javacody

Drak, thanks for that link to Glendale guitars. I know that there are other suppliers with a tarnished reputation who sell similar products. Sounds like Glendale is a good business, though? Have you tried out the non-magnetic bridges and the different saddle materials? I'm pretty partial to brass on a tele. That quilt is amazing stuff and I don't care for 90% of the quilt out there. Give me a nice tight flame any day of the week. Did you say you were doing a burst on this one? Edit, never mind, I read that you were doing a burst. With the Texican theme, I'd be hard pressed not to go with the steers head. LOL How about a cowbay hat sound hole? Or a lasso inlay? Maybe a Jalapeno?

jmrentis, on Universal Jems, it lists burl and mahagony bobbin toppers, so Brian does carry wood bobbin toppers. And at $2.00 a pop, I'm pretty sure you ain't gonna be dissapointed. Brian's service is very fast, too. I've ordered tuners from him and got a response very quickly from every email I sent him, and the tuners arrived within a couple of days.

I made one of these tools today. Man, I'm proud. Its the first woodworking project I've actually finished. LOL. I was getting ready to glue on my cloth and happened to see the duct tape out of the corner of my eye. I did Red Green proud! Let me tell you, there was a kitchen hand towel breathing a sigh of relief! Also, my file was too wide to pound into the groove I cut, so I took a second pass at it. Now the groove was just slightly too wide. Fortunately, I had some epoxy on hand. Anyway, thanks for posting your tutorial Brian! It's helped to build my confidence with my table saw a little bit, too. It only cost me 6 bucks to build! Next, I'm going to make the fret bender.

Isn't it called a pattern bushing or something like that?

OK, you can slap me for this if its a stupid question, but how does the thing you made (which looks complicated for some reason) actually work?

Chrome is no biggie, but if it was black chome? mmm... I wish I could get black chrome guitar parts.

Drak, you'll get my vote if you use normal 3 tele barrel saddles. I don't care for tele's with ANY other bridge (unless you add a bigsby to the end). It's even ok if they are compensated, but it must be 3.

Are those fretboards radiused on both sides, or are they steamed to bend? I've read that they are kind of like a thick veneer. I'll have to get out the Ol' Fender Strat book and see... Hmm, it says that the veeneer or cap fretboard wasn't in production until 1962 (and got thinner in 63). Either that isn't a 59 neck or its the normal slab board. Can you verify? If it is really a 59, it may not have a neck date, but it will definitely have a body date. It it isn't a 59, (say its a 62 or 63 neck), it will have a neck date (according to the Fender Stratocaster book).

Yep, but they use more wood than a tele or lp. How about a Les Paul Jr. type guitar? Go with p90's and a wraparound tailpiece and you have a very simple rock/blues machine.

I'll go one better, a tele with a top loading bridge.

I really liked Godin's guitar the best, but man, they are all cool. I don't like cops all that much, but I have to admit that Stew's copper strat looks pretty darn cool.

I picked up a Chinese Made Router on ebay for about $30. It came with an edge guide, a 1/4" collect adapter, pattern bushings, its 1 3/4 hp and it plunges. I'm not experienced enough in this area to know if its good router or not, but my point is to keep an eye on ebay.

I'm not a metal guitar guy (anymore, anyways), but I like your design.

Well, isn't yew a tradional bow wood (as in bow and arrow)? Are you going to shoot arrows from the guitar strings? Just kidding. Just something to think about.

If you are talking about Brian's Fretbender tutorial here (=http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/bender.htm), if your frets weren't a tight enough radius, then you should have made yours with a smaller radius.

You could tape it, but from what I've read, the bearing chews up the tape pretty quickly. I've also read that for a one-off, some folks will just use straight edges to route with. However, I personally think that if you are ever going to build even another humbucker based guitar, even 1 time, then the right way to do this is to make a new template.

After you build Brian's fretbender, you may also want to build his Fret Bevel Tool (http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/beveltool.htm). That's going to be my project for this weekend.

This is an old thread, but Doug, do you still have a pic of your jig?

Jay5, this is a good start to a tutorial.

This is easily one of the best threads ever! That is awesome Matt. Just keep your head down and believe in yourself, you're going to do great!

Whew. That's a relief. My piece of Limba is 12" x 60". I should have plenty. The other side looks to be about 20" x 5.5". Cool, I just figured I have enough limba left for another regular guitar, maybe a strat or LP Jr? Here's what I'm thinking for my moderne project (sorry for the poor quality, I did this in photoshop in 5 minutes just to get an idea for the look): Black Limba body with semi-carved walnut top, indian rosewood neck with cocobolo fretboard. I already have the Limba and the rosewood.

Those jigs are practically works of art! Very, very inspiring. What the heck is a woodrat? Any chance of you drawing up some plans and a materials list, xlr8?

Why did you choose to "relic" it? Also, is that neck scalloped? Nice concept. How does that neck pickup sound under the pickguard? Is it muffled at all? Also, how deep is your neck tenon? Cool guitar. I'd prefer it with P90's, but that's just me.

The link doesn't work because you either have never been a GOTM winner (like Toddler has) or haven't donated (like I have). I created this from a TIFF off the government patent site. moderne.pdf On a somewhat related topic, what size (length x width) piece of wood would you need for the top side?

I've read that the way to age metal parts is to (and I can't remember exactly, so PLEASE RESEARCH IT) either suspend them over or put them in circuit board etchant. You can get a big thing of it from Radio Shack. I've read lots of great relicing threads on the FDP. I read about a guy who got a bunch of cheap incense (to simulate years of smoke from a bar), lit it all up at once in a big plastic bucket and put his parts in the bucket. I also read about Fender Custom Shop guys using a bunch of keys and dropping them repeatedly onto the finish. This would give you fairly random little chips, etc. I guess you just have to use your imagination and try stuff. I had a friend who tried soaking all of his plastic parts in very strong coffee for like a week. He took them out and they were shiny, bright white. You might need to scuff up the plastic first. Anyway, you'll have to use a lot of trial and error and many of the things you'll be using can be dangerous. Please be careful.