tirapop

4 strings is a very good idea. Tenor guitars use 4 strings for easier chording. My baritone uke is tuned like the top 4 of a guitar, DGBE. Check out Elderly Instruments, http://www.elderly.com. They have a large assortment of ukes, acoustic, electro-acoustic, and electric.

There's a thread on this board about Kiwi brown shoe polish.

As far as modular goes, check out RKS guitars. They haven't exactly set the world on fire. If you want a scalpel, a dagger, or a chef's knife, a swiss army or multi-tool version might work well enough, but, it won't be the same as a purpose built scalpel, dagger, or chef's knife.

If you had body templates, you'd use the router to trim the profile of the guitar. You'd also use a router to make the neck pocket, use a roundover bit to radius the edge of the body. Myka has a jig for using a router to rough the profile on the back side of the neck. The router can be used to put a radius on the fretboard. The router can be used to thickness tops. There aren't too many things routers don't do in making a solid body guitar.

I read that a woman won a million dollars in the Pillsbury bake-off. So, I'm gonna make the best recipe ever! Nothing screams class like caviar, so, that's ingredient number one. I read online that people go nuts over anything fried and on a stick... check. My wife loves chocolate and she'd eat anything with Thai peanut sauce on it. What do you guys think about Cajun spice? Is it still hot or played out? Should this be a dinner or a dessert? Rokeros, do you think any good cook works like that? A good cook would make something they'd want to eat. Adjustments can be made to accommodate the preferences of their guest/customer: a different menu item, a little more or less spice, meat cooked to their desired done-ness. If recipes were created by committee, there wouldn't be anything completely new, fresh, and innovative. If you haven't already, get your hands on the classic/benchmark guitars everyone references. Get to know what it is about those guitars that people desire. Form your own opinions about what you like and don't like about those guitars. Use that as a basis for building your guitars. Listen to theories/opinions other people have about guitars, but, test the ideas for yourself. You decide for yourself what works and what doesn't. If you want to make something great and unique, you have to fully invest yourself. You can't have other people to make decisions for you.

The bullet truss rods were on Strats from '71 to '81. I think your Malmsteen has the later dual action truss rod. I don't think you could retrofit it without major surgery. You could try to make a cosmetic bullet, but, since that signature neck never came that way and you'd ruin it's value. If you really want a bullet truss rod neck, try picking one up on eBay.

The coral colored Fender-ish thing in this picture. What is it?

Hey, I really like that shape! Looks whimsical. Reminds me a bit of Benders and Pagellis. One thing that bothers me. The way the upper horn curves, back at the body the strap button load has to come across a short width across the grain (just imagine where the horn would break if you tugged on it really hard). Is it reinforced?

To drag out Drak's hunting metaphor... Cross is going on a safari, a guided hunt. Someone is going to stalk his prey, hand him the rifle, to take the shot, and guarantee that he leaves with a trophy. He's paying to have the experience of building his dream guitar. That's a pretty cool thing. Cross, you're getting pushback because PG regulars build guitars as a hobby, as a lifestyle. They aren't building "a dream guitar". A nice guitar is a happy byproduct of the process. Each guitar project is an opportunity for self expression, an opportunity to aquire new skills, an opportunity to stretch existing skills. One project begets another. You say that you're going to wait 3 years and save your money to take this class. PG'ers look at that as 3 years wasted and the missed opportunity to do cost neutral or low cost projects that would make you a better luthier. There are lots of students on this board who have similar constraints on time and money, and still manage to build guitars. There's nothing wrong what you want to do. If you want to build guitars you can start now and still take that camp in 3 years.

I've got plans for a Martin uke (early Style 1). The drawing shows the sides as 1.8mm and the back is 2.3mm, both in mahogany.

