avengers63

I don't know what anyone is griping about. The turquoise sparkles embedded in the body are a really cool feature. The way they fill in the cavity make you want to think it's a natural part of the wood. It's a great little feature. It looks very... country, rustic, etc. The southwestern flair it gives the instrument is a real treat.

I cut out the large pickguard last night with the coping saw. It worked really well. I took the big file to the edges and smoothed out all the rough edges. When I laid it on the body to line up everything and see where it needed to be tweaked.... Well, it appears that I'm not quite as bright as I like to think I am. Apparently, I can't tell the difference between back & front. I fully expected to make some mistakes in this thing. I didn't expect so many. Some learning curve, huh. Oh well. Lessons learned the hard way are slowly forgotten. I made the dang thing backwards. Totally, completely, and quite stupidly, I did it backwards. I laughed my butt off when I saw what I did. A few years ago, I'd have been steaming about the lost time doing it wrong. Now, all I can do is laugh at an obvious mistake I shouldn't have made. My wife thought it was pretty dang silly too. We both had a good laugh. On the good side, it lines up pretty well. A little minor alterations and it'll be what I want. I'll just need some minor shaping with the file. It's a good thing I got about 3-4 times the amount of diamondplate I needed. I guess now I'll have to make a lefty body to sell as well as a righty body for me. I can't let the pickguard go to waste, now can I? Lesson 6: Make sure that your template is on the product the right way. It's a LOT easier to re-align & re-draw than to re-cut.

I actually don't mind DF so much. When I hear them, I hear a band that's trying to be hair hetal. Given that I LOVE hair metal, I see them as a nostalgia/throwback band. For that, I find them mildly entertaining, but not annoying. Poison, however......

I was told that the neck will be shipped this week. We'll see. I bought it about a month ago. He had to bandsaw the headstock, drill the tuner holes, inlay the dots, and do the frets. I don't know how long that takes, but it doesn't seem like it should take a month. I ordered the pups today. I'm getting a set from Bill Lawrence - an L200T set. I'm getting them from Bill himself, not that company that uses his name. I talked to Becky, told her about the axe & what I was looking for. She said the L200T set should do me nicely. Now, I have nothing but confidence that these will be really nice. BUT, even if they're only average, set of name-brand pups for just under $100 brand new & shipped to my door aint too bad. I also ordered the electrosocket jackplate, Steinberger tuners, pots, & shielding/wiring kit yesterday from StweMac. After devouring the wood finishing book, I centered in on using spray can nitro. Checking StewMac's prices at $9.60/can and seeing that I'm likely to need 4-6 cans, I went to Home Depot. Their cans of spray nitro are $5.50. No contest, especially in light of the statement in Flexner's book about "most aerosol lacquer is nitro". If, and this is a big 'if' (the neck), everything somes in within a week, I should be up & playing by the middle of February.

I'm assuming that you're using a standard tune-o-matic bridge & a stop tailpiece. Even if you're using something else, the answer is the same. That I'm aware of... the only thing that's glued is the lumber to make the body blank, possibly the scarf jount for the headstock, and possibly the neck into the body. NONE of the hardware, though.

Does anyone have any first-hand experience with the old DeArmond pups that used to come in Harmony guitars in the 60's & 70's? They have a great retro look to them, and seem to still get a good price on eBay, but how do they sound? Are there known problems with them? OR... when the time comes, would I be just as well off getting some reproductions? The GFS pups have me intrigued, as to the ones in the Airliner guitars. Any thoughts?

That top is just sick & wrong. Just georgous. It looks like there was a little whoopsie in the bridge pup route.

Since you asked... Personally, I like to repeat patterns & themes. I feel it ties the appearance together to have a color or pattern repeated in various places throughout the piece. Introducing a new element in only one place is, to me, distracting & out of place. TRANSLATION Unless you have some spalted somewhere else on the body, I wouldn't face the headstock with it. A spalted p/g would tie it together nicely. If you do that, I might advise laminating a spalted veneer to a more stable wood for the p/g. Spalted is known to be brittle, so it might not hold up on it's own as a p/g. For the binding, why don't you look around at what others have done and take some inspiration from them. Mirroring what I said already, I wouldn't just bind the headstock. If it's done, I'd do the fretboard too.

That cutaway looks a little hard to play in. Have you done some fingering in there to give it a test run? I LOVE the headstock. Are those banjoor classical guitar tuners? I've considered using straight-through banjo tuners on a future project, but the turning ratio is just lousy. If they're banjo's, I'm really interested in how well they work for you.

What a great wood find! Just look at the internal light source coming from those pup routes! Forget using EMGs, the whole BODY is active. duuuuuuuude! Or it gould be the light wood reflecting the flash & getting washed out. My version of reality is usually a LOT more fun.

Consider: Were they glued in when you took them out? I'm going to guess 'no'. So why would you want to glue them in when you put them back?

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...6neckplateb.jpg http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...6neckplatec.jpg Progress on the diamondplate! Coping saws are great. It just takes forever on metal, but they work nicely. I trimmed up the jaged edges & mis-shapes of what I had tried to cut with the dremel. Then I went to work with a big metal file. I LOOSELY assembled the tuners so I could make sure everything fit right. After I snapped off some pics, I took it all apart so everything can finish curing. All said, I was fiddleing with it for about 2 hours. I'm not looking forward to the time necessary to do the pickguard. I ordered a chrome pup ring yesterday (along with some other small items), so at least THAT will be right & easy. If all of this metal diamondplate becomes too much of a chore, I found some thick plastic DP at Home Depot. Of course, if I'd have found it 2 weeks ago....

