Bryan316

LEAVE IT!!! DON'T CHANGE A THING!!! Leave the back side and neck all grey like that! Leave the top red like that! It looks like the most ancient, archaic treasure chest discovery like that! I even like how your binding got "dirty" by the staining process! Man.... SLICK. