First Three or Four Builds

[Hesco 2-3]

Hello all,

I have been around here lurking for quite some time.  I didn't really find and introduction forum here so I'll do a quick one here.  I am finally ready to build a couple guitars, despite the lack of knowledge and financial flexibility, I am GOING to do this.  Long story short, I just got back into playing guitar after about a 10 year hiatus.  My thought was I can buy a kit guitar and do it up right and play that to my heart's content.  I did so (semi-hollow body Les Paul) and right off the bat there were issues with it and it bothered me to the point I just need to build my own from scratch.  The pickup routes were off probably .100" or so, the quilted maple veneer was poorly glued, etc. 

I say all that to say this: I found this site and there have been so many builds in here that are absolutely jaw-dropping, and some of you people in here are true craftsman.  SO I come here for help, encouragement, and some accountability for these projects.  I don't have a lot of woodworking experience nor do I have guitar building experience.  I am a prototype machinist for the Air Force so I do have some abilities.  I just hope that those skills translate to guitar building!

Anyway, Here is the list of guitars I want to build (not in any order):

1. Solid Body Telecaster

2. Solid Body Stratocaster

3. Semi-Hollow Tele

4. Starcaster

 

I bought a 10.5" 8/4 chunk of Swamp Ash that I believe I can get 3 or 4 guitars out of it.  I feel like I ought to start with one that may be simpler (solid tele) but My heart is really drawn towards the semi-hollow tele.

That being said, I want to make these my own, not just a copy I can buy off the shelf.  Maybe for the Starcaster, but the others need to have my own flair to them.  I really want to start with the semi-hollow tele, and I just had my tonsils taken out so here I am recovering and tweaking on pain meds researching the crap outta stuff.  I have most of the semi hollow tele planned out and I wanted to run it buy you top minds and see what you all think about the build plan before I buy anything else.

'69 Semi-Hollow Telecaster

--Laminated Through Neck (use some kind of combination of some of the following: flame maple, orange osage, black locust, bubinga)

--10-15 degree angled headstock similar to a PRS with a tip of the hat to ScottR's "not quite a tele" headstock (that thing is gorgeous!) I attached a picture I found. I want it to be similar to that.

--Finely Figured Pau Ferro Fretboard with no inlays, stainless steel medium jumbo frets

--Spoke nut dual action routed at heel truss rod

--Abalone side fret markers larger than average

--I want to use a strat jack plate but i want to countersink it flush along the lower radius where the cable would be plugged in downward and can be easily looped into the strap.

--I want some black limba or nice flame maple for the body top.  I want it at least .500" thick, I want to round out the body a little bit.

--old school 3 saddle bridge with option to run strings through body or top load because I'm still toying with the idea of a bigsby and I think that setup would maintain the original tone im looking for.

--I want to do a 5 way switch with series, parallel, and half out of parallel selections.  Wiring scheme below too.

--Fender Vintage Noisless Tele pickups

--I'm thinking about doing a black, emerald green dye scheme on the body top like the picture I found, maybe more black than that.

I don't have a lot of tools, but I do have access to pretty much anything I may need. But I do want to grow my inventory of guitar-specific hand tools.

So there it is,  I'd love to hear your opinions, as I have a pretty healthy respect for the abilities of a lot of people on here.

 

[Andyjr1515]

Hi and a very warm welcome!

I think your having started with a kit - and finding it wanting - was a very good place to start.

In my case it was modifying my bought guitars that started me off on the route.  The thing is, in both cases you start to see how it all works together, things that could be improved and the start of the understanding of what can be done, what could be done but with some risk attached and what can't be done, whether by strength of materials or geometry.

In terms of the examples you show, both are entirely possible given some basic skills (which you actually have in abundance with your job!) and a patient scramble up the learning curve.

Having said that, there are some items in your spec that are quite ambitious for a first full build.  Bear in mind that the first build needs to be successful and satisfying!  Better that it is successful and you truly get the bug to go further than hit problems and get discouraged     Not to say you shouldn't do some of the things above on your first go, but best done after asking lots of questions and going in with your eyes open!  Other folks will no doubt chip in, but things that ring a few bells with me:

• I build pretty much all neck-throughs.  But I weaned myself on bolt-ons.  It is VITAL to fully understand things like neck angle geometry and the things that affect it because these need to be built into the neck-through build and are then pretty much unchangeable.  The advantage with starting with bolt-on is that there is a pretty decent amount of adjustment possible - and it's a GREAT way of learning and fully understanding what does need to be at what angle and height and where...
• Personally, I wouldn't use SS frets at all.  But I certainly wouldn't use them for my first fret job.  Nickel silver are easiest and EVO Gold are halfway between that and stainless.  Stainless are of the devil  
• Strat jack covers are a bit of a complication and you absolutely are stuck with a minimum body thickness to get them to work with the length and angle of the jack
• You are right to start with a tele - Stratocasters are actually quite complicated in terms of routing and precise positioning.

