verhoevenc

PS: Then why not list some of these distributors on the site's "Suppliers" List? ALL the ones on it either sell that THIN THIN THIN veneer stuff or stone, I couldn't for the LIFE of me find buyable REAL or LAMINATED blanks. The closest I got was that top-strat stuff which was microveneer with a substrate backing. You're frustrated? I've spent HOURS trying to find what I need and people are sending me in circles and telling me RANDOM stuff. Chris (PS: I use caps to highlight words, not to convey yelling)

I don't find them usually because the forum search engine, if you put in more than one word it only finds results where those two words are NEXT to each other. Therefore if I wanted to find out about working stone, it'd only find subjects that have "working stone" right next to each other, so you lose alot of search flexebility. Secondly, I AM being led around, I'm gunna leave names out of this, but this is the response I got, and the reason I said what I did: Email Quote: "Chris, The reason that there is no way to buy nature shell blanks directly off our website is because these products (Solid Blanks) can only, by Federal law, be sold to OSHA certified inlay shops (due to the danger of the dust produced during processing). Currently we don't see "Chris Verhoeven" on OSHA list of approved buyers and would not be able to sell you blanks until you were approved. Once you provide us with a OSHA Nacre/Asbestos Certification Number we will be able to get you access to these material directly online. I'm an old school inlay artist too who likes real blanks and I'm sure you will find some guys, overseas that will sell you blanks all day long. InlayUSA is too high profile with OSHA and we are being court ordered to provide them with a complete list of all solid Shell "blank" buyers ever quarter! We also have to account for the "Blanks" like it was morphine! If you are new to inlaying or haven't done it a lot you might not realize just how dangerous the shell (nacre) dust really is. It products a similar form of cancer that asbestos produces. It takes 20 or more years for it to show up and is almost always fatal if not discovered early. If you have been exposed to any nacre dust go get a chest x-ray right away. Do not tell your doctor about shell dust unless you have a positive x-ray because he is required to notify OSHA (who tears you shop/home apart looking for the dust.) Seriously, guys in moon suits show up at you shop or home and you get the bill! The million dollar bill! I use the veneers now, not only is it ten times cheaper then blanks without any lose of the shell natural beauty but it 10 times safer to work with and doesn't require an OSHA license! I would like to send you some samples of the shell laminates that we stock. Please email us with your mailing address and we will get some sample out to you. Thank you for your interest in our products and please email anytime with your questions." Now can some PLEASE tell me what is going on!?!?! Chris

Hahahaha, no, I figured out what he was talking about. He can't sell me FULL UNLAMINATED SHELL BLANKS, without some federal liscence on my part. HOWEVER, he can sell me laminated shell blanks, I was just TOTALLY lost. So yeah, I can get laminated shell blanks, which is all I need. I think inlayusa.com calls their laminates "top-strat", and then they have little veneers (way too thin for me) called like microveneer or something. But yeah... how dangerous is the laminated stuff? Even if I'm just cutting it with a knife to inlay? Do I really need a resperator? Where do I get one? How much? And I take it I shouldn't do this inside in my bedroom....? Chris

I was talking with a guy from Inlay USA and he said they won't sell you shell blanks because they're hazardous and cause cancer and that the FEDs monitor that STUFF like crack cocaine! Chris PS: But good to know stone is no harder to work with I'm hopefully going to be doing my first inlay soon. Language Warning

I was wondering a couple things about all this "recon stone" stuff being used since you can't really use real shell blanks and are forced to use that thin veneer shell alot. My question was, if you're inlaying this stone material, and it's not level with your fingerboard... wil STONE sand down flush? IE: are the inlaying techniques the same for the stone as they are with shell, etc.? Chris

Recon stone? I'm lost, I read your posts on that thread and couldn't find where you got the inlay material and what you used? Did I miss something? Chris

How come I can only find these REALLY thin veneer things like at the maui site? They've got all the colors that I would ever want, but they're all .15mm thick?! You don't even have to inlay something that thin! Where can I get all these sweet colors but with actual inlay materials? Chris

Yeah, I'll agree that a fixed base is better than a plunge base for a dremel (ie: stewmac over the dremel one I bought). HOWEVER if you read up on the dremel one I got, it may be a plunge base, HOWEVER you can lock it in two different plundge depths. SO I can just plunge down and lock it before I even start cutting, and tada, fixed base. Chris

