Myka Guitars

Now that is a piece of burl! Will that be for the top or the body or both? Whichever you choose that wood will make a stunning guitar. I see them too.

I use metal templates sometimes. They work great because they are so stable. Go with the method that krazyderek mentions and you should be fine. It's how I usually use templates with the router table. It's my main tool. As a side note, you can route aluminum without a problem but don't take more than 1/16" on a hand operated router table and try not to route more than 1/4" thick almunimum. Cut the aluminum with a bandsaw very close to the shape first before routing it with a template and router table. I mention this because I have made aluminum templates out of my wood or MDF templates before by routing the aluminum to shape with the router. I did this because I use them all the time adn wanted to make them out of something more durable.

Yes, definitely a set neck. I have made a pretty good jig for this. I will post pics of the whole process when I get there. The large neck block area will also hold the neck pickup. I plan to get this done by the end of May if all goes well. I do tend to go through electrics quickly. After a few years of making jigs it goes pretty fast. I also have a guitar show to go to June 2nd so there is the pressure of a deadline driving me.

What type of wood is it? Is it sealed yet? You could dye the wood with wood dyes. I recently did a blue burst guitar that has the quality you are looking for. If you look at it stright on it looks blue but from across the room it looks quite black. If you go with the dye apply a couple coats blue, then a couple coats black with the last coat blue. It will do what you need. I used maple. Any wood should work. I have done the same thing with limba and mahgany with good results.

OK, I made progress today carving the top. After the wood was removed with the forstner bit I proceeded to carve the rest out by hand. I use archtop guitar planes available from LMI (D'Angelico Planes). They are spendy but you only need to buy them once. They will last your carrer, easily. I have also had success with making wooden round bottom planes. The bronze ones have weight to them and that makes a huge difference. Anyway, after carving the interior of the top plate it was sanded using an orbital sander and 80 grit paper. Spruce sands fast so I set the speed to the slowest setting. Here are is a pic: Final shaping and finessing will be done to the inside tomorrow. I still have to decide on what shape to make the f-holes. Just to let people know what I am using in terms of tools. For power tools I have a bansaw, drum sander, a bench top drill press, a 10" benchtop bandsaw for small work, an orbital sander, a drill, router, and a dremel. I also have the requisite assortment of chisels, handplanes, scrapers, and measuring devices (used mostly for straightedges). The pantagraph router I use is homemade from old parts found on eBay. The majority of the work for electrics is done with the router table and templates. My shop is pretty low tech. You can do a lot with a little.

More progress last night. I went ahead and did the carving. I don't have pictures of the first step on this one but I rough carved the top with a pantograph router. Here is a pic of another guitar so you can get the idea: I then finish carve it by hand. The spruce goes pretty quickly. This one will have a tall arch of about 3/4" (total thickness of top: 1"). Once I have the shape pretty close I sand it smooth with an orbital. Here are the results: To rough carve out the inside I used a forstner bit set to stop at 1/2" thickness. I have a block under the wood that supports the piece I am drilling in a small area to accommodate the arch. Be sure to set the depth so it cannot drill through. The 1/2" will give me some extra material for doing the final carving and tuning of the plate. Here is the setup: The next step is to do the inside shaping with carving planes to get the correct shape. If all goes as planned I will have some more time today to work on this. Enjoy~

Drak, that sounds like an awesome guitar. Curly redwood is such a beautiful wood. And the tone it will have should be sweet. What will the rest of the body be?

Right on stringkilla! Let us know how it turns out. ~David

I finally started on a semi-hollowbody electric guitar. I decided to post the progress as I go for anyone interested in the process. This is a project for myself so I am not completely finished yet with the design. So far I have a nice piece of resonant lacewood for the body and some quartersawn Sitka Spruce for the top. It will be a carved top with bracing. It will also have at least one humbucker and a piezo setup in the bridge. Here is the body wood: And the top: Here is the top cut to shape but not carved yet: The way I did the body carving was a little wierd. I wish I had an overhead router but I had to use a router table with a bearing bit. The trouble was that I had to go by feel the whole way since the routing was happening on the bottom of the piece of wood. Here is a pic: The template also served to route the outside profile: I was thinking about an ebony fingerboard with an ebony tailpiece. There will be a tune-o-matic adjustable bridge. Classic jazzer. The neck is up in the air. The body is very light so far and I don't want the guitar to be neck heavy. I have a nice piece of honduran mahogany but I also have some lightweight Spanish cedar (cedro). That's it for now. I'll post more as I make progress.

