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Project Wenge V


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Sometimes even bad pictures say a lot. I will try to get some better pictures when I finish up. For now it can sit, settle, and get tweaked a little here and there. I still have quite a few things to do. I have to tune the pickup heights, fix the radius on the bridge, tweak out the nut, dial in the action, and fix a ding in the side from the pickup falling out of my hand (grrr....). Overall this came out pretty nice. I polished the fretboard up to 2000 grit then buffed it with a nice compound.

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I haven't devided on a trussrod cover yet. I think it needs a nice chrome one but I have no idea were to get one. If anyone has a chrome V trussrod cover PM me and we can work out a deal. As a note to myself I must start chambering fullsized guitars. This one turned out ok... it is heavier than a Gibson V but not heavier than my Jackson.

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Looks great. Chrome truss rod cover would finish it off nicely. The strap button on the back of the body may be an issue. The one on my Gibson Flying V is located in the same spot and constantly impedes the upper fret access.

Ain't moving it now.... I noticed it last night. I bump my thumb on it but not bad... only when playing Megadeth stuff. I think if I were to sell one I will have to change some stuff.

Things Right:

Scale 24.75 is perfect for a V

Finally got the input jack right. Upper wing.

Wenge -- sounds awesome. I love the sound. It resonates through the whole guitar while you play it... awesome.

Headstock -- Huge is better.

Fretboard -- Ebony is great

Fret wire -- Dunlop 6105

Finish -- Behlens Lacquer

Things learned:

Strap button needs to be moved.

Chambering! It is a bit heavy.

Move the string through ferrules closer to the bridge. (recessing the bridge caused this)

Need to run wire channels first before anything else.

Move the neck pickup closer to the 24th fret.

Regular size pickup routes. I made these smaller in an attempt to make them look clean. If I wanted to use a bigger HB it wouldn't fit (Mine, SD, and DiMarzio are all same size).

Wenge -- HATE working on wenge. Nasty stuff. Have to wear a mask ALL the time.

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Wenge -- HATE working on wenge. Nasty stuff. Have to wear a mask ALL the time.

Would you have a better experience with wenge if you were just making a guitar with a wenge top or neck? I am planning on making a guitar with a wenge top and I'm not sure if I will have a tough time with it. Did you have to wear long sleeves and gloves when dealing with wenge?

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Wenge -- HATE working on wenge. Nasty stuff. Have to wear a mask ALL the time.

Would you have a better experience with wenge if you were just making a guitar with a wenge top or neck? I am planning on making a guitar with a wenge top and I'm not sure if I will have a tough time with it. Did you have to wear long sleeves and gloves when dealing with wenge?

No.

No.

No.

Is that to many NOs?

No I think neck, fretboard, whatever Wenge is always poisonous and the splinters always become septic. Wenge for accent lines is not really a problem. Anywhere you use Wenge and you have to sand it into a shape of level it it sucks. Quartersawn is the easiest to deal with because the soft grain and the hard grain are very close together.

On a carved(or even flat) flatsawn top it is a pain. You must use a block to sand it. Scrapers, planes, chainsaws tend to make ripples by removing more soft grain and less hard grain. For example the neck on the V has riftsawn edges (no comments from the peanut gallery). I could not use a spokeshave or a scraper or even a razorblade on the neck. I had to shape it with wide rasps and sanding blocks. Everytime I touched it with a scraper the soft grain would tear out. It sands well though.

I didn't wear long sleeves but I always wore a mask and safety goggles (not glasses). It seems to only irritate the respiratory system and the eyes. I made a mistake one day and did some light sanding on a fretboard with no mask and had a really bad night... sinuses filled up and took a day to get over it.

I ended up sanding the thing with mineral spirits almost all the time. Used dust collection for the DA sander. Vacuumed up all the dust as soon as I was finished.

Now this is an extreme case since the whole guitar is Wenge.

I love the sound so much I am planning an all Wenge SS... I am crazy :D

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Wenge -- HATE working on wenge. Nasty stuff. Have to wear a mask ALL the time.

Would you have a better experience with wenge if you were just making a guitar with a wenge top or neck? I am planning on making a guitar with a wenge top and I'm not sure if I will have a tough time with it. Did you have to wear long sleeves and gloves when dealing with wenge?

No.

No.

No.

Is that to many NOs?

No I think neck, fretboard, whatever Wenge is always poisonous and the splinters always become septic. Wenge for accent lines is not really a problem. Anywhere you use Wenge and you have to sand it into a shape of level it it sucks. Quartersawn is the easiest to deal with because the soft grain and the hard grain are very close together.

