One of the blogs I regularly read is Vaughn Bell's excellent Mind Hacks, a blog about psychology, neuroscience and brain-things. Today there was a post about an unusual phenomenon known as ASMR (Auto Sensory Meridian Response)*. As I read the first paragraph it dawned on me, with some shock, that it was talking about something that I experience on a fairly regular basis (though not as regularly as I'd like). ASMR is the name given to a wonderful tingling sensation that sort of spreads out across your scalp like a wave, rippling out from the crown of your head and then zipping down your spine. It gives you goosepimples and makes all the hair on your body stand on end.
From reading this article and listening to this NPR piece. I've learned that this sensation is triggered by all sorts of different things in different people. For me it's watching, or listening, to someone concentrating intently and quietly on something. Someone methodically sorting things or looking for something small and hard to spot. It can also be triggered by listening to someone carefully explaining how something works, or guiding you through how to do a complex task.
I've had this feeling for as long as I can remember. When I was a little kid I used to conspicuously and deliberately sit near my mum and scratch my head like an itchy dog (though with my hands, obviously, I can't get my feet that high) in the hope that she'd notice and think I had nits (headlice). Having my hair checked for nits always set it off. I can also remember sitting on the carpet in primary (elementary) school, watching, transfixed, as Ms Robertson, my Year 4 (3rd grade) teacher, went through the register for the term, checking the attendance record of her whole class.
It has always been something fairly fleeting for me, it's rare for anyone to keep doing something that triggers it for very long, or at least, not without it being weird or inappropriate for me to sit and stare. The longest time I can remember being in this state was when I was eight or nine, sitting in the doorway between the kitchen and the back room of my childhood home, watching my uncle (a carpenter) carefully and methodically measuring our strangely-shaped kitchen for a set of new cupboards.
Unlike the woman in the NPR piece, I rarely seek this feeling out -- if nothing else, I don't think I get it as strongly as some people. That said, during a particularly stressful period of my third year of university I used to load up videos of guitar company reps explaining how complex effects pedals or amplifiers worked, for the sole purpose of triggering this feeling. Those lost their efficacy after a while and I didn't think to seek any others out (I came across those by accident when shopping online for a new compressor/sustainer pedal). As with some of the other people mentioned in the NPR piece, my ASMR (it's a silly name, but it's better than inarticulate nothing, which is what I had before) is occasionally inconvenient**, but never unwanted.
As part of the NPR piece the woman mentions that there's a whole subculture that caters to this feeling, and there's a shitload of ASMR porn (for want of a better word) on youtube. I just clicked nervously on one of these videos and found that yes, they do work for me, so I'm now going to switch off my head until Kristen gets home from work.
*The name doesn't really mean anything, it's just a vaguely sciencey-sounding acronym used by people on the internet.
**A few months back I was looking for a guide to opening the casing on my laptop (it was shorting and giving me shocks) and lost about an hour in a glazed over state watching videos of people explaining how to pop out the tabs around the battery casing.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Friday, May 10, 2013
At the moment I'm reading through a book called At Home and in War by Alexander Vasilyevich Verestchagin (long out of print, but available on the Internet Archive). It's an officer's memoir, detailing a career in the Russian military during the expansionist wars of the late nineteenth century. This isn't the sort of thing I read for fun, but it's a useful source on the otherwise little-known Battle of Geok Tepe, which I'm writing about for work.
Most books like these are rather grating and self-aggrandising, with the author determined to maximise his role in important events, and play down his own moments of weakness. This book, however, is very different. The first half is fairly unremarkable – just biographical details and descriptions of the life of an officer in a the peacetime army (having read plenty of Chekov and Puskin, this is not a world that is unfamiliar to me).
Once he gets into his actual experiences of war, however, it becomes much more vividly written. Take, for example, this passage, which describes his feeling as he rides up towards the frontline during the Siege of Plevna (1877) a particularly bloody engagement from the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War.
The most remarkable passage, however, comes a little later, when the preparations for the attack are in full swing. He rides forward and joins the other staff officers near the Generals’ observation post, who are nervously watching as their commanders argue over their plans.
Most books like these are rather grating and self-aggrandising, with the author determined to maximise his role in important events, and play down his own moments of weakness. This book, however, is very different. The first half is fairly unremarkable – just biographical details and descriptions of the life of an officer in a the peacetime army (having read plenty of Chekov and Puskin, this is not a world that is unfamiliar to me).
Once he gets into his actual experiences of war, however, it becomes much more vividly written. Take, for example, this passage, which describes his feeling as he rides up towards the frontline during the Siege of Plevna (1877) a particularly bloody engagement from the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War.
Look where you will, everywhere it is gray, and damp, and disagreeable; and you long to go somewhere and get warm. However, it is necessary to go on, and in precisely that direction, too, whence the thunder of the guns proceeds.
This thunder I begin to hear more and more clearly. Some of the discharges are wafted to me as distinctly as though there were by my side. A cannonade was in progress just now on the left, and immediately afterwards it had become inaudible. The troops are not yet in sight. I begin to get into a more and more nervous state; the question involuntarily occurs to me: “Shall I soon come within the line of fire?” This question disturbs me deeply because I have become convinced, from previous engagements, that being near the firing point and being directly under fire are two quite different things. I do not know how it may affect others, but it was very disagreeable for me on each occasion to take those last few steps. As long as there are no bullets, it matters not; everything is well and tranquil, although not wholly so, for you know that you will infallibly and speedily hear the ominous whistle. But now one has flown past – only one bullet – and already you are conscious of a change in yourself. Your heart begins to gnaw, as it were; a slight nausea manifests itself in your stomach; weakness and apathy diffuse themselves all over your body. It is a ridiculous thing to say, but I had already experienced the same sensation before the proposition of questions in my final Latin examination. On such occasions the same nausea appeared, the same weakness of the whole body, with cold perspiration on the forehead. The nervous state is produced, of course, by the consciousness that one may be wounded or even killed at any moment. All thoughts, all sensations are peculiarly concentrated and one involuntarily awaits the fatal bit of lead or iron, which will put an end to one’s existence.
The most remarkable passage, however, comes a little later, when the preparations for the attack are in full swing. He rides forward and joins the other staff officers near the Generals’ observation post, who are nervously watching as their commanders argue over their plans.
At that moment there impressed itself upon my sight the figure on one of our dead soldiers. Strong and vigorous, with long side-whiskers, and his face thrust into the miry road, he lay with his arms spread out, just beside the spot where the generals were walking. His cap had fallen off and laid bare his closely cropped, black head. It was strange to see how, as the chiefs walked, it never occurred to them to order the brave fellow to be taken away. They were thinking of other things than dead men.
A considerable time has elapsed. The cannonade increases in violence, the bullets whistle thicker and thicker. But Skobolev still paces to and fro with Prince Imeretinsky, and rubs his hands. The corpse still lies there, and seems to sink deeper in thought and to be wondering “Am I to say forever here in the rain?”