Most of the other things look OK to me

 

 

[Hesco 2-3]

Hey Andyjr1515, thanks for the response!  I love your work on here!

So I think I will start with the solid body Tele. I think it will give me more wiggle room in the first-timers department. The thinline is kinda my unicorn and you’re exactly right if I do mess up that through neck it will bother/discourage me. 

 

The reason I was going to do stainless was I was under the impression they would hold a fine polish longer. I’ll definitely defer to the wisdom in that. Stainless is a pain to work with on stuff at work, I can imagine it would suck trying to get it to cooperate with wood. 

 

As as far as the strat cover, I think I still want to attempt it, I can mill my own if I need to in whatever dimension I need, I just really think it would be slick to be able to have the cord run along the edge of the guitar instead of perpendicular to the body. I could even do something like the Ibanez guitar where it’s just counterbored in there with wood surrounding it. I don’t know, I’m still deep in the planning stages. I probably won’t make chips for a month or so still. And when I do, it’s gonna be templates and more templates.  A woodworking friend of mine (and coworker) suggested using 1/4 or 3/8 HDPE for the templates.  Claims it is stronger and will last without warping. What do you all think?

I have a question about laminate necks. Why do you never see a laminate neck without a fretboard?  Couldn’t you just radius the top part of the neck and cut feet slots like you would on a one piece maple neck?  I looked around for any kind of example of that. If there is no real reason not to, I may try that in bolt on form with this solid body. 

[Andyjr1515]

39 minutes ago, Hesco 2-3 said:

I have a question about laminate necks. Why do you never see a laminate neck without a fretboard?  Couldn’t you just radius the top part of the neck and cut feet slots like you would on a one piece maple neck?  I looked around for any kind of example of that. If there is no real reason not to, I may try that in bolt on form with this solid body. 

Ref the strat jack plate, I was forgetting that you can make a custom plate if you routed the hole the too big or wrong shape   So yes - go for it!  Just make sure there is enough depth in the body - or that the angle is shallow enough - to make sure the jack tip doesn't press against the bottom of the chamber when installed.

Ref a solid neck/fretboard - of course many of the early Fenders (and more modern customs) were solid.  The forums have varying discussions of the pros and cons but the main thing, cutting through various marginal differences, seems to be the installation of the trussrod.  That it would mean either:

1. cutting and inserting the truss rod from the back (as Fender did, covered by their famous 'skunk stripe') or
2. machining the trussrod slot from the side in two halves of the neck and installing the rod while joining the two halves together (which I believe Peavey used to do)  

Neither is particularly easy.  Added to this, cutting the fret slots would need to be done on the whole blank.  Again, not impossible - but a bit more complicated... 

 

[mistermikev]

51 minutes ago, Hesco 2-3 said:

Hey Andyjr1515, thanks for the response!  I love your work on here!

So I think I will start with the solid body Tele. I think it will give me more wiggle room in the first-timers department. The thinline is kinda my unicorn and you’re exactly right if I do mess up that through neck it will bother/discourage me. 

 

The reason I was going to do stainless was I was under the impression they would hold a fine polish longer. I’ll definitely defer to the wisdom in that. Stainless is a pain to work with on stuff at work, I can imagine it would suck trying to get it to cooperate with wood. 

 

As as far as the strat cover, I think I still want to attempt it, I can mill my own if I need to in whatever dimension I need, I just really think it would be slick to be able to have the cord run along the edge of the guitar instead of perpendicular to the body. I could even do something like the Ibanez guitar where it’s just counterbored in there with wood surrounding it. I don’t know, I’m still deep in the planning stages. I probably won’t make chips for a month or so still. And when I do, it’s gonna be templates and more templates.  A woodworking friend of mine (and coworker) suggested using 1/4 or 3/8 HDPE for the templates.  Claims it is stronger and will last without warping. What do you all think?

