Bought a sheet of plywood today and a cheap saw. Made a start by using my full size print out - a scanned, blown up to scale and printed poster-style picture of a Klein. Scribbled all over the back, taped it to the plywood, traced over the relevant lines, removed the print out and the lines were on the wood. Inked over the pencil lines.
Time spent: 1 hour (To date: 1 hours).
27 Dec 2005
Bought some clamps and a rasp
today. Drilled some exploratory pilot holes, with a view to perforating
around the edge of the design to aid cutting, but found that the
underside of the plywood splinters, not a very tidy result. Used a
standard saw instead to remove most of the excess material. Will
complete with either a small saw or a jigsaw, to cut to shape.
Time spent: 1 hour (To date: 2 hours).
Bought a cheap jigsaw, a workbench and some safety glasses to finish cutting out the template. Once bench was built, finished off the template using the jigsaw. No problems. Made sure wood was always firmly clamped to prevent movement and the jigsaw worked very well. The edges of the plywood were a little raggy but this was sorted out with rasp.
Time spent: 1 hour (To date: 3 hours).
29 Dec 2005
Plans arrived today. Checked first attempt at template against actual size plans. Oops... they are good for length but too small for height. Will produce a second template taken directly from the plans, but it's worth keeping the original. Make make a second smaller guitar at a later date.
30 Dec 2005
Made a second template today. This one is actual size. Was fairly quick to cut out now that I am used to using the tools. Cuts are nice and smooth too and I have added the lines to show where the contouring will figure in the design. Next step, get a blank and cut out a body!
Time spent: 1 hour (To date: 4 hours).
09 Jan 2006
Body blank arrived today. One piece 39” x 8.5”. Slight problem, I thought that I was asking for a single piece of wood, already thicknessed and levelled that I would then draw my shape on and cut out. I ordered a pizza... I took delivery of a pizza base, a can of tomatoes and some cheese. Didn't anticipate having to do this part.
11 Jan 06
Managed to find someone with a table saw who cut the wood up for me. Only took about 20 mins, but now have to glue this up. Will have to order some Titebond glue.
12 Jan 06
Titebond II arrived today from Craft Supplies.
13 Jan 06
Bought an orbital sander and a drum sanding set (for drill). Glued up the boards, left to dry overnight.
14 Jan 06
Removed clamps from boards, they are well glued. Slight problem – the top and middle are slightly out of alignment. Some of this will be sorted out with the front contouring. May have to find a local woodworker, and get them to thickness it and remove 2mm from the front. Not too worried, it does look quite thick anyway. Shape still needs to be cut out.
15 Jan 06
Cut out the rough shape. Broke the jigsaw blade in the process. Had to buy some replacements. Also bought a dust mask. Cut out the body, did some sanding. The joins are very good. Just need to get the thicknessing done and also get the edge routed. New problem – there is a knot on what will be the bottom side of the guitar. Think this will just need filling, although, think this means that I will have to go for a solid colour now, in order to hide this.
17 Jan 06
Phoned around yesterday to try and get a woodworker/joiner to reduce the thickness on the body and get rid of the join line, did not have much success. One said he knew someone who might be able to help and that he would pass on my phone number. Tonight, got a phone call from the guy, he lives on the village, and works at a cabinet makers in Swindon. He came round, had a look and said he would stick it through the wide belt sander at work tomorrow during his lunch break. Life saver. That would put me on the path then. Need to start thinking about ordering a scratch plate soon. Will probably go with Chandlers, they have a Klein design. I will get the tele neck pickup size from my existing pickguard. Also need to order templates for routing pickup holes. Will get those from StewMac.
18 Jan 06
Got the body back today. What a job!! Fantastic!! The joint was a great fit, Titebond did the job and now that it has been thicknessed it is a perfect 38mm thick all round, the surface is perfectly flat and the joins invisible unless you really know where to look. It now just looks like one nice piece of wood, and has some nice understated figuring in the wood. Looks like a clear finish is back on. Next I will have to true up the side edges. Will get a router for that.
