tirapop

Let me start by saying my experience is with structural composites so not all of this might apply to the sorts of materials you'll be using. With epoxies you're catalyzing a chemical reaction. There are reaction products (the stuff that evaporates off) and heat. What limits the thickness of structural composites is a runaway exothermic reaction. You put to much epoxy in one place, it generates more heat that it can dissipate and... spontaneous combustion. Just to mix enough epoxy, mix with your aggregate, and fill the mold, you'll probably use retarders to give you more working time. That might keep you from starting a fire. You still might have problems from the heat. Things expand when they're hot and contract when they're cool. The outside cools (and solidifies) before the inside does. As the inside cools and contracts, restrained by the cool, rigid outside, a few things can happen. There can be "sinks", where the outer surfaces gets sucked in by the shrinking center. The part can warp, when it balances the opposing forces from an outside that's too big and an inside that's too small. If the outside is rigid enough to resist either of those two effects, the part might have internal voids. These can be bubbles or cracks and fissures. Get some of the materials you want to use. Cast a test specimen in a plastic tub in the thickness you want, to see how it behaves.

My favorite picture of leaves.

Not guitars, but, other graphite projects to give you an idea of techniques. http://www.mci.i12.com/carbon/index.htm http://www.oneoceankayaks.com/Wshophtm/carb_tubing.htm

John Mayall travels with a cut down Strat... (Squier actually), so, you're probably okay.

Have you checked out the bridge repair tutorials at frets.com?

Have you seen this page? Similar idea of bent sides, cap, and center block. With the built up thickness of the sides he has, he might've been better off just routing out the chambers. I think your plan is better. To give you an idea of how minimal you can go, check out the Formicaster.

I suggest you spread the holes out so they aren't in anything like a line across the headstock. Maybe a "V", so there are no more than one or two holes inline across the headstock. The way they are in your picture reminds me of perforations in cardboard... that make it easier to tear.

That edge sticking out is easier to damage, catching on other harder edges. It seems like people are a little more clumsy/careless with guitars than violins. I do like the look. I've thought about edge treatments that look like that... maybe putting a bead on the edge of the top, with a darker binding below it to suggest the shadow.

You might be inspired by that violin, but, I don't think you really understand how it works. This isn't just a horn attached to the body of the violin. Look at the bridge. It isn't sitting on the violin's top, like a conventional violin. That metal contraption is probably driving a resonator, like on a Stroh violin, that's connected to the horn. Sticking a horn on the side of the body isn't going to do very much. Most of the string energy is going to be driving the top and moving the air in contact with the top. As far as attaching a metal horn to a wood body... if you have the metalworking skills to make a horn, make a flanged metal plate you can bolt to the wood body and attach the horn to. You could make the horn out of wood. Specimen makes theirs out of "specially impregnated cellulose fiber". You could make a form (mold) and cold-mold veneer to the shape. Check out books on lightweight boat building.

Not nearly as nice, but, I saw a link to a PVC guitar rack on Makezine.

Think about it. A guitar with a string thru bridge, like a Tele, has much more break angle a the saddles than a tilt neck with a TOM. Does that make the Tele a sustain-aholic?

In one of the woodworking books I've got, there's an illustration of veneer sawers. Yeah, a two man saw and they'd cut a flitch of veneer, by hand and eye with a hand saw. Amazing... you can see why they had long apprenticeships.

Jehle. Godin's is too nice to be called a cigar box guitar. It's a proper instrument.

Like the empowerment folks like to say, "Girls rock!"

Part of the problem is that the floating bridge needs a pretty good string break angle, to turn that string tension into a load onto the sound board. To get that with flat-top guitar, you'd need to change the neck angle to keep the action playable.

Musicmaster = Duosonic = Mustang

Maybe something like these Gibsons?

Also check out the Reranch site.

Route a pocket from the back, underneath where you'll cut your f-hole. Put a wood cover for the hole on the back. You can even put a label on the inside face of the cover. Maybe veneer the back to make it look like all of one piece.

I'd bet Wandre/Davoli used the metal plate for visual effect and that it might have been a little easier to build that way, instead of trying to do it all with wood. Parker can get away with this I think you may be right. Dragmaster may have cut out too much, too close to the tuners.

Trade or sell your chrome Floyd for a black one. You probably won't be able to reproduce the factory black finish without spending more money than a swap.

Have you seen Hitone's Mosrite build?

I think their skill as musicians is kind of irrelevant. Great technique doesn't guaranty a great song. Some songs just rock and don't require great skill, just a lot of passion to sell it. Just think of some great old John Lee Hooker song... any flashy technique would just get in the way. I appreciate listening to great musicians playing wonderful songs that allow them to use their skills. But, if the song doesn't connect, however much skill and musicianship they demonstrate, it's just an exercise or a seminar. Lately, I've been listening to Sister Gertrude Morgan. Some DJ has remixed an old album she did in 1970 and it's gotten on the radio. Her original stuff is just her voice and a tambourine... a black street preacher from New Orleans singing gospel. Her original music just rocks. You catch that whole gospel-blues-rock&roll thread, listening to her. Really simple, visceral stuff.

idch, I think that compression joint is probably just hokum. Just parse it out. The forces on the neck: string tension pulls the neck closer to the bridge; the offset of the strings to the bottom of the neck puts a prying load on the neck joint pulling the neck away at the tuner side and pushing it in on the bridge side; and the neck bolts pull the neck onto the body. String tension pulls the neck away from that step in the neck pocket. So, in the string direction, it isn't doing anything. The step machined in the neck and the neck pocket can either be a perfect fit, gapped on the front step, or gapped on the back step. If the fit's perfect or if there's a gap on the tuner side step, when you tighten the neck bolts it should behave just like a normal bolt-on neck. Material under the screw head is compressed... the volume of compressed material is actually a symmetric stacked pair of truncated cones (frustums). The material incompression would be identical for a normal bolt-on and the CSCNJ. If there's a gap on the bridge side step, then the tuner side step gets loaded with additional compression when you tighten the neck bolts. This adds a little to the bending loads on the neck and body. Depending how much interference there is, some or all of it will go away when you string up the guitar and tune to pitch. The string pulls the the neck away from the body where that step is. If the interference is big enough, there will be a compression load path there between the neck and body. You could do the same thing with a small chunk of shim, not bothering with machined surfaces. I don't know that the little bit of compression buys you anything. If the neck has a tight fit with the pocket, there's probably more vibrational load transfer from the butt end of the neck on the pocket wall. String tension is pulling the neck and body together there. If you think of a thru-neck, from the nut to the bridge, the string tension has that column of wood primarily in compression and a bit of bending. For a bolt-on, the compression comes from the butt end of the neck or sheared across the neck bolts if there's any gap between the neck butt and the neck pocket. They mention stability and resistance to shifting. Having a feature like that step would help keep the neck from twisting up or down (in playing position). But, if you had a tight neck pocket, that wouldn't be a problem.

idch, There isn't anything instrinsically bulky about a tenon setneck. The implementation on a Les Paul is all based on tradition and retaining those aesthetics. Remember xlr8's rosewood neck LP? The V-shape tenon might have been the Anderson Atom. If you're worried about bulk, you could just take the bottom off of the standard set neck. Picture a neck-thru guitar. Instead of carrying it all the way through the guitar, just take it past the neck pickup you won't be installing.