# Washburn WG 587 Overhaul: Ring Wraiths Not Included



## BlackMastodon (Apr 8, 2014)

Weather is nice and warm, salvaged the trussrod and fretboard from my failed 8 build (will restart that once the neck wood flattens out, or I get new neck wood), time to start something I've had in the works for quite some time.

Behold! My first ever electric guitar. 



























Booooring. I also gouged a small piece from the front when the straplock came out in high school and it dropped, so it's always been a bit of an eyesore to me. These pictures are more for the before and after comparison.

So what are my plans for this bad boy? Will I actually finish this in a reasonable time frame? Will I ever stop talking and post more pictures? Who knows?!
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Things to do:
Build new neck:
- 27" scale
- 22 or 23 frets (if I can get them)
- 1 piece, flamed maple with ebony fingerboard
- No inlays, unless I decide to do one for the 12th fret
- Luminlay side dots maybe? For more spaciness
- 4+3 Headstock with chrome Gotoh 510 mini tuners
- Graphtech Black Tusq nut

Body mods:
- Carbon fiber vinyl veneer on front, some kind of black or on the sides and back most likely, or a really dark blue if I'm feeling crazy.
- New controls: 1 vol, 3-way toggle switch, red ring LED killswitch
- Chrome Hipshot 7 bridge 
- Replace any other hardware with chrome (everything in the future is chrome)
- Direct mounted Seymour Duncan Nazgul (B) & Sentient (N) Pickups with matte black covers (sadly, not chrome )

I'll shut up now.

Neck wood:











New Fretboard and headstock layout:






Fretboard, will probably be ebonized to be the blackest incarnation






Gotoh 510 minis:






Carbon fiber vinyl veneer:






Mmmm tastey






Also ordered these from LMII since the bloodwood and Peruvian walnut pieces were a dollar each:











Quilted and flamed maple as well:






These should be fun for laminated headstocks, or to make pertty scarf joints.

And OOOOU looky here, a package came in for me today. But what's inside?











Looks like a box was inside the package. But what's in the box?






...Seriously guys?






There we go! Some fancy schmancy new pickups.






They even come with pickup rings! That's hella convenient, though I won't be using them. Still, props Mr. Duncan.


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 8, 2014)

Since I'm only kind of a tease, I did manage to get a bit of work done today.

Scarf joint prepped with my ghetto jig and a tablesaw (neither of which are pictured):






I may need a new saw, or have this one sharpened or something, because f**k me if that wasn't a pain in the ass... Anyway, planing the two pieces flat, which was also tiring as all hell:






That's more like it:






Eh, could be better:






After some more planing and sanding, I'm happy with this:











Drilled some index holes to put a couple of nails through and keep the two pieces from slipping. 






I highly recommend this to anyone that is building a neck with a scarf joint. Holy shit did that go a lot smoother than the first time around. And here she is all glued up and snug for the night.











Tomorrow, we see if I am capable of routing a trussrod slot without failing miserably, and maybe start taking apart the body and roughing up the finish.


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## InfinityCollision (Apr 8, 2014)

22/23 frets, are you planning to move some of the hardware around?


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 8, 2014)

Ah, yes, should've mentioned it in the original post. I'm going to fill in the holes for the TOM bridge and replace it with the Hipshot. Since I'm building a neck I'm not too worried about moving things too much, though I may have to pull the bridge pickup back a bit. Only reason it's 22/23 frets is because I didn't realize that the ebony board wasn't long enough for 24 frets at 27" scale when I ordered it, so I'm just making due with what I have. Not a big deal to me, honestly, since I almost never play that high up.


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## Neilzord (Apr 9, 2014)

Interesting! Look forward to more on this!


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 9, 2014)

Much greater success this time around than the first. Router tables are terrifying but man do they make routing a truss rod channel easy.

The setup:











Drew a line where the router bit is.






Got some scrap wood to practice on, measured where the truss rod should end and marked it on the board.






First pass; let's just say that I'm glad I tested it on scrap first. 





The bit kept grabbing and pulling off to the side, which resulted in the shitshow above. Let's try pushing it through the router going the other way.






Oh yeah, much better. Obviously the second pass is the one on the bottom.

Enough stalling, let's try it on the real thing:











Looks clean to me! Also, here's how I know when to stop: when the blue lines meet. Super simple, but pretty important.






After a few passes taking off about 1/8" at a time, I got the proper depth.











Clean glue line at scarf joint makes me happy.






Now to make some space for the truss rod adjustment using a round router bit (bowl-cutting I think they're called?).






After the first two passes:






And then a few more, but it's still not deep enough.






A couple more shallow passes later.











Much better. So after some silicon and rubber malleting, it's all ready to glue the fretboard on.
















There is actually a fretboard under all of the clamps, I swear.


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## JEngelking (Apr 9, 2014)

BlackMastodon said:


>



Dat flame doe.

Looking forward to seeing more progress on this!


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## Doulton (Apr 9, 2014)

Sounds like an awesome project, even the mental image I have is so cool. But I don't believe you have a fretboard under there  I kid.


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## joshuallen (Apr 10, 2014)

I have several saws and lots of practice using them, and I still think cutting scarf joints is a pain in the ass. I'm convinced that a Bad Axe hybrid tooth backsaw is the perfect tool for the job. If I ever can afford one I will let everyone know.


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## Pikka Bird (Apr 10, 2014)

Off to a very promising start, I see... I shall be following this.  

What'll happen to the old hardware? I am considering offering to take it off your hands if possible.


