RGGR

Yeah, and could some one send me a million bucks too.

Same, same......I have used mine with mixed results. I bought cheaper version and I think part of dislike in the tool is to blame on crap quality. When it works, it works wonders. But it only works part of the time. I wish I bought a better quality one to begin with. Now I just stick to rasp, files and sandpaper.......

Ordering one is easier.......making one is more fun. When making one you ned cheap router and router bits, some files, tons of sand paper....All-in-all also about $100 worth of tools. Order fretboards pre-radiussed and pre-slotted from lmii.com. If this the only guitar your plan on building.....buy a neck. If you think there is slight change you will do it again..........buy some cheap tools....and build a neck.

Your workshop doesn't have to be expensive. First of all...all tools you only use a couple of times during bit - planes, bandsaws, table saws.......get phone book and start calling around. Beg, steal or borrow you way into one. Woodworking, furniture manufacturers are great sources. Explain what you are doing and for 6 pack or pack of smokes they will help ya out. You simply can't beat this. Simply call around. Next up you need one of these....... http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/disp...temnumber=47937 And it simply won't die on me. It's been dropped a number of times.......but it keeps going and going.....fully can recommend it. Yes, it's cheap chinese router.......but sometimes there are nice treasures amongst them. Cheap router....but get quality bits. I get my bits at http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/ Next to that I have $9.95 type work-mate. Some huge clamps to clamb/glue two piece body blank.....next to 10-15 smaller clambs (can never have enough of those) Next up my $20 jig saw........still works wonders. Even cuts through body blank with slightly longer blades. Prevents me from using bandsaw. I don't mess with fretboard slotting and buy my fretboards slotted at lmii.com.... What else?.......hmmmm.........couple of Nickelson rasp and files......tons of MDF, sandpaper, and sanding blocks in all shapes and sizes. Even hair spray bottle works as sanding block.... As you can see.......all in all maybe $100 worth of (power) tools. Oh, and $10.000 worth of elbow grease.......you need tons of that.

No need to route, glue, screw.....just block trem with piece of wood. Flip guitar over, open trem cover on the back......look at metal piece sticking through the body with the springs attached. That metal piece floats in a hole. Take piece of wood and fit it tightly between metal piece and the side of hole. (Start with area fatherest from the neck). When secure....loosen screws that hold that metal piece that holds the springs (closest to the neck).........remove the springs.......put piece of wood in hole opposite from the first woodenblock, put springs back on.......tighten screws........put cover back on.......re-tune....if done correctly the tremolo sits nice and flush with body. When tilted.....adjust wood pieces a bit so total looks nice. Now if you ever want to sell guitar the trem can be activated with ease.

Get your stuff here next time. Great products, great service.....and what you see is what you get. http://www.3dhardwoods.com/ (This is actually the website of Durawoods.)

We just had series of scarf joint, 1/2/3/4/5 piece neck questions........ I took it as another one of these. Didn't realize Lale was refering to a Fender/Tele type neck. No expert on these.....so will keep my trap shut. Nothing wrong with being purist ..... in a sense we all fall in this category....otherwise we would not be building these suckers. I guess.

Building a LP neck shouldn't be anymore difficult then building the body. Order pre-slotted fretboards from places like Lmii.com...and you should be good to go.

This question is covered multiple times. Even more opinions out there. Please make use of the search functon on this site. With two piece neck you mean scarf-joint, I suppose???

MFD is great for building templates. It's cheap, it's easy to work with, sanding and routing is like going through butter....... Wear protection when working with the stuff as the dust contains nasty formaldehyde resins. http://www.design-technology.org/mdf.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-density_fibreboard http://sres-associated.anu.edu.au/fpt/mdf/manufacture.html

Most rain forrests destroyed, are detroyed not so much because of wood harvesting, but more to create farmland. On this farmland mainly modified soy is planted. This soy is mostly used as pig feed. So if you're really picky about the environment - become a Muslim (or a Jew). (oh, wait....a whole set of new problems arrises with this...... ) I do realise that working with exotic woods, I'm at the end of a food chain, that starts with legal or illegal harvesting (read: destroying) of trees. Do I feel guilty about that.....you bet I am. At same time I love working with wood, the way it never turns into a dead material, but still speaks to you....through it's tone, through it being a pain in the butt sometimes when working with it. The way I try to conserve wood is to be picky about the blanks I select, try to waste as little wood as possible, and not feed my work to the WOD. I feel that if I turn a piece of wood into a wonderful instrument, the tree will thank me for it.........

Normally I make templates for all items separately. So..... A separate template for the body, pups, tremolo. This way you can keep everything nice and neat. With pup routes you also can get away with just one neatly made pup hole. Just position template on body twice. MDF is also easier to work with then multiplex.

A great loss for the people left behind, but what a great way to die. Dying while doing what you love most.

Just to laminate 3-5 pieces will add strength to the neck. By flip flopping grain orientation you create opposite counter acting forces in the neck that help stabilizing it. Scarf joint is method to get away with smaller neck blank. Great for mass producing necks. Less scrap, lower production cost. In my personal opinion, a nice unscarfed, 5 piece neck, with volute will be great and stable neck. Pick some nice contrasting laminates and you have an awesome neck.

I see bikes in the pictures......must be Holland talking. Question: Why the drilled holes in the Zebra?

Unforseen nails can be a bitch, although wonder what wood source you used. Still leave the fact that properly made routing templates can and will be your friend. It prevents hob-botch jobs like these..... Couse the routes on the TOM recess look nice and sharp??? Would be cool if rest of guitar had quality of work like that. Aim for this on whole guitar.......

