• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Four Heirlooms - Maybe Seven Now!!

What a lovely example of the good things that can happen from sharing what we do online - those offcuts from Nick's beautiful table have found their perfect new home!
 
Laminating another two necks from the Sycamore offcuts.

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Not forgetting to turn one half end over end to even out the pull of the grain.

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And then make use of the offcuts' offcuts! (Did I get that apostrophe in the right place?)

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Once they've been through the drum sander thickness, they'll make a pair of instrument sides.
 
Just look at that ripple!

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I know they look like machine planing flaws, but I can assure you, they are ripple figure in the grain.


I've just calculated and think I have enough for a third neck and body.
 
Go for it Malc. Lovely wood. I once bought a guitar (CS strat - Mark has fondled it) because it had a birds eye maple neck that was perfect. It was second hand and the guy selling it had just brought it into a dealer and I did a side deal there and then. Yours will look stunning but you now need to get the finishing level to 11 out of 10 :ROFLMAO:
 
Even more. 2C57580A-33E9-4CF4-B242-35D71AF64E03_1_201_a.jpeg


Pairs of bookmatched sides drumsanded to 1.5mm thickness with some spares in case of breakages while bending.
 
Turning the Sycamore laminated neck blanks into rough neck shapes.

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Gluing that scarf angle is tricky! Cutting the neck, plus tenon, to length, then building up the heel.

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Three neck blanks built up dry.

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It is tricky getting those centre stripes aligned. My joinery isn't perfect so I made some shims with masking tape to get them to line up. Clamping is a bit tricky, too.


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Seven neck blanks, marked out with their side template but still not ready for the CNC machine.

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Veneers are still to be glued to the front and backs of the headstocks, and the back ones have to be heat bent round that arc.
 
Malc, how long does the CNC take to mill a neck?
I'm the wrong person to ask, Duke. I only program my CNC just to machine the headstock shape, and my signature logo and any other inlays I might include in the headstock veneer.

The rest of the neck, I machine to rough shape and then hand carve to sanding finish.

While my machine might just be able to carve a neck, I haven't mastered the 3D programming to create the toolpaths to machine such a shape.

But, I really enjoy the hand carving and finishing of the neck. I find there is a satisfaction of achieving the heel shape and neck shape using hand tools and abrasives.
 
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