stereordinary

I only just scrolled through to look at the pics, but damn. Awesome.

I do something similar to this when I'm gluing fingerboards. I use a long slab or marble, only when I do it the fingerboard is on the bottom, and I use every clamp I can fit on there

Hah! I think you may be right. What can I say, I'm a Jazzmaster fan.

Lookin' great!

This seems pretty cool to me, but I do wish it looked better. Either way, if they ever make one I can use in a Moog Guitar, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

Thanks again for the additional compliments everyone! Here's a quick pic of the output jack plate that I made for it.

At the encouragement of a few forum members, here is my first ever entry for GOTM. I guess I'll lay out the specs, as that seems to be the thing to do. One-piece Honduran Mahogany body One-piece Honduran Mahogany neck Indian Rosewood fingerboard Single-action truss rod (made by me) Vulcanized Fibreboard binding, headstock veneer, back cover plate, truss rod cover, pickguard and pickup ring (all made by me) Synthetic ivory fingerboard dots white plastic fingerboard side dots Gotoh die-cast tuners Gotoh 510 wraparound bridge Roadhouse Pickups Triple Crown humbucker CTS volume and tone pots (500K) NOS capacitor Neutrik skeleton output jack 2mm thick stainless steel output jack plate (made by me) White plastic control knobs (made by me) 24.625" scale 22 frets 12" fingerboard radius 1-11/16" nut width (bleached bone) 2-3/16" at the 21st fret (LMII FW74 fretwire) Acrylic lacquer finish, in custom blue top, with clear back.

Oh, and I'll take a few more pics soon. I forgot to show off my custom jack plate!

Alright, you guys talked me in to it. I'll just throw in for it now, I got nothing to lose.

Thanks for the compliments everyone! The body is somewhere around 1.75" thick. The bevel makes it look thin. Can I do that? Sorry for my daftness, but I've never put in for GOTM, and I don't really follow it too much, or know how it works. Plus, wasn't there a thread recently about people entering for GOTM and not posting build threads? I don't wanna be one of those guys. I want to a do a right proper build thread here someday. I just didn't hardly take any pictures of this one while I was building it.

I've been on this forum for a few years now, and I don't post very much. I just like to be helpful where I can, and I don't have time to be too active on all of the forums that I like to go to. But I really like this place, and a lot of the people here. Yet, so far I haven't ever made a new thread to show some of my work. I would have liked to make a proper build thread, but on this particular guitar I didn't take very many in progress shots. But this section is for in progress and finished work, so I guess this is more like a finished thread. Even though this guitar still needs some work, including a refinish. You can't see it in these (totally un-doctored) photos, but the paint job is pretty bad. It wasn't done by me, I had handed it off to a local guy to paint. So eventually I'll have to strip and refinish this, but as for now it takes a nice photo, and I thought I would show you all. Hope you like it! Thanks for looking!

I haven't made a twelve string, but I did make a ten string. Well not exactly, I just modified a Japanese Fender Jaguar in to a ten string. But still, unison strings and a 24" scale. I didn't notice any issues with strings hitting each other, but this guy wanted really heavy strings on it. The tension on that little neck was insane and I felt sorry for it.

Me likey.

There's no reason why you couldn't do a heel-adjust truss rod on a pitched headstock neck. Probably the reason why it's not often done is because most guitarists prefer a headstock-adjust truss rod, no matter whether the headstock is pitched or straight. So when you do get to that somewhat more limited market of people who prefer a heel-adjust, they're almost always vintage Fender guys and vintage Fenders, of course, have straight headstocks. Additionally, with a heel-adjust truss rod, you have to make sure that there is some kind of access to it, which is why you won't find it on set-neck guitars very often. Of course that's all assuming that we're talking about electric guitars here, because acoustics very often have set necks with pitched headstocks and heel-adjust truss rods.

Fascinating test, I'll be sure to watch where it goes as well.

That's some beautiful work!

Interesting post! Casting is a lot of fun, I've done a little bit. Just some control knobs. But lately I've been thinking about making a sort of combination pickup ring/cover kind of like a Jazzmaster pickup, only with a different look. This is giving me some inspiration...

Yeah, that's basically what I'm saying. It worked well on the poly finish on this Jag neck anyway.

I don't have any real direct experience with this. But I'd like to make a suggestion, just purely for your consideration. I'm currently looking at two guitars where I sit. One of them is a Moog Guitar, the other one is a Japanese Fender Jaguar. Both of them have glossy finished bodies and headstock faces, but the backs of the necks are matte/satin. The Moog was like that when I got, simple as that. The Jag is a bolt neck, but I refinished the headstock face and then used a synthetic steel wool pad on the back of the neck to blend my touch-ups all together and because the guy who its for likes a satin neck. Just thinking about these two guitars and what you're trying to achieve, my suggestion would be to glue the neck in and finish the whole guitar just like you normally would, using a glossy lacquer/poly/whatever. After the finish is cured, tape off everywhere around the playing area of the neck, or just you know, everywhere that you want to stay glossy. Use a really low-tack tape. Then hit the exposed area with the scuff pad, until you've achieved the level of satin you want.

You'd have to show me a pic to know exactly what you're talking about. From your description, I just can't wrap my head around it. It's done on classical acoustics a lot from what I can gather. And it's possible that I have the terminology wrong. But it's basically the same thing as a scarf joint, except instead of cutting an angle in the wood and gluing the cut off bit back on, you just glue a flat slab of wood on to the back of the still flat headstock (which can be a too short headstock, if you calculate right), and then cut an angle over the whole thing, essentially treating it like a one-piece neck.

I'm in the same boat where I prefer and almost always make angled headstock necks once-piece and just waste wood. But I agree that a good scarf joint is just as good if not better. Just curious though, has anyone here ever done a splice joint on a headstock? I did one and it's not just strong as heck, but looks good to. You can see the joint where the headstock transitions in to the back of the neck, but it's almost like an accent line, practically acting as a guide to tell you where to carve the transition. Seriously cool. And with a veneer on the front of the headstock, it all makes for a very clean look.

I'm looking for full-scale plans for a classic Gretsch 6120-ish style guitar. I have lots of full-scale plans for other guitars that I can offer up for trade, and I can even work up custom plans. Thanks!

I love the Sperzel shape too, it reminds me of the tuners on my Supro:

Sounds like my Japanese rasp too, but I like the DIY idea of it. I'd definitely be interested to see where this idea goes. I feel bad when I throw out bandsaw blades. They always still feel a little sharp, even if they are crap at cutting on the saw itself. Seems like I should be able to get some use out of them, but I can never think of anything.

Yeah, as Buter said it's probably just your printer. Definitely check it with a ruler. In fact, if you have a drawing program to manipulate the drawing that you have, draw a 1x1" reference box on it and then re-print it. Then you can just measure the box. But really you should measure the fret distances anyway. And I would not recommend simply cutting off the higher 3 frets. The heel of a Strat is 0.5" to the end past the last fret, and the distance from the 21st to 22nd fret on your board is only 0.425". So if you just cut it you will have a slight flat spot. A better thing to do would be to put a fret saw in your 22nd fret slot and saw it all the way through, then butt the two pieces back together and glue them up. The seam will be nearly invisible if you are careful.