Guitar Build 2017!

Amana RadarDome? I have a large microwave by todays standards, and no way in hell would a fretboard fitidn_smilie


??? I dunno. Looks like a regular microwave to me.

Anyway, I thought I had some pickups scored but I missed the bid. :(

BTW, if anybody has pickups for sale, let me know.

I did, however, locate a good headstock faceplate.
It has a little curl. It's wacky looking. I like it.
The angle of the grain follows the headstock taper almost exactly.

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I had been debating making a neck without a truss rod but I talked myself out of it. Just ordered a Gotoh (Martin style) two way rod.
Tonight I'm gonna work on the new set neck blank. I figured with the neck glue in place, I'm not gonna take chances.
 
I showed the "new" board I found the other day. I been working on it a bit and it's talking to me. :grin:
It says "Junior! I wanna be a Junior!"
So who am I to argue with talking wood?
It even had a name for itself. It's The Rambler.

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And three new slices to make a blank for a set neck with tilted headstock.
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Here's a shot of the top dry. The back hasn't been planed at all. It has machine marks from the mill in it.



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The three neck boards.
The two fat ones on the right, if you'll notice, are two halves of a wider piece.
 
Well, actually they are 2/3 of an even wider board. The third will be used to make a 2" strip to make the body wide enough. I'll get, hopefully, 11" wide from the one board, so I'll have to add 2".

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And the pickup shell game to make this a Junior is complete.
I have a mini humbucker on the way courtesy of @PunkKitty that will go in the bridge position of the white guitar.

My big badass Antiquity p90 with nickel cover will go on the Rambler. That pickup is good enough to carry a whole guitar by itself.
 
New truss rod day!
I like this one because of the steel U channel. Made by Gotoh and appears to be very good quality.
And definitely two way. I see Martin style rods advertised as either single or double. It seems the aluminum channel models are one way whereas the Gotoh uses a steel channel and is indeed double action.

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Here's one of my cheats.
I need the headstock plate and control cavity cover to be under 1/8" thick but the board I cut them from is 1/2" thick.
My planer will go down to 1/4".

So, I glue my parts pieces onto a larger 1/2" thick board and run the whole assembly through and I can take em down as thin as I want.

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The down side is that your pieces are running through the planer the same way on the same face on every pass so the planer snipe gets amplified after a while, which then requires much sanding to level out.
So, I prep the side I want to be the outside face first, then glue the pieces down with the back side up. That way, any planer marks I can't completely get out will be out of sight.
Gotta take care to use but a few tiny drops of glue, also, or the boards will never come apart again. :embarrassed:
Don't ask me how I learned how much glue is too much glue...
 
Here's the main body wood after planing. This board was almost too much for my portable unit to handle.

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That's gonna look fucking killer.
 
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