MzI

What I found was for doing flat top bodies I can set the mill up in 30 mins and the cut time is only 10 mins and that is for pickup routes, neck cavity, electronic cavity, and body profile. So once I have the path set it takes me roughly 30 mins to go from stock to glued up guitar body. And honestly I cant go that fast by hand. Are you guys writing out the code line by line or using a program like mastercam to do it? MzI

chain it to the back of a vechile and drive around for a couple days

How does the smaller body size sit and feel while playing standing or sitting in relation to a full size RRV? Ive noticed a difference going between the 67 V and the 59 V so id figure there would be some difference. MzI

Just do a google search of a prs headstock and then scale the image based on a dimensions which you know such as the nut width MzI

Your paying for the name of the product, simple as that. Look at Ken Lawrenece Guitars for example, the Explorers he makes go for 6-8k USD thanks to one James Hetfield. Yea you are going to pay the price of the name but also for the quality and care they put into it as opposed to standard production models. MzI

I think we could go either way with his personal style or with a ric, if im not mistaken wasnt that one of his more favorite shapes. MzI ps, should we get this tread pinned

That is a good question as there are quite a few different combinations that are used. The current ones that are made coming from the custom shop, are Maple top mahogany back with mahogany neck ebony board. Now for the variations upon that. The 57 Black Beauty has a Mahogany body with Mahogany top as per the specs on the custom shop website. The number of pieces that the bodies are made of I am not sure you would hafta send the custom shop and email to find out most likely. Maple necks on customs, at one point they did make them. All of the Zakk Wylde customs have maple necks because thats the way he likes em but his originals had maple necks and i believe they were 70s and 80s production. So you can basically throw together whatever combo you want and be safe. MzI All this coming from a guy who has never owned an LP in his life, though I would like to own one just cant afford one.

Fingers work quite well. If its too tight then what ^^ he said. MzI

check ebay and then also check this site using the search button MzI

I have gotten into the CNC world recently as we have one at my University, granted im graduating on the 20th of this month, I still have the option of driving back down here everyonce in a while and using the machine. The thing I personally like is the safety factor in relation to using a hand held router. As weird is it sounds I am still uncomfortable using the router and I have been building guitars for the last 4 years. As far as one off guitars, I do one off computer modeling all the time as an architect, though not nearly as detailed as the guitar modeling needs to be fairly accurate as I am finding unless you expect to do alot of handwork afterwards. I have recently cut a pair of flying V's and in all honestly there is no way that I can by hand work as fast as the machine does. When I had it programed correctly, with all the pick up, neck cavity, electronic cavity, and the full body route in all of 10 minutes. Aside from that I still enjoy carving a neck by hand. MzI

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Ok here are pictures of my progress from earlier today. This project I have been working on since before I even found this site so somewhere in the range of 3 to 4 years. Gibson 1959 Korina Flying V, this by far in my opinion is the ultimate guitar and I am finally getting around to make one. I have had the wood for this set of guitar sitting in my basement for the last year or so. I had been searching for a good source of White Korina and finally found it for a resonable price on ebay. I ended up getting enough to make three set neck guitar bodies. I'll hafta get a few neck blanks to complete these projects this summer but I can finally say im on track with this build. I think for the fretboard on the first one I may use the cocobolo fretboard i recently acquired. Anyways more pictures 1 2 3 The only problem I encountered was a small amount of tearout in two spots and then also the bit decided to scrape across the top of the first body wing because the board wasnt completely flat, it doesnt matter thought because I still need to thickness the pieces slightly so any damage from the scrape will be removed. The other tear out I will need to rebuild the corners with either sawdust or some epoxy. Ill figure that out over the summer when I complete the build. pictures tearout 1 tearout 2 scrape MzI

Roger Williams University. Its part of the architecture school. I am actually taking a class called Digital Manufacturing which is a grad class even though im an undergrad, I needed another architecture elective to graduate. We have pretty much free reign over the machine. We actually were using it the second week of class which was amazing. And now we can use it for whatever we choose at no cost. And now its getting to the point that are class supplies are being paid for by the school and they want to expand the class significantly. As of July 1 we are getting a laser cutter. Only problem is I graduate end of May this year, but I talked to my professor and he said to come back and use either whenever I feel like it. Ill prolly end up doing that this summer, get a bunch of guitars drawn in cad and in rhino, make up some body blanks, head down for the weekend and come out with 5 or 6 bodies and not have to pay a thing to use the machine. As of right now I am seriously considering getting one of the smaller cnc machines for myself. I priced them out and they run around 11k which isnt too bad in that I can cut out a body in less then 5 minutes. Pics to come shortly of progress from today. MzI

Doing that by hand, hmm that might be tough as Ive never actually done a carved top outside of a couple bevels on one guitar. I do do tummy cuts on the back of guitars which are actually quite fun if I do say so myself and of course neck carving. I think the hardest part would be trying to create the shelf and be consistent with it. The points are part of that metal side I have, though ill say that with a natural finish its not too over the top, but id assume, with a matte black finish itd be rather METAL and dangerous. MzI