Hahahaha, no I didn't get an expensive plane because I've never used one yet, I got that one to try it out,s ee what I do and don't like about it, and hten go up from there. And plus, I don't plan to use it that much on this guitar anyways. My spruce top is on 3/16" thick, so the most carving I'm gunna be doing is a mere 1/16". Chris

Have ya'll ever seen these: This where you found your inspiration Drak? And by the way, if you're thinking of sweet "gear" for you tele, think of this for your pickguard: Hand-Tooled LEATHER Tele Pickguards Chris

Yeah, I ended up getting hte reconditioned router, got the dremel from the factory direct site, and got a MUCH better base for it than stewmac from the factory site too for $24! Sorry all you guys that don't think I need a router, i SURELY do, I've decided after building my last guitar with table saws and band saws and all that stuff that I'm going the router+template way now. Here's what I got in the end, after losing some stuff... adding some stuff... finding better prices: Stewmac.com Inlay Bits: $9.71 Template: $5.55 Binding Bits: $14.98 Graphtech 1 13/16 Nut: $6.53 Frets: $18.36 Fretboard: $18.36 Trussrod 18": $15.09 Binding: $4.75 Scrapers: $5.98 Purfling: $4.75 Total: $115.31 www.maui.net: Sample Pack: $10 Dremeltools.com- Dremel: $69.95 Dremel Base: $24.79 Collet Set: $5.70 (so I could get free shipping, cause if not shipping would have been more than $5.70) Total: $100.44 Amazon- Router: $139.15 Table: $62.95 Digital Calipers: $26.99 Small Plane: $7.95 Clamps: $49.94 Total: $321.99 Router Bits.com- Bit 3021: $27.20 Total: $32.19 Total: $579.93 And that's WITH shipping, the other quotes weren't. So I think getting MORE for about $200 under my previous quota isn't half bad Chris

This was my quota: Router: $209.99 Bits: Set $48.40 Template: $5.55 Table: $62.95 Dremel: $104.39 Dremel Base: $50.95 Dremel Edger: $28.25 Binding Bits: $18.89 Inlay Bits: $16.95 + $15.95 Graphtech 1 13/16 Nut: $4.92 Frets: $3.11 x3 Inlay: $39.96 Fretboard: $18.36 Trussrod 18": $15.09 Binding: $4.90 Scrapers: $5.98 Digital Calipers: $50.98 Routerbits.com Bit 3021: $27.20 Total: 738.99

I'm SLIGHTLY confused as to what this is... got a link to this particular masterpiece for further exploration? Chris

So yeah... finally got into the woodshop at my university after much toil and trouble drawing out SEVERAL plans to prove compitency, etc. and that I wasn't just messing around in there. So yeah, I get into the shop... they don't have the MAIN tool I was planning to use. No router table... no bearing bits... they claim no bits to go 1 9/16" deep (the depth of the hollow of my body) even with multiple passes! Oh yeah, and no dremel, nothing like it. So yeah... back to square one: finding somewhere to build. I guess I'll just end up buying a router (Bosch from amazon) and a Grizzly H3114 table for it, plus a stewmac dremel and then all the router bits and do-hickeys so that I can actually build this thing. Cause I mean it's not like I can turn back now, I've got all the wood, bridge, nut, etc. It's crazy though, for the router, table, dremel, bits, and other pieces I need to make this guitar happen I'm adding another $700 on top of the wood I already bought, and the baby grand bridge (which is REALLY expensive too). So yeah, templates will be built at school... everything else will be done at home outside in my yard (house isn't big enough for a shop room... and since it's a bad neighbourhood I'll have to bring the stuff in and out of the house every time i use it ) with my dremel and router. Wish me luck Boys, Chris

One of the things that really got me when going around his site, that I SURELY plan to do at some point, is how easy pulfering is (looks at least). I guess I'm just dense, but until I read a build documentary on his site, I would have thought to pulfer, you'd route just like binding, and then BIND with abalon and hten bind AGAIN over that with a similar wood. But the way he does it... obviously makes my pre-conceptions VERY foolish! All you gotta do is use that stewmac dremel base with the edge thing! Genious! Also, one of my main things I look at on guitars (semi-hollow and hollow atleast) is the sound hole. And he has some BEAUTIFUL leaf and shark, etc. shaped holes which I fell in love iwth! Chris

OK, I'm just putting this out there as a service to anyone else up to this day that has never seen these guitars for one reason or another. go see www.thornguitargallery.com I just did for the first time and I honestly s$*t my pants! The most most outrageously glamourous guitars I've ever seen, beauty and elegance unmatched! These things are so outragiously elegant they balong in the Baroque era! Chris PS: After being on this site a long time I've found SO many great builders like Thorn and Myka and Draks... how come none are even mentioned on Ed Roman's "World's Best Guitars" site? Maybe that should tell him something about his choice in "the best guitars" which include his own POS's and not these guys'. That's right ED, take you down a notch.

