Big Daddy's Tapper

[BigDaddyPoo]

Finally got started on my tapper Saturday. I cut and machined the wood for the neck. I am building an 8 string. The neck is going to be 92mm with 12mm string spacing. I'm going with a 34" scale lenght. The fretboard is unradiused like a stick and warr guitar, and like these instruments will have no taper from the nut to the bridge. All of the wood I have used so far is free, and I've been really lucky to get really good pieces. The neck is going to be 5 laminations like this...

Maple
Walnut
Maple
Jatoba
Maple
Walnut
Maple

I havn't glued anything up yet, but the stipes of wood look friggin great together.

When I glue everything up, the wood is thick enough to split in half to give me 2 necks, so I think I will go ahead and build two at once. The other will be a 10 string, because although I sold my stick a year ago, I still have songs written on it that I haven't been able to play well since. I wish now that I had made some measurments before I got rid of the stick.

I looked on the stick website and it said the dimensions were: 45 1/4" (115cm) x 3 1/4" (8.2cm) x 1 3/4" (4.5cm). Can anyone with a stick confirm that the neck width is 82mm? This seems really narrow.

Anyway, I didn't get a chance to take any pictures, but here is my design. Let me know what you guys think.

[BrendaEM]

It's more original than my drawing.

I suggest printing a copy of the draing, and making sure the tuners will wind the strings the way you want them withough interference...

....And we are going to need to see some pictures when you get a chance : )

[BigDaddyPoo]

I'm still playing with headstock designs. I think this is a little wild and may not hold up too well. I have a couple of other designs that the tuners will work fine with, but they are too bland. I gave myself a couple of inches extra length to play with so I can still play around with the design.

I wanted to go with a slightly undersized body to keep the weight down. I can't decide if it looks too small. On one hand I think it looks kinda funky in a good way, on the other it kinda looks funky...in a bad way. A friend of mine is printing a full size print out on his plotter for me, so hopefully this will help me make up my mind.

[GaryOpenhill]

Originally posted by BigDaddyPoo
[B]I'm still playing with headstock designs. I think this is a little wild and may not hold up too well.

Hey, i think it looks really good. Not to wild at all. Guess it'll tale a little more work shaping it, but ....


Can anyone with a stick confirm that the neck width is 82mm? This seems really narrow.

I think thats right on their 8 string bass. That means that the space betweens the strings is just above 10mm, if it has paralless strings, with about 5 mm space on each side.
I think it's the perfect space for a tapper (suits my fingers, but they may be more sausage-like than others!) , but if it will be used for fingerpicking as well, then i guess it should be wider.

So are you going for parallell strings? What string spacing ?
Will you tune it for uncrossed playing, like Brenda's?

[rjgoos]

I think a person has to figure out how to "support" the instrument first, and then design the body with those constraints in mind.

But I should say that Dan's and Gustin's outlines look great.

[Gustin]

If only I was creative enough to come up with a more original design. :p

Your design looks excellent!

[BigDaddyPoo]

Thanks for everyone's comments.
Gary, the strings are going to be run parallel. I'm going for a 12mm string spacing center to center on the 8 string. Which sounds kinda wide, but that is the spacing of my ibanez bass' strings around the middle of the fret board, where it feels the most comfortable to tap. The spacing is going to be around 9.3mm on the ten string. I think only the ten string will be uncrossed. I want the 8 string to feel like my ibanez only with two higher strings. Ten string will be tuned like the original stick. 5 bass strings tuned in 5ths and 5 melo strings tuned in 4ths.

The measurments I gave above are for the 10 string stick. That sounds good for an 8 string but seems a little tight for a 10. I read a little more on www.stick.com and saw that their string spacing is only 8.13mm. Mine of 9.33 should feel a lot less cramped.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I'm going to my friends woodshop a couple of hours away Tuesday to borrow some clamps and check out some walnut he says I can use for a top. He says it has a few cracks in it, so I'll have to see if there is enough that's useable. Anyone ever played a walnut guitar or bass? I'm just wondering what to expect from it.

Any way, I'll probably glue up my neck blank this week and post some pictures of the process.

[rjgoos]

Sounds like Dan has taken the plunge!


Jay

[BigDaddyPoo]

Head First.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I went to my friend Dakvied's in Birmingham to glue up my neck blank and check out some walnut for the top. I was blown away by the quality of the wood that he is giving me. Friends are good. He also offered other woods if I wanted to pay for them...the price was great for someone who isn't a college student. Here is a blurry photo of his wood stash.

The big piece you see in the middle is about a 12'x2' piece of solid mahogony! I really wish I had the money for that. I saw it and imagined a guitar carved out of a single piece of wood. A very, very expensive guitar carved out of a single piece of wood. Maybe when I hone my skills a little more.

There is also tons of jatoba, Curly and Birdseye Maple, Curly Walnut, and other cool wood.

[BigDaddyPoo]

Here is the mahogony top (free) with the neck woods (also free) lined up before they were glued. The neck woods were cut from rough lumber using a table saw and the faces were trued using a huge planer ( the kind you plug into the wall ) that is probably 20" wide. The planer hasn't been maintained by the owner ( not my friend Dakvied ) so it doesn't do a flawless job.

There were chatter marks left in the wood after planing, so I used a scraper to work out the ridges. I constantly checked to make sure the surface was staying flat by putting the wood on top of a level, holding it up to the light and checking for any sign of light coming through. This wasn't very difficult work, and it's kinda fun using old world tequniques. (I can say this because all I had to do was scrape the wood to true it up. If I had to saw and plane all of these wood surfaces by hand, I probably wouldn't be so optimistic about ye olde way of doing things :))

The top was resawn from a thicker piece on a bandsaw to get 4 book matched pieces (two pairs) and then run through the planer.

