avengers63

If mahogany for the neck is an absolute must, I suppose it could always be satined black. That's keep the color theme without losing the wood grain like painting it would do. BUT... if that's done, a good old maple neck wouldn't be a bad choice either. I know I could get railed on for saying this, but we all have our opinions, don't we. Personally, I don't think the neck wood effects the tone nearly as much as the body wood does. The stiffness of the neck wood drastically influences the sustain, but I just don't hear it for tone. Maybe my ear just isn't as good as it could be. Just my 2-cents worth.

I'd be interested to know this one as well. I have plans to do a large body with major chambers sometime in the future.

First, Thanks! I'm really looking forward to doing it in "real" wood this Spring. Two, it's Krylon interior-exterior Sun Gloss Yellow (1806) Three, nope and ya can't have her!

Well, unless someone else comes up with another place to get a trem, you may be "stuck" with pillaging a Spirit for parts. On the good side, you may be able to re-sell the unused parts and recoup a little cash. This'll make you sick: I've had a Steinberger since '89. I haven't used the trem since '90. I don't use trems at all, in fact, so it'll be locked & the arm in the gig bag pretty much forever.

Thanks. I'm learning a lot, although it's the hard way. I'm not planning on doing anything fancy on it. I AM going to make a large diamondplate pickguard and truss rod cover, though. Maybe in the future, I'll experiment with doing inlay work on the neck. You know... continue to abuse it's "learner" status.

AllParts headless bridge This eBay store has a bunch of headless guitars & trems, but I don't know about the quality.

Progress yesterday! I'm really glad I'm going through this process as a learning tool. So many things are learned by doing stuff wrong... After the paint was dry, I did a dry-run test assembly. Lesson 3: do this BEFORE putting any type of finish on it. The holes for the neck plate didn't line up with the holes that were already there. Annoying, but... lesson learned. So I gotta drill out the holes. I read about drilling against a block of scrap to avoid tearout. I also read about not drilling through the paint & finish to avoid burning the stuff. So... I mark the holes, clamp the body to some scrap, and drill through the neck pocket to the back of the body. There was some tearout anyway. It turns out that the back isn't completely level. Grrrr... Now I need to fill in the holes with some filler and hope it doesn't screw up the paint. Had I thought about it a little more, I would have drilled from the back. It's going to be covered with the plate anyway, so WHO CARES if the paint get's a little burned. Lesson 4: When you screw something up, don't be in a hurry to fix it. Think about it a bit. But wait, there's more. I saw many pics of drilling the bodies. All had a "cushion" piece of scrap between the clamp & the body. No problem! I have plenty of thin scrap. When I took the clamp off, grain marks from the scrap and been embossed into the paint. Lesson 5: If ya gotta drill yer junk after ya paint/finish it, cushion the wood cushioners with a piece of felt or sumpthin. And make dang sure it's really dry! OK, the grain marks got gently sanded with some 350 grit and retouched. Now I get to try and put some poly on it. I don't want to use a spray can, and I don't have a spray gun, so I'll be using some wipe-on. Here's hoping... There was some good results, though. The headstock taping went exactly as it was supposed to! There was a perfect line around the headstock. When I slowly peeled the tape off, I had an x-acto with me in case I neded to cut the paint, but it was un-necessary. A little careful sanding with some 350 grit smppthed the paint ridge. Hopefully, the poly will build up & seal the ridge do it won't chip or peel. Every pic I took was a little washed out. The clean line isn't readily apparent in the pics, but go figure: it's yellow on maple. Not much contrast. I'm just happy that ONE thing went right at this stage.

One of the "major" aftermarket parts suppliers - AllParts or WD I think - carries all the parts to make a headless axe. The bridge IS a trem, but I don' tknow if it's an R type or not. They're quite pricey, but the quality is likely to be better. You could probably get an entire Spirit on eBay for what this trem alone would cost you.

So... why aren't the inlays going all the way up the neck?

I ordered Hisock's book with a Boarders gift card I got for Christmas, which they'll mail to my house for free. I just ordered Flexner's book and one on doing inlay from Amazon. I signed up for their credit card (which I will not use at all - it's going in a drawer) to get $30.00 off the total. It qualified for free shipping as well. All said, I'm getting three guitar making books for under $5.50, brand new, delivered to my house. Gotta love it!