From the conversations of my comrades I learn that the general attack is ordered for three o'clock in the afternoon. It is only twelve o'clock now. At this moment, an officer steps up and reports to Skobolev: “Your Honor, the third brigade of sharpshooters has advanced.”
The General flies into a violent rage: “Who gave them orders? Don't they know that the general attack is only to come off at three o'clock? Well, let them die then, if they didn't know enough to wait!” Then he returns to his conversation with the Prince once more.
So about an hour later, Skobolev orders his horse to be brought round; we also make a dash for our horses, in order to follow the General. At that moment my brother Sergei rides up to me, in a short black jacket, on the small Turkish horse which I had given to him a couple of days previously.
“Seroga,” I shout to him, “Vasily Vasilitch asked me to tell you that you must give back his things, his wagon, and colours, for otherwise he cannot work at all!”
“This is no time to talk about such things, brother!” he answers, curtly, as he returns my greeting, then lashes his horse under the belly with his whip, and disappears at full speed in the direction of the lines.
I never saw him again.
Imeretinsky remains on the same spot, but we all follow Skobolev. Kuropatkin, who has been somewhere on the position, speedily follows us. Skobolev enters into conversation with him, without reducing the speed of his horse. This day was a memorable on to me; it is hardly likely that I shall ever forget it. We ride for half a verst directly ahead on the road. Shells burst incessantly over our heads. We reach the elongated, wooded ridge which has been visible to us from afar. Amid the vineyards at its base, our troops can be seen: here a company, there a battalion, and there again a whole regiment. Shrouded in the foliage they seemed few in numbers, though there were thousands of them here. They were all silently awaiting the word of command in order to advance – and whether they were fated to return from that spot, God only knew.
We pass through the troops, and, without ascending the ridge, we turn to the left and ride along its base. The very summit, covered with dark, branching trees and thick foliage, is almost completely enveloped in the smoke of gun-powder. Only a breeze blows it away here and therhe for a moment, which fresh clouds of smoke, even thicker and more impenetrable, again envelop and conceal the distant view. Here the fire is converted into a veritable hell. Heavens, what moments those were! The bullets whistled and groaned with piteous voices. Some, which must have proceeded from rifles, meow exactly like cats.
Compressing his lips a little, Skobolev rides along on his gray horse, with a gloomy facem now and then addressing a question to Kuropatkin. The latter, as though desirous of shielding his chief from the bullets, rides, contrary to custom, on the General’s right side; and I ride still further to the right that Kuropatkin. One ball strikes directly behind me. The thud is dull, and deeply disagreeable. “That surely must have hit someone,” I think to myself. I glance around – I am not mistaken: a Cossack on the Don, a brave fellow judging from his face, swarthy, and with a long black mustache, is sinking slowly, and without a moan, from his horse. With weak and trembling hand he has clutched to at the horse’s rein; grasping his lance with the other, he strives to hold himself upright in his saddle. But in vain! Heavens! how frightful was his face at that moment! – it rises before my eyes now, as I write. His mouth was distorted and half open, his eyes fixed and staring. Death had, suddenly, laid its grasp upon him. The bullet had struck him in the right side.
At such terrible moments, there is developed in each one of us, and to such a degree, the sentiment of self preservation, egotism, and self-love – each one of us so fears to present himself, even for a superfluous second, as a target for the bullets, that no one, even of the escort, of the comrades of the wounded man, halts in order to render assistance to the unfortunate fellow. All merely exchange significant looks, urge on their horses, and ride past the fatal spot as speedily as possible.
After the Cossack is killed, I mechanically rein in my horse and try to cross more to the left than Skobolev, calculating that, in such a position, the bullets, before reaching me, will have first to pierce Kuropatkin, then Skobolev, and only then come to me. And is it not singular, no sooner had I changed positions that another ball strikes, and so close to me that I involuntarily look about me to see whether I am not wounded. At this moment I feel a sort of awkwardness in my left leg. I look and on my boot, close to the ankle, there is blood. I felt no pain at the time, but my terror and imagination depicted to me God knows what; my bones are already splintered, and my leg will be cut off, and so forth. In consequence of this, I begin to shriek: “Stop! Stop! Somebody help!” and, to my horror, I perceive that no-one stops, and that all are riding onward. At length I observe that Kuropatkin says something to Skobolev. The latter turns round, casts a fleeting glance at me, and rides on.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
On my train home today I sat down next to a smartly dressed, neatly composed woman, probably about the same age as me. She was thumbing through a A5 notebook that was absolutely rammed with loose pieces of paper, glossy booklets, printouts and such. The thing was bulging awkwardly, and I noticed she'd had to use at least one mauly clip to stop the whole thing from disintegrating.
When I sat down she was chewing pensively on the end of her biro and staring at a scribble covered, densely written page of handwritten notes. Being a nosy bugger, I couldn't resist the temptation to glance across at what she'd been writing. What I saw was odd.
It was a list of names. Some were scratched out, others underlined; some had little numbers or letters in brackets after them. Several names had been written down, scratched out, then written down again somewhere else. There were little arrows linking some names, and a long tally of numbers written down the margin. The names were grouped together under odd subheadings like "Good News Friends", "Opinionated Friends", "Friends of Friends (Who have become friends)", and my personal favourite "Friends of Friends (who haven't)". At first I was a little baffled, why was this woman sitting on the train putting everyone she knew into categories? Was she doing some kind of life audit? What did the numbers mean? What was going to happen to the people who had been crossed out (Particularly Martina, who had a little skull and crossbones next to her name)?
At this point, she turned the page back on itself and I saw the other side. On this side the topmost heading, underlined several times, was "Bridesmaids".
When I sat down she was chewing pensively on the end of her biro and staring at a scribble covered, densely written page of handwritten notes. Being a nosy bugger, I couldn't resist the temptation to glance across at what she'd been writing. What I saw was odd.
It was a list of names. Some were scratched out, others underlined; some had little numbers or letters in brackets after them. Several names had been written down, scratched out, then written down again somewhere else. There were little arrows linking some names, and a long tally of numbers written down the margin. The names were grouped together under odd subheadings like "Good News Friends", "Opinionated Friends", "Friends of Friends (Who have become friends)", and my personal favourite "Friends of Friends (who haven't)". At first I was a little baffled, why was this woman sitting on the train putting everyone she knew into categories? Was she doing some kind of life audit? What did the numbers mean? What was going to happen to the people who had been crossed out (Particularly Martina, who had a little skull and crossbones next to her name)?
At this point, she turned the page back on itself and I saw the other side. On this side the topmost heading, underlined several times, was "Bridesmaids".
Monday, October 01, 2012
Boredom, know your limits.
A recent study found that a shocking 70 percent of office workers in
Britain were not aware of government guidelines relating to workplace
boredom. What follows is a broad outline of the issues related to
boredom in the workplace.
Boredom. What is it?
There are two distinct types of boredom, active and passive.
