An Introduction And A Design.

[antelrope]

Hello all, I've just begun a guitar building class. I'm working towards building a solid body through neck. My concept thus far is to make the body out of something light colored such as alder and rout a checkered pattern into the front and back with the silhouette of a knight playing piece routed into the front. A dark wood such as ebony would then be inlaid into these pockets.

I'll start a project thread with some multimedia just as soon as photobucket stops fritzin'.

cheers,

-travis

Edit:

Here's a quick sketch.

Edited April 19, 2009 by antelrope

[dpm99]

Welcome Travis! Glad to have you here. Make sure you put up pics as you progress!

-Dave

[joshvegas]

hey travis,

If it was me i'd think about moving the knight so that you don't lose so much of it behind the pickups and bridge... but thats just me

[antelrope]

Thanks for the welcome, Dave!

Josh, I totally agree about the knight being covered up but I wasn't sure what else to do besides making it smaller or putting on the back. Anyhow, trying to figure out the templates I'd need to do something like this with a table router was giving me a headache. I've scaled back my design to be a simple maple through neck with a single laminate of bloodwood through the center, a bloodwood fretboard and hickory wings. I am hoping to do some more complicated designs but that can wait till I gain access to a 3 axis CNC router.

[joshvegas]

Very wise

Although people have been doing intricate work with wood long before CNC machines

Rough it with the router and tidy it with charp chisels

And I think you could possible rotate it 90 degrees the curve of the knight could be made to follow the curve of the guitar...

Edited April 30, 2009 by joshvegas

[Mitch]

Very wise

Although people have been doing intricate work with wood long before CNC machines

Rough it with the router and tidy it with charp chisels

And I think you could possible rotate it 90 degrees the curve of the knight could be made to follow the curve of the guitar...

Yeah thats a good idea. If you plan to do this then I would make the guitars a little bit longer behind the bridge.

[joshvegas]

and another thing, I think it would still look pretty good as a paint job if not better (sometimes using all wood is NOT the way to go).

Or another possibility would be a bit of veneering just like you were veneering a chess board rather than all the inlaying you had planned.