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Not Your Momma's Strat......


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That's awesome Deano, thanks. The treble side where the belly carve and forearm carve would be on a strat is roughly 3/4" at the edge. The opposite edge is about 1.5"....maybe a little less, and the control cavity is at 2". It's about 2.25" under the bridge. It is pretty hard to put a number to; hardly anywhere is flat.....and absolutely nothing on the back is flat. :P

SR

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That's awesome Deano, thanks. The treble side where the belly carve and forearm carve would be on a strat is roughly 3/4" at the edge. The opposite edge is about 1.5"....maybe a little less, and the control cavity is at 2". It's about 2.25" under the bridge. It is pretty hard to put a number to; hardly anywhere is flat.....and absolutely nothing on the back is flat. :P

SR

One of the pictures made it look thinner.You know I like the carving , it looks really streamline and smooth.I will be starting another thread soon, as I am on another build myself.Oh , that heal is killer ,I like the smooth transition .I be watching , so keep on keeping on.

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I wonder who that was referring to?

This has got a nice soft organic look to it now. It almost reminds me of the curves the Ibanez Satriani model has.

<_<:killinme<_<

Actually, that is probably the work of Paulie's I was reminded of. He has posted several JS builds.

SR

Indeed I have. Love those guitars. I rekon the JS1000 influenced my Black Lotus model big time, the body on that thing is carved like a JS. Except the Lotus goes further & takes the body carve way past where Ibanez do.

Scotty this thing is giving me carv envy <_<

I have a few builds waiting to get going again, but I fooked my stupid thumb up & have to wait till my grip is back before I can do anything. Sucks,

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Carvin' is fun. :P

Dang Paulie, you've been run over, caught the plague, been asaulted by exotic wood dust and now have fooked up your thumb.

do you need someone to walk around behind you to save you from.........what......life itself it sounds like. <_<

Did the chick know what she was getting into?

Just kidding man, heal up and get back in the saddle.

SR

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well, Actually, If someone could walk around & point out all the stupid things i do to cause these issues that would be great. :wOOt

Although in this case, the stupid thing was helping a mate out by dropping in some birdseye veneers I had cut him for an old morgan he is rebuilding for a customer of his.

His thicknesser fired a big lump of ash at me. there was a bang, a grinding noise, the wood stopped moving thru the machine for a sec. then it shot out & smashed into my chest. I kinda caught it with my thumb & bent it right back.

Lotsa concerned faces at first,

then lotsa laughing,

then lotsa discomfort,

& now lotsa Spongebob & crabby pattys (double whoppers) while I chill for a few days :D

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oh. & the chick is more clumsy than I am, we should really be in state custody or something. you know, for all of YOUR safety.

<_<:killinme<_<

Ow! I hurt myself laughing at that, man!

Baby Mac is into Sponge Bob already is he?

God.....It is Baby Mac that is into Sponge Bob, isn't it? :blink:

SR

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Damn, weekends go fast. I spent one of those that involved a ton of work that didn't yield a whole lot of visible difference.

IMG_2772.JPG

I fine tuned all the contours.

IMG_2773.JPG

I always manage to booger up the frets a bit, so I went over them again. Twas a good thing too. I found the third fret to be lower than the rest...I'm not at all sure how that happened.

IMG_2775.JPG

IMG_2777.JPG

SR

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Photobucket always messes with me. I don't know why it rotated that last pic 90 degrees. Oh well.

I wish I could say this is how it looks after finishing......but it has zero finish on it at this point.

IMG_2787.JPG

IMG_2790.JPG

IMG_2791.JPG

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I think it looks good as is. But it wouldn't survive.

I think it would be great if the padouk in the neck would stay this color as well.......but that ain't gonna happen either.

So right now I've got a pore filling test going.

I'll let you know how that goes next week.

SR

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Looking pretty spectauclar, Scott. The stepped carve almost gives it a muscular look.

Photobucket always meeses with me. I don't know why it rotated that las pic 90 degrees. Oh well.

If your camera takes photos and imprints orientation info into the JPEG EXIF properties, photobucket will faithfully reproduce your photo in that orientation, even if you've rotated it to correct the 90 degree flip. Always caught me out when posting pics taken on my mobile. Only way I've been able to get around it is to use something like Irfanview to resave each image before uploading and delete the EXIF orientation flags. There may be easier ways to get around it.

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Looking pretty spectauclar, Scott. The stepped carve almost gives it a muscular look.

Photobucket always meeses with me. I don't know why it rotated that las pic 90 degrees. Oh well.