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## Slunk Dragon (Apr 10, 2014)

Very nice! I'm liking where this is going.


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## chrisxrome (Apr 10, 2014)

This looks slick! Liking it


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## sandalhat (Apr 12, 2014)

Dem clamps. 

Looking cool, I'm excited to see this as it progresses!


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 17, 2014)

I have the worst f**king luck with making necks. 
Today I roughed out the neck shape with a jigsaw to remove material and make it easier on the router. Already, the blade began to wander diagonally and cut a little too far into where the heel was going to be, which isn't too big of a deal because it will be covered and should still work fine. But then disaster really struck when I tried adjusting the truss rod to make sure it works fine and this happened:





The f**king nut on the piece of shit StewMac trussrod snapped. Anyone have any experience with the LMII ones? They look a lot more sturdy, and don't use (in my opinion) an extremely stupid way of adjusting it (Allen key seems like the smart way).

I'm not sure wtf I'm supposed to do now. I guess try and steam up the glue and remove the fretboard then take out and replace the trussrod? Would this damage or warp the fretboard, though? If it would then I might as well just route the damned thing off and try with another board.

If that's the case I think I'll just keep at it to at least get the heel and headstock done, the sides all cut down to the proper width, and get it lined up in the body.


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## TylerRay (Apr 17, 2014)

Holy shit! How much torque did you put on that thing? That f***'n blows! I imagine you could get the fretboard off without too much trouble with an iron, but I've never done it before so I can't say how much it would warp....


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## sehnomatic (Apr 17, 2014)

Lmii truss rods are terrific, doesn't require a special router bit like stewmac's, just a 1/4". Also shallower, allowing thinner carves. Lmii says it's 17 3/8"... Mine was dead 18" I was afraid that it would bust so it went through hell before going into my neck. 10/10, will vouch for the lmii rod's performance.

Allparts sells an identical truss rod, just blue for $10 cheaper.

You can drill a hole heel of the neck and hammer the rod through either end. But getting a new rod in there may be difficult. 

You can you can saw the joint and plane it clean, new rod, then glue back.


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 17, 2014)

TylerRay said:


> Holy shit! How much torque did you put on that thing? That f***'n blows! I imagine you could get the fretboard off without too much trouble with an iron, but I've never done it before so I can't say how much it would warp....


I honestly didn't think it was that much, but I guess you have to be really careful with their design since it needed a torque wrench. I remember seeing a thread here where someone replaced a fretboard using an iron (took a few hours and probably a ton of elbow grease but it seemed to work) I'm just worried about the fretboard warping and the whole process being a waste.



sehnomatic said:


> Lmii truss rods are terrific, doesn't require a special router bit like stewmac's, just a 1/4". Also shallower, allowing thinner carves. Lmii says it's 17 3/8"... Mine was dead 18" I was afraid that it would bust so it went through hell before going into my neck. 10/10, will vouch for the lmii rod's performance.
> 
> Allparts sells an identical truss rod, just blue for $10 cheaper.
> 
> ...


I'll have to try the LMII one. And that isn't too bad if an idea for removing the trussrod with the hammer, would still need to do something to put a new one in, though. I'll probably have to route the fretboard off since my bandsaw is pretty crap and I don't think the blade is sharp enough to removed the fretboard.

I was gonna say I could use this:
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Truss_rods/Special_tools_for:_Truss_rods/Truss_Rod_Rescue_Kit.html
but then I saw the price and said f**k that. 

Edit: After doing some quick googling, the iron method should work fine. There may be some warping to the board but that can be solved with the pissload of clamps I use to glue it down to the body. I'll try and do that tomorrow since it's supposed to rain and it's something I can do inside.


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## sandalhat (Apr 18, 2014)

I too can vouch for the LMII truss rod. I went with it because I liked the design better than the Hot Rod (too tall for me) from StewMac, and because I used a similar one last time (probably from allparts?) and it worked well. Best of luck getting the fretboard off. I look forward to seeing how it goes!


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 18, 2014)

Alright let's do this. 






Aaaaaaaand go!






The hardest part of this I would say was just getting the razor in there initially to start it up for the scraper. After that it was surprisingly easy.






Hope that isn't a big crack in the middle of the fretboard  Worst case I fill it with some epoxy.

Some time later:






You can see where the jig saw wandered at an angle. Should still be ok methinks.

Aaaaand done! Only took about an hour and worked pretty well. Also it appears that I forgot to take the tape off before putting down the fretboard. Oops. 






Look at that freakin' truss rod.  Not sure if that's how much I torqued it when trying to mess with the adjustment or if the heat bent it that much. Hopefully it's the latter.

So now I have to wait for a new truss rod to come in and let the ebony board flatten out under some weights. while I wait I think I'm gonna work on the heel and the body. get some holes plugged, the neck pocket flattened, get the hell lined up to fit the body so I can add the T nuts (also something I forgot to do). So I guess this was sort of a blessing in disguise?  Yeah we'll go with that.


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## TylerRay (Apr 18, 2014)

Congratulations, my friend. I had faith in you!


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## BlackMastodon (May 8, 2014)

Realized I'm an idiot and never saw that StewMac actually sells a double action truss rod with a normal Allen key nut. But anywho, potentially stupid question here: Which side up does this truss rod go?

Truss Rod, double action welded nut

Does the flat bar rest against the fretboard? Or should the rounded part be against the fretboard? 

Also, totally by accident, I made an almost carbon copy of Rusti's headstock.  I forgot about it for a couple years and when designing this one I thought, "Oh shit, that looks really cool!" Figures, but oh well. Might change it a bit just so it isn't an exact copy since I may plan on using this one more often.

