Ok, I Am Not Crazy

[Curtis P]

I gave up on the Les Paul, mostly because I was intimidated by the carve top and such.

Soooooo

I downloaded the Jem file in Autocad, slapped it onto a floppy disk and took it into my design class today and printed it off, full scale on one peice of paper, it is sweeeeeet

I just finished cutting out the paper template, along with the monkey grip, and might i say, i am thinkin it will be a really fun project!!

Anyways, heres the low-down:

1)Basswood body, 2 inches thick

2)mahogany/maple/mahogany neck triple laminate, rosewood fingerboard (will buy this time instead of building)

3)Seymour Duncan 59's (dirty in the bridge, clean neck)

4)Double action truss rod

5)GOTOH speed knobs (1 volume, 1 tone)

6)500K pots

7)black pickgaurd

8)trading my GOTOH 3x3 minis(black) for Grover 6 inline(gold)

9)TOM bridge string through body (I aint going to completly copy it!)

10)Midnight Pearl Black Paint( )

So, Am I crazy?

I got it all laid out beside me here, and once again, I will attempt a neck, this time, i will buy the fingerboard, pre-slotted and radiused, mostly because i screwed mine up

Curtis

[AlGeeEater]

Why would you be considered crazy?

[Dr. Jabsco]

You are pritty crazy, thats pritty radical sounding.

:-p

just kidding of course. That does sound great. It will be very black!

the only thing to it is to do it.

Edited November 4, 2004 by Dr. Jabsco

[westhemann]

just do me a favor and actually complete this one,curtis...if you keep giving up every time the going gets tough,you will never learn.

get to it....or canada will be ashamed

you know i love ya,man...but build a damn guitar,would you?

[Curtis P]

I dunno, my friends and bro called me crazy

man, cant wait to get started!!! My boss gets back on monday i think, so i can start buyin wood on monday!!!

Curtis

[Curtis P]

just do me a favor and actually complete this one,curtis...if you keep giving up every time the going gets tough,you will never learn.

get to it....or canada will be ashamed

you know i love ya,man...but build a damn guitar,would you?

OK Wes

You have my word, I will complete it

Wes, I love you too!!!

lol

Curtis

[LGM Guitars]

Just keep in mind a standard JEM body is 1 3/4" thick, so be sure to alter your routing depths as needed for 2"

[Curtis P]

Ok, thanks for the heads up Jeremy!!!(sp? i am horrible, i know)

Ohh, and i actually have reason of why it would be 2 inchs (incase anyone is interested in hearing my "logic")

I figure, a mahog/maple/mahog neck will be decent heavy, while basswood (the stuff and sizes i have worked with) is fairly light, and i figured, go 2 inchs, that should give it enough weight to balance it out and be fairly even

But, if Ibanez uses pink basswood (which i believe, but dont quote me, pink basswood is mineralized) and all, every Ibanez I have played has been quite balanced, so maybe i should just do 1/34

damn, i am at a loss

Whats your proffesional opinion (anyone)

Curtis

[LGM Guitars]

a mahogany maple mahogany neck won't be any heavier than a standard maple neck. You're going to run into a couple issues with that though.

1. If you don't apply a finish to the neck it will feel crappy, mahogany is very open grained and feels rougher, having it alone is bearable, having it next to a smooth wood like maple will feel awful.

2. If you do finish it, you'll have all kinds of problems with the finish absorbing way more into the mahogany than the maple, this means you'll have to seal the crap out of the mahogany.

3. The mahogany will expand and contract way more than the maple, this means your seam lines will show up in your finish quite easily.

As for the weight issue, it won't be bad, as you said most ibanez's are basswood and they balance fine, even the 7 strings are pretty good for balance. I personally would do a 1 3/4" thick body just for comfort. 1/4" is quite noticable in thickness.

[Drak]

I think your logic is a bit ass-over-teacups.

This is not the way to a successful build (my opinion). You are aiming the gun at your own foot with finger on the trigger because you want to do all kinds of cool custom stuff when you're still just starting out.

KA-BLAM!

Try doing things the easy way until you get a few COMPLETED guitars under your belt.

Then if you want to plow new fields, so be it.

Right off the bat, your plan is riddled with bad decisions.

LGM pointed out a perfect example. You want to build a laminate neck, but lack some basic facts about laminated necks, so why are you going to do that?

Because it's cool?

You're still learning, leave the ultra-cool stuff for later on.

Then you're going to overcompensate with a thick body?

That is another bad decision that will probably yield results you won't even be happy with.

Why don't you just keep it SIMPLE?

I mean all this in the nicest way, but it must be said.

