Cats Paw Project

This project started because I wanted to do an Inlay where I manually did every step. I purchased some White Mother of Pearl blanks from Stewart McDonald along with a jewlers saw. As every project starts, I started with a cat's paw design, printed it out, then cut it out and glued it to the blank. I just use TiteBond White Glue and everything comes off very easily with a little sanding. Then using the jewlers saw I cut each of the shapes out. I was not exact with the blade but was able to sand them to the approximate shapes I needed with my Dremel. I then wrote on them in pencil (RP, R1, R2 etc) so that I knew which piece was which. I then super glued each of the pieces to the board. Once they were secure I then took my scribe and outlined the shapes.

I then pried the pieces of using a chisel. Then using my Dremel I routed out the appropriate areas. There is a relationship you will start to learn between how close you route to your scribe lines. Mine is just starting to develop after probably a couple of dozen routing projects. For this project I routed only half of the depth of the MOP. I used the 1/32 blade for the entire project, although I could have switched between a larger one for the paws and back to the smaller for the toes. Once I was done and could almost fit the pieces in I increased the depth to a little over the thickness of the MOP.

Then I took my sanding bit and sanded the sides in the block of wood until the piece slips in with a little pressure. This also has a distinct feel to it that I am starting to learn. Once your at that stage, I mix my epoxy, ebony shavings up and apply liberally, then push all the pieces in and clamp.

After clamping and drying this is what it looks like in the morning :-)

After sanding with 80-100 grit sandpaper.  This is where I still have a hard time.  As you can see several of the parts of inlay look black or like they are starting to wear off.  In reality it is the epoxy with the ebony mixed into it that is obscuring the inlay.  I always get nervous at this point wondering if I should sand some more or did I sand too much?  However with this one I know my routes were fairly deep and I probably have quite a bit to go before I sanded it off.  But be careful, 80-100 will take off quite a bit of wood if aren't careful.  I will switch off to 150 grit very shortly.

Here it is after sanding with 150 grit for awhile.  Notice I still have some black ebony around the outer toes and the left heel.  I think these actually went in just a little crooked so it is either the high side and it is being sanded off or the low side and still needs to be sanded :-)  So I sand a little more but selectively over these spots.  I am just about to switch to 220 once I can get those areas relatively clear.

Here it is after sanding with 220 for a while.  I also added a little Danish Oil to it which really brings out the color of the ebony.  The ebony has ended up being a very good wood to work with.  You can notice some disfigurement on the top toes, this is due more to the sanding with the dremel.  I was not getting an even sanding motion on the sides after cutting.  So as I sanded down, some of this can be seen.  I can probably fix this in the future so that I sand the shell down to 220 - 360 to really smooth it out.

Just a finaly shot showing off some of the color of the shell.  All in all a sucessful project.  I really enjoyed having control over all the elements and doing everything by hand.  I learned quite a bit to be used in the next seesion.

Week 3 - Saturday Morning Class

This morning we retrieved our clamped guitar body and removed the clamps.  It was pointed out to us (by our teacher) that the kerfin was raised in about a 5-6 inch section.  When I asked him if he would leave it that way he replied "Not if it were my guitar".  We debated the risk in trying to repair it vs. possible back problems later on.  We decided since we were taking the class we needed to repair it.

So we began the process of replacing the section with new kerfing.  First step was to remove the kerfing from the section with a chisel.  This was not try and knock the kerfing down to a manageable size.  Gently the chisel is placed in the groove and struck with the other hand.  Eventurally Cian got very good at this and was able to get it down pretty close to the rosewood.

From there we took a scraper and scraped what was left of the kerging.  Then with 150 grit sandpaper we sanded down until the rosewood. 

This was rather nerve wracking as you can imagine and we escaped without doing too much harm to the body. New kerfing was applied, glued and clamped and looking much better.