[BigDaddyPoo]

The wood was glued up with every clamp Dakvied had. You only have about 15 minutes from when you start gluing to get everything clamped up. If you work too slow, then you won't be able to make the final adjustments that you need.

There are 4 clamps pressing from what will be the back and fretboard side. These are there to keep all of the strips lined up vertically. The wood blocks under the clamps are to spread the force across the width of the neck and to keep the clamps from denting the wood. Don't forget to use waxed paper between any such temporary wood blocks and and the neck woods or they will become perminant parts of the guitar. In this case I would have pine laminates along with these beautiful exotic woods :( .

The other clamps press from the sides. You want to tighten them down just until the glue squeezes out. If you tighten too hard you could damage the neck. It's important to make sure all clamps are centered and that the neck is supported well underneath it. If these precautions aren't taken, when the glue sets, you will have a nice warp or cup perminently set in the neck.

After 45 min. to an hour you can take off some of the clamps and scrape the glue off with a sliver of wood. If you don't do this soon enough, the glue will set as giant drips and will be very difficult to remove.

[BrendaEM]

Cool pics : )

[rjgoos]

Brenda definitely wins the number-of-clamps contest, though.


Jay

[BigDaddyPoo]

Originally posted by rjgoos
Brenda definitely wins the number-of-clamps contest, though.

:D
Yeah you may notice a couple of unused clamps off to the right. Those weren't big enough to fit the 98mm neck blank. I think this will work ok. If there is a problem with the glue-up, atleast I have only time invested.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I'm going to stay with my folks in nearby Jackson for a couple of weeks since school is out, and my dad has a well equiped wood shop. Though he doesn't have any wood like my friend in Birmingham, his machinery is very well maintained. I didn't go into any detail about how bad the equipment I was using at my friend's house was. Between a table saw that had only a chewed up blade that was used to saw a misplaced clamp that also had a fence that was impossible to set strait, and a planer that had never been sharpened, it is a miricle that I have gotten as far as I have.

Anyway, I have all of the wood that I'm going to need for both instruments. I'll take my camera and laptop and post some updates in the next few days.

[BigDaddyPoo]

Well I'm back to work.

I realized pretty early on that the neck blank I have is only going to produce one useable neck. So I'm no longer building a ten string and an eight string at the same time. This will be an eight string since that design was the simplest. My ten stringer was going to have multiple scale lengths and other hard to build features.

Last night I did some machining on my glued up neck. I started out with the 7 piece neck blank. The laminates were not quite all the same height to start with which in effect gave me a series of channels on the top and back of the neck. These filled up with glue when they were glued together. I wiped most of the glue clean while it was drying but I still had a good bit of glue left in these crevices.

Dried glue is hell on planer and joiner blades. So I first had to remove all of the glue globs. I could have done this with a scraper but almost an hour of work with very little progress made me realize that I had to bring out the power. I finished the job with a hand held belt sander made by Ryobi. This is a great little machine that has built in dust collection that works great. There was absolutely no dust. It took another 30 minutes to finish off the glue removal.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I took the blank and ran it through a joiner on two sides. This ensured that I had two square sides to use as a reference. Once this was done I knew that all following cuts and measurements would be accurate. I split the neck blank into two pieces by running it across the table saw. Since the blank is so wide, 4 inches, I had to cut one way and then flip the blank over and cut the other side.

This cut left me with a blank that was almost a quarter of an inch too thick. This was intentional since I knew that the finished cut would not be of the highest quality because of the two passes required. I then used a planer to bring the neck to the right thickness.

[BigDaddyPoo]

The tools I'm using now are all more hobby grade than professional. Even though I am using much cheaper tools now, they have been maintained well and are putting out much better quality results. The main reason I am having to make one guitar now instead of two, is because a poor cutting table saw required me to cut again and again to get a good enough cut to join my neck laminates together.

Tomorrow I am going to a great local hardwood dealer and look at top woods. My mother says she wants to buy me a "pretty piece of wood" for the body. She looked at my free woods and then at pictures of some $3000 - $7000 instruments on the web and decided mine needed to be prettier. I couldn't help but agree:)

[BigDaddyPoo]

I'm going with an angled headstock. To make this as strong as possible, you need the grain of the wood running the length of the headstock. To do this involves several steps. First, the piece that is to be the headstock is planed to thickness. Both the neck and the headstock are cut at a 15 degree angle at one end. There are many ways of achieving this. One could use a miter saw or radial arm saw, but I used a tennoning jig on a table saw. Here the neck is in the jig.

[BigDaddyPoo]

The entire jig slides across the blade. This is repeated on the other piece.

It's very important that the jig is set up with a good quality square. If anything is out of square, the head stock will end up coming off at an angle from the neck. You do after all only want it angling in one direction.;)

[BigDaddyPoo]

There was something slightly out of alignment in the jig. I checked everything again an again, but the wood rubbed too much against the blade causing a good bit of burning. Also, the cut didn't quite go strait across the neck. This is actually fine since a good bit of sanding is required to smooth the joint good enough for gluing.

The headstock is laid on top of the neck in such a way that the angled edges form one continuous wedge. We made a jig that had angled pieces on either side of this wedge. These two angled pieces were carfully lined up. This was used as a sort of a template. I used a sanding block with 100, then 150, then 400 grit sandpaper to bring the wedge in the head stock and neck so that it lined up with my templates on either side.

[BigDaddyPoo]

You may be able to notice in the photo above that not everything lines up quite right. That's the perpose of the jig and the sanding.

Here's a picture of the jig itself. It's made of 2 pieces of 3/4" plywood with a piece of 2x6 cut down to just the right width and mitered at the end to the same angle of 15 degrees. If you dont have a block of wood like this under the neck/headstock wedge, you will tear up the tip of the angle. The tips of both of these pieces are very fragile.

