avengers63

Alex Liefson (Rush) is extremely under-rated on a number of different levels. As for just fun to listen to: Albert Lee Chet Atkins Leo Kotke

that's a REALLY thick voulte you'd need a sledge hammer to knock that headstock off

:D

I can personally testify that cherry is maple-bright.

No templates. I traced the outline with a sharp pencil, scored the inside of the lines as deeply as I could with an X-Acto knife, "hogged out" the majority of the material with a 1/16" bit in the laminate trim router, got close to the corners with the Dremel, then sharpened the corners & finessed the fit with the X-Acto.

A can of flat black spray paint - the cheapest available. IIRC, they're $0.97/can at Wal-Mart. It's what I use for the white & gray primer as well. maybe Thanks for pointing it out. I'll look into it. It might be a camera trick, it might not be.

grain filling with poly & sanding back florescent/inside lighting blows for pics first stage of the blackburst done 2 coats of poly to protect it while the remainder is done probably another one or two tomorrow

inlays are in I took the pics with the original neck 'just because'.

I got the template from a fellow PGer - Killemall. I got the Gibson V from him as well. If it's out a bit, oh well. Maybe it's a 1st gen RRV.

With some special help from an anonymous benefactor. Reportedly, I have the hardware/pups from a Gibson SG.

Then you're gonna hate what's on tap after this Rhoads & the Firebird is done. It'll be a pure SG copy with little-to-no twists.

This isn't the firat time you've accused me of not thinking things through. You aren't privy to my thought process or the countless hours I spend making page after page of notes, which are only made after I've used up a LOT of mental time just thinking about the operations. You should stop. Just because I don't do something your way does not make it wrong. Not explaining every thought I have in the build thread noes not mean they're not there. After i made the Westone Dynasty, I decided that I really like the color a s/c adds when it's mated up with a h/b. It's on a 3-position because the s/c will be an "always on" pickup. The jack placement is where it is because 1) I didn't like it on the inside of the Dynasty lower wing, 2) I really don't like an angled Strat jack on the side of a body, 3) I try not to face-mount a jack because I don't like routing the wood that thin. I play a lot of different styles. Aside from playing for my own enjoyment, most of my playing is at church in the contemporary service. We cover a LOT of musical ground there, so the instrument I use there need to be pretty versatile. I've been putting together a group to do various covers encompassing an even wider variety of styles, so again, I want most of my instruments to be able to do more than one thing. The shape of the instrument has nothing to do with what's played on it. You can play jazz on a Strat, metal on a Tele, and country on a LP. They're not genre-specific. Most players know that. But since you wanted to accuse me of just going for it haphazardly.... you have yet to acknowledge that there's a big crack in the top of the Afterburner, that you made a big error in highlighting it with the black epoxy, or what you plan to do about it. To me, putting black epoxy in a crack seems like you're going about things pretty haphazardly, but I would rather choose to give you the benefit of the doubt. Thanks for the same consideration.

Give it a few years. They say memory is the second thing to go. I don't remember what the first thing is.

A month later, I finally did some more work on this thing. Everything is done on the body except the string ferrules and the bridge recess, and that's ONLY because I don't have the ferrules or the bridge posts/bushings on hand. The body is even grainfilled with sanding sealer and ready to be painted. I suppose I could get it primered while I'm waiting to get the hardware. As I was typing this out, I realized that I never posted a pic of the new neck - the maple/makore one. Maybe next time.

Pictures as promised.... The only thing I have left to sort out is where to put one of these... ...the emblem from a '67-'69 Firebird. I suppose I should buy one, then try and work on the placement. Or maybe I could make one on the scroll saw and inlay it into the headstock.

