avengers63

For me, $200-300 for a top is a small fortune. It's all relative.

Those huge pieces of burl must cost you a fortune.

I got the neck 99% shaped today. The heel area still needs some real "by hand" love. Normally, I'd have all of the shaping done before attempting any finishing. BUT.... I start a new job next week. This screws with everything because I'll be on the road M-F, only home on the weekends. Clearly, this significantly cuts into my available time. I'll be using my "away time" to let the finish cure, then finesse the heel when I'm here. I'll be finishing the heel shaping before I buff out the top, and putting a towel down so I don't gouge it on the table. I'm also using poly on the top instead of lacquer. No, poly doesn't need that long to cure. but why wouldn't I let it sit when I have the opportunity. It's water-based, so I need to get some linseed oil into the top first, so it still has that "warm oil glow" we all love so much. The oil is still wet in these pics, but y'all get the idea.

Interesting wood grain on that body. Is it getting a basic clear coat, or are you planning on coloring it somehow?

Perhaps. But this is what I have on hand, and I'm a cheapskate.

The binding route on the headstock was about 1/16" too deep. shit Well, nothing to be done about it now. On to damage control. I took some binding and split it with my beloved scrollsaw. This will give me much "shorter" pieces to mess with. All I could do was glue the pieces above the other and TRY and make up the height. Then I bathed the join with acetone and binding "sawdust", hoping to melt the shavings into a slurry and jam it into the line. Success was spotty. An error this glaring eliminates it from future GOTM contention. cest la vie Some judicious sawing, chiseling, and filing gave me a pretty decent shelf for the plastic nut. To be 100% clear, I don't actually use a nut per se. I use a zero-fret. This is a fret placed where the traditional nut would be. This makes any un-fretted strings ring with the exact same tone as the when fretted, making the nut material a moot point. The plastic nut then becomes a string guide rather than a true nut. [voodoo] So much is made of the nut material influencing tone. Once the string is fretted, the nut is out of the equation. Therefore a zero-fret makes a consistent tone regardless, eliminating the nut material question entirely.[/voodoo] Next up is gluing on the fretboard. Here's the mandatory "march of the hammers" shot.

I got the control cavity and pickups routed out this morning. The c/c was was mostly freehand, but I have a template for the pups. That's all for outside today, but I brought everything inside to glue on the binding while watching TV.

The best available solution was take a cutoff and glue it onto the flat spot. The other option was to steam off the veneer, add some wood, and re-veneer... and that wasn't gonna happen. It hasn't been sanded yet, but the pics below show the results. You won't see anything from 3 feet away, and it will be hard to see up close unless you're looking for it. So I got a late start today. The heat set in, and the end of my garage where the router table is was solidly in pure sunlight. Me sweating like squeezing out a sponge means I wasn't getting much done today. All I was able to do before pooping out was rout the body & headstock for the binding, put a roundover on the back, and hog out most of the pickup and control cavities.

Meh. I know you're just joking, but I've always documented damn near everything in my builds. Several folks have shown their appreciation for my "warts and all" approach. I felt it important to show the "younger" builders that yes, you WILL dork up something, so how you fix it is just as important.

I was in food service for 20 years. That, along with a curved spine, left my feet & back on the screwed-up side. The jack was always going to be in a curved oval jack plate.

I hate getting old. I'm only 49, but I can't stand for more than a few hours now without being done for the day. Any, on to the pickguard. I traced the image, spray glued it onto some hardboard, finessed it into shape, routed, beveled, drilled, and the fucking thing is smaller than the original. I THOUGHT I had the image at actual size when I traced it. What's done is done. Even if I had the extra inch of length on the control chamber, there's no way in God's green Earth I'd fit all that crap in there. This is why plans deed to be kept fluid. It just went from an active pre-amp 3-band EQ to a generic 3-way/V/T. Life goes on. Part of the fun stuff - 99% of the routing to the template is done. Tomorrow I'll likely fer the pickup cavities and control chamber done up. Yes, the bottom is flat. IDK how it happened. I measured it and test fit it about 30 times before gluing it together. I have a cutoff with it in the clamps.

Not really getting to work yet, just eager to see how the veneering turned out. The squeeze-out mess was a hellofalot better than I expected. All I needed was a little cleanup around the fretboard, which I already protected with bue tape. Nothing got under it, but it required some encouragement to get off. The only glue that leaked out onto the top will either be in the pickup route or under the pickguard, so no problem there either.

