Here's me routing the dove tail slot on a body. This is the job where you get wood chips even under your shirt! You can see the body hanging in what's called the dove tail fixture. This fixture is made by Richard 30 years ago. And they still use it. Together with Richard I made an optimization plan for the whole body-neck fit. Part of this plan is a different way of aligning parts in fixtures and moulds. But for this specific fixture we decided to only modify it and not the replace it. I think it will last at least another 30 years.
Here's me routing the dove tail slot on a body. This is the job where you get wood chips even under your shirt! You can see the body hanging in what's called the dove tail fixture.
This fixture is made by Richard 30 years ago. And they still use it. Together with Richard I made an optimization plan for the whole body-neck fit. Part of this plan is a different way of aligning parts in fixtures and moulds. But for this specific fixture we decided to only modify it and not the replace it. I think it will last at least another 30 years.
After cutting the dove tail slot, it's time to really make the neck fit. It's all about making sure the neck ends up at the perfect angle and exactly in the middle. I really like this part because it's directly related to the playability of the guitar.
Not only the playability but also the visual aspect is important. The neck needs to be perfectly attached to the curved shoulders of the body. And the heel must be aligned with the bindings.
When the neck fit is completed, the fingerboard can be positioned. The fingerboard is glued on later. But we need its exact location right now to determine the correct position of the bridge. The outer two holes of the bridge are drilled in the body. When we glue up the bridge later, these holes are used as a reference.
Both the neck and the body are sprayed separate. So both the fingerboard area and the bridge area must be covered with tape to prevent them from being sprayed. (Glueing things onto finished wood is not desirable.)
When the body and neck are sprayed, the neck can be glued to the body. But before the glue up can be done, we need to remove the tape. It's a delicate job because you need to cut the tape loose from the laquer. We use a scalpel for that. You wanna make sure you cut completely through the lacquer, else you'll peel up the lacquer. But you also wanna make sure you're not cutting to deep. Cut only through the lacquer but not into the wood...
A good job to improve your skills with the scalpel!
Because there are 12 layers of lacquer applied, the perfect neck fit we made before, appears to be not perfect anymore. This is caused by the laquer thickness and variance in that thickness. Therefore the final neck fit needs to be done on a finished body. It's more or less the same procedure as the rough neck fit. The only difference is that making mistakes or leaving traces now is much more painful, because you might end up spraying the body all over again. So it's an exciting job to do!
In this picture you see the bridge being glued to the guitar. The neck is glued just before that and you can see the clamps behind my arm holding the neck in place. For the exact position of the bridge we used the outer two holes that were drilled earlier. Not a difficult job, but just make sure you don't bump the guitar with the clamps.
More pics are in the album.
10.18.2010
Friso Vermeer
Looks good! Great pics! Good to see your having fun and learn a lot!
10.18.2010
Marcel Heemstra
Hello Markjan nice talking to you on facebook. Another two weeks and then come back to the Netherlands so enjoy it still dude.
We'll see you again with a performance by Spinrock.
And we certainly go together once frisbieën.
Greetings Marcel
10.18.2010
Sabine
Hey dude! Nice to see en to read your story! Your looking very good: Frisbee!!! I'm back from Aruba.. Hope to see you very soon. Enjoy!! X Sabine
10.18.2010
Wilco
Keep up the good work and have fun!