Passive boredom, or ennui, is boredom brought about by a person’s circumstances. Most people know this as the boredom of a rainy Sunday afternoon or a holiday in Wales. Ennui is not created by a specific activity, but rather by the lack of any activity that isn't actively boring. Although it can feel similar to active boredom (and was thought to be the same for many centuries – hence the confusion in terminology), ennui is now known to be a fundamentally different phenomenon. To the layman, the best way of describing the difference is to compare it with the difference between alpha and gamma radiation: although they have similar effects on the human body, they are very different physical mechanisms.
Active boredom, sometimes known as ‘elective’ or ‘task related’ boredom, is boredom a person experiences while actively engaging in a boring activity. As active boredom is easier to isolate under experimental conditions, we know far more about the mechanics and dangers of active boredom. Crucially, active boredom can be mediated and its harmful effects limited by careful management.
In addition to these two commonly-recognized types, it is widely accepted that the vague region between active and passive boredom may contain several more types of boredom yet to be named by science. Recent groundbreaking research at the Llareggub Valley Facility in central Wales has fueled speculation that there may be as many as 15 distinct subtypes of boredom, although it should be noted that several may only be reproducible under laboratory conditions.
Measuring boredom
The severity of active boredom is measured in Melvilles (Mvl).
1 Melville is the level of boredom equivalent to earnestly trying to read Herman Melville’s 1851 magnum opus Moby Dick. For scientific purposes, Chapters 55–57 ("Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales"; "Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the Pictures of Whaling Scenes", and "Of Whales in Paint, in Teeth, in Wood, in Sheet, in Stone, in Mountains, and in Stars") are the most commonly used to calibrate equipment, as some of the book's livelier passages can cause inconsistent readings when a high level of precision is required.
Some example boredom levels, in Melvilles:
Sorting laundry (in silence) – 0.5Mvl
Radio 4 (typical) – 0.7Mvl
Writing a college paper - 0.6-1.1Mvl (depending on subject)
Proofreading indexes - 1.3Mvl
Wallpapering - 0.5Mvl
Any discussion of the measurement of boredom must begin with a profile of the man who almost single handedly revolutionised our conception of what it is to be bored. So, without further ado, here it is
Attempts to measure higher levels of boredom were banned by most Western governments in 1973 following the notorious ‘Jonathan Schieffler incident’. Schieffler, a Phd candidate at MIT, had been encouraged to attend a Jam-band and poetry evening in order to take readings, but was not warned of the danger of doing so sober. Due to a freak bean-bag landslide he was trapped in the bar for the entirety of a four-hour cover of the song "Flying Teapot" by Gong. By the time a rescue team was sent in he had lost consciousness. The boredom-meter found clasped in his rigid hands was allegedly (it was lost in the aftermath of the incident, possibly as part of MIT's attempted cover-up) jammed at 4Mvl (the highest it could go). Schieffler remained in a coma for six weeks, and has been afflicted with severe narcolepsy ever since.
With the invention of the ABE, the risk has been removed from boredom research, although accidents do still happen. Currently the record stands at 5.96Mvl – recorded when a remote-controlled ABE was sent into the auditorium of a avant garde jazz evening at a Belgian golf club (The phenomenon whereby it is possible to perform avant garde jazz is still not fully understood by science).
Is it safe?
Exposure to boredom levels of up to 1Mvl are generally considered non-harmful, although the long-term effects of regular exposure are still unclear (see Further Resources). Above 1Mvl, however, most people will begin to experience drowsiness, fidgeting and a perceptible decline in their ability to concentrate. If the boring activity is not halted, these symptoms will increase in severity until the afflicted person loses consciousness. The time it takes for this to occur varies according to each individual’s age and baseline level of ennui (see our pamphlet ‘An Easy Guide to Calculating your Ennui’).
Regular exposure to high boredom levels can, over time, enable individuals to develop a degree of tolerance – in much the same way that fighter pilots develop techniques that allow them to resist high g-forces. Successful humanities graduates often exhibit high levels of boredom tolerance, as do solicitors and accountants.
Health and Safety officers are permitted to take a degree of assumed tolerance into account when assessing workplace boredom protocols, although it must be stressed that even the most resilient Tort specialists lose consciousness after around 30 minutes’ exposure to levels higher than 1.9Mvl.
Boredom. What is it?
There are two distinct types of boredom, active and passive.
Passive boredom, or ennui, is boredom brought about by a person’s circumstances. Most people know this as the boredom of a rainy Sunday afternoon or a holiday in Wales. Ennui is not created by a specific activity, but rather by the lack of any activity that isn't actively boring. Although it can feel similar to active boredom (and was thought to be the same for many centuries – hence the confusion in terminology), ennui is now known to be a fundamentally different phenomenon. To the layman, the best way of describing the difference is to compare it with the difference between alpha and gamma radiation: although they have similar effects on the human body, they are very different physical mechanisms.
Active boredom, sometimes known as ‘elective’ or ‘task related’ boredom, is boredom a person experiences while actively engaging in a boring activity. As active boredom is easier to isolate under experimental conditions, we know far more about the mechanics and dangers of active boredom. Crucially, active boredom can be mediated and its harmful effects limited by careful management.
In addition to these two commonly-recognized types, it is widely accepted that the vague region between active and passive boredom may contain several more types of boredom yet to be named by science. Recent groundbreaking research at the Llareggub Valley Facility in central Wales has fueled speculation that there may be as many as 15 distinct subtypes of boredom, although it should be noted that several may only be reproducible under laboratory conditions.
Measuring boredom
The severity of active boredom is measured in Melvilles (Mvl).
1 Melville is the level of boredom equivalent to earnestly trying to read Herman Melville’s 1851 magnum opus Moby Dick. For scientific purposes, Chapters 55–57 ("Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales"; "Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the Pictures of Whaling Scenes", and "Of Whales in Paint, in Teeth, in Wood, in Sheet, in Stone, in Mountains, and in Stars") are the most commonly used to calibrate equipment, as some of the book's livelier passages can cause inconsistent readings when a high level of precision is required.
Some example boredom levels, in Melvilles:
Sorting laundry (in silence) – 0.5Mvl
Radio 4 (typical) – 0.7Mvl
Writing a college paper - 0.6-1.1Mvl (depending on subject)
Proofreading indexes - 1.3Mvl
Wallpapering - 0.5Mvl
Any discussion of the measurement of boredom must begin with a profile of the man who almost single handedly revolutionised our conception of what it is to be bored. So, without further ado, here it is
Feldengräss von HohenloenUntil 1996, when the Artificial Boredom Experiencer (ABE) was devised, the highest level of boredom to be experimentally verified and independently reproduced was 2.63Mvl – experienced by a literature student at Montreal University in 1957 as she tried to read her way through volume four of Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu.
Dr Feldengräss von Hohenloen is a colossal figure in the field of boredom research. His work is generally credited with lifting boredom out of the realm of philosophers and into the remit of objective science. He was born to a hardworking German-American family in 1911 and spent most of his childhood in Cathode Falls, Missouri. A gifted child, he excelled in his studies and eventually won a scholarship to Harvard University, where he decided to become a doctor. His dream of opening a practice in his home town was cut short, however, by the outbreak of World War II. In March 1943 he was recruited into the Army Medical Corps. He served with distinction as a battlefield surgeon, working first in England, and later moving across Europe with General Leonard T. Gerow’s Fifteenth United States Army. The dramatic events of World War II seem an unlikely crucible in which a great boredom researcher could be created, but – to quote an old soldier's maxim – ‘war is nine parts boredom, one part terror’*. His interest was first piqued when he noticed that the boredom experienced by soldiers on sentry duty seemed to be fundamentally different from that felt by the orderly that had to inventory the field hospital’s medicine stocks every week. In his landmark 1944 paper “So Many goddamn boxes: An investigation of administrative boredom” (first published in the British journal The Lancet) he laid down the basic division between active and passive boredom that continues to be used to this day. In the post-war period he watched as the field of study he created grew at an astonishing speed. He was responsible, along with his research partner Greta Simpson, with the creation of the Melville as a unit of measuring boredom, and the soft-biscuit membrane used in many boredom detectors to this day. Although he largely retired from active research in the late 1960s (largely as a result of concerns raised his own findings about the long-term effects of boredom exposure) he remained the elder-statesman of boredom research, and had some 37 honorary doctorates by the time he died in 1983.
*This assertion, incidentally, was extensively tested by Hohenloen during his time at DARPA (then known as ARPA) in the early 1960s.
Attempts to measure higher levels of boredom were banned by most Western governments in 1973 following the notorious ‘Jonathan Schieffler incident’. Schieffler, a Phd candidate at MIT, had been encouraged to attend a Jam-band and poetry evening in order to take readings, but was not warned of the danger of doing so sober. Due to a freak bean-bag landslide he was trapped in the bar for the entirety of a four-hour cover of the song "Flying Teapot" by Gong. By the time a rescue team was sent in he had lost consciousness. The boredom-meter found clasped in his rigid hands was allegedly (it was lost in the aftermath of the incident, possibly as part of MIT's attempted cover-up) jammed at 4Mvl (the highest it could go). Schieffler remained in a coma for six weeks, and has been afflicted with severe narcolepsy ever since.
With the invention of the ABE, the risk has been removed from boredom research, although accidents do still happen. Currently the record stands at 5.96Mvl – recorded when a remote-controlled ABE was sent into the auditorium of a avant garde jazz evening at a Belgian golf club (The phenomenon whereby it is possible to perform avant garde jazz is still not fully understood by science).
Is it safe?
Exposure to boredom levels of up to 1Mvl are generally considered non-harmful, although the long-term effects of regular exposure are still unclear (see Further Resources). Above 1Mvl, however, most people will begin to experience drowsiness, fidgeting and a perceptible decline in their ability to concentrate. If the boring activity is not halted, these symptoms will increase in severity until the afflicted person loses consciousness. The time it takes for this to occur varies according to each individual’s age and baseline level of ennui (see our pamphlet ‘An Easy Guide to Calculating your Ennui’).
Regular exposure to high boredom levels can, over time, enable individuals to develop a degree of tolerance – in much the same way that fighter pilots develop techniques that allow them to resist high g-forces. Successful humanities graduates often exhibit high levels of boredom tolerance, as do solicitors and accountants.
Health and Safety officers are permitted to take a degree of assumed tolerance into account when assessing workplace boredom protocols, although it must be stressed that even the most resilient Tort specialists lose consciousness after around 30 minutes’ exposure to levels higher than 1.9Mvl.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Dumpster Ibanez, part the last
This is the second time I've written this post -- the first time blogger did a fun little switcheroo with an identically titled duplicate draft and tricked me into deleting the whole thing. If it seems badly written and confused, it's probably because I was too fed up to write it any better.
This is the last of my interminable posts about the battered Ibanez EX370 that I found in a bin. So, the story so far. I found a guitar with a busted neck. I tried to fix said neck and busted it worse. Time passed, I got married. I made new neck, glued it together and fretted it. All that remained for me to do was paint it and set it up.
I was a little nervous going into this last stage. On the one hand, I knew it was be pretty damn difficult to irredeemably wreck the guitar at this stage, but on the other, there was the issue of my rather checkered record when it comes to refinishing guitars. I lack the patience, equipment, and time to make a good job of it. I still try, but I usually cock it up. Going into this project I had tried refinishing a guitar three times and buggered it up... well, three times.
This time I was determined to do everything by the book. I sanded the neck until it was as smooth as a greased-up teflon baby, then liberally smeared it with sanding sealer. A few days later I repeated the process and left it to dry. The paint I was going to use was some matt clear lacquer I had left over from another project (I say left over – it's more that I never wanted it in the first place. I made the mistake of placing an order with Montana Cans, who are a bunch of complete fucking shysters. Go with MTN Nottingham if you're looking for spray paint -- it's good paint and they won't try and rip you off.).
While it was entirely not what I wanted for the other project, the matt lacquer was ideal for sealing up the neck. I don't like the feel of gloss lacquered or oiled necks -- too sticky under my thumb -- but I knew that if I didn't put something fairly heavy-duty on it the neck would be coated in finger-skank before I'd played my first riff. I took advantage of a late summer warm spell to get to work in my spray booth (the end of the garden) with the neck placed my my special painting cradle (I dangled the neck from the branch of a tree using a hook made out of a bent coathanger).
Much to my annoyance, I discovered that it was very good paint. I hate to give a good review to such a staggeringly unethical company* but I have to say it went on nicely, dried quickly and gave a good finish. The neck was finished within three days. I didn't take any pictures during this stage for some reason, but there wasn't really a whole lot to see.
Once the finish was completely dry I put my maker's mark on the headstock. Since Kristen did about half the work, I figured I should give her half the name, even if Hollingmore does sound like a 1950s kitchen appliance company. I'd intended to do the lettering with one of my chunky italic pens, but it wouldn't stick to the finish so I had to use a sharpie. Suffice to say, calligraphy isn't easy with a sharpie marker. It's supposed to be based on a 16th century Flemish alphabet that I can do quite well with a pen, but with a sharpie, on a awkwardly shaped block of wood, the results aren't so hot.
With that done I wired in the old pickups from my brother's guitar (see this post for how they came to be not in his guitar). Again, no pictures of this stage. I can practically do with blindfolded now (although I still periodically burn myself on the soldering iron) so it didn't strike me as novel enough to photograph.
At this point, when I was just a few meters from the finish line. It all went to shit. Well, not all of it exactly, but an important bit. You see, when I strung it up the first time I didn't really bother with all the rigmarole that goes with setting up a Floyd Rose tremolo – I just ran the strings through the machine-screw holes in the back of the saddle-blocks and left it at that. As long time readers would know, I'm really emphatically not a fan of the FR. What happened next has made me even less of a fan.
To attach a string properly you need to wedge it between a little square block of metal an the saddle-block, then tighten the whole thing up with a set screw. I did this to the first string with no problem, but when I tried to do it to the second on the string pinged out when I tried to tune it up. I put it back in and tightened it about a half-turn more than I'd tightened it before. This caused the saddle-block to shatter like a piece of porcelain.
Now, in all fairness, this isn't exactly the fault of the Floyd Rose design. ‘Original’ FR tremolos (as in ones actually made by the company) are made from machined steel, and you'd need a colossal amount of force to break them. The fact that this one broke is mostly down to it being a cheap-ass die-cast licence made copy. Still, you can make a Fender tremolo from the cheapest materials possible and it still works just fine – I know, I've played an Encore strat copy.
Still. I was annoyed. I had no spare saddles and I definitely couldn't fix the broken one. After a great deal of rummaging around on eBay I managed to find a replacement set, but they were £30 and were probably no better made than the ones that were already there. I really didn't want to spend money improving a piece of hardware that I consider to be fundamentally flawed, and that I'd never use, but at the same time I really didn't have any other choice. After about a week of procrastinating I bought the new saddles and string it up. This time it went without problems, and while the saddles are a noticeably different colour to the old ones (new gold finish vs extremely worn gold finish) they seem to work fine.
I tweaked the action a little, adjusted the intonation (which takes fucking ages) and declared it finished. I then took pictures to prove it.
It sounds nice, and plays well. I think I might make a few more very minor adjustments to it at some point (the nut could do with being filed down about 0.5mm and the fretwork is ever-so-slightly buzzy on the top-e with the action down really low) but they're not really a priority. For now I'm just going to keep it in playable condition and, well, play it.
Perhaps I'll make a serious effort to learn some jazz guitar, just because the idea of playing jazz on something with pointy horns and a Floyd Rose tickles me.
-Ben
*The whole German Montana vs Spanish Montana (MTN Color) affair is a fascinating story that I need to tell on here one day. Suffice to say it reads like a ‘big-business vs the little man’ story from a left-leaning children's TV show.
This is the last of my interminable posts about the battered Ibanez EX370 that I found in a bin. So, the story so far. I found a guitar with a busted neck. I tried to fix said neck and busted it worse. Time passed, I got married. I made new neck, glued it together and fretted it. All that remained for me to do was paint it and set it up.
I was a little nervous going into this last stage. On the one hand, I knew it was be pretty damn difficult to irredeemably wreck the guitar at this stage, but on the other, there was the issue of my rather checkered record when it comes to refinishing guitars. I lack the patience, equipment, and time to make a good job of it. I still try, but I usually cock it up. Going into this project I had tried refinishing a guitar three times and buggered it up... well, three times.
This time I was determined to do everything by the book. I sanded the neck until it was as smooth as a greased-up teflon baby, then liberally smeared it with sanding sealer. A few days later I repeated the process and left it to dry. The paint I was going to use was some matt clear lacquer I had left over from another project (I say left over – it's more that I never wanted it in the first place. I made the mistake of placing an order with Montana Cans, who are a bunch of complete fucking shysters. Go with MTN Nottingham if you're looking for spray paint -- it's good paint and they won't try and rip you off.).
While it was entirely not what I wanted for the other project, the matt lacquer was ideal for sealing up the neck. I don't like the feel of gloss lacquered or oiled necks -- too sticky under my thumb -- but I knew that if I didn't put something fairly heavy-duty on it the neck would be coated in finger-skank before I'd played my first riff. I took advantage of a late summer warm spell to get to work in my spray booth (the end of the garden) with the neck placed my my special painting cradle (I dangled the neck from the branch of a tree using a hook made out of a bent coathanger).
Much to my annoyance, I discovered that it was very good paint. I hate to give a good review to such a staggeringly unethical company* but I have to say it went on nicely, dried quickly and gave a good finish. The neck was finished within three days. I didn't take any pictures during this stage for some reason, but there wasn't really a whole lot to see.
Once the finish was completely dry I put my maker's mark on the headstock. Since Kristen did about half the work, I figured I should give her half the name, even if Hollingmore does sound like a 1950s kitchen appliance company. I'd intended to do the lettering with one of my chunky italic pens, but it wouldn't stick to the finish so I had to use a sharpie. Suffice to say, calligraphy isn't easy with a sharpie marker. It's supposed to be based on a 16th century Flemish alphabet that I can do quite well with a pen, but with a sharpie, on a awkwardly shaped block of wood, the results aren't so hot.
With that done I wired in the old pickups from my brother's guitar (see this post for how they came to be not in his guitar). Again, no pictures of this stage. I can practically do with blindfolded now (although I still periodically burn myself on the soldering iron) so it didn't strike me as novel enough to photograph.
At this point, when I was just a few meters from the finish line. It all went to shit. Well, not all of it exactly, but an important bit. You see, when I strung it up the first time I didn't really bother with all the rigmarole that goes with setting up a Floyd Rose tremolo – I just ran the strings through the machine-screw holes in the back of the saddle-blocks and left it at that. As long time readers would know, I'm really emphatically not a fan of the FR. What happened next has made me even less of a fan.
To attach a string properly you need to wedge it between a little square block of metal an the saddle-block, then tighten the whole thing up with a set screw. I did this to the first string with no problem, but when I tried to do it to the second on the string pinged out when I tried to tune it up. I put it back in and tightened it about a half-turn more than I'd tightened it before. This caused the saddle-block to shatter like a piece of porcelain.
Now, in all fairness, this isn't exactly the fault of the Floyd Rose design. ‘Original’ FR tremolos (as in ones actually made by the company) are made from machined steel, and you'd need a colossal amount of force to break them. The fact that this one broke is mostly down to it being a cheap-ass die-cast licence made copy. Still, you can make a Fender tremolo from the cheapest materials possible and it still works just fine – I know, I've played an Encore strat copy.
Still. I was annoyed. I had no spare saddles and I definitely couldn't fix the broken one. After a great deal of rummaging around on eBay I managed to find a replacement set, but they were £30 and were probably no better made than the ones that were already there. I really didn't want to spend money improving a piece of hardware that I consider to be fundamentally flawed, and that I'd never use, but at the same time I really didn't have any other choice. After about a week of procrastinating I bought the new saddles and string it up. This time it went without problems, and while the saddles are a noticeably different colour to the old ones (new gold finish vs extremely worn gold finish) they seem to work fine.
I tweaked the action a little, adjusted the intonation (which takes fucking ages) and declared it finished. I then took pictures to prove it.
It sounds nice, and plays well. I think I might make a few more very minor adjustments to it at some point (the nut could do with being filed down about 0.5mm and the fretwork is ever-so-slightly buzzy on the top-e with the action down really low) but they're not really a priority. For now I'm just going to keep it in playable condition and, well, play it.
Perhaps I'll make a serious effort to learn some jazz guitar, just because the idea of playing jazz on something with pointy horns and a Floyd Rose tickles me.
-Ben
*The whole German Montana vs Spanish Montana (MTN Color) affair is a fascinating story that I need to tell on here one day. Suffice to say it reads like a ‘big-business vs the little man’ story from a left-leaning children's TV show.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Dumpster Ibanez, Part the third
So, here I am again. Today I will tell you a tale of glue, swearing and drills.
