Kenny

wow, solid maple body....thats adventurous!

but burl is much much softer so i can undestand that :-p any ideas regarding that finish? i personally think you should compliment the blues in your abalone

hahahaha i wasn't even born then so don't feel bad

i did some design collaboration with Dean Z. Nice fella. Got to give him props for trying to pursue originality, i just don't like a lot of his designs :-p

well, i hate to burst your bubble...but

dean z used this design when he was under Dean guitars. its the dean soltero

dont worry, i had a great idea for a V and found that it was already designed (without myknowledge) by the son of the founder of BC rich....

Dudes...are you guys kidding or do you just not pay attention to the guitar market?

The KH ESP neck thru is solid maple...the KK V AND warlock are all maple...Most of the Lynch models are all maple,as are a ton of others...Those guitars are not that "bright".

All maple is nothing new,and it is not unduly heavy....cutting it out of one slab of maple is not going to make it heavier...Glue lines are not made of helium.

Bubinga...now that IS heavy...and you will never make a Bubinga solidbody weigh less than 12 pounds or so...unless it is an ultrathin...

WES i have 1 word (moreso an html link)

my first guitar, solid bubinga wings, maple./bubinga/maple neck thru ebony board

haha this guitar....breaks backs, but sounds very....well...here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrc2dCSWg50

its bright, but not as bright as you would except

in my experience with guitars, the wood doesnt effect the sound so much on electrics as do the pickups, strings, and amp you use. but naturally there is some noticible differnce between mahagony and maple, just not as much as on an acoustic, becuase the vibrations create and amplify the sounds there, here they just assist transfer to pickups...

Kenny

great progress man

i wish i had an anvil...

i filled a small crack on one of my fretboards (nut side, about .5" long all the way through) and i loved the board so much i decided to try and do the glue repair. i smothered it with titebond (before it was radiused and whatnot) and clamped with a little more than normal pressure, once it was all radiused on one of my jigs i couldnt find ANY evidence of a crack being there previously.

plus the glue bonds stronger than the wood so technically if you were ever to do a "repair" of that sorts you would be strengthening the area, rather than weakening.

i wouldnt be able to justify "repairing" a top on an acoustic guitar, or a guitar where the top is used to amplify vibrations (arch top, or whatnot) if i were as concerned as you were, i would cut off the entire top, and simply glue a new one on, but then again

my standards for the wood i use are much lower than my tolerances, being as wood is an organic substance that moves and shifts, and is bound to have imperfections.

well, i generally dont like giving just my opinion, so i wont

i like the first sketch because the body seems to flow more, i think you could still work on the balance of the scales between the "butt end" and the "upper horns" but the concept is nice.

The second sketch does not appeal to me because it seems that the guitar is very thin and that it lacks much substance, aswell as the curves dont fit very well together. it seems rather forced.

constructive crit for the 1st - maybe play with the ratios a little, if you want i have a great program (PM me if your intrested) that is much better than drawing your sketches

2nd - i would do some heavy modification on this body style (if i were the customer) it just doesnt appeal much to me, but then again if you look at my builds, i like very "plump" and generous bodys i love something that looks inviting to hold.

well, heres a word of advice then

"i fought the flaw, and the flaw won"

if your going to sell it still, dont bother inlaying over the crack (essentially hiding it ), since that is no better than filling it (which is invisible); with standards such as that, that bodys toast, sorry man. you could run the top of the body through a bandsaw and put sometype of top wood on it, and rerout the cavities....

well, get some CA or some regular wood glue, saturate crack and clamp together, sand. problem solved

hey guys, sorry its been a while since ive updated i went up to sacramento for the weekend and had the most difficult time getting back! anyways heres the progress

finished neck number 2 (sorry no pics of that, its identical to the first one, just with a deep purple rosewood FB - im thinking sunset burst?)

i cut out the body blanks for both of them, and made a make shift jointer out of my router which finally gave out on me today (i cant adjust the height anymore....its a crappy one anyyways, was time to upgrade) i glued one of the tops on one of the shaped bodies, and put the headplate on the headstock on the 1st neck

here are some pics

on this pic its not that the joints are bad, its just that i glued up the top today and got anxious so the dark areas are glue pockets that were still a little maleable (ill fix that up tomorrow) im really happy with how that joint turned out!

and on this one you cant see the figure but its the same as the top on the body

hope you guys like it!

this particular one is going to be the blue that i did in the rendering, its twin is i think going to be a purple/red/orange burst i dont know yet though

tickle our socks?

tip our server?

yea, i agree with daniel, when i play i never look at the board, it slows me down

well, it doesnt sound like an ideal solution becuase it would require a refret. unless your really clever about radiusing the inlays first, then if you dont mind having the board smooth where the inlay is

it entails more than you would believe.

haha, i guess your right, only concern i have is if people copy me designs that since im a small scale producer they would cease to be my designs

when i designed this particular body i was looking at dean hardtail, prs double cutaway, Ibanez SA, Carvin CT3, and some others that i cant remember off the top of my head. anyways i wasnt lying when i said that its a bastard child, but its my bastard child. haha

anyways yea, the headstock shape is a funny thing. my first guitar's headstock was similar, but without the dip in the middle, and a much longer point. after i decided i wanted to persue guitar building as more than a hobby i sat and pondered what inspires me, being as i live in southern california there are a lot of "missions" up and down the coast. those and my schools landmark building (San Diego State University) all have that spanish style roof line. i tried to emmulate that, but i didnt like the look at all, but i just kinda started messing around with the curved polygons on my cad and i finally got the idea to shrink the bump and angle everything sort of like a wave. in the end it doesnt look like much of anything, but thats how i got there :-p

