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KEA 2014 Builds


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I'm a sucker for wood binding. I'm curious to see how the end of the fretboard looks with the pickup ring in place. Very cool build.

I dug back through here to see if I could find some pics of that already posted, and I did on page 13 and 16.

Holy cow! I had forgotten how many cool guitars are in this thread. :blink:

SR

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Back from Page 13 and 16. Great stuff and now I see how the board end looks in context. Look nice n clean. I guess I never noticed before. I forgot about that sick top on page 13. Looks like the cross section of a piece of flesh viewed through a medical slide. I can never find awesome pieces of timber like that suitable for carve tops.

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Back from Page 13 and 16. Great stuff and now I see how the board end looks in context. Look nice n clean. I guess I never noticed before. I forgot about that sick top on page 13. Looks like the cross section of a piece of flesh viewed through a medical slide. I can never find awesome pieces of timber like that suitable for carve tops.

Funny that you mention those 2. Both of those were refinished. The Strat with the burl top had the whole veneer sanded off becase the finish shrunk back into the grain, even after being sealed with epoxy. Looked really bad. Then it looked lame with just plain mahogany. the black quilt explorer was awesome, but since it was oil finish, the color just wiped off within a week. So i tried to refinishi it and the color never came out the same.

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Lately its been those weird times where you do a ton of work but nothing actually gets done.

I started 2 more guitars. 1 was supposed to be a test subject for a floyd equipped guitar. I cant buy the floyd right now, so its stilling there with just the headstock cut out of the neck.

The second is a 7 string (attempt)

I have the neck all cut out and i got an awesome looking ziricote fretboard for it yesterday. I am hoping to get the neck done this week.

But after that, that is all i can do, since i need the bridge and pickups to be able to rout the body. They are expensive, so i might not get it done for a while.

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So, i had planned on this being a long term project, but i think i might bite the bullet and just buy all the parts now.

Specs on the 7:
Mahogany body (my EXP shape)

Bookmatched Quilted bubinga Veneer

7 piece mahogany, walnut and maple neck

26.2" scale, 24 fret ziricote fretboard with flame maple binding

hipshot hardtail bridge

Dimarzio Crunchlab and liquifire pickup set

Hipshot griplock tuners

I should be able to get the fretboard bound and radiused tomorrow.

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Makes me want to finish my 7 string.The neck is almost complete and has a similar board.Maybe over Thanksgiving I can get over my laziness long enough to make progress.

I think your idea of farming out the finish is a good one.I may have to do that myself...just keep the fun part for me and let soomeone else suffer.

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Makes me want to finish my 7 string.The neck is almost complete and has a similar board.Maybe over Thanksgiving I can get over my laziness long enough to make progress.

I think your idea of farming out the finish is a good one.I may have to do that myself...just keep the fun part for me and let soomeone else suffer.

Bust it out and finish it man! I dont think i ever saw that one.

If i can somehow gather enough funds to end up outsourcing to that guy it would really make a big difference.

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So, i find it very strange that for years I have had random people ask me to do custom work. And i denied most of it, taking on maybe one a year.

Now, i am desperately offering custom work everywhere, and i cant get a single taker. I cant keep building this way, it am breaking even and doing more work than i could ever make back money wise.

One another note,

I sold the bubinga/ flame mahogany exp today. It is a very sad day. I sold it on ebay, for a few hundred less than i wanted (without parts)

But what really hurt is the 130$ fee.

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Updates:
I have got the neck carved, the body made, the neck pocket routed and the bridge drilled.

I got hung up today trying ot make the template for the direct mounted pickups. Everybody seems to demand them these days and i really dont care for it. I still didnt get a template made tthat looks right.
I havnt taken many pictures because at this time of year the sun and light are weird and every picture looks terrible.

neck003_zpsc2d32aba.jpg
026_zps65f206d1.jpg

Second,

Man this year has gone by insanely fast. I thought i was going to get a lot more done than i did.

This year is most significant because early next year i am going to have to move and wont have access to tools like i do now. So my building career basically ends there. I thought i would have made it a lot further by then. I guess i cant complain though. Its been a decent 9.5 years building. We'll see what happens in the future. But the way it looks right now, I probably wont build again.

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I'm betting that after some time passes the building bug will start biting again. And because it will have to wait until you acquire some tools, it will start biting harder till you do.

That's just the way bugs are.

SR

Well I am sure i would still want to build. But seeing as i will be living in an apartment, i wont be able to work on them anyway. Unless i come to my parents house once a week and build 1 guitar over several months.

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Building one guitar over several months is the way I do it. It's kind of nice to be able to take your time and not stress over how long it takes. In fact I'm often a little sad when I'm finished and no guitar to build on when the next weekend rolls around.

It's kind of like a really good book, as you get closer to the end you are driven to finish and see how everything comes out, and at the same time the story is so good you never want it to end.

SR

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