LGM Guitars

Only thing with thumbnails that I find on other boards (and I do think it's a good idea when everyone is smart enough to use the correctly) is that many times, somebody uploads the thumbnail, and only the thumbnail, so you click on it, and all you have is still the little tiny avatar sized picture.

Well, that's the beauty with the Poly's I spray, I only need 24 hours before I can sand and buff, if I use the UV lamp I can sand and buff in 3 hours, but if I can leave it 24 I prefer it, there is a little less shrinking that way. 2 Part Poly's are the way to go assuming you have the facility to use them, and are willing to spend the bucks to get them. The poly clear I use is quite literally about 10X the cost of laquer, but not having to wait a month, and being able to do all the coats I need in an afternoon make up for that cost over laquer very quickly.

nope, mini cavities are one for the output jack, and one for the volume knob.

He has a patented chest support system which allows the violin to stay put even without holding it, pretty cool system http://www.woodviolins.com/images/BIGchestsupport.jpg

God, what is it about the picture rules on this site that seems so hard for people to understand!!!????? Every day I see the rules being broken for pictures, the only reason I'm getting more and more pissed off is because I was definitely TOLD about the rules. Between the picture rules and all the other ridiculous crap that's been happening here lately I'm getting tired of coming here. At this point, when it's a member who's been around for a while, if you post a picture that is NOT within the rules I think it should be a 2 week suspension, nobody seems to be paying attention as it is. And although not a rule, it was REQUESTED by Admin that you do NOT quote a message with the picture in the quote, we don't need to see the same picture 10 times in one post! Done venting now......

Here are pics of the first 3, these pics show a few things off better than the others, still nothing compared to in person though. http://pics.lgmguitars.com/pics/first%204%20vipers/

Well, here is the results of my latest project, I've been doing the paint work on electric violins for Mark Wood. Mark has been a huge inspiration to me since I was about 11 years old. His violin playing is amazing, he is truly the Steve Vai of the violin. He sent me 5 of his Viper's and one Saber. The cool thing about the Vipers is they are not only available as fretted instruments, but he also builds 4, 5, 6, and 7 string versions. Sadly my camera does not do justice to any of these instruments, the colors are incredible, I'm very pleased with how they came out, the only difficult part was that I had 2 weeks to do the first 4, the last 2 showed up on Tuesday July 5th and had to be shipped today, July 11th. So, enjoy "A Nest Of Vipers" Finally, it's cool to play the violin............. For more pics click here http://pics.lgmguitars.com/pics/A%20nest%20of%20Vipers/

I do think the guitar is awesome, don't get me wrong, even if I personally am not into it I'm not taking anything away from the guitar, no different than how some people prefer mustangs over ferrari's. I'm a Ferrari man, that's what I think the Leviathan's are, Ron's guitar here is to me the Mercedes, a fantastic guitar, one of the best, but not my style. As I say, I have nothing but respect for Ron's work. He's done some stuff in the past that I've sat there thinking holy crap, how'd he do that?? Anyway, in the end, I took something Wes said probably a little wrong, and he probably didn't word it the way he meant, I know not everyone likes the Leviathans and I'm ok with that, I'm sure Ron knows not everyone will like this guitar, but in the end, the only person you have to please is the customer, and hopefully yourself, though I've had to build guitars for people where I sat there going this looks awful, and it blew their minds. Beauty in the eye of the beholder

Wes, Ron cut his teeth on hand building, he then built his own first CNC, that is why I have the utmost respect for him. But yes, his guitars are done with CNC in big part. There's nothing wrong with that, the insult I felt was when you said you have never "never seen anything on this board to top the forethought, planning and execution" I can't agree with that. Particularly when you consider certain members here such as Clavin who does his inlay 100% by hand, guitars like his "living sea" series, although not my taste, require more planning and visualizing for the inlay than most guitars require from start to finish. The Leviathan's are indeed meant to be played, but that doesn't mean I couldn't do one with a million different things similar to Ron's. I've done crazy inlays, crazy paint, exotic woods etc on a number of guitars, if a customer so desired I'd do them all on a Leviathan too, I guess I took things more personally than intended, but there are people on this board I hold to a higher level than Ron Thorn, not to take anything away from Ron, but he's not "the master"

