verhoevenc

I like my tru-oil satin so I use a synthetic 0000 steel wool (grey color) and then the next step up they have (white color... don't know the grit).

Chris

Had to go with Swedishluthier's doubleneck!Challenging and artful.

Chris

My $0.02, do the fillet, then make a solid in the shape of your neck pocket. Lately, boolean2objects the neck pocket solid and the body solid.

Chris

Haha no worries. I still plan to build at least 1

Chris

At least not for anything other than bolt ons hahahah.

Chris

Also: I just replaced all the bearings on my original (aka: from when I FIRST started building hahaha) Bosch 1617. I'm still not SUPER happy with how it's performing and sounding after that though. So I may be looking for a new router soon. I'd love to hear more about the Triton!

Chris

It took me the longest time to gain an appreciation for the 6-in-line headstock style. I never used to like them until I heard someone talking (I want to say Ken Parker) and they explained that you want the longer lengths on the higher strings as it makes bending easier. This added length also pulls behind the nut when bending and thus you have more string length to stretch on.

Are there some benefits to a reverse headstock that I'm missing? You see them more on metal-style guitars... and although I'm far from a metal head I seem to remember hearing a lot of low-string HEAVY vibrato, to the point I might call it bending.

Just curious,

Chris

Also, 2D or 3D?

Chris

I dunno about next month... but I am in the middle of a batch of basses

Thanks for all the kind words guys. This guitar has been a LONG time coming! Heck, it doesn't even spot my new logo hahahaha.

Just wait til next month boys... just you wait 

Chris

Depends on what you want done? Can you be more specific?

Chris

here's what the Hipshot folks had to say:

"Our Ultralite Bass tuners will comfortably fit a 11/16" or 17.5mm spacing. The Classic style tuner will accept an even wider headstock up to a 3/4" or 19mm."

Cool cool,

Chris

Mostly the later hahaha. Well not really them putting me off, but the fact people see them as similar to my design 

It didn't stop speaking to me, and I will still likely build some over the years. I was just making a joke about the Washburns.

Chris

Hey Andy. I'm aware of what they limiting factors are and have contacted Hipshot to find out what their specs are in this area. However, regardless of limiting factors I was wondering if folks had preferences here, and why.

Chris

I don't wanna build it anymore.., 

Chris

Hey guys. I'm about to throw some back-straps on some bass headstocks and was curious what people's preferred bass headstock thicknesses were?

I've seen them all over the board on the internet, anywhere from 12mm, to 5/8, even up to 17 and 17.5mm. I personally am inclined to go thicker, thoughts?

Chris

Hahahaha, waspy.

Chris

SUPER funny... Peter's drawings were almost exactly on with mine hahaha. One had a slightly longer tail, one slightly shorter. In general his moved the neck farther out of the body too... but that could be because he assumed 25" and I had 25.5" scale.

Either way, I went with my bottom design with the slightest of tweaks and printed it out today. Slap it to some cardboard and see how it feels. I think I may be on to something here! It sits well on the knee, it balances a little back heavy (neck should fix that hahaha), but most notably the shape completely avoids any interaction with the, for lack of a better term, beast. It will be an extremely comfortable sitter guitar. As for standing... aren't all guitars comfortable standing instruments if they don't weight 400lbs?

It feels a bit like a "mini explorer" if that makes sense?

I believe I have finally gotten it "just right." The only bad part is I love the retro feel of the pickguard... but also love the almost death metal look of Peter's drawing without it. Looks like I'll have to build some twins maybe hahaha.

Best,

Chris

Raygun Experimental Labs'- Model 1 Forest

This guitar has been a lot of fun, but one that 'rested' in the shop for awhile while I made some decisions on it... so it's been a long time coming. It's a real bling project in terms of woods from the east indian rosewood neck and radial purfling to the killer quilted spalt top I got years back from old member theGarehanman as a gift.

Specs

Neck-

Wood: East Indian rosewood 2 piece

Fretboard: Faux-bound ebony 24 3/4" scale 22 fret board with 'abstract forest' inlay by RQuinn

Headstock: EIRW headplate with spalted quilted maple wings and backstrapping

Body-

Wood: Lightly figured Spanish cedar with a spalted quilted maple drop top featuring inset radial EIRW and b/w/b purfling

Size: 14" width lower bout

Hardware and Electronics-

Hardware: Gotoh box tuners and Hipshot baby grand bridge. EIRW pickup rings

Electronics: This is where this guitar really gets nuts. The Lollar Imperials run into a standard volume/tone/3-way configuration. However the volume push/pull coil taps the humbuckers while the tone push/pull activates a Scott Walker Guitars booster circuit. The chrome knob controls the boost's gain level. There is also a Scott Walker Guitars buffer circuit that drives a stereo jack effects loop. With the mini toggle in one direction the loop sound is allowed to return freely (as per a normal loop) and the arcade button acts as a global kill switch. With the mini toggle in the other direction the loop return is stopped until the arcade button is pressed. Essentially allowing the player to "tap in" the effects return signal.

Best,

Chris

The engraving will actually be fairly minimalistic. You can see it in the original sketch. It's just some curved lines on the squid's body and around the eye to give it some "roundness", as well as the whale's fin and around his eyes too.

Chris

In the end I stuck with the original plan. I'm sorry, I didn't take any progress video either... I'm just too swamped lately!

Moment of truth, what do ya'll think?

The pencil markings show where future engraving will be done after the board is bound in more ebony and radiused. As you can see from where the "tabs" I've left are, that once those are removed any messiness at the edges will be chopped off and end flush with the binding.
Sorry about the not-so-pink look of the squid's tail... it was really hard to photograph this from an angle that didn't have something flashing light at you haha.

For those interested the materials are as follows from first appearance left to right: Ivory MOP, pink MOP, curly purpleheart, black MOP, white MOP. Also, the whale's eye is white powder and black plastic... did I mention the white powder glows blue in the dark?

Chris

The latter seems more Cthulhu-esque IMO.

Chris

Happy to share the finished product. The reason for my "nokia grade" videos was actually YouTube. I had to export them at that quality so that YouTube would let me upload such long videos. Awhile back they either upgraded me, or changed that, I don't know... but I did get a notice I had a 10 hour single video limit though... either way. By then it was too late as I don't know how to go back and "upload better versions" without killing the video, view counts, etc.

Chris

Rach, text me your current email or just drop by next time you're in the area. I have P Bass CADs we can PDF and hit up a kinkos with.

Chris

By hand good sir, by hand

Chris

Perhaps these will help generate more opinions?

Those are pictures of the actual wood that is being used.

Chris