Anyway, any help on this truss rod question?


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## sehnomatic (May 8, 2014)

Flat touches fretboard so no glue enters the channel when gluing it up.

The headstock on my last build was a modified ibanez headstock to suit 4x3 tuners. Ended up being a copy of the 4x3 jackson headstock that misha always gets.

I also wanted to see what would happen if I mixed the ESP horizon, Ibanez RG, and jackson soloist shapes. Ended up with a blackmachine body.

Since everything has essentially been tried, it's all innovation. No shame in that.


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## BlackMastodon (Jul 9, 2014)

It's not much of an update but it's something. I really wish I would've gotten off my ass and done more but getting adjusted to working full time and commuting ~2 hours a day and balancing a social life has taken a lot of time from me. Hopefully this is a wake up call and I can start doing at least small things now that I have a place to work again. 

So I got a new toy:







Scored a Delta 6" jointer from Kijiji (Canadian Craigslist). Was super convenient since the guy was just a few streets down. This sonofabitch was goddamn heavy, though. Carried it out of my Dad's SUV and basically 80' away into the garage on my own. Took some time, a lot of breaks, some bruises, and a lot of swearing but I did it.  Immediately after I emailed the guy again and offered to buy that stand with wheels from him (I stupidly said no thanks at first). Anyway, great score for $300 total!

Got the rust cleaned off today and did some test cuts with good results. Cleaned off the glue from the neck and cleaned up the headstock a bit:
















The headstock proved very hard to run through the jointer on its own but I can fix it up on the belt sander.






Also have enough room on the fretboard to avoid the cut where the jigsaw wandered so that's good news:






Next up will be routing the truss rod channel a smidge wider for the new truss rod, flattening that headstock, marking where the neck bolts need to go and drilling for the T nuts, then gluing the fretboard on. Hopefully can get a chance to work on the Home Depot contest headless as well...


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## MethDetal (Jul 9, 2014)

looking awesome so far dude!


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## BlackMastodon (Sep 5, 2014)

Good lord, it's been a while.

So some updates, finally, after a very busy August! First: Tried cleaning the glue off of that fretboard and found out the bed on the jointer wasn't level with the blade, so at the end of the fretboard it went a little too deep and I couldn't really fix it. I ended up saying f**k this noise and just ordered a 27", 24 fret, pre-slotted, pre-radiused ebony board from LMII (so much easier, cheaper, and more accurate).






So a little while back I manage to get the work done on the T nuts in the neck heel. I just kinda guessed at the position of each since I'll be filling in the holes on the body anyway, no big deal. Started with a Forstner bit to have the counter sink on the...teeth...bitey...part of the T-nuts (clearly I don't know what they're called...) followed by a regular drill bit for the rest of it to sit in since it's wider than the actual bolts.






After that I used a slightly smaller bit for the bolts to be a tighter fit.






She's-a-good. Hammered in the T-Nuts and made sure we're all good.











Nice and flat, but I'll have to figure out what to do with that abomination in the side.  I'll probably cover it with the carbon fibre veneer around the neck pocket if it looks like poo after I try to fill it with wood/filler (and it will end up looking like poo). The bolts look pretty good though, reasonably straight, too!






Now is when things go crazy and I had to use geometry. Anyone in grade school and high school who said "Hurr durr I'll never use geometry anyway, why should we learn this? lololol" can shut their disgusting face because TPTZ BIIIITCH!






I'll need to make a better jig for this next time around, but this gist of it was that I used double sided tape to stick the fretboard on an angle onto that piece of wood (which has a straight edge) so that I can cut the taper of the fretboard on a router table. Like zis:






I already did one side in that pic. Before I stuck the fretboard down, I mark what I want cut off the fretboard and stuck a piece of angle iron that I know won't bend much to the fretboard as a guide for the router bearing. THEN I put it on the piece of wood, carefully measuring to make sure it's even on both sides (TPTZ rule again, bitch) like zo:






And like zo:






Line up both sides on the router table and adjust my fence accordingly:











And we're ready to go!






Looks nice and straight, no high spots. The system works! 
















Worked like a charm. I ended up leaving a liiiiiittle bit extra on the bass side which I totally did on purpose to make up for the thickness of the low string and not because I was careful not to take off too much material and didn't want to cut any more off after I took all the tape off. Yep...


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## BlackMastodon (Sep 5, 2014)

SO today came time to do the side dots. This time I don't want them to look like goddamn googly eyes on the 12th and 24th frets so I made this:






Simple jig that I can put against the back of the fretboard (since it's not radiused) so I can get consistent side markers. It was just cut from some aluminum angle stock.

Marked the fretboard with a white pencil to figure out where the centres were (ignore the 1st and 14th ones where I realized I wasn't going to need them...):






Used the side of the jig-marker-metal-thing to transfer the centre line to the side of the fretboard:






The lines weren't exact but I can correct it by eyeballing it. So here's the jig I set up using scrap wood and clamps:






I ended up smartening up and moving the whole base to the centre and then just sliding the fretboard as needed since it was easier when trying to line everything up. 






So far so goooood....






Nice! The 12th and 24th aren't drunk and googly eyed this time!
Side dots put in and left to dry for the night:






Gluing fretboard and routing body so that I can plug it with wood tomorrow? I sure as hell hope so.

Also, if I had to give any advice it'd be that making jigs for everything makes things sooo much smoother and easier. Takes some extra time but worth it in the long run since you probably won't have to redo things. I feel like one of those stupid ads you see on the Internets:
"Luthiers HATE him! Click here to find out one crazy tip to making great guitars every time!"


