TonyB7539

To turn a good chunk of wood into a GREAT instrument, you have to have: 1. Patience 2. Talent 3. Perserverence 4. Patience 5. A few tools from the neighbor's shed (aquired late at night for best results) That's all. Nothing follows...

Anyone know where I can get an inlay laser cut. I want it pretty precise and I basically suck at trying to do it by hand...

As far as I know, the only place you can actually get strings from is www.floydrose.com I have been wanting one of these myself, but am holding out until more string companies come on board.

First off, buying a sheet of MDF to build a guitar is a waste of money. A 4x8 sheet of cabinet grade MDF, not the crap you get at the local Home Depot, will run you about 25 bucks if you are lucky. HDF (High Density Fiberboard...yes it IS real) will run you about $40. You definitely could get decent REAL wood for a lot less and not have as much time prepping the wood in order to get it prepared to use. I mean you are going to have to laminate at least 2 pieces of 3/4" and a single piece of 1/4" to be able to roughly have a thick enough piece to even use. Also the picture that he was showing could possibly be MDF, just a really bad grade. I had some of that stuff show up from the local wood shop to my shop the other day and I refused it. They wasn't about to charge me $25 bucks for a piece of wood like that. IN short, MDF=no real wood=yes!

This one should get you close to the profile LINK

You can pick up acrylic up to about an inch thick... you can try Here although they can be quite expensive. I know you can find it cheaper, but I order here because I use a lot of the other stuff and HEY!!!! It's the boss's dime OH also... Maybe it's just me being picky, but I keep two flush trim bits... one for wood, one for acrylic/plexi. same thing with my other bits. I never mix them. I don't know why, but they just cut better that way...

Hey Myka, are you using 3/4" MDF for your templates? Also have you ever thought about transferring those templates to acrylic? Just wondering since you obviously build more than just one guitar from a template, it is my experience that an MDF template wears down a lot faster than one made from acrylic. At work, I just recently transferred all my speaker size templates from MDF to acrylic and it just makes things a whole lot more exact for some reason...

You know... I was watching The New Yankee Workshop the other day and recorded it to my DVR. He was building slats for a bench that were rounded over on both sides.... He used a special router bit that rounded both sides at the same time. I will look at the show again and find out what the bit was, but I bet it will do what you want and leave minimal sanding to the contours, not to mention will make the job go a whole lot faster.

I found this beauty on Ebay and want some opinions before I snipe it with an insane bid... I think it is absolutely gorgeous, but since I am "wood knowledge" impared, will this make a good neck, or is there a different species better suited for the job... Link to the lumber The guy also has some sweet curly pieces I got my eye on also...

it's up to $700 now... Quite a catch if you are a Vai fan.. I would have probably paid up to $300 for it..

