Ford

Wow! It looks like some sort of poisonous plant! Like something you'd need to wash your hands after playing... Very cool man, I like the shapes on the headstock. -Ford

Stain it a purple/maroony! ...Or is that still blasphemy? -Ford

I sanded for like four hours today to get the other side of the head square so I could glue the walnut on. It was a pain in the butt and I got really mad at one point, but I got it done! Unfortunately, the maple on that side of the head is 1/8" smaller now. Its not terribly noticable, but you can tell its not straight. Someone remind me that its ok to make mistakes the first time... Tomorrow I'll cut as much of the extra walnut off with a handsaw as I can, and clean the rest up on my router table. Wish me luck! I made this little jig thing to get things sanded square. Lookie! For the bass, all I did today was get a drill out and CAREFULLY drill about a million holes in the center maple block. Tomorrow if I have time I'll go back and rout it clean. This way the top wood will be free to resonate. Lots of Holes! I had the idea of drilling progressively smaller holes in a spiral shape in the top as a sound hole. Could be cool. Maybe with a LED behind it? Eh? -Ford *Fixed links...

No, plyboard bad... maple good. -Ford

Eh.... Probably. The maple core has some weight to it. This was a real POS bass though, I have no idea what the neck is made out of, but it doesn't weigh anything. When I bought it like 8 years ago, the neck was badly warped. Origionally I thought I'd just steam the fretboard off and plane the neck flat and glue it back together. The body is literally plyboard. Its wonderful. Good stuff! -Ford

Has it really been 6 months?!? Right. --:Guitar #1:------------------------------------------------- For the guitar, I'm going back to my origional Fender Jaguar design, but with a PRS style head. I've been working on the neck recently. I did a scarf joint, getting an 13 degree angle on the head. The glue line came out pretty good for my first try dispite the ulser I developed trying to clamp the stupid thing, it kept slipping around. I got it all planed down, and went to route the truss rod chanel... heh... muh... The router bit worked its way loose (apparently you can't rout out 1/4" at a time, ya live ya learn) and tore really deep into the wood, almost all the way through the neck. Plus before I figured out what had happened, I started back in on the chanel with the bit way too high and took a bit of a nibble out of the face of the head. That was a little agrivating... I was able to sand some 1/4" wide bits of walnut to the shape of the two points where the router went deep and glued them in. Hopefully it'll work. Also, the route is like 1/8" off center, another agrivation, but between the fretboard and a trus rod cover it should be out of sight. Sigh. Pic 1: The route from hell Pt. 1 Also, my jig slipped at the heel of the neck, and the router routed where it wasnt suppose to... I'm thinking I can salvage that with, again, some cleverly sanded walnut (or spruce) Pic 2: The route from hell Pt. 2 Does anyone have any ideas of how I can fix this? I'm thinking about routing out 1/4" into the side of the ruined chanel and filling it back in with scrap maple. Today I CAREFULLY planed down some more walnut and glued it to the side of the head. I'm sortta going for a Rickenbacker Dakota look. Pic 3: Happy walnut for me. --:Bass #1:------------------------------------------------- The Bocote fretboard is attached and the fret marker slots are cut. That part was easy enough. I also filled the old screw holes in the heel with a dowel rod, sawdust and glue. I still need to sand off the rest of the old finish, as well as some nicks and dings. Pic 1: Neck #1 Pic 2: Neck #2 Pic 3: Holes Filled As for the body, I took it to the wood shop and they sent it through their giant thickness sander, so that worked out nicely. I got two spruce accoustic guitar tops to use as the top and bottom woods for this bass. I dont feel I did a good job glueing the bookmatched spruce halves. If I was thinking at the time I would have cut them back appart and tried again. Also, when I glued the back on the the body core, I must have used too much glue, there is a definate glue line, but again, there isnt much I can do at this point. The gap between the body core and the spruce bottom around the edges are from the origional bass's rounded body. I'll be rounding the edges again, so that should take care of that gap. Pic 4: Lots o' Glue Pic 5: Glue Line You can see a penciled in curved line towards the neck side of the center maple block. I'll rout out about a third or so of that maple from the curved line down to the horizontal line (where the wings meet the center block at the bottom). This way the entire top of the bass will be free to resonate with a 90% hollow body. I'm debating cutting a sound hole. Does anyone think this will add to the tone or would it just be a cosmetic thing? Thats if for now! -Ford

When I origionally started to lay out the electronics for my guitar I had like 4 two-way swiches, 2 three-ways, a tone, a push/pull volume and pup swich. What I did in the end though was to just figure out what settings I wanted, and wire one of those 6 way rotary swiches so I had 6 presets that I could flip through quickly. I still would only use 2/3rds of it, but hey, I saved on swiches and knobs!

Holy crap Setch!!! Who are you and where do you come from!?! That sounds like it will work great! Thanks! I tried a hand plane at one point (one some pine first of course), but I was so clumsy with it I was afraid to try on my nicer woods. I could never quiet get things straight and level with it. It was a 9.5" plane, and that might have something to do with it.

See, thing is that I'm not 100% sure I can find a straight edge that is straight enough that doesnt cost $60. Last weeks lesson was that aluminum "straight edges" from Home Depe arent neccessaily straight... I'm also suspicious of the sandpeper glued to glass method. It seems to me that the middle of the piece of wood I'm sanding gets sanded more, if thats possible, so there's this nice arch to everything... REALLY frusterating. Tonight though I grabbed a piece of wood that I KNOW has been through a joiner, and so far that works a little better. Tonights lesson is: "Watch the grain when routing maple." Stupid tearout...

Thanks so much!

What kind of jig would you reccomend, or can you think of a straight enough straight edge other than the $60 Stew-Mac one? Though... I wonder how hard it would be to make a simple jig. Maybe set the router up on two level peices of wood, fasten it down somehow, then slide the wood to be leveled under the router? Hrm.

Well... I know about joiners... But I need the poor-boy's method...

I've been having trouble recently getting my wood flat enough before glueing. It seems that no matter how many time I run it past the router or how much I sand I can alwayse see light though my joins.... Agrivating to say the least. Perhaps its just a lack of experience, but I've already sawed a laminated neck blank back appart once cause I wasnt happy with the join, and I'm not interested in doing it again. I have 80 grit sand paper glued to a mirror, doesnt seem to work that easily, unless it just takes hours of sanding for good reslult? I also have tried double sided taping a straight piece of anything and running past my router table (using a pattern bit), but I guess I cant seem to find anythign straight enough to use as a guide. Is there a more obvious answer to this problem? Cause I'm stumped... Thanks!

Alright, I'm having some trouble. I cut one side of that neck laminate back appart with no trouble, but now I'm back to the same problem I had when I started glueing. The woods arent square with each other, and it seems that no matter what I do they are still not flat against each other. I have a router/router table with pattern and flush trim bits. I had been trying to use a big old metal ruler as a straight edge, but I'm starting to wonder if its really all that straight... Help!!!

Fender, You may be right about the planer tearing up that body... I think he had a big sanding machine too... In my experience bass bodys are usually the dense harder woods. When I'm playing bass I like a good growing punchy tone with a good deal of hign end snap and pop. One thing I havent found a lot of information on the internet about is hollowbody/extreemly chanbered insturments, and what tops and bottoms do to sound...

Last month I started work on my first couple of projects. Sorry that I'm just now getting around to posting pics, been busy! I bought a big old block of maple and a striped ebony fretboard. I found a local woodworking shop here that cut up and trued up 3 neck blanks and a body center section (see next 2 paragraphs), for $5! Plus he did it for my right then and there, even invited me in and started giving me advice about glueing and the likes! w00t! The First Project! For the first one I'll be restoring a junky pawn shop bass, infact, its the first insturment I ever bought. It was a real pice of crap, so I figure I wont feel to bad if I mess it up in process. I took it all appart, stripped off most of the finish and steamed off the frett board. The neck was warped really bad, so I'll be repairing that too. Pawn Shop Special 1 The body is plywood, so I ripped it in two, cut a good chunk out of the middle, and am about to glue in a center piece of maple that the neck, bridge and electronics will attach to. There was a GIANT swimming pool rout in that thing so I routed it all the way out and mirrored it over onto the other side of the body. My idea is to get it glued up, take it back to the woodworking shop and have them plane it down about half an inch, then I'll glue on a top and bottom wood. Pawn Shop Special 2 This sucker will be a hollow body frettless by the time I'm done. I have a beautiful Bocotte fingerboard ready for it and all. I'm also debating ripping the neck down the middle and laminating in that piece of walnut seen in the picture. That might be tricky, but I'm up for it. I'd like to get some suggestions on what to use as the top and bottom woods. Maple comes to my mind, but I'm a Rickenbacker nut. I want to get a really good punchy tone, almost Jaco-esque, but still with some jazzy warmth. Also, any finish ideas? I'm have no idea what I want yet. The second project! I want to build a PRS McCarty / Gibson LP Doublecut away style guitar. Maple top, Basswood bottom. I have already glued up a laminated neck blank (maple/walnut/maple), and have a purdy striped ebony fretboard. Silver Doublecutaway Left to Right: A yet to be glued up neck blank The current neck blank my Striped Ebony fretboard I mentioned this in another thread, but I'd like to get a raised ivy/vine pattern sanblasted into the top, paint it silver, then finish it with more of a matte than a gloss. Could be sharp looking, stlill planning though. Unfortunatly the neck blank didnt glue as well as I'd would have liked so today I'm gonna saw it back off, re-joint it, and try again. I have about a quarter inch of wiggle room. What do ya think?

Good Beans! Thanks unclej!

unclej, Interesting, I bet it wouldnt behard for me to make the ivy vine on my computer. Do you know where I could get something like that done, or what to look for? How much do you suppose that would cost, to have it sand blasted? I'd assume maple would be fine for something like that... Neat thought, thanks!

I had the idea of doing a raised Ivy/Vine pattern on the top of a guitar I'm working on, but I'm at a loss as to how I could accomplish this. I thought of maybe carving it with chizzles, but that might be out of my league. Ideally I'd want to do this on a carved top PRS style guitar. I also thought of molding it out of something like bondo, but I cant immagine that going over well. Any ideas?

Hmm.... I only had regular 3 clamps and two spring clamps to work with, but I used bits of wood to distrubute the pressure as best as I could. I got the clamps pretty snug, but didnt torque them too hard. If I wanted to I probably could have gotten them tighter. HMMMM.... Well, as insurance against destroying my nice wood, I'm gonna go out and buy a router table today. Once I get the glue line cleaned up and the exas wood routed back, I can see what the glue line looks like I guess....

Hi All, I couldnt find an answer doing a search, so here I go! I am glueing neck laminates together (Maple/Walnut/Maple) with Titebond, how tight is too tight on the clamps? I assume the good old "Snug then Tug" routiene works well enough, but I know there is a danger of squeezing all the glue out. My first glue up made a nice bead of glue squish out, I wiped that off and that was about it, not much more oozed out. Eh? -Ford

Wow, The plyboard cutout almost looks like a Jag-Stang! Wierd. Cant wait to see the finished product!

wow! So you've made what, 6 guitars now? That was fast! And they all look great as well! I love your emoticons too ^^ I cant wait to start my own guitar, just waiting for some money T_T

My 100w tube guitar amp, hella loud, cant turn it up past 2 without hurting my ears. My bass rig on the other hand is over 300 watts, and its not near loud enough! Bass amps usually need 4x's the wattage of a guitar amp to compete. But then you get into class a vs. class a/b vs. solid state vs. who freaking cares. What it all comes down to is that I think building your own amp head is way cool to the max. Everything looks awesome.

I got one of those Ibanez Ergodyne basses too. I get good snap/warmth/punch out of it... though I dont know if I'd buy it again. I'd probably go with a wooden one. The Ibanez doesnt hold up to my 4001 Rick one bit, I love that thing! Love the bass... bass... thing.