johnsilver

Alberto, thanks. I understand what you mean. End grain absorbs stain more quickly than surface grain.

That's how PRS does it.

That's sweet! I want one. The CNC machine that is. Having just carved two tops by hand, I can't really express how much that CNC machine, along with your CAD work, would have simplified my life, not to mention the eliminating the carpal tunnel syndrome. Nice work.

Alberto, thanks for the reference. Do you know if the guitar was dyed (the color applied directly to the wood) or was the color added to the clear finish and then applied? Thanks.

The method you describe makes sense to me. I wasn't doing it that way. I leveled first and then filled gaps. This is the method described in a book I bought - Pearl Inlay by James Patterson. I'll try your method next and see what happens. Thanks.

Alberto, that is a beautiful guitar. Guess I'll avoid showing my SG project for some time until everyone forgets yours LOL Thanks for describing the method to angle the neck on a neckthrough. That will definitely help me. I read earlier that you filled the grain and sealed the wood. How did you get the color?

I get it. The ol' 5-7 blues shuffle.

Dadgummit!!! I knew the answer, but I was hoping someone would talk me out of it. I already ordered and received the pearl. It is a good match for the other pieces. Craig, what is your process for cutting rectangular pieces of pearl and getting them square? You probably just cut them square to begin with, but my cutting is a little off so I end up filing to square up. By the way, thanks for all your help with this inlay. I am working on another fretboard now with the Gibson style trapezoidal blocks. All I can say is thus far I have learned from my many mistakes on this board.

Here is a pic of a fretboard for an LP that I inlaid with MOP blocks. My problem is that the blocks in the 5th and 7th fret positions don't match the rest of the blocks very well. Most of the blocks have good figure and color but those two are milky without color. The pic isn't very good but you probably can get the idea. Apart from the obvious, which is to ensure a match BEFORE inlaying, should I: 1) leave them as is and let it bug me forever 2) route them out, cut some new pearl and re-inlay and risk ruining the whole thing 3) put it on the guitar I'm making for my son and maybe he won't notice Does the difference bother you? Thanks.

Seymour Duncan and I'm sure other pickup manufactures make humbuckers (sometimes referred to as stacked humbuckers) designed to be retrofit into a single coil sized route. My son put a SD stacked humbucker into the bridge position in his Tele - worked great.

Are you talking about the SG that Clapton used to record the Disraeli Gears LP with Cream? It was painted by a Dutch art group called the Fool. Very appropriate painting for the period. If that's the one, it didn't have a Bigsby type tailpiece or anything like that. It had sort of a tune-o-matic - a fixed tailpiece but the bridge itself was screwed into the body rather than on posts and it had individual saddles for compensation. I have a book with a picture of it. I haven't seen another bridge quite like it, so no idea where to get it. Sorry, not much help.

Drak, that back is sick, sick, sick. Can't wait to see more. Looks like one of those pictures psychiatrists show to their patients. The figure looks like a cute fuzzy tiger's face (the bottom figure) about to be pounced on by an evil dragon (the top figure). At least, thats what I see...........

I wouldn't suggest using a planer to attempt edge jointing. It isn't stable and you run the risk of snipe. Where I buy my wood, I buy it S3S. That way, I get a freshly jointed edge that many times is good enough for an edge to edge joint. If it isn't, I clean it up a bit with a hand plane and a shooting board. Forgot to mention that I have one of those electric hand planes - a Craftsman. In my experience it isn't particularly suited for preparing a fine edge joint for gluing due to limited size of sole plate. When I changed my mind in mid construction on a guitar body once and decided I wanted a thinner overall body, I used it to hog off some surface wood to get it close to final thickness and then did final thicknessing with my hand planes. I think it works well for shaving down the bottom of a door to improve the fit, but not really for preparing edges for tight fits. Just MHO.

Craig, thanks. I'm going to use that technique this weekend. By the way, I did my final routing with a 1/32" bit, but my skill level is basic thus some small gaps. Good news is that the second fretboard went much faster and with a better outcome than the first.

Craig, in your technique, are you saying you fill the gap with ebony dust by itself, then apply some CA that will wick itself down into the gap? If so, I'll try that. When I have used some thin black CA before, I mixed it with ebony dust then attempted to squeegee it into the gap. That worked but was difficult because the CA's set time wasn't long and it gummed up with the dust. Do you use that technique with other wood types as well? Thanks.

I was recently filling some small gaps after gluing in block inlays into an ebony fretboard. This time, I used a black gap-filling CA called Loctite 410 I got from Grizzly. I used it both by itself (worked ok but seemed to take multiple passes to get the gap filled, but very black when done) and with some ebony dust (worked ok but somewhat more difficult as the CA wanted to gum up quickly). Got me to thinking. What's your favorite recipe for filling gaps in ebony?

Albertop, congratulations. That is a beautiful guitar. Will you say a little more about how you finished the guitar i.e. grain filling, sealer, color, clear, etc?

Setch, thanks. I recall that photo from your LP tutorial. I wondered at the time why the tape versus other methods of marking out inlay. I guess I didn't realize, or forgot from your tut, that the board was radiused.

Guitarmaestro raised the issue of marking out a large piece, such as a block inlay, on a pre-radiused fretboard. For those of you who are used to working on pre-radiused boards, how do you go about accurately marking out a relatively simple but large shape on a radiused fretboard?

Sparky, well done. Congratulations.

Another vote for double stick carpet tape. You can get it at lots of places (hardware store, home center, carpet store) and its relatively cheap.

I also used Graph Tech trees and nut on my Tele style guitar. Good stuff. The headstock on my Tele style is similar to a Tele in that it has 6 in line tuning machines. I placed the string trees roughly halfway between the nut and the farthest tuning machine for the strings that each tree holds. Each tree holds down two strings. That seems to be a good balance between holding the string down on the nut and allowing the string to move as needed to avoid excessive tuning problems. Hope this makes sense.

AlGeeEater, funny how it works. When I posted, your post wasn't visible. Guess we posted nearly at the same time. In any case, Eclipse666 asked why they were needed, which is what I tried to answer. You helpfully provided a source for the trees.

Guitar strings need some downward pressure over the nut to aid string tension, tuning, etc. On some guitars, that pressure is achieved with an angled headstock. On other guitars, such as those with "flat" or "parallel" heads e.g. Fender, that pressure is achieved with string trees. Depending on your design, the tuning machines closest to the nut usually have sufficient pressure, but trees are needed for the remaining strings, usually the "high 4" strings. There are several designs for string trees, so look around on guitar supplier sites and find something that fits your design.

I'm not sure this will help you but here it is. I have a set of plans for a late 50s LP Custom that I got from Stewmac. The thickness of the neck tenon is 1 11/32". With a set neck into an angled top and an angled neck pocket to match, that thickness would correspond to the depth of the neck pocket. Hope this is what you need.