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Get a heat bending blanket like that used for side bending. I've done up to about 3/16" with that just fine. Would imagine with a little extra work it'd do 1/4" too. Chris

This month I’m submitting my entry the “Kamikaze Barracuda BSB.” I had a new student starting awhile back and I wanted to do it a little different this time around so I decided to start a build to work along side him with. Naturally I chose something simple so I wasn’t over-complicating my life as I had a batch of instruments going myself as well. Background: In keeping with the theme of “simple” i thought of the Kamikaze series. Besides their paint jobs they were pretty dumbed down guitars. Also, someone gave me an EMG-81 for free so I figured why not build a single-pickup, shred guitar? For the finish I took inspiration from one of my favorite finishes of all time, the so called “burnt stained blue’ of the JEM7BSB which ironically was not actually blue, but a stain called “swamp green.” There were a couple of things wrong with the BSB finishes though. They were an oiled finish over a stained body. This meant that over the years (especially on high-wear areas like the neck) the stain would get rubbed away and fade. Also, the bodies were made of basswood and therefore highly prone to scratches, dings, and dents being weak wood under a weak finish. Sadly, this has left many a BSB scarcely played as they’re a bit of a collector’s item and people didn’t want them to deteriorate. Lastly, the burnt part of the BSB literally came from the process of burning the wood to give it its signature look. With all this in mind I wanted to do an homage to the instrument, but not in a way that encouraged people not to play it. Therefore, I went with a rosewood neck instead of the stained maple one. This got rid of the most-rubbed-off-stain area issue. I wanted to keep true to the basswood body though, so I tackled this by not only burning, but downright scorching some areas. This, coupled with a piece of basswood that I specifically left (although solidified) some end checks in, I purposefully created a body that was already damaged and therefore the player shouldn’t have fear of future damage. Lastly, since this wasn’t a serious build for me, but a follow-along with a student I wanted to get some experimentation out of this. So I tried a couple of news things: - Persimmon fretboard and top (the only true ebony to grow in North America). Side note: it turned out to be an absolutely wonderful wood to work with, great character, and a good fretboard wood being both hard as well as extremely stable I’ve found. - Glow in the dark face and side dots, as well as my logo - Plastic binding Specs: Body- Basswood with Persimmon top Bound in Ivoroid “Burst Stained Blue” tru-oil finish Neck- 25.5” scale 16” radius Persimmon fretboard Glow in the dark “teal recon stone looking” side and face dots, and logo. You can see my tutorial on those in the video at the end. Persimmon head plate, no truss rod cover East Indian Rosewood bolt on neck Electronics- Single EMG-81 in the bridge Volume and tone controls Blue LED “power” button: This literally controls the battery. EMGs will work as a quiet passive pickup, so it is not a kill switch. This, hopefully, negates the heartache of wasting an entire 9v battery simply because you forgot to unplug your cable after use (in EMG circuits the sleeve of a stereo jack is used to turn on/off the battery). Hardware- Original Floyd Rose Hipshot open back locking tuners Schaller style blue strap locks Chris Tutorial Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WOEj6eLREQ&list=UUR3_-A0lKRMIhHL0aNlu0zw

But the massive amount of switches and chrome is half the fun!? Looks great though so far! Chris

With a little jigging you can even use a tablesaw (I know off the cuff you imagine something crazy dangerous but I promise there's a safe way!) I quite enjoyed the challenge of the hand tools though. Chris

Meh. Just went ahead and did it by hand. Fun little exercise in hand tools: Chris

Yeah. That's what I was saying in my post MAY work. I have a similar jig but the donut just doesn't quite register the height properly in that are. I'm with you in thinking the likely thing is to set it extra deep (cut it a little shallow) and finish off with hand tools.