On a carved(or even flat) flatsawn top it is a pain. You must use a block to sand it. Scrapers, planes, chainsaws tend to make ripples by removing more soft grain and less hard grain. For example the neck on the V has riftsawn edges (no comments from the peanut gallery). I could not use a spokeshave or a scraper or even a razorblade on the neck. I had to shape it with wide rasps and sanding blocks. Everytime I touched it with a scraper the soft grain would tear out. It sands well though.

I didn't wear long sleeves but I always wore a mask and safety goggles (not glasses). It seems to only irritate the respiratory system and the eyes. I made a mistake one day and did some light sanding on a fretboard with no mask and had a really bad night... sinuses filled up and took a day to get over it.

I ended up sanding the thing with mineral spirits almost all the time. Used dust collection for the DA sander. Vacuumed up all the dust as soon as I was finished.

Now this is an extreme case since the whole guitar is Wenge.

I love the sound so much I am planning an all Wenge SS... I am crazy :D

I was planning on resawing a 1" piece of flatsawn wenge and use a planer to plane it to about 3/8" for the top of my next guitar. Will the planer cause alot of tearout?

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I was planning on resawing a 1" piece of flatsawn wenge and use a planer to plane it to about 3/8" for the top of my next guitar. Will the planer cause alot of tearout?

Depends. I keep my jointer pretty sharp and had no issues joining the body. That said the wood edge I presented to the jointer blades was quartersawn.

I hate planars and use my drum sander for everything so I can't comment on how that will go.

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I haven't devided on a trussrod cover yet.

Damn, this one's looking great! I think I would have gone with a chrome volume knob too though. About the truss rod cover: Do you have any offcuts left from the neck that you could make a cover from? That would look really cool, having the TR cover continuing the stripes from the body.

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I haven't devided on a trussrod cover yet.

Damn, this one's looking great! I think I would have gone with a chrome volume knob too though. About the truss rod cover: Do you have any offcuts left from the neck that you could make a cover from? That would look really cool, having the TR cover continuing the stripes from the body.

Chrome knob? I build a complete Wenge V with maple lams and veneer everywhere and you point out the knob??? :D

Just kidding :D ... the guitar has an amber tint to it and the knob really fits. But I think I had one on it at some point and it looked good as well.

I tried a wenge trussrod cover and a flame maple cover and a neck cuttoff that had the stripes from the back of the neck... none of them worked. I think the plan now is to buy/build a chrome trussrod cover that is a copy of a real gibson V cover.

I really like the one you put on yours and that is still a possibility of using ebony as a cover. I think I might try your cover shape as well (love your V).

I had this issue with the Hand of Doom and never solved it. It still does not have a trussrod cover.

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Chrome knob? I build a complete Wenge V with maple lams and veneer everywhere and you point out the knob??? :D

Just kidding :D ... the guitar has an amber tint to it and the knob really fits. But I think I had one on it at some point and it looked good as well.

I tried a wenge trussrod cover and a flame maple cover and a neck cuttoff that had the stripes from the back of the neck... none of them worked. I think the plan now is to buy/build a chrome trussrod cover that is a copy of a real gibson V cover.

I really like the one you put on yours and that is still a possibility of using ebony as a cover. I think I might try your cover shape as well (love your V).

I had this issue with the Hand of Doom and never solved it. It still does not have a trussrod cover.

Sorry 'bout that... Nah, I think the amber one fits in great as well since the whole guitar has this warm glow to it, it's just that you chose to use the mirror like pickup covers and I figured you could go all the way with a chrome knob as well. Would the striped one work if you used black (ebony?) binding to kind of separate it from the headstock wood? Or maybe even white binding to tie it in with the nut color? That last one might be a long shot though, not much more white on the guitar except the switch knob... An ebony cover would look good too, continuing the fretboard a bit. Anyway, chrome will be great as well! You could make one yourself out of aluminium (easy to engrave if you want to) and have it chrome plated. Or stainless steel and polish the hell out of it...

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Chrome knob? I build a complete Wenge V with maple lams and veneer everywhere and you point out the knob??? :D

Just kidding :D ... the guitar has an amber tint to it and the knob really fits. But I think I had one on it at some point and it looked good as well.

I tried a wenge trussrod cover and a flame maple cover and a neck cuttoff that had the stripes from the back of the neck... none of them worked. I think the plan now is to buy/build a chrome trussrod cover that is a copy of a real gibson V cover.

I really like the one you put on yours and that is still a possibility of using ebony as a cover. I think I might try your cover shape as well (love your V).

I had this issue with the Hand of Doom and never solved it. It still does not have a trussrod cover.

