madawgony

Yeah, nice looking blank. Good job on the cutting/carving, very fluid.

I have not attempted a neck-through but I am very interested in seeing how you did that. Great work BTW. Looks great.

The neck blank in the third pic is not the neck blank for the long tenon neck that is pictured later in the pictorial. What did you do with the first neck blank? You know, I could find a nice, loving home for that shorter blank

Here is a source for magnets. They have bar magnets also. Master Magnetics I have been toying with the idea of building a winding machine. I have just made a counter out of a reed switch and calculator. I have an old sewing machine that I will modify also.

I have a Ridgid 14" bandsaw and I have been pleased with it's performance and capabilities. A drawback to the 14" is that it wont resaw stock wide enough to do a bookmatched top on a normal sized guitar. Just slightly too small. But, you can buy/install a riser block that will give you the cutting capacity. Upon initial setup, there was some vibration. I balanced the top wheel and replaced the belt with one of the link type belts. Runs much smoother.

The method I have used on two builds was the cove bit in a drill press. Although the cove bit does not work well with the relatively slow drill press speed; it tends to tear instead of cut. Alot of sanding was inlvolved to finish them out. I achieved a decent result but I am going to try other methods. Using a forstner bit to hog out the depth and then followed by a radius bit to roll the top over works, but it leaves you with the sharp transition at the bottom of the cavity. Grinding/sharpening a spade bit sounds interesting, I think I will try that method.

Here is a source for alnico V magnets. Magnets

The concept of the talk box has always intrigued me and I would love to see the toot. Didn't Stillwater's song Mindbender have a talk box part?

Nice work. Nothing wrong with that top in my eyes. What hardware (pups. tuners etc) are you going to put it?

You obviously put some time in that, nice work.

Great work and documentation of the build.

Make a practice neck first with cheap lumber. I have just begun making necks and finishing one is very rewarding. I am not sure how a volute it would be detrimental to a player either. In fact, as Xanthus said, I like the way it kind of makes a "home base" for your hand. And besides, I think they look cool

I have decided to go with the un-bound fretboard since I don't have a tang nipper. I will save the bound fretboard for a future build.

Mahogany body with flame maple top. The body is chambered primarily for weight reduction. Mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard bound in flame maple. Some more pics of the progress here. I am attaching the fingerboard tomorrow and starting on the carved top. I am planning on a tiger-eye finish.

I think that would make a great top.

Not really, Yes, really. I do like my necks meatier!

That would be one thin (in width) neck!!! j/k I would guess that the poster is asking about profile thickness and used the term width instead. Seriously though, all the measurements that I have seen addressing profile thickness have included the fingerboard. Having said that , 0.77" sounds thin to me. I like a little meatier neck, around 0.85" thick at the first fret.

Most likely not. Generally speaking, mitre saws have a wider kerf than a fret saw. Fret saws are made to create a thin kerf in line with the thickness of a fret tang (~.023"). StewMac sells a nice table saw fret slotting blade that will work with a table saw or radial arm saw. Table saw blade Also, you can find Japanese pull-saws that are very thin-kerfed that will work also.

I don't have any direct knowledge of this, but I'm convinced that StewMac's neck-through neck is a Carvin neck. I don't think the bolt-ons are, though. I ordered a tele-style bolt-on neck from Stew-Mac back about 3 years ago and at that time it was made by Mighty Mite. Not a bad neck for the price. I have been pleased with it.

I would suggest that you purchase the template(s) also? The fact that the miter box has the indexing pin already installed is a big plus. Although you could use the box without the template. The template helps to make consistent layouts

That is so full of awesome. What a fun build. 6-string's post made me laugh

A pattern maker's vise looks like a good buy for guitar work Vise

Measure from the top of the fret, the point at which the string will come in contact with the fret. I use that measurement on the treble side. Since the saddles can be adjusted forward and back, use the midpoint of that travel distance as your end location. That will allow you to either shorten or lengthen the string length for intonation.

Since you are working with a 25.5" scale, the bridge (or the saddles to be more precise) should be located 12.75" from the twelfth fret. In practice, I have always added 1/16" of an inch to this length just to make sure I have enough play to intonate correctly. Also, I have mounted the bass side of the bridge slightly farther back than the treble side to allow for intonation also. The tail piece should be located far enough behind the bridge so that the strings do not touch the back edge of the bridge. The topology of the guitar top will determine far back that will be. Use full size drawings to intially determine the locations.

This discussion raises an interesting thought for me. How does a chambered body on an electric guitar actually effect the signal induced in the magnets of the pickup by the vibration of the string? The output signal on an electric guitar is a function of the movement of the string across/through the magnetic field. I can see how a rock solid body/neck combo would allow a string to vibrate longer (thus longer sustain). So how does the introduction of chambers into the construction of the body effect how long the string vibrates? It would seem that the chambers would actually absorb some of the vibrations, thus reducing sustain. Then, how do they chambers effect the mechanical vibration of the string other than having a dampening effect? There has to be some effect because i perceive a different tone between these two construction styles. I do understand there is a difference between tone and sustain, but I dont know how the chambers effect the former.