Mr Natural

which nordstrand p/u you going with? I have been extremely happy with his pickups- i have (2) dual coils- a shush puppy for bridge strat and a couple of 51P that are HUGE sounding. I am going to be getting a MM 4 pu when ever I get around to that project

I have taken the aluminum yard sticks you can get at lowe's or home depot and just notched them. Not the thin 48" ones but the thicker aluminum 36" ones. They hold up pretty well- and you can sort of check them right at the store for straight edge as they should have a 48" straight edge there in that area for $40+. if you drop them- they will dent-and lose their edge- but for $7 or whatever and a few minutes with a dremel/bandsaw whatever -it works good enough.

CJ- what is your temp and humidity right now? its so hot and humid here if I were to finish i would need to add retarder to slow down the gassing off to avoid issues with moisture trapped in the finish.

man that sucks- hope you heal soon. you have come back with a quite a build-hope you are not out too long as I was watching this with extreme interest. take care.

its an "Air Metal" guitar. (where is the rim shot emoji when you need it)

no chip out on the roundover. But- as previously reported- there was blow out when I did the pattern route-on that inner curve of the upper horn. the pic up above shows it after the roundover- and it patched up fine. the roundover I just did in two passes- like I always do (router table- not freehand)- took my time, and prayed (not for my guitar- just in general- I do that too when I build) and took partial pass and then full pass. got lucky especially since this is maple and I am cursed by maple. if it had been a les paul lower horn it would have spewed evil chunks of maple whilst laughing at me saying YOU SUCK DUDE>seriously. you can tell from the burn on the maple that I go VERY slow- like- too slow- but- it helps too. the router speed is fine- I just am slow. And yes Carl - I dont go near power tools (sans mouse sander) whilst I partaketh in the consumption of ye beverages. I hate having to concentrate too hard with a buzz- and power tools like driving do not mix. My stubs are stubby enough without an accidental trim here or there.

sometimes i like making lots of holes. Its therapeutic. there are times when I just need to go mindless and stand there , pulling the arm of my drill press, making sawdust in the process. Its how I unwind. then I have to pay attention, cause the router is coming. The only thing that puts me in focus mode more than a router is a table saw. I really dont enjoy using them -but- they are useful tools. and we have a neck pocket. managed to get some superglue/masking tape on the face but that will sand out. Lots of sanding to due on this puppy, lot of tight inner curves ugh. I may actually put a throw switch on here-I was going to not have any knobs like the last ritter copy I did- but- I am thinking of putting a DPDT switch on this and wiring it for series, single coil and parallel.

reminds me of the Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion guitars of years past. Watching with interest!

Looking good Scotty. So- maybe its not an intentional Easter egg but you know me-I'll bite- so- whats the big ass chunks o'wood in the pic above? Those look like some big ol rounds.

I know right? If you look at LMI's website- and click on the pics of examples of each grade- the only diff I see is that a couple of the 2nd grade blanks (especially the one on the far left) look better than the first grade blanks- and six bucks less each. The diff I see between the premium and 1st grade is the premium is darker in color- but if you look- that grain is no more straighter than the 1st or 2nd grade- so- a gambled a few dozen bucks and lucked out. the color always darkens up anyway when you oil IR- so- I figured even if I got one of those "off" colored ones it would still work out. that little patch of lighter colored wood on my blank in the post above will even out once its oiled. neck blank prepared. little bit of snipe from the jointer, but nothing too gnarly.

i have no idea if this next batch of pics will be in order or not but trying to find this is quite the hassle. round over- I am using a 1/2" round over bit not quite fully flush with table surface as I have absolutely no idea where my 3/8" bit is- and if relative or neighbor borrowed it its gone. I need to quit letting peeps play with my shite. I realize a 1/2" bit doesnt quite provide the same round over but a little sanding and it will be fine

on the topic of 335/355 builds- a member (its been a while since he has posted) named Blackdog has done some of the best build threads ever. This one may be of interest to you in your journey. there is a lot of great information and pics -though I notice on some of his build threads some of the pics are missing. He has links to his hosting site and seriously- his build threads are terrific imho. Click on the subject line below- it will(should) take you to page4 of this thread where he did a les paul and a 355. (scroll down for the 355 stuff) or better yet start at the beginning- Blackdog always did super clean and detailed work.

good to see you building again. What scale length is this?

and after it dries- you blow off the loose dust and you have plastic wood filler. This should sand down flush. luckily I am painting the back of this - not sure what I would have done if this was to be oil & waxed. after going thru my wood stash looking for maple boards for the neck- it dawned on me I had already glued up some maple for my previous Ritter copy- its actually been out in my garage this whole time (yikes) but appears to be ok. I remember how much fun this thing was cutting on the table saw- my band saw could not handle this. I will run this thru the planner and clean up all the saw blade marks. you cant tell from the pic but the outside lams are plain maple and the middle one is somewhat curly. i bought a few Indian rosewood fingerboard blanks from LLMI- its been probably a decade since I have bought IR- and obviously the price has skyrocketed. I rolled the dice and took a shot at some "2nd grade" boards to see what they would look like. NOT TOO SHABBY. saved about $6 a pop so I am happy.

its good to find the pictures! I still have over a 1000 folders to go thru.