I have a question about laminate necks. Why do you never see a laminate neck without a fretboard?  Couldn’t you just radius the top part of the neck and cut feet slots like you would on a one piece maple neck?  I looked around for any kind of example of that. If there is no real reason not to, I may try that in bolt on form with this solid body. 

some interesting thoughts here... not a veteran so take my comments as comments - def not advice.  I'll leave that to the appropriates.

personally I think the strat top jack placement is perfect afa comfort (for me anyway) but not exactly pretty.  I've seen some folks do a wood version of it... but doing small pieces seems like the most difficult and dangerous work.  Someday!

Interesting idea on lam neck w no fb.  generally I've seen that done on 1pc 'classic fender' style necks.  I don't see any reason it couldn't be done.  just means you are going to have added complexity (IMO) of fitting a piece of wood to the truss channel on the back. 

man, if you end up with anything resembling those picks above... whoa!

[Hesco 2-3]

20 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

man, if you end up with anything resembling those picks above... whoa! 

No joke!! That's the goal, I'd like for that to be my go-to guitar and someday maybe one of my sons will pass it down to one of their sons.  So its really important for me to do this with intentionality and a careful pace.

 

I think it would be very different to see a laminate neck fretted up with no fretboard.  Maybe I'll do that on the Strat or something later.

Right now, I'm trying to get my head to put the semi-hollow Tele on hold and try to focus on this solid body.  I was a little trigger happy when I found this one and only 10' long Swamp Ash board at my local saw mill.  I bought it and after I realized its a crappy width.  It's 10.5" wide.  Meaning I will probably end up having 2 piece bodies.  I'm ok with that, but I was wondering, if I can match the grain a little better, is it a no-no to join the two pieces offset?  Like can I take one section of 10.5" and join it to a 4" section and call that my blank? The other option is to do a three piece I guess.  This would also be for the top unless I do a thin veneer but for this solid-body, I am kinda looking for the old-school, workhorse guitar look, not a fancy one. 

 

Andyjr1515,

as for the jack input, yea I was thinking about putting it so the cord would run concentric to the lower radius.  I don't know if I am explaining it the best, but basically I want it hardly showing at all from the front.  I'm also thinking about putting the body up on a Prototrak Mill and taking care of that pocket with a 1/2" endmill.

 

I also had a bout of mental instability and thought about active pickups for this solid body.  Is that heresy?

Also, Anyone have experience with HDPE for templates?

[mistermikev]

1 hour ago, Hesco 2-3 said:

No joke!! That's the goal, I'd like for that to be my go-to guitar and someday maybe one of my sons will pass it down to one of their sons.  So its really important for me to do this with intentionality and a careful pace.

 

I think it would be very different to see a laminate neck fretted up with no fretboard.  Maybe I'll do that on the Strat or something later.

Right now, I'm trying to get my head to put the semi-hollow Tele on hold and try to focus on this solid body.  I was a little trigger happy when I found this one and only 10' long Swamp Ash board at my local saw mill.  I bought it and after I realized its a crappy width.  It's 10.5" wide.  Meaning I will probably end up having 2 piece bodies.  I'm ok with that, but I was wondering, if I can match the grain a little better, is it a no-no to join the two pieces offset?  Like can I take one section of 10.5" and join it to a 4" section and call that my blank? The other option is to do a three piece I guess.  This would also be for the top unless I do a thin veneer but for this solid-body, I am kinda looking for the old-school, workhorse guitar look, not a fancy one. 

 

 

"I think it would be very different to see a laminate neck fretted up with no fretboard. "  i agree... depending on how you do the lam that'd be cool

"I'm trying to get my head to put the semi-hollow Tele on hold" not that I'm an expert (on build 3 here) but my first two were both semi hollow.  I don't think it's any more complicated... just more work.

"10.5" and join it to a 4" section and call that my blank?" I think the only reason not to do that is the looks.  afa tone (don't want to open can of worms here) some might argue it's better.  I take it you aren't putting a top on it?

[Hesco 2-3]

1 minute ago, mistermikev said:

 

"I think it would be very different to see a laminate neck fretted up with no fretboard. "  i agree... depending on how you do the lam that'd be cool

"I'm trying to get my head to put the semi-hollow Tele on hold" not that I'm an expert (on build 3 here) but my first two were both semi hollow.  I don't think it's any more complicated... just more work.

"10.5" and join it to a 4" section and call that my blank?" I think the only reason not to do that is the looks.  afa tone (don't want to open can of worms here) some might argue it's better.  I take it you aren't putting a top on it?