OK, time to clean up any glue squeeze out.  We took a razor blade and ran it in the space where the kerfing meets the rosewood.  In some spots we sanded with 150 grit sandpaper until smooth.  Robbie is a real stickler for leaving everything spotless on the guitar.  It is a great motivator and the guitar is starting to take shape...

Time to add more tone to the sphincter.  We are going to add an end piece to the guitar.  First we cut out the tailpiece according to specifications then we trace it onto the back of the guitar.  We clamp a piece of wood parallel to the line and cut and repeat on the other side.  Once we have two cuts we then chisel the glued rosewood off of the Mahogany block.

We then apply back to the section and slide the Maple inlay into it getting a very tight seal, then clamp and let dry.  Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of when it was finished.  Thats one thing that is difficulty, remembering to take pictures when you are involved in a step :-)
 

Now came time to prepare the back.  The first step was using the safety planer to bring the back down to a width of a little under 3mm.  The picture above is of Cian and Jim running it through the planer...

Class 3 Thursday Night (9/11)

The Agenda for the night was to finish radiusing the guitar's back. Attach Kerfing to the back, Radious the front to a 15 foot radius, and attach Kerfing. Then construct our side bracing and maybe even bracing for the top. We had quite a bit of planing and sanding left to do on the back. We made three mistakes. The first was we planed one side down to far. This meant we really had to reduce the heel and end block also. When we planed the Neck Block, we planed it straight across instead of at an angle, but this was corrected by planing on an angle. The third was I slipped while planing the block and cause a small crack at the side running with the grain. It was fairly small but if unattended the crack could run further. So a little super glue and accelerant and we good to continue sanding. We finally got to where we thought we needed to be and started the Kerfing.

Kerfing is used sort of like a shelf.  I runs along the sides of the guitar and will provide the support for where the top and bottom meet the sides.  Kerfing feels almost like balsa wood. Our back Kerfing was Mahogany and our front was Maple. Very thin and light weight. It is heavily scored so it is really flexible but very fragile. 1st order of business it to measure from Neck to Heel Block the amount of Kerfing we would need. To do this you have to run the Kerfing inside around the grooves from Block to Block which is what Cian is doing in the picture above. The first time we tried to do this we promptly snapped the Kerfing...

There is a trick, if you lightly clamp in on with clothespins,and let the clothespins do the bending for you it is possible to do without breaking it... Not easy but possible.

Once you have the right amount of Kerfing you are ready to glue it. You apply a thin layer of glue on the back. Not enough, it won't be strong, too much and you will get a lot of 'squeeze through' which is difficult to clean up after. Once you have glue on your Kerfing, using your high tech glue application device (finger), you gently squeeze the Kerfing to the side while applying a high tech force distribution device (clothspin with a rubber band wrapped around it) you work your way around the side. You are watching to ensure the Kerfing makes clean contact with the sides, clean the glue squeeze out and ensure the Kerfing is a 'scosh' above the side. We will be radiusing the kerfin to match the sides at some point.

Here is the back side, Kerfing glued and clamped.  It takes about 30 minutes to dry which we used to start our side bracking.  We found some nice scrap Maple and measured and cut those.  Sanded and Radiused the Front along with glueing the Kerfing and had to call it a night.

Flower

I have been thinking about it for a little while now. I finally purchased a jewlers saw and some mother of pearl blanks. I got white and grey to contrast with one another. I decided to create an inlay piece from scratch. I chose this pattern out of an inlay book I purchased.

I thought since it was my first attempt I wouldn't be quite that ambitious, but took the first flower for the design.  The first step is to break down the pattern into geometric shapes.

Here are the leaves at the base of the plant.  I will do these in white mother of pearl.

Here are the leaves to the left of the plant that I plan on doing in grey mother of pearl.