The weekend was productive for me. I opted not to use any body filler as this is a practice, learning project. I was more concerned with the process than the final result. Well, I'm a doofus. The entire point of the exercise is to achieve the final result through doing the dang process! As a result of my laziness, there are a couple of places on the sides that have little gaps that should have been filled in. That'll learn me! I sanded the paint & primer off, as well as the clear finish on the neck. After that, I taped off the headstock, nut, & fretboard. I decided that I'm NOT going to cover the whole headstock with diamondplate afterall. I'll instead have a large plate going up between the keys. http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...andedtapeda.jpg http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...sandedbodya.jpg http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...sandedbodyb.jpg http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...2tapedneckb.jpg The light spots on the sides of the body aren't places where I missed anything, they're just odd colorings in the side of the plywood. The next step was to primer the thing. I used nearly a full can of Krylon primer. http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...imeredbodyb.jpg http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...rimeredneck.jpg I did it in about 8 light coats and let it dry overnight. I basically kept coming back until I couldn't see any wood coming through. When I came back to it to give it a light "smoothing sanding" with some 220 grit, I saw a glaring mistake. When I was taking the paint off the curved sides, I had sanded some grooves into them. They almost look like planing ripples. While I'm not going to go back and re-so the sides, I'll definately remember this in the future. This makes two lessones learned. Next was the paint. http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...aintedbodya.jpg http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...aintedbodyc.jpg http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...aintedneckb.jpg Like the primer coat, I used nearly a full can of Krylon. Tonight, I'll give it a light sanding with some 220 and get to the poly. I'm not going to poly the neck becayse I like a really snooth, slick feel. I'll be tung oiling it instead. I plan on being fairly liberal with the oil, then buffing it a bit with some 00000 steel wool. Sometime this week, my diamondplate will come in. Then I get to play with the brand new Dremel XPR400 I got for Christmas. We'll see just how good the cutting wheel is when I take it to the 0.024" diamondplate! (hhmmmmm... cutting metal with power tools. There's some man stuff!)

Although there are certain things that just don't "look right". The SG that Gibson is putting out right now with 3 singles, for example. Or of someone male a Les Paul with a Tele setup. No, I'm not saying we can't do what we want. Guitar design is limited only by or imagination. Go for it. A jazzmaster with 2 HBs would be great. With the traditional number of knobs & switches on them, you could have it wired up just crazy and it's still look like it belonged.

+1 on the cost of ebony. IIRC, it's one of, if not THE, most expensive woods out there. It's also very rare & super pricey to get it in large pieces like you're looking for. I agree that you'd be better off getting a smaller piece & bookmatching it. Another thought would be to reverse the scheme, with a bloodwood top & ebony inlays. That being said, it sounds like it'll be a very handsome guitar. Good luck.

Don't ya think a double-neck SG or PRS would follow the curve of the grain better?

New parts are in. Aren't we all just kids with new toys when we get stuff for our guitars? I'm going to need to do some minor re-shaping on the p/g. Other than that, I'm thinking it's really gonna look killer.

Hey, I'm totally OK with being wrong about their quality grade back in the day. Knowing now that they weren't all cheap junk, maybe I'll look for one too. Looking at the catalog on the page that was linked to, I remember seeing some of those hanging in the store I hung out in. Good times.

It's been a while since anything has happened. Suppliers have been backed up or just plain occupied with Christmas, so nothing new has arrived. I'm still waiting on the neck. I bought one that's maple & padauk that's in the cue to be finished up and sent out. All I've been doing is slowly getting hardware. Until last night, that is. The dude who's making a few parts for me sent me a pic of the stuff. DUDE! He only charged me $27 (with shipping) for the PG, pup plate, and control plate. I'll post a pic of the stuff on the body when it comes in. I'm really anxious to get some equipment next year and start making these things myself. I know that assembly won't compare to making it from the ground up, but we all gotta start somewhere.

Westone was an entry level line of guitars & basses through St. Louis Music (SLM) in the 80's & early 90's. They focused their attention on the young aspiring hair metal players, like myself. I'm guessing they were made in Asia, but I'm not sure. SLM also mady Alvarez, Alvarez/Yairi, and Crate amps. I seem to remember them having something else, but I'm not sure what.

As cheap as it's likely to be, it could be picked up and scavenged for parts. It shouldn't be too hard to study the wiring & electronics of it and incorporate the recording device into a GOOD guitar.