In response to that author's lack of knowledge about wood finishes, I only got one thing to say: Bob Flexner - Understanding Wood Finishing I was turned on to this book, and I'm reading through it right now. Flesner has the real scoop on wood finishes, not whoever wrote that article. As for how the finish will effect the tone, that's debateable. It's especially debateable with solidbody electrics. In an acoustic instrument, the motion of the air inside the instrument and the vibrating of the wood create the tone. If the wood is so sealed up that it can't vibrate, there's a big problem. In electrics, however, the wood greatly effects the tone, but I really don't believe the finish would alter it to the degree that author is claimin it would. Consider: the body is 1-1/2 to 2 inches thick. It just isn't going to vibrate very much. If the wood is wrapped in concrete, maybe that'd to something to the tone. Any regular finish, though, I highly doubt would noticeably alter the tone. That being said, I'm a rookie at this. Any of you long-term guys have anything to add?

NO KIDDIN! Yer gonna get hurt with that spinny spike of cuttingness sticking out of that table. Invest in a guard rail. Seriously. You can't play that axe without fingers.

Well, not so much the price, but the fact that it wouldn't last very long as a fingerboard. It's quite soft. Then how does it last so long as acoustic tops?

Try looking for Jatoba, otherwise known as Brazilian Cherry. It's medium-light, and not very expensive. From what I've read, it's also super dense & extremely stable. I don' tknow how that would effect finishing, or if it even needs one. You gould also look for Spruce. It's pretty light and has well known musical properties. The drawback is the price.

I saw that a while ago, but thanks. I didn't want to go with anything resembling the original, but I'm afraid I may need to make a hard choice pretty soon. I don't own or have access to the proper power tool (band saw?) to cut the diamondplate, so I have to improvise with what I have on hand: a dremel, hacksaw, and metal files. So far, thinga aren't looking so hot. I made the template for the truss rod cover and TRIED to cut it out this weekend. The edges were... less than good. Despite their claims, the cutting bits I bought for my new dremel just aren't up to making an even controled cut on 0.024" aluminum. It's pretty wobbly in fact. On the good side, it's a little bigger than what I actually wanted. I'm gonna try and file it into shape in the next few days. I'll post some pics tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm scouting suppliers for a piece of black or mirrored plastic pickguard blanks. If I stubmle accross black carbon fiber, I'll price them too. The finish is almost done being applied. It's coming along nicely. I got the wood finishing book in Saturday, and I've been tearing through it. I'm pretty eager to get to it!

+1 to Xanthus' suggestions. Deeper cuts & a shorter treble-side horn would so a long way.

those are the ones i had so much trouble with. they had like no gain at all, and only medium volume. he claims they are the highest output pickups on the market I might argue that motherbuckers could have the highest output. Remember, the mothers are 4 rails in a normal HB space.

With all those separate wood tones visible from the front, I don't know that a burst finish is such a great idea. Think about how much you'd be covering up, as well as adding another thing for the eye to take in. Think very seriously about the burst idea. It's pretty busy as is.

Like maybe a green that matches the lizard.

Is there a technical reason the bridge & pups are recessed, or do you think it's purely for looks? Either way.... dude!

Thanks for the input. I'll post some drawings tonight. They might be a little jacked-up - I don't have my scanner hooked up yet (or even unpacked). I gave serious thought to black hardware & p/g on the yellow body. The only thing that stopped me was that when my wife got this whole thing for me, the tuning keys were chrome. With that in mind, I'm really locked into chrome. The bridge, knob, screws, neckplate, and sheet of diamondplate I have are all chrome, so there's really no going back at this point. My 11 year-old said that it'll remind her of a bulldozer: bright yellow & diamondplate. If I go with a large p/g, I like the idea of carving out some kind of design or wording right under the strings. I'd paint the area under the hole black so it'd show through nicely. Maybe I'll go for it when I make the "real" body in the spring. I'll definately keep the carbon fiber in mind for a future project, though. I never even considered a colored p/g that wasn't plastic. THIS is why we rookies so desperately need your input.

I want some opinions here. As I noted already, I'll be making some stuff out of diamondplate. The truss rod cover is a given, as is the pup ring and control cover. What I'm debating in my head is the pickguard. I'm having some trouble coming up with a design I like. My big internal struggle is that I'm not confident that I can match the contour line along the bottom of the body. I'm flip-flopping with rounded vs. sharp corners, linear vs. curved, massive vs. minimal. Any thoughts? FWIW: I taped a piece of paper to the body & headstock & made a rubbing along the edges & holes with a pencil. I then made a bunch of copies at work & have been drawing various shapes on it.

Personally, I WANT as much input as possible on the design & look of things. This has absolutely nothing to do with experience. Any given person will look at something or hade a dofferent approach than I do, even if it's very slight. The different mindset will lead to different thoughts & ideas I never thought of. Some of these ideas I'll like, some I won't.Some I'll like the basic concept of, but I'll tweak them to suit my thoughts. These suggestions might even be mentally filed away for later use on another project. Another thought to consider is that MANY people are reading these threads. The originator isn't the only one getting ideas & input. Open discussion like this almost always sparks new ideas & creativity in one of the readers. To restate, any opinion or suggestion is of value, even if it's not to the person it's being offered to, and not for the task at hand.