jay5

Nice piece Chris! Believe it or not, we pay about $4 a bf for African mahogany, which is what thais stuff was. I think the guys missed it because in the rough, the only place you could see any figure was on the sides, and its so damn even it just looks like planer chatter (or jointer chatter as it would have been). As far as finish, it is just clear, no tint or dye. Thanks for all the kind words!

Here's the top, I bookmatched a cutoff just long enough. In all honesty, I kinda' like the back better. The figure wraps right around the sides and really "moves" when you shift the body in the light, you can kinda' see it in the first pic of the back.

We make sure all our rough stock comes in at least 7" wide as most of our bodies are all 2 piece but it really all depends on what your building. 14" wide is usually fine for most applications.

Certainly is a small world, I'd love to have you guys stop by the "cave". I was interested in building almost a full 2 years before I even found out Gadow was here, and I've been in NC for 13 years. You would be surprised how many builders there are in NC; us, McInturff, Briggs, Zion, McNaught, Buscarino and several others Im forgetting. Thegarehanman, stop by anytime, be sure to bring an axe or two!

I work for Gadow guitars in Durham NC.

Yeah, the whole board was like that, end to end, no fading or nothing. It was pretty wild, we bookmatched a piece for the top too,

This is the back of a guitar we just finished up at my work, thouth you guys might get a kick out of this mahogany. It was totally a fluke, one board out of about 250 bf of plain old mahogany, enough for 3 bodies.

Gibson DOES make a firebird bass, for what its worth.

I cant see the upper fret access being very good on that design, maybe move those horns out a bit?

A ton of fender cabs are pine. Also of note, thinner baffle boards are gonna move more (in a good way if thats the sound yer' going for). A 1" baffle might be a little much. I built a 2X12 with 3/4" pine and a 3/8" baffle board w/ a 3/8" buildup around he edges to keep the grill cloth from sitting right up against the baffle. You would be suprised how many high end amp companies use pine.

Oak would probably want to move on you quite a bit. Why not stick with the proven fb woods? Poplar would be a bad idea IMO. Rosewqood, maple and ebony have "been done to death" because they work.

There is no one with a more sensetive BS detector than a pawn shop owner. I strongly advise AGAINST just lumping all the parts together in a single charge, you wont be working for this place long if you do. Call up one of the vendors I listed and just see what it takes to establish an account. There is a ton more money to be made if you can actually charge (legitimately) for parts. I see a ton of repair tickets where I work and EVERYTHING is itemized on the reciept. Either way you go youre gonna want to avoid trying to pull anything over on a pawn shop.

Those are rods that you can get from any of the overseas mfg's (usually in Asia somewhere) for about a buck a piece, if that. I imagine that they are the same rods you would find in that extremely rare $1.99 LP. I will have to agree with Rich, the Allied rods are great. I wouldnt skimp on somthing integral to a guitar that can't be replaced (at least marginally easily) down the road.

All the production PRS hollowbody guitars are from a solid piece of mahogany. They dont bend sides on anything outside of the custom shop for the very reason Mattia pointed out. I have seen them put together a couple true hollow archtops for NAMM shows. They have also done private stock instruments with maple sides which are either routed from a slab of maple or veneered to the same mahogany core (another interesting way of doing things), I can't be certain.

I doubt that would work. Setting it up to cut with a template would be tough. You could certainly just pick up a cheap ($100) table top table saw that would work fine.

If you are doing any volume of repair you should definately set up an allparts or WD account. You'll pay about half of retail on parts.

I hate to say it but you probably made a larger repair bill for yourself by trying to fix it yourself.

How did you do the control recesses?

You gonna put a whole pedal board in it too

I think he uses sterling silver tubes but brass would work.

Mattia, I too thought I wouldnt use the plunge base, but I really find the ability to set a final depth and then use the graduated depth stop to make several small cuts up to that point very useful. The fixed base is great in my table, super solid.

I thought those templates you were using had the neck tennon on them? Check out Setch's LP build, I think he routs his tennon with a template. What method did you use on this last neck?

I keep the fixed base mounted in my router table and pop the motor out and use the plunge base when I'm not using the table

Same thing I do with my Bosch although it would be nice to have a 2nd plunge base for the Myka overarm setup I'm building.

You certainly dont want to glue the rod in, that will essentially render it useless. A little silicone is all you need. Is the slot too wide? Why does it need to be "glued" anyway?

Cool forum. I just got done building a new cab for the chassis (dont feel like tearing all the tolex of the original) as well as the speaker cab. A guy I work with is a mojotone dealer so I need to order up some tolex and grill cloth, as soon as I decide on the color combo. Then I'll start looking into some mods and possibly one of those ax84's.