What Your Momma Never Told You About Making Guitars
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- čas přidán 28. 11. 2022
- There are a lot of secrets to making a guitar. Let's try to get some of them out in the open so we can learn together. Share your secrets in the comments below. If you would like to help support my channel and get something cool in return, please consider the following:
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Building Electric Guitars by Martin Koch: amzn.to/3irK2kk - Jak na to + styl
*Don't bother finish sanding until you are ready to put the finish on. You'll just have to do it again.
*Learning and optimizing order of operations for your particular process is critical in saving time and effort, changing what would take months into taking just days to a couple of weeks.
*On a bolt on, level your fets with the neck bolted on to the body. It is very subtle but can make a real difference in playability and feel.
*After final assembly of a guitar, give it at least a day or two to 'settle in' as the wood gets used to be screwed, clamped, bolted, and under tension, then do fine tuning adjustment and setup.
*CNC guitars are not real guitars because they don't have a mojo soul tone ghost. 😜
*90% of how a guitar plays and feels is in the last 10% of work. Mistakes in the first 90% are obviously just wrong, but tiny mistakes after that might be easy to miss and take away from the overal feel and playability of the instrument.
*Just like the classic restaurant saying "customers eat with their eyes first", so too with instruments. The appearance will determine if someone will even give it a chance to be an excellent playing and sounding instrument.
My momma never told me anything about guitars. I played percussion and couldn’t hear her anyway.
I'm in that transition phase now of trying to get the cnc to do what I want. I have built over 10 guitars with hand power tools. I would not say I've mastered that but I can definitely get it done.
As a fun project I made myself a cnc. It works! That I thought was miraculous! I run it with mach 3 processing the gcode.
But getting it to cut what I need to make instruments is quite an ordeal. And learning the software is a nightmare. I'm not a teenager with nothing better to do but learn things like that any more so it's quite a challenge to design and cut guitars on the cnc. The struggle is real on that. ...
But I'm getting there.
Nice haircut!! I never knew that if you don’t keep a radius sanding block perfectly straight, you end up with a tighter radius than you wanted.
What haircut? I haven’t cut my hair in months.
Ahh! Man bun! I see it now! 😂
How to get the Blackest black....Use Archival Ink. Small or large area, repairs and it dries very quickly. I use Speedball myself but there are several good ones out there. 2 to 3 coats. Do not sand, if you do, keep it light and then clear coat. A small amount goes a long way, and It adheres well to many things because the ink has shellac in it.
I learned after about 3 days of trouble shooting to not put shielding paint in my switch cavities on a LP style build, not sure why I put it in there in the first place. No matter how I did the wiring or changed it always sounded "muted". Turns out the issue was a part of the switch was just touching the side wall of the cavity and grounding itself. I scrapped away the shielding paint and re installed the switch and bingo everything was working fine again.
How about uneven neck relief. I purchased my first guitar with an ebony fretboard. I have built a few guitars and always stayed away from ebony because of the complications. This new guitar guitar has ebony fretboard and uneven relief causing fret buzz on the 2 lower strings. I felt my setup was perfect and could not understand it. THEN, I eyed up and looked down both edges of the neck. The high E side had what I would call a perfect U sweep. The Low E side was basically flat with a slight bend on the 3/4th fret area. I called a a good guitar tech friend from years back and explained the problem. His first question was, "is the fretboard ebony". He said he has mostly seen this problem in necks with ebony fretboards. He said he fixes it by exercising/breaking the neck to bend more evenly and in the right place. He said it would be best to do this with the blank before the guitar is built. He puts the neck on a padded slight U form and bends/exercises the neck up and down many times with a screw clamp. A small amount, 1/8", to start and goes deeper by 1/16ths until the relief evens out. He said he is basically training it to bend in the center. So, should an ebony fretboard be exercised before slots are cut? I don't know. I used the truss rod and moved the neck back and forth to its limit 20 times and it did get a bit better.
I can't believe I finally found someone who knows what there talking about when it comes to guitars. Well said my dude. 🤘
For me the most difficult challenge when assembling a part-caster was getting the strings parallel with the neck. When fitting the neck to the heel I had to sand the neck pocket but then I figured out the strings weren't aligned with the neck (the high E got closer to the neck border as it got down the neck). It was then when I figured out how important it was to have the neck pocket perpendicular to the bridge and vice-versa.
I ordered Sutherland Welles polymerized tung oil today due to your recommendation!
I built a strat for a guy about a year and a half ago second guitar I made for him. His first from me was a strat as well.
Not parts casters. I built the necks and bodies etc. Fretted them the whole nine yards.
First one played perfectly fine with gauge 10 ernie ball strings. So them he asked me for a second guitar a couple years later. Okay no problem. Everything looked great.
Strung this guitar up..... put 10s on it..... strings felt like 11s or 12s. SUPER stiff laying guitar. I know this guy likes a very easy playing set up and it's not going to work for him.
