John Abbett

Ready for finish.

Very True.. Vinny how's your hollowbody coming? _john

What's interesting is, I go back and look at projects I did a while ago, and say, man that looks great. I've forgotten where the little blemishes are.. It's kind of funny. I might not have been 100% happy with it when I finished it, but going back and looking at it from a high level again, you don't see the little things. Anyway, one day I'll build one and there will be no mistakes.. (One time I put fingerboard side dots in, got going and forgot to put two at fret 12. I'm waiting for someone to ask about it.. I'm prepared to say, I planned it that way. =) No one has even noticed. -John

Matthew. There are several ways to do this. Got to be hundreds of posts on this sytem talking about it. You can use the polish with a pad and elbow grease. You can use one of those buffing pads and the polish and a hand held drill (Watch for too much heat!) Woodcraft sells the pads with a drill chuck for under 20 bucks. (I've not used it, but it should work fine) You can build a buffing wheel system with an old motor and some parts from the hardware store (Which is what I use, take just a few minutes to buff out a guitar from 1000 grit dry paper). My finish is nice, but I prefer to have a thin, matte finish. I use semi-gloss. It doesn't show fingerprints as much.

I know that everyone will say that when it's done, people see the overall project. But man, I see every little problem. Every little binding joint that didn't quite close up tight, or the angle is off or I sanded a flat here or there. I'm not a perfectionist, just want to do the best I can, luckily by the time it's finished and no one really notices (or cares) about tiny little problems. I guess that is just part of it, you have to accept some things and move on otherwise you will never finish. All that binding was a pain. Trying to get all those layers to sit on top of each other, get the glue in between them, and make sure that everything sits tight was a huge deal. The biggest problem was that I used pre-made strips for a lot of it, but there were two very thin .010 strips to add an extra set of lines at the sides. Those had to be bent the wrong way, across the flat with fibre strips. Turns out that is pretty much impossible. I couldn't glue it to the bigger strip and then bend it, because when I heated it up to bend, the glue came loose and it made a mess. I ended up breaking it into little chunks. And fitting the little chunks around the horn, making sure it was tight where it would be sanded flush. It was an incredible pain. It came out great, but I was cussing it. I used the fat part of a soldering iron to bend them .. almost dry. 11 ply binding is a little over the top, next time not so much. It takes something like that to make you realize that the plastic binding is cake in comparison.

Starting to look like a guitar Neck Heel Front of Neck Back of neck

Perry, How many guitars do you think you've built? I need something to re-assure me that there is hope for my building. I think I'm doing pretty good, then I see your work. It's so top quality I think you must have built a few million and have been doing it for at least 300 years. I'm very impressed with the workmanship. -john

Updates..

Pickup Ring Jig. http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...pickup+ring+jig

All, I'm just getting into pro-tools. I bought one that has a m-audio interface from best buy. It works great, but the levels are a bit low. I can adjust with plug-ins, but I would like the input to be a little higher. I could use one of my pedals from my pedal board, but they all do something. Like the delay pedals, etc. I don't want to take them out. Is there a pedal out there that allows you to increase output, without adding gain? I don't want distortion, I just want to increase the input level to the computer. Failing that, what is a cheap pedal that has a level button that doen't use the level button as gain? -john

All, My Hollowbody will have two HB pickups, I was thinking about making pickup rings.. (Thanks to whomever posted the jig on here). I was looking at my Gretsch and noticed that the pickup rings are flexible rubber, on the bottom, not hard. I could certainly put a gasket in between the pickup cover and the guitar, does it make a difference on dampening vibrations of the spruce top which way to go? Is the rubber of the Gretsch just so that they didn't have to mold the ring to an arched top or do you think it's there to change the tone of the guitar? I'm leaning toward wooden pickup covers cut to match the top. -john

We've seen some of these here and there, this is a pretty big list. http://truefire.com/blog/?p=1900&utm_s...Fire+Musings%29 TrueFire.com blog to 77 Awesomely Weird Guitars

Vinny, that's very cool! I love it. Thanks for taking the time to do this. -John The project is moving along. Second fretboard is inlaid, and the neck is about ready to be shaped. I'll take some pics soon.

Well, I could make the entire grpahic out of MOP, and scratch and shade the black parts with black epoxy. Or I could do just the white parts, and scratch the black lines in it and imply roundness. I'm not sure that would come out right. I have some yellowheart for the lightning bolt or I could pick up some gold MOP. Not sure that would stand out enough. I'm not an artist.. I can build stuff, but design work is not my area of expertise. Black on Black would be too subtle for what I'm going for. Any suggestions on how to modify the design so that the end result is where I'm headed? I could use a different color for the LP. I could use wood, but the guitar is going to have MOP inlays elsewhere, woudl like to be consistant. -John

So I'm working on the headstock inlay. After much thought, I came up with a plan. I want to have a record (LP) with a lighting bolt through it. Retro/Rockabilly kinda thing. Two things I could use advice on. 1. I want to make sure people don't confuse it with a spare tire. Not what I'm going for. 2. Records are black, the background is ebony. Here is what I have so far, for you inlay experts, how do you convert something to look good when it's black and the background is black? Here is my starting point. -John

