mistermikev

will try and I believe you... just I've read a number of places that going past 400 grit on wood will burnish the surface. that said... bring to 220, dye, sand to 800, then clear is typically what I do.

perhaps if I brought it up to 800 or 1500 grit... but I suspect that is going to make it not take dye well, no?

not sure if I'm dissagreeing... but afa the figure... right off the planer it looks amazing, then I sand it and it dissapears. that said... the piece itself... sanding it softens it, and makes it your own... so in that regard - def the most satisfying part. take all these sharp corners and soften them to your exact taste... sort of like signing the painting. above... in this piece - what I see as a sig is the contrast between the very soft features of the body, but the attention to detail in the edges of the f hole being sharp yet softened just a bit. the detail of that horn... transitions... where soft meets sharp right at the edge of the horn. it's my fav detail for sure.

wow, master class in finishing right there. I have only done one black dye finish and compared to all the others I've done it was def the hardest to bring to a place that I liked. Lots of little things I will take away from this and seeing the piece evolve as you went - very informative, an excellent resource and I thank you for learning me something (again). bravo. final finish is a 10.

right on.

well, take a step back... hold up your thumb... eye it up and dive back in there. that binding looks real nice against the nat top.

some sweet looking olive there.

simply put it's just any changes that happen to the sound as it fades out. edit, on second thought perhaps crusader's descrip is better!!

afai go... same here. If I ever come off as more than just "considering out loud"... that's not how I meant it. afa bloom, i agree. there are a lot of things that could go into that (freq resp, level, attack, etc...) but was just narrowing to level as that would seem like the easiest to measure. all of this is just really interesting - pondering conclusions not drawing them.

for the record I totally agree that sustain is almost inconsequential. also, we aren't considering an important metric here which is "bloom". folks often conflate sustain with sustained-level. ie comparing a note that sustains 16 seconds but the apparent gain drops to 20% immediately vs a note that maintains 80% of it's initial gain over 12 seconds. "high performance" = paying 150% more for .0001% improvement. Not saying I think that's wrong or right... it just IS!

yes, lets insert some math... if we assume just out of my butt my numbers were accurate and give me latitude in that respect... I went from 16ms to 30ms in my pseudo testing with and without gain. that ratio would be applied to a bigger base so 16x = 30 x 16.5 iow x = 30.9375. so basically that 1/2 second would become 1 second additional when gain is added (in theory). again, not a huge difference but still 2x the original difference. Is it life changing no. does anyone ever hold a note for 31 seconds no. could your difference be totally chalked up to variations in air pressure not accounted for in your testing... sure. could it be alpha particles... absolutely. data pixies - perhaps. if we consider it an actual "proven difference" would marketing teams drool over it and legitimately mark it up as "our guitar has more sustain than theirs because we make it with tas oak" - without a doubt.

if I had to do again... I would consider using clear grain filler. it sands much easier and in theory you could just lather it on and then sand it smooth. I'm not 100% sure this wouldn't leave a visible distinction between the filler and clear coats... but it'd be worth a try.

here's what I know about sparkle... I did a sparkle green finish a few years back - all from rattle cans. I painted the body green, then put it in a plastic tub. I dusted it with gloss poly and used a metal shaker to shake out metal flake onto the wet gloss. the metal flake I used was actually green, and it was pretty decent sized flake (too big for most spray guns). it took about 7 million cans of clear to cover it. I found early on that you need to put the gloss on VERY thick... thick enough to bury the metal flake and not burn through when wet sanding. if you do... you'll sand the green off the metal flake and end up with little silver spots. I learned this the hard way... because when you clear and you think you have enough - you don't. your finish is going to be VERY lumpy due to the metal flakes stacked on top of each other. when I finished it... was about the thickest finish I've ever done and wet sanding it nearly destroyed my elbows! still hurts thinking about it... that said... it turned out beautiful. I might have some pics at home - would have to look but either way a quick google search will show lots of tutorials on how to do it this way.

