SawDust_Junkie

I appreciate the input guys ! Nobody has any ideas on the deer bone nut material ? frenzy ? drak ? wes ? brian ? Nobody ?

Welcome to the Board Bill ! You said you are here mostly for some tips and tricks, better be careful, this place and guitar building can turn into a full blown addiction !

Another option is to make a template for the holes you want to drill using a piece of maple or other hardwood on the drill press. This guaruntees the holes are square and aligned properly, then mount this piece of wood to your Tele body with clamps and drill the holes with your hand drill. I think someone else here did this. I believe it was Guitarfrenzy in his Making of a Strat tutorial. Here is a link to what I am talking about. I think its a simple and inexpensive way around this particular obstacle. http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...pic=9113&st=135

As a side note. I also wondered if anyone has ever made their own nuts using bone. I have seen someone here talking about using cattle bones from a local butcher. I helped a friend skin and butcher a deer yesterday and I saved a few of the larger leg bones. I wanted to try and see if I could fashion a nut from these. I don't really know how "cure" or "treat" the bones though. I figured the best thing was just to scrape as much meat off of them as I could and let them dry out naturally. I figured if I tried to boil the meat away, it might weaken the bones or make them otherwise unsuitable for use as a nut material. I also did not know if I would need to bleach the bones to get a nice white material or what. Any suggestions ?

I have been looking around locally to see if I can find some suitable Mahogany to use when I start a future project. I want to try tackling a Les Paul copy. From everything I have seen I will need either 8/4 Mahogany or I could possibly get by with 6/4. So far, I have only found one hardwood dealer in my area that has any 8/4 in stock. This wood would be perfect as it is also app. 15" to 16" wide. A true one piece solid body blank. Unfortunately they will not cut their stock. So I would have to purcahse the entire board. The ones I looked at were about 16" W by 2" T by 10' L. That works out to about 28 board feet. At that rate, the whole board would run about $280.00. A little pricey for first attempt at a Les Paul. One of my local woodworking shops has some 15" W 4/4 Mahogany. But that is going to be too thin, even with a 3/4" Maple top plate. They also had some Bloodwood, which brings me back to my topic. Have any of you ever used Bloodwood or seen it it used in solid body construction. It is a beautiful wood that looks much like Mahogany, but with a little redder tint and a closer grain pattern. It seems suitable and the pieces I looked at had good tonal quality when tapped on the floor. So I was just wondering how this wood would perform. It also seems a little lighter than Mahogany.

Hey Guitarfrenzy, in your Strat tutorial, you used the black epoxy and then sanded flat. It looked to me like the sanding resulted in most of the coloring from the epoxy being removed, except for in the actual grain pattern of the wood. This had the effect of making the grain stand out tremendously, without alot of extra tinting of the wood istelf. I am thinking about doing something similar on my Strat. I was considering just applying a light brown (Walnut) oil based grain filler, and then sanding flat, and then clear coating with nitro cellulose. Do you think this would give me the same "grain popping" effect while allowing me to pretty much keep the natural color of the Ash ? I was not going to use any tinting in the clear coat, just clear nitro cellulose.

That what it sounds like to me Dugz. I have read that the high E string is the one that is closest to the exact scale length at proper intonation. The book I bought and am using on my project recommends setting the saddle for the high E string at about 3/4 of the way in its travel towards the front of the bridge, and then setting the bridge at the 25 1/2" distance from the nut to that hig E string saddle position. The rest of the strings (according to Tom Hirst, the author of the book) are usually a little longer in length than the actual scale length to get the proper intonation.

It sounds to me like the problem is scale length. If the neck you bought off of Ebay is truly a "Fender style" neck, it is probably built on a 25 1/2" scale. The LP Jr. is probably a standard Gibson 24 3/4" scale. This would mean that a Fender neck would be longer even with the same amount of frets, because there is more space between each fret. You stated: That is exactly 3/4" difference between a 24 3/4" scale and 25 1/2" scale.

Well Perry, since you asked, and these are only my thoughts and I wouldn'y want you to change your vision due to me. That being said, I think I would round the edges, front and back, but with a small round over, like 1,/4". Then I would soften the horns, in front, and the "fins" in back, just a little. I think I would also put a body contour on the back, but not on the front, that would take away from the metal/goth effect. You know what ? I just realized why this shape seemed familiar to me. Its the female form, if you look at it. It should be long, and lean and soft in the curves. Elegant, but with a sharp edge, you know ?