21 Jan 06
Bought a router today and it came with a free workbench. Need to order a patternmaker's bit for the router. Will do that on Monday. This will enable me to true up the sides, and make sure that the body is exactly the same shape as the template.
27 Jan 06
Finished truing up the edges of the body by using the drum sander and also manual sanding using coarse paper (80 grade I think) and a rasp. Using a patternmakers bit on a router didn't seem to work too well and took a couple of small chunks out of the body. Fortunately these chunks were from areas that have to be sanded anyway so no major concerns. Made some little wooden sanding blocks to help follow the curves. Worked very well. Time spent: 1 hour. Also started doing a sample to practice making a chamfer.
28 Jan 06
Finished practice chamfer piece. Very happy with the results. Produced using sanding drum on drill, rasp, coarse sand paper and fine paper to tidy up at end. Next step is to do it on body blank.
29 Jan 06
Carved the chamfer today. Also carved the contour on the back and the contour for the rear strap button. Drum sander (see right)was invaluable. Clamped a piece of playwood as a stop guard to ensure I couldn't sand to far into the main face of the guitar.
Pictures on right which show contoured body. The contours seem to be hard to see because of the colour of the wood, but they are definitely there. I started trying to reproduce the Klein contours, but in the end tailored them to what fit best for me.
Total: 2 hours
17 Feb 2006
Routed out the neck pocket. Used a drill with Forstner bits to remoce most of the material and hammer and chisel to tidy it up. From start to finish it was about 2 1/2 hours work. Screws and fittings were taken directly from the Steinberger GU Spirit, as was the neck. The neck has been fitted identically to the Steinberger method, screws countersunk on rear of guitar, with washers also countersunk. Two small cosmetic gaffs were made when drilling for the washers and screws, but the fit is good and the neck is solid. When holding the guitar sitting the neck is at a very comfortable angle, particularly for adopting a classical type left hand position.
Total: 2 1/2 hours
11 Mar 2006
Finally got around to routing out the pocket that the bridge will sit in. It's a two level route and each level was done in three passes. Both levels are approximately 16mm deep. It's an unusual design so that it can accommodate the Steinberger R-trem which I robbed from the Steinberger GU Spirit guitar (the picture is what I'm aiming for). Once the job was finished and I checked it against the bridge unit, turns out the fit is just a bit too snug.
Total: 2 hours
12 Mar 2006
Did a bit more routing to give the bridge unit a more comfortable fit. Unfortunately, made a bit of a boob when cleaning up with a chisel. Managed to split the wood on the rear of the guitar, the pictures show the damage. Remembered reading how Bob Benedetto experiences this kind of thing when shaping sides of archtops, and just fills/glues and sands. Figured if Titebond is good enough to hold the body together it should seal and hold a split. Got glue into the split using a thin piece of plastic cut from a yoghurt carton. Promptly clamped and left it to set. When the clamps came off it seemed to have done the trick.
Total: 3 hours
13 Mar 2006
Cleaned up the route finally... VERY carefully. Also then drilled pilot holes for mounting the bridge, and then attached the base plate, added the bridge unit itself... TA DAA!! So far so good. Started stringing it up but realised the neck is seated slightly too high. This is because I produced the neck pocket manually without the router. Next step will be to trim the depth and even it out using the router now that I am happy using it. The balance of the guitar is very nice so far. Before the bridge went on it was slightly neck heavy, but not so that it pitched forward. Now the bridge is on it is more balanced. Because of the considerable chunk of metal (bridge) attached, the guitar also feels more substantial too.
Total: 1 hour
16 Mar 06
Now that I 'm happy using the router, I tidied up the neck pocket today. Re-attached the neck and put the strings on. It works like a dream. I now have a functioning guitar - albeit without any electronics. Nevertheless, the guitar has a reasonable acoustic volume.
Next step is to get a scratchplate and a pickup.
