Mr_Buttman

I'd like to mention that you route too deep wire channel. It's like cutting the body in two separate parts. I think 0.5 cm deep channel will be enough. ( i mean the last pictures)

The body after staining is so cool!

Want to see it with lacquer coats.

It looks like Cadillac, awesome work!

P.S.

I think the jack plate(or it's position) doesn't fit this guitar .

Thanks for the reply !!!

Tell me about the sound of a wenge neck... How does it compare to the basic woods like maple, mahogany or rosewood ??

It has wider frequency range then mahogany and rosewood - you'll get good lows and very good mid's.

If you add bright sounding wood you will get "rich tone" as i name this. That's why i'm using padauk and ebony here.

Some people say that if you combine different sounding wood in the neck it won't sound as a cross between those woods.

But have an opposite opinion.

I've tapped the wenge and padauk billets and the glued neck really have mixed tone.

That looks very clean, congrats !!!

BTW, a couple of questions:

What are the dotted lines on the sides of the body ??

i have a wenge neck blank that I haven't used yet. Did you find it too hard to carve ??

Thanks!

It's just the line which shows me the center of the body so i can mark carving lines relative to it.

Wenge is hard to carve but the worst is that wenge have tendency to chip away so you have to be carefull.

But anyway i'll use it again because it have very rich look and sound.

Thank you

I really like your style- the guitars are very "rich looking" and your work is clear!

Looking forward this build.

Body carving (almost finished except right horn area):

Neck carving finished:

Very nice bass. Go GOTM!

The padauk wings are awesome!

Can't wait this finished! (But as for me, i'd put transparent hi gloss lacquer finish here)

My friend accidentally bought X2N-B bass humbucker instead of X2N F-spaced for his guitar.

So it's like new - the pickup was nearly 2 hours in his guitar. It's high output pickup, the blades are 5.5 cm, fits standard humbucker cavity. Wire length is 17 cm

Price is 80$+shipping. I can ship buy standard mail or ems, dhl. Just send me PM and i'll calculate the cost.

I can accept western union payment. Sorry, can't accept paypal in russia.

I have a question for ya. What are you using in the first pic? It looks like maybe a pin router, but I can't tell what the bit is.

The Rhino Beetle inlay is AWESOME!!!!! It's lookin' really good.

Thanks

It's a pin router with wide bit for wood leveling

I will going down to pick up my wood in a couple of weeks. What i have been trying to find is neck through builds and the search isnt working very well for me. I more i am thinking about what i want to do the more i am confussing myself about how to build it.

How do you guys do exotic topped guitars to where the neck doesnt show through on the front and only on the back? Cause if you glue the sides on the neck then when u glue the top on it will all sit higher then neck if that makes since at all. I can't seem to figure this out. Any and all help is appreciated

There is absolutely no problem here - just add the top thickness in this place (here). In other words you have to make the "body part" of the neck thinner (and don't forget about the angle between fingerboad surface and body surface, it differs depending on bridge type).

Neck carving process:

Also we decieded to make bubinga truss rod cover with rhino bug inlayed.

The mockup:

And the cutted abalone (the ruler unit is in cm)

Nice build, i like your routing at the back of the body.

Prostheta

Actually, i haven't made these rasps - friend gave them to me and i don't know whose work it is. I use them because they leave less scratches on the wood so i don't have to sand a lot... Of course it's possible to do this job with standard rasp...

Thx Kenny and DrkIncGuitars for your comments.

I think wenge on a guitar is the bomb

Wenge is very nice wood but it's so hard to work with it...

Prostheta, thanks for your comment!

Really, the body on photo looks thicker then in reality - it's 44mm (1.7").

I use Stanley Spokeshave and two handmade files (don't know if there is english equivalent for these tools names) for beveling/contouring:

Update:

Thanks Drak and Wez for your comments.

I agree, the natural wood was awesome but as you said it's nice with purple too. And i didn't want to change my original idea.

The back here will be transparent-purple too but the back of the neck will have natural wood color, hope this combination will be nice.

By the way, i'm building x-plorer now and the body wood is absolutely the same as in this project. (the top is from the same board).

I thought about the finish and i don't know what to do with side of the body - as you can see the "top" is very thick and even if i make tall binding i'll have combination of different wood...

So if i leave whole guitar natural it won't be nice. Any suggestions what to do with the side of the body?

I always slot and taper fingerboard before gluing. And then i clamp it to untapered neck blank. After this i can use tapered fingerboard as tempate to cut the neck blank to shape using pin router or table router.

Very nice!

I always use toothpicks during clamping, it's very simple.

But there are a lot of methods, for example like John said.

Awesome bass! I like this calm but interesting design. And the wood choice mathes the design very well.

Can you say why have you chosen these pickups?