are you serious? the theme of the guitar is OBVIOUSLY navajo inspired...and the navajo jewelry was heavy on the turqouise.. the inlay material and inlay design EXACTLY fits the motif of the guitar. i guess it's true,no matter what you do,someone will come through and poo poo it,even if they could never,ever come close to doing it themselves. don't mean to sound argumentative here,but maybe you guys should stop looking at it as if "well i would have done this" and start looking at it like "wow,i see what he was going for,and since it is not actually my guitar,i don't care that i have a prejudice against turqouise and inlays. but i think it is an absolute masters piece...i have never seen anything on this board to top the forethought,planning,and execution of it... i would say if anything does not fit the theme,it's the choice of hawiian koa and african limba....but that is only if you know where they come from...the look of the woods matches well...not to mention that wood choice will sound great ← I'm surprised at you Wes, that's a pretty arrogant statement to make I think Thorns work is great, but I don't like his guitars. I really don't like this one, I have to agree, the turquoise color doesn't fit, if the guitar was darker woods I'd have liked it more. Doesn't make it right or wrong, just makes it one mans opinion. I have all the respect in the world for Thorn, but at the same time, I wonder if he'd attempt a guitar like this without the CNC's that he runs. Nothing wrong with CNC, but he's done some pretty crazy stuff on this guitar that would be near impossible to do without a CNC. This quote is just insulting, not only to me but probably to many builders here. It's like saying that myself, Perry, Myka, etc etc etc don't even compare. I've seen guitars on here that IMO are far nicer, and I've seen builders on here every single bit as capable as Thorn, give them a CNC and I'm sure they could do anything just as well. Thorn has earned his reputation, no doubt there, and CNC is the logical progression in building guitars, when you can afford it, but to say nothing on this board can top the forethought, planning and execution??? I'm sorry but kiss my butt. The Leviathan's (love them or hate them) took me months to get where I was happy, and thousands upon thousands of dollars to create templates, jigs, drawings, and patent the design. I guess I didn't plan it or give it any forethought. In short, I don't like the guitar, not at all, but I respect the work and the builder behind the work, however, I think there are builders on this board capable of as good or better with or without a CNC.

Well, I've used it many times with epoxy finishing resins. You have to spray it on in a mist, if you wipe it, you'll probably just make a mess. When you spray it, I think what it does is bites in and evaporates pretty fast taking some of the amines with it that make the epoxy cure. It's true that if you mix it in it thins epoxy, I don't recommend this if you are going after a structural joint though as it weakens it somewhat too. I know for sure this trick works with Hysol epoxy as well as West systems, haven't tried it with the regular modelling epoxy, but it's all based on the same organic amines so I think it should work fine. Heat is a by product of the cure, epoxy creates heat in its chemical reaction, adding heat to it will advance the cure in the same way that baking a paint finish speeds up and creates a more thorough cure with 2 part automotive paints.

Try spraying some acetone over the epoxy from a regular atomizer spray bottle. I've had epoxies that won't set from being to old in the model airplane hobby, and 90% of the time, spraying a little acetone over it and letting it evaporate has cured it. The other thing you can try is heat it with a heat gun until it gets sticky, then leave it overnight, it will most likely cure hard after that.

The House of Kolor stuff is what I use, I've tried a few others and they suck. Most of what kills the glow is your clear coat. Most good clears (and the type of clear you have to mix the glow powder with is UV resistant, so I think the glow paint probably just doesn't get a good strong charge. In all honesty, even with a full charge, it doesn't glow as well as it does with a black light, and unless it is absolutely pitch black, the audience will barely notice it glowing unless you have a black light. With a black light it looks incredible, it lights up an amazing amount. One jar of the HOK stuff is enough for 2 guitars. The other trick with it is just in spraying, it's a powder that doesn't really disolve, it just suspends in the clear, so if you spray to heavy, it runs, fast and bad. It's a difficult product to spray, even harder I find than heavy metal flake.

The glow doesn't last that long, after a full charge from a UV cannon maybe about 15 minutes. With a black light it looks wicked though.

Glow paint is expensive and a major pain in the arse to use, but it's kinda cool Lights on http://www.lgmguitars.com/images/guitars/f...uitar_light.jpg Lights off http://www.lgmguitars.com/images/guitars/f...guitar_dark.jpg

Jay nailed it, there is more to a CNC than just punching a button and letting it buck. I did a 4 year apprenticeship in machining and the last 2 years are spent on CNC. There are some user friendly systems out there but they are very limited in what they can do. Most big CNC's use what is known as G code programming. It's all codes and numbers. Drawing the image on CAD is helpful when you can utilize a CAM program as well with the CAD. But CAD isn't necessary in the world of CNC either. Tutorials would equal a couple of large text books worth of material One other thing, most CNC's in schools are for metal working, if you ask them to use them for wood they won't respond well LOL. Beyond that, most metal working cnc's won't turn a high enough RPM to really work well in wood.

