New Design - Carved Top Semi - Name Ideas?

[Deed_Poll]

Hello all!

I have been working on this small semi-hollow / hollow design for a friend as an opportunity to try some new ideas and brush up on my carved-top modelling skills.

He wanted something fully symmetrical, and we decided to blend between a sort of '50s Gibson vibe and a more modern PRS-type for the carve character. The body perimeter and proportions are based loosely on averaging out a RH and LH Lyrebird shape (aka the Juniorbird, one of my original designs). I think it strikes a balance between a big round-butted Gibson guitars and more trapezoidal-butted Fender styles. From some angles it has aspects of a double-cut Tele. It took a few iterations and maybe 4 hours of work to get it to where it is and I'm mostly happy with it.

I designed it to fit a Warmoth 24-3/4" scale conversion tiltback neck so that it should leave a minimal fretboard overhang on the body, and sufficient neck angle to meet an ABR-1 bridge. Because I wanted to keep the option of a fully hollow version in future, the ABR-1 seemed like a good choice - I like the way they can energise a carved top with a good break angle in front and behind.

We were originally planning to use some kind of trapeze tailpiece, but settled on a Tele string through anchor design - only moved towards the back of the body, to hopefully emulate some of the overtones and harmonic interplay one gets with a Jazzmaster vibrato. I positioned the string ferrules in such a way that the behind-the-bridge string length should be very close to 1/4 of the speaking scale length of the strings. I will be very eager to hear from him how closely the BTB strings get to EADGBE (only 2 octaves up, of course). I believe the Jazzmaster BTB string length is approximately 1/5 speaking scale length.

This is the first guitar body I will have made with three distinct layers - a separate top, core, and back. I'm chasing a kind of faux edge binding appearance by using dark torrefied maple for the core and pale lightly figured horse chestnut for the top and back (similar to buckeye). The perimeter will be constant thickness for the most part, and will be 32mm thick - 20mm dark core sandwiched between 6mm of the horse chestnut top and back. The top carve depth is 12mm and the back 9mm, so the total thickness in the middle will be 53mm.

As you will see, I have decided to join the back and core together before cutting, so I can treat it very much like a hollow Les Paul once it's ready for the machine. I will route out the hollow cavities in the core/back as a sort of swimming pool, undercut the carve profile in the underside of the top, and then join core / back to the top. Once they are glued, I can treat it almost like a solid body to cut the outside top, back, and perimeter release.

I decided to try incorporating little humps under the toggle switch and tone knob, in order to mount them orthogonal to the main plane. I have had good results using elliptical holes to have them orthogonal to the top carve surface in that location before, but I thought I'd try something a little different. I fear I might be making hassle for myself later in the sanding stage, but we will see - I have taken the precaution of toolpathing a very fine stepover in that location to hopefully minimise any finish sanding and head this off.

Anyway, here is the design:





A screengrab from toolpathing:



The back. Even the "contoured heel" is actually the same depth and size of a standard Fender 4-bolt heel, but fret access isn't really the point on a symmetrical semi. The edge chamfer is 120°, and I will attempt to cut it with a form tool:



Some flamey potential in the horse chestnut - this is taken pre-splitting / bookmatching on the bandsaw:



The back after splitting, planing, gluing and sanding:



And the top:



The core:



And the back mated to the core, to show the "faux binding" contrast. I think it will look sharp!



The back gluing to the core:



That's today's progress! The back / core are currently clamped and gluing, as is the top. They should be ready for final thicknessing on the drum sander tomorrow, and be ready for the CNC.

Wish me luck!

Dan

[Maggieo]

Star-Rite?

[Amon 7.L]

At very first sight, what strikes me the most is the shape of the pickguard. It reminds me of a tie. An elegant tie.
Your design look classy, therefore I'm all for "Classic Tie".


The above pic is just a very rough mock up for a general idea, but I can see the pickguard being etched with custom patterns for each variation of your model and also matched in colour with the headstock.

[Fiddy]

ES-3D

[Telliot]

Black Tie White Noise

[Deed_Poll]

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

Amon, I LOVE what you've done there! It could well be that there is some high class / tuxedo / sartorial crossover which hints at the tie!

