# Klein Solid Body Electric Travel Guitar



## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

*Planning and Roughing*

My son is an accomplished jazz guitarist, having minored in music, playing every day several hours for 10+ years, and doing occasional jigs in NYC where he lives. I promised a hand-made personalized guitar for his graduation present. Now I'm going to make for him a Klein copy travel guitar.

I found some plans online here by Eric Olds and here. I redrew them myself in sketchup because my son has certain specifications for the hardware that require laying out the neck/body connection and establishing the correct angle to make the action work right.










We decided to make this a so-called "through neck" design to eliminate the neck joint. This has several advantages: simpler construction, more rigid body for better sustain (we hope) and stronger product.

We picked out "Korina" often known as "Black Limba" for the body and accents in the neck. I will laminate as much as possible using Titebond III to even out wood imperfections. The neck is made from strips of hard maple. The drawing should make it clear where I used the different woods.

Korina is well known as the wood that the Gibson Flying V's are made of. Those were painted. Ours will be finished naturally.

I also read several books before beginning:

Hiscock, Melvyn, "Make Your Own Electric Guitar," Blandford Press UK, 1998 second edition.
Siminoff, Roger, "Constructing a Solid-Body Guitar," Hal Leonard Books, Milwaukee, WI, 1986.
Erlewine, Dan, "Guitar Player Repair Guide," GPI Books, San Francisco, 1990.
Brosh, John, editor "Guitar Gear," GPI Publications, New York, 1985.

The tuner will be assorted steel and Al bits made by drill and file using purchased hardware to a recipe that I'll describe in a later blog.

I began by laminating two neck blanks and planing them to rough size using the power planer. I also for this post used a taper jib on my table saw to mill the 1.1 degree taper in the neck then planed it dead flat by hand with my #7 jointing plane.

I am making two of everything as I go. I guess guitar timbre is fickle so I'll double my chances.

I'll keep you all updated. I'll be putting the body together next.


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## Texcaster (Oct 26, 2013)

davegutz said:


> *Planning and Roughing*
> 
> My son is an accomplished jazz guitarist, having minored in music, playing every day several hours for 10+ years, and doing occasional jigs in NYC where he lives. I promised a hand-made personalized guitar for his graduation present. Now I'm going to make for him a Klein copy travel guitar.
> 
> ...


Keep the photos coming. Fret board timber ?


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

davegutz said:


> *Planning and Roughing*
> 
> My son is an accomplished jazz guitarist, having minored in music, playing every day several hours for 10+ years, and doing occasional jigs in NYC where he lives. I promised a hand-made personalized guitar for his graduation present. Now I'm going to make for him a Klein copy travel guitar.
> 
> ...


The Luthiers supply box arrives tomorrow with 12" radiused ebony fretboard and truss rod. This thing is ALL GIBSON.


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

*Add Carbon Stiffeners to the Neck*

The plans I found recommend stiffening the travel guitar's neck with carbon fiber. This makes sense because it lightens the neck slightly by substituting carbon for maple and because the travel guitar will want to have as thin a neck as possible without being weakened. This guitar will also use heavy jazz strings so some added stiffening will help the truss rod.

Stewart MacDonald carries these. The plans suggested 3/16×1/4×18.

I decided to orient the rod with long section dimension vertical to stiffen more in the direction of the string pull. It was placed by eye to evenly distribute the truss rod (not yet installed) and the stiffeners (2).

I used the table saw to cut the 3/16 by 1/4 deep slot. The Stanley plow plane cleaned up the slot. I made the fit "not snug" so I would get at least some glue line.

West System 3 was used with the long time one hour hardener in this warm weather.

Only one neck was stiffened. The other neck will now be set aside as a spare.


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

*Install Truss Rod*

Today I installed the truss rod following LMI's instructions. The video will also show you what it looks like and how it works. I got the double acting one because of the tremendous amount of uncertainty in building my first guitar. It does no harm but costs a bit more.