I left off at the point where I put the neck back in the box it came in, along with all my tools and the larger offcuts (my experience the previous year taught me that you should never turn up your nose at offcuts of good wood) and took it home. I would have liked to do the rest of the project in the workshop, but sadly I only had a few days off work. I'd done all the things that had to be done in the workshop though, so it wasn't a major problem.
The first task, which had to be completed before I could do anything else, was sorting out the slightly squiffy trussrod rout. This was a time consuming but not particularly difficult process – I sat in my attic watching Doctor Who while gradually widening and straightening the rout with a selection of teensy chisels and files. While doing this I also evened out the shape of the router's little excursion into the heel of the neck. The next day I cut a handful of thin slivers from the veneer-like piece and shoved them into the unwanted rout until they filled it with no visible gaps. I then took them out, slavered them in titebond (which is so much easier to work with than gorilla glue) and jammed them back into the gap with a mallet. When dried and planed flat, you could barely see the repair. At about the same time I took another veneer-piece and glued it to the side of the heel where I'd drifted off the line during the jigsaw phase. Once trimmed and planed to the right shape, it got the neck back to the right shape.
I was pleased with myself, work could now continue.
The next stage was attaching the fretboard, which involved a great deal of persnickety measuring and minute adjustments. It also involved a lot of clamps. Like this.
Once the neck was firmly glued in place (I kept it clamped securely for two days to be sure) I set about trimming the fretboard to the same size as the neck. It would have been quickest to do this with a saw, but I was terrified of cocking it up so close to completion, so I did it the slow but certain way – with planes and rasps. After I'd done this, I gave the neck back to Kristen so that she could drill the tuning peg holes with the big pillar-drill in her workshop.
It was through experiments with this mutant neck shown above that I figured out a fretting method that seemed to work pretty well. Like the old method, it was still fundamentally clawhammer based (perhaps one day I'll buy a dead-drop hammer in a fit of wild extravagance). It had, however, a few crucial differences from the old method. First of all, I was using Jescar fretwire, which comes pre-radiused (joy), rather than the flat stuff Stewmac sells. This meant that the curve of the fretwire was consistent and even. Secondly, I found a ratty looking old chopping board in the kitchen made out of a funny sort of rubbery plastic that seemed to have just the right amount of bouncy-vs-hard. This latter point sounds a little odd, but it was possibly the more important of the two developments mentioned so far. By cutting a little square of this and sticking it to the end of my hammer, I was able to knock the frets into place without marking them or exposing them to too much shock and vibration. Finally, I bought a big new pair of end-nippers which Kristen reshaped on her grinding wheel at work, fixing them so that the cutting edge was flush with the face of the nippers. This allowed me to cut the frets pretty much flush with the edge of the fretboard, eliminating the lengthy process of grinding the ends down with a file (a process which often shook frets loose). The whole process of fretting, much to my surprise, went smoothly and only took about an hour and a half.
With this done I drilled the holes in the headstock for the tuning peg screws, the string trees and the neck attachment bolts. The last of these was probably the most nerve racking. I did it with a hand drill because I was paranoid about drilling through the front of fingerboard. I'm not entirely satisfied with the fit of the neck in the pocket, but it seems good enough to play. With these things done, I wired up one of the pickups and strung it up.
All these things done I gave it a very simple, cursory set up to get the strings somewhere near the fretboard (this involved shimming the neck pocket a little to increase the angle) and plugged it into my amp. I think you could probably have heard my Dr Frankenstein-style laughing from the other side of the street when I figured out that it worked. The frets were even and level, no buzzes or dead notes, the neck felt good in my hands. I gave the truss-rod a tweak and it did what it was supposed to do, correcting the ever-so-slight bow caused by putting it under tension for the first time.
But, of course, I could not call it finished just yet. So after a few more minutes’ playing, I took the strings back off, dismantled it, and prepared for part four: finishing and set up. Do stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion of this saga.
-Ben
I left off at the point where I put the neck back in the box it came in, along with all my tools and the larger offcuts (my experience the previous year taught me that you should never turn up your nose at offcuts of good wood) and took it home. I would have liked to do the rest of the project in the workshop, but sadly I only had a few days off work. I'd done all the things that had to be done in the workshop though, so it wasn't a major problem.
The first task, which had to be completed before I could do anything else, was sorting out the slightly squiffy trussrod rout. This was a time consuming but not particularly difficult process – I sat in my attic watching Doctor Who while gradually widening and straightening the rout with a selection of teensy chisels and files. While doing this I also evened out the shape of the router's little excursion into the heel of the neck. The next day I cut a handful of thin slivers from the veneer-like piece and shoved them into the unwanted rout until they filled it with no visible gaps. I then took them out, slavered them in titebond (which is so much easier to work with than gorilla glue) and jammed them back into the gap with a mallet. When dried and planed flat, you could barely see the repair. At about the same time I took another veneer-piece and glued it to the side of the heel where I'd drifted off the line during the jigsaw phase. Once trimmed and planed to the right shape, it got the neck back to the right shape.
I was pleased with myself, work could now continue.
The next stage was attaching the fretboard, which involved a great deal of persnickety measuring and minute adjustments. It also involved a lot of clamps. Like this.
The neck, held in place with three clamps attached to a big bit of scrap pine. The strange mutant in the background is a scrap of pine that I radiused with a plane and then banged frets into for practice.
Once the neck was firmly glued in place (I kept it clamped securely for two days to be sure) I set about trimming the fretboard to the same size as the neck. It would have been quickest to do this with a saw, but I was terrified of cocking it up so close to completion, so I did it the slow but certain way – with planes and rasps. After I'd done this, I gave the neck back to Kristen so that she could drill the tuning peg holes with the big pillar-drill in her workshop.
The neck after I'd removed all the excess material. It was just balanced on the body for the look of the thing in the picture – I'd not actually bolted it into place yet.
It was through experiments with this mutant neck shown above that I figured out a fretting method that seemed to work pretty well. Like the old method, it was still fundamentally clawhammer based (perhaps one day I'll buy a dead-drop hammer in a fit of wild extravagance). It had, however, a few crucial differences from the old method. First of all, I was using Jescar fretwire, which comes pre-radiused (joy), rather than the flat stuff Stewmac sells. This meant that the curve of the fretwire was consistent and even. Secondly, I found a ratty looking old chopping board in the kitchen made out of a funny sort of rubbery plastic that seemed to have just the right amount of bouncy-vs-hard. This latter point sounds a little odd, but it was possibly the more important of the two developments mentioned so far. By cutting a little square of this and sticking it to the end of my hammer, I was able to knock the frets into place without marking them or exposing them to too much shock and vibration. Finally, I bought a big new pair of end-nippers which Kristen reshaped on her grinding wheel at work, fixing them so that the cutting edge was flush with the face of the nippers. This allowed me to cut the frets pretty much flush with the edge of the fretboard, eliminating the lengthy process of grinding the ends down with a file (a process which often shook frets loose). The whole process of fretting, much to my surprise, went smoothly and only took about an hour and a half.
