VanKirk

Kansas - Dust in the Wind

Heart - Dog & Butterfly

Beatles - Dear Prudence

Beatles - Here Comes the Sun

...and 3 more already mentioned that I think are great acoustic songs,

Duane Allman - Little Martha

Black Crowes - She Talks to Angels

Zeppelin - Bron-Y-Aur

They aren't too tough to learn but they sound great and are well known.

I like the acoustic guitar in alot of Simon & Garfunkel (ala Scarborough Fair), James Taylor (ala You've got a Friend) & Jim Croce (ala Operator) songs. If you can get past the feeling that your listening to 'your parents' music you'll hear some great guitar.

Sorry, haven't been workin on this much. I moved, started my own business as well as a full time job & a family so I haven't had a lot of time or energy. I've been playin instead of building.

Anyways, I've done just a little bit more on the carve. All with a cabinet scraper and sandpaper. It's a slow process but so far I'm happy with it. I might do the carve slightly different next time but I'm hoping this will look good after it has a finish.

I've found that it's tough to keep both sides of the carve looking symmetrical. Especially, when the outer body shape isn't symmetrical like a double cut. (that may be my next project)

My hack job so far

I have more work to do on the upper horn and lower section of the body.

BTW, the flat spot on the side is for an electrosocket.

I would buy a tele style bridge/pup ring combo and then make some pup rings outta rosewood or ebony. I'm not sure if premade pup rings would fit since the routes look so close together. I would hate to see a pickguard coverin up all that 'purdy' wood though.

I started this project as my first build awhile ago but haven't made much time to work on it recently. I'm still working on the lower body carve and the upper horn but it's close. As for the neck angle on mine, it's at 3 degrees. I'm installing a hipshot babygrand bridge that sits at the same height as a t.o.m.

Body carve 1

Body carve 2

Body carve 3

Body carve 4

My carving tools have been a cabinet scraper, round file & sandpaper....oh! I did use a router to make two steps, one on the outside for final depth and one about 3/4" inside that one. I get worried that I'll cut a big unrepairable gouge in the top when I try to use my dremel so I just use hand tools. It's a cheap way to go but can cause hand cramps, hehe. It's a time consuming labor of love but, wth it works.

Guitar Reranch has supplies, tutorials and galleries on guitar finishing.

Stewart-Macdonald & Luthier's Mercantile Int. have books, videos & finishing supplies and pretty much everything for building and finishing instruments.

Also, try a google search. There are MANY sites with useful info.

There are several members here that have provided great tutorials w/ pics of their process as well so try the search function and start researching.

When you're ready to start be sure to test on scrap first.

Peavey Impact 2 with a Kahler wammy. Black paint and all black hardware. H/S/H with separate switches for each pup.

I miss that guitar!

I used to have issues about all the so-called wannabe SRV players since I was such a huge fan of SRV and felt like I lost a friend that helped me through some pretty hard times when I learned of his death.

I would think these players were such posers. Then after I looked at the influence he had on my playing I realized I was just a wannabe and wanted to expand my style without losing his influence.

Once I realized that, it opened me up to other SRV inspired players and how they interpretted his music. I still love SRV's music and inspiration in my playing but I want to take it further...blend other great player's styles and make them all my own interpretation. I've realized it's gonna take this talent-lacking player my whole life and I still might not ever be where I want to be but it's fun tryin, hehe.

Now that I'm over the 'SRV-wannabe-player-hater' stage, I feel that KWS is a great player as well as several other Stevie-inspired players.

There's only one SRV but hey, if your gonna copy someone's playin' then that's a darn good player to copy.

I need to check out KWS' new album. I liked his first 2 but I admit the singer tried too hard to have that 'soul' in his voice IMHO. Haha, guess now I'm a 'Ray-Charles-wannabe-singer-hater'.

blah blah blah, I've babbled long enough.

Try to make friends with you local auto repair shop.....there must be hours they're not using their booth. Clean up when you're done and leave couple of cool brewki's for the guys.

Ahhh, Behold the power of BEER!

I've gotten access to a lot of equipment that I wouldn't have otherwise just by BS'n with the shop owners and bringing beer...or donuts for the non-alcoholics, hehe.

Looks like you've chosen to buy a guitar then modify it by cutting the back off and chambering it. It's not a popular plan to mention to a buncha builders (obviously,hehe) but since this is what you have chosen here's some amateur's thoughts on your method...

*Like mentioned before, be careful how thick a slab you remove from the back so that you don't compromise the neck to body join.

*When you mention adding plywood to sandwich the body maybe it would make a more accurate cut by having the 2 plywood pieces slightly larger than the body (diameter) and completely squared up.

Then, as you're moving the sandwiched body through the saw you'll have a flat, square surface that might be less likely to tilt.

Also, make sure to use a fence so that the body doesn't shift side to side as you guide it through the blade.

*An obvious point but...be sure that while chambering the body from the back that you don't drill through the top (duh). A drill press or router set to the carefully measured depth is important and remember that the carve top will mean depth adjustments depending on where your chambering.

*I'd test the adhesive you use to attach the plywood to make sure it doesn't react with the finish or stick so well that the finish gets damaged when removing the plywood.

