Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

This one is a sister build to my last with a Ric theme
Specs are
Body is New Guinea Rosewood
Top is Blackwood from the same billet as the last with flamed maple binding
Neck is tapered laminated Afrormosia with bleached ash veneer highlights.
Schaller locking tuners with pearloid buttons.
Scale is 24" with a 12"radius Ebony fret board bound with flamed maple binding and gold mop inlays. 22 SS jumbo frets.
Pickups are From "the Creamery"in England and are Ric toaster single coils type Being a vintage 57 neck and middle with a vintage mid 63 in the bridge.
Wiring is super strat
Bridge is a Mastery Ric style replacement.
Tailpiece is made from Carbon fibre with a blackwood face.
Finish is Nitro.
Weight 2.8kg or 6.17lb




















Cheers Mark

That is a beautiful guitar. you can be very proud with the outcome

That is beautiful. Love the body shape and maple binding.

Great wood combination and styling. Wonderful craftsmanship.

Wayne
https://wjguitars.wixsite.com/mysite-1

Very nice. Just finishing something vaguely similar but not in the same class as that. Love the blackwood,

Hi Mark. That is absolutely lovely.
I am particularly interested in the tailpiece. Is that all timber, or a timber veneer over a metal frame? I tried to do a similar thing once, using blackwood and CF in a sandwich. It swung off a bolt anchored in the tailblock - just like yours. Mine had a complete structural failure. The ring of timber could not stand up to the string tension and it literally exploded the first time I strung it up. Quite a memorable experience, with bits of it flying across the room. Maybe I just had a poor piece of wood. I gave up and put a metal tailpiece on that instrument. Seeing your success with this makes me want to try it again. Any advice?
Cheers
Mark

OK - I reread your post and see that you did state that it is CF under the timber. Can you share how you fashion that CF frame?
Love your work.
m

Hi Mark, sorry to hear of your failure on the tailpiece, but you did learn something as I do with failures.
The whole strength of this is the CF, the wood is just cosmetic.
I always have CF sheet made up which I do by cutting numerous layers of CF cloth into about 300mm squares and laying it up between two sheets of 10mm glass which I use wax as a release agent. I apply a bit of constant weight on the sheets until the resin is set. The key is to compress the laminate and get the resin to fibre ratio low.
Just as a guide 5 x layers of 8 oz cloth will give a thickness of about 1.9mm, so you can vary layers from there to suit your needs. I wouldn't try and build it too thick in one go but I would then glue two of these layers together for extra thickness. The CF thickness on the tailpiece is 4mm in thickness so about 12 layers of 8oz.
The materials used in this were West 105 and 207, the CF cloth is a 8oz twill weave.

From an engineering point of view you should really use unidirectional tow and build a former to orientate the fibres in the direction of the load, but I find the multi layer of well compressed woven cloth works.
Hope that helps and the place I buy my CF from is Soller composites in the States https://www.sollercomposites.com

Thanks for the comments guys cheers Mark

Thanks for the info Mark. That really explains it. But I have some follow-up questions (sorry). When you mention 8oz cloth, I presume that is referring to 8oz/sq yard, which seems to be a specification I see in that merchant’s website? Secondly, do you lay this up in a flat square shape and then cut out the shape of your piece? If so, how do you cut it? I would imagine that it is extremely hard stuff once dried.
Cheers
m

Mark McLean wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 14, 2020 1:30 pm

Thanks for the info Mark. That really explains it. But I have some follow-up questions (sorry). When you mention 8oz cloth, I presume that is referring to 8oz/sq yard, which seems to be a specification I see in that merchant’s website? Secondly, do you lay this up in a flat square shape and then cut out the shape of your piece? If so, how do you cut it? I would imagine that it is extremely hard stuff once dried.
Cheers
m

The 8oz is just what I have here I'm happy to use any CF cloth in this situation, we would call it 300gm. The K value on the site just relates to the fibre size, the weight is dependent on the tightness of the weave and the fibre size.
And yes I just layup square sheets and cut it out. I use a Dremel with a small router type bit just hand held for a rough cut out and then trim to the line with as you would with normal tools it shapes easily.
Cheers Mark

Ok. Thanks. You have given me enough info to give it a good try. Can't be worse than my last effort.

Just superb!