Frets, behold their shinyness. There's only two strings on there because I was just lining up the neck at this point.
With this done I drilled the holes in the headstock for the tuning peg screws, the string trees and the neck attachment bolts. The last of these was probably the most nerve racking. I did it with a hand drill because I was paranoid about drilling through the front of fingerboard. I'm not entirely satisfied with the fit of the neck in the pocket, but it seems good enough to play. With these things done, I wired up one of the pickups and strung it up.
All these things done I gave it a very simple, cursory set up to get the strings somewhere near the fretboard (this involved shimming the neck pocket a little to increase the angle) and plugged it into my amp. I think you could probably have heard my Dr Frankenstein-style laughing from the other side of the street when I figured out that it worked. The frets were even and level, no buzzes or dead notes, the neck felt good in my hands. I gave the truss-rod a tweak and it did what it was supposed to do, correcting the ever-so-slight bow caused by putting it under tension for the first time.
But, of course, I could not call it finished just yet. So after a few more minutes’ playing, I took the strings back off, dismantled it, and prepared for part four: finishing and set up. Do stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion of this saga.
-Ben
Monday, September 17, 2012
Dumpster Ibanez, Part the Second
A few posts ago I told a tale of a little guitar that couldn't, and of my hamfisted attempts to get it working again. I will now bring things up to date.
Part one ended in the autumn of 2011, with the guitar disassembled and thoroughly buggered. It stayed that way for the next 8 months or so. I cannibalized some of its electronics (including the one nice pickup) for a refurb of my little sister's Yamaha Pacifica, and considered throwing the rest of the instrument away on more than one occasion.
I didn't entirely give up on the project though, and once the post-wedding daze had subsided I started thinking about what to do next. Considering the thorough wrecking I'd given it the previous year, I figured I had to either make a entirely new neck or throw the whole thing in the bin. Last year making a new neck would have been completely beyond the realms of possibility (there's only so much you can do with hand tools and a shitty black+decker workbench in your garden) but now I had a wife who worked in a big carpentry workshop.
This was, I admit, bordering on underpants-gnome logic (Step 1: Wife with workshop, Step 2: ?, Step 3: Guitar Neck!) but it was enough to make me seriously consider how I'd go about building a neck. I bought a few books, read a lot of blog posts, looked into suppliers of wood and parts. I also drew up a set of blueprints for this hypothetical neck using Adobe inDesign. (I know that autocad probably would have been a more appropriate medium, but it took me three years to reach this level of proficiency with inDesign, and so I reserve the right to use it for damn near everything.)
At about this point Kristen learned that most of her colleagues were disappearing over the summer, and that all her students would disappear also. She suggested that if I came in she could teach me how to use all the tools I'd need and help me with the guitar. In return, I'd be someone to talk to. This seemed like a good plan, so I booked a few days off during the summer holidays and bought the parts I'd need.
I still had a rosewood fingerboard left over from the previous fuckup, so all I needed was fretwire, a trussrod, and a slab of a maple. I bought them from Tonetech Luthier Supplies, who are based in the UK, meaning that there was no interminable wait this time around.
The first tool Kristen taught me to use was a handheld Jigsaw. Once I'd shown I could use it without chopping my fingers off or setting fire to the workshop, she let me loose on a big pile of scrap wood. I cut a load of practice necks from pine offcuts and a couple of dummy headstocks from plywood (I couldn't make practice necks from plywood as plywood has no grain and, therefore, can't be carved)
For the first day and a half I did absolutely nothing to the maple blank itself. I simply made batches of practice necks with the jigsaw, and then carved them with my spokeshaves and rasps. I quickly learned that pine is a tricky wood to carve. This isn't because it's tough – it's barely harder to carve than balsa wood – but rather because it's full of knots. I quickly learned that knots are effectively grain randomisers, once your spokeshave gets within about an inch of them, you have no way of knowing which way its going to go. Nonetheless, I made progress, with the necks looking increasingly neck-like as I went on.
In the afternoon of the second day I decided it was time to start work on the neck blank proper. Before I started to do any of this, however, I had to thin the blank down by about 4mm and level it out. A few trial passes with a big jackplane made it quickly apparent that planing away 4mm of rock maple would take me about a week. Canadian Maple is hard.
Kristen took it upstairs and fed it into the bandsaw. It roared into life, I hid in the corner of the room like a startled kitten (I don't like bandsaws). After an ungodly screeching noise, and a small amount of smoke, Kristen pulled the wood away from the blade, having managed to cut a groove about 2mm deep in one side. Canadian Maple is really hard.
The next day, we tried again with a new saw blade. It went gnuurrrrrrrr-whirr-squeeeeeeeee. I hid. Kristen neatly shaved off a veneer-like piece of maple and handing both bits to me. I spent a lot of the rest of the day planing and planing and planing. By the time came to go home I had a big bruise on the palm of both hands, had pulled most of the muscles in my upper body, and had big salty sweat stains on my clothes. Canadian Maple is insanely hard.
On Friday I traced my blueprint onto the now perfectly smooth surface of the neck and fired up the jigsaw. I quickly discovered that Canadian maple is hard work for a little handheld jigsaw. I had to stop on several occasions because it was overheating to the point where my hands hurt. Eventually though, I managed to cut out the neck. This was the point at which I made my first major mistakes. The first happened when I lost track of the pencil line amidst a cloud of sawdust and drifted about 1mm inside the line near the heel. The second was that I forgot that I needed to do the routing first.
I'm not sure whether it was because I'd removed a lot of material already, or if it's just because routers are evil, but this was the point at which the neck sustained another bit of ‘character’. We clamped the neck into an improvised blank made of plywood and Kristen started to carve the channel (I wasn't feeling particularly confident with the router). When she was about three quarters of the way to the heel, moving with even slowness because the wood was putting up a fight, there was a loud ‘plink’ and Kristen immediately stopped the router. It turned out that the blade had overheated and snapped from the sheer effort of cutting through the Canadian Maple of ultimate hardness. When Kristen restarted a few minutes later the replacement bit caught on some imperfection in the wood and, unnoticed by either of us, drifted off course, cutting a channel that curved about 15mm off the centerline. Luckily it chose to do this in the heel of the neck, where the wood is at its thickest and widest. I figured I could fill the gap by gluing pieces of the veneer-like offcut, which would provide the strength and density needed to hold the neck bolts in place. Having declared the neck to be fine, I set to work carving.
Needless to say, carving was really difficult. As with the planing earlier, it was a sweaty, palm-bruising process. I first used my microplane rasp (made in Arkansas by wizards) to rough out the curve of the neck at the headstock join and heel, then carefully shaved away layer after layer of wood with my spokeshave (taking care to go with the grain).
After slicing away enough material that it looked like a neck, I started trying to refine the shape with a regular rasp. I discovered that this was a process akin to cutting through a steel door with a cheesegrater. It made me feel like I was doing something, but I'm not sure it if really achieved much other than to polish it up nicely. Either way, by the end of the day I had something that looked not entirely unlike a guitar neck and felt like I'd been beaten up. Canadian Maple is hard.