I like it Perry. I am constantly amazed at the variety of designs the people here at PG come up with. I guess I'm just not artistic enough to think up some of the cool looking guitars that you guys do. One thing I have always been a bit uneasy with though, is the sharp chisled edges on some peoples designs. Don't get me wrong, to each his own. I just have always considered a shape with rounded edges and horns to more pleasing to my eye. I guess that explains my user name. I have always been partial to Strats. The sharp pointy horns look more like weapons to me than a work of art like I think a fine musical instrument should be. Overall, though I like that shape very much. I was trying to tell, "Is that three pieces laminated for the body ?" And what wood is it ? It does not look like it will lend itself to a clear finish very well, but that is just my opinion. But then again, most metal axes (which is what I think when I see this guitar) don't really suggest a clear finish. They look better in loud bold solid colors, or this one would would even look great in a Gothic color and theme. Anyway, please post some more pictures as this project progresses !

I can't remeber how much the Ash and the Maple were seperately, but both pieces together only cost me $24.00 and some change. Very reasonable if you ask me. Especially when you consider that Warmoth and USACG and Stewart-Mac all want in $50.00 - $70.00 range for their body blanks alone. Granted they are S4S and planed to the correct thickness, but like you said, I found a sweet deal with my neighbor up the road to do that for me.

I'm a novice here to learn. And boy have I ! I am about halfway thorugh my first "from scratch" build. I have done everything myself, including making the neck. The only thing I "cheated" on was I bought a pre-slotted fret board from Stewart-Mac. So, I am definitely a novice, but I am well on my way to becoming a hobbiest !

Mornin' jay ! What I did was purchase my wood from Capitol City Lumber on Beryl Rd. in Raleigh. They sell Hard Maple and Ash in S2S. I bought one piece of Maple that was 4" W x 1" T x 36" L, and one piece of Ash that was 7" W x 2" T x 48" L. I had them cut the single Ash plank into 2 24" long pieces. (You can also get hardoods at Raleigh Hardwood Center, but I have not been there as yet. Wood crafters carries hardwood in S2S and I think S4S, but most of what I saw was only 1" stock, which would work for neck blanks, but you would need something a little bigger for body blanks.) Like you, I am severely limited in the tool department, but I got lucky. There is a retired gentleman that lives about 4 miles up the road from me and he has a very nice woodworking shop out behind his house. He builds bookcases and desks and various other items to sell. I stopped in and introduced myself to him and asked if he would be willing do some contract work for me on a pay as I go basis. He was great and said that he had people come in all the time asking him to cut this or build that and he had no problem doing it. And, he simply charges $9.00 per hour for the work. I had him join the two pieces of Ash and laminate them together for me and when that was ready I got him to plane it down to my 1 3/4" thickness. I also had him plane my Maple to 13/16" for my neck blank and join one edge of my Maple to give me a good straight edge to work from. This guy has 20" Grizzly planer and every other imaginable tool for woodworking. This worked out great and I plan to go up and show him my guitar when it is done to let him see what he was actually doing to help me out. I will also have him do more work for me in the future. If you need some work like this done on any of your projects, let me know and I can hook you up with him. Win/win for everybody huh !

From what I have seen demon, the shape of the channel depends on what type of truss rod you are installing. If you are using the Stewart-Mac double action hot shot truss rod. The channel is routed flat because the rods work in both directions. I think the older Fenders used a single action truss rod that required a deeper slot in the middle of the rout than at the ends. Then there are some truss rods that are enclosed in a "box", I think Gibson uses these on LesPauls, and these I think have a deeper rout in the middle and require a cap piece of wood on type, possibly with a similar depression in the middle of the cap. But, I am very much a novice to this whole Luthier thing myself, so you may want to wait for responses from some of the resident experts ! And as always, consult the manufacturer of the equipment for proper installation instructions.

Hey Stones ! Actually I meant the "Triangle" area. You know, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill. So really, depending on which direction you are (about 1 1/2 hours from the Triad, you might be close to me and jay too ! But since you said you don't "go DOWN there much anymore" I suspect you are somewhere closer to the mountains in the western part of the state. It is still really cool to see that there are some fellow Luthier buffs in the immediate area.

Hey jay ! Small world huh ? I think there will probably be enough of the blanks at Woodcrafters to go around ! You know if we start buying enough of them and keep going in and asking when they will have more and maybe even asking for different exotic woods in these blanks they are likely to start carrying more of them. You how it is in business, you stock what sells, right. I have looked at the Stewart-Mac fretting saw setup too, and I would love to have it. I am sure it would work just fine. I like you am just trying to ease into this hobby without huge expenditures of money. If I can get by building my own tools or jigs, then thats the way I'm going to go. I used the same router jig method you are talking about to make my radius sanding blocks and it worked pretty well. I'm sure my blocks are not exact or perfect but they're pretty close and for now I think that will be good enough. By the way, if we get enough people here in the Triangle area we could start up our own little group to meet and compare guitars and share tips and helpful hints. I am located around the Garner area myself. I am in the process of my first from scratch build and its going pretty well so far. I just fitted the tremolo last night. I now have to do the inlay dots, fretting and shape the back of the neck. Then I have to cut the peghead down to final shape and drill the holes for the tuners. Then drill all of the holes for the pickguard and tremolo cavity cover and I will be ready to start doing my final sanding and preparing for the finishing.