If you don't have a patent protection you're just asking for the major guys to take your design and run with it because I guarantee that they will have a patent application ASAP. You probably won't even get the opportunity to sell the design to them because they'll already have stolen it. As for selling designs, talk to Kevan about licensing and what you have to go through. Finding a company who likes your design enough to use it without making enough modifications to simply call it their own will be the first challenge. Typically taking your designs out to companies is not the way to do it. They want to see the market value of it first, this usually means they will not be interested unless you can show them that yes, it's popular and it sells well. They are more interested in designs they "discover" rather than designs that somebody is trying to push on them. My personal opinion is, don't design a guitar ever in hopes of selling it to a major manufacture, they have designers hired already Design a guitar for yourself, or because you want to build it for people. Just make sure your ass is covered because if a big company decides to jump on board with it, you don't want to be ripped off.

The registered mail thing is useless when it comes to design protection. It's more of a simple way to copywrite written word. Text, music etc. Even then, it's not a sure thing, but as for design protection, it offers nothing.

You got that right Perry! but, if some big organization steals your design and starts selling tons of guitars you'll sure wish ya had one

I must agree with Perry. Beyond what he's said, there is another problem. First of all, as soon as you start selling bodies, you have "released them to the public" so now you are limited on a timeframe to get a patent. This means somebody could say, "hey, I like your body designs, I'd like one of each" and turn around and copy them and call them THEIR design. Now, if they apply for the patent before you, you're screwed, now all your hard work and design is for nothing. The problem with releasing them to the public (and I believe it's already considered releasing to the public since you've shown your designs here) is that you only have one year to apply for the patent from the date that you released it. By the time I showed the first Leviathan, the patent had already been applied for. Also, in the same vein as Perry is talking about. Suppose you do become a big name guitar builder, look at how many fake LP's, or Strats get sold on ebay everyday as the real deal. Do you really want some abortion of a guitar using your body being sold as a "metal matt prototype 2005" or whatever? When I started out, I stated strictly as a custom modification shop. No complete guitars, only mods on existing guitars. Then the first guitars I built as complete customs were based on existing designs. I never offered one of my own designs until I was protected and ready to sell them ONLY as complete guitars. I get many emails every week asking for Leviathan bodies only, sorry, won't do it. Complete Leviathan's only. It's really not cheap to do your own designs, the first 3 leviathan prototypes with the jigs, and patents have cost me an incredible amount (I'll tell you in PM if you want to know) but they're protected, I know that Fender, Gibson, Jackson, Ibanez, or any regular john smith on the street cannot legally copy them. Since these are your own designs, I'd just hate to see you lose out on a possibly large potential for sales in the future. Jeremy

It will suck out the overspray, but will do nothing for protection from fumes. All the fumes will escape into the atmosphere anyway. And personally, I'm not sure I'd want a plastic and cloth bag full of paint fumes sitting there especially not in a horror freight unit

The problem is, if the glue has come through the veneer as you describe, you can't just "scrape" or "sand" it off. It's all the way through the veneer so no matter how far you sand down in the veneer you'll still be in glue. When you apply a veneer you use just the slightest skim of glue, I usually squeegee it out until there is almost none, otherwise it does just what you've experienced. The next problem is, those area's where the glue has saturated the veneer are already sealed, so it won't take a stain anymore in those area's, it will end up looking very splotchy. My personal advice would be, veneer is cheap, remove it and do it again. Otherwise, what you'll need to do is just sand it smooth, seal the whole top with a clear, and then apply a transparent paint finish over the clear, (it will have to be sprayed) and then re-clear the entire thing.

Search is an amazing thing, you'll likely find all your answers here http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=9800

I've said it many times before, only the rich can afford to do things cheaply when it comes to stuff like this. Decent stepper motors will cost you more than $500. I'd rather put my time and effort into a duplicarver than a CNC unless I could afford a kickass CNC.

I just have to say, out of all the cool stuff I've seen built on this site, this is my favorite! I needed a laugh today, thanks!