well of course... it is all signal processing... but I don't know of anyone who plays or records their guitar without some processing. the point I'm making is that that half of a second - in a real context which undoubtedly is going to have amp gain, mic/pre gain, a compressor, etc... is going to be a much more obvious difference. In that sense we are zooming in on the difference.

well thank you sir, thank you very much. now that you mention it... there's something I sort of want to do that would def push the envelope a bit further without making my own body shape... to make the radius on top/bottom any more severe... I would need thicker stock. Currently using 8/4 base and 1/4 top... but have been thinking that somewhere down the line I'll do a strat and make a body blank using 5 degree (or so) edge cuts on the two sides to end up with a v join of 8/4 stock... maybe take the radius as far as it can go. that said - my next build is going to be getting back to my 'fish on' bass and then my 'probasis' and after that I see a les paul in my future... but yes... doing my own shape is def on the list somewhere! so much I want to do and so little time!! thank you again for the encouragement!!

wow, really coming along nicely. some lovely wood there and lots of solid woodworking going into it. bravo.

going to have to catch up on this thread but certainly taking it to some interesting heights. .6 sec isn't huge... but add a little amp drive/compression and that will expand exponentially. reminded me of some testing I did a while back -I was interested in making a sampled instrument of guitar- was running through my tube setup and finding the low e would sustain for 30 seconds... reduced the gain to unity and was surprised that it brought it down to 16secs. this was of course in a room being influenced by speakers but just pointing out the obvious i guess... that .6 seconds might be a bigger difference in the right context.

thank you, I really needed that! I know I will turn a corner here and start to have something worth looking at... just has been such a long road compared to how I thought it would go. With the cnc issues, the minutia of the revisiting the design work... and then everything seems to take longer in reality than in my head (duh, why didn't I see that coming!).

well thank you so much!! feels like I'm running in slow motion but I'm getting there. thanks again for the reply.

worked my arse off last weekend to re-design my design... and worked very hard this weekend to try to get a completed body. cnc was running solid from 8:30am yesterday to 8pm, and 8am today till now (6pm). I wanted to do another test run b4 moving on to the wood kevin chose... and make any minor tweaks along the way... turning out pretty solid. so here's my process... cut the f holes and shape of the top, flip, cut f hole/toggle/ctrl relief and some bending relief in the back. modified my process to switch to a ball nose bit for the bending relief as this should make it less likely to crack... and since it will also make it less likely to bend... I put in more lines: so then rough cutting my body - 4.5hrs! another two and a half hours to finish cut the top side... added a middle pickup here because I felt like I wanted more support in the middle there and... who knows - maybe I add a middle pickup somewhere down the line! actually "my guy" - oat soda pickups... made some special pickups for me to put in my 'prototype run' ie 'one-for-me'... and in the process he wound an extra one because he's super cool. these are split singles ie two coils each with 3 poles for each coil... I'll already have so many options so haven't decided if I'll use the extra one or save it for another build. also... put some stickers on my cnc!! here you can get a reference for the overall thickness of the build... 1 7/8" body blank + 1/4" top should put us at 2.125" overall thickness, while the average thickness will be in the 1.325" neighborhood. another 3hrs to rough cut the back side... and 1.5hrs for the finish pass... then probably a couple hours additional between all the cavities and magnet holes and such... if you don't look at the endgrain... pretty solid top match:

yes... beat that dead horse mike v... love the back side of that. really is a nice job. not to overshadow your top or anything... but the backside is a real standout.

very nice. very colorful.

idk if it's like mach3... but in mach3 you have an xml profile and If someone else was using the machine and potentially messing with the calib I would make a copy of the config file, name it something new... and load up with my that (own private config file) from there on out. just a thought.

nat top looks great. def stay with that.

i can't speak to how other programs work but I would guess they are similar. in mach3 when you calibrate it saves that in an xml settings file and loads it as a profile every time you start... so for me... as long as I start the sm profile... it will load the settings I had last changed with it. I would highly doubt this would have any impact on other systems.... that said - also... you have to remember to hit save after you've calibrated in mach3 or those changes are lost.