[BigDaddyPoo]

As you sand these peices it is important to check the flatness with a strait edge. Get down at the level of the wood and make sure there is no light coming through under the edge. This should be checked up and down the pieces going across both ways and diagonally. Mark the high spots with a pencil and continue sanding until your marks are sanded away then repeat the process.

This is a long tedious process and took a few hours, but it is very important that the joint is perfectly flat or you will end up with a weak headstock. Not very desirable on an instrument with 8 or more strings!

[BigDaddyPoo]

The headstock is taken off and flipped over so its newly angled edge is flat up against the back of the neck and extends the angle at the end of the neck.

First clamp the fretboard perpindicular to a very flat surface, making sure that it remains at a 90 degree angle with a square. Hold the headstock in the position that it is going to be glued in, and clamp a block of wood onto the table at its end. This end block keeps the head stock from sliding away from the neck when it whole thing is clamped together. When you are sure everything lines up, remove the headstock and add glue to the joint on both pieces of wood.

Moving quickly, return the headstock to its possition making sure that it is against the end block, and square to the table. Pieces of wood are placed on either side of the joint and then clamped into place. Check to make sure everything is still lined up, and wait for the glue to dry.

[BrendaEM]

It's getting there : )

I, myself didn't have the courage to make a neck joint.

Making a sanding jig to tweek the head joint was a good fix for a difficult problem.

I found that once my instrument was guitar shaped, it became irresistable to pick up, you are getting close to that stage.

[rjgoos]

Dan is one serious man!!! I am impressed!


Jay

[BigDaddyPoo]

Brenda: I only did this because I had enough wood to experiment. If anything went wrong, I have an extra 12" of neck and 40" of head stock material to get it right. :)

I did use Titebond III Ultimate wood glue on this joint because it is supposed to be alot stronger and has a longer working time. The problem is this glue is alot darker than the maple is. When I was gluing dark wood to light wood it wasn't noticeable but where maple meets maple in this scarf joint there is a visible glue line. :(

And, yes I just got finished holding the print out of the body to the neck and played a few air guitar licks and/or chops.

On another note:
I just bought a beautiful piece of cocobolo to do the top and headstock veneer with. I'll post pictures of my progress in the next couple of days.

[BrendaEM]

Originally posted by BigDaddyPoo
The problem is this glue is alot darker than the maple is. When I was gluing dark wood to light wood it wasn't noticeable but where maple meets maple in this scarf joint there is a visible glue line. :(

The finish might darken the wood.

[BigDaddyPoo]

Originally posted by BrendaEM
The finish might darken the wood.

I hope you're right. If not, the line will only be visible from the back. The sides will be covered up by the headstock wings and the top will be covered with a cocobolo veneer.

__________________________________________________ _______

I got a lot done today. Mostly on the body and headstock templates, and body blank.

I started out with the templates. I took the full sized prints I made and cut out the shapes as closely as possible with good old scissors. I used spray adhesive to stick these down to the template wood. I'm using MDF since it can be sanded very smoothly and doesn't warp as much as plywood.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I traced around the paper cutouts with a pencil

[BigDaddyPoo]

Sorry these pictures are a bit dark.

Now to the woodshop. First I cut out the rough shape staying atleast 12mm outside of the line.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I then cut a slit right up to the line every 5-10mm. If you do this you only have to follow the line for very short distances. My test cuts on this wood made me reailize just how difficult it is to follow a curve on a bandsaw, so this is my solution.

[BigDaddyPoo]

Now i finally cut along the line, staying just to the outside of the pencil line. The pencil line will be removed in the next step.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I took the section of mahogany ( I never remember how to spell that word. :) ) that is to make up the part of the body on the back of the neck and planed it along each edge until it was exactly the same width as the neck. Then I thickness planed it until it and the neck combined were 40mm thick. I used double sided tape and stuck this piece to the template in it's precise place. I took this to a drill press fitted with a sanding drum.

On a side note: with a drill press you have many of the tools you need to build a guitar. Drilling, edge sanding, and with a Saf-T-Planer attachment, you have thickness planing. All for very little cash.

I followed the contour of the body with the sanding drum until I had a nice continuous contour with no flat spots. This step is very important as Brenda points out in her router template thread. All contours of the body will be based on the quality of this template. The wings will be shaped later on the router table using this template. The reason I shaped the center piece of mahagony ( I figure if I use a different spelling of mohagony everytime, I will eventually spell it right. :) ) at the same time as the template, because once this is attached to the neck, it will be much harder to contour.

[BigDaddyPoo]

Here are my woods for my body blank minus the cocobolo top. The piece on the far left is the mahogony that I shaped in the above posts. The bigger planks are mohogony and the thinnest pieces are walnut.

First I cut my cocobolo in half to make a book match and planed the top and back. I took this thickness and subtracted it from the desired body thickness. I cut the mahogony to this thickness and planed the faces that were to be joined.

[BigDaddyPoo]

And clamped up. The walnut strips in the middle are not glued together you'll see why in my next few posts.

I know this is a lot of pictures. I'm kinda getting into documenting all of this. Hopefully someone can benefit from my tedious documentation as much as we all have benefitting from Brenda's.

[rjgoos]

To steal a phrase from rock legend Bruce Dickinson...

Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription.. is more clamps!


Jay

[BigDaddyPoo]

I think that was a misquote...maybe not. Oh well any reference to 80s metal supergroup, Iron Maiden is fine by me.

The last two days were spent finishing up the body blank. Since I was very limited on the amount of wood I had to work with, careful planning was important. The small amount of wood was made worse by two huge cracks that were exposed in machining the mahagony.

First I planed down the the walnut that had been laminated to the mahagony planks. I wanted really thin walnut stripes, so I took these down to a thickness of around 2 mm. This thickness isn't possible if done directly in the planer, which is why I laminated it to the other wood first. The mahagony acted as a suport.

