Guitar restoration - Part 6 - The headstock

-
The original headstock was almost rectangular, with a small slope on the top.

I didn't like it very much, but wasn't sure if reshaping is worth it, but after several rounds of drawing and designing (most of the time directly on the sanded-down headstock) I have finally done it.
First design on paper, test-fitted to the neck
First I filled the holes which will need to be moved (due to the curve going close to them, and the tuning keys shouldn't bee too close (or too far) from the edge. I did that with some wooden dowels I could find around, plus wood glue. After the glue cured, I have cut them with a saw to an approximate size, then sanded the headstock (with the dowels sticking out) to strip it from the finish and to level the dowels. I also filled the screw holes on the back with some toothpick and wood glue. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture with the holes filled. I then drew a thin outline on the headstock of how it could look, went over the line with a pendulum jig saw, then with an orbital sander with 60 grit=>120 grit=>240 grit sandpaper on medium speed. The result is a more curvy headstock. I wish the original headstock was a bit wider, so that the curvy headstock wouldn't be this "skinny", but gluing side wings to add a 4-5mm deep curve seemed like too much.
Shaped with reverse tuners

Second design
Shaped headstock
Shaped with tuners
After cutting and sanding I had to drill the holes. The tuner "pins" seemed to be 8mm wide, with the bottom part being 9mm. As I don't have a drill press, I first went with a dremel and made a small hole (have an attachment which helped keeping it perpendicular), which served as a guide to the 8mm drill bit.
Drilled the holes with the guides in place, than from the backside widened the holes to 9 mm using a dremel with a spiral up bit and a small sanding bit until the tuning keys would fit.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Guitar restoration - Part 11 - The bridge clamp

-
Image
Gluing the bridge is an important step, and the bridge must be clamped properly while the glue is hardening to have a good grip. That is done either with a special bridge-clamp clamping through the string holes (which I don't have) or with C-clamps, which I haven't found around. So there's room for improvisation. After checking how people make their home-made bridge clamps, I have found three designs which I particularly like. One from Ben Crowe of Crimson Guitars , simple and mostly wood-based, and another one from Jack Houweling, which is based around some wood extending the arms of a quick-grip clamp, and the last one , based around a bent piece of metal, from Rattlecan Guitar Restorations. Although I like Ben's one, I don't have Mahogany and Maple (or too much hardwood at all), I only have some black locust/false acacia/robinia pseudoacacia, which might be good enough as a replacement. An additional complication is that the bridge I have is an over-sized one...
Read more

Guitar restoration - Part 14 - The failure

-
Image
After letting the glued bridge 24 hours clamped I took the clamps off, and stringed it up. One note lower than it should've been. And when fine-tuning the 5th string the bridge was ripped off. Fortunately not with a strange trajectory, not hititng anything (not even the top), and only causing two minor tear-outs on the top. So the clamp didn't work. Next step: order a set of serious clamps. In 5 minutes order was placed. Next step: I want to hear how the guitar sounds, so mount all the 6 strings with the "temporary floating bridge" used for testing the bridge location. And with all 6 strings mounted I found that the initial bridge location was off on the bass side. And probably my scale length wasn't measured correctly, as the bass side was off by 6-7mm, which is a lot. Nevertheless, after setting the bridge at the correct location, it looked ugly with the clamp and the cardboard on the guitar, but it did work. And boooooy, it sounded really good... rich, bassy,...
Read more

Guitar restoration - Part 13 - Fretjob

-
Image
As the bridge was clamped, I couldn't stand to wait, and realized that I could already start leveling and polishing the frets. So after getting some inspiration from other builders, I have started. The most useful videos  I've watched on how to do a fret job were: Fret job - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra1-HQ6GOxw - Highline Guitars Fret leveling - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDy7cF255dY Fret leveling - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbr0VR2CdQ Fret polishing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpeCq_1AvwU - Guns and Guitars So, my steps were: Skipped checking the neck being straight, as I checked it already with the frets of, and it was dead-straight, and I have sanded it  straight Created a leveling beam from a longer (~50cm) block of wood which was planed to be perfectly flat on two sides. I have glued 240 and 320 grit sandpaper to the two flat sides Masked the fretboard with masking tape Marked the tops of the frets with a black sharpie Sanded with 24...
Read more