How it looked when I downed tools at the end of the day. The weird splodges on the headstock are a mixture of sweat and sawdust. By the end of this few days I was looking thinner and more muscly than I've ever looked in my life. Even if the guitar didn't work, I had at least learned that building guitars is a good workout.
-Ben
I was originally intending for this to be a two part affair. But now I think I'll have to make it three. Tune in some time in the next week for part three: gluing, fretting and finishing.
Part one ended in the autumn of 2011, with the guitar disassembled and thoroughly buggered. It stayed that way for the next 8 months or so. I cannibalized some of its electronics (including the one nice pickup) for a refurb of my little sister's Yamaha Pacifica, and considered throwing the rest of the instrument away on more than one occasion.
I didn't entirely give up on the project though, and once the post-wedding daze had subsided I started thinking about what to do next. Considering the thorough wrecking I'd given it the previous year, I figured I had to either make a entirely new neck or throw the whole thing in the bin. Last year making a new neck would have been completely beyond the realms of possibility (there's only so much you can do with hand tools and a shitty black+decker workbench in your garden) but now I had a wife who worked in a big carpentry workshop.
This was, I admit, bordering on underpants-gnome logic (Step 1: Wife with workshop, Step 2: ?, Step 3: Guitar Neck!) but it was enough to make me seriously consider how I'd go about building a neck. I bought a few books, read a lot of blog posts, looked into suppliers of wood and parts. I also drew up a set of blueprints for this hypothetical neck using Adobe inDesign. (I know that autocad probably would have been a more appropriate medium, but it took me three years to reach this level of proficiency with inDesign, and so I reserve the right to use it for damn near everything.)
The neck blueprint. Clicky to embiggenate.
The pale blue bit is the truss rod rout.
At about this point Kristen learned that most of her colleagues were disappearing over the summer, and that all her students would disappear also. She suggested that if I came in she could teach me how to use all the tools I'd need and help me with the guitar. In return, I'd be someone to talk to. This seemed like a good plan, so I booked a few days off during the summer holidays and bought the parts I'd need.
I still had a rosewood fingerboard left over from the previous fuckup, so all I needed was fretwire, a trussrod, and a slab of a maple. I bought them from Tonetech Luthier Supplies, who are based in the UK, meaning that there was no interminable wait this time around.
The first tool Kristen taught me to use was a handheld Jigsaw. Once I'd shown I could use it without chopping my fingers off or setting fire to the workshop, she let me loose on a big pile of scrap wood. I cut a load of practice necks from pine offcuts and a couple of dummy headstocks from plywood (I couldn't make practice necks from plywood as plywood has no grain and, therefore, can't be carved)
For the first day and a half I did absolutely nothing to the maple blank itself. I simply made batches of practice necks with the jigsaw, and then carved them with my spokeshaves and rasps. I quickly learned that pine is a tricky wood to carve. This isn't because it's tough – it's barely harder to carve than balsa wood – but rather because it's full of knots. I quickly learned that knots are effectively grain randomisers, once your spokeshave gets within about an inch of them, you have no way of knowing which way its going to go. Nonetheless, I made progress, with the necks looking increasingly neck-like as I went on.
The blanks, carved. The top two were the last ones I did before moving on.
In the afternoon of the second day I decided it was time to start work on the neck blank proper. Before I started to do any of this, however, I had to thin the blank down by about 4mm and level it out. A few trial passes with a big jackplane made it quickly apparent that planing away 4mm of rock maple would take me about a week. Canadian Maple is hard.
Kristen took it upstairs and fed it into the bandsaw. It roared into life, I hid in the corner of the room like a startled kitten (I don't like bandsaws). After an ungodly screeching noise, and a small amount of smoke, Kristen pulled the wood away from the blade, having managed to cut a groove about 2mm deep in one side. Canadian Maple is really hard.
The next day, we tried again with a new saw blade. It went gnuurrrrrrrr-whirr-squeeeeeeeee. I hid. Kristen neatly shaved off a veneer-like piece of maple and handing both bits to me. I spent a lot of the rest of the day planing and planing and planing. By the time came to go home I had a big bruise on the palm of both hands, had pulled most of the muscles in my upper body, and had big salty sweat stains on my clothes. Canadian Maple is insanely hard.
On Friday I traced my blueprint onto the now perfectly smooth surface of the neck and fired up the jigsaw. I quickly discovered that Canadian maple is hard work for a little handheld jigsaw. I had to stop on several occasions because it was overheating to the point where my hands hurt. Eventually though, I managed to cut out the neck. This was the point at which I made my first major mistakes. The first happened when I lost track of the pencil line amidst a cloud of sawdust and drifted about 1mm inside the line near the heel. The second was that I forgot that I needed to do the routing first.
I'm not sure whether it was because I'd removed a lot of material already, or if it's just because routers are evil, but this was the point at which the neck sustained another bit of ‘character’. We clamped the neck into an improvised blank made of plywood and Kristen started to carve the channel (I wasn't feeling particularly confident with the router). When she was about three quarters of the way to the heel, moving with even slowness because the wood was putting up a fight, there was a loud ‘plink’ and Kristen immediately stopped the router. It turned out that the blade had overheated and snapped from the sheer effort of cutting through the Canadian Maple of ultimate hardness. When Kristen restarted a few minutes later the replacement bit caught on some imperfection in the wood and, unnoticed by either of us, drifted off course, cutting a channel that curved about 15mm off the centerline. Luckily it chose to do this in the heel of the neck, where the wood is at its thickest and widest. I figured I could fill the gap by gluing pieces of the veneer-like offcut, which would provide the strength and density needed to hold the neck bolts in place. Having declared the neck to be fine, I set to work carving.
Carving in progress. This was about an hour's work, believe it or not. If you look very carefully, you can just about see the router’s little detour at the heel of the neck next to the clamp.
Needless to say, carving was really difficult. As with the planing earlier, it was a sweaty, palm-bruising process. I first used my microplane rasp (made in Arkansas by wizards) to rough out the curve of the neck at the headstock join and heel, then carefully shaved away layer after layer of wood with my spokeshave (taking care to go with the grain).
Looking up from the heel to the headstock. At this point I thought I was about halfway done with the carving. Hah.
After slicing away enough material that it looked like a neck, I started trying to refine the shape with a regular rasp. I discovered that this was a process akin to cutting through a steel door with a cheesegrater. It made me feel like I was doing something, but I'm not sure it if really achieved much other than to polish it up nicely. Either way, by the end of the day I had something that looked not entirely unlike a guitar neck and felt like I'd been beaten up. Canadian Maple is hard.
How it looked when I downed tools at the end of the day. The weird splodges on the headstock are a mixture of sweat and sawdust. By the end of this few days I was looking thinner and more muscly than I've ever looked in my life. Even if the guitar didn't work, I had at least learned that building guitars is a good workout.
-Ben
I was originally intending for this to be a two part affair. But now I think I'll have to make it three. Tune in some time in the next week for part three: gluing, fretting and finishing.
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