Starting on my necks.

Tonight I started getting my necks going. I am using the remaining peice of walnut, that I chose not to use for body wood. Having bought a 10' board, it gave me plenty of room to pick out which sections of the board I wanted to use for what. The walnut did have some small splits in it, at the end of the board. With carefulcutting, I was able to cut out peices that are just right.

To start off with, I put the board through the thickness planer. This maching will take a rough cut board, and put a nicelt planes flat surface on one side of it. If you're careful, you can get two perfectly parallel surfaces.






Secondly, I then cut this large board in to two boards. I ran them though my boss's joiner. A joiner will cut a perfect 90* angle to a prepped peice of wood. The joiner my boss built is made by Grizzly. It is an amazing machine.










Lastly for the night, I routed my truss rod channels. The truss rod is an adjustable rod that controls the bow of the neck. Since I squared up all my edges, I chose to route the channel now, before cutting the necks out. Once cut out, I would have had to figure out some way to hold the neck down while I routed. That could be dangerous. The top, and bottom of the board get routed, because I am able to cut two necks out of each board.

Peregrine?

I am needing some help with naming my guitars. I know i want to have my name in there some where. Previously I thought of calling myself Meyer Modern Lutherie. I'll probably stick to that, but just go by Meyer for short.

I also need a model name for my guitars. I plan on making other designs in the future, so I need to distinguish these. I would like to have something that says Minneapolis, or Minnesota. I've thought about calling the design the Hennepin. Another idea i had was to call them the Peregrine. After all Minneapolis has falcons, and some nest near my apartment. They are sleek, and in a way resemble my guitars out line.

cutting it down

I started cutting my walnut down. In the first picture, you can see the blocks that will be bookmatched for bodies. In the second is a comparison of rough cut, and surface planed wood. At work, my boss has a plainer that cuts a perfectly flat surface on a piece of wood that is still rough cut. In the last picture is a piece of walnut that's most of the way done.

I bought wood

Here it goes. This is when it gets fun.

I bought some walnut to get things officially underway. I had been searching the internet for some walnut big enough to cut into the dimensions I wanted. I wasn't finding anything. But then I went back to trusty old Youngblood Lumber Co. in Minneapolis. I got the wood for my other guitars from them, and it's nice to know i was able keep my search local. The piece I bought was 3" thick, by 10" wide, by 10' long. It came to $340 for the one board, but I am able to get all of my parts out of it. 4 body blanks, and more than 4 necks. I have plenty of room to find the perfect figure in the boards to create the most dynamic effects. So if you ever check my blog, now is the time to start checking it more regularly. I will try to post pictures more often, because my progress will be easier for everyone to see.

In the pictures below are my test run of my neck joint. Since this is such a crucial part of the construction, I remade my neck joint template. I also made a dummy neck, and then routed a blank board with my template. It fits so well. As you can see in the pictures, the neck fits perfectly with no gaps.








In the last picture is my piece of walnut. I took the picture at Youngblood before it was cut down small enough to be put in my car. It is the dark brown board in the foreground.