*There's a good chance that no matter how many precautions that you take, you may still get dents and dings in the body and finish.

*When you glue the new back on use lotsa clamps and cauls so you have a clean, tight join but again this is another chance that the clamps and cauls may damage the finish. Maybe cork sheets between the body and cauls may help to not damage the finish?

I'm a total amatuer so everything I've said may only sound good in words and not work at all.

I've played guitars that have had very light weight bodies (chambered ash and alder) while the necks had an average weight for maple/maple & maple/rosewood necks.

I found that after playing them, my fretting hand spent as much time supporting the weight of the neck as fretting the strings.

I thought I would mention this since your reason for this mod is to make it easier on your back but I wonder, if the body and neck weights were too misproportioned, would this still cause back aches? Just somethin to keep in mind.

Also if money is a concern for you making a guitar would save you some money if you can get the lumber reasonable.

I learned quickly when planning my first build that by the time you add up all the tools, parts and supplies (and cost of shipping these materials) your not saving any money at all. Lotsa time invested as well. If you tried saving money in parts, lumber or finish by using something lower quality then you're still not gonna save any money since a completely assembled, lower quality, Korean-made guitar can be bought cheaper.

Yeah, Tommy's in demand because of his quality and service.

His necks are the shiznit and he's a cool person to talk guitars and other things with.

I highly recommend him over Warmoth who I've gotten 2 necks with shoddy fret jobs from.

WoW!

He was able to incorporate all the features you wanted as well as a cool step-by-step tut on the building process.....

FOR UNDER $118...shipping included?!!!

That's sweet and a nice lookin' neck too!

Hope it plays as nice as it looks.

Look in the upper right hand corner of your pic. It says www.usacustomguitars.com.

They have that peghead shape and it's called the US-3 style.

Looks good.

Just a couple questions...

1. Did you use tru-oil or tung oil for the finish?

2. Are those the concentric knobs that Warmoth sells and if so are they the regular or vintage style?

I wanted to use concentric knobs on my project but I'm not sure if I want stew-mac's or warmoth's...wasn't sure what they'd look like. Yours is a good example. I'll be using the same black base with gold tops as well to go with the black pup rings around my gold PAFs (from Brian )

Great pics of a sweet guitar!

Years ago I had to kick the locked door into my own house to find my fiance with her ex-boyfriend. After I threw them both out I sat down to play and the pissed off, stressed out energy helped my vibrato. I've had it every since. Kinda trippy.

Gotta love happy endings.

Lost in a mountain of photos, I have a pic from my old work (Kurzweil/ Young Chang Pianos) of a full sized grand piano made out of bubinga.

Looks almost identical to that board but with a deep gloss finish. I would always ooh & ahh at it as I walked by.

Isn't that guitar on the left in the photo the ES335 of your Dad's you talked about awhile back? Or am senile? I like it!

Every detail on every build should get you 1 step closer to being able to consistently make a great guitar I would think.

Good luck on the Les Paul.

A last cigarette but no blindfold? You cruel man!

Looking forward to pics of your neck-through.

As far as routing an angled neck pocket, is there a secret to this? COuld you just cut a very thin 'wedge' shim and glue it to the bottom of the neck pocket?

You can use a shim (glue not neccessary) to add an angle to an existing neck pocket but if building from scratch it's very easy to just add the angle when routing.

I just shimmed my neck pocket template at the amount of degree that I wanted, made sure it wouldn't move on me then routed along the template. It wasn't very hard at all. Seems like more of a hassle to try and recess a bridge or add shims than just routing an angled neck pocket to begin with.

AHA! I do see it. (Now that the pics finally loaded, hehe)

That's a cool way to tackle it.

hyunsu, with a straight angle headstock like on your strats, its the usual practice to include "string trees" to pull down the e and b strings to increase their break angle over the nut. Did you leave them off yours on purpose?

I actually got away with not using string trees myself by installing staggered Sperzel tuners as well as stringing them from the top down.

That way I was able to not cover any of the birdseye figuring and still have enough break angle over the nut. Not sure what Hyunsu does but man his guitars are stunning.

He always has nicely figured wood.

On the neck pocket, I believe it was Myka that gave some advice on how he gets a nice tight neck pocket and I used that advice with great results.

Route your pocket smaller than needed then move to a chisel and then finish up with sandpaper.

It was a time consuming process but now I can press the neck in the pocket and pick up the body by the neck.

Well worth the time.

I think these are worth checking out. Not sure if that's what your lookin for though.

Wood Purflings

Dyed maple strips, .020" x 3/32" x 31-1/2". Supplied in packages of 6 from Stew-Mac

WoW!

Not very observant was I?

NVM this post. Move along, nothing to see here

Here's a couple galleries full of nice guitars.

http://www.moonstoneguitars.com/gga.html

http://www.garzguitars.com/new-instruments1.html

My amp dont go to 11    lol, its still loud though

Curtis

Sounds like you got an amp modification to do mister!

BTW...when your backstage and they give out finger sandwiches before the show, just fold the meat so it fits the bread.

HEY! That's it!

He can play 'Smell the glove" by Spinal Tap

Better yet..."Stonehenge" and get some dwarves to dance onstage as all the band emerges from big, like, peapod...thingies. THAT would rawk the house down!