mledbetter

you might get something from a major company.. never hurts to ask. I'm thinking you'd do better with an actual AV firm though. i've got to find their contact info but there is a group here in Johnson City called AVI that specializes in church installations. They are members of Grace Fellowship who is partnered with a church in western new orleans, which survived, in lots of projects down there. If anyone was willing to help with discounts, it would be those guys and they really know their stuff. as soon as I dig up their URL i'll post it for ya.

i would love to see some pics.. pics would go a long way to get that back to a progress thread and not a help thread and copyright debate topic.

that's good to know too.. apparently the office building where I am going has a great bar on the 3rd floor with 150 varieties of microbrews or something. I hear it's killer.

Well folks, i'll have to put another halt on my projects as I will be relocating from east tennessee to nashville. If any folks from around there know all the good lumber yards, i'd be glad to hear it. I'll be down there a few months without my family so i plan to build a lot once I get settled. Have to keep myself sane somehow..

i think it's just tru-oil. check out the birchwood-casey website and you can probably do a distributor search.

It's a polymerized linseed oil blend, and it's very easy to use - will actually build up to a nice gloss too if you want.

Might be best to order it if your selection is limited as there are other products, aerosol versions, sealers, etc.

About the ash, I had problems with the oil hardening and the general consensus was that i put too much on too fast.. It cures by oxidization and if you have a deep-pored wood like ash you will end up with pockets of oil with hardened "skin" on the top and the oil underneath takes forever to cure. Naptha helps there by doing ultra thin coats and having them dry incredibly fast. Might take 30 coats but you can do a coat ever 30 mins or so with a 50/50 cut.

yeah i'll definnitely do some cound clips when it's done. i'm using GFS pickups and several folks wanted to know how they sounded.

This one will have his 8.2k tele bridge pup in it, total vintage with cord wrap and everything. thing is heavy as hell. Will have the liverpool alnico filtertron pup in the neck.

And lastly (whew) here is the whole thing fit together.

Here is a closeup of the neck joint.

Getting exciting to see it all coming together. Hopefully i can get started on the blueburst next week.

edit... yes there is a gap you see under the FB.. it's where the neck isn't attached and is leaning back against the floor.

Here is a closeup of the heel where you can better see the woods. The ziricote fretboard is very nice looking, i'm really liking that wood a lot.

Items left to do are trim the nut end of the FB, drill tuner holes and press the frets. I'm thinking about an oil finish on the neck. I don't want to mess up how nice that maple feels.

After shaving the fingerboard flush with my scrapers and sanding block, i started carving. like I said, i'm about 80% done and it's all with scraper and sand paper so it takes a while! but the feel is supurb and the figure is coming out nicely. Looks much more "flamy" in purson. Not the best picture but you can see the general shape and grain of the neck.

I'm doing kind of a reverse taper.. a chunky V at the low end for chording and digging into those bends and such, and a thinner flatter profile up top for easier fret access and finger speed.

Glued the fretboard onto the flame maple blank. Blank was profiled and the headstock was thicknessed.

Also a lovely view of the tile in my bathroom lol

Thanks Drak.. I too share a love of teles.. I just prefer a neck HB and a different control config. i'll get that korina one finished as soon as this one is out the door. Just have to make a neck for it. The body is ready to finish. It's regular tele pups too.. it'll have a good vintage tone pup-wise and i'm hoping that korina will warm it up just a tad to tone down the quack..

Speaking of neck carving, I kept dreading the neck process but that is absolutely the coolest part of the whole deal. I'm almost finished with the thing and have done it all with a scraper as my spokeshave is not with me at the moment.. took about an hr to get 80% done but it's smooth as glass and the flame is coming out super.

I'll get pick of the progress up later today.

very nice. i like the wood combination

yeah matts plan is definintely a more sound prospect. only other thing I was wondering is if you could just route a new neck pocket, dep PRS st6yle that goes into the pickup cavity and actually sits under the humbucker.. then you wouldn't have to alter anything escept cleaning up the heel.

well, cells work wherever there is a cell tower.. where you are there are still towers. doesn't matter where your phone originates from, just that you're near an active tower.

chaos is a natural sociological outcome to lawlessness.. that's just human nature. no need to blame it on politics or any country's influence. You take any group of people, take away rules and isolate them and you will have chaos. ever read lord of the flies?

The mayor of NO (i'm increasingly less and less impressed with his mayor skills) did have a good point.. that NO is one of the most drug ridden cities in the nation and you have to remember a lot of the folks on the street are strung out and desparate for a fix.. that added to the already expected downward spiral makes for a bad scene.

I still feel like too many folks have a "it serves em right for not leaving" kind of attitude. that's unfortunate. People are finally getting help but none of the blame, speculation, political or theological arguments have any bearing on helping the hundreds of thousands of homeless and the 10s of thousands that are still stranded with their lives at risk.

Man, Im soooo glad you re-did the binding. I didnt want to say anything, but I could see several of the gaps you were talking about in the pics. Great job on the 2nd try!

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yeah i was expecting a few "constructive criticisms" the first time around. There are plenty to be had this go-round as well, buit they aren't as blaring as the first. Since i thinned the interior layer by hand there are a couple of thick spots where the outside thins out a tad but fortunately both places are where it comes up to meet the neck so it almost looks like I meant to do that..

yeah the carve is looking nice. I don't mind the look of the tight recurve.. all depends ont he look you are going for. Ash is not much fun to carve in my opinion.. maybe with rasps and such it's easier, but the scrapers just eat it up...it's so pithy down in the grain.

great lookin project though.

OK.. at long last, i've rectified my piss-poor binding attempt..

My last one was .9 binding using stewmacs .09 bushing and router bit set which i really don't like cause they cut the channel so deep that if you use CA like I did you have to sand your wood down to meet the binding. I'd rather scrape the binding to meet the wood. So, i routed the old binding off with the same .09 bushing and used 2 layers of .06 binding.

Inner layer is some faux abalone i had laying around (fabalone) and ivroid celluloid for the outer. Much classier than the cream PVC stuff i had before. I hand scraped the fabalone down some so it would be a little thinner and get the overall thickness closer to .09 rather than .12. I didn't laminate either, i put the fabalone down first, then put the outer layer and it worked like a champ.

Other photos for those interested

Better view of the flame

Closeup of the horn

better view of the fabalone

now the body is done except for the neck ferrule holes. hopefully i can make some progress on the neck later this week. it's all done just have to glue the FB to the neck, then press frets, then contour the back.

<ambient sounds of medieval torture devices and screams coming from the dungeon>

and if it's for your enjoyment than that's fine and dandy.. what got me was "yeah maybe it'll make me some more money if i sell it.. so what.."

There was plenty of advanced warning for people to flee to safety, if they were there it's because they didn't want to leave.

Some didn't have the facilities to leave...........food stamps aren't proper down payment for a motor vehicle, I guess.

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Yeah this is an important cynicism to confront.. "well if they wanted to ride out the storm, then they got what's coming to them" There are those are bull headed and want to ride out the storm, and they deserve such judgement but in this case you're talking about a high density urban area with a lot of poor people without cars, access to money, etc.. Public transportation is their only means of getting around and the city busses weren't exactly offering to take folks out of the city.

The vast majority of these people were trapped. plain and simple and hopefully they are finally getting the help they need.

Yes, I understand this, but I do not have the money to spend on those kind of things, and if I did put a fender logo and were to sell it later on, I think I would make more money on it.

So yes, maybe it would fund another project, but so what?

Builders like me who don't build too many guitars wouldn't get busted on by Fender, am I right?

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Sorry, i missed this the first time..

***!! If you put a companies logo on your guitar and use it to make more money on your guitar they have every right to come after you. And the person that buys it from you has every right to come after you for defrauding them. Fender doesn't come after little guys mostly because they dont' know about them. If they do find out though, they would certainly weigh their options. It's not just fender wanting to stick it to you, it would alsso be fender wanting to protect their customers from fraudulent gear.

A relic is about the vibe.. not tricking people into thinking it's authentic in brand. When i was in highschool i wanted to buy a fender branded neck for my squier tele so people would think i had a real fender.. that's essentially what you're doing.. I wised up a long time ago that people care a whole lot more about what you can do ON a guitar than what kind of guitar you are playing. I don't care if you walk in with a JCPenny special.. you play something that knocks their socks off you'll have their respect.

lol.. yeah this horse has been beaten, and beaten, and beaten.. If you want to put a fender logo on your personal guitar, who cares.. but don't sell it and don't act like you have a fender.

If it's your creation then make it personal with your own name on the headstock.

communication seems to be the biggest problem. The folks that can and are willing to help don't know where the help is needed.. e.g. the convention center - the national guard said they never even knew of the people there until yesterday.

I think the people that had money and means to leave left like they were supposed to and a lot of what you have left are the poor. which only adds to the problem because the longer things are bad the more folks will feel like they are being forgotten because of their race or economic stature.

was just reading that a lot of police are fleeing, turning in their badges, etc.. the place needs to be under martial law and peace restored and that will require a strong military presence. The police are outgunned and are helpless to do much of anything.

I think when all this is said and done, the blame game will start politically. The politics certainly doesn't solve any problems now. To those who do consider themselves religious (i can't stand that word) i would say pray - and then act.. now isn't the time to evangelize. Whatever faith or lack of faith you are, we have a responsibility to help each other out.

you could use behlen jet spray for black lacquer.. or you could use a sprayer to spray the dye onto the wood and control the opacity through layering of coats.