I used a 1/4" router bit to mill a slot 1/16" deeper than the rod. Then I milled down a piece of hard maple to cap the slot as instructed with epoxy.

Before installing the truss rod I gave the bottom of the slot a thin bead of some leftover silicone caulk and I masked around the threads and installed the rod with the tape on it. LMI suggests doing these things. The caulk is prophylactic for vibration noise and the tape is obviously to prevent jamming the threads.

Since the fretboard blank arrived in the mail last night I can begin prepping that for binding tomorrow.


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

*Binding the Fretboard*

I used 1/16" x 1/4" ABS cream color bought from LMI. The 1/4" is just high enough to cover the crown on the ends. This stuff planes and scrapes very well so it was easy to plane it down to the board level without stressing the bond joint.

I began by cutting the fretboard to size. This meant cutting it off flush where the nut goes and cutting it about 3/8" past the highest fret (#22). A gents saw worked very well for this. The edges of the board were planed with the #7 jointer.

Then using 2-part DevCon Household Plastic weld I bonded about 18" binder to one side and clamped it between my table saw fence and a board clamped to the table top at a slight angle to match the fretboard taper. When in place, the whole board can be tapped tighter lengthwise into the slot, since it's angled, to tighten the clamping action as much as you want.









The DevCon stuff hardens in about 10 minutes so I flipped the fretboard around and did the other side. I discovered that the DevCon bonds wood to steel equally well so I had some difficulty peeling the board off the table top. This exposed the fact that one end of the binder didn't have full glue coverage and it popped off. I fixed it easily with a little more DevCon mix and reclamping.

I recommend trying to be sparing with the DevCon and deal with the incidental sticking to other surfaces because it's a whole lot easier than some kind of masking system and works ok with these tiny parts.

Now using block plane and scraper I carefully brought the binder down to the fretboard. I also turned the whole thing over and cleaned and flattened the backside with the scraper. Both the binder and ebony scrape wonderfully and the fretboard came alive before my eyes.










Finally I cut a piece for the high fret end and bonded it in place with Loctite 2-part superglue. Both the wood and ABS were primed with the Loctite pen. This worked really well and with some more scraping (no plane) I cleaned up the end too. You can see a bit of joint between the ABS pieces, however. I think real luthiers have a way to pre-treat the ABS with acetone to weld the two pieces. I tried and couldn't quite make it work.










Finding glue for ABS is a challenge. Here are the things I discovered are available in the US and actually work (nothing else does so don't bother):

• ZAP Slo, gap-filling CA - May be even better if surface is wetted with acetone just before adding CA. This works pretty well, not was well as last two.

• DevCon Plastic Welder, 'cream' colored. This works well. It has a short shelf life of about 1 year. There is a date on the package that is for copywrite and confirmed I had a recent batch.

• Loctite Plastic Bonding System - A pen-type heptane activator plus a CA-type glue. This works well.

All these are in the $5 range the DevCon being a bit over. I got them at HD but I cannot remember where I got the DevCon. Walmart maybe?

Reportedly Duco, E6000, and Goop work but do not work all that well. I had some Goop but didn't bother because it would have made a goopy mess in addition to sort of doing the job. Everything else is even worse than Duco and pops off ABS almost immediately, including epoxy, contact cement….


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

*Bookmatched Body Blanks and Fret Marks*

I took two pieces of Black Limba and resawed them to make bookmatched body halves. I glued the back sides and ended up with two different books to choose from. I picked my favorite. Below you can see the intended result. The pieces of paper illustrate what I'll cut out of each blank.

I also put little plastic fret markers into the binding/ebony edge on top only. No fretboard dots. I learned that ABS does not like heating by the drill bit! Use slow speed only and be quick about it.


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

*Glue Up*

I drilled and chopped out the wire passages for the pickups then glued the beast to the neck with Titebond III.








Wire routes.

It will weigh about 7#.








I should be able to trim some weight as I shape it.