It's called common sense. Don't try to pilot a 747 over New York City when you are still wing-tipping little 1-seater cropdusters over cornfields.

Kapich?

[RGGR]

Don't try to pilot a 747 over New York City when you are still wing-tipping little 1-seater cropdusters over cornfields.

Drak, just for your knowledge.... to flying cropduster over a field you need considerable pilot skill. You're flying low to the ground in heavy airplane. Lots of twists and turns at low speed.......you need darn good pilot to pull this off.

And flying 747 over NY.........well every boso with some MS Flight simulator training can pull that off. (Do I have to say 911????)

I also don't agree completely with what you say about building guitars. I think in every kinda of journey in life...(building your own guitar is one of these journeys) you always need to push yourself. Push for the limit.....go beyond your comfort zone and give it a shot. With failure being an option.

I do agree that you shouldn't start with projects that are well over your head. Especially if you have tradition of not finishing up guitars, and consider LP top a major pain in the butt.

But I don't see a laminate neck being more complicated than regular one. Just his choice of woods is questionable.

And my advice.....do RG first and then start messing with monkey grip. It's area that makes or breaks a Jem copy....and I have seen way too many screw-ups in this area. Or buy a used neck from evilbay and complete the body.....cause as LP body is causing you trouble, how easy will be a complete neck. The fingerboard being one of the easier parts there.

Just my $0.02 as aerobatic pilot and newbee guitar builder......

The sky is the limit. ;-)

Edited November 4, 2004 by RGGR

[westhemann]

Just his choice of woods is questionable.

same choice of woods as my seven string v,it seems to work well.

i sealed the mahogany with ca glue

[Drak]

I don't give a rat about flying planes over whatever.

It was an analogy, get over it already. That explanation doesn't do a thing for helping this thread out, you could have PM'd me that information if you wanted me to know that sooo badly. Waste of post space.

And I -completely- disagree with what you said.

Ask ANY math teacher out there if they are going to teach 12th grade math to a 4th grader and then tell the student it's OK because he should 'push himself past his comfort zone'.

That's a complete crock of nonsense. At least as far as this thread is concerned.

Learn the basics, -then- once you have the basics understood, and you can easily repeat the basics (basic mulitiplication tables and whatnots) ...THEN you have something to work with, something to give you the ability to push yourself, because you have built up some amount of confidence in yourself and have a base with which to work from because you understand the fundamental way in which things are done, and you now have a 'toolbox' with which to work from when the next problem comes along.

Experience is like adding a new tool to your toolbox each time you successfully complete a task, and as time goes by, you now have more and more tools with which to work your problems out.

Notice I said successfully. If you fail at the attempt, you have not gained that new tool, you're still working with what you had before. Little to no progress, or very very slow progress. Much slower than if you had just worked at the basics until you had them understood. That's actual progress.

You're head is in the clouds, Curtis needs some grits and gravy advice, not some high flighty explanations of 'just go for it dude'.

And Wes, I do agree with Jeremy. From a finishing standpoint, that wood combo is going to be a difficult one to finish off properly, and for a newb just trying to get a guitar done, I still say it's not a good choice, there are TONS more combinations that would be a better match.

I could care less if you disagree with me, that doesn't bother me at all, I hope everyone has an opinion of their own, but as Ted Nugent once said, 'You're going to have to prove it to me before I'm buying any of it'.

Opinions are opinions, but rock-solid advice is something completely different, and I'd like to see some more rock solid advice here, not opinions based on superfluous hyperbole.

[RGGR]

Drak, you have such a wonderful way of expressing yourself.

You just crack me up everytime.

If you fail at the attempt, you have not gained that new tool, you're still working with what you had before. Little to no progress, or very very slow progress. Much slower than if you had just worked at the basics until you had them understood. That's actual progress.

I must say in life I learned more from my failures and screw-ups than from my so called successes. And in that respect I hope Curtis learned from his LP experience.

You're head is in the clouds, Curtis needs some grits and gravy advice, not some high flighty explanations of 'just go for it dude'.

If dear Curtis is happy with this project and wants to dive in head first........all power to him.

No need to be so an*l about this whole guitar building thing. If everything fails he still can burn the whole thing and enjoy the flames. I don't see any harm done.

What doesn't mean it's sometimes wise to listen to people like Drak. (sometimes!!)

