Complete Newb, Doing First Build

[shanjesnen]

I have been searching for awhile for a baritone guitar that suits my taste and have not found one yet. After contacting the major guitar parts manufacturers i decided the only way to get what i wanted was to build it myself.

What i'm looking to do is build a Dano style bari guitar out of good woods. I already have an Ash guitar blank from guitarmill, and am going to be puting a spalted malple top on it. What I would like to do is make the neck out of wenge, put a spalted maple board, and headstock overlay. Its going to have a bigsby, TOM and two tv jones pickups.

I have never built a guitar from scratch before, done some refrets, and refins, but im worried im in over my head. I want to make the neck just like the a dano neck with the pitched headstock and stuff.

Has anybody done any baritone guitars here? And how many have used wenge for the neck? As soon as I get all the wood rounded up, I will post a pic of the ingredients.

Thanks for all the insight, I have learned alot just lurking the last couple of hours.

[jay5]

Spalted maple might not be the best idea for a fretboard. You would probably have to do a lot of work to get it hard/smooth enough. I will let someone with more experience with spalt correct me......

[Mattia]

Spalt maple should stabilize fairly well if soaked with thin CA, although I'm not sure it'd be quite strong enough for a fingerboard. Maybe with an additional epoxy finish or something. I'd seriously consider contacting Larry at Gallery Hardwoods and looking into an acrylic impregnated spalt maple fingerboard. Would stabilize the sucker properly, that's for sure.

[Argali]

I like the idea of a splalted maple fretboard. That would definitely create a guitar you don't see everyday.