Thank Andy-I will chalk mine up to being lazy and wanting to get rolling when time is finally on my side. No excuse though. I meant to post these pics of the repairs on the routing mess up/divot in the back of the body. The routing blow out was filled with glue and packed with saw dust- came out half ok. the back divot was layered- a bit of glue- packed dust- let sit for 5 min-glue, sawdust, pack, let sit- and then a big glob of glue and big oversized pack of sawdust. sanded flat after it dried. My lovely ruler (I have 5 or 6 of these around the shop)- used to do a multitude of tasks- in this case- packing dust

good to see you back Rad. the axes look great (as always). Did you put an angle in the neck on the sg? I just noticed one of the pics the bridge appears to be recessed. PS- I think I have said this before- but I dig those boogies.

well- i guess I never learn. While poplar cuts like butter- you still need to be careful- especially on inside tight curves. I both took too much on the initial pass, and went too aggressive into the inside curve. Little blow out to remind my dumb ass of something I have done twice already over the years with other woods- and yet- despite writing it down in my "things to remember journal"- I failed to read it before going at this body. Guess I feel like I should remember this and dont need to read what I have written down to prevent this very thing from happening. Dumb ass I am. no worries though- luckily its on the very edge and will be covered by the maple top and then round over I will be putting on this. . If there is any left after that- the color I have planned for this will allow a repair to be invisible. there will also be a very minute amount removed after this body goes thru my neighbors thickness sander. I have seeped glue into that blowout to try to keep it from blowing out more. i put two screws thru the pickup route and one in the neck pocket route to align the top and keep it from shifting during glue up. I damped the top for this shot prior to glue up with mineral spirits to show the figure. Nothing epic but not bad. This was sanded with 80 grit thru a thickness sander and then I hit it with 120 with an orbital prior to this photo. from the photo above you can see how bad the blade drift is with my 9" benchtop band saw. How I miss my old 14" craftmans saw. I will clean up those edges of the maple on my oscillating belt/spindle sander, picking up the poplar and cleaning it up at the same time. Then the scary part- routing the round over into that maple. ugh. I hate routing maple. no build thread complete without the clamp photo. also- there are two glue and sawdust fills in the back of the body where somehow I dented the body on this- I have no idea how I did it- but there is a deep 1/8" b 3/4" long dent/void- whatever just above the center line and then another dent/deep scratch just off the center line. The color will cover it- just trying to pack that in good so when I sand it out its level.

neck blank routed

that little box above that I didnt cut out is the stereo/mono switch- I am not putting that on this. I also cut out a screw point (oops)- so- I will probably glue a small piece of walnut back onto the module- we will see - the module attaches via 2 screws on each longer side of the module. I left meat on the one side but not the other- pays to have a full drawn out plan (with every part of the project) and not "partially winging it as you go" like I am.

I glued the pickup model layout drawing from the US Patent site to a 1/4" piece of mdf, and then using painters tape and glue attached that mdf to the walnut pickup block. I will hog out material with my drill press so the router has an easier job just cleaning up the edges and bottom.

AFL is one of the greatest sports I have ever seen. The first time I saw it I was like- where the hell has this been my whole life. The games come on at like 1am give or take an hour on Saturday morning. I am often up till 4am watching a game. In the states- and forgive me anyone who is offending reading this- not my intent- but as kids growing up in the 70s we had a game in grade school called "smear the queer'. They used to sell small size rubber or plastic footballs at grocery stores- and these were highly coveted possessions back in the day- you would bring it to school-meet up before and after school- find a big open space- and throw the ball in the air. Who ever caught it was the queer and ran like hell to avoid the others- who were out to smear (tackle) the queer- you got tackled- you threw the ball up- someone else caught the ball- repeat. Greatest grade 3-6 game ever. Your mom always wanted to know why you had grass stains on your jeans- or why your knees were always ripping. Enter Sears toughskins. (oh Lord (ha ha))- anyway- AFL is the adult version of that game. I couldnt believe my eyes watching these guys literally beating the crap out of each other (elbows, knees, some punches thrown- etc) and I mean- just in disbelief. its like MMA, football, rugby and smear the queer all in one. I often watch the action away from the ball in play as you see huge hits and punches, I love how these guys launch in the air to catch the ball and kick the guy covering them in the head and the same time. Freaking Epic man. Having played rugby at one point in my life- and still paying the price for it- these dudes have huge balls to play that game as adults. total respect as the body is hugely sacrificed.

Father's day gifts. Every single one of my benchtop tools (except my jointer) is a fathers day gift from my kids. I sold everything I had basically to get a big downpayment on the house I am in right now- and every fathers day I would get a new tool to replace the "real" tools I used to have. these things always go on sale round fathers days cause they are just within peoples budgets to get dear old dad. :-)

Pros- I actually think its more of an issue of power- I can chuck one of those bits into my power (hand) drill- and it drills just fine- minimal loss of power- but- my cheap ass bench top drill press just doesnt have the balls to plow thru me thinks. Of course- the issue being able to keep a perfectly straight plunge which is impossible by hand- and I am not really into buying one of those hand drill /drill press converter thingys. I hear you about sharp good bits-I may pull out my better bits and just test your theory- but I really think it is more a matter of lack of power in the drill itself. Bench top tools -unfortunately, only get you so far. Better than nothing, but often fall short of needs.