BNichols

I agree with WezV. The shape is really cool, but all you have to do is resize it a little. Something to me looks too big in comparison to the neck and headstock. Great job on getting a killer shape though, my custom design went through 12 major changes before it looked acceptable.

Perfect stock for building a chambered-body electric, I've got one such body I made out of walnut about 3 years ago, sitting on the back burner. Rout mirror-image chambers on either side, then glue 'em together and have at it.

+1

I was thinking the same thing

Yeah, the AutoCAD software itself won't break the bank but the license will. Older versions (maybe R14 is still out) would work just as well and might run around 4000 usd. Just in case you are not from AU, 7000 = about 5,700 usd. There are also some other programs that are not from AutoDesk that can do CAD drawings.

heres a link on how to do the side dots

LED Tutorial

very nice... is it all shell material?

im not sure im seeing exactly what is too big, but could you use a chisel and remove wood just where the plastic is too big?

nice work. so have you gotten to the point of testing how well it works?

if you solder the two leads from both pickups you wont have the option to get only one at a time. both signals will be permanently together (unless you desolder of course)

yes exactly what I was thinking. or you could try a block that will fit on your FB with a hole in the middle that will give you a flat surface to work on. but then you have to make a concave radius... both ideas came to mind.

Just keep in mind when routing the inlays out that you are working on a radiused surface.

Also some other helpful points of information would be what kind of switch do you have? Is it a SPST or DPST? In other words, does it have 2 lugs coming out of it or 3? You can also try troubleshooting by using the continuity tester on your multimeter. I don't know what kind you have but if you have that capability you can make sure the jack and volume output are connected when the switch is off (not killing).

did the neck come with the fingerboard or did you make the neck and buy the slotted fingerboard? btw i love your signature. what a movie...

oh ok. so you used the SPST to either allow the signal to go to ground or not to. Its in parallel wiring, not series so thats why it works.

a SPST switch will make a terrible killswitch. If the signal isn't grounded when the switch kills it, you get lots of nasty buzz. if you can wire it to connect the signal to the jack in one position and connect the signal to ground in another it should work better.

killswitch

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who voted in June's GOTM. I was very excited when I saw people were actually voting for me. Hopefully I'll be able to start some more builds soon, and I hope guitar building is something I can enjoy as a career.

Thanks again,

Brendan

Mattia is exactly right. the bridge style will affect how doable making your own bridge would be. also, you would need other equipment possibly depending on the bridge. Metals coming out of the CNC usually need to be cleaned up a bit (edges filed or laser radiused and surfaces cleaned/polished/finished). Some of these options could be sacrificed for the sake of saving money, but then you might not be as happy with the end result.

its really easy to fill with some fine dust and liquid superglue. just fill the entire hole with as much dust as you can and drip the glue over it without moving the dust. then you just sand off excess glue.

thanks. I didn't know rondo made those kinds of shapes. I had only seen their LP models. They're so cheap I wonder if they are any good.

yup i see what you mean. ill have to look into switch variations

thanks for the feedback. I will probably start looking for the supplies so I have everything and I can plan, plan, plan. I don't know when I'll be able to start though. I don't have any tools available to me (no bandsaw, no jointer, no belt sander, etc.) . But I'm thinking if I do get tools I will alter the design for a semi-hollow with this wood:

One on Right

and reading a lot from the forums too. i found the forums were more helpful at times, looking at peoples in progress work, mistakes, etc.

+1 The forums as BNichols said show you a lot you won't see on a tutorial site. You end up seeing a lot more builds and a lot more ways to build to find what suits you best. The best thing about the forums, which Bnichols also mentioned, is seeing mistakes. Mistakes enable you to learn what to avoid and many of them would be very tough to know from solely studying a tutorial. No doubt the tuts are a great help, but I like to use them as an outline for the steps I need to follow, then I research the forums for the details. Between the main site tutorials, this forum, and a good book you could make an excellent guitar from scratch without any major problems. Just plan it out in detail and make sure you plan out the order of steps you need to take. At some points if you skip a tiny step, you could possibly botch the whole project or at least make yourself a terrible mess. So plan it out thoroughly and make sure you know the ins and outs of the type of neck attachment you are going with and so on.

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these ideas were what I was aiming for but I was a little too tired to get my thoughts across this morning

yup the switch was something ive had a hard time with. its been in three places now and none seem to work. i was thinking of doing a gibson style switch on the top horn. thanks for the headstock feedback. that wasnt easy to figure out either

and reading a lot from the forums too. i found the forums were more helpful at times, looking at peoples in progress work, mistakes, etc.

here is my revised sketch (I'll go back to autoCAD if this is better). I modified the bottom curve as it was kindof annoying me and i played with the headstock a little.

The electronic additions can be enabled with a stereo jack. wiring it correctly will not allow current to pass when there is no cable plugged in, while turning on your sensor and led's when there is a cable plugged in