Slow build log - not much defined on this one yet

[Eric Baack]

Got some work done on the fretboard. This one is getting diamond inlays on a 24 fret piece of pau ferro.

[Dan Smith]

Looking really great!

[Eric Baack]

well, photobucket dumped the pictures for some reason....

here they are again

[Eric Baack]

The neck is a bit further along now...

[Gordon Bellerose]

Did you rout the inlay pockets with your CNC?

[Eric Baack]

yeah, it made them about .050" small so I had to open them up with a blade but otherwise it did well. Some reinforcement of my gantry should improve that some. A C-channel on the back of it will get rid of a lot of the flex and some reinforcements of the side plates will help too.

I also radiused and cut the outline of the board with the CNC. Sometime I want to get a few .024" bits and try cutting the slots with it as well.

[Eric Baack]

Got the major parts all glued up. I should have put the side position markers in first though as some of the epoxy I had to glue the fretboard on got into those so they will have to be drilled out again. Some brown and amber dye powder has been ordered from LMII. I do like their powdered dyes and they are very reasonably priced too

going to have to sand back some of the epoxy that leaked out from glue up. I was a bit too generous with it. Guess that is better then not enough!

It has a nice tap tone and feels good and solid everywhere.

[Eric Baack]

A couple of pictures....

[Dan Smith]

Ultra-nice Eric!

[Eric Baack]

MOP side dots in and some extra epoxy scraped away Now some rasp work and a BUNCH of sanding to do.

[Eric Baack]

things move along a bit slowly on this when I'm busy with work! got a few activities going on for the kids too. Just a bit of work with a round file today to clean some machining marks. and pulled the spindle sander out so I can start doing a bit of work with that as well. Hopefully I'll start getting some hardware for it soon.

[Eric Baack]

Did a bit more sanding, drilled the hole for the jack and a hole from the control cavity to the pickups, opened up the pickup pockets a bit, drilled out knob and tuner holes to size... I need to clean up fret ends, drill holes for the bridge, and do a bunch more sanding, plus level frets, finish up the nut then apply dye along with a myriad of other tasks...

Here it is with some of the hardware installed

[Dan Smith]

Pretty sexy Eric!
Looking forward to seeing the finish.
Dan

[Bob Francis]

That is really looking nice EB!

[rob bowen]

Wow, really great looking guitar.

[Eric Baack]

Thanks

It has a couple of things to patch up, then sand, then apply the dye. I cut the control cavity cover out to match the contour of the guitar last week then thicknessed it a bit and touched up the control cavity to match it. I should probably finish up a project for the wife before I do much more on it though :p

[Eric Baack]

I'll be on to hand sanding next then the first bit of dye. Got the string ferrules installed and need to work on the nut as well.

[Eric Baack]

ready for the first step of dye

sanded to 220 for the bulk of the instrument and to 400 on the end grain areas

[Eric Baack]

Got the first dye in. Going to sand back and apply amber, then decide if I want to do a burst or not

[Eric Baack]

I found out that the dark dye and sanding back can find any imperfections in your sanding work from prior to dye application... I evidently didn't sand enough to get the machining marks out and had to sand pretty deep to get those out so I'll be re-applying the dark dye and sanding back again after I get it cleaned up. More work, but that will make it right.

Next time the finish passes with the CNC will be much more fine. It's a lot easier to let the automated machine do the bulk of the tedious work