Using my template I found ways to cut out the cracks in the mahagony. I then glued my pieces, being very careful to maintain a shape that the body design could be cut from.

[BigDaddyPoo]

When I resawed the cocobolo, I was suprised to see the difference in color between the oxidized exterior and the newly exposed interior. The newly cut surface is bright orange while the exterior is a dark brown, alomst black, color. The book matched result is beatiful. Using a joiner, I machined the edges that were to join together.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I outlined the shape of my headstock and body using chalk. This was to get an idea of how the pieces would look, and also so I could remove the pieces that were to become the headstock veneer.

[BigDaddyPoo]

Here I'm joining the headstock vener. It was important to keep the pieces planar by clamping them to the table. Then I clamped the pieces together, making sure I got glue squeeze out all along the seam.

[BigDaddyPoo]

This morning I woke up to a "suprise". My dad had decided it would be ok to do some of my project for me. He laminated the cocobolo top to the body blank. He didn't do anything to make sure that the edge of the cocobolo and the edge of the walnut stripe stayed in alignment. These are the edges that are to later be joined to the neck, so their alignment is required to make a clean looking joint. He took the following confusing photo.

I would have made sure the edge was clamped to the table saw fence to keep them in alignment. Then I would have clamped the pieces down to the table top.

[BigDaddyPoo]

To fix the problem I wanted to remove as little wood as possible because I didn't want to loose this thin stripe of walnut. I stuck sandpaper down to the table and scrubbed the joining edge along it's surface. I used the fence to ensure the piece remained square with the table.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I traced the shape of each wing onto the mahagony back, and cut out the shape on the bandsaw. I used the same method that I used on the template of cutting 5-10mm around the shape, then cutting a series of relief cuts up to the line and then cutting along the contour.

[BigDaddyPoo]

Using double sided tape, I attached my wings to the template. This settup was to be used get a finished shap with a table router with a guide bearing. The guide bearing rolls along the contour of the template as the bit cuts the same shape in the wood below. After setting this all up, I went inside to eat lunch and check what my book said about performing this operation, and left my father in the shop setting up the router table.

For some reason, he decide he would go ahead and start the edge routing without me. I read in the book that you should take no more than 2mm of material off at a time or you could expect to tear out big chunks out of your wood. Guess what my dad did?

[BigDaddyPoo]

To fix the huge chunk of wood that was ripped out of the top horn of my guitar while I innocently ate my sandwich, I use the edge sander/drill press set up I used to do final shaping of the template. I finished the final shaping of the body wings this way, because I feared tearing out more wood. The top horn is a bit smaller as a result of me hiding the router mistake.

When sanding cocobolo it is important to wear a mask. The sawdust has toxins that cause reactions similar to poison ivy. Imagine poison ivy in your lungs.

I was pretty mad while I did these steps ( as you could have guessed ) so I didn't take any pictures. Sorry.

But here's the final product placed up against the neck. Again, the wood will be quite a bit darker once it has oxidized and has been burnished with steel.

[BigDaddyPoo]

Here is the back of the body. Notice the thin walnut stripes.

[BrendaEM]

Wow, you've been busy. It's starting to look like an instrument. I think some woods not only oxidize, but are affected by UV.

[BigDaddyPoo]

Originally posted by BrendaEM
I think some woods not only oxidize, but are affected by UV.

Yeah, I've heard its a bad idea to leave woods stacked for this reason. You'll end up with an outline of anything you leave sitting on top of a piece of wood.

I've been really lucky to have this time off to work on my instrument full time in a well stocked wood shop. Unfortunately I have to head back to my house today, two hours from the nearest shop that I have access to. So I probably won't be able to do any work for a couple of weeks, at least.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I got my graphite rods and trussrod in the mail today. I'll be in the shop in two weeks to install them. I wanted to get an idea of how strong the neck was before I put the graphite reinforcement in, so I could judge the difference when the rods are in. I set up an incredibly non-scientific test. I laid the neck across the armrests of living room chair, so it was spanning the gap in between ( about 2 and a half feet ) and pressed pressed down on it as hard as I could in the middle to see how far it would flex. It didn't. I put my knee in the middle and leaned into it. Still nothing. I stood up in the center of neck and got very, very little flex. This neck is already incredibly strong. I was blown away.

The neck is strait as an arrow and only 22mm thick. I'm very excited about the quality of the neck so far. Hopefully I don't screw anything up in placing the rods and attaching the fretboard. I'd hate to ruin this excellent piece of work I've somehow mustered from my untrained hands.

The graphite rods hardly flex either. They are 0.25" x 0.20" x 24". So the fact that they don't flex is a testament to their strength. If this was a piece of maple this size, it would have easily snapped under the amount of pressure I was putting on it.

I'm starting to wonder if my truss rod will do anything to adjust this super rigid neck. I'm glad it's starting off strait.

[BigDaddyPoo]

That photo above of the back of the body looks bad. These woods look really nice in person. My wife just pointed out that it looks like cheap wall panelling. I just spent a week building something that I could have cut off a double-wide's walls in a couple of minutes!

Oh well. Live and learn.

[traktor]

Well, I suppose you *could* abandon work on the instrument and take photography courses. But probably that's not the way to go. The camera lies. Trust your eyes.

and ...

Women! Can't live with them. Can't live without them. Whadda ya goinna do?

[BrendaEM]

Hey, Tractor, I thought we were building instruments here, not walls between the sexes.

[traktor]

Originally posted by BrendaEM
Hey, Tractor, I thought we were building instruments here, not walls between the sexes. Hey, I guess you're right. Sometimes I don't know me own strength!

[BigDaddyPoo]

Allright, Allright! Let's not start the battle of the sexes in this thread. You two are gonna have to start a new thread for that jibber jabber. Traktor, I think we need a whole new section for that...actually, there hasn't been alot going on in the "Up Close" forum. You guys move it over there!