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## immortalx (Sep 5, 2014)

I'm glad you saved this one man! And that's a very neat trick with the aluminium angle for the side dots, I'm definitely stealing your idea!


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## BlackMastodon (Sep 7, 2014)

Trimmed and sanded the side dots:











Came out much better than last time. Really happy with them.

Also glued the fretboard today after sanding the headstock flat and getting rid of any bumps and such.

Getting her lined up:






Drilled 2 holes for small nails to keep the fretboard from slipping when gluing. Again, made it so much easier and I highly recommend using this method.






Silicon in the trussrod route:






Trussrod hammered in since it was a good tight fit cool






Taped down where I don't want glue to seep in and scored the surfaces (should've done this before the tape but I know now for next time):






GIVE 'IM DA CLAMPS!!






And that's all for now. I'm a tired panda today so I don't think I'll get any more done. This week I need to figure out how to get the sides of the neck trimmed on the router table and then start filling the pickup routes in the body and get to work on that.


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## BlackMastodon (Sep 7, 2014)

RIGHT! Almost forgot to ask: does anyone know how I would go about spraying a poly clear coat over the carbon fibre vinyl? I know I can't just go right to spraying, I need to scuff the surface a bit and then do it, but should I just use some fine steel wool or like 1000 grit sandpaper or something? And will it go through the vinyl and make it look all ripped and shitty or will that only happen if I get too zealous with the sanding?


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## BlackMastodon (Sep 9, 2014)

Didn't want to shell out $130 to buy a fret winder/bender majig from StewMac (too much money and I am really unimpressed with the quality of some of their tools lately...) and the one from LMII looks a little flimsy, not to mention I don't think it has an adjustable wheel to change the radius, though I could be wrong. So I did some extensive research (read: 2 minutes on eBay) before I found this from a guy in Ottawa:






Looked sturdy and wasn't too bad for $80 so I said why not.

Seems to do the job:






Anyway, back to making sawdust. I routed the neck to the width of the fretboard:






The plywood is just there so the ebony doesn't get scratched and so that the neck stays straight. The thick double sided tape on either side of the fretboard keeps it at a pretty even height so the already radiused fretboard doesn't rock around and give me a wonky neck to carve.

Took multiple passes and had a fun time sanding away the excess glue.





















That side is all done, now on to the other. Also to anyone who doubts double sided tape's ability to hold a piece down/together to do any routing or cutting I present this:






That was from trying to get it off the after I was done using it.  Also when I say double sided tape I mean the 3M stuff that's thicker, not the really thin carpet tape.

Other side done:






You can't really see it in the pics, but I'm not 100% satisfied with the glue joint of the fretboard to neck wood. There's a bit of a gap towards the middle but nothing some epoxy and ebony dust can't hide (I'll be using this to fill the fretslots on the side anyway). So another tip: get a lot of good clamps. You can see that I used those little trigger-lock looking clamps (I dunno what the hell they're actually called) that were cheap, and you get what you pay for. I need to get like 8-10 more of those red and black C clamps. Those little bastards are pretty great and usually only like 15 bucks a pop for those sized ones.

Overlaid the fretboard printout to check if it's still good and everything looks pretty nice. Side note: I'm glad I got a preslotted board from LMII because the printouts I had were a little smaller and the frets didn't quite line up so it probably would've been like 26.8" scale instead of 27". Also the pieces of paper just weren't lined up too good when taped together. But I have a fret slotting template now from LMII that I will have to make a jig for so I don't need to worry about that anymore.

BACK TO PICTORES.






Knew there was a valid reason for leaving a little extra meat on the sides of the fretboard, this way I have some room to work with when sanding it smooth and what not.






Also yes, the corner is chipped a bit but that's where the nut is going anyway so it will be gone. That came from dropping the fretboard when I was being attacked by mosquitoes before I glued it in place.

Let's do something about this chasm, shall we?






Looks kinda like tuna salad 






After e&#822;a&#822;t&#822;i&#822;n&#822;g&#822; cramming the pastey goop, I got this:






I left a bit of space for some epoxy just to have something hard on the outside. This doesn't have to be load boarding or structural in any way, I will end up covering any of the visible bit with the carbon fibre vinyl wrap so that it blends with the body so it should be nice and hidden.


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## Mvotre (Sep 10, 2014)

test on some small piece of carbon vinyl.

Once I tried to put some clear over a white carbon, and it just lost all the figure. Turned to a meh white piece


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## callankirk (Sep 10, 2014)

Just a quick note about hardware dude (great stuff, btw!) - are you sure that you want to block off the TOM and put a hipshot on? 

If the neck pocket is angled, your action will probably be mad low and your saddles will be pretty high. If the neck pocket is flat, and the tenon on the old neck was angled, then ignore this and proceed with the awesomeness!


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## JuliusJahn (Sep 10, 2014)

BlackMastodon said:


> SO today came time to do the side dots. This time I don't want them to look like goddamn googly eyes on the 12th and 24th frets so I made this:
> snip



I find that marking the line with a http://images.palcdn.com/hlr-system...2.jpg?_v=5a94e708-b43a-47fc-b9d2-56110847a5a6 and then drilling them with a hand drill (board clamped in my vice) gives the quickest and most accurate locations. For some reason I can just centre the bit easier when I'm free-handing it.