Or I could call it the Half Windsor! The fully hollow could be the full Windsor!

Or perhaps some play on a Cravat... Spanish, possibly, in the vein of Tribi9's ES (Electric Spanish?) suggestion?

I think StarRite is an excellent name, but perhaps for a different model. I think anything with f-holes demands a pompous and pretentious name of some kind, like The Ambassador or Consolate or Envoy (I don't know what it is with diplomats, but they all seem to prefer Jazzboxes!)

More progress photos coming very soon! The insides have now all been cut on the machine, I'm just cleaning up the insides a little before I entomb those surfaces.

Cheers!

[marqueemoon]

I like Envoy a lot. Cool design.

[parry]

...I could call it the Half Windsor! The fully hollow could be the full Windsor!

So good.

[Deed_Poll]

Ok, progress pics!

Firstly, the top after machining front and underside:





You can see some of the chalky / bobbly surface (though I did push up the contrast to show it, in person it's not as bad).

That was before a bit of light sanding just to remove any furry bits that might be tempted to come detached and dust up the cavity once the guitar is done. It wasn't a full cosmetic job, because this back surface won't be visible. I did that the opportunity to sand the edges of the f-holes fairly nice and smooth while it's easy to hold a strip of sandpaper tight from both sides - much easier than shaping the edge from just the front side when the cavity is entombed.



The worst of the bobbly surface in the back / core hollow cavity. It's curious - the horse chestnut planed beautifully, whereas this piece of roasted maple was giving me no end of problems on the planer with its birdseyes and little knotty features. But today on the CNC, the roles were reversed! Fortunately this surface texture was easy to smooth off just with a little hand sanding.



I wiped a little isopropyl alcohol on the edge to get an idea of how the faux edge binding contrast would present under a finish, and I am very happy with the results! The HC stays milky and smooth, whilst the roasted maple goes even darker than its colour would suggest when dry. I have often found that roasted woods darken even a few shades more than most other woods when wet / under finish.



The back / core off the machine. The only operations were the hollow cavities and reference peg holes in opposite corners to align top to back. I'm going to leave the horizontal raster end mill tooling marks, it has a sort of kitsch faux-flame effect. I edged the cavities with a ball nose to give a little more structural strength on the inside edges, a similar idea to purfling I suppose, albeit lazy purfling!



The top and back aligned on their pegs as a final check before gluing and clamping. It all looks good and the centrelines / join lines appear to line up well at the butt end. The overhang is making it harder to tell at the neck end, so I guess I'll find out tomorrow!



All glued up and in the clamps, she's a heavy girl! I really need to come up with a more bespoke solution for this kind of pancake gluing operation - I'm picturing some kind of wall-mounted hanger.

Tomorrow I'll take her out, check the faces are still straight and planar, and move on to cutting the exterior.

Thanks for reading!

Dan

[Gordon]

Or perhaps some play on a Cravat... Spanish, possibly, in the vein of Tribi9's ES (Electric Spanish?) suggestion?

Tie in Spanish is Corbata. So I suggest British Corbata. Or even Corbatie. (which actually sounds eerily close to the French "corps bataille", meaning "body battle") (which in turns is "batalla corporal" in Spanish; it's not a diplomat, but an army rank isn't that far!)

[Shadoweclipse13]

That is a gorgeous design!!!

We were originally planning to use some kind of trapeze tailpiece, but settled on a Tele string through anchor design - only moved towards the back of the body, to hopefully emulate some of the overtones and harmonic interplay one gets with a Jazzmaster vibrato. I positioned the string ferrules in such a way that the behind-the-bridge string length should be very close to 1/4 of the speaking scale length of the strings.

I LOVE the idea of using a Tele bridge as a tailpiece. If I'm not mistaken, since you're using a proper bridge closer to the pickups, you could completely get rid of the saddles on the Tele bridge, unless you want to be able to intonate/tune them for the behind-the-strings stuff. If you aren't, and you still want something, you could add a simple brass rod to attach to the Tele bridge using 2 screws or something like that.

Or I could call it the Half Windsor! The fully hollow could be the full Windsor!

...