Before gluing I cutout the body at the bandsaw with a 1/4" blade. I used the scrap as caul and I also had to put some tape on the top of the body to level it with the neck. The glue-up was done face down on a board and tapped into into alignment against the board while tightening the clamps.








The glue-up








Looks like the plan. So far no serious mistakes.








Should be fun for him to play!


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

*Hogging Out the Cavities*

Hi all,

I measured at least 10 times before making the cavity cuts. These need to be done before shaping so there is support for the tools - drill press and router.

Before beginning the routs I had a little cleanup to do on the butt end of the through neck. The photo shows I back cut the tuner mount (this travel guitar is headless and has the tuner behind the bridge) to 20 degrees. This is so the tuners swing nominally level after tensioning the strings. If I didn't do this the tuners would stick up in an ugly way. In a later post I'll show how the tuners work.









Back Cut Base of Neck 20 degrees for Tuner Mount

So then we move on to the routs.

First I cut the control cavities. The location of these is not critical to guitar sound. This was done by first drilling through holes at the diameters of the controls (two potentiometers 3/8" and a switch 1/2"). I added some spotfaces so the knobs will look clean when installed. Then I flipped the body over and hogged out using a 1 1/2" Forstner bit. You can see in the photo this result with a pot dropped into the cavity to illustrate. The cavity was cleaned out with a chisel. Then I uses a 1 3/4" Forstner bit to cut the rabbet for the cavity cover, evening this out with chisels.









Through Holes with Spotfaces









Back Cavity with Pot Shown









Traced Rabbet









Cut Cover - Smoothed with Files









Cover Shown Installed

Finally I cut the Humbucker routs. The location is important according to my resources - they need to be as near to the bridge and necks as possible.









Humbucker Routs

Damn! Now's taking shape, literally. Next I'll use the sandpaper disk grinder to shape it all up… see you soon.


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

*Glue on the Fretboard*

Before installing the fretboard started some shaping using the Festool disk sander/grinder. My experience making Maloof chairs has paid off as I found this very easy and fun.








Started to Take Shape

I installed some small bits of 4d nail in the bed of the fretboard and the fretboard itself to hold alignment while clamping up.









Alignment Pins in Neck and Holes at White Marks on Ebony Fretboard

Then I glued with Titebond III, clamping down to table saw top for dead flatness. There is a caul against the fretboard to press the edges since the fretboard has a 12" radius.








Glue Up of Fretboard. I Tried Not to Tighten Too Much.

It's beginning to take shape.


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## Texcaster (Oct 26, 2013)

davegutz said:


> *Glue on the Fretboard*
> 
> Before installing the fretboard started some shaping using the Festool disk sander/grinder. My experience making Maloof chairs has paid off as I found this very easy and fun.
> 
> ...


Still watching.


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

davegutz said:


> *Glue on the Fretboard*
> 
> Before installing the fretboard started some shaping using the Festool disk sander/grinder. My experience making Maloof chairs has paid off as I found this very easy and fun.
> 
> ...


Bill, thanks for the encouragement. Sometimes I wonder if anybody is. I like doing this anyway because it makes nice reminders for me when I do a project again.


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

*Tuners*

Not strictly wood, but such an important part of a guitar project I thought I'd better show them.

This is my own design, modified after I looked at the plan provided in the first blog entry of this series when I realized it wouldn't work!









The Side Facing the Mounting Plate and Neck Base.









Another View of Side Facing Mounting Plate. Strings Go Through Unoccupied Holes.









Here You See The Back Side with String Holding Thumbscrews at Top and Tuners at Bottom

The side through bolt serves as the mount to the holes in the ears of the mounting plate. I plan to radius the corners of each arm so that the arms contact the mounting plate on the radius. This way one string will not affect another. The design in the plans did not account for this.

I bought the screw hardware per plan at Thor Labs. They were great to deal with. The aluminum bar and other hardware I bought at McMaster.

Thanks for persisting. The end of this project is coming soon.


