Making an electric guitar (#1)

For the handle, I started by making a tool allowing me to properly make the knockout for the Truss rod. It's relatively simple to do: a plate of plywood on lacquer I fix two aluminum angles high enough to serve as a guide for the router. The two angles are drilled at each end to allow two nuts and bolts to be inserted to hold the piece of wood in place.

Once the tracing is done and the installation is done, all you have to do is make the knockout with a 6mm milling cutter. I opted for a Music Man type truss rod, with an adjustment wheel at the bottom of the neck. This model seemed easier to install than the models used on Fenders. This type of Truss requires a little machining of the cavity housing it and the fingerboard as well. In fact, if the key protrudes from the neck (22 frets or more), make a small cutout at the bottom of the key. The cavity housing the handle in the body must also be machined to leave room for the adjustment wheel.

Once the knockout was made and adjusted, I then made the cut with my Jazzmaster template (I wanted a larger head than the standard Strat) by reversing it. The cutting of the handle is done in the same way as for the body, with the template, which must be placed very precisely so that the cutout of the Truss rod is in the center.

As for the fingerboard, I used a rosewood fingerboard already slotted to a scale of 648mm. In fact, I was not properly equipped to do this slotting and I found that there were already a lot of delicate operations to carry out. This seemed essential to me, so I took an already machined key. However, I had to glue the fingerboard, put it on the radius, make the marks, the fretting, install the nut and form the back of the neck. Operations are not always as simple and obvious as they seem, the most difficult is not necessarily what we think. Sculpting or forming the back of the handle, for example, was unexpectedly an operation that was not only very pleasant to carry out but also much less difficult than I expected.

12″ is exactly 304.8mm, which corresponds to the radius of the wraparound easel I will be using. This operation was not so easy to carry out. I started confidently with my 12-inch radius block and 80-grit sandpaper. Thinking that it would be done by itself, I went straight, checking from time to time but not enough. I ended up with a fingerboard with an offset radius, particularly at the bottom of the neck. So I had to sand a lot more than planned, and deepen the slotting of the frets, which I wasn't equipped for! So I bought a special saw to resume slotting.

In order to personalize the guitar a little more, I wanted to make a small offset in the thickness of the headstock, a sort of unchecking. So I made a template so I could make the cut cleanly with the router. The idea being to paint the part with the mechanics and leave the wood visible on the thinner part.

There was still a little work left on the body: making the knockouts for the P90 pickups as well as the cavity for the electronics. It was also necessary to drill the holes for the inserts for fixing the wraparound bridge that I got from the luthier DasViken and manufactured by San Lorenzo. And then darken, sand, sand… to apply the finish.

This is where it gets tricky… I wanted a natural finish with a simple wood-colored stain and linseed oil. To tell the truth, I knew absolutely nothing about wood finishing, so I did a few tests, which turned out to be catastrophic! I tried different shades which went very poorly with the alder. It was obviously necessary to let it dry and then sand each time and the more I advanced, the more disastrous the result was... So I went back on my initial ambitions and applied a nitro-cellulose primer and Ocean Turquoise paint. metallic. It’s just a matter of time for the natural finish! The result this time was there, despite the difficulties of spray painting with a workshop temperature of around 10°C.

The microphones have a special place since I had already been winding my own microphones for a few months when I started this project. It was therefore obvious that I was going to make my microphones and the opportunity was perfect for testing. So I wound two P90 pickups: one overwound to the extreme with 44AWG copper wire with two Alnico 9 Alnico 4 magnets for the neck pickup.

After about a week of real work, not counting the waiting periods for receiving tools, drying and other delays, the result is there, well above my expectations and quite different from what I had planned at the time. base. The shape/configuration specifications are respected but the finish and the pickguard are different from what I had expected. The initial pickguard, also in steel, that I had laser cut by a local company will be installed on another Charger S, with a natural finish this time. The Charger will be a guitar model that I will offer when the professional guitar manufacturing activity is launched.