I think anything with f-holes demands a pompous and pretentious name of some kind, like The Ambassador or Consolate or Envoy (I don't know what it is with diplomats, but they all seem to prefer Jazzboxes!)

I love these ideas. The Windsor (possibly adding the "half" or "full" prefixes) is my favorite name idea so far. You could do variations for it as well: southern American/Texan themed called the Bolo, or a hipster type called the Ascot. I also really like Gordon's suggestion of Corbata

[Gordon]

The Windsor (possibly adding the "half" or "full" prefixes) is my favorite name idea so far.

Epiphone already had a semi-hollow called the Windsor, they may still own the name.

http://www.guitarhq.com/windsor.html

[Shadoweclipse13]

That's too bad. Good catch though Gordon. I'd never heard of it

[Deed_Poll]

Ah, good names all, folks! Ties and knots seem to be a pretty abundant source of potential model names, maybe that will be my theme moving forward! Haha

Cheers for your translation skills, Gordon! Very interesting. I like Corbata a lot, perhaps as a suffix like 'Cabronita'?

If Windsor's taken, I suppose I could settle for Mountbatten!

Thanks for the kind words J, the idea isn't actually to use a full Tele bridge plate or saddles, but just to use the Tele anchors in the back of the body and use the generic string through top ferrules from Stew Mac to have them poke out individually.

It's a good job too, because for whatever reason the horse chestnut was doing the crumbly thing again today and one of the worst areas were the string through holes - it looks for all the world as if they are not straight, but it's just the flaking is affecting different sides of each one. I hope to just very gently chamfer the edge of each one to tidy them up, and the top ferrules should centre properly and cover them.

Anyway here it is off the machine! Oh wait... Where did it go?



Oh, there it is!





The top carve came out reasonably well, but the chalky / crumbly stuff is there - and is so weirdly distributed to boot, always on a certain angle but it seems a very random angle that shouldn't have presented a problem...

I'm glad I used a much closer stepover, sanding this thing is / has been a complete pain as it is! It sands quite easily, but clogs up the paper in no time flat. I will certainly use maple next time! This wood is attractive and seems to work well some of the time, but it feels like it would always be pulling against traditional hardwoods.





The back presented bigger issues... The point at the tip of my 120° V-bit leaves a horrible gouge, so I had / have a ton of careful sanding / scraping back of the chamfer to do, and that needs to be constantly balanced by carefully bringing back the perimeter edge to keep the 'binding' a constant thickness! Nightmare!

There was also lots of the chalky rubbish exactly where I didn't want it, in the cleft of the chamfer / contoured heel. I think I will have no choice but to fill it, but I'll see where sanding might get me after that.

It is tricky and time consuming work, but with patience the end result should be decent.

Here it is mated to the neck:



As far as the design / concept, I am extremely pleased with the overall look and shape of the thing in person, and I think the thick body / thin sides gives it quite a unique feel. Upper fret access is much better than I expected. I think this one might have potential if I can iron out a few little issues!

The carve still needs a lot of work to make it smooth, but early signs are good. I like how the knob / switch humps, being flat and planar, accentuate the sculptural qualities of the f-holes which are very three-dimensional.

Lots more sanding to do, and a pickguard still to cut!

Thanks to all of you for joining in

Dan

[Deed_Poll]

I have about 4 hours of sanding invested in this now!

There are still some stubborn, ghostly tooling marks, and I will have to give all the edges some attention tomorrow, then I think I can call the top done.

The back and sides still need a lot of work over the next couple of days.















I wiped on a little isopropyl alcohol in places to bring out the figure a little for the following pictures. Now the surface is down to 240 grit, I can get a much better idea how the finished piece will look.







I have actually quite enjoyed sanding around the details by hand, including the control bumps! The horse chestnut machined roughly, but sands quite happily. Progress has been steady.

I improvised a concave sanding pad / tool by wrapping some foam padding around a stubby screwdriver handle, cutting a kind of propellor shape from sandpaper, and wrapping this around the end and sides. I fixed it in place with rubber bands. Then I put the contraption in a power drill chuck, and used it as a kind of inflatable bowl sander. It worked well, and has probably already saved me a couple of hours!

Maybe I'll make a separate thread about that when I have a good, reliable design.

Cheers!