I ran the path today. It came out ok. It almost screwed up but I happened to catch it before any damage was caused. At that point I shut down the path, went back into mastercam and setup the profile cut. Not quite sure why it wanted to pickup and drop into the table but whatever. Pictures links 1 2 3 4 5 Tomorrow afternoon Im going for the 59 Korina V's MzI PS For some reason photobucket resized my images a bit small Ill try and fix em

That carve with the shelf is exactly what I am trying to achieve. They musta stole my ideas or something, jk. The one thing I dont like about that design is that those carves on the sides of the body effect too much of the overall shape and it seems in the picture of the back of the guitar it doesnt not flow at all it ends ebruptly at those cuts. I think what I am trying to achieve isnt quite coming out in the foam quite yet. One thing to consider is that the transition from the flat top to the carve wont be quite as evident as it will be sanded slightly to make it more flowing except from the "shelf" on the upper bout. On another note I ran the profile cut of the guitar with success and also ran the file for my 59 Korina V's successfully, so both will be cut tomorrow afternoon. I think for the bass I am going to fix a couple things and just go ahead and run it in the ash as I have a ton more at home if I am not happy with the carve. Also it will give myself and everyone a better idea as to what I am trying to achieve. MzI

Some of those times seem a bit high to me. I am currently playing around with the machince here on campus for my Grad class and I have cut a couple templates, a guitar, and numerous other test runs in foam in addition to all the time spent on class work. The times ive experienced so far to perimeter a body in 2d in hard maple, 10 minutes and I could more then likely cut that time down. Currently I am working on a carved top bass and have set up some trial runs and to carve just the top it took roughly 17 minutes, yes all of 17 minutes. And to do a perimeter around that maybe another 2 or 3. It really doesnt take that long. The best part of use a cnc machine in my opinion is the safety factor. I am still not comfortable using a hand held router after 4 or so years of building, so ill stick to the cnc as long as I can which is until the end of May when I graduate. MzI

thats an interesting idea, ill hafta look into that. Possibly using a contrasting wood binding like purple heart For this version of the guitar I have a three piece northern hard ash blank. Ill take pics of the blank later tonight and post them also, its a really straight grained set of pieces all rather old stuff. MzI

the "shelf" on the upper half is created from a continuation of the upper horn and then the overall carve on the bottom starts where the shelf cuts into the body and contiues to the lower point of the lower horn to almost a bevel. The idea was to create a carve, and then my architectural background took over and made it into something more unique and abstract. I guess im trying to give it an aesthetic quality with the shelf carve and a more function aspect with the bottom carve. MzI

Made a little bit of progress since my first review is over for my thesis project 150 hours of work in 9 1/2 days was no fun at all. Anyways im made a complete cut of the bass top in foam today and I thought id ask for some input on the carve before I move onto wood this weekend. more pics 1 2 3 the one line in the carve on the lower half needs to go already along with that little ledge that was created for some reason. I need to go back into rhino to fix those before I mill so that will prolly be tonight any other thoughts let me know thanx MzI PS they are photoshopped to bring out the carve otherwise it would have been hard to see also here is the initial sketch of the bass along with the first version of it completed a year or two ago sketch finished bass

Another thing you may want to check is if its an old ibanez it may be ash and not korina. I did some research and found that they used ash for some reason. Didnt make much sense to me but you should still be able to get a similiar finish. MzI

umm original 58 and 59 V's were never black or white. They were antique natural which is basically a tinted clear coat. During the 83 reissue period there were numerous colors offered but are relatively rare now adays. They offered red white and black in addition to the regular antique natural. recently they have offered more colors from the custom shop but they are rather expensive as you would expect from the gibson custom shop. MzI

I recently used regular black testors model paint with success. I started with the 2 part epoxy from home depot thats already dark grey added some black and some acetone to thin it down and it worked great. I have the piece of wood I filled sitting right here and that was atleast 2 months ago and its in open air and no sight of color change whatsoever. MzI

My luck is getting really bad this week with the CNC, I put another nice gouge into the table tonight. I was running a trial in foam for my bass guitar. I previewed the path atleast 5 or 6 times before I started the mill. Of course it had to screw up. It was halfway through the carved top and then it just picked up and dove down really fast right into the table and it shut itself off. I think im gonna take a break for a while before I destroy anything else. I have my gate review coming for my thesis project a week from tuesday so I should concentrate on that anyways. Ill post pics tomorrow of the piece of foam and the damage to the table. MzI

Id hafta agree with Mickguard that there are way too many factors to be able to say that the overall sound of a bolt on is better then a neck thru. Its well and all for you to have an opinion, everyone does, but I think that the sonic difference is so unnoticeable mainly for the fact that, are the bolt on guitar and neck thru you have from the same pieces of wood, i.e. neck body fretboard, are the electronics exactly the same etc. Also unless you are highly trained I find it hard to believe that you can hear the tonal differences between a bolt on a neck thru. I have multiples of each and set necks and I honestly cant tell the differece. The only thing I do notice is the type of wood and the type of pickups that are in them, that makes the real difference in the sound of the guitar not the neck joint. MzI