On a more interesting note, i stopped by Th&H and dropped 150$ on wood...i went to go get maple for 1 neck. but then i saw quatered hond. mahag and i had to get the whole board. haha i got some body blanks too...and lotsa maple. i started making the 2nd neck today. ill scarf tomorrow when i have some glue, i also got my FB blank to size slotted, tapered and ready to be radiused tomorrow

the FB is a dark dark purple indian rosewood, ill post pics tomorrow i guess after its radiused.

also, has anyone heard of wetting the fretboard while your fret it (lightly just enough to expand the wood a little) ia guitar tech told me that a while ago and i was pondering trying it, apperantly you get a much closer seat.

Kenny

hey man, thanks! i use that design on the majority of my guitars hopefully one day ill get it copyrighted haha wheni have the money maybe

is the fretboard already glued to the body?

thanks, actually your right on about the body shape, i took my favorite aspects of about 5 guitars, with my own ideas and kinda musched them all together into what i thought looked good

the FB is made out of Pau Ferro, i have enough for 1 more board.

well, i dont like the way gibson does it, but here is the general idea

get your binding, mark out where the frets are going to be, and the height. on a bandsaw cut the binding in such a way where there are "bumps" where the frets are and the depressesions are level withe rest of your fretboard. these "bumps' are then shaped to look like fret ends

i saw a tutorial on it a long time ago, but i cant seem to find it anymore, sorry man.

sorry if that was kinda vauge, i would be more than happy to elaborate

well, before i posted anything aobut this i wanted to have some work done

but here was the initial design

i decided i wanted to make 2 at once, so i got to making two necks

heres some pics

thats my lovely girlfriend drawing on my extension table :-p (hey, if shes happy, imm happy, mostly becuase when shes bored...she makes me miserable, and not able to work on my guitar :-p)

now unfortunatly the neck in that first picture just got to thin :-\ the wood started flexing where the TR is, and when i was trying to save it, it broke through ever so slightly....there went that neck haha

i managed to get the TR out for the next one i make though. i did take pictures of the aftermath it was interesting to see where the wood broke. the headstock was VERY thin because i was going to use a thick headplate, there was a scarf joing and volute, but it was intresting to see that after 6 hammer blows it broke near the 3rd fret. nowhere near the "weak" areas ( i was smaking the headstock with the rest of the neck clamped down)

here are some pics of that

i managed to put it back together for a photo op i have pics of it shattered too haha

naturally this really bummed me out, becuase i had to waste some perfectly good wood, but i learned from my mistakes and finished the 2nd neck up nicely (or close to finished, i fretted it, and touched up the radius that i did on my new jig i made...it also made the sanding blocks...will never use anything else again! (its a standard radiused sled and router jig)

here is the remaining neck (on monday when the th&H opens again im gonna go pick up wood for 3 or 4 more necks and redo the one that broke) also start another build, a more "metal" V and a "shred strat"

im sure ill get to makgin the bodies within the next week. btw, im using the same wood for the top as i did in the rendering

opinions?

Kenny

glad this was brought up!

albiet that ive never built an 8 string, but i did build a fanned 7 string, and faced similar problems

i am not much a fan of copying other guitars, i like to take ideas that i like and incorperate into my design (although i did copy the bridge on my most recent guitar from eriks v8 build) ive found that its much more gratifying to come up with a unique design that fits all your presonal needs.

heres what i found.

fanned frets are beautiful for 7+ strings, and really work out the issue of the long scale lengths for me, personally for my 7 i did a 27-25" scale with the 12 perp. it feels very natural. i had to do some reverse engeneering to get the fingerboard mesurments though. they are also surpisingly easy to make aswell. (granted i use a cad style program, ACDsee canvas, so i just print out my design and use that as a guide, i dont measure anything by hand, just double check, haha)

i decided the distance that i wanted my strings in from the side of the fretboard, and used my string spread (first thing i did was chose the saddles i was going to use) and personal preference for string spacing to get the nut width. i then did some simple math and found the taper i would need to keep the distance to edge of the board, which gave me the width at the end of the board (the length had been established by then)

the same basic prinicple can be appllied to an 8 string i guess. but this was just my workings with an abstract design, and how i got to where i did.

naturally i also compensated for string guages

i think soon i will build an 8 string

i just want to crank out maybe 3 or 4 "normal" guitars before i do

im going to have to be honest with you

its terrible, and you should throw it away

but before you do, tell me where you live and where your going to throw it away

i LOVE the swirl, if you could elaborate on how you did it, and with what materials, i would love to know

thats psycodelic

Kenny

i used sperzel locking on my fanned 7, i had to use pliers to get my B in, i couodlnt drill it :-\

i know you say your set on the design, but to me it seems like the headstock leans a little to the left

other than that i love it!

cant wait to see it progress

on a side note, i just did my first 2 scarf joints a few days ago, how did you glue yours? haha

black knobs

P.S

that is very green!

i like it, its definitally not what one would expect from a traditional metal guitar!

Kenny

hahahaha, im a little slow, but this really took some time to see you were kidding

haha

thats great, ive had trouble getting some uncontaminated sawdust before too

but on a more serious note, im sure people do have questions like that (maybe not that...well, uninformed, but you know) so dont let us discourage yoU!

Kenny