Long story short, after much confusion and much debate, the change in tension ended up being caused by the neck pitch.... in the past I've always just set pitch up so the bridge screws don't hit your picking hand and so the action can be where it needs to be and it always had worked.
My theory is to do with the geometry of a stratocaster neck and bridge, the neck angle slightly affects the break angle behind the bridge saddle down in the string block, increasing tension across the entire playing surface.
I'm guessing because the neck I built was not built 100% to fender specs, the neck angle came more into play with how stiff the strings "felt" when you played the guitar.
I figure the issue came down to the break angle over the nut being non fender standard, the neck pitch, and the specific bridge he chose for the guitar and the break angle behind the saddle.
Anyway, super stiff playing strat and you don't like it??? Try to set the guitar up with less pitch in the neck and it should relieve the issue. I imagine this could apply to other trem guitars as well.
I'm a very large person 6'8 with huge hands. I started building guitars because I wanted one that didn't look like a toy on me. I made a neck that was wider than a standard neck and carved out the neck pocket. Everything fit great and I was so proud of myself. However, no one makes a bridge or pickups that wide so the strings were still spaced like a normal guitar.
Use single pole bridge units.
You can convert 7string guitars to 6string with custom nut and individual bridge saddles, look out for hotrail style pickups they have a long blade not pole pieces
@@TheDarkmore Very good advice. 😎
@@TheDarkmore beat me to it
This is easily handled...A basic fixed bridge can be made from the saddles from another bridge and fashion a new base plate from L shaped aluminum stock or metal 3d print or CNC. You will also need spacer stock for in-between saddles to limit side to side movement. Wider pickup bobbins can be easily 3D printed. You can hand wind them with a strapped drill and a rest to slide the wire. It may take a few tries to get your preferred resistance. You will have to use old style individual magnets or go ceramic and cut them to length. Pickup base plates can be made from your preferred flat stock. 1/8" plexiglass would be easy to work with, or you can 3D print these too. Pickup rings can be 3D printed or CNCed on preferred stock.
Get to know the player/customer, their current needs and lofty goals. Custom instruments tend to be pricey. I've got two. Try and make their dreams come true. Just because someone may be a great player, doesn't mean they know what design elements might hurt or harm their skills, and development as a musician. Finding out which guitarists they admire and why can be helpful.
From a Player's standpoint, these are the things that I look for, and things I avoid.
1. Great sound - Rich, Full, with tons of sustain, no high end harshness.
2. Ease of playability and comfort: Nothing should get in the way of developing as a player. The Player should not be forced to put their hands, body in weird, uncomfortable positions to perform difficult/challenging passages. Avoid heavy guitars, strap pins in bad locations, volutes, neck dive, sharp fret ends, bad string spacing, strings too close to the edges of the neck, and anything can cause physical injury.
3. Tuning Stability is a must. Straight string pull through the nut.
4. Ease of working on the guitar, doing setups, etc. myself.
5. Any design that could involve a costly/complicated neck reset or broken headstock. Bolt on necks are a great solution.
6. Quality workmanship should be expected on any custom guitar.
7. Cool Looking guitar, preferably unique, and esthetically pleasing.
8. The guitar should make the person want to play the guitar, and not put it down. The things listed above make that more likely.
That's my "short" list. Knowing what makes a good, playable guitar usually takes many years of experience. Trying a lot of different guitars, and keeping a document of what you like, and what you don't like, will help you reach your goals as a Player or Maker much quicker.
Not my instruments but with the Bosch Colt routers if your bit starts sticking when you go to take it out the collet is going. If it breaks the bit will let loose and dig deep. I keep extra collets around now.
Order of operations! Made a few necks before knowing when to cut slots, fret, finalise dimensions, glue, everything! Even if you know what to do, knowing when to do it is important
I have made numerous videos on the topic of process order.
More about winding pickups that guitar specific, but I’ve been using your cnc pickup wonder design. And I found that I could get one coil to wind perfectly, but then I try to do the exact same thing and have tons of problems.
After a LOT of looking I figured out the bobbin was twisting on the wheel. The double sided tape would give out unless I thoroughly cleaned the wheel with alcohol every time. The double stick tape would build up a film. Sometimes that I couldn’t even see.
After some experimentation I found that if I put down blue painters tape 1st everything worked MUCH better. I was expecting to replace the blue tape every time, but sometimes hung about that tape makes my double stick tape come off cleaner. I think I can wind 5-10 bobbins on that tape before I need to replace it. It just makes a perfect base for the double stick tape to adhere.
That is exactly what I do.
How about this. You build a fender precision so precise you duplicated a factory problem. 👍
Nut buzz on a Steinberger due to insufficient break angle above the zero fret. Similar to your buzz issue on that bass build. In the case of that bass, a string tree or retainer of some sort is the proper fix. The player shouldn't have to wind the strings a "certain way".
Magnetic buzz - it's so rare that when you do encounter it you waste a lot of time checking everything else first.