Here is the grey mother or pearl against the backdrop.  I decided to use Mahongy for this and wanted the grain going left to right to give the impression of a horizon behind it.  This presented a small challenge in carving since it is easier to go with the grain.  I also decided that the 'stalk' of the plant would be Maple.  I like the idea of contrasting woods, and I wanted the grain in the stalk to go perpendicular to the horizon.

Once I had cut the shapes out of the shell using my saw (I will do a separate blog on cutting shell), I arranged the pieces on the Mahogany to visualize it.

As with all inlay projects, I spread some white out on the wood, glued the pieces down and scribed around it.  I then removed the pieces by gently prying a chisel under the pieces.  I then ran the outline with a sharp knife to deepen the grooves.

Here is the piece routed out.  I decided to put a sun in the background.  My wife does polymer clay so thought we would experiment a little.

I ended up sanding a little too much on the right side and part of the sun and one whole leaf was sanded off - oops.

Ebony Dove

First of all I apologize since I didn't have my camera with me for most of it.  I bought a very large piece of ebony meant more for a lathe.  I thought I could 'slice' the block into smaller pieces and do my inlay on those.  I first tried with my Mitre Saw but I no support for the wood since it was a rectangle and I had slice with the wood standing end to end in order to match the grain.  I took a first pass and the blade smoked and a hunk of ebony went flying... :-o 

Plan B:  Buy a box wood saw at Lowes.  They didn't really have what I wanted, most of them were plastic.  I ended up buying a cheap plastic one and wish I hadn't.  Totally worthless.

Plan C:  Call a friend :-)  He had a bigger table saw with a ten inch blade.  It took us a good 40 minutes and lots of smoke and a new blade...  We were only able to cut up half the block! 

Note to self:  Purchase PRE CUT ebony from now on... it's worth it!

I had learned a couple things from the last project.  I won't go through the steps again, just refer to Dove Inlay.  I used super glue this time to hold down the dove and it worked much better.  The area that was giving me issues were the bottom of the Dove where it gets real thin.  Just the process of running a scribe next to it would bend it and distort the bottom.\

I had also purchased a 1/32 inch router for the dremel nbsp; That absolutely helped a lot...  I still had to the ends of the bottom with a chisel and gouge.  Last time I had some problems fitting the inlay into the channel.  I kept widening it but in reality I just don't think it was deep enough.  I went about 1/16 of an inch deeper than I did with the last one.  It didn't just "fall in" but was much better than last time.  Also since I didn't use a chisel on the main part I didn't have to use the sanding bit either.

These bits are very small and fragile.  I did break one already.  If you see smoke, stop < lol >  They worked very well and gave me a consistent bite.

A little about ebony.  Here is a picture of ebony in it's natural state.

They say that ebony, like any wood, ebony is subject to drying and cracking: especially in dry climates.  The manager of a store also told me that wood had been there for over 2 1/2 years.  Even though it was wrapped in a wax coating,  I have notice several cracks.  Not bad and I do live in Colorado which is a very dry climate.  I am trying soaking one of the blocks overnight to see if it helps.

The wood itself was great for carving.  Very firm, responsive to cutting and routing.  The chips and sawdust were very beautiful, with deep red and brown hues running through it.  I have included a picture above, while not a good picture, really shows the color of the wood.

Here is the finished product.  The flash really showed of the color of the Mother of Pearl.  Unfortunately for this particular inlay I broke the head into four separate pieces by accident.  I was able to super glue some parts so that I had two pieces.  I prepared my epoxy and this time added in ebony sawdust to color the glue.  Although I had a much better fit this time, I have an area or two that could use a little extra color.

50th Birthday Guitar

My newest addition to the family... For my 50th Birthday I am designing a guitar. This is the body that I just received from Warmoth. I purchased a Strat Style, Front Route, Chambered body with f hole. Birdseye Maple Laminate with a Tobacco Sunburst finish (front and back). This picture doesn't do it justice, I will post others as I get them...