I don't remember where I got them, but I use thin plastic rods for the side dots. I think they're 2mm. Super inexpensive. The hole isn't even 1.4" deep. A tiny drop of super glue, jam the rod into the hole, trim it flush.

And I wholeheartedly approve of derailing the thread into a conversation.

In a few years, we're planning on moving. Probably to Tennessee. I'm sure I'll have some of that sauna action waiting for me. But until then...... side dots in... gratuitous fretboard shot... frets in, beveled, and filed flush end of the "under the fretboard' wood taped off to prep for the veneering then evening up the edges of the bookmatched veneer cutting out the fretboard area on the veneer if a big piece of MDF, a 2x4 cutoff for the center, some other various cutoffs, and 12 F & C clamps can't replace a vacuum veneer press for a flat surface, then veneering a guitar is simply above my pay grade. That's it for today. Nothing on the guitar. It's shower time, then booze & old wrestling videos

It's guitar building weather today.....

Short work, but significant progress today The headstock came out of the veneer process. I managed to get it in the clamps last night. The guitar neck came put of the clamps, only to go right back into them. Also - this is why I almost never throw away my scraps & cutoffs. I needed MAYBE 1/4" more width on both sides of the headstock. The wings came from a scrap I had lying around in the "cherry pile". As a woodworker, you never know what you're going to need, so if you have the storage space, never throw anything away. Headstock & neck rough-thicknessed in the bandsaw. I left about an extra 1/16" on the neck to allow for loss thorugh shaping & sanding. Lastly, the body wings in the clamps. Maybe later tonight I'll go back and veneer the body. If not, tomorrow looks to be the day for that. What i REALLY need to to later is put the side dots in the fretboard, maybe even fret it. BTW: That knot is right where the control cavity will be. It doesn't go all the way through, so it SHOULD all be eliminated later. If not, life goes on.

A large chamber was my first thought. Then I started giving serious consideration to the burl top. Burls are delicate. A full chamber would require a backing for the burl. That's a little more than I really want to do, so a ton of holes is the next best thing. It's still all just "under consideration". I also have some lightly flamed maple that's an option. Or the original birdseye veneer to match the bass. Hell... I have some spruce acoustic tops that might fit. Options are fun.

I got the wings for the headstock glued on, as well as the "under-thickness" extension for the guitar headstock. Neither is picture-worthy. For the guitar, I'm seriously considering 2 things. 1) drilling a crapload of holes in the bass side with a big forstner bit to drop some weight. Not a full chambering, just weight loss. Northern ash has a great tone, but it's heavy. 2) using a redwood burl drop top I've had for about 10-12 years.

Extremely helpful. Sooooo...... is this utilizing the active pre-amp or deleting it?

Too fast. Wiring is always a stumbling block for me. Honestly, I really wouldn't care if I got rid of the pre-amp altogether. I'd be more than OK with just a 3-way,1V, 1T. But it does seem like a shame to not utilize what I already have. And for all I know, the pups might require a battery, whoch would defeat some of the purpose in ditching the pre-amp.

Some more detailed pics of the wiring harness... Here it is spread out a bit. I'm pretty sure the 3 knobs are a 3-band EQ. I agree about some funky tapping going on with the double-blade switch. There's no reason to think otherwise, because there's no reason to use it if not for the extra options. For the 2 leads coming from the pickups - things are a little jacked. Both have a free red wire. The gray sheath has the white lead going to the switch, while the black sheath has a free white lead. I'm presuming the white leads are both supposed to be on the switch, meaning the free lead broke off at some point. But that leaves the question of what the red leads are for. Over at the end of the last pot in line, we have a black wire. That appears to be the ground. The last mystery is this red wire coming from the harness box. It's been spliced into another red wire which has been cut. So....... what could all these unidentified red wires be for? The battery? In other news, here's the afore mentioned sloppy truss rod end, and headstock joint & cant name properly. And the afore mentioned f/b in the process of being radiused, and after I was done cussing at it Lastly, the 2-piece cherry blank for the guitar, and the piece of ash the wings will be made from

Radius block. I tend to cry like a bitch about radiusing the f/b. Prolly because it absolutely blows, and I'm not willing to invest the time/resources into making a jig to rout the radius for me.

I detest sanding the radius into the fretboard. I hate it almost as much as I hate my 1st ex-wife. It's not even satisfying when it's over because of how labor intensive it is. The worst part is where I'm at right now - it's almost there, but the fat end of the board doesn't wanna sand down one more micron, so ya just keep doing it without seeing ANY more progress. I HATE sanding the radius into the fretboard.