That entirely depends on a few things. The main consideration is what you want to get out of it. If you're looking to turn a pawn shop special into an ax comparable to a $10,000 custom, or even a high quality off the rack ax, it just isn't happening. The basic materials you have to work with, the neck & body, aren't high end enough. That being said, I have a Westone bass, and it's a fine instrument. The basic quality is enough to turn it into a decent instrument. I always thought Westones were at least on par with Squire or low end Peavey & Ibanez guitars. If, however, you're looking to get your feet wet with refinishing & rebuilding, or to practice your technique, this would be a great place to start. In fact, I'm currently doing this exact thing with my current project. You won't have a major financial investment, so that won't be a great loss. The ax clearly isn't a high end model, so if you screw it up, there's no big loss there either. Something to look out for on these cheap guitars is the cheap materials they used. A lot of the bodies are plywood. BUT... the one I'm currently learning refinishing on is plywood. It has it's place and uses. My best advice is to decide what your intentions are first: polish or practice. In any event, I wouldn't spend much on the parts. Even used or low end stuff you can find on eBay would be an upgrade on a Westone. Good luck and kep us up to date with some pics!

I'm happy for him that he was able to escape. Actually, it's not a bad place to live. It's fairly quiet, but not country by any means. We're only about 10 minutes from St Louis, so major shows that come through are accessable, as well as having a great sports community with the Cardnials, Rams, & Blues, and 2 minor league teams. This area has a long history of music history as well. We're incredibly diverse with that around here.

I remarried in March and moved into her house. There is such a slow learning curve with what we do and do not have. I always seem to find out that we have something I need right after I don't need it anymore. I grabbed the 60-grit & the block and sanded off all the old paint & primer tonight. Right as I was done with the flat front & back, my wife came in and told me we have a 6" square orbital sander. Oh well. Now I know what a pain it is to take it off by hand. In any event, it's all off now. Tomorrow night I can sand it down to 220. The old bushings were still in the body. Without a "proper" tool to remove them, I had to improvise. I screwed the posts in most of the way, got a hammer & a small block of scrap wood, and pried them right out. I was a bit surprised at how easily they came out. I hope they stay in well when I put them back. Here's a pre-emptive strike question. Exactly how necessary is grain filler? If sanding sealer is used, is filler necessary, or are they separate processes?

Which books would be on the essential reading list for solid or chambered body building? I need to pick up a few, but my bookstores don't stock ANYTHING on luhterie. I don't want to order in a book on a crapshoot if it's useful or not.

I guess I'll chime in here as well. I'm not so much for the carve either. It's too much of a plateau, not a gradual curve. That being said, these are our opinions on it's look, not it's execution. It's YOUR project, and you're the only one you need to please. Gibson thought Les Paul was an idiot until Leo Fender started getting rich. Do your thing. I LOVE the wood binding on the f/b and the wood inlays. You just don't see that very often. Nice classy look. If cost is getting to be an issue, you already know what the answer is on the gold hardware. To me, the answer to the black/chrome queston is simple. Is the guitar going to be dark or light? If everything is goung to be light (eg: maple), then black hardware would balance it out. It it's to be dark (eg: walnut), then chrome will brighten it up. It's all subjective to your end look. Or you could ignore us all and follow your gut.

My wife actually listens to me! I figured whenever I started droning on about guitars she nodded & acted like she was paying attention. Boy was I wrong. She hunted on eBay and not only found me a body & neck, but a Kramer quad-rail humbucker and tuning pegs as well. Wow. A little research told me this was an inexpensive travel guitar. The body is plywood, but the neck is fairly straight. One side of the f/b is thicker than the other, but it's the same along the entire length of the neck, so at least it'll be uniformly uneven. My plan is already in place. This'll have the pickup she got me and one volume knob. As it already has the bushings in place for a wrap-around bridge, that's what I'll get. I'll get a thin piece of diamondplate to use as a large pickguard and moun the p/u, pot, & jack in it. I'll cover the headstock in diamondplate as well. The body is gerring sanded down to bare wood and painted yellow. This is going to be VERY useful in many ways. I can learn how to finish a body from bare wood up before finishing the tele I'm working on. Better to screw up a cheap plywood body than a "real" one. Later, when I get some equipment, I'll use this body to make a template from. I'll make my first body as a replacement for this. Again, better to learn on something small & simple. It'll be something inexpensive like maple or alder. I'll keep y'all posted on the process and learning curve.