Edited November 4, 2004 by RGGR

[Curtis P]

The reason i wanted the neck laminate was because i figured the mahogany would make it too muddy, so I would use the maple to brighten it up with

Drak

I know you mean well, and you will call me stubborn and such, but i am going to build this guitar

and it will be 1/34 of an inch, after mesuring and deciding last night, if its neck heavy, i will have to get used to it,

Kapish? (no offence)

Curtis

[RGGR]

The reason i wanted the neck laminate was because i figured the mahogany would make it too muddy, so I would use the maple to brighten it up with

Curtis, have you thought of using Bubinga laminate instead of Mahogany......I know Ibanez uses this in number of their guitars.

[Drak]

Rule No. 1 - Never take me 'too' seriously!

As Terrible Ted -also- said, 'If you don't know how to take me, you'll hurt yourself on my words'.

RGGR, it's really all in fun, seriously. I do stand behind what I said, but I'm not jacked up over it or anything.

And I DO take this stuff seriously. These materials cost a lot of money to just say, 'well, you can burn it all if you don't like it'.

Now, that attitude certainly works for me and maybe you too, but let me toss this scenario out and see what you think.

Say your child is in the 4th grade. You want him to be competative with the 4th grade boys, you want him to impress the 4th grade girls, etc.

Now, all the other boys and girls are working out of 4th grade books.

But the one class your boy is in, well, his teacher has them working out of an old 12th grade book from years ago.

I would think that every parent in America would, upon learning of this, would storm down to that school and demand an explanation from the teacher why this was allowed to happen and what was up his ___ wid dat.

And the teachers' response was, 'well, I believe in just going for it, and if they don't learn it, they can just burn the danged book and do whatever they want'.

Now does that sound realistic to you?

That expression might work once you have experience under your belt, but for just starting out, it is a recipe for failure and disaster, so I hope you understand the distinction I was making and it's relevance to this thread and where Curtis is at, not where WE ar at with this.

Comprende?

[RGGR]

RGGR, it's really all in fun, seriously. I do stand behind what I said, but I'm not jacked up over it or anything.

Drak, I think we are cool.

When I started with my JS-7 project my surroundings thought I had gone crazy.

"You are gonna built what???????"

And instead of starting easy project (building body buying neck, building fixer-upper, etc.) I dove head first into this. I sourced some wood, and some tools....and if everything failed I would have spend maybe $100-$150 on wood and tools......not something to brake the bank.

I did my home work, bought some good guitar building books, read almost all tutorials out there, spend considerable hours reading this forum and other forums.......and then there came a time I simply had to dig in.

I did, and I'm loving it. It's so rewarding seeing dumb wood turn into a beautiful guitar. And yes, I wished I had built some guitars before......so I wouldn't make the obvious mistakes......or would have known the little things you only learn by doing.

If Curtis is smart he will buy stuff as he goes along.....buy body wood and try to get the RG or Jem body out. It may look easier than carved LP top.....but like Drak said.....not having the basics right you have considerable chance of screwing this up too. That money grip on JEM is not an easy thing to get right.

And instead of using nice piece of Limba, Alder or Basswood.......try one first on piece of cheap Popular or Pine. Just be smart about it.

Having printed out nice Cad, is something different from building guitar.

Can't wait to see the results Curtis.

Edited November 4, 2004 by RGGR

[LGM Guitars]

Ok, back to Curtis's project here

Wes, like I said, you can use those woods in the neck, you just have to do some extra work to seal it for a finish, give it a year though, you'll see lines in your finish between the mahogany and maple I'd almost bet on it.

As for the neck, IMO I would just use solid maple for your first try. One thing I've seen many times with the neck, is people get carried away on the carving and end up thinner than they wanted. If you're using mahogany it's simply going to be to weak for the string tension. Mahogany necks work fine, but they are thicker than your standard Ibanez neck. I think a lot of people like mahogany for necks because it carves like butter compared to maple. This also leads to a problem with a laminate neck if you're not used to the woods, you can cut down into the mahogany way faster than the maple and end up with a pretty messed up contour.

Curtis, it's 1 3/4" not 1/34" at 1/34" your body would be .029" thick, or roughly the equivalent of 9.6 sheets of paper LOL!!!!

As for the body shape, I see nothing wrong with doing a JEM shape for a first guitar. In fact, I think it's a good shape, here's why.

1. The corners are very square unlike a strat, this is much easier to make look decent when you only need to deal with approximately a 1/16" radius on the edge as opposed to the 1" or whatever it is on a strat. You can break the edge with sandpaper on an RG/JEM body.

2. All the routes for pickups are very standard, you can use the stew mac templates for them (you can with a strat as well but a strat you do have to contend with the angled single coil as well if you really want it to look like a strat, not a big deal, but I've seen a lot of people end up with that angled pickup to far to one side or the other)

3. The monkey grip is a good lesson in building templates, I wouldn't try doing it freehand or even with the drill and jigsaw tutorial, make a template out of 1/4" plywood and route it, this is a great teacher in template making.