Brenda, I think he meant it light-heartidly. Is that a word? Oh well, you know what I meant. He meant it with great light-heartittude.

BTW: My next guitar is going to be the trailer park special. The neck and body will be reclaimed panelling/faux hardwood floor material. The hardware will be made of metal shards that are leftover after the next tornado hits the southeast. It's going to all be refinished with the foriegn sludge that forms around the outside of an uncleaned bath tub. And retailing for $19.95, I will finally be the first person to sell a tapper in the sub $500 price range.

[BigDaddyPoo]

The opinions expressed in the previous post are those of BigDaddyPoo and not those of Tappistry.Org. No offense was intended towards nor limited to: people who live in trailer homes and/or the Southeastern United States; people who prefer unclean bathtubs to clean bathtubs; tornados or any other tornadolike wind storm...um...heretofore, therein.

[rjgoos]

Dan wrote:

> I just spent a week building something that I could have cut off a double-wide's walls in a couple of minutes!<


Don't give it a moment's thought. Only your belly will know.


Jay

[BigDaddyPoo]

Yeah it's not really that bad. The light reflecting off of it makes it look kinda wierd. It looks pretty good in person. I think when I finish it with oil, my belly will see a pretty nice looking chunk of wood.:)

[BrendaEM]

When you rout for the truss rods, it's easy to go off--even with a guide, becasue the router vibrates so much. I did tests on scrap, and when I did the the piece, I took a break every few passes.

[BigDaddyPoo]

That's good advice. How many passes did you do on each rout? I was thinking about using fingerboard to keep the neck up against the fence. Then I would only have to worry with holding it down and pushing it through.

edit: Did I say fingerboard...I meant featherboard.

[BrendaEM]

Using two guides is a good idea, as long as the router can't get wedged. [Router bases aren't all that round.]

I usually rout at 1/4" or under. I tighten the collet quite tight, and check it every few passes, with the router unplugged : )

[My friends and I dropped a bit out of a router while we were routing a speaker faceplace, making it scrap.]

[BigDaddyPoo]

I visited my folks for the 4th of July holiday and took the opportunity to hijack my dad's shop and work on my tapper. I recently recieved my HotRod truss rod and Carbon Fiber reinforcement rods from StewMac, so I installed these. I cut the channels in the neck with a table router using bits that were just large enough to route holes that the parts snugly fit. Thankfully, I didn't have to buy the bits that StewMac sells specifically for the rods, which in my oppinion are WAY overpriced.

[BigDaddyPoo]

First, I made all my measurements for the channels and marked the start and stop points on the side of the neck. I marked the face of the table perpindicular to where the router bit is. In the following picture I only had the leading edge of the bit marked, I also ended up marking the trailing edge. So I basically had two lines that marked the width of the bit on the table. I started out at one mark and ended on the other as I slid the neck along the table during the cut.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I did each channel in multiple passes using the rods in between passes to make sure I didn't set the depth of cut too deep. It is more accurate to use the rods to set the height like this. If you measure the rod and then measure the height of the bit, you have to deal with inaccuracies and margins of error that don't exist if you just hold the object against the blade and set the height accordingly.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I got anxious to do some work on the instrument a few weeks ago and ended up gluing the wings on the sides of the headstock without thinking ahead. This killed my continuous edge that I had on the neck. If I still had this continuous edge, I could have used a simpler setup on the table router. I had to use a scrap piece of wood as a spacer against the fence. Without the wings I could have simply run the neck against the fence, which would have been a lot more stable and accurate. I used a feather board to keep the wood pressed firmly against the fence. This means i only had to concentrate on pressing the board down flat to the table as I guided it along the cut. Without the wings, I could have used another vertical feather board mounted on the fence to keep the wood pressed down against the table top.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I glued in the rods using slow setting epoxy after roughing up the carbon fiber with sandpaper. The channels were filled up about a quarter of the way. Then I pushed in the carbon rods letting tons of excess glue squeeze out which I immediately wiped off with acetone. I used so much glue to ensure that all of the gaps were filled in between the channel and the carbon fiber. I want a STRONG neck. I clamped everything down to the table saw top to ensure it all laid flat.

Next Up: The fretboard. I should be getting it in the mail soon. LMI sells 34" scale cocobolo fretboards that are 4" wide for $13 US. There is an $8 service charge to have the board slotted. www.lmii.com

[BrendaEM]

It's getting there. That's a nice looking router table.

[rjgoos]

For the record, I see 10 clamps.


Jay

[traktor]

Originally posted by rjgoos
For the record, I see 10 clamps. But should there be extra points for the bright yellow ones? They are much prettier than many others we've seen, don't you think?

[BigDaddyPoo]

Brenda- it is a nice router table, but it's kind of a pain to adjust the height.

I think the two in the middle are so small, they would only count as half a clamp each. However with a quarter point each given to a yellow clamp that puts me back at ten points. I'm really conserving my clampage untill the fretboard goes on. It's where Brenda made her greatest attempt, and there's just enough time between now and when I glue it on to gather up a few more clamps.

Cue the "Eye of the Tiger" and the clamp collecting montage footage.

[BrendaEM]

I saw a webpage where someone had to take their fretboard off becasue they didn't use enough clamps. I, did everything I could to keep that from happening on my instrument.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I just moved again! 2nd time in 6 months. My wife and I decided to move back to Birmingham. I'm now enrolled in the engineering program at a local school; back in my beautiful hometown.
The good news: back in my favorite city in a house that HAS A WORKSHOP DOWNSTAIRS! Non-furnished ofcourse, other than a nice workbench. I've never lived in a house with anything but living space.
The bad news: My back friggin hurts from carrying my furniture around. That new couch was nice until I had to move it.