So I want to do a through neck on the semi hollow and it was recommended to start with my very first build doing a bolt on.  I spent too many years not listening to people. 

I was thinking I wanted that one as just kind of a blue-collar type guitar.  Just a workhorse that screams form follows function. 

Maybe I get a single wider piece of Swamp Ash to use as a top.  Then I can still have my look and then  i can chamber the thing....oh the possibilities...

[mistermikev]

34 minutes ago, Hesco 2-3 said:

So I want to do a through neck on the semi hollow and it was recommended to start with my very first build doing a bolt on.  I spent too many years not listening to people. 

I was thinking I wanted that one as just kind of a blue-collar type guitar.  Just a workhorse that screams form follows function. 

Maybe I get a single wider piece of Swamp Ash to use as a top.  Then I can still have my look and then  i can chamber the thing....oh the possibilities...

def follow Andyjr1515's advice (and everyone else's!) before mine.  fwiw I agree with him... my first build was a bolt on too and my second a set neck.  on the bolt I learned that you have to know your bits because the template could be perfect but the bearing/bit you actually use to cut the neck might be taking off a nipple-hair too much.  In my case I learned that I should put some thin tape on the template to leave the neck proud, so you have enough material to "lightly sand it into place".  this was critical in doing my set neck.  I'm guessing that with a machinist background... and being used to working with much tighter tolerances, this won't be a stumbling block for you but you will likely find your own 'learning experiences'!

afa tops... there are places you can get bookmatched for $25-50 so... IMHO given the amount of effort/time to build a guitar: why not!  But to each his/her own.  There is also something to be said for the simple beauty of no top.

[Hesco 2-3]

Where can you find tops for that cheap?  I'v been seeing outrageous prices for stuff.  That's the only discouraging part about all of this for me is the cost of everything.

[mistermikev]

downhomewoods on etsy has beautiful quilts that are 4A for somewhere around $40, $18ish for shipping (that can include 3 tops)

woodtoworks often has really sweet quilts, flames and burls for $39.99 CAD + $20CAD shipping

guitarwoodexperts has some beauty figured redwood and birdseye for $25 and up.  shipping is around $20 as I recall.  The guy that runs the place is SUPER nice and will actually take photos for you! 

Evilbay - if you watch/hunt and be patient - I bought the top for my recent dano style there for $30 shipped.  It's a real nice top but admittedly only 1/8" thick.  I also bought a beauty flamed mahog top there for $30 shipped!

thoese are really the 'best of the best' for me.  Perhaps others will chime in with other finds.

[curtisa]

7 hours ago, Hesco 2-3 said:

So I think I will start with the solid body Tele. I think it will give me more wiggle room in the first-timers department. The thinline is kinda my unicorn and you’re exactly right if I do mess up that through neck it will bother/discourage me. 

A Tele is a good place to start. If it weren't for the inclusion of the trem, a Strat shouldn't be too great a leap for a first time builder (hint: both guitars were originally designed with mass production in mind). Start slow and work your way up. A lot of people jump in with high hopes and either run out of steam partway through or set themselves an extremely ambitious endgoal and are disappointed when the finished product falls short of their self-imposed standard.

That said, embrace the fact that this will be your first scratch-built guitar. It may not turn out perfectly, but it does give you the opportunity to learn about new construction techniques, tooling and skills. Anything you do pick up while building number 1 adds to your knowledge of how to improve yourself for number 2. If it plays and sounds good, then call it a win.

 

7 hours ago, Hesco 2-3 said:

The reason I was going to do stainless was I was under the impression they would hold a fine polish longer. I’ll definitely defer to the wisdom in that. Stainless is a pain to work with on stuff at work, I can imagine it would suck trying to get it to cooperate with wood. 

For a first build I'd leave stainless steel frets off the list. My first fully scratch-built guitar had SS frets, and for someone with decent hands-on skills but with insufficient equipment to execute the job properly it was an absolute nightmare. I got them in, but they looked pretty ugly and years later I ended up stripping them out and replacing them properly with regular nickel silver.

 

7 hours ago, Hesco 2-3 said:

I have a question about laminate necks. Why do you never see a laminate neck without a fretboard?  Couldn’t you just radius the top part of the neck and cut feet slots like you would on a one piece maple neck?

