# Second attempt at Strandberg 7 build



## foreright (Apr 23, 2015)

Following on from my previous build thread (http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/lu...mizations/269280-7-string-headless-build.html), I had always planned to make a second go at a Strandberg 7 with some modifications and hopefully learning from some of the mistakes I made last time!

As before, this will be a bolt-on 7-string Boden shaped headless design with TFM hardware and EMG-81 pickups.

The body is another blank made from the same European Ash as before but this time topped with some pretty nice flamed maple. The maple is 12mm thick so I'm kinda undecided at the moment as to whether to go with some kind of carved top or not. The body itself is going to be quite a bit thicker than the last time and chambered a bit to try to reduce weight.

The neck is Rosewood again, this time cut into three (centre section reversed) with red line accents. It will have a Cocobolo fretboard, bound with the same rosewood as the neck and red lines again. Again, this is 25.5-27" (approx) multiscale.

I'm undecided as to whether to go with the Endurneck profile again or not - it really IS the most comfortable neck profile (for me) ever but it is quite a pain to carve, or more specifically, to blend into the "headstock" / heel in a nice looking way. I'll make that decision a bit later.

The main modifications over last time are to increase the thickness of the body by some 5mm or so just to make it look a little more substantial. Hopefully the extra weight will be offset by the chambering(!). I will be using threaded inserts instead of T-nuts this time. Also, this will have LED markers on both the front and side of the fretboard as I found a supplier of LEDs that are the right size for this purpose.

In terms of learning from mistakes, I've been much more careful with use of templates this time so hopefully the pickup cavities won't look like they were excavated with a spoon. I'm using a zero fret with no nut and simply positioning the string locks VERY close to the end of the fretboard. Additionally I'm using a stainless steel fret for the zero fret this time as the EVO gold one on the last build needs replacing already!

Again, this is likely to take some time to complete with home commitments and things - to the pictures:

New improved plans:







Body blank cut out and edges sanded:






Top glued:






Dog looking suitably impressed:






Top and body together:






Neck blank laminated and planed square ready for trimming:






Neck pocket cut and neck trimmed to size and truss rod fitted - still have to drill access hole for truss rod from the bottom of the neck:






Fretboard slotted and front LEDs installed - note the mark at the bottom is just glue residue from the paper template that's since been sanded off:






Comments so far:

Cocobolo is evil. This is DEFINITELY going to be the last time I ever use it as after sanding the fretboard flat, I felt crappy and properly ill for several days despite wearing (what I thought was a good enough...) mask. Unfortunately I still have to radius the board once binding is installed and I'm REALLY not looking forward to that.

I'm pretty pleased with the way the LEDs have come out so far. I'm using "axial" LEDs in 1.8mm size. The are extremely low profile and fit easily within the thickness of the board. They are epoxied into 2mm holes from the rear and then those holes are filled with clear epoxy from the top which makes them appear practically invisible when the LEDs are off but nice and bright and even when they are on.

I still have to fit LEDs in the top edge binding - my next job. That's going to be pretty fiddly. I would have gone with optical fibres for the side dots, and indeed, will do next time, but I'm going to experiment with these mini LEDs and see what that comes out like 

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Note - this is my version of a Strandberg Boden guitar, designed by Ola Strandberg, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. It features Technology for Musicians headless hardware and EMG 81-7 pickups. My modifications to the original design are to the design of the control cavity and modified output jack location and these are free for you to use under the same license, please contact me if you have any questions.


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## immortalx (Apr 23, 2015)

Beautiful work mate  Are you going to stain that top or leave it natural?


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## foreright (Apr 24, 2015)

Thanks - yep I had planned to stain this either purple or blue and have been doing some experimentation. Unfortunately the purple I have is a "plum" purple and is very dark so I've discounted that for now. The blue stain I have is again pretty strong and needs to be diluted a bit for better results.

Anyway, the below is a quick test with the maple stained purple, sanded back and then stained royal blue. The whole piece has then been tru-oiled. Note I could have sanded it a lot better!

I think I actually prefer it natural - it's really difficult to capture in a photo, and the light in my office is not the best today but the natural half looks REALLY 3-dimensional and "deep". The blue is just a little too strong I think.


