jer7440

Could you show us a pic of where the fibers terminate and the light source?

Hey Daveq,

Thanks for the replies. It sounds like we have very similar situations in life. Where is a good place to get that Petruci video? What does a video like that run?

I hear ya dave,

My work day typically starts at 5:00AM. By time my kids go to bed at about 8:30 PM, I've about had it. It's all I can do to not sit and just watch t.v.. And if I do pick up my guitar it seems like I just end up fiddling with the same old crap.

Maybe I will have to check out some videos like you said.

Any other suggestions?

Hey man,

I did a raster to vector conversion of that pic you posted. The body outline looks good enough if you wanted to trace over it in your cad program with actual radii and lines you could get it dead on. Let me know if you want the DXF file.

Between my job and my family I'm not left with alot of time to work on my guitar chops, so I want the time I do spend to be effective. I'm at best an average rythym player and a horrible lead player, and I would like to inprove both.

What are you guys practicing? Do you have exercises that you do regularly? If so where did you find them? Do you just learn songs from tabs? I've taken lessons but I just don't have the time or money for that anymore.

I really only have about 30 min, 3 or 4 days a week to practice, so I guess I am just looking for suggestions of things to focus on to optimize this time.

I mean whats the point of making a really sweet guitar if ya suck at playing it

I read some reviews of the cold heat soldering iron online. Most said it was useless for all but the smallest of jobs. I got the impression that it would not have enough heat to be soldering onto the backs of pots. But what can you expect from 2 AA batteries

Cool, thanks alot

I found these specs online somewhere:

species: mahogany

Profile: "50's rounded or '60's slim taper

Peghead: 17deg

thickness at first fret: 0.818"

Thickness at 12th fret0.963"

My question is this, do those thickness numbers include the fretboard? It seems like they would but I don't know. Can anyone help me with this?

If you check out Thorns' guitar website you will see he recently bought a haas machine

Ovations may not sound good unplugged, but plug it in.... wow. I have an ovation celebrity, not a high end guitar by any means. I plugged that direct into the P.A. at my church last night, and I got a ton of compliments about how good it sounded.

I will agree though that the bowl back is a PIA

musically they may be all right but I would rather squish my head in a vice than listen to that singer whine. Very annoying voice.

Love it. That guitar is just fricking gorgeous!

Looks like you are doing an excellent job. How did you carve out the back of the neck joint?

Those controls look pretty sweet, but I'm not sure how practical they would be. You do realize that those controls are a rolling movement instead of a twisting movement like normal. I would imagine they are using some kind of a special pot to accomplish that.

Could it just be primer?

For a LP you will need a blank that is 14w x 19l x 1 1/2 T. This is for the main body. The top will also be 14 x 19 but only 3/4 thick. I don't know about the PRS.

These dimensions are in inches

If I was doing this full time, I think I would build my fixtures to a common home point. That way all you have to do is clamp your fixture into whatever you use for reference, load your program and go. Right now I don't have the luxury of keeping a common reference point in my machine (I have to do some real work with it once and while or the boss gets ticked). I just make sure my fixtures are square to the table travel and then I use an edge finder to pick up a corner. My programs are all based from this corner, or this x0 y0 point.

I am in the middle of my first protype right now. Hopefully by the time I start doing the real thing, I will have my own digital camera so I can document the process.

Here is a link to a cool jig for cutting scarf joints on a table saw.

scarf joint jig

What is your budget? If you are looking for something a little more industrial, try Haas CNC. I use one at work ( I'm also starting to do some guitar work on the side) I love this machine. We've had it for almost 7 years now and have not had a lick of trouble. We have a VF-3 which is big enough I could cut neck through guitars if I wanted to. But Haas has many smaller machines as well. The control is very easy to use and learn. With one day of training you could be programing and cutting parts. The only thing is they cost alot more than a shop-bot. It all depends what your want to do.

One other advantage of a more industrial type of machine is a tool changer. I was just rereading your original post, and it sounds like you want to do several different operations in you machine. With a tool changer you could set up a fretboard, cut the fret slots change tools cut the inlays, change tool and cut the taper, and you only set the job up once. If you were doing runs of say 10 fretboards you would have 30 maual tool changes. With the tool changer you set up the job once and from there you put your board in the jig and hit the green button.

Cool, thanks alot

Yeah, the format over on the MIMF sucks, but it's worth taking the time to figure it out. This forum is awesome for building electric guitars, there just doesn't seem to be much acoustic stuff going on here.

I just recieved some music with a chord notation I am not familiar with. The chord is C followed by a triangle and a 7. What is the triangle?

when I get fiber optics for models I just go to wal mart and buy one of those cheap fiber optic lamps that look kinda like an explosion from a black base, not sure if that would work on a guitar though as the fiber optic strands aren't that long

My mom has this 3' tall fiberoptic x-mas tree, Hmmmm....

Your idea sounds really frickin cool, could we see some pics? I don't really know how much shape and size of the sound hole changes the sound.

You may also want to check out The musical instrument makers forum or MIMF at

MIMF

Click on the button that says MIMForum and then go to the Flat top acoustic guitars and bass guitars section. There are a bunch of great acoustic guitar builders over there.