I have not chosen the neck yet, although I am fairly certain what I am getting. I still have not decided on the bridge, or pick-ups. The configuration is for a H - S - H. Also have not decided on the wiring or pick-guard. I have thought about doing a pickguard made out of wood and inlayed...

A Discussion about A Major Pentatonic use with I, IV & V

A Major Pentatonic is a 5 note scale (hence pentatonic :-). It is the 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6th of the major scale. Since ther is no 4th, you will be a little hampered in finding the root of the IV chord in the scale itself.

Consider:

The A Major Pentatonic Scale (1, 2, 3, 5, 6). The notes are A B C# E F#
The I Chord is A (A, C#, E)
The IV Chord is D (D, F#, A)
The V Chorde is E (E, G#, B) - Note G# (7th) is not found in the scale


To the left are the arpeggios of each of the chords.

Stratocaster Project

First you need to know where it came from. Here’s a picture of it with its full finish. It was literally a $120 guitar. The finish had several nicks in it and had peeled in one location. I decided to chemically strip it for a couple of reasons and now having done it, am glad I went that route. Took all the hardware off and the neck, taped up the inner cavity because I had just finished putting copper foil down. You can see it peeking up in the second pickup position (lower left corner). You put copper foil down and solder it to ground which will protect the electronics from any RF interference through the pickups…

Then I applied a some toxic solutions… Although it looks dramatic the actual chemical breakdown took quite awhile. While I noticed some small bubbling after 15-30 min, it took about 10 hours and several scrapes and re-applications of the stripper.

 That paint job was tough! To make it worse, what looks like wood below was really a plastic “undercoating” that wrapped the entire guitar. It only minimally interacted with the stripper. It took me three days over the weekend to get it off.

Then a lot of sanding. Luckily I went out and bought a nice orbital sander to do most of it, but there was still about 4-5 hours by hand put in, especially around the horns. I had to take a wooden dowel, wrap sand paper around it and rub it that way. Below you will see wood and the “coating” still stubbornly stuck in some spots. That stuff was tenacious. I still haven’t cleaned out the innards yet.

A vision – I really debated over how to finish the guitar. I was leaning to a natural stain given the coloring. I later discovered that the bottom (I think it is basswood, cheap) has an alder (has a nice tone, fender uses it a lot) veneer on top of it. I really didn’t find that out until later when I sanded too much L. So at that point I decided to go chrome black with a super high gloss (David Gilmour anyone?). To customize it I wanted to try my hand at inlay. I decided I would do two inlays. One of a Ying Yang. I thought with the guitar being black and with a white pick guard, that would look perfect. The other was the silhouette of a white dove (shown on black material). I chose that because of the lines. I thought I could do it and it looked like something that would definitely compliment the guitar. I found a website that sells these, the guy runs it out of his home in Oregon, his name is Andy, really nice guy. Anyway, he imports the shells directly from Vietnam and the inlays are mother of pearl and abalone, and the work up close is just stunning. They really catch the light and throw back a spectrum of colors.

 This is my first attempt at any inlay. I literally have never done this. The hardest part was trying to decide how to route the circle. I really thought there must be an easy way to do it, but to no avail. I ended up just trying to do it free hand. One of my “best” qualities (as you probably already know) is I can be downright stubborn at times. I used a sharpie and drew around the circle. I then took my router and started in the middle and just kept making the circle bigger until I just reached the outer black circle. Then I used a sander bit on my router and kept sanding and testing the inlay until it fit… I did practice this technique seven times on a scrap piece of wood (and I am glad I did!)

Here’s a picture of the inlay in the guitar. I think it came it out a lot better than I was expecting! I purchase a gouge and a carving knife and will attempt the dove. Once they are all in than I sand, paint and apply the finish which will take about 8 weeks or so… I am building the electronics so once the paint is done, I slap on a new pick guard with new pickups and new wiring, bolt a neck onto it and string er up!

For the second part of this blog, please see a Stratocaster Project Part II