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

*Fretting the Details*

We're heading into the details of the project. I completed the fretting this weekend. It is tedious but fun once you get going. I had a long roll of nickel fretwire that I cut pieces off and worked with my Dremel tool clamped to the drill press to create a little grinding workstation. The fretwire has tangs on it to hold into the fretboard. The tangs that would go into the fretboard binding (white plastic edging you see) have to be trimmed off to avoid ruining the binding.

Once trimmed, the wires were pushed into the board. The drill press had a radiused pressing block to do the pushing, instead of hammering. One of the books suggested starting with the long frets and working towards small so that mistakes can be reused. I saved a few inches of material from that tip.









Press Block in Drill Press; Dremel Workstation Clamped to Side

When all the frets were in I taped the sides all the way up the fretboard to serve as witness to my finish filing. After the fret ends were roughed to shape I removed what was left of the tape and used a small riffler file to remove the end burrs and smooth the ends. Then I used a 12" radiused block to level the frets. Careful! Nickel is softer than you think. I re-rounded the frets with a fret file and cleaned it all up with #1200 sandpaper.








Fretted Guitar

Almost as an afterthought I drilled the bridge mounting holes and ran a grounding wire for the bridge into the control cavity.

Next will be making a string stop for the end of the neck out of brass.


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## JohnSnow (Oct 19, 2015)

davegutz said:


> *Fretting the Details*
> 
> We're heading into the details of the project. I completed the fretting this weekend. It is tedious but fun once you get going. I had a long roll of nickel fretwire that I cut pieces off and worked with my Dremel tool clamped to the drill press to create a little grinding workstation. The fretwire has tangs on it to hold into the fretboard. The tangs that would go into the fretboard binding (white plastic edging you see) have to be trimmed off to avoid ruining the binding.
> 
> ...


This is something I would love to try once I get to master the basics (Y) 
Great job!


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## intheshop (Aug 18, 2010)

davegutz said:


> *Fretting the Details*
> 
> We're heading into the details of the project. I completed the fretting this weekend. It is tedious but fun once you get going. I had a long roll of nickel fretwire that I cut pieces off and worked with my Dremel tool clamped to the drill press to create a little grinding workstation. The fretwire has tangs on it to hold into the fretboard. The tangs that would go into the fretboard binding (white plastic edging you see) have to be trimmed off to avoid ruining the binding.
> 
> ...


Dave,
I just found this series. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I'm looking forward to seeing how it wraps up. Thank you for detailing your work.


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## davegutz (Oct 16, 2012)

*Finished - Started Tuning*

As promised I made the stop, and a whole lot more. The guitar is almost done. It plays and my son gave it a whirl and he likes it.









The String Stop - Needs Polishing

The overall view is shown below. I finished the body (maple / limba blend) with satin poly. i finished the neck with lacquer and wet sanded it to 2000. Apparently guitar players like the feel of lacquer and it has good properties when used next to the skin a lot. I finished the fretboard with lemon oil (D-Limonene) as suggested by guitar players.









Overall View









Backside View

The buckers are installed, the tuners are all polished up, the electronics are installed and shielded. There is not much left to do and there is a lot left to do. There is so much detail in one of these guitars that there never seems to be an end.









The Shielded Electronics Cavity

Here's an example of what's left to give you an idea of the detail. I had to start a written list:
- Polish the stop
- Round the nut string relief
- Burnish the bridge string notches
- Add a cover under strings at stop
- Touch up string: string #1 fretted at 15 buzzes at 16
- Raise bridge bucker 1/8" 
- Make some knobs on the lathe

So it plays! And it sounds great. And my son likes it. This will be the last blog entry; I'll post the completed project in a couple weeks. Certainly this was one of the more challenging and satisfying things to make. I'm glad I did.


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## smitty22 (May 1, 2010)

davegutz said:


> *Finished - Started Tuning*
> 
> As promised I made the stop, and a whole lot more. The guitar is almost done. It plays and my son gave it a whirl and he likes it.
> 
> ...


Wow! Nice work, just a beautiful instrument.. Wish I could play it to see how that configuration feels -


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