About ten years ago, halogen floor lamps were popular in the states. You could get them at department, hardware, and houseware stores starting around 20USD. Most of them got recalled because they were so hot, if placed too close to the drapes, they'd start a fire. The fix was a cage over the bulb to keep fabrics at a "safe" distance. Did they ever get those in Aus? They show up around here at yard sales. They'd be great for a bender. The lamp element is very narrow. The lamps that were sold in the states had dimmers... perfect for adjusting the temperature.

http://www.billsbest.com/thsidebender.html

If you do a search on "pine" you'll find quite a few threads. I'll try to summarize. Most of the posts say that pine is a construction material, not a tone wood. It will be compared to plywood and MDF. Someone usually points out that for a time Fender made early Telecaster bodies out of pine. Glendale will sell you a pine Tele body. Hyunsu, PG's favorite Korean luthier, has built guitars out of pine and says they sound good. He tap tests the wood he builds with. That's how he picked the piece of pine he made into a guitar.

http://www.rahul.net/gaa/Uke/ http://www.ukulelehut.com/build-make-an-ukulele/index.php

It looks like those holes are slotted, for top loading. The strings on my classical guitar have little beads on the ends of the strings. A knot in the string keeps it from sliding through. I'd guess it's something like that. I wonder if you can use a cone out of a tri-cone reso guitar for a uke.

Beltona makes their ukulele bodies out of fiberglass. I don't think the material is too critical. The body volume is probably more important. Resonators are like speakers: resonator cones = speaker cones, body = cabinet. A solid body reso-uke probably wouldn't be as loud or have as much bass as an acoustic reso-uke. That wouldn't make it bad, just a little different. I wonder if a solid body reso-uke would be louder than a conventional uke. So, where are you going to get a cone for a uke?

I think about acoustic guitars, which remove pickups as a variable in tone, volume, and sustain. They're held together with glue. They probably have more glue, as a percentage of total weight, than a typical solid body electric. Acoustics would be more sensitive to any negative effects of glue. And yet, they sound pretty good. Yeah, acoustics and electrics are apples and oranges. Joinery and wood quality are probably much more critical in tone than the presence or absence of glue.

I'd guess that the material of the side and back would have some effect, however slight in coloring the sound. If you don't know already, there's a step between solid body electric and a fully acoustic resonator: the resolectric. I really like the looks of this one.

Love those oxymorons. Judging from Hyunsu's work, I'd have to disagree with your statement.

Melvyn Hiscock does a single piece neck in his "Make Your Own Electric Guitar" book. It's a good resource to have. You can see how it's done on the Build Your Guitar website.

Carbon fiber? Were they graphite nuts like these. I think they are thermoplastic, impregnated with graphite. Most structural carbon fiber composites use fibers cured in epoxy. Not very slippery. If the luthier was using carbon fiber, he was probably experimenting with the sound of the nut, not the slipperiness.

I guess I'm too traditional. Something about the position, not the shape, of the cateyes doesn't look right. They're too peripheral. If you blacken them in and set the guitar against a dark background, they lop off those nice curves on lower bout. I like the position you had on the segmented f-hole. You could do a variation on an f-hole with two holes with a diamond in between. Cateye with hole off one end?

You'd think that's the way Fender would've done it. There's no economy in carving the cap out of a slab fingerboard blank. Heating and bending would've added production steps, time, and eaten up floor space. They probably had radiused caul plates to force the "veneer" onto the neck blank.

So that's what they look like underneath? You know, I love the Dano look, but just can't get past the cheapness factor. I think this is the interior of a real Dano. Aren't you the guy who made a knock-off of the Convertible? There's something cool about taking something cheap (masonite, staples) and making it sing. It's a nice counterpoint to tone-nazis and the cult-of-quilted-maple. Specimen does a line of Dano/Silvertone inspired guitars. The construction really seems to work with slab style bodies like Teles. Maybe make a Dano-style version of your Melodymaker.

I like the idea of a Te-Les-Caster. The shape is good. The f-hole is a little too traditional, for me. I like the more stylized version on Manzers, Ribbeckes, and Monteleones.