Stewey

Amen brother, you can never have too many clamps. Whenever I see a clamp on sale she is coming home from the store with me.

I like your wood choices, should be a cracker.

Thanks guys, I do love a minimalist style. It was good that this was how the customer wanted it, I didn't even have to talk them into it.

A bit of an update, carved the body using my trusty angle grinder, spokeshave and scrapers:

Then I forgot to take pictures

So skip forward a couple of weeks and the first one is nearly finished:

Just need to finish the nut off and get her setup properly. The Qld Maple came up nice and shimmery under the wipe on poly, I'm quite pleased with the result.

The other two are still sitting back at the same stage as the last pictures except I have rough carved the Rosewood neck. Hopefully I can get the setup done this weekend and have her out to her knew owner, then I can get on with my two.

Do you guys have any tips for setting up an 8? I'll get it eventually but if there is anything obvious I would appreciate the knowledge. Thanks.

Looks good so far mate, that fret board would look stunning with some oil on it.

My general rules, The body must be thick enough for the electronics, no point making a body only to find your 3 way switch is thicker than it.

Also allow enough thickness for the neck to mount with a bit off material around it to keep it stable.

The thinnest body I have made was 20mm, same thickness as the neck blank. I wasn't using any electronics though so it was not an issue.

The last thing to keep in mind is the balance of the guitar. If you are making the guitar thin do anything in your power to make the neck light as well.

Good luck and plan well.

That's a real comfy looking shape mate. Don't change it cause of the haters.

Sounds ace mate.

Looks good man, I can honestly say that I wouldn't have clamped it up any differently.

Got the neck pockets done this weekend:

You can also see where I have routed to start the carves.

And this is the replacement fretboard:

As you can see, nut to 12th fret is Indian RW and 12th to 24th fret is NG RW. I got out my french curves and did up a template which made the whole process rather simple. And no I am not worried about the strength of the board.

I also drilled the tuner holes and rough carved the rosewood neck, I'll do the other two next weekend.

(PS. can a mod please take the 'Planning Stages' out of the title? I think I am a little bit passed that now )

Imagine if you spent this much time on a guitar and put it in a shop to sell and some guy grabs it and dings it into something, that would be hard to keep a lid on.

That's why you need to finish it up quick, then you will care less when you drop it.

Two necks with fretboards, one without:

I completely messed up the first board I radiused, I didn't realise that the sanding block wasn't as wide as the fretboard so that left some nice grooves down the side of the board, doh.

Ah well, that gave me a chance to knock up a board design I've been thinking about for a while now. I'll show some pics next weekend if it turns out.

Here are the bodies with the shape routed, just need a bit of sanding now:

I just realised today that my little Ryobi router will be 10 years old soon. It has outlasted 4 or 5 "high quality" routers with not even an attempt at a service.

Just goes to show that you don't always get what you pay for.

Beautiful work on the f-hole.

Those speedbor bits are horrible for precision work, as Avenger said they pull through the timber way too quickly, I would avoid them for guitar work.

Everything is looking as precise as usual around here, no comment required other than a well done and get a wriggle on. I'm getting old watching this build.

Spent the entire weekend with my router and bandsaw.

The three body blanks out of the clamps:

I made up a template for the headstock and screwed it down using holes where the tuners will eventually go. Also routed for the truss rods and made a cavity for access:

Yes one of the headstocks is a bit shorter than the other two, I decided to use the bit of scrap I had lying around rather than buying another length of mahogany.

The three bodies rough cut out on the bandsaw:

Two of the bodies are very pink with a bit of figure. The third is quite white with straight, plain grain. Something for all tastes

Haha, thanks mate.

Good pictures aren't really that hard, you just need to pay attention to where the light is coming from. Photography is another hobby of mine, so many expensive hobbies...

Thanks Prostheta, now I just need to find a tension calculator and work out the best string set to get.

So with the scale length finally sorted I continued on with some progress today.

Planed the edges of the body blank halves and got down to gluing:

I also cut the scarf joints for the necks and glued them up too:

You can see just about every clamp I own in that pic

Well I made up some samples of 27.5", 28" and 28-5/8" and attached them to my 27" 6 stringer.

I can tell a noticeable difference with the 28-5/8" and the 28", it does feel a bit like a bass. The winner is the 27.5", I can't really feel much of a difference between it and the 27" (despite the obvious neck width difference) and I can't see having the extra bit of scale length as a bad thing.

Wes, I tried pushing the idea of a multiscale to the dude but he isn't keen. It makes sense to me but that is his wishes.

Excellent! That's the type of feedback I was after, thanks guys.

So is there a general consensus of what is manageable for a guitarist to transition from a 6 to an 8? I think 27" would be the easiest but I don't want to go that length if it will be too floppy. The 28-5/8" looks good on the fret finder. I'll make up a sample from cardboard or something and have a play, thanks for the tip Ray.

Wow, crazy design man.

I can appreciate the workmanship that has gone into it. Can't wait to see a clearer picture.

Well out of the QLD Maple I am projecting to get the three bodies and three blanks I can use for necks on other projects plus lots of bits for making headstocks, cavity covers etc.

The Rosewood would get me a couple of solid necks per mt if I really wanted to push it. I'll probably use the three mts for 2 long scale necks and then cut the last mt up into fret boards, I should get six if I'm careful.

It is a lot cheaper to buy timber in bulk. /obvious statement of the day, ha.

OK Guys, lets start this thread again.

I spent the weekend drawing out full size plans and this cleared up most of my questions about 8 string guitars.

Now I have a tentative buyer for one of these guitars straight off the plan and I also want one for myself, so while I'm at it why not build three.

1:

Fattened RG shape, 2 piece QLD Maple body, 50mm thick in the centre. Simple body carve.

Rock Maple neck, 27" scale. Set neck.

NG Rosewood fret board, 24 super jumbo frets.

4 + 4 Tuners.

Hipshot fixed bridge.

Bridge pickup, either SD Blackout or a Rondo pickup, depending on the customer.

Single volume pot.

All black hardware.

2:

Same as guitar 1 except:

Mahogany neck

SD Blackout bridge pickup.

3:

Same as guitar 1 except:

1 piece NG Rosewood neck with Mahogany skunk stripe.

Undecided on hardware colour yet.

I picked up 3 mt's of QLD Maple during the week:

And the same quantity of NG Rosewood (It looks way lighter in the picture, it's got a more red tone):

I also got my template cut out of MDF:

I will be cutting up the Maple for the body blanks this weekend hopefully, damn I wish I had a jointer.

Any and all comments welcome about how I'm gonna screw this up please.

Ok, I'm going to make up both and give them a test. Pics on the weekend

Thanks guys, I'm very happy with this one.

Great work - reminds me in style of DougK's white Firebird. Sweet!

I do have to say though - the diamondplate looks kludgey and changes the otherwise great balance.

I know where you are coming from Prostheta. I am already looking to acquire something to replace it with. I think I'll give plain aluminium a go next, all polished up to a mirror finish.

Do you reckon I should make the entire pickup surround out of al, or keep the black on chrome look, or just black?

So I finally got the strings in and finished this one up this weekend.

You may be able to see the scratches I've already put in the bridge pup from my vigorous picking.

Overall I'm quite happy with how she turned out. I'm a little disappointed with the first fret marker though, I only noticed it is off centre when I put the strings on, must have stuffed up the measuring, doh. Oh well, off to do some playing.

Nice, simple and tidy, love it.

Your grass is awesome too.