BlackMastodon said:


> You can't really see it in the pics, but I'm not 100% satisfied with the glue joint of the fretboard to neck wood. There's a bit of a gap towards the middle but nothing some epoxy and ebony dust can't hide (I'll be using this to fill the fretslots on the side anyway). So another tip: get a lot of good clamps. You can see that I used those little trigger-lock looking clamps (I dunno what the hell they're actually called) that were cheap, and you get what you pay for. I need to get like 8-10 more of those red and black C clamps. Those little bastards are pretty great and usually only like 15 bucks a pop for those sized ones.


For the board I recomend just sanding some ebony w/ 60+ grit, packing it in, and then drowning it with superglue. Easier then mixing up epoxy and dealing with a putty sort of deal. I also recomend either using dust, or a solid repair-piece for your neck. Wood shavings and glue just leave too much air to be useful IMO

I glue my boards with 8-10 F-clamps, and they are all rated up to 1,000lbs. My light duty ones do up to 600lbs.

Also, LeeValley has got the be the BEST source for clamps. I have 10 ofthese
and 8 of these (onlybecause the orange ones arent made anymore) and they've handled everything so far. When I first started they were like 11$ a pop, and are wayyy better then those plastic Irwin ones everyone gets for 20$.
sa


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## BlackMastodon (Sep 10, 2014)

callankirk said:


> Just a quick note about hardware dude (great stuff, btw!) - are you sure that you want to block off the TOM and put a hipshot on?
> 
> If the neck pocket is angled, your action will probably be mad low and your saddles will be pretty high. If the neck pocket is flat, and the tenon on the old neck was angled, then ignore this and proceed with the awesomeness!



The neck pocket is angled but I'm going to be filling the pickup routes and rerouting them so I can flatten the neck pocket at this time. Not a huge deal. Reason I have to redo the pickup routes is that the bridge one will need to be pulled back a bit because of the new scale length (another reason for new bridge) and because the upper half of the pickup routes are pretty sloppy. When I get to it I'll take some pictures.



JuliusJahn said:


> I find that marking the line with a http://images.palcdn.com/hlr-system...2.jpg?_v=5a94e708-b43a-47fc-b9d2-56110847a5a6 and then drilling them with a hand drill (board clamped in my vice) gives the quickest and most accurate locations. For some reason I can just centre the bit easier when I'm free-handing it.
> 
> 
> For the board I recomend just sanding some ebony w/ 60+ grit, packing it in, and then drowning it with superglue. Easier then mixing up epoxy and dealing with a putty sort of deal. I also recomend either using dust, or a solid repair-piece for your neck. Wood shavings and glue just leave too much air to be useful IMO
> ...


Thanks for the advice! Yeah I'll see about cleaning out the goop I shoved in the neck heel and just get a thin piece of wood, it'll give me some more peace of mind and regardless it'll need to be covered. As for the ebony dust filling, wouldn't the superglue leave that white residue everywhere? Obviously I could sand it away but I'm just curious about it getting stuck in the pores or anything. Also definitely need some of those clamps. Jorgensen quality for pretty much the same price as my Bessey ones.


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## Renkenstein (Sep 10, 2014)

BlackMastodon said:


> The neck pocket is angled but I'm going to be filling the pickup routes and rerouting them so I can flatten the neck pocket at this time. Not a huge deal. Reason I have to redo the pickup routes is that the bridge one will need to be pulled back a bit because of the new scale length (another reason for new bridge) and because the upper half of the pickup routes are pretty sloppy. When I get to it I'll take some pictures.



Another option: Hipshot offers their fixed bridge in a 0.175" floor height for some neck angle compensation. Might be an easier option for the same price. Won't have to risk a router in the neck pocket that way.

The 0.125" floor height model is LOWWWWW profile, fo sho. I had to take quite a bit off my neck heel just to get the saddles to clear the frets.


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## JuliusJahn (Sep 10, 2014)

BlackMastodon said:


> As for the ebony dust filling, wouldn't the superglue leave that white residue everywhere? Obviously I could sand it away but I'm just curious about it getting stuck in the pores or anything. Also definitely need some of those clamps. Jorgensen quality for pretty much the same price as my Bessey ones.



In my experience it won't. If you saturate it properly it'll end up just as a solid, black mass. You're adding such little glue and dust to cover the fret slot anyways. The residue only appears when you sand away a lot of glue, just like how when you wetsand some finish. If you're not sure, cut a slot into some scrap and test it out. You'll quickly find out what works best, and for me thats: fine dust and packing it in well, and glueing it last.


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## BlackMastodon (Sep 11, 2014)

Renkenstein said:


> Another option: Hipshot offers their fixed bridge in a 0.175" floor height for some neck angle compensation. Might be an easier option for the same price. Won't have to risk a router in the neck pocket that way.
> 
> The 0.125" floor height model is LOWWWWW profile, fo sho. I had to take quite a bit off my neck heel just to get the saddles to clear the frets.


Hmmm I totally forgot about the .175" base Hipshot, unfortunately I already bought the .125" one a while back.  I'm not tremendously worried about routing the neck cavity, I won't be removing much and I might actually have to route a little bit extra, or even fill a gap to make up for the change in neck width. I'll have to take a look at that over the weekend.


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## BlackMastodon (Sep 17, 2014)

Alright, I'm back. 

Drilled out the tuner holes. The low B tuner hole is slightly larger and the tuner is a bit loose in there, though it will all be covered up and it should be fine. The other 6 are a little tight, so I may ream them out juuuust a smidge, we'll see.