That's 4 hours away. Don't think I'll make that. Best of luck to you! -john

Nope, no way. The end of the board is a mess. I've got a new neck about 1/2 way done. It's going to be better anyway, more practice! -John

Not sure what caused it, guessing my router bit was just too aggressive for the wood and dug in. This ebony is very hard, guessing it's straight grain too based on the way it broke. The router grabbed hold of the end grain and split the thing right in two. I've done a lot of routing, and have had oak chew up when routing endgrain, but no other wood. Guess I learned a lesson. I could have sanded it down instead of routing the endgrain, it would have been safer. I had no problems with the sides, followed the template fine. I could have also glued the board to the neck and routed, it was double taped to a template. If it were glued down, it would have had cross grain support. Could be my bit I suppose, I'll check it tommorrow. -John

Progress Update. F-Holes. Better Pictures Binding Dovetail Neck Extension Looking good. ooops.. Router blew up the neck. Expensive error. 70 dollar fretboard and inays. Plus the time to cut and install the inlays. Ouch. I don't have another 23.5 inch fretboard, but I do have a 24.75. I'm going to remake the neck for the board I have. It would take weeks to get another fretboard. I exercised my vocabulary when I blew this up. I guess I knew better. Ebony is hard stuff, I guess I shouldn't have tried to route the endgrain. Very disappointing. -John

Multi-Ply binding observations. It's amazing the learning curve on 11 ply wooden binding. It's coming out nice, but there was a huge learning curve. I burn't some of it, I broke a lot of it, I soaked some of it too much and it swelled up. I cut my binding chanels too deep and had to reduce the thickness of the back a bit (I allowed for that by leaving the back a little thick), Did i say I broke some, I broke a lot of it. I got the back done, took a break and the front went much better. Lessons learned. I used the Stu-Mac binding router bit kit, it works great. I'm very happy with it. I used a soldering iron as my heat source. I found out what happens when you are doing cleanup at midnight, and forget to unplug your soldering iron, when the inderside of my forearm hit that tip of that soldering iron, I learned quick what it means to have a cauterized hole in your arm. Ouch! I looked at it, I have a pretty deep hole, no blood. It has two channels, like stair steps. One is the w/b/w/b/w/b/W that you see on the top, the first 6 ply is .020, which is really really thin, and the final W is .080. From the side it's a 1/4 inch wide white strip from the top, with bwb at the bottom of the channel. You have to glue all that at the same time to get it to lay right, I found that I just put a cup of glue on the bench and dip my fingers in the glue and run my fingers over the various strips to cover them. Trying to use a glue brush on all those sides and parts took too long and the glue got too tacky. Then you have to sqeeze it all together to make sure the glue doesn't pool inbetween and it's a tight fit, you'll see it in the finished product, the black lines would be wavy if there is any excess glue. Then you have to get it in the channel, tape it off and start on the next 6 inch section. The area around the horn was a pain, the outer binding just didn't want to make the curve. I wanted to do one strip around each half of the guitar, but ended up cutting the binding at flat spots in the guitar so I could have smaller strips to work with around the curves. It worked well, I ended up with a couple of extra joints, but once it's finished no one will notice. The joints are clean, so not a big deal. I use garden tape to secure the binding (After it's taped in place). This stuff it about 3 bucks a package and is stretchy. If you pull it tight, it has a lot of tension. I wrap it around and around making sure to pull it all in tight. That way if there is any section that pulls away, this will secure it. Love the stuff. Better then tape, don't have to unstick it. I do tape the binding first to get it on there, but this is what pulls it tight. Anyway, binding like this is an art. I have a lot to learn. Just takes practice I guess.

Progress update. I've got the top finished and the bracing in. Last chance for anyone to see the inside.. Binding the F-Holes New Binding Machine - harbor Freight 20 dollar laminate router I use landscaping tape which is stretchy to hold the binding in while it drys. Inlay on the Fretboard Truss Rod

I was going to recommend Behlen's Rockhard also. I've used it on a coffee table, and it brushes on levels nicely, and once it's dry it's tough and looks good. -john

How about something that is pinned at the top of the forums that has key words. Some of people's search problems arn't laziness, they just don't know the proper key words to search for. Hmm.. Kerfing, Binding, etc.. If there were a list of key words, and even better if you could click on them and it pulled up a search with that term. It could be pinned at the top of each forum, so hollowbody would only be in that section. Wiring would have things like capacitor that jumped to a search of that term.. -John

Love that response. Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously. (In my opinion, not based on fact) By the way.. What is scale length again? Uhh, how do I finish Maple? What's the best of everything for no money? I think I should duck now... -John

I suppose you could make a guitar out of just about anything. Of course it might sound like crap. It's intersting how they designed it, it's so simplistic, but in a way, the simple design make it kinda neat. -John