Jazz Bass: Headstock Shaping and Tru-Oil for the Neck

Sorry guys, it's been a long, long time since I posted any updates on any builds to this little bloggerino. Unfortunately I've been terribly busy with work, and am finding less and less time to either build (which is utterly fucking depressing) or even to write about it. Anyway I'm hoping to address this situation in the coming weeks - with several builds close to completion, I would really like to share the results with you all.

Anyway, today's post concerns the Jazz Bass build which recently changed it's colour to Surf Green and got a few coats of acrylic clear. It's looking pretty good I dare say, and while the clear coats cure, I have finally found some time to shape the headstock and sand the neck smooth.

The standard Fender Jazz Bass headstock template.

I managed to find a bunch of Fender bass headstock templates on the TDPRI site, and hoped they would be enough to seal the deal. I decided on the stock standard jazz bass template and printed the pdf 100% scale. Problem was, the template (as usual) didn't really match the headstock blank from the factory. In the end I was forced to use the template to mark out the circular end of the headstock, and then just free-hand the curved fin along the bottom. Not really a problem - even with my shoddy drawing skills there's nothing a belt sander and drum sander can't fix right? Right. Anyway, the stars seemed to align, the jig saw did as it was told, and even the sanding disc and slap wheels didn't burn out the edges. Sweet

With the headstock shaped, I sanded the neck down to 360 grit and raised the grain a few times with water before staining. This time around I went for a weak solution of Colortone Vintage Amber (I do love those vintage tones) and did 3 passes in quick succession in an attempt to pop as much of the grain on this nice looking maple neck as I could.

Headstock shaped, Vintage Amber applied and 1st coat of Tru-Oil.

After the dye was dry, it was on with the first soak coat of Tru-Oil and the maple just drank it up. Man, I can already see that the grain on this neck is really going to pop when the oil gets in there. About another 10 coats or so to go, so patience grasshopper, patience..

Surf Monster Telecaster: Shaping the Headstock

Time to shape the headstock on the Surf Monster Telecaster. Thankfully, this task is made easy by our old friend the inter-web! Many of the Fender headstock shapes can be found here: http://pdfcast.org/pdf/fender-headstocks. This pdf file contains headstock templates at a 1:1 scale. All you need to do is print out the page you need (make sure you use 1:1 scale) and off you go.

Alternately, if you are having trouble accessing pdfcast, templates can be found in a number of other places. Here are a couple of other pdf documents for Fender headstocks, both hosted by Google:

Google GuitarPlansCollection link 1
Google GuitarPlansCollection link 2

With the PDF in virtual hand, I decided to use the 'modern' Telecaster design shown below as the basis for my headstock, as it's the one from the pdf that most closely aligns with my headstock blank.

Anyway, a quick trip to the laser printer, printed at 1:1 and everything was ready to get the shape traced on to the blank. You can see that the blank doesn't quite match the traditional shape towards the bottom where it meets the neck. The best I could do was to line up the tuner holes and take it from there.

Using a clutch pencil, I carefully traced around the cutout giving a guide for the jigsaw. The corner near the lowest tuner hole (where the neck meets the headstock) will have to be rounded off some to approximate the original shape, but otherwise it looked pretty good.

And then came the east bit! Using the jigsaw I cut around the design - staying reasonably close to the line, especially in the concave sections. Why especially the concave sections? Well because I don't have a bobbin sander! Once the cut was completed, the convex portions of the headstock were easily finished off down to the line on the belt sander. Unfortunately the concave portions could suffer no such luxury and had to be finished off using a bastard file and 180 grit sandpaper.

In the end it all came out nicely and the whole neck is now ready for some sanding and some Wudtone neck finish.Still deciding whether to go with the Vintage Yellow Wudtone neck kit, or the colourless finish over Vintage Amber Colortone dye. Hmmm decisions, decisions...

Siena's Stratocaster - Shaping the Headstock

Time to shape the headstock on Siena's stratocaster. Thankfully, this task is made easy by our old friend the inter-web! Many of the Fender headstock shapes can be found here: http://pdfcast.org/pdf/fender-headstocks. This pdf file contains headstock templates at a 1:1 scale.

Alternately, if you are having trouble accessing pdfcast, templates can be found in a number of other places. Here are a couple of other pdf documents for Fender headstocks, both hosted by Google:

Google GuitarPlansCollection link 1
Google GuitarPlansCollection link 2
All you need to do is print out the page you need (make sure you use 1:1 scale) and off you go. I have decided to use the 50s stratocaster design as the basis for my headstock on this build.

The pdf template printed out without issue on my trusty laser printer, and I was away.

I traced the headstock template with pencil and then cut close to the line with my jigsaw. A bench sander then allowed me to remove the rest of the material and get as close to the line as I needed to. In the absence of a bobbin sander, for the very tight curve I resorted to 120 grit paper applied by hand. I'm pretty happy wth how it turned out. I may return to the tight curve with a bit more 180 grit paper to round it out some more if/when I get some spare time.

Incidentally, If you are building your own kit and need a headstock for a gibson style guitar, headstock designs are not as easy to come by. If you are willing to put in a little effort, however, there are resources at hand! If it's a Les Paul headstock design you are after, then the following pdf template may suffice: http://www.australianlespaulforums.com/download/Headstock.pdf.

If not, there are a large number of vector graphics guitar templates for all kinds of guitars available on ultimateGuitar.com: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-1190193.html. These can be used to generate your own 1:1 pdf templates. To do this you need to use a vector graphics package (such as Inkscape). The instructions are given on the same page. Have fun!