut it out, so I have to sort that out before I can do any routing.

 

[bagman67]

This is very cool.  I like the idea of the zebra stripe down the middle. 

Interesting phenomenon - as long as it's still a blank slate, the lack of pickups and hardware on the assymetrical body make the zebra stripe look off-center, even though at the neck-pocket end, it's clearly centered.  Kinda weird.

 

[rapfohl09]

Here the small amount of work I got done this weekend.

1 - Drilled the control holes for the walnut body. Now I can just put the templates on and finish er up.

2 - Here is the pine body. I really like the look of this one. It is really easy to get the pine dirty though. I need to be careful with it. Thankfully nothing terrible happened when I sent it through the jointer. I kept see images in my head of it exploding and tearing like crazy because it had already been cut out. It was no different then when it was just a body blank :laughing7:

3 - The back, much the same.

More tomorrow.

 

[rapfohl09]

People don't seem to be all that interested in this, but I will share a few more photos. The plan for this walnut guy is to get a Warmoth neck, so it is a little bit relevant to the forum :laughing7:. I will have to see after the finish what kind of rings/knobs/etc I want. I am just using a vintage standard bridge I had laying around, so its gonna be a chrome bridge....we will so how that looks. Today I finished all the machining except for a jack hole, strap buttons, and some other random things.

1. This is how it sits after I take the templates off. The control cavity is also done in the back. I like this style of building, so I will probably do it with all my templates from now on.

2. The string ferrule holes that miraculously came out perfect. I was really nervous to do these, but the method I used worked like a charm. If someone actually wants to know how, then I will explain, but I don't feel like explaining it now.

3. The roundover, I was actually a little sloppy with it, but thankfully I didn't wobble the router anymore than a little sanding couldn't fix. Next time I will make sure to save some body offcuts to place around so I have more support on router base.

4. And a little bridge grounding hole. Much better this time around. I was almost positive it was going to come out the back, but it went perfectly into the cavity. I drilled the pickup wiring hole from the bridge pickup too, but I drilled it way too high, so I need to plug and re-drill it.


I will get some more pictures either when I start oiling it, or when I get the neck for it.

 

[Cagey]

I wouldn't call 231 views "not interested". Lotta people are looking. Just not a helluva lotta comments yet.

 

[Stew]

People don't seem to be all that interested in this, but I will share a few more photos.

I'm interested. Keep 'em coming!

... and by the way, the zebra strip in the walnut looks killer  :icon_thumright:

 

[mgaut051]

People don't seem to be all that interested in this, but I will share a few more photos.

I'm interested. Keep 'em coming!

... and by the way, the zebra strip in the walnut looks killer  :icon_thumright:

+1000