Can't put a string tree on the E and the A string.
@@HighlineGuitars I'd have to dig up one of mine to see what, if anything, could be done. But I assume the customer has already gotten their bass back.
@@normbarrows you assume correctly. All I had to do was put an extra wrap on the tuner post.
Funny thing but measuring everything 9million times did not work for me, when I make a body, I just put the neck where it should be, trace the pocket, carv it out, fit the neck, here I measure the scale lenght, but for exact bridge placement I just put on the two Ee strings to see where the bridge should be again trace it then screw on the bridge, pickups the same I just put them over the strings and trace them, remove the strings carv out the pickup holes. Same thing with setup I never measure action or pickup hight, I adjust it, play it then re-adjust until it is perfect. The less I measure things the better results I get, crazy! :-)
Was wondering if using an "adjustable" string tree bar would have corrected the buzz on that Precision bass?
We will never know. Winding the strings further down the the post was a no cost easy fix.
@@HighlineGuitars I've never been a fan of string trees. I like your solution. Essentially a "poor mans staggered height tuners". But I sense some confusion from other comments. While it is true that a string tuned to pitch has the same tension, regardless of break angle over the nut, it does not have the same elasticity or ability to stretch further. Sharper break angles tend to make strings stiffer to bend (similar argument to top load bridges vs through the body on Teles or top wrap the tail piece on LP style guitars). I've never seen anyone tackle this in an objective fashion - maybe a good idea for a future video?
If you had used locking tuners with no windings would you have adjusted the nut ?
I would have replaced the tuners.
I recently built my first guitar, and just when I thought I solved all of the issues I was having, I put the strings on just to find that pressing the string to the fret put it out of tune! The first 5 frets are the worst, just pushing them to the fret sends them out of tune. Not sure what to do about that one.
Sounds like you need to make deeper nut slots, this is btw. a common issue on many new mass produced guitars.
Use a feeler gauge if you aren’t comfortable to do it on sight and file the slots at slow pace to make sure not removing to much, also angle half of the slots towards the tuning pegs and widen them slightly on that side.
I tend to go by sight and using the tuner when filing them slots, with the guitar stringed, moving the string to the side for each slot, filing one to a few strokes depending on how far the string is from the first fret and how far off it is when fretting, feeler gauge does make it safer though.
Also keep the fret board radius in mind, you don’t want them all to have the same depth but follow that radius.
And you might also want to sand the top of the nut down if the string get burried within it, about half of the string should be free for the wound strings and you should be able to at least feel the top of the unwound strings, it’s for tuning stability, especially if the guitar has a tremolo.
For relief and action I was a bit higher than Fenders guideline, so started to use feeler gauges now to get as low as they suggest.
fendercustomersupport.microsoftcrmportals.com/en-us/knowledgebase/article/KA-01901
I realize you found a fix, but did you ever figure out what really was causing the original problem and why the fix that you used worked?
Was the neck maybe vibrating at some natural frequency or something like that?
The E and the A strings were buzzing off the 1st fret. A slight increase in tension fixed it.
@@HighlineGuitars Hmm. Was it the tension or the break angle? Tuned to a specific note, the tension should be basically the same, but with a steeper break angle the string would require more energy to just barely lift off the bottom of the nut slot and bang against the first fret with each return oscillation, since the steeper break angle changes the overall vector of the tension on that side of the nut. That is how I am picturing it in my head, anyhow.
Do you have the 4x4 or 4x2 model for the xcarve pro?
4x4
@@HighlineGuitars would it be a good idea to go for the smaller model if all I'm building is guitars?
@@SoleilGuitars I don't know, I haven't used the 4x2.
One thing I never got is why nobody ever used a dovetail lap joint on the neck/body pocket.
Especially with modern CNC machining this is beyond me.
Why fix what isn't broken, I guess.
Dovetail joint is weaker, there is a video somewhere here on youtube where a cabinet builder tests different joint methods and their strenght, while dovetail look nicest they are also the weakest since there is less material on the slimmest area.
So that is why the prefered joints on guitar cabinets are large finger joints or overlapping with a propper bracing to support the joint.
I bet guitar builders did test and calculate different joint methods back in time.
Besides that a dovetail joint for a neck pocket would make later alignement hell, both sideways as for the neck angle.
Think some of the strongest joints implement carbon fiber, aluminium and other materials instead of changing the joint type itself.
Momma told me to wear headphones watching guitar making videos tonight. She has a butterfly infestation in her bedroom that Uncle Chad is coming to help with. She said they will be jumping up and down on the bed with nets trying to catch them all night...
There must be a lot of butterflies because Uncle Tyrone just turned up to help... 🦋🙄🦋
@@HumunculousInPants Well, it is mating season . . . uh, butterfly mating season, right?
@@ironmikezero It must be. She said she couldn't get them all. Uncle Chad and Tyrone are coming back to help again tonight....