Rough sanded the headstock shape:






Done:






Then I took off some material from the back of the headstock. Here's the set up:






Needed to take off more material towards the nut end so I needed a thinner piece to prop it up, so I use some scrap oak. The reason I needed a piece to put under the headstock was so that it was level and the fretboard didn't offset it.






Here she is, you can see where I sketched the general area of the volute:






Really love how the wood grain looks on the back of the headstock:






Also, realized that the slot for the trussrod adjustment I routed is very deep (since I needed it for the previous trussrod) and it looks huge now. This doesn't so much bug me as it does worry me because there is probably about 1/16" of material in the middle of that slot towards the nut end.  I'm not worry structurally, more just aesthetically. Shooooould be okay, though...I hope...

ANYWAY, the tuner fits fine:






Scraped/sanded smooth the edges of the headstock. Still needs a little work but should be fine fore now.






Next up, round out that volute area on the headstock and then start carving the back of the neck.


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 25, 2015)

So some small updates for this one. Weather is turning around so it's time to work on my current builds as much as possible before I find a new job and move away and have nowhere to work.

Filled various holes in the body and scuffed the top surface. I'll need to scuff the rest of the body since I'll be repainting the whole thing but for now I'm lazy and sanding is tiring business (I should probably use my electric sander for this...)






I used a small piece of scrap wood from what I believe was a shim to fill the toggle slot. It fit almost perfectly so that was very convenient. 

I still need to fill in the bigger hole in the neck pocket that they use for hanging the body. I still don't understand the point of it but maybe it makes more sense for mass produced bodies.

Also chiseled out the outer parts of the ....ty sawdust/wood glue mix from the area that needs to be filled, this time I used finer maple dust and epoxy to make the slurry and I think it should work better, or at least dry harder.






Onward and upward. Need to some routing and filling and more routing on the body, specifically the pickup cavities and neck pocket. And then fill in the screw holes near the old 3-way toggle. Then a bunch of other .... but I'll get there, slowly but surely.

I'm just glad to be back on the workhorse.


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## BlackMastodon (May 4, 2015)

Woke up nice and early on a beautiful Sunday (amazing what you can get done when you aren't hungover ) and did some work on this.

Sanded down the epoxy slurry that I used to fill the gash, no pictures as I still need to do a bit of work on it. It's at least smooth, though, so worst case scenario I'm just going to have a thin strip of the CF vinyl covering the maple around the heel.

I did get the rounded edge of the volute cut on the headstock side used a round routing bit. At this point I noticed that the headstock was a little uneven in thickness, so I also busted out the 1/2" router bit and flattened the whole thing off then sanded it smooth.

Last but not least, I sanded the edges of the headstock a bit and rounded them off. Probably hard to tell from the pictures but they are now less lumpy and the curve is more smooth.

Here's the photodump of the headstock:


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## pettymusic (May 6, 2015)

Awesome headstock man! Can't wait to see this finished!


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## BlackMastodon (May 6, 2015)

Thanks! Though, like I said, it's incredibly close to one of Rusti's designs.

Work train keeps on keepin' on, slowly but surely.

Did some work on the body filling the pickup cavities. First I got the block of maple lined up and used some double sided tape to put some plywood down on the body to guide the router:







Covers it up well:






You can see how the bass side of the pickup routes are pretty sloppy, and are apparently extended after the body comes out of the paint shop.

First pass with a router:






Shoulda just got the Seymour Duncans in the soapbar shape.  But I like these ones better anyway.

A few more passes and it's all cleared:






Chiseling out the corners to fit the wood block:






Fits well:






Did the same to just the upper part of the neck pickup. Here's the block nice and snug:











And here it is all glued up and drying for the night:






One thing I should've done better was cover the blocks of wood that were going in with glue instead of putting glue in the cavity. Chances are good there will be a few small gaps but such is life. Live and learn.

Still gotta fill that last hole in the neck pocket as well as the rest of the toggle switch stuff.


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## BlackMastodon (May 30, 2015)

Back to work on this. I finished filling in the pickup cavity but didn't take pictures of it. Today I routed away the excess and sanded it all flat. Here's some pics of that:
















I then needed to fit the neck somehow. Figured I had 2 options:
1. round the corners of the neck, or
2. chisel out the rounded corner on the body.

I don't know how to do number 1 too reliably without just eyeballing it and hoping for the best and hoping it doesn't look like sh*t. Since I won't have any fretboard overhang and don't want to screw up the neck at all, I decided to go with option 2. I also sanded the neck smooth where the epoxy mess was so it's pretty good and flat now. Testing the fit of everything:






Not exactly virgin levels of tightness but it's not really necessary since it's a bolt-on.











I leveled off the neck pocket, too, since it was angled for the TOM bridge. This part was pretty scary since the body wasn't perfectly flat and I couldn't use the router jig, so I ended up just being very careful and keeping the router flat with the body. Took my time and I think it turned out alright:






Testing the fit again while applying pressure:











Took a full body pic with almost all of the holes filled just to have a "during" picture (the toggle switch one came out so I'll have to reglue and probably use some bondo around it in the cavity or something).






Will probably sand off the rest of the paint but leave the sealer coat before I do the paint and vinyl for the body.

Now I just need to figure out how to line holes on the body after I already have them on the neck.  Probably just make a paper template and trace or something.


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## Steinmetzify (May 31, 2015)

In dude. Had no idea you did this stuff. Looks badass so far!


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## BlackMastodon (May 31, 2015)

steinmetzify said:


> In dude. Had no idea you did this stuff. Looks badass so far!


I've dabbled.  Thanks man!