I absolutely agree here. I do car audio professionally and work with fiberglass quite a bit. Between making the molds, the materials, etc. You will probably spend $400-$500 just to make the body... not to mention the time... it's not very feasable to do this just to make one body... now if you are going to reuse the molds and make a lot of them, then I could probably see the justification.. quick tutorial though... Materials: 1 Gallon good tooling resin 1 Pint MEKP 8 yards 1.5 oz. chop mat 1 yard woven mat some rope carnuba wax 2 part expanding foam wood (mdf perferably no less than 1/2") a few very large pieces of 3" (or better) plastic strips at least 1/8" thick. These will be used to keep the 2 part expanding foam from expanding out of the mold... LOTS of really cheap paintbrushes rubber gloves rage gold bondo spray bondo gelcoat First you have to get a basic idea of how you want the mold to look... Trace the pattern and cut it out on a piece of MDF. Then cut a square about an inch larger than the pattern and staple the plastic strip completely around the larger piece of wood and screw the pattern in the center of it... NOW here is where you could possibly do this in one of 2 ways... If there are no belly cuts, arm cuts etc, you could probably just cut a few patterns with a router and staple and glue them together until they are the width that you need the pattern to be and wrap them with plastic wrap, being careful NOT to overlap because it will show up in the mold, OR you could mix some 2 part expanding foam and pour it into the form and when it expands and dries, using an electric knife or razor blades and sandpaper, cut the foam down to the desired shape... This is particularly useful if you have belly cuts or want belly cuts... Now whichever way you chose to get your desired mold, now is the time to lay the chopmat and fiberglass to make your mold... Liberally rub the carnuba wax over everything that you don't want the fiberglass to stick to, and believe me the only thing that it won't stick to is plastic, and cut the chop mat in to small workable squares. Now mix the fiberglass in 8 ounce portions according to the manufactures directions. Mix the glass to hot, and you could shrink it to much and cause warping of your mold, or it could become too brittle to even use, or mix it too cold and risk it taking until next Christmas to dry. Also the reason to mix it in such small portions is that you only get a few minutes of working time with the glass until it starts to set. Small portions means less waste. Lay some mat on the mold you made and dab at it with the resin soaked paintbrush Get all the airbubbles that you can possibly get and work your way around the mold at least two times with the chop mat...Let the mold dry when you finish.. Next carefully seperate the mold after at least a day of drying time. Take some bondo and fix any imperfections in the mold and sand it smooth... Now you should have a mold of the piece you are trying to build, so first wipe down the mold liberally with the carnuba wax or mold release agent, and lay in evenly the woven mat and soak completely with resin... Let it dry. Once dry, lay in some rope to add strength to the structure and resin in sqaures of chop mat over the rope and the dried first layer... add at least 5 layers to it...7 is the perfered number... let it sit for about a week to properly cure and release it from the mold. You should now have a very nice looking fiberglass piece that you will be able to prime and paint to your liking... if you make a really smooth mold, you could also add a gelcoat color to the mold prior to putting in the woven mat and when you pull out the piece you molded it will also be the color you want to have... As for half inch vinyl, you may want to talk to upholstery shops or just make your own... That's all for now... Good luck

well... If you ABSOLUTELY must use a router for drilling, and I am NOT by any means speaking from experience because I think it is absolutely nuts... harbor freight tools makes a piece that allows you to vary the speed that your router runs. I do not know how slow it will let you go, but it may get you closer to the speed that you will need to successfully accomplish what you need to do... Here's a Link Here is what is SUGGESTED though...

I didn't really think that Korea regulated the amount of alcohol in Soju... I had about 10 bottles shipped to me (SHHHHHHHHHH) and some were like drinking hard water, and a few knocked me on the a$$ after only a few drinks... God I love that stuff... Oh awesome job on your guitar making also

I got one of the Whiteside template bits and love it... The rest of mine though are Bad Dog Tools. They don't have them on their website though. I bought mine at a tool show for $250. It got 50 bits though, and they have a lifetime warranty against breaking and chipping. Of course they are a 1/2 inch shank, so I don't think I have to worry about breaking...if you wanna check out some of the other tools bad dog has their website is www.baddogtools.com. I also have their drill bits and they are wicked... They got a nice angle vice setup for like 55 bucks also... Of course I got mine free with the purchase of the router bits and the drill bit set... Also I just checked out the routerbits.com website, and I didn't know you could get bits custom made... I might have to check into one that will cut my neck profile for me and just break down and get a router table for it...

Yeah he can do what he wants, as long as he didn't paper mache over a 5A quilt job

My God... Simply gorgeous... All I can think of to say... I am simply speechless...

You can... Just get his postal code and check www.usps.com. You can get an international quote there. Then let him pick the way he wants it shipped. More than likely though it will cost more than the price of the guitar. Yep... just checked. about 30-35 bucks... depending on if it is 5 lbs. roughly. The more it weighs the more it is... and that is for regular air mail... 4 to 10 days...

MUAHHHAHAHAH... The DS-1 is MINE MINE MINE!!!!!!

Hey if you happen to have the schematics for that mod, send them my way if you don't mind. Thanks

I wanna get ahold of one of those also. Send me a PM on where to send cash...

I call the Boss DS-1!!!! It's MINE MINE MINE!!! Sent you a PM on it.

I'm with you Drak on that one... Of course if it were me, it would have been lit on fire and had marshmallows toasting on it's top... speaking of tops, where are you coming up with these beautiful quilts and flames?

I really like the top on that one.... Sweet...

Well then... looks like I need to raid the local wood shop because they have TONS of it with some gorgeous grain patterns...

I can probably answer the heat question for you Dave... LED's don't get hot enought to matter. As a matter of fact, I know of someone who is using LED's for headlights because he has a fishtank built into one of the headlights and didn't want to fry the fish... I will try to find a picture...