MKGBass

i hope its not TOO similar to wenge, if they were close relatives, that body would weigh about 15 lbs!

haha thanks dave, the "optical illusion" may in fact be catalysed by the fact that i haven't finished the headstock shaping yet. Because of this the first fret widens a little bit at the nut (this is because my belt sander is too wide to flatten out that area and not ruin the curve of the bottom of the headstock at the same time.) I have to go back with the sanding attachment for my dremel, and clean it up.

I've got a tuner on my cell phone which is just as convenient.

THAT is AWESOME. Where do i get one like that?!

woohoo i got a vote!

i'm sure you didnt just say "glue splooge"

neat idea, but im afraid it pretty much fits into the category of those guitars you get at walmart, with the amplifier built in....

yes and can you explain the cavity layout and perhaps what exactly that blue tape is protecting from?

amen, also, who is "we"?

this question is somewhat irrelevant.

A guitar could be any number of sizes. The scale length is all that matters that makes it full size. The guitar could be 25" long if they could pull it off, and it would still be full size as long as the scale length was 25".

Then again i could make a guitar 50" long and it could be not full sized.

The Horse is ALIVE!!!!!

(photo courtesy of Drak!)

(also the horse is now dead.)

interesting work, i'm not crazy about hte colour of the headstock, but it will of course depend on the body colour and/or if you're painting it/both...

how do you mean? Its just the color of the natural wood?

I'm guessing Fender would see that at the bottom and give your design a whirl at the shredder!

cool sounding song! Is the proto the solo? Just for clarity's sake.

Either way, it has a very jazzy tone that I quite like.

AFTER THOUGHT POST:

Here is a larger pic of the inlay. This is my FIRST attempt at a custom (non-dot) inlay. Turned out pretty well, IMO.

Did a lot of work on one of the bass necks today.

The first thing i did was radius the fretboard. This was a royal pain in the bum, and took about 40 minutes of sweaty hard labor, but it's necessary. After that, I had to reslot the frets in the fretboard, because they were way to shallow for any fretwire. Then at last I did the inlays. I had a different original plan for the inlays, but being an idiot, i messed up and had to compromise. The inlay is a G for those who don't see it (im having bad luck with people noticing what it is, if i had known it didnt immediately look like a G i would have changed it.)

Anyway. here are pics.

This pic shows the birdseye MUCH better than the other. The figure is really quite stunning in person.

Just a little while ago i shaped the back of the neck (its still not finished as you can see in some places in the pictures. This i will finish in the next couple of days. The volute is also not fully shaped as the headstock is still in a rough cut form. I also fretted the neck. Imagine my shock and disappointment when I came up 1 fret short. Blast it. This will have to wait as i do not have more bass fretwire.

Comments welcome as always.

i still stick with the fact that i think they look like normal jeans

...they look like normal jeans to me

hey MKG if you used a 3/4" flat wood bit it would only take about 10 drillings... this is whats commonly done if a router isnt being used! therefore a cavity would take 1hr id say,  less if you can use the tools to an extent, perhaps 30mins.

Mike, I was just tossing out numbers. Even if you drill 10 holes, if you want a good clean cavity, 30 minutes is ridiculous. (Unless of course you're godly like Perry or employed by him) I spend more time than that doing 2 cavities with my router.

Is the guitar fully surfaced?

If so....what are these?

thats odd. Was the glue fully cured? This sounds a lot like something that just shouldn't happen.

If the 'crack' is actually a separation of the two jointed halves, my BEST guess would be a problem with the glue & or clamping method. Titebond generally creates a bond that is stronger than the wood itself (exceptions might be some of the heavy tone woods wenge, purpleheart, bubinga...etc), in which case the wood would crack before the joint where the glue was would. (Sounds ridiculous, but i've experienced that one first hand).

If it is in fact the wood that is cracked, maybe you should check your supplier? Was the wood in good condition? Had it ever had any water damage? Was it fully dry? Not sure on the possibilities I'm just throwing up ideas.

In any case, I'm hoping theres at least a member or two on the forum here who's actually experienced what your having and knows a good way to remedy the problem.

If all of the above seemingly check out, and you're gonna do a painted finish at least on the back, I would suggest just filling it up and keep going. However, given this situation I might be a little wary of how well that mahogany is going to hold up over time.

Power tools didnt always exist. You can sure as hell do it without a router, but it requires MUCH more patience, MUCH more time, and MUCH more care. Basically, get yer chisel out, and hack

More realistically, (i havent tested this but it seems fairly logical) I would say you could try to drill a bunch of holes to the approximated depth of each cavity you need to cut (say 50 holes + for 1 pickup cavity) so you are removing most of the wood. Then get a chisel out and scrape the extra, a few multiple sized chisels might help.

With this method I'd say you're probably looking at close to 3-4 hours per cavity, in which case, who the hell wants to do that?

Go to Sears, or look up Harbor Freight online. They sell good/decent plunge routers in the range of $50-$70 that will do any job you need to do, and with far less effort. You'll also have to pick up a few bits (template cutting bit, flush trim bit, maybe even a straight cutter bit) which could cost you about $25 more. Even then you're lookin at less than $100.

If you plan to do more than 1 guitar, don't kid yourself, go get a router.

any chance on a pic for that crack?

It follows a center glue line on the mahogany, meaning the mahogany back is 2pc? Just a little clarity might help solve the problem.

why do i have to wait so long

i second (third) that second place from last month idea