If your camera takes photos and imprints orientation info into the JPEG EXIF properties, photobucket will faithfully reproduce your photo in that orientation, even if you've rotated it to correct the 90 degree flip. Always caught me out when posting pics taken on my mobile. Only way I've been able to get around it is to use something like Irfanview to resave each image before uploading and delete the EXIF orientation flags. There may be easier ways to get around it.

Thanks Curtis. The concave carves under the horns were intended to mirror the arcs in the headstock andsort of give a nod to violin type

cutouts. They do sort of make it look like it is flexing its muscles. And I totally did not see the control recess pointing to some 6 pack abs. :D

I'm guessing my camara does not imprint orientations. I have had the odd shot get rotated before so I've made a habit of shooting everything landscape/horizontally and just cropping if I want a vertical shot. That one shot was taken horizontally and cropped even more horizontally. I've rotated them in photobucket in the past.......sometimes it works sometimes it still shows up here rotated. I stopped trying to change them. If they show up here upside down, then we'll all just look it them upside down. :P

SR

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Looking very nice. The colors and wood grain on that reminds me of a boa constrictor.

I didn't see that one coming, but now that you mention it......

I see a kind of woodlands camo thing going on. I think if you leaned against a tree in the forest it might get lost.

SR

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oh. & the chick is more clumsy than I am, we should really be in state custody or something. you know, for all of YOUR safety.

<_<:killinme<_<

Ow! I hurt myself laughing at that, man!

Baby Mac is into Sponge Bob already is he?

God.....It is Baby Mac that is into Sponge Bob, isn't it? :blink:

SR

SPONGEBOB ROCKS MAN !!!!!

I watch it with the little dude during the day sometimes, when Im having lunch & chillin for a bit. the little yellow freak is a genius.

Baby mac seems to realy like yellow so it suits him well.

I had not realised you carved the upper bout to such a thin profile. I can see what you mean about chanelling my design mojo :D

wait till you play this thing. being cut like that - the guitar just vanishes into your body. I have found that when you cut them realy thin, there seems to be a more natural woody tone to the guitar aswell.

I noticed it with my acoustics & archtops aswell, thicker is not always better. Infact it can sometimes mean a muddy overly bass riden sound with underpowered high notes. no real balance in the tone.

I winder if it was a consideration of RAD's when he was designing those S model, Razor blade thin guitars, he doesnt strike me as the type to just leav something like that to chance

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I wonder if it was a consideration of RAD's when he was designing those S model, Razor blade thin guitars, he doesn't strike me as the type to just leave something like that to chance

I don't leave things to chance.

If "fate" is a cruel mistress "chance" is her mean ugly sister.

That looks great Scott. I really think I would like the organic fit of this guitar.

How is the weight so far? I can't tell from the pictures.

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I wonder if it was a consideration of RAD's when he was designing those S model, Razor blade thin guitars, he doesn't strike me as the type to just leave something like that to chance

I don't leave things to chance.

If "fate" is a cruel mistress "chance" is her mean ugly sister.

That looks great Scott. I really think I would like the organic fit of this guitar.

How is the weight so far? I can't tell from the pictures.

This thing is super comfy to hold, like Paulie says it kind of just melts in against your body. As far as weight goes, I'd guess about 7 lbs, give or take. I haven't weighed it yet but it is currently lighter than the red F-hole guitar and that is just a hair over 7 lbs. I was worried about getting the weight down as the body timbers started out heavier than the red one did.

I'm testing using blonde shellac and sanding dust for pore filling on off cuts. It is working nicely. It barely changes the color of the limba at all, but darkens the ziricote a lot. I expect to be able to sand back down to the wood surface and restore the color......but I don't know yet.

Thus the tests.

I havnt had a chance to check in this thread in awhile but holy crap that thing is looking good man. Your carving is beautiful and I love the wood combo you got goin on. Nice work!

Thanks Tyler. You know a thing or two about nice work yourself.

Paulie, you're going to have to make a quarter scale Sponge Bob git for Baby Mac before long. Should be easy to take a Bo Diddly, paint it yellow and add some eyes and goofy teeth.......

SR

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Seal the Ziricote with a shot coat of lacquer trying to fill it. The lacquer will darken it a bit but it should prevent any further darkening.

Honestly I would just shoot lacquer on the ziricote and sand back to fill the pores or seal it and use epoxy. You want it as clear as possible. Any thing that adds tint will darken it.

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Lacquer was always going to be my fall back option on the ziricote if this doesn't work the way I want it to. The down side of lacquer for pore filling is the same down side of lacquer as always: shrink back. The ziricote has relatively small pores, but they are really deep. And I've got several that have been opened up horizontally along the carve. They are basically small grooves about 4" long. They gotta be filled.

SR

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