Sorry 'bout that... Nah, I think the amber one fits in great as well since the whole guitar has this warm glow to it, it's just that you chose to use the mirror like pickup covers and I figured you could go all the way with a chrome knob as well. Would the striped one work if you used black (ebony?) binding to kind of separate it from the headstock wood? Or maybe even white binding to tie it in with the nut color? That last one might be a long shot though, not much more white on the guitar except the switch knob... An ebony cover would look good too, continuing the fretboard a bit. Anyway, chrome will be great as well! You could make one yourself out of aluminium (easy to engrave if you want to) and have it chrome plated. Or stainless steel and polish the hell out of it...

I was just giving you a hard time...

Yeah I like some of those ideas. I will just have to see what I can do. The only ones I can find on eBay say "Gibson" and I am not sure I want that (kind of like a party foul).

The switch knob is creme but it needs to be a bit more amber so I might find an aged one in one of my boxes.

I have my official guitar tester coming by tonight so I will get his opinion on the knob.

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Chrome knob? I build a complete Wenge V with maple lams and veneer everywhere and you point out the knob??? :D

Just kidding :D ... the guitar has an amber tint to it and the knob really fits. But I think I had one on it at some point and it looked good as well.

I tried a wenge trussrod cover and a flame maple cover and a neck cuttoff that had the stripes from the back of the neck... none of them worked. I think the plan now is to buy/build a chrome trussrod cover that is a copy of a real gibson V cover.

I really like the one you put on yours and that is still a possibility of using ebony as a cover. I think I might try your cover shape as well (love your V).

I had this issue with the Hand of Doom and never solved it. It still does not have a trussrod cover.

Sorry 'bout that... Nah, I think the amber one fits in great as well since the whole guitar has this warm glow to it, it's just that you chose to use the mirror like pickup covers and I figured you could go all the way with a chrome knob as well. Would the striped one work if you used black (ebony?) binding to kind of separate it from the headstock wood? Or maybe even white binding to tie it in with the nut color? That last one might be a long shot though, not much more white on the guitar except the switch knob... An ebony cover would look good too, continuing the fretboard a bit. Anyway, chrome will be great as well! You could make one yourself out of aluminium (easy to engrave if you want to) and have it chrome plated. Or stainless steel and polish the hell out of it...

I was just giving you a hard time...

Yeah I like some of those ideas. I will just have to see what I can do. The only ones I can find on eBay say "Gibson" and I am not sure I want that (kind of like a party foul).

The switch knob is creme but it needs to be a bit more amber so I might find an aged one in one of my boxes.

I have my official guitar tester coming by tonight so I will get his opinion on the knob.

Ha ha, yeah I know you were. An amber switch knob would look great! How about doing a TR cover in ebony or wenge and put some maple binding on it to match the stripes in the neck? Or maybe a two-layer one with the maple at the bottom, ebony or wenge on top and then bevel it. That way you could "engrave " it to have the maple show the letters/logo/whatever you want and have a maple border to contrast the headstock.

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Ha ha, yeah I know you were. An amber switch knob would look great! How about doing a TR cover in ebony or wenge and put some maple binding on it to match the stripes in the neck? Or maybe a two-layer one with the maple at the bottom, ebony or wenge on top and then bevel it. That way you could "engrave " it to have the maple show the letters/logo/whatever you want and have a maple border to contrast the headstock.

Hmmm... Not a bad idea. 2 Layer that is... except I don't engrave or inlay (against my "religion" :D ) I think I will work on that this weekend.

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Ha ha, yeah I know you were. An amber switch knob would look great! How about doing a TR cover in ebony or wenge and put some maple binding on it to match the stripes in the neck? Or maybe a two-layer one with the maple at the bottom, ebony or wenge on top and then bevel it. That way you could "engrave " it to have the maple show the letters/logo/whatever you want and have a maple border to contrast the headstock.

Hmmm... Not a bad idea. 2 Layer that is... except I don't engrave or inlay (against my "religion" :D ) I think I will work on that this weekend.

No, I've noticed that you don't like that. By "engraved" I meant any type of showing maple inside the perimeters of the cover, maybe like cutting out a line following the shape of the cover or something like that. maybe cutting away all of the ebony/wenge to have a miniature maple TR cover shape inside the ebony/wenge. And of course finish it the same way as the rest of the guitar to have the same warm hue on it.

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  • 10 months later...

--Punisher--

Wenge and Flamed Maple Gibson Style V

Neck through 7 piece Wenge/Maple neck. The body is 1/4" Wenge top and 1/4" Wenge Back, Wenge center w/Maple Accent lines.

Neck : Wenge/Flame Maple

Fretboard : Ebony

Scale : 24.75

Frets : 24

Trussrod : ALLPARTS

Body : Wenge/Maple/Wenge

Tuners : Hipshot Classic

Pickups : Diablo Humbuckers

Bridge : Tone Pros TOM

Electronics : Volume Push/Pull Tapped and 3-way Selector Switch

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