McKnight Guitars - Olive wood / Redwood siblings - Page 10

Neil K Walk · #**136** 02-05-2016, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lizzard

It is salvageable... There's just a wood grill and a chicken involved now.

Uhhhh....I was under the impression they were vegetarians.

lizzard · #**137** 02-05-2016, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwakatak

Uhhhh....I was under the impression they were vegetarians.

Well, Chickens do eat vegetables!

Fine then perhaps some seasoned vegetable medley of winter squash, onions and HOT peppers! Perhaps served with a yogurt sauce and some fresh naan.

Better?

Tim McKnight · #**138** 02-05-2016, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wood Knot

Tell us what happened, Tim...

Wellllllll, Mr. Murphy came to visit and I wasn't paying attention to him. While I was sanding the bottom of the FB, on my belt sander evidently I wasn't holding onto it firmly enough, so it decided to go airborne into the wall. When it hit the floor it was in two pieces, arrrrgggghhh! Thanks a lot Murphy.

Hey I gotta blame someone....

iim7V7IM7 · #**139** 02-05-2016, 07:43 PM

F = MA

M may indeed stand for "Murphy"...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim McKnight

Wellllllll, Mr. Murphy came to visit and I wasn't paying attention to him. While I was sanding the bottom of the FB, on my belt sander evidently I wasn't holding onto it firmly enough, so it decided to go airborne into the wall. When it hit the floor it was in two pieces, arrrrgggghhh! Thanks a lot Murphy.

Hey I gotta blame someone....

Tim McKnight · #**140** 02-08-2016, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iim7V7IM7

F = MA

M may indeed stand for "Murphy"...

Hah, good one Bob. Now I know why the [A]cceleration was so greatly amplified. I forgot to multiply it by [M]urphy. Duh

Tim McKnight · #**141** 02-08-2016, 08:46 AM

OK its time to trim out one of the peg heads. Routing the purfling and binding channels for the peg head:

Close up view:

No its not a Japaneses Pagoda...

Purflings trimmed flush with the edges of the peghead:

Marking the miters:

Lots of scary sharp chisels and knives.

The end result:

j. Kinnaird · #**142** 02-08-2016, 09:16 AM

Very nice. I especially like your ledge cutting fixture for he peghead.

Tim McKnight · #**143** 02-08-2016, 10:48 AM

Thanks John,

Its just one of those quickie tools that we often slap together on the spur of the moment and 25 years later they are still satisfying the need. I needed a small router table and 10 minutes later it was born. Its been dedicated to cutting peg head bindings channels ever since.

Tim McKnight · #**144** 02-10-2016, 10:50 AM

Time to work on the new fangled dovetail hole where the neck attached.

Joel Teel · #**145** 02-10-2016, 12:33 PM

So Tim,
Tell me if I'm seeing this correctly...

It appears as if you mortised your neck block prior to installing it...so the notch that you cut into the body simply gave you access to this mortise for your routers guide bushing to follow while routing the mortise into the body of the guitar...?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim McKnight

Time to work on the new fangled dovetail hole where the neck attached.

lizzard · #**146** 02-11-2016, 08:03 AM

Tim,

I love your "old-school" approach. This is going to be a marvelous piece of luthierie.

Any more of that Olive?

Chris

Tim McKnight · #**147** 02-11-2016, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wood Knot

So Tim,
Tell me if I'm seeing this correctly...

It appears as if you mortised your neck block prior to installing it...so the notch that you cut into the body simply gave you access to this mortise for your routers guide bushing to follow while routing the mortise into the body of the guitar...?

Yes, your assumptions are correct. I laminate my own neck and tail blocks and pre-machine the mortise into the neck blocks before its glued to the body. After the body is bound, I expose the mortise with a back saw and then flush rout the sides with the neck block's mortise. Lastly I open up the mortise in the top side of the block, in the same manner, to make room for the neck's truss rod.

Some builders cut the mortise or dove tail into the body after its bound and sanded. That method requires a large and specialized jig, clamped to the body or the body clamped into an even larger jig to guide the router. Either method yields the same result but I just choose to do it this way. When I am making the neck and tail blocks, its just more efficient for me to do a run of 50 blocks at a time. Much of our building time is wasted in "machine or jig set up time". If you choose to cut the mortise after the body is built then you must use the jig for each individual guitar body. Once I am set up to run 50 blocks I only have one set up instead of 50. To me that is a huge time savings.

Tim McKnight · #**148** 02-11-2016, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lizzard

Tim,

I love your "old-school" approach. This is going to be a marvelous piece of luthierie.

Any more of that Olive?

Chris

Thanks for the compliments Chris. As a matter of fact there are a couple more sets of this Olive wood left in my stash. Perhaps we need to talk?

I wish you could smell this olive wood in person. Its got a heavenly aroma!

Tim McKnight · #**149** 02-12-2016, 10:59 AM

Locating the saddle center, based on the fret boards scale length. This is measured from the end of the fret board or leading edge of the nut:

I tape a plastic shim, with its leading edge, at the exact center-line of the saddle at the small e string. This location must also include factoring in the correct compensation for each unique customer's string attack:

A straight edge is held on top of the plastic shim at the saddle location and on the face of the neck. This plane establishes one of the angles for the neck:

I sand wood off of the cheeks of the neck to adjust the fore and aft as well as the side to side alignment angle(s) of the neck:

Then I check the angle(s) again and again and again and again... This process is often repeated multiple times until all of the angles are perfect with NO exceptions. This is one of the most important steps in the guitar making process. If the neck angles aren't perfect it will affect the way the guitar plays and could limit the useful life of the top. Too much back angle on the neck and the saddle will be too high and exert too much downward force on the top and the leverage will stress the top, bracing, bridge and saddle. This could cause the top to deform in front of and behind the bridge. Too little angle on the neck and the saddle will be too low reducing the downward force on the top. If the side to side angles are off then the strings may not run true to the bridge:

rogthefrog · #**150** 02-12-2016, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim McKnight

Yes, your assumptions are correct. I laminate my own neck and tail blocks and pre-machine the mortise into the neck blocks before its glued to the body. After the body is bound, I expose the mortise with a back saw and then flush rout the sides with the neck block's mortise. Lastly I open up the mortise in the top side of the block, in the same manner, to make room for the neck's truss rod.

Some builders cut the mortise or dove tail into the body after its bound and sanded. That method requires a large and specialized jig, clamped to the body or the body clamped into an even larger jig to guide the router. Either method yields the same result but I just choose to do it this way. When I am making the neck and tail blocks, its just more efficient for me to do a run of 50 blocks at a time. Much of our building time is wasted in "machine or jig set up time". If you choose to cut the mortise after the body is built then you must use the jig for each individual guitar body. Once I am set up to run 50 blocks I only have one set up instead of 50. To me that is a huge time savings.

And here I was marveling that you were free handing the neck joint mortise. Pre-mortising the neck block sure makes a lot more sense