Ok, replacement sander belts have arrived, so, a little more work on the neck.....

Fingerboard......  Now ebony traditionally is black, but it's nearly always STAINED to actually make it black.  this blank is solid, but really lightly coloured.

a little tickle with the sander and it's really pretty.  I MAY stain it, I may leave it like this......

 

then a handy website calculates the fret spacing for a 430mm scale length......

 OK, this neck.......

pull the frets first.  they really were all over the show!

Then, sanding off the nasty fret slots first.  A purist would, of course, have a beautifully sharp jointing plane.

I've got a belt sander!

a guideline to aim for.......

and off we go!

surprised to see that the marker dots are actually inlays and not just paint......

sadly, when I'd got this far, the sander belt ripped so I'm stuck until the replacement arrives in the post.  

Winter project 2020

 Too early for a winter project?  well this year has already lasted about 32 months so I don't care!

I was considering building a valve amp from a kit, but then I remembered that I'd been given this little beast.........

so.... its a mini electric guitar.  with a built in amplifier and speaker.

and, I've just realised, it's the same colour as my last winter project started off!  and, like last year, 

THIS WILL CHANGE!!!!

OK, so the scale length is 17", which means its the same as capo7 on my strat.

good points?

well, there are no serious dings

the bridge, strap buttons, jack and jack plate, neck plate and knob are all reusable.

bad points.

the colour, clearly, but that was always going to be going.

the tuners are really nasty open cog things.

the neck is really chunky for such a small instrument and there is no truss rod.

and the frets are in the wrong places!

yes, after measuring carefully, and making a template for 17" scale, the red dots show where the frets SHOULD be

ho hum!

so the plan.

remove the frets, plane down the fingerboard and either cut new fret slots in the front of the neck, or go further, route a truss rod slot, add a truss rod and the top it with a rosewood or ebony fingerboard.

fill that speaker cavity, re-rout for a humbucker, use the switch hole as a coil split and the single knob can be concentric volume an tone.

and paint it a more sensible colour.

no hurry, so....... here we go!

under saddle piexo, strapjack preamp and bone saddle in a Yamaha 12 string

First venture into video production!

Preamp time........

OK, battery access.  no fiddly velcro bags like some folk have in their acoustics, proper battery box thank you very much.

measure twice, cut once, right?

rough cut with the dremel

tidy with a stanley knife

and there it goes.

Artec preamp.  Not the VERY cheapest on the internet, but close......

but they WORK! 

then cut the backplate to size.....

still need a few black screws to hold the battery box onto the backplate, but it's VERY nearly done!

Bridge placement.......

Using my patented handydandy temporary tailpiece.....run two strings the length of the guitar and move the bridge around until the octave fretted note is the same as the 12th fret harmonic.  digital tuner on the phone is more accurate than my ears......

once the bridge is in the right place, cut round it with a sharp knife.....

somebody scratched my guitar!!

then, with a chisel, remove the paint down to bare wood.  wood glue sticks wood, not paint!

then glue it in place.  wipe off any squeeze out glue with a damp tissue.

once it's dry, drill on through the string holes

then sand the saddle to bring it down to height.

drill a hole for the piezo cable and drop it in

still a bunch of tidying, but its starting to look like a guitar!

We all know that ebony isn't actually Jet black, right?

it needs dyed.  Ive tried a bunch of dyes over the years and the best bank for buck is......

kids shoe scuff cover.

cheap, effective easy to find in the supermarket and comes with a handy applicator.

don't get it on any surfaces that need to be glued though......

Bridgework......

basically, back to the belt sander and shape things......

Can you use a sander to carve?

yes!

a straight edge..... yes, it's the aluminium frame from a velux window blind.  Laying on the frets it gives a good idea of the height that the saddle will need to be......

and roughly where it'll end up......

Bridgework.

My first attempt at precision stuff since I retired from teaching technology and had to give up access to all those lovely big tools.......

So, cutting the slot for the saddle, rather than a milling machine weighing in at about 2 tonnes, I dug out the plunge router attachment for my Dremel.  

The bridge is going to be thin.  like electric guitar thin, so I'm using an ebony fingerboard blank.  (I sell these on eBay..... Have a look!)

To get the incline for the slot, I've clamped another fingerboard blank alongside at a slight angle.  

First pass at about 2mm deep.  so far, so good.........

Of course, before cutting double check depths etc so the cutter doesn't go right through.

And check that the cutter is tight in the chuck so it doesn't wander downwards.

See the slot to the left?  that's what happened there!  Thankfully a fingerboard is really big in comparison with the bridge I want so I moved a couple of cm in and started again.  Pic shows drilling the string guide holes.  

cutting the bridge out from the fingerboard blank

And here it is.  Perfect?  No.  Good enough to sand and see if I can get it ready to fit?  Yes!

Considering it was all done freehand I'm pleased.  

lots of sanding the be done before the next step.

Much filling and sanding (with the belt sander that my wonderful wife got me for my birthday)

Then several coats of primer, black metallic paint and clear coat

Perfect? 

No, of course not.  I haven't got the patience (or the skills) for perfect, but even with a clearly "done at home" paint job, its still a lot prettier than the vile pink colour that it was originally!