Anyway, I just got a pre-slotted fretboard in the mail from LMI. It's a 4" wide, 34" scale, Cocobolo board with 25 fret slots (0-24). It was only around $29 with shipping! They only charge $8 for the slotting. It would require many times this small charge to pay for all the tools needed to slot the fretboard as accurately as they do. I also bought a few pieces for my pickup winding project, which is back in full swing. I'll post pictures and more details here and in my pickup winding thread as soon as I figure out which box I packed my camera in.

[rjgoos]

Originally posted by BigDaddyPoo
Anyway, I just got a pre-slotted fretboard in the mail from LMI. It's a 4" wide, 34" scale, Cocobolo board with 25 fret slots (0-24). It was only around $29 with shipping!


This is an incredible deal.


Jay

[BrendaEM]

I haven't had any experience with cocobolo, but I would some exotics are hard to glue because of resins, and PH. I would wear a dust mask too.

[BigDaddyPoo]

The main problem with cocobolo is the oils. Both finishing and gluing are difficult because of this. The best way to avoid problems with glued joints with coco is to glue it directly after planing, so I'm going to run a plane across the back side just before I glue it onto the neck.

Finishing is another issue. Almost no finishes work. No problem on the fretboard since it's allright to leave it unfinished, and the oil actually makes the fretboard quicker. The body is going to be another issue, the top being coco. Tung Oil, which is how I'd like to finish it, won't work as the coco's oils interfere with the finish's drying. I'm going to have to experiment with a lot of finish methods, and hope I don't have to go with the standard and expensive (and far too shiny) Nitro Laquer.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I'm working on my tapper agian...It's been a long time since I've done anything other than gaze longingly at a pile of wood...a pile of dashed dreams. Damn that was cheesy. Sorry.

So the last semester of school friggin hurt my brain. My suggestion to anyone wanting to be a Mechanical Engineer is to vigerously beat yourself on the head with a brick instead. All I wanted to do when I got home from school everyday was stare blankly at the walls and hope for a painless death, not work on my instrument.

Even though I've done very little to my guitar other than plan my next move, I've been collecting tools and occasionally doing small wood working projects in my spare time.

I'm going to work on my inlay tomorrow. I'll post pics soon.

[rjgoos]

At least, when becoming an engineer, the courses are hard, but you don't have the additional pressure of having to get "A" grades in everything, like the pre-meds, pre-vets, and pre-pharmacy students do. If you get a C in differential equations it is just fine. A pre-med that gets a C in anatomy and a C in genetics lowers his/her chances of getting accepted into med school significantly. Also, in engineering, you can take a course over again, you've lost time and money, but you still progress towards the goal. Very few engineers graduate in 4 years.

But please, take a picture of that pile of wood. We want to see it, and help encourage you to keep building!

[RocknDrTom]

Hey there Big Daddy Poo (what a strange name - reminds me of the times I used to have to change the kids' diapers all those years ago),

There have been many, many days that I come home and want to be a vegetable. Sometimes I literally FORCE myself to go downstairs, turn the light on, and start the process. Sometimes it even takes about a half hour to get into the swing of things, but more often than not, I'm glad I did something physical and rewarding other than playing mindless computer games to chill out. In the long run, you'll feel healthier, AND have something to show for your hard work.
Sometimes it IS like excercise, where you're grumbling when you start out - maybe you'll even build up a sweat in some laborious task, in the long run it's really worth the ride. Trust me - I've been doing this off and on since 1975. And I'll keep at it, until I get it right.

[BigDaddyPoo]

Originally posted by RocknDrTom
Sometimes I literally FORCE myself to go downstairs, turn the light on, and start the process.

If it was only that easy for me. I have to drive 45 minutes to get to the closest shop that I have access to. I have a nice sized basement with a big bench but none of the tools I needed to proceed with the project (planer, drill press, table saw).

By the way you can call me Dan. I came up with BigDaddyPoo because whenever I try to sign up for a forum or webmail or something like that, just about any name I choose is taken. So I always end up with a login name like danpool1648693 or something like that. So I just combined two of my nicknames and it's worked for me ever since. Big Daddy is from when I was in HighSchool. Poo is a shortened version of my last name, Pool. Some southerners tend to draw out certain letters and drop others. When your average redneck tries to say Pool it always comes out sounding like Poo. My friends think that's funny for some reason and now anyone who knows me calls me Poo.

[Krappy]

Originally posted by RocknDrTom
Sometimes I literally FORCE myself to go downstairs, turn the light on, and start the process. Sometimes it even takes about a half hour to get into the swing of things

seeing this in print lets me know that what i have been experiencing is not a "me only" phenomenon! i have found that after the first REALLY noisy machine i use, that usually breaks the ice...

i dont know how i would deal with a shop 45 minutes away--i might end up moving...to the place that is 45 minutes away!!!

[RocknDrTom]

DAN - Well, that's a relief! I'm glad to know that "big daddy poo" is not what I was thinking !

Thanks for the name details. If I had to resort to a 45 minute commute, I doubt I'd do as much as I do. WOW - - kudos for the dedication!

KRAPPY - I've been watching your work, and often get envious - you can certainly crank things out faster than me!

I sort of thought that I wasn't alone in feeling the way I do at times. It's such a crazy thing anyway - the thing we like doing the most, when we have the chance and opportunity to do it, we still have to drag our feet.
And I hope you are wearing ear protection with those noisy machines!!

[BigDaddyPoo]

In the fine tradition Tom started, I'm posting a picture of another instrument I built recently. It's a glockenspiel I built as a Christmas gift for my wife and got me back in the swing of doing wood work after my long hiatus. The bells and mallets came from Musician's Friend. The body is made of mahogony and walnut. It sounds great and was a fun project. I've also started experimenting with making and tuning wooden bells like you find on a Marimba. I have a Marimba tuned to an exotic middle eastern 6 note scale (that I don't know the name of) half-built that I'm going to finish up in the next few weeks.

