Kenny

buffer

and its 4 pictures

looks much better with the engraving!

btw, that body shape is tasty

can't wait to see more

Kenny

i just thought i would like to mention that aslong as your making yourself a router radiusing jig, dont buy the sanding blocks, you can make those too, i made all of mine and they work just as well as something you would spend $150 on great thing is if you want a new one...it costs as much as the maple your gonna make it out of

Kenny

im curious as well do tell!

well the drilling on the side of the headstock is questionable; however the bridge is not...that is one hot bridge! What is one of those going to run? Just out of curiosity

Kenny

HOLY CRAP that is one nice inlay!

you have mad skills!

her name was judy, nice thing is she said i can come play it whenever i want

tell me about the pickups! i have one build thats almost done, i just cant find money for the darn electronics...i was looking at winding my own (i have to on the build i got going right now) it shouldn't be to difficult to make the winder, a counter is easy to make too maybe

anyways sounds like you got the guitar set up just right. now all we need are the darn electronics

Seymour duncan should sponsor PG

Kenny

fretwork looks nice, good job!

hey man that guitar looks nice! the back of the body and neck look HOT together; volute looks comfortable too

your friends lucky

Doug! that was awsome! post more?

well, ive been known to be blown away by a strong wind :-p

anyways i went on craigslist, saw an angle grinder for 20 bucks i talked to the girl and she said, come to college ave...so i immediately think close to my school (for all the San Diego people) turns out she was in vista....and hour or so away

since i dont have any other experiences with angle grinders i dont have anything to compare this one to, but i can say with certainty that the disc isnt supposed to wear as fast as it did!

anyways this is what i have so far (still need to touch up)

I still need to refine the carve more, but i need your guys' opinions. Do you think it would look better if i rounded them out and to make it look subtle or keep it as is?

Kenny

EDIT: i was wrong when i said the body thickness was 2 inches on the edge, its 1.75 inches total, 1.5" on the edge

www.imageshack.us - upload image

direct link to image is clearly stated at top of page after upload is complete

[img]image URL here[/img]

Kenny

angle grinder is for the top, i do my necks by hand, regardless how painstaking haha

so im going to go pick up an angle grinder for 20 bucks today...gotta love craigslist

anyways anyone got any tips on using it so i can minimize the learning curve?

Kenny

Looks very nice! You must be a very skinny guy judging by the tummy cut on the rear...

hahah does 6'1 160 count as very skinny? i think so

is it such a bad thing to like hard wood?

Your pic...ohwait...yeah...

????now im confused

Update:

So I've been out of my shop for a while since I've been really busy with school and other things, but I got back in this week and got a lot of work done on this guitar and some other projects.

I don't recall what I last posted but this is what I have done

- Took about .75" off of body thickness bringing it to 2 inches after top is carved

- Made a new fretboard (old one was destroyed in a terrible router radiusing accident.... RIP....)

- Inlayed board

- Radiused new board (I made a new jig since i was so paranoid from...well...I don't want to talk about it...)

- Angled headstock to accommodate for slanted nut

- Glued on fretboard

- Glued on maple cap for headstock

- Filed out slot for nut

- Shaped most of the neck and volute (in the 2nd picture you can see how towards the heel I didn't shape as much yet since I don't know how I'm doing to do the transition to the body)

- Side dots

- Routed neck cavity

- Routed pickup cavities

- Drilled electronics/string holes

- Carved out the "Belly Carve"

- Cut all frets to final length, in preperation for "semi-hemi/quarter spherical/bullet fret ends"

So here is where I am:

I'm gonna do final sanding on fretboard, then fret the neck

When I was routing the neck pocket I made a stupid mistake and had the neck placed too far into the body (the holes had already been drilled for the bridge); luckily when the neck was slid back into the position its supposed to sit it fits near perfectly. To compensate for a 4th contact point being lost i'm gluing the neck with WS epoxy and am filling in the extra neck cavity

Also when i was drilling the holes for the strings/bridge the bit twisted inside the body and came out crooked in the back regardless of how slow I went and how many times i backed out to clear the hole....so to remedy this i filled the holes with epoxy and tried again....exact same results...any ideas on how to fix/cover this?

Also how should I do the heel transition, I'm considering two things, the first one how it is right now, the heel just follows the shape of the body (but its strange becuase where the lower strings are ends abruptly); Or a Myka style transition, what do you think?

Now to some pics; enjoy

Here are some other pics

EDIT: on the first picture it looks like the pickup routes are uneven, I assure you thats just an illusion

Kenny

well, I haven't had the best of luck with mahogany, mostly because the only mahogany i finished had mineral stains, so gave up trying to be happy with the finish. however this is what I did to get this finish

1. sand up to desired grit (making sure to remove EVERY scratch left by previous grit) this particular guitar was sanded to 600 for a satin finish I believe (dont qoute me on that)

2. clean body of any wood dust

3. apply directed amounts of desired oil (I used Liberon Finishing Oil because I couldn't find Tru-Oil at the time)

4. After oil has dried i like to rub out any wiping marks left with some ultra fine Steel wool (be sure to clean it out of the pores afterwards though)

5. Repeat until pores are filled (only works with Tru-Oil and other "oils" (varnish) similar to that, such as liberon finishing oil)

6. Or instead of step 5 stop when wood is at desired appearance.

7. Apply a wax (like Black Bison or something similar) as directed, buff out with a clean cotton rag

hope that helps, thats just my method of doing it.

I'm positive there are easier and more effective ways of doing it, and i would be curious to hear how other people apply oil.

On a somewhat related note, this method seems to work much better on tight grained woods like this maple <3

Kenny

i always like just using a rasp...that and some time

however i like to do things the hard way

it builds...uh...character..right?

the wood you seem to be able to aquire astounds me

great design; why not make ebony pickup rings though?

Here we go....

Perry's gonna be upset

I love how the inlay's conform to the shape of the scalloping though!

great work!

awesome job man! doesn't seem far off from those ergonomic guitars people build. (I haven't seen any here though) color is great!

and like Drak said; keep expanding your horizons!

Kenny

i think its not the "horn" that makes it look better

i think it just balances better visually with it

i have 3 builds sitting around waiting for funds, i cant justify doing a corvus instead of finishing off some other ones i could actually sell :-p

Next time though!