Probably mainly due to the aesthetics of the final product. I imagine racing stripes visible up and down the fretboard may not be everyone's cup of tea, especially when those stripes are subdivided into 24 descrete 'windows' as each fret crosses them at right angles. Add fret markers and it starts to look quite busy. You could laminate with less contrasting timbers, or even with the same timbers, but then you could argue that you may as well laminate with the neck in the 'traditional' way and put a slab-style fretboard on and be done with it.

There may be other practical issues to consider, such as what woods you can get away with that will double-duty as a combined fretboard and neck. Maple obviously works as Fender has proven, but you couldn't get away with, say a mahogany laminated-through neck as it would have insufficient rigidity to hold the fret tangs and resist wear. Conversely, a neck with a high proportion of laminated-through harder woods like bubinga, rosewood, ebony etc might be quite top-heavy and give you an instrument that has a propensity to dive towards the floor.

Getting the trussrod in might be tricky too, although not impossible. You'd need to decide how you'd install it fairly early on - do you build up the neck laminations as you would normally, route the channel for the rod from the fretboard side of the neck and then back-fill the channel with a lamination to match the piece that was routed out? Or route out from the back and hide the channel with a skunk stripe? Or build up the neck laminations as two halves with the channel pre-built into each half (either side-to-side or top-to-bottom), and then seal the rod in place when the two neck halves are brought together? Don't forget the access point for the truss rod adjuster wrench/nut. You'd either need to drill through from the pickup end or headstock end as Fender do, or pre-build the access point into the laminations before bringing the pieces together like the two halves of an Airfix kit plane fuselage.
 

6 hours ago, Hesco 2-3 said:

Also, Anyone have experience with HDPE for templates?

I think @Prostheta uses it quite regularly. MDF is cheap and works well, and it isn't a total disaster if you have a slip up with the router and take a chunk out of it. I use clear perspex which can be had cheaply as offcuts from the waste recovery centre or from glaziers. Also has the advantage of being able to see through the template to see whats going on underneath and help with aligning things up, but can be challenging to machine and shape.

 

6 hours ago, Hesco 2-3 said:

I also had a bout of mental instability and thought about active pickups for this solid body.  Is that heresy?

Only if you believe it is. Pickups are probably the easiest way to affect a significant tonal change on a finished instrument and also relatively easy to swap out if you don't like them. Just be aware that if you go for active you'll need to allow space for the battery, and if you have any intentions of swapping them out later on for a passive set, you'll end up with a redundant compartment where a 9V battery used to be (or looking at it another way, an opportunity to experiment with onboard preamps?).

 

5 hours ago, mistermikev said:

 is it a no-no to join the two pieces offset?  Like can I take one section of 10.5" and join it to a 4" section and call that my blank?

Largely a question of aesthetics again, although a less-pronounced one as it only affects the back of the instrument where no-one can see it unless it's lying face-down, in which case it doesn't make an awful lot of noise as a guitar If the offset join bothers you., could you laminate two 10.5" pieces together to make one 21" wide slab and cut it down to size (wasteful, but at least keeps the join in the middle)? How about dying/painting the back and sides black to hide the offset glue line? Laminate a piece of veneer to the back and black-burst the edges to hide the offset join? Rip a 10'5" piece down to 4" + 6.5" and laminate up a three-piece body 4" + 6.5" + 4" to keep it all symmetrical?

[Hesco 2-3]

@mistermikev I have been looking at the stuff on eBay but thanks for the other places  I’m gonna check those out right now  

 

@curtisa  

Wow thanks for the detailed insight!  

Stainless is off the table for me. Not my thing to intentionally add problems to a build. 

I didn’t think about the busyness of a laminated, no-fretboard neck. I would probably either dye it all similar or like you said use similar grains. I would definitely do  the skunk stripe with the same type of material in the middle of the laminate. I think it would hide well. It would probably be a spoke nut at the heel for the truss rod. Fo some reason those give me a little more warm and fuzzy as opposed to being at the headstock. 

I think I am going to just use MDF for templates for now. I need to get basic experience with materials before I go hdpe I think. Only real experience I have with MDF is baseboards in my house. 

I don’t think I’m gonna go with active pickups. But the preamp idea may be something. As far as tone and all that, I’m just now reading about the TBX control pot and I may add that to my 5way switching get-up.

As far as the offset lamination, as long as there are no structural issues, I think I may offset for this one and then glue up the rest of the board in 2 and 3 piece blanks. From how they sell those on eBay, I could pay for the board almost twice over! 

[ScottR]

Welcome Hesco 2-3!