[RocknDrTom]

nice job with the glock! Years ago when I worked at ENSONIQ, I was the "world music" guru. I got to be involved in a lot of the recording sessions of some of the most unusual instruments. If you decide to experiment with the wood marimba, consider the use of gourds for resonators. These have been used in the African Lobi Balafon and really help create a wonderful sound (See pic).

[BigDaddyPoo]

Looks like a male marimba. :D I'm going with pvc pipes for now because there are specific formulas that relate the length to the note produced. Seems like gourds would take alot of experimenting.

[rjgoos]

> consider the use of gourds for resonators


You can hear this instrument prominently in the music of Gourdon Lightfoot.

[jamsire]

Originally posted by rjgoos
> consider the use of gourds for resonators


You can hear this instrument prominently in the music of Gourdon Lightfoot.

Between the two of you - I might have to begin to get tough on the "j-o-k-e-s."

Perhaps threats of me fixing your electrical or plumbing may be in order.:mad:

[Krappy]

I hope you are wearing ear protection with those noisy machines!!


yes on earplugs, always.

[BigDaddyPoo]

My friend Dachvied got all of his former cabinet building partner's equipment out of his garage drying up my supply of heavy woodworking equipment in this state. (sob) But in the process of helping him move into a new shop, Doc and I ended up with a ShopSmith. A pretty cool all in one tool that transforms from a table saw to a drill press, to a sanding disk, to a lathe, to a jig saw, to a planer( this attachment is missing), to an eighteen wheeler just like Optimus Prime ( that was a TransFormers reference / joke for you older guys ). Kinda cool find for a couple of guys desperate for the tools needed to finish their instruments!

Here's a pic of the machine in table saw and drill press mode.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I just finished up inlaying the position markers on the fretboard. I'm going with wooden dots. You could do this with dowels, but I wanted to avoid the end grain that this would produce. I wanted the grain direction to follow that of the fretboard.

First I used a plug cutter to get the plug shape. I didn't cut all the way through the wood. When you go all the way through, the plug detatches and lodges itself in the plug cutting bit. It is difficult to keep the plug from deforming when this happens.

Edit* I entroduce the shopsmith on the previous page of this thread.

[BigDaddyPoo]

So back to table saw mode...

I ran the block of wood through the table saw to release the plugs. They release suddenly and shoot across the room. To do this you will need some goggles and a friend to act as "spotter". The spotter keeps track of where all the plugs end up.

[BigDaddyPoo]

And back to drill press mode (because I didn't think to do this while the shopsmith was still set up)...

Using a forstner bit that matches my plug size, I drilled a series of flat bottomed holes in the fretboard. These holes come right up to the side edge of the board. Later, I will saw 1/16" off the edge, exposing the dots from the side of the board. This will make the dots visible from the side of the neck yeilding side dot and fretboard markers in one. Kinda ingenious if you ask me (my idea). ;)

[BigDaddyPoo]

I put the plugs in the holes and tested the fit.

[BigDaddyPoo]

And when I confirmed the fit was pretty damn good, I glued and clamped them. Now is a good time to point out that if you ever do inlays like this, make sure you test the fit on scrap wood. I was going to go with 3/8" dots, but my 3/8"forstner bit didn't match my 3/8" plug cutter as well as their 1/2" sisters matched, so I went with the bigger dot.

(By the way: I don't know if these qualify as clamps so I'm withdrawing this entry from "The Most Clamps" competition. I predict complete domination when I glue the fretboard to neck blank since Doc and I have been building up our clamp collection. I think between the two of us we now have close to 30 clamps. Prepare for defeat Brenda! <maniacal laugh>)

That's Doc in the background, cutting out his body shape.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I used a Japanese flush saw ( sometimes called a flat saw or a dowel saw ) to saw the inlays flush to the board. The flush saw is bent down to the board and guided with a tiny bit of pressure from the other hand. If you aren't careful you can gouge into the fretboard. Again test this kind of stuff on scrap.

The end result was alot better than I expected. Usually you have to fill in any gaps around your inlays with wood dust and CA. These plugs all fit perfectly, so no filling is going to be needed. WEEWHOOOOO!

So that's it for this installment. Next week I'll glue the fretboard to the neck and start the fretting process.

[rjgoos]

Edge dots are really, really helpful. Good job, Dan!!!

[TheEclectic]

Edge dots are really, really helpful.

Not to take away from the fine work of BigDaddyPoo, but I agree about edge dots.

The only thing that I do not like about my Megatar is no edge dots! That means that I have to look at the fretboard to see where I am - which goes against the Megatar playing position and playing philosophy.

Even on guitars, I find it far easier to keep oriented on ones that have edge dots than those that have markers on the fretboard, but no edge dots.

I am thankful for the posts of the construction of this tap instrument - please keep the pictures and posts coming!

[traktor]

Edge dots are available on any Megatar model as an option, and perhaps 30% of the instruments we've shipped so far have edge dots. These edge dots exactly mirror the fretboard dots, and are visible from the rear of the neck.

I personally like edge dots for orientation, though playing by *touch* is IMHO the best way to play touchstyle.

[BigDaddyPoo]

I know that I'm not *supposed* to use the dots when I play, but I do. They're especially handy in venues where the monitoring is bad and you can't really hear yourself very well, or when you're getting used to a new instrument. I could probably do without dots on my guitar and bass that I've been playing for more than 10 years, but they're nice for orientation.

By the way my friend Doc is building something that you fingerstyle players and classical dudes may be interested in...A finger style electric. Wider string spacing and a unique body style designed to sit comfortably in the ideal playing position when you sit down and play.

[TheEclectic]

Traktor -

I did not know that Megatars were available with edge dots. I bought mine used, so I got what I got. That is the downside of buying used. The upside is that due to the affordability I am now hooked on tap and have been selling off my guitars to fund my new found passion.

I hope to make my own tap guitars in a few years. I now fantasize about making tap instruments instead of guitars when I retire. Thus my interest in this and similar threads.

BigDaddyPoo -

I really appreciate and enjoy the level of detail in your posts. Having worked in a sign shop in my youth I can relate to many of your challanges. I am not sure why, but I did not start reading this thead until very recently.

That electric by your friend sounds interesting. Being a classical player I have sold several acoustic and electric guitars that had killer tone, but that I could never play well due to the narrow neck. I have always been amazed at how much difference 5/16" in nut width can make.

Also, I try to play without markers and practice as much as I can with my eyes closed. However, when playing live having edge markers can mean the difference between a passable performance and seriously crashing and burning - in moments of insecurity and self doubt edge dots are like brightly shinning beacons on a dark and stormy night. Because of my stage frieght issues I never use my unmarked guitars in public. I added tape and magic marker dots to my Megatar to mark the positions.

...

Sorry to get a little off topic (its the whiskey). I look forward to getting back to the informative regulerly scheduled thread... ;)

[traktor]

Originally posted by TheEclectic
Also, I try to play without markers and practice as much as I can with my eyes closed. However, when playing live having edge markers can mean the difference between a passable performance and seriously crashing and burning - in moments of insecurity and self doubt edge dots are like brightly shinning beacons on a dark and stormy night. Because of my stage frieght issues I never use my unmarked guitars in public. Regarding Stage Fright -- Years ago I decided I wanted to play music in restaurants, but I was very timid about playing in public. So I bought a large top hat, and carried my instrument and a MaxiMouse battery amp over to San Francisco. I plopped myself down in the Fisherman's Wharf area, set out my hat, and played music there. I still felt awkward, but when I was playing badly, the people would quickly leave, lowering my anxiety level. When I played better, they'd stand there, bolstering my confidence. I even got a tip in the hat now and then. It didn't pay for the gas, but we musicians must make sacrifices for our art now and then, right?

Regarding Seriously Crashing and Burning -- When I later found myself playing music in restaurants, I found a technique for handling mongo blunders. For example, sometimes I'd totally lose my place in the music -- I'm lousy at playing by ear and can't memorize worth a darn, so I read to play -- so when I lost my place, or when I let my hands wander into Cloud-Cucoo-Land, then what worked was this: Grin widely with an evil leer, and play a rapid flurry of the most wild, out-of-sync, totally irrelevant notes you can, as if you're really enjoying your wild improvisation. While you're doing this for 2-3 measures worth, pick a place in the music. Pause, and then pick up playing in the music as if nothing had happened. God's truth: As far as I could tell, I don't think they knew.

Regarding the 'frieght' you mentioned inadvertantly -- That reminds me of a little story. It seems somehow oddly relevant. A synchronicity. Perhaps you'd enjoy it, too. You'll find it here:
That Which Drives the World (http://www.bloggard.com/blog/item/399)

[TheEclectic]

Traktor -

Nice stories. Sorry I did not read them until now...

Fate - Freight - Fright. I have had some real howlers where all the words were spelled right, but they were the wrong words. Especially when the E-mail is to a client.

To keep the thread on instrument building - I am going to add ghost midi systems to the Megatar in a few weeks. I ordered the last of the parts today. I will be sure and document the adventure for all to see.

[traktor]

Thanks for your nice words about the micro-stories I write on my weblog, The Adventures of Bloggard (http://www.bloggard.com) (True stories and lies. Wisdom, foolishness, and sometime epiphanies.)

As regards using edge dots, of course you can always buy some of those Avery stick-on dots (yellow would be a good color) and create immediate edge dots. (A strip of ordinary scotch tape over these 'edge dots' would preserve them, for a while.)

And of course, real edge dots can be installed. It requires a tiny drill, a steady hand or a jig, careful measurement, and some edge-dot material from Stew-Mac (http://www.stew-mac.com) . They sent me a recent 'newsletter' with a picture series on one way to do them. Maybe they have those newsletters archived on their site.

[BigDaddyPoo]

It's been a while since I've added to my thread, but I've been pretty busy with the tapper since I'm out of school...I just keep forgetting to bring my camera with me to the shop.

My friend Dachvied and I have been working hard getting our shop set up. We now have most of the bigger power tools needed for guitar building. Jointer, Table Saw, 2 new drill presses and a huge edge sander are almost ready for use with a little tweaking and parts buying.

We've also built two (almost) essential tools. A router Table and a neck Jig.

Here's the router table. We built it out of some nice flat steel framing and 1" thick mdf. The plate is made out of PlexiGlass and the fence is a recycled cabinet door. Everything is square and flat, and super rigid. Here's Doc getting ready to rout his truss rod channel.

[BigDaddyPoo]

Here's the neck jig. It's used to keep the neck flat while doing fret and neck work. If you have a guitar that has already been strung up and you take off the strings to flatten the frets or neck, the neck will tend to bow back. This jig holds the neck in place with 4 screw posts while a strap pulls in the other direction from the body and headstock ends of the guitar. The resulting forces on the neck hold it in place even after you remove the strings.

The nut on the end can be loosend to swivel the entire jig, placing the guitar in a more natural playing position so you can check your progress.

Stewart MacDonald used to sell these for a few hundred dollars. I made mine for about a tenth of that price.

[BigDaddyPoo]

With these two new tools in place, I'm ready for the next few steps on my guitar. If anyone wants details on how to make either the router table or the neck jig, let me know and I'll post some illustrations and plans.

[PhoBucket]

How's this going? Have you sourced the bridge yet?

[Xkribble]

I would be extremely interested to know how you set up your router table ... did you use a regular router ... I actually have one of those!

[><]