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here is a simple router sled

an electric hand plane will not give you a flat surface - all it will do is roughly dress the boards - it will leave tiny ridges right across the board. Ok for house framing and rough carpentry. A good handplane will do a quality job but takes lot of skill to use. It needs to be well sharpened with the correct bevel and radiused ends if appropriate. It won't be ready out of the box unless you buy a high end neilson or veritas. Once you have your plane sharpened you will need to learn how to to make a flat level surface on a piece of timber with it. half the battle is in the blade preparation. there are many types to choose from but I would recomend an old stanley or record #4 or #41/2 smoother, which can be had off ebay for under $40.00 any day of the week or in your local junk shop. For guitar work a router sled or a 8" jointing machine is the way to go. The sled can be built cheaply and used with any decent hand held router while the 8" jointer will cost 6 times more.

i like the semi hollow style as it is light and the guitar seems a bit livelier or more responsive that a solid of the same shape. it is nowhere near what you get out of a real hollow body - i dont classify the 335 as a hollowbody - its kind of a morph between hollowbody and the fender tele thinline style - leo "industrialised" if you like, the 335 style and produced the thinline, starcaster and other models. these fender designs have the full depth central core supporthing the pickups, neck pocket and bridge in common with the 335 - the later 335's core was terminated just behind the bridge

and i found these in a place in sydney and they look pretty slim - the price is pretty good for us aussies by the way, no one has mentioned these are they crap??

this is a real easy bridge to fit 3 screws and its on - if its in the wrong position its easy to relocate there is plenty of adjsutment and it comes with a shim which pulls off to lower the profile i built one guitar using this bridge and it sounded killer - so, for a first project this bridge is ideal

Have used the hot rod double action and found it is a little deep to get a nice thin neck profile and i am wondering on which other type i will use on the next neck. The trad gibson/fender style or the aluminium U chanel type are the other choices. the U channel looks to be easier to set up than the gibson/fender style Any one got tips or advice on this? thanks

like i said before who knows what this body is it could be a kaddette main thing is the body useable?? if so go ahead and start ur neck and choose pickups look like it could be standard p90 routs why dont you post some decent size pics ?? hard to see much off them lil postage stamps a eko guitar redone wont be worth anything anyhow as it aint gonna be original so why stress

well you were just meant to learn about frets its petty common problem the seller should have warned you frets can be glued and clamped back into their slots there is plenty info on that subject here or at mimf its no biggie but you will need to mill and dress the frets you would have had to do that with a premade neck anyhow pay top dollar for warmoth etc you still need to mill and dress frets to get it to play well

building my 1st neck and getting ready to fret this stewmac board notice the slots are nearly double the depth of the tang the frets are stewmac also & far as i know standard, it look pretty much like any fretwire i got a couple of those fretboards and they have the same depth slots another thing i noticed is the fretboards are a lot thicker than what is on the warmoth necks by a good 1 to 1.5mm whats the go here ? do i need to sand the board down until the fret takes the full depth of the slot or should i bind the board? if the slots aren't filled with anything moisture would surel get in and pop the frets down the road a bit obviously i'm pretty much a newbie neck maker i have always bought in warmoth necks for previous builds

after the final coats of lacquer have been shot i set it aside for 4 to 6 weeks depending on how hot the weather is then sand and buff it out and its ready for the road

doug your work looks stunning tnx for the tips

that guitar looks pretty cool some people spend heaps on "relicking" guitars so they look like this one you lucked out as a guitar with natural wear and tarnish has way more mojo than a brand new shiny job i wouldnt touch any of thos bits that look well worn/aged. even the dude who scratched his name in gives you a bit of historical connection to the previous player. give it good clean up and a bit of wd40 here and there on moving parts the stuff on the frets is the residue from finishing [laquer]. you can scrape if off carefully or simply get some fretboard guards from stewmac and clean em up with wet n dry paper and 0000 grade steel wool - the frets may need a level and crown and that will remove all of the residue.. get over the aesthetics and listen to how it sounds and feel how it plays....these CIJ guitars are very fine instruments and most likely you have a very nice guitar - enjoy

yeah one top of guitar and one on the bottom maybe you could get access to as router and table at a woodwork club or a school otherwise the dremel willdo it look at stewmac for a decent binding jig that screws onto dremel

as long as your veneer is glued down tight it will cut clean routing out the channel with a dremel tool for the binding is a major PIA if you have access to a router table use a rabbet bit you will get a much better cut you will route top & bottom channells in 5 minutes or so - using a dremel will take a lot longer the dremel is way underpowered and you need to take many passes to do it - each pass makes it more likely that a blunder will occur - it works however and if you are carefull and have a decent rebate jig yull get the job done