I'm just catching up after holiday travels and see that you have been in good hands, advice wise. So I don't have anything to add other than an observation that will probably only muddy the waters. I used Nickel or Evo on my first 3 builds. Then I decided to restring one of them and re-leveled the frets while I was at it, and was alarmed at the amount of wear my limited playing had inflicted upon the frets. All my builds got stainless after that got SS. They are a bitch to trim to size....I use a Dremel with a cut-off wheel--easy enough. They do take a bit more work to level and dress and polish...but I've never had any trouble using them and extra work should never scare off anyone planning to build guitars. And you are absolutely correct. They can be polished easily enough, and the polish and smoothness lasts halfway to forever.

It would be wise to do your learning on the more forgiving stuff, but do not be intimidated by SS once you learn what it takes to build a fully functioning guitar.

SR

[Hesco 2-3]

Thanks for the welcome and encouragement Scott. 

To be honest I think I'm gonna do this solid body with nickel and go from there, see what I think after the build.  I have all kinds of ideas floating around and at some point I'll pin them down but experience is my best teacher.  I just want to dive in now but its going to be a very slow process for me.  Maybe even longer that most to accomplish my first one just based on hows much free time I have. 

[Norris]

If it's any help at all, here is my first scratch build - a thinline telecaster. It only took 2 years!

 

(For some reason the photo that link always decides to use is NOT my guitar )

... and welcome!

[Hesco 2-3]

@Norris, I just got thru your build thread.  WOW! excellent work sir!  Your thread was definitely educational.  I have a Shinto Saw Rasp in my "save for later" on Amazon.  It may make it's way to the cart sooner than later.  Otherwise, I have very little tooling for woodworking.  Most of my tools are mechanic tools, gunsmith tools, and machinist tools (which still don't equate to many tools).  Thankfully I have a couple buddies that have pretty much everything I need.  I'll be doing much of the bulk work in chunks, like all the templates at once, then on to chunking the wood out.  Layout can be done at home as well as carving stuff.  I plan of getting a beginners set of gouge chisels and a spokeshave.  Tooling up at work is so much more fun because I don't have to pay for it! 

Hope y'all are ok with another long build like that!  I have 2 under two years old, Full time work, trying to move, and trying to get out of debt.  That leaves very little time for much else!

[ADFinlayson]

Nice work, love the finish on that tele, every time I see one of these it makes me think I should have a go building a semi hollow myself.

[Norris]

21 hours ago, Hesco 2-3 said:

@Norris, I just got thru your build thread.  WOW! excellent work sir!  Your thread was definitely educational.  I have a Shinto Saw Rasp in my "save for later" on Amazon.  It may make it's way to the cart sooner than later.  Otherwise, I have very little tooling for woodworking.  Most of my tools are mechanic tools, gunsmith tools, and machinist tools (which still don't equate to many tools).  Thankfully I have a couple buddies that have pretty much everything I need.  I'll be doing much of the bulk work in chunks, like all the templates at once, then on to chunking the wood out.  Layout can be done at home as well as carving stuff.  I plan of getting a beginners set of gouge chisels and a spokeshave.  Tooling up at work is so much more fun because I don't have to pay for it! 

Hope y'all are ok with another long build like that!  I have 2 under two years old, Full time work, trying to move, and trying to get out of debt.  That leaves very little time for much else!

I've also found cabinet scrapers to be very useful. They are pretty cheap. What is a little more expensive is the ARNO Carbur2 burnishing tool - it's worth its weight in gold though!

Edit: Oh, and thanks! 

[Hesco 2-3]

OK,

So it's been a lot longer than I wanted it to be since I've been on here.  Basically I have nothing else done in the way of progress.  So many things happened lately.  

Anyway, I'm about to make up my templates, hopefully next week.  I think I'm just going to do MDF and glue the paper on top. 

 

I do have another question for all of you, I was thinking that with my color scheme in my original post that it would be cool to have damascus steel hardware.  Upon searching the interwebs, I have come up with nothing.  Usually that means there is a glaring detail I'm missing.  There are stainless types of damascus and other ways to keep it from rusting, so what gives? Surely I'm not the first one to think of that...

[ScottR]

I agree damascus would make cool hardware.....but I've never seen it offered anywhere.

SR

[komodo]

Damascus steel is usually used for blades, and can be very complicated to create. Guitar hardware does not fall in the category of end use product, probably prohibitively expensive, But if you make your own, that would be sweet.