What kinda putty are you using. No decent car repair type putty must crack when drying. Some still dry-in a little....but cracks???? Although I never used it before......this type of filler seems to work wonders: http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/tht2.htm PC woody epoxy filler: http://www.pcepoxy.com/woodrestoreprods.htm Don't know how deep the cavity is you want to fill, but if deep cavity, it works if filling in couple of steps. And again....fill, let dry, sand, fill, dry sand......till totally flat.

Maybe others are less picky then me. I simply get goose bumps when I see stuff like this. Yeah, I know all get's covered up in the end. But that doesn't matter. It's me as builder that knows. It's me that could have invested 5 minutes more in cutting out proper a MDF template. It's me as a wanna-be luthier that could have spend the addition 5 minutes to sand everything flush. It's that eye for detail and enables you to create an awesome guitar, and not a hotchy-potch backyard job. And with the proper templates everything will look sharp and clean. And building guitars equals making templates. Sinple as that. MFD simply is my best friend. Also not meaning to rain on your project. Just pointing this out to you and other first timers. The more I exposed to this guitar building stuff, the more I understand why Drak WOD's some of his guitar bodies. An old timer once told me. You can restore and old VW Beetle, or a old 911 Porsche. Both will be the same amount of work, but the Porsche will be much more valuable in end. So if you wanna restore an old car, always pick the Porsche over the Beetle. Same goes with building a guitar. If you go through the hasstle of building a custom guitar. Built one properly, to the best of your ability, and invest the time to make it perfect. It may take 20% more time to do it really properly, but in the end it will creat a guitar that is 5000% nicer. And we all makes mistakes, and we all c*ck up at times....... So, ..... enough preaching for one day.

Use some routing templates next time will ya. This looks terrible!!!

No need to strip whole guitar of it's finish. If you dent your car, would you go about sanding whole car down to it's bare metal. Don't think so. Sand guitar down to rough up the original finish (120 grit or so) Get Bondo type material (any auto body type putty will do) and fill in all dents and dings. Sand everything smooth. (you will take 99% of bondo off again, but all deep scratches, dings and holes will be filled. Prime body with Auto body type primer. Sand, Prime, sand, prime......going from 120-220-320-400 grit type sand paper in the process. This will leave you with one smooth guitar, ready for any type of solid color finish, with all dents and patches invisible.

The customer is always right of course......even when they're wrong. I stand my ground on the headstock. Me don't like it. Attitude or not. I think it's also the job of the luthier to stear a customer away from bad choices. Rest of guitar looks pretty cool.

Like the design....body/neck/inlays.......headstock doesn't do it for me. Too pointy......doesn't match well with rest of guitar. The rest looks well balanced. Headstock looks outta shape. Don't get me wrong...not trying to throw rocks at your greenhouse. Good luck with the project.

To avoid tear-outs it's necessary to use brand new router bit, high speed setting on the router, and very very shallow passed. It's also adviceable to check the direction of the grain, as direction of routing can have huge effect on the occurance of tear-outs. In some areas you just can wait for it to happen (routing parallel to grain). Tear-outs have happened to me in the past. For planned solid color it's no biggy. Bondo type car filler will take care of that. For stains or natural colors it's wise not to route at all. Chance of tear-outs is simple too big, whatever your technique and precautions. For natural colors and stains bandsaw body close to spec, let Robosander type set-up bring you even closer to final shape, but do final work by hand. The body shown is shot for stain or natural color. No way of saving this without the fixed areas sticking out like sore thumb. Fix the tear-outs and go for solid color. Get yourself a new Mahogany blank and use procedure mention before. Elbow grease is your friend in this build.

Ordering wood from US should be your last resort. There must be luthiers in Switserland, so there must be sources out there. Simply search harder. Lot's of good European Maple comes from Bosnia region. Heck, Stadivarious got most his wood from this area......so good sources are available in the region. Simply search harder. For Mahogany, Maple, Alder there should be sources close by. Quick google yields: http://www.tonewood.ch/ http://www.riwoods.com/ https://www.tonewood.sk/ http://www.gleissner-tonewood.de/index.html http://www.cropp-timber.com/ http://www.bachmann-guitars.com/ http://www.mm-holz.com/cms/cms.php http://www.schaffer.co.at/ http://www.tonewood-international.com/ http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/suppliers.htm http://www.luth.org/hot.htm#label2 For the more exotic woods you should check sources mention on this site (mostly US) There are good sources available in the south of Germany and/or North of Italy. Should be few hours drive. I'm located in Holland and have access to all kinds of cool woods. (http://www.af.nl/voorraad/massief/) Good luck, A

Just means you have to look harder!! Somewhere on this site there is overview of all major European Wood Suppliers. I did quick search but couldn't find it so fast. There must be some good suppliers available in Germany/Italy. But contact local Swiss guitar builders and ask them where they get their wood. It's stupid to invest in tools you only use couple of time during build. Read: Planers/Bandsaws etc. Invest your money wisely and get $30-50 router, some quality router bits.....and simply beg, steal or borrow for the more expensive tools. Find local woodworking companies, explain them what your doing and for 6 pack, or pack of smokes they will help you out. Cause who wouldn't not help-out a 17 year old building a cool guitar!!......You ask by asking. So pick up the phone and start calling around, you'll surprised how many great tools are in your backyard. That not an option, it's a must. I think Ibanez uses either one of these. A thin colored maple veneer.....or a thin fiber sheet. Bot can be had from (although for ordering you might need your daddy's Credit Card.) http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts....Colored+Veneers http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts....r+Veneer+Sheets