Thought about those too... sadly, they won't work either. If you have an arm bevel, then by definition the sides in that area are not perpendicular to the bevel, they're perpendicular to the back. Which means they're obtuse to the bevel's top. This means when the bearing follows the side there it's following too far out. So for instance instead of getting a say, .070" thick binding ledge, you'd get much less. The trick is to somehow keep the bearing parallel with the sides (which is what my router jig does) but while also getting it down to the right depth! My latest idea is to use that jig, but to then keep the bit out really far. My issue right now is it's not cutting deep enough with that method... so why not set it super deep to make it cut CLOSE to what I need, the finish up with a chisel/gramel? Chris

I'm working on an instrument right now where I carved the arm bevel, bent a top over it, and would now like to bind the instrument in some plastic binding. The only issue? Cutting the binding channel on the bevel. Obviously the router table is out for that section... And the router jig used for binding stuff like acoustics isn't working either as the angle on the arm bevel is greater than the angle on the donut that sits on the top. So, how would you guys go about cutting this channel as I'd LIKE to avoid doing the old fashion gramel technique and chisels. Chris

Oh, for those curious that's a, from left to right, quilted maple and bamboo ply with wenge FB and bamboo neck. Then sinker redwood over Spanish cedar with madrose neck and FB. Alder with amazon RW FB and maple neck. And finally swamp ash thinline with Mac ebony FB and curly maple neck. Chris

So apparently I'm HORRIBLE at keeping this updated... So yeah absolutely everything is in finishing... So I've started some new builds. And what I mean by "in finishing" is "I can get about 1 coat on each guitar a week because the humidity here is the worst possible for spraying nitro!!!!!" So with that in mind (and slowing me down) I've started a new batch: I like it when things start to look like guitars! Chris

You're a nutter... and I mean that in the most wonderful of ways that leads to extremely cool guitars! Can't wait for this. One thing I'd wish you'd try though is bending the tops over the arm contours. I've never been a fan of arm contours that carve through the top wood. Got a bending blanket? It's pretty easy. Chris

Look into something called Drupal. Spend the $50 for a month on Drupalize.me and ingest as much video-info as you can in that month. Websites will become a decent bit easier then IMO. Or if you want even easier, but less customizable... just play with Wordpress. Both these options are cheap too. Chris

Sand to 320 before refinish. You'll be fine. Also, given it's an Epi it's likely top top is a veneer. So try and sand minimally. I'd suggest chemical stripping, not sanding the finish off. Try citri-strip. Non-toxic, works on most finishes. Chris

Bump. Still got some! Chris

Dang you and your easy access to masur birch!!!! Gorgeous! Chris

Wait wait wait, what?! Tutorial on this pickup molding please! Chris

Nice!!!! That's dedication! Chris

Pretty sure THAT GUITAR was built by a member of our's recently. Chris

No one ever said it'd sound good Chris

You can phase a humbucker because it IS two sources. Two coils. You're stuck with the magnetic direction of each pickup, but by all means you're welcome to change the coil direction in one. Phase is a combination of polarity and wind direction. In phase is where both are opposing: ie: a humbucker where one coil is north, one is south, one wraps left, one wraps right. In phase. Change just one thing, say, coil direction in one coil, and you're out of phase. Which reminds me, he could also do series out of phase or parallel out of phase. Chris

You've really only got a couple of options no matter what: 1- Humbucker in series (standard) 2- Kill switch position 3- North coil 4- South coil 5- Humbucker in parallel 6- Humbucker out of phase Pick 3. Chris

See how right between the two clamp spots you have zero squeeze out, and in other places, a good amount. Time to invest in some long throat cam clamps Chris

I cannot say this with enough gumption: this video is the only video you need on how to bend sides using a bender. I follow this technique (almost) to a T and have only ever cracked one side for a build... on my second acoustic and it was padauk... and even then it was so small it disappeared in a quick repair. Mind you, look at how tight some of my bends are. This way just works, plain and simple. Chris PS: The reason I say "almost" to a T is because I don't bother with the timer, thermometer (neither does he now actually hahahaha). I just turn it to max, wait til I see a good amount of stem, that's when I crack down, not based on some temp. Once cracked I'll switch to variable heat and just time using my phone instead of an on/off timer like the video.

This is right up my alley! Love the neck joint. The visible chambers are rockin'! Love just the "I'm doing whatever the **** I want" attitude of it. Chris

Holy nice! Sorry, I didn't look at the link thinking "yeah... Australia is a bit far..." That said, those templates are frickin' amazing! Better than any floyd templates I've seen up for sale. I change my mind, I will 100% happily pay for shipping from Oz if the offer is still valid! Chris PS: I already bug Doug for too many things, I have to spread around the usury requests hahaha.