Let The Creative Juices Flow!

[Baz]

the weather has warmed up nicely in my part of the world so that can only mean one thing: time for some fun! if the title of this thread isn't a big enough hint as to what this could mean... well... i guess you'll just have to watch this space and find out with pictures that are bound to come later on in this thread as i get started on something that i'm hoping will be quite special if i can pull off what i have in my head...

nothing is finalised yet, but, i'm in the midst of getting me some pieces of this American Oak floorboarding/cabinet wood/guitar neck wood... i'm told the bits are a minimum 3.3. feet long (1 metre) and are 20 mm (4/5") thick and some bits are 6cm+ wide (approx. 2.5") which is just perfect! and at $5 a piece, i can get quite a few and have some fun experimenting with them i'll most likely be getting some later this week/next week as the guy selling them lives over an hours drive away (i found them on a local facebook buy/sell page)


i'm also gonna buy me this lovely teak coffee table for $25... hopefully it's wide enough, if not, i guess i'll do some DIY "bookmatching" according to the person selling it, it's just over 5 feet long, so, i'm guessing it'll either be just wide enough for what i want, or not quite enough, we'll see


and if you still don't know what i'm up to, then you'll have to wait till i'm finished

[OysterBoy]

You're gonna build a guitar what else? 

[Baz]

i could build a doll house or a toy box? but why would i waste such nice wood on that? haha, i've been itching to build a guitar for ages! there's a couple of tools i want to get for a couple of "special features" i'm hoping to add to this one, more for making the job to do those features easier more so than being specific to the job, i should also get me a set of nut files while i'm at it... that's been on the "to buy" list for quite some time...

[FC]

I am looking forward to it! Whatever this (guitar) is.

[Baz]

I am looking forward to it! Whatever this (guitar) is.

haha, i don't wanna give too much of the plan away for the build, for some reason i feel like keeping the entire project under wraps and only taking really discreet photos of the process as to not give much away until the final product is ready for revealing, cause i'm a tease like that, but, i suppose i can let off a very loose idea of what i have planned... try thinking of a cape with a sort of Celtic theme embroidered onto it... that's probably the best way i can think to describe what's in my head (where i keep all my plans... no safer place ) without telling you guys a full novel of what i'm thinking of and going into every little detail about what i want to achieve

[sonofaglitch]

Cant wait

[Baz]

me either i've secured the coffee table ready for pickup tomorrow! i'll try and get a hold of some of those oak planks later this weekend or something at least i'll have something i can put a design that's in my head onto wood to turn it into reality

[Baz]

the good news is i have the table and it's 1 solid bit of wood!


the bad news is it's not as thick of a bit of wood as i was hoping... i haven't measured it yet, but the sides of the table are about 50mm thick, which would be great for a guitar body, but it turns out those bits have been glued there and the table itself is probably only about half of that, which is still good, so i can make some Teak necks instead, i can probably get about 6 or so necks out of the bit of wood, maybe more if i'm clever


edit: i did some measuring, the piece of wood is about 20mm thick, so, just thick enough for some guitar necks

[Baz]

i just had a brainstorming thought then... what if i cut to equal size pieces and glue them on top of each other to make the body? Teak is a heavy wood, right? so i could probably hollow the wood out a bit too to save on weight, would that be a good idea? i only had the thought then because i figured that if you can have a maple cap on a mahogany body and it's just glued together like that, so it should have any structural strength issues, i hope, the oly problem would be bookmatching the side grains well enough so it's not as noticeable (i'm undecided if it will be a solid painted colour or if i'll go the wood stain route again at his stage)

[GPW]

  Baz, you sure that top is solid wood      Could be ply with teak veneer ...  That is a rather nice coffee table ...

[Baz]

  Baz, you sure that top is solid wood      Could be ply with teak veneer ...  That is a rather nice coffee table ...

unfortunately, it's exactly that my dad worked that out for me when i asked him how to tackle taking it apart and get all the pine wood off it without having to cut too much of the table apart... i was an idiot and i guess too excited to check if it was actually solid wood... i forgot to look for matching grains and things like that... i guess i should have known from how much lighter the table was than i was expecting... so, things are gonna be on hold for now i suppose... sucks cause i was getting excited to get started on something awesome... but on the plus side i have a nice coffee table that my dad's already had ideas on where to put it, haha, for $25 i guess i got what i paid for

[GPW]

   It IS a Nice coffee table Dude !!!   

[SecretWeapon]

I'd chop it up and make a guitar with a body shaped like a coffee mug. Just to be an ass. 

[FC]

Updates?

[Baz]

haha, nothing as of yet, the table is a no go for use as it's not solid wood, a tad disappointed there, but in the next week or two i'll get some materials to get a neck on the way... which brings me to a question for the more experienced builders:

how does one go about making an angled headstock? this keeps baffling me... like, i get how an angled cut makes the angle, but then how do you go about cutting the headstock to the right thickness and all that? do you cut the headstock shape out before you make the angled cut? or do you do that after making the angle? i have guitars with angled headstocks, but i can't work out how it's done just by inspecting the joint, which is usually way back past the nut of the fretboard, about from fret 1 for the ape of the necks curve and about fret 3 where the join meets the fretboard and i have no idea why it's there and not the join meeting the fretboard at the nut