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## BlackMastodon (Jun 8, 2015)

Did some more work over the weekend. Forgot that I'd have to plug the other side of the neck pickup cavity if I want to make the pickups direct mount, so I grabbed a bit of maple and sanded it down until it fit (after cleaning up the paint from the cavity).






Now it's time to figure out where the holes for the neck bolts need to go. I made this difficult for myself by drilling them into the neck first. In future builds I'll do this step before gluing down the fretboard.

So, to do this, I used some kindergarten science and aluminum foil since it's more stiff than paper. I fold up the aluminum foil until it fit into the neck pocket:






Then I put it up against the neck, carefully lining it up with the back corners and pressed in the foil in the holes using a pencil. You can see where I made the crease to follow the heel:






Then I put it back in the neck pocket, used a punch to line up the drill bit, and drilled away:






I don't have a picture of them fitted together, but it worked and I'm pretty happy. Except that the heel is too thick for the bolts to actually grab onto the T-nuts.

I'm not a fan of taking away material at the heel, but I did want to make it thinner anyway. In hindsight, I probably should've just picked up some longer bolts if Home Depot had anyway, but I still think this will be fine, it's not like I'm gonna be using this as a weapon anyway.

Propped up the routing sled:






Roughly routed away at it until I had about 7/16" of material at the heel. There is a little bit less now after some sanding and trying to fix some screwups (which you will see in a sec), but it's still about 0.4" I believe which to me is still sufficient.






After this pic was taken, I tried using a sanding drum bit in my dremel to smooth out the carve along the body and ended up taking some material from the heel. Should've used more aluminum foil there so I'd know when I was getting close.  I also brought the router a little too close to the curved edge and took away too much material so I whipped out the bondo and called it a day before I screwed anything else up. I also filled any holes around the plugs for the pickup cavity and 5-way switch.

Today I whipped out the sand paper and flattened out the body, smoothing out the bondo and making it pretty. I may need a bit more to make the heel perfectly flat but for now I didn't feel like mixing up much more.

Here's a shot of the heel area as it stands:






And the front after more sanding:






Now I'm going to need to start on fretting, and probably need to look for some washer for the neck bolts (something I should've considered before routing away so much wood ).

I'm going to do fretting on my headless 6 before coming back to this one I think, so next update may be a ways away.


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## eddiewarlock (Aug 2, 2015)

i'm gonna necro bump this, but i am very curious to see this guitar finished. i have a project like this coming up soon. It's an Ibanez EX series plywood body that my cousing gave to me back in 2000. That guitar body sparked my interest in luthiery, and well, i would like to brind it back to life. Thanks for allowing us to see this project.


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## Slunk Dragon (Aug 2, 2015)

The number of photos you're posting on this build is glorious. And you're really approaching this well! I can't wait to see the finished product.


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## BlackMastodon (Aug 2, 2015)

Thanks for the kind words, guys! I learned anything I know about luthiery from this site and similar build threads that had a ton of pics, so I'm more than happy to return the favour for anyone else learning.

Unfortunately, this build (and any others I had going ) are back home in Canada and I'm out in LA now trying to find work, so this is being put on ice for a while. Trust me, no one wants to see this finished more than myself but I don't want to rush to anything. In due time, guys.


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## eddiewarlock (Aug 3, 2015)

BlackMastodon said:


> Thanks for the kind words, guys! I learned anything I know about luthiery from this site and similar build threads that had a ton of pics, so I'm more than happy to return the favour for anyone else learning.
> 
> Unfortunately, this build (and any others I had going ) are back home in Canada and I'm out in LA now trying to find work, so this is being put on ice for a while. Trust me, no one wants to see this finished more than myself but I don't want to rush to anything. In due time, guys.



I'm on the same boat dude. I moved from Venezuela to Spain 2 and a half years ago, and left all my projects there.

So i had to start from scratch here, and it's been painfully slow. Hope you can get back to finish it soon.


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## odibrom (Aug 3, 2015)

It has probably been said before, but the truss rod snapped because there's yet too much wood there for it to work properly. It noticeable, it would be minimal its effect for the amount of torque you placed there. One has to put some faith that in the end things will work. Experience = learning by errors and mistakes.

As I've read recently in a facebook meme, the difference between a master and an apprentice is that the master has failed more times than the apprentice has ever tried.

... but it look like you're going on the right path, keep it up with the good work.


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## HaMMerHeD (Aug 3, 2015)

Dig it. I like how you did that headstock. I normally thin the headstock piece before I glue it on, but I find that tends to make the volute/head/neck transition a bit harder to conceal. I think I'm going to try your method on my build.


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## BlackMastodon (Aug 3, 2015)

odibrom said:


> It has probably been said before, but the truss rod snapped because there's yet too much wood there for it to work properly. It noticeable, it would be minimal its effect for the amount of torque you placed there. One has to put some faith that in the end things will work. Experience = learning by errors and mistakes.
> 
> As I've read recently in a facebook meme, the difference between a master and an apprentice is that the master has failed more times than the apprentice has ever tried.
> 
> ... but it look like you're going on the right path, keep it up with the good work.


You know, I honestly didn't even think of how hard the trussrod would have to work while the neck is still essentially just a giant blank with no carving at all. That definitely explains a lot more. Thanks for the kind words! I will always be the first to admit my mistakes and learn from them.



HaMMerHeD said:


> Dig it. I like how you did that headstock. I normally thin the headstock piece before I glue it on, but I find that tends to make the volute/head/neck transition a bit harder to conceal. I think I'm going to try your method on my build.