No, the calculator just assumes however high you write your bridge as, in my case .5" But screw it, I've simply just totally re-designed my guitar around these figures. It's much easier to conform then figure out what I did wrong in my previous design. Chris

OK, I just KINDA figured it out... I was measuring the angle that the STRINGS were making downward towards the nut.... HOWEVER, this ISN"T the same as the neck's angle because of the fact the neck starts out with a string action of 1/16" at the nut, and becomes 1/8" at the 22nd fret. THEREFORE the angles aren't the same. But this arises a new problem.... the fretboard, as you go along the incline is getting FARTHER away from the strings... and that would mean that the angle the fretboard is at is LESS than the angle the strings is at though.... IE: More Problems!

Ok, i JUST did it again, and if you make a right triangle out of it using the top of the bridge, a line parallel to the body at the hieght of the bridge all the way out to the nut, and then a line from the nut to this parallel line you get: hypotenus (strings; ie: from bridge to nut line) 25", then the line from the nut to the line parallel to the body starting at the bridge's hieght is 13/32. If you use sin to find the angle (the one between the bridge hieght parallel line and the line from bridge to nut) you get that angle to be .93 degrees. WAY different from what the angle calculator link says to do. With my angle, i can measure (cause it's all to scale) that string hieght at the nut is 1/16", and string hight at the 22nd fret (last fret) is 1/8". (And remember I can always RAISE the bridge...) I'm SO confused?!?!?!!? Chris

Ok, then something is not right, cause I drew it out and got an angle where if the bridge is at it's LOWEST hieght, the action is too low (cause I figure I can always raise the bridge.) And drew it out and everything, and it's not too low as to not be playable. I used triangles to figure everything out and it came out to having a neck degree/angle of 1. However, this calculator says I should have something like 1.68 degrees? So who do I believe? I physical drawing I have in front of me, or the calculator? Chris PS: The calculator says that if I raise my bridege I need to angle it MORE, whereas in MINE I'm gunna have to slightly raise it to REACH the 1 degree angle properly?!

oh poop, I forgot scale length lol, sorry. Scale length is 25", it connects to the upper bout at the 15th fret, and the lower cut-away bout at the 20th fret (single cut body style). Chris

Ok, I drew everything out and I'm wondering if this sounds right to anyone? The bridge rises a total of .5" above the body (but can be raised), the heel of the neck has a total thickness of 1 3/8", 1/4" of which rises above the body at the end of the fingerboard. It's set a total of 5.5" into the body. At the other end of the neck (the nut side) the neck is 13/16" thick, 3/16" of which is the fingerboard's wood, and then the nut rises an additional 1/16" above the fingerboard. With this I've found that the angle of the neck pocket should be 1 degree... giving the strings a rise of 1/8" at the 12th fret (with the bridge in the lowest hieght, but like said before, it can be raised). For those who wanna know, the bridge is a Hipshot Baby Grand. Anybody see anything wrong with ANY of that information? (this is my first time angling a neck, my last guitar was a neck-thru with no angled neck, and the bridge was just recessed). Thanks in advance, Chris

Yeah, UMiami has one, and I'm attempting to get into it to use it, but it's in the Engineering school, and you have to get STRICT permission to use it if you're not one. So I'm making my building a guitar a "project of cost analysis and business" lol. HOWEVER it takes awhile (in the process now), and also somehow they set the place on fire.... so it's been down for some time now and I don't know when I'll get in lol. Chris

Yeah, as do I, but I was still wondering lol

Hey, I was wondering if there were any builders in the South Florida, especially Miami area. Just interested in talking, possibly watching some building, etc. Cause I'm about to start my second guitar (first one turned out OK.....) and would like some first hand experiance before I delve into this newer harder project. Chris