I've been fidgeting around with the tuner placement for a while now. It was really starting to bug me. Then the light came on this morning. I can't spend $150 on gold Steinberger tuners and have everything perfect. Nor can I spend more than that and get high quality banjo tuners with a lower gear ratio. So I'm stuck with some 18:1 Grovers. (I know - a real tragedy that I have to settle for Grovers. ) The only drawback is that they have to be closer to the edge of the headstock than is normally seen on a Firebird. The problem is that I'd really like to have the strings go straight out on the headstock to the tuners. BUT.... if I do that with these tuners, they just barely have enough room next to each other to fit. That not only makes tuning a PIA, but there's a LOT of extra room on the headstock where the tuners would normally be, and that just looks silly. I looked for a couple dozen examples of Firebirds with reverse headstocks and "normal" tuners. The early versions had non-straight strings, which looks bad. The later versions have a redesigned headstock which accommodates them better. The picture I made my template from had the banjo/Steinberger tuners. crap Then the lightbulb came on this morning. I'll be using a Kahler string lock. This is narrower than the nut in the first place, so the string angle will be messed up anyway. So that's that. I put the tuners in so that they look right on the headstock and don't worry about the straight-line aesthetics because there's jack that I can do about it. Pics to come later. FWIW: I've been grain-filling the body with some thinned down polyurethane. This stuff is going on unbelievably smooth, and with next to ZERO dust nibs. After it all gets filled, it gets a black burst and then the top clear coat. If the top clear goes on as smoothly as the filler has, this finish is going to be the best I've ever done. Of course, saying that just doomed it.

No, it only plays I-V-vi-IV progressions in root position. Don't worry, as a church musician who likes playing church music, I'm allowed to knock it! I know y'all are just joking around, but you'd be surprised at what's been coming out in contemporary worship lately. I play in the contemporary service at mine and some of it is pretty rockin'. Unfortunately, the worship leader has a thing for Chris Tomlin. We only do 4 songs, and at LEAST 2 of them are from him. And it's all straight, droning 4-beat crap. No boogie, no rhythm, no interest. Every so often he wants me to play lead, but I just can't. The "leads" in that style are little more than background fills that I have a hard time picking out. What's worse, it usually just follows the root note through the chord changes. But the non-Tomlin stuff is OK. I just wish he'd take from the Hillsong library once in a while.

I personally wouldn't want to use it for the neck. It's heavy and is reported to splinter & tearout when it's carved. I AM using it as a fretboard, though. And then we all know about Brian May's ax.

7 piece lam, 3 woods, fretboard with binding & purfling, faceplate & backstrap on the headstock. There's a LOT of this sort of thing going on here. I'm sure it'll be well received. Also, don't ever apologize for your artistic choices. Do what you feel is right and be done with it.

Yes, I am... no, I didn't... and I loves me some Hair Metal too, my fellow child of the 80's.

This one looks kinda neon. Are you feeling dirty yet. C'mon Rfallen angel, open up and say ahhh. You know we all want action tonight... that we don't want nuthin' but a good time. Gimme something to believe in here. Probably can't 'cuz your mama don't dance the unskinny bop. Oh well. I guess every rose has it's thorn.

I knew that one would get a reaction from you.

This belongs in CC DeVille's guitar rack.

Classic Thinline or.... The Cherry Blossom whichever you prefer build thread SPECS body JM Classic shape 2-piece walnut base, chambered 1/8" bookmatched walnut cap cherry blossom "f-hole", cut on a scroll saw (the inside of the holes were painted black with a 00 artist's brush and black acrylic paint) clear gloss polyurethane finish neck set canarywood neck walnut accent in scarf joint recessed/split-level headstock with walnut veneer sanded to 4000 grit and coated with linseed oil fretboard Washburn 24.75" scale ebony fretboard with MOP/abalone block inlays (factory second, no signs of imperfection) triple bound with 1/16" strips of canarywood, walnut, and white plastic hardware & electronics all chrome hardware Wilkinson "3-on-a-plate" EZ-Lock tuners 60's or 70's Japanese vibrato tailpiece Rickenbacker style TOM bridge 4 Teisco single coil pickups 4 on/off switches 1V, 1T bell knobs with abalone caps white pearl 3-ply pickguard and truss rod cover headstock detail 1 headstock detail 2 view from the bottom cherry blossom detail 1 cherry blossom detail 2

neck shaping is done I've finally come to what is a REALLY comfortable neck shape for me. I came about it completely by accident. When I cut the necks of the '58 Twins to thickness before shaping the back, I mis-measured by 1/8" too thin. There was nothing left for me to do at that point but to go ahead and shape them and hope for the best. Because I felt they were borderline too thin, I left the back pretty flat and essentially just rounded over the edges. The flat bit down the center was tapered, getting wider as you went up the neck. Well, that accident gave me the best feeling neck I'd made to date. It was also predictable and fairly easy to repeat. An ounce of research tells me I "invented" the thin D contour. With a 1/4" fretboard, the thickness in the middle of the 1st fret is 3/4", and thickens to 7/8" at the 12th fret.