Try these: eyelets They were suggested to me by another luthier who uses them. Schecter, Warrior, and GMP have all used these at one time or another. ~David

Cool, debates can be fun! Yeah the price of admission for veneer is pretty steep if you do not have access to any of the machinery. Bending sides is a skill that you must learn for acoustic instruments at some point anyway. But if you went with 2 layers of wood for the sides they would be easier to bend and easier to laminate than very thin veneer. This is how the acoustic builders that I mentioned are doing it. I don't think any of them were using off the shelf veneer (1/42"). Isn't Fred Carlson pretty amazing?!? Make sure you look at the construction details of his Oracle harp guitar. He is a very unique builder. I just started a semi-hollow electric very similar to the tele in construction. The only difference is that the top will be sitka spruce carved inside and out and the back has been retained. It will feature a tailpiece like an archtop. Here is a pic:

I was simply answering the question as it was stated. The questions starts out with "What if..." and asks for some experienced advice. I gave my thoughts based on my actual experience. Laminating sides may seem ridiculous but people are doing it and with great sucess. Whether or not it is an option for stringkilla is a decision they will have to make. Had the question been asked I would totally agree that the easiest way to make bent sides is by bending solid wood. He wasn't asking if I thought lamiated sides was a good idea he was asking if it would work. I will never hesitate to discuss all options available with a first time builder regardless of my preferences. This is why they are here asking for experience. I have no problem with differing opinions. In fact that is the best part about this forum. You can get a lot of exposure to new ideas that are all over the board. I do have a problem with misinformation. Veneer sides will not fall apart if done well and the effect is merely tone altering. Tone is subjective. Whatever the skill level of the builder if they want to learn how to build archtops then they have to jump in. A solid body guitar and an archtop guitar are such totally different instruments. Building solidbodies cannot answer most questions about archtops. I would never discourage anyone from building an archtop guitar in whatever way they are comfortable with. You can't gain experience except by experimenting. Take a look at Fred Carlson's work (Beyond The Trees) and see what happens when tradition is tossed out the window. He actually laminates his braces (for strength and ridgidity).

Some people on MIMF have used the piezo elements from Radio Shack piezo tweeters or buzzers. Remove the piezoi dics from the speaker and attach it to your bridge somehow. I haven't tried it but I think I will. It sounds simple and pretty intriguing.

Drak, I have to disagree with you on this one. There are many fine builders out there (Fleishman, Klein, etc) that have used the technique of laminated sides for flat top acousic guitars. When I took an acoustic guitar building class a couple years ago I was able to inspect a guitar body made this way. It was very strong and would hardly flex when you tried to bend it. Laminating veneer for sides would effectively give you plywood which, considering the multiple fibers directions, is very much stronger than solid wood. It is also stiffer and more dimensionally stable. Usually plywood is made of perpendicular grain direction each ply but same direction plies would still be strong. It is the same idea as when you laminate a neck together. It becomes more stable and strong. The lamiated sides that I have seen are usually 2 ply. This makes the wood very easy to bend and you still get the benefits of the plywood effect. When used for acoustic guitars it is usually an attempt to make the sides stiffer, stronger, and thus more tonally transparent (higher velocity of sound through the material), letting the top do the work of tone shaping. It is one theory on how to build acoustic guitars. Whether it works or not the sides are most defintely stronger and stiffer than solid wood sides. If you can go with a vacuum bag system, don't use too much glue and you should have excellent results. Also be sure to laminate enough material to give you approximately the same thickness as the solid wood sides. If you do this you will have 5-7 plies. That would not fall apart under the strian of the strings.

7 and 8 string acoustic guitars are pretty common among custom builders. Archtop builders like Benedetto have been doing them for years. Michael Greenfield just made a sweet eight string, fanned fret, nylon string acoustic for Charlie Hunter. Heatley Guitars also does some awesome hollowbody 7 strings. Custom builders are doing everything you can imagine.

If you are doing a dovetail my rule of thumb is to make the block twice as thick as the dovetailed tenon. This way you will have plenty of support for the joint. If you are going to use a bolt on system I have had success with as little as 3/4" thick. 1-7/8" should be plenty thick for either method. The width of 3" is fine. The height is dependant on the depth of the body you are designing.

I appreciate all the support from all of you. Thanx! I had to vote for the HiTone surfer guitar on this one. I didn't think I should vote for myself. The bigsby trem with the reddish burst really set it off. Cool guitar.

Sweet guitar! Nice work. I think a burst on the headstock would look pretty good if it matched the body. Are you going to stain the purfling or will you mask that to keep it white? Nice details on this guitar.

What I actually do is buy these guitars and photograph the deconstruction of them step by step. Then I simply show the pictures in reverse order on my website to show how I *built* it! How did they catch on to me so quickly anyway?

Awesome work Hyunsu! The guitars are great and your wood is excellent. Thanks so much for all the pictures, it is nice to see other ways of doing things. I love your 4th guitar!

Great idea! Sanding it would work great. I may try that too now that you found a solution. I was going to do a faux binding but wood binding with some purfling would be sweet. Even if it takes a little longer it is always worth going all the way with a project. Thanks for the sanding bit idea!

That's true. Real wood is definitely warmer and would be a good addition to the aluminum tone. A nice piece of lightweight mahogany with a rosewood board is always a good choice, and cheaper!

When I first saw this I thought immediately of something more industrial, to match the aluminum. Why not try a Modulus graphite neck?

Wow, that's a cool bass. Walnut is one of my favorite woods. The contrasting colors for the neck are beautiful. You do a nice job carving the volutes and the neck. I bet it will play smooth as silk. You also did a great job of fixing those router mishaps. You can't even see them. Thanks for the pictures, it is great to see how you progress through this project. What sort of electronics will you be using on this? What finish?

Cool, I'm glad you like the site. I add to it all the time. I just updated #009 with more pictures of the dye process. Check it out: #009 Construction Process Thanks everyone for your comments. I appreciate it!