Primarily put the angle in the pocket. Then you can adjust with the heel. The amount of wood taken off the heel if you need to would be so very little that it's hard to discern even. Yes, by angling the heel and not the pocket you would be changing the "fit" of the neck by altering the relationship of the neck pocket to the heel. Some may think this is a bad thing, however if you keep it to a minimum it won't really matter. You neck pocket sites should be nice and snug anyway. Sounds like you've got it under control. Don't use too much neck angle with this type of bridge or it will end up way high off the body. -Doug jus one further question doug if you don't mind i kinda like this bridge and one i get templates etc cut it will be easy to fit than a stringthrough what offset should i use on the bridge?? i have read that the E bass saddle should be around 1/8" behind the E treble saddle [25.5" scale]

drum sander is easier but the best way is to get a guy with a laser cutter to cut direct from drawing

what he said but but i didnt go quite that deep i found i could put wood shims in [3/8" ] to build it up to the sweetspot [1/8" under the string fretted at #22 worked good] the chanel left in the centre is good for the cable and pole pieces. a real PIA setting a P90 but man that was a real dirty little blues guitar - i sold it to finance more builds here she is: the body was made from bits of mahogany i picked up off the shed floor. i started it as a protest body as i was havin a real hard time with a thinline i was building so i did that one to test out how easy a solid body would be of the same shape.. funny thing is the thinline still aint finished and she is gone to a guy in sydney who fell in love with it

i generally make 2 templates for a chanbered body well 4 actually 2 masters and 2 working copies the chamber template has a lot of meat [square] on it and the shape only at the pocket and rear. always use centre lines so you can match em up i would carefully route two more templates from ur master and put it away and dont use it again one for the outside shape one for the chambers as descibed above. then make copies of those then you can start on ur body

could it be tassie myrtle ?? sure looks like it

usually a 1/4" thickness is left for the back and the top the same the deeper the cavity the more it will resonate

very nice you guys are doin some great work got to get down to see oztradie at some stage to see his new builds

To their credit Kim from Hancock Guitars / Australian Luthier Supplies have contacted me this morning and offered to exchange the boards. Thanks Kim ALS will go on my list of recomended suppliers next upload

thats a block plane hardly a primitive tool - its used for planing end grain to even out a piece like a guitar blank use a ggod quality #4 smoother or #5 jack plane buy yourself an old stanley or record from ebay cost around $25.00 $40.00 - dont bother with the new stuff

i am doing my first angled neck right now i decided to angle the pocket instead of shimming the pocket or angling the neel if you draw it all out nice and accurate either by hand or in a cad program [i use corel 11] you will be able to print out the wedge or have it cut by a lase machine. I cut a wedge and will copy it with a table mount router if you do all that you can set up some wedges taped to the body and physcally check it

his pice was A$65 ex freight - canadian price is A$55 landed here - i didnt discuss prices outside australia the descrption i got from the sales guy.... "" These blanks have been air dried since 2001 so I can guarantee they are very dry and ready to work, just be sure to use sharp tools as normal for very flamed wood. They are the best I've seen, no defects, figured across the whole piece, unfortunately we have been told by our suppliers that there is no more of the very figured wood left after this batch."" also it was listed at 1/4" thickness and much of one board is well below and as little as 4.5mm the dealer did have a high gloss reputation i have contacted the dealer about the issue and i was threatened with legal action and told "to not buy again" if he had have taken a more conciliatory approach i wouldn't be going on with this its certainly not the approach i would take with a disgruntled client - all he did was throw petrol on the fire