Thursday 19 September 2013

New projects and current projects

The past few weeks, since my last post have been taken up with weddings, family does and awkward social situations. Unfortunately, I have had little time do dedicate to Scatter-Brain, so both my design and workshop sessions have suffered slightly (although they also haven't been helped by the fact I have  had an unrelated side project that I have been wrapping up as well, these past few weeks). Unfortunately, with a fresh new bout of weddings, family commitments and the odd chance I may actually get to do something social (between everything else and my full-time day job, it's a rare luxury!), it's not showing signs of letting up. However, neither is my passion for guitar building and for Scatter-Brain. Oh well, guess I might as well get on with it. 

Workshop
Currently in production I still have SB2.7L as well as my second SB3 production prototype. SB2.7 is close to being as complete as can be at the moment (pending final sanding, installing the nut and finishing) as I think I may have mentioned before, we have decided to use a Hipshot bridge, however, these take about four weeks to ship so we are still awaiting this, for this reason, I am nervous to finish things like the the scratch plate. I have finished installing the frets (but not fully dressed) and I am planning one more session before I feel I can actually do no more! 
















SB3, two updates to this new model, as you see pictured, I have now prepared the body to have the cavities routed, however, I had to stop there due to needing to develop my design before placing the pickups. The second new development is that this will be my first guitar using my new mitre saw to cut the fret slots. The saw it self is a basic (manual rather than electric) saw attached to a guide in the middle and is lockable at 90° to the guide, much the same as the more expensive fretsaws but at much less cost. I have made a few of my own adjustments, including hammering the the straight to give a finer cut. Previously, I had been using my own hand made jig, the results of which where very accurate but highly time consuming!
The shape of things to come!

I also have a new commission project, a headless, erganomic body guitar. I hope to do a dedicated post soon!

Bridging the gap

So the good news is, we have now received the new bridge for SB2.7L, expect an update soon!
SB3, after a productive couple of days, I seem to have the makings of a near complete looking guitar!
Production seems to have been quite speedy, I suppose this is in a large part due to me having worked out faster ways of producing the guitar from my first run through, I feel I also owe a debt of gratitude to my ever growing tool collection, the two that stand out however would be my electric planer and my mitre saw (although the results of this probably remain to be seen as I haven't fretted the guitar yet). Overall, I'm very happy with this guitar in terms of production speed and quality, the only issue I have had so far is that the cavities are not the neatest I've ever done, in retrospect (the single coil is OK, this will be covered by a scratchplate anyway, the humbucker cavity is however a little sloppy looking), I think this may be due to the new hard board I used to make the jigs. I think I may need to switch to using plywood or something more dense, however, the cavities still fit within the safe area to be covered by the scratchplate or pickup surrounds, respectively.
Neck
A comment often made of my past guitars is that the necks tend to be quite fat, I think this guitar has a sort of 'sporty' look, so I'm going to try to build a more appropriate neck.
Starting with a thinner profile neck, widening smoothly at the body joint. I am also going with a near-flat fretboard radius, gently sanded to an even finish. This method provides a gradual compound radius, widening out towards the neck joint.
That's it for now, I'm trying to kit out my workshop to keep working after dark, so hopefully I will be able to start doing more regular posts, when I find the time...