Metal Appendages...

Time to work on the appendages.
Here we have the beginnings of the top horn and the arm rest bracket. Wood is going to be sparse on this one as I do not have a lot burl/bloodwood/mahogany scrap left. I want the arm rest adjustable but not too worried about the strap horn yet. I guess I should design an adjusting system to use on each appendage. The blue tape is to protect the finish and and make it easier to draw on.

First idea was to moc the arm rest out in MDF. It was a good idea as it gave mean idea what to do with the funn shaped wood scrap.


On to the wood for the strap horn. I used the router tale to route a slot in a piece of scrap. This made it easy to fit on the .25" aluminum.

Next up I covered the ack of the bracket with some scrap burl to give myself a place to recess the screws into. Trimmed it up.

Like so

Still have to clean up some curves but you get the idea.




I ended up rotating the bracket for the arm rest as I had it positioned way to far forward. I also added another support to help with the adjustment. The shape is a function of the scrap I will probably work something else out for future guitars.






No entirely happy with it yet but it is getting there.

Off the rails...

We are now off the rails. I have completely derailed myself at this point. I am not even sure what I am trying to accomplish. The rules are scraps only. Scrap aluminium, scrap neck, scrap wood from the bin. No production quality bits will be harmed in this build. I want something modern. Metal and wood.
I have been working in CAD on this for a few months but it is just not looking like I want it to so lets just build one and adapt the CAD to the model.
Starting with some wood templates for the headstock design. I know this is not a superior design but I want to see what the issues will be before I redesign it.


For now this is the attachment system. This donor neck did not have enough wood to do anything else.

As usual trussrod placement is the real issue. In the future I think I would like to have some tilt to the headstock. Since I am using 1/4" plate there is not a lot of room to mess around.

String path is going to be an issue. I think I can get around it once I have it closer to string ready. Also threading 6061 is a pain in the arse. Without oil and patience it is impossible to get solid threads. So you will see a lot of nuts in this build. I will deal with the threading later.

.25" 6061 is not deep enough for normal tuners so we will graft some wood to the back of the headstock. As you can see the grain runout is horrible on this piece. However we don't care as it is now epoxied to a piece of 6061.

Neck mounting system will be different. I am going to use a bolt on to begin with. This is because I am experimenting and several pieces might need to be changed. I don't want to have to rebuild the neck everytime.


Time to layout the main section. Rather than experiment in 6061 (I only have one piece that will work for this) I will use mdf to get the layout down. This is where I miss the CAD/CNC. Hate laying all this out by hand.
Before you say anything the brackets that stick out and the plates you see are not formed yet. They are hopefully big enough to cut into proper shapes though. Since they will be replaceable I just need the holes lined up right for now.

We are farther along now.

Sorry about the blurry pics.

This is my favorite shot right now. Knowing I can build the neck out of a single piece of timber that is under .75" thick makes me happy. No heel no mess.