Glad I could help you with an idea for your build! Like I said in your thread, I'm very eager to see how it turns out.


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## odibrom (Aug 6, 2015)

You sir, have done more than I ever thought I'd be able to do. You have my respect.

I am no master whatsoever. I have never build successfully any guitar, just two wood sculptures that somehow resembles like guitars...

Keep it going, it is going fine.


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## BlackMastodon (Mar 30, 2016)

So after a winter of looking at the guitar body in my room, I realized that I'm really not comfortable having the neck pocket be that thin, especially since I need to recess the neck bolts a bit. So I did some work now that the weather is picking up.

I routed out the neck pocket so that it was even and then stuffed a block of maple in there. Today I just cleaned up the maple and routed it in line with the body:











Shaping will come later and I'll have to figure out how to work with the carves I couldn't cover up. I'll most likely do a Cooley scoop for the lower horn and a bit of one on the top horn for symmetry, and since I couldn't cover it up with one piece of wood. I also need to get bolts that are the right size soon.

While I had the router out I also cleaned up the controls cavity a bit, having everything level so that the bondo is flat:






I didn't take a picture but I also plugged the ears in the neck pickup route. I'll make them cleaner when I reroute the pickup cavities.

This poor guitar body has had too many plugs.


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## Killemall1983 (Mar 30, 2016)

Dang man, with the amount of work you did on that body you could have easily built one from scratch.


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## Alberto7 (Mar 30, 2016)

Braaah how come I've never seen this! Yeah, yeah, I barely look around the forum anymore  but this is still super cool! I'm glad I picked this thread up. There's so much detail here in your pictures and explanations. Maybe some day I'll pick up some of the advice. Seems to be coming together very nicely! Hopefully time and the good weather will let you work a little bit this spring/summer so we can see it finished!


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## BlackMastodon (Mar 31, 2016)

Killemall1983 said:


> Dang man, with the amount of work you did on that body you could have easily built one from scratch.


Don't I know it.  Everything is a lesson, though, and the original neck on this guitar was pretty wavy which made the action and playability not so great. So that made me want to build a new neck, which made me want to have a longer scale, which made me have to move the bridge back, which made me have to pull the bridge pickup back.... You can see where I'm going with this. It's easy to fall down the rabbit hole, a lot harder to work your way out of it.



Alberto7 said:


> Braaah how come I've never seen this! Yeah, yeah, I barely look around the forum anymore  but this is still super cool! I'm glad I picked this thread up. There's so much detail here in your pictures and explanations. Maybe some day I'll pick up some of the advice. Seems to be coming together very nicely! Hopefully time and the good weather will let you work a little bit this spring/summer so we can see it finished!


Glad you like it, man! Definitely my favourite part of the forum for those reasons, there's just a ton of stuff to learn through here. I'm running out of ways to stall on having to do the frets so that will most likely be the neck step. Not looking forward to it but it needs to be done.


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## J_Mac (Mar 31, 2016)

Dude, this is the Lord Of The Rings of threads. It spans 3 years  and I love it. I've enjoyed this story immensely, thanks for taking the time to document it, I've learned a lot and I'm impressed with your tenacity and versatility. Can't wait for the next installment. 

\m/ >_< \m/

PS - do you mind me asking what sort of work needs you to move around the continent so much?


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## BlackMastodon (Mar 31, 2016)

J_Mac said:


> Dude, this is the Lord Of The Rings of threads. It spans 3 years  and I love it. I've enjoyed this story immensely, thanks for taking the time to document it, I've learned a lot and I'm impressed with your tenacity and versatility. Can't wait for the next installment.
> 
> \m/ >_< \m/
> 
> PS - do you mind me asking what sort of work needs you to move around the continent so much?


Jesus has it been 3 years already?  I'm really slow to build. If I don't feel motivated but have the time then I don't bother since mistakes are more likely and will be much more discouraging. Only problem is that I can't build much during the end of fall/winter/beginning of spring unless we have freak nice weather. So I basically have to wait for decent weather and my motivation to be in line. I think I'm gonna go with a poly finish on this one, too, so I hope to have all the work done by the time May rolls around so I can do some outdoor spraying.

As for your other question, it was the search for work.  I'm an electrical engineer and f*cking hated my last job so after 14 months of being there I had enough saved up where I could up and quit and move in with my buddy in LA last July. I tried finding a job there but no dice, so after 3 awesome months I came back home and have been looking for work ever since. It was a huge slap in the face, though, having all this time since I'm unemployed but not having good weather or a place to work on my builds. My rapidly decaying savings are also a factor that hold me back.


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## J_Mac (Apr 1, 2016)

Cool story man, sounds like a superb trip! I'm from a scruffy industrial town in NE England so can't even imagine how cool it is to live in LA or Canada.


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## MoonJelly (May 11, 2016)

I just stumbled onto this thread, it reminds me of the first guitar I made at 16. It started out as a redwood plank from Grandma's porch, and now I think it has pine, maple, bondo, grain filler, popsicle sticks...epoxy, nails, duct tape... 

Sometimes you must carry on for the sentiment, if nothing else, right?


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## Alberto7 (May 12, 2016)

MoonJelly said:


> I just stumbled onto this thread, it reminds me of the first guitar I made at 16. It started out as a redwood plank from Grandma's porch, and now I think it has pine, maple, bondo, grain filler, popsicle sticks...epoxy, nails, duct tape...
> 
> Sometimes you must carry on for the sentiment, if nothing else, right?



That's the most adorable thing I've read in a while, in the most metal way possible.


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