Not to hijack this thread or anything, but have any of you ever seen any single coil pickup covers in Tortoise shell ? I would love to do a Tortoise shell pickguard on my project, but I don't think I would like the look of a Tortoise shell pickguard with white or block pickup covers. I've looked around at MityMite and Guitar Parts Depot and some others, and a I can find are white, black, ivory, and chrome.

I also found these pieces that are perfect for fret boards jay. At my local Woodcraft store none the less ! You wouldn't happen to be in the Triangle area of NC would you ? (If you are, I had better get down to Wodcrafters and buy up all of these blanks before you get to them ! ) I have been toying with the idea of slotting my own fret boards too. Just haven't decided whether to invest the money in a full setup like Stewart-Mac sells of try to make my own. I haven't been able to find a pull saw locally yet with a .023" kerf. I did find a Japanese pull saw at one local woodworking shop that I think had a kerf of .024". I would think that would be close enough for Stewart-Mac fret wire. I could make a miter box, and I would think that a really good 3' metal ruler that measures down to 64ths of an inch would be sufficient for measuring the spacing, but I haven't really looked for one of those yet. As I am only now in the middle of my very first build from scratch, I'm not in a big hurry to move on to that level quite yet. But you never know. I have already made a set of four radius sanding blocks (10", 12", 14" and 16") so I could radius the blanks to what ever I want, even a compound radius. I'm like you, I figured for $8-$10, each, I could afford to make a couple of mistakes.

Very nice qp ! Can't wait to see the rest of the pictures !

You know all of this talk about radius blocks has got me thinking. I made a set of 4 radii (?) blocks suing the pendulum method that kench ws talking about. I followed the tutorial on the PG main site. So, anyway, I now have a set of 10", 12", 14", and 16" radius blocks. The Stewart-Mac fret board I used has a compound radius starting at 10" at the nut and tapering to 16" at the heel. I was curious if I could take, for example, three of my radius sanding blocks (10", 14", and 16") and mount them all to a single board as a handle. Then sanding a fret board blank using strokes about 6" long, to create a compound radius fret board myself. I am also wondering if I could this method to sand my existing fretboard after installing the inlay dots. I was thinking that if I was careful, using this method, I could do this without changing the compound radius of my fret board.

Just an update. Did the round over on my Ash body this weekend. Turned out great ! I decided to use the router table method, and practiced first on a scrap body shape I had cut out from some old Pine planks.I checked the round over on my MIM Strat and it was the 3/8" roundover radius so that is what I used also. I did get a little bit of ledge on the edges of the round over, but that all sanded out fairly easily. I'm really happy with it !The only remaining thing to do on the body is to cut or sand or route the body contours. After that, I just have to drill all the holes for the tremolo, pickguard, rear cavitiy cover, jack plate etc... Then I begin the aruous process of sanding and prepping for the finish. Wish me luck.

Appreciate the suggstions unclej. I am using a plate to secure the neck and I thought that stopping just short and finishing by hand would be wise.

Thanks Mike ! Good information. I have been chewing on it and have not decided yet which method would be best. I am concerned that using a router table means that the body is free (i.e. not clamped) and the bit may grab it and pull it away from my hands thus creating the tear out. But your idea of doing the round over with a smaller radius (like 1/4") sounds reasonable. That way the bit is not taking such a big bite all at once.

I am getting close to being ready to do the round over on my Ash Strat body. I am concerned about router tear out while doing the round over on the front two cut-aways. I have though about this and think it will be a good idea to clamp a piece of scrap from my body blank close to the actual body to give the router base and even and firm suface to ride while making the curves around the cut-aways. I am just a bit nervous about this as I have gotten this far with my body and would hate to ruin it by tearing out chunks when I do this. I'm curious, do any of you do this on a router table rather than doing it from the top of the piece freehanded ? What are your thoughts on which method is safer and/or easier and/or less likely to result in tear out ? Another question, do you take the round over all the way to the heel pocket , or stop just a little bit short and finish of by hand with sanding ? I have been looking at my MIM Strat and its kind of hard to tell. I also noticed that the round over on the back of the body looks like it may be smaller than the front. I saw where someone on here stated that Fender uses a 3/8" round over on Strats, and that looks like it is probably right on the front, but the back looks to be more like 1/4". Anyway, thanks for any suggestions anyone might have !

You know Rick, I would love to have this planer, and I would probably be willing to go $100.00, but I dont think I could afford the shipping cost on something that large and heavy. Where are you located at ?