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## Leftydudebro (Apr 28, 2015)

foreright said:


> Thanks - yep I had planned to stain this either purple or blue and have been doing some experimentation. Unfortunately the purple I have is a "plum" purple and is very dark so I've discounted that for now. The blue stain I have is again pretty strong and needs to be diluted a bit for better results.



That would super intense if it was almost a sky blue blended with the purple.


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## foreright (Apr 28, 2015)

I'm going to tryout some water based stains Over the next week or so. They should be easier to work with than these spirit based ones. Aside from that I've spent the last few days installing miniature LEDs into the binding - it is horrifically fiddly!


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 28, 2015)

Try diluting the dye a little bit with alcohol (might be methanol, check the bottle to make sure) or if you mixed the dye yourself from powder try making another batch that uses less dye. It'll probably still be a deep blue as opposed to a sky blue type colour, but it might be a little less dark. 

Try sanding that piece back so that the dark blue is in the grain and figure and then go over with a lighter blue. If you want to bring the colour back a little bit, use some 0000 or 00000 steel wool.

And sweet fretboard!


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## foreright (Apr 29, 2015)

Yup I believe Methanol is the stuff for this particular stain - I'm also pretty sure it's not that easy to come by in the UK -- certainly over the counter -- and the only stuff I've seen in the shops is coloured purple - not sure how that would react with the dye  Water based stain is just much easier to work with as you there's no much of an issue getting hold of its dilutant!

Regardless, I cleaned the top up a little and marked out for pickups and bridge locations:






Incidentally, does anyone else use an "optical centre punch" (like this: Axminster Optical Centre Punch - Punches - Centre - Hammers, Nail Pullers & Punches - Hand Tools | Axminster Tools & Machinery) for marking out locations for drilling with brad point bits? My parents bought me one for Christmas and it is a massive help with drilling accurately placed holes...

Last night was spent using a Dremel to create a channel on the inside of the binding for the wiring and fitting the LEDs:










I've definitely come to the conclusion that optical fibre side dots are MUCH simpler to install!


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## Lorcan Ward (Apr 29, 2015)

Looks great so far! Cocobolo sounds nasty to work with.


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## CaptainD00M (Apr 29, 2015)

This is amazing work Foreright!

How do you go about raidiusing (which isn't a correct english word haha) a fret board. Thats something I still haven't looked into in my prep for my build. I only recently convinced myself to build the neck from scratch too.

Look forward to sing it complete. Love the colour too.


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## foreright (Apr 29, 2015)

Hi - the "radiusing" (not sure that's legitimate either!) can be easily done with a "radius sanding block" - something like this: 8" Radius Blocks | stewmac.com.

Mine is for a 20" radius although I may be going completely flat on this build - not sure yet.

These blocks are not *that* difficult to make either - there's several guides out there on Google that show you how to do this


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## MrYakob (Apr 29, 2015)

This looks amazing! The blue stain reminds me of the CL7 finish. Is there any chance you would share those plans? I've been considering building myself a strandberg type guitar for a while now.


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## foreright (Apr 29, 2015)

Hi, I've uploaded my full plans to my DropBox - you should be able to "Right-click->Save as" the following link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8723126/Boden_Full_Plans.dxf

Note that the body shape is tweaked slightly to accommodate the specific scale length's I'm using and the hardware is the Technology for Musicians bridges and string locks so screw holes etc. are specific to those. The side view of the neck/body transition is also not accurate!


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## MrYakob (Apr 29, 2015)

Thanks so much, I can't wait to see how this turns out!


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## Passini (Jun 15, 2017)

Does anyone have the Boden plans to share? Ola doesn't sell the plans anymore and I'd like to build my first headless. The link above is not avaiable anymore. Thank you.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Jun 15, 2017)

Passini said:


> Does anyone have the Boden plans to share? Ola doesn't sell the plans anymore and I'd like to build my first headless. The link above is not avaiable anymore. Thank you.



He's got a lot of info on the site:
http://guitarworks.thestrandbergs.com/2010/10/03/a-diy-egs-guitar/


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## foreright (Jun 15, 2017)

My plans were created from that site above ^ but with my own set of scale lengths, string width at nut / bridge for the neck. I have re-uploaded the plans to Dropbox (see link below) but note that the plans for the Endurneck are not included.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g3xqvpkn6vrpiru/Boden_Full_Plans.dxf?dl=0


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## Passini (Jun 15, 2017)

Thank you very much!

About the Endurnek no problem, as I'll make my first one, I'll make as the plans you sent.

Thank you, Andre Passini


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## foreright (May 6, 2020)

Yowser... just over 5 years since I started this build (!) finally finished it today... is that some kind of record amount of time?

I ended up dumping the LED fretboard for this one unfortunately as I had a bit of a disaster fitting it to the neck and ended up scrapping it. Have some ideas (and more importantly smaller LEDs etc...) which will make it far easier to do next time though - will be starting a build of a mini guitar fairly soon for my 4 year old and I might give it another go on that one.

Regardless, I ended up going with ebony for the fretboard and I forgot how much I hate working it - it's so easy to chip, especially in the fretting process. Regardless, I think this came out pretty well - it certainly plays nicely although I could do with lowering the action a touch. This was my first time just going with a zero-fret with no nut which was kinda nerve-wracking to find out if it would work (it does!). The pickup screws are temporary as I'm waiting for replacements through the post and I just have to make the cavity cover plate and then it's fully finished.


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## BlackMastodon (May 6, 2020)

foreright said:


> Yowser... just over 5 years since I started this build (!) finally finished it today... is that some kind of record amount of time?


I have 2 project guitars that I started 6 years ago that are still incomplete, so don't feel bad.


Wait, now I feel bad.


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## foreright (May 6, 2020)




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## s4s4 Productions (Jun 7, 2020)

It turned out exceptionally good! Did you go for an endur neck in the end? I'm planning on doing my first headless build aswell soon. Do you have any small piece of advice what to do or what not to do that you wished you knew before you started? Thank you!


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## LiveOVErdrive (Jun 7, 2020)

Oh that's beautiful.


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## foreright (Jun 7, 2020)

Thanks - there a few cosmetic issues I’m not too happy with but it plays well and that’s the main thing as it’s my instrument!

It did originally have a kinda endurneck profile however I changed it during the build to a more conventional profile albeit slightly squarer than usual. I used the endurneck profile (licensed, as you were allowed to back then!) on my first Strandberg build and really liked it - not sure what went wrong this time around but I’m happy with the revised shape.

one thing I definitely would change is the truss rod adjustment location. On this build it’s at the base of the neck and you have to either remove the neck or neck pickup to get to it. I would definitely go with a wheel type adjuster instead. The issue is that with the individual string locks at the bottom on a seven there’s a screw through the center of the neck where the truss rod adjuster would be so I guess the adjustment needs to be at the bottom.


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## foreright (Mar 21, 2022)

Following on from this old thread, I decided to rebuild the neck again using some random bits I had lying around - I wasn't super happy with the neck as it stood so I started this back in November (!) - unfortunately with 3 young kids I don't get that much time to do "guitar stuff" (or any stuff!) any more.

This time it does have a slightly modified Endurneck profile and has the truss rod access between the 20th and 21st fret using a spoke wheel which is an arrangement I tried on one of my earlier builds and I found it really convenient. The neck itself is made from 8 pieces of Sapele alternated with some natural maple veneer. The "headpiece" is a single offcut of Rosewood from a previous neck build and is scarf jointed onto the main neck. The fingerboard is Black Walnut and it too has a maple veneer between it and the neck.

I got some new toys for Christmas - namely a proper heavy duty sanding beam and some fret erasers for polishing which helped massively with making this play a lot nicer than my previous builds. I'm definitely getting better at fretting and getting them levelled. A properly flat surface *really* helps with this stuff - who knew 

Anyway - some pics - as I say, I'm super pleased with this instrument now. It's definitely my ideal guitar as I can play at my desk in the home office without banging the headstock into anything and it's light and compact enough to just take downstairs or wherever without worrying about it. I do need to tidy the control cavity up a bit and replace the clear cover with a proper one though:


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