4. Curtis has decided on a string thru bridge, this means no lions claw which is the toughest part of a JEM body to do correctly. However, Curtis, just do a fixed bridge, do not use a tune-o-matic unless you are prepared to play with the neck geometry. If you route your neck pocket flat as most JEM's are you will never get your bridge and stop tailpiece low enough to have playable action. Yes you can shim the neck, but this would be a large shim, probably about 1mm which will leave a considerable gap in your neck pocket, this isn't really something you want.

5. Working in basswood is easy, you can learn pretty good control of the router with less fear of it grabbing and yanking itself out of your hands like is typical with figured woods and harder woods. It's also easier to sand. It is a bit more of a challenge to seal for finish, particularly on the end grain, but nowhere near as bad as mahogany or swamp ash. It's also fairly cheap so if you screw it up you're not out an expensive wood.

I certainly don't see a problem in using this for your first guitar, you might consider buying a fretboard for it, this is a critical part of the guitar, I'll have a bunch of Ibanez fretboards in the classifieds here soon, all are still fretted, they are pretty much ready to glue onto a neck. I just have to look at exactly what I have here and then they'll be listed.

Just my 2 cents.

Jeremy

[Curtis P]

Jeremy

I was talkin to guy at work tonight, and heres what we came up with

Basswood body, maple neck (from work, so it will be cheap) (if its bright, i will just play with EQ settings, whop de doo, better then spendin more money)

I am going to order a pre slotted and radiused ingerboard and just fret it myself

Now, heres the part that got me confused in your post Jeremy:

4. Curtis has decided on a string thru bridge, this means no lions claw which is the toughest part of a JEM body to do correctly. However, Curtis, just do a fixed bridge, do not use a tune-o-matic unless you are prepared to play with the neck geometry. If you route your neck pocket flat as most JEM's are you will never get your bridge and stop tailpiece low enough to have playable action. Yes you can shim the neck, but this would be a large shim, probably about 1mm which will leave a considerable gap in your neck pocket, this isn't really something you want.

I already have a GOTOH TOM bridge that I cannot return, and i dont want to trade it in and have to pay more money again for a fixed bridge, I planned on using it and just recessing it slightly into the body and then, kick me if I am wrong about this, but when i do the neck heel, use a miter guage set on the correct angle and sand it that way, so then the neck is already angled, and then just route the neck pocket straight.

Ohh, and one other thing

1. The corners are very square unlike a strat, this is much easier to make look decent when you only need to deal with approximately a 1/16" radius on the edge as opposed to the 1" or whatever it is on a strat. You can break the edge with sandpaper on an RG/JEM body

Does that mean just sand the edge and not use a roundover bit?

Thanks!!

Curtis

[westhemann]

Wes, like I said, you can use those woods in the neck, you just have to do some extra work to seal it for a finish, give it a year though, you'll see lines in your finish between the mahogany and maple I'd almost bet on it.

could be,but i will never know i think because i am going to refinish it after i fix a few bugs,and i think i am going to leave the neck clear.

all i meant is that i used it and ca is what i used to try and prevent what you are talking about...i am not for or against....

[Curtis P]

Well

Went to my neighbours tonight, asked about buying some basswood

He has 4 inch thick basswood, 6 feet long, and i believe its 7 inchs wide, and its MINE

Didnt cost me a dime either, he is going away on christmas break, so i just have to make sure his hot tub hasnt stopped running and water the plants inside his home, and the wood is mine, ohh yea baby!!

Pickin it up tommorow after work, dang, feels good to start this project!!!!

The only catch with the wood, yea, i know, your thinkin its too good to be true eh, the wood has a slight warp in it (about 3/8 of an inch twist from end to end)

So i plan on cutting it to a rough length on radial arm saw, and then taking in to peices to get kiln dried (not that i dont trust how dry it is[he said its been sitting for 2 years], i just want to make sure)

So, did I do good??

Curtis

[Drak]

Most Eggggggselent Score, glashoppah.

(Drak imagining the hot tub green and stanky and all the plants dead upon owner's return )

[Curtis P]

Most Eggggggselent Score, glashoppah.

(Drak imagining the hot tub green and stanky and all the plants dead upon owner's return )

lol, you should have seen when he asked me to watch his dog, LOL

just jokin

Curtis

[Curtis P]

got the wood tonight

It was orignally supposed to be 6 feet long, he couldnt find that board, we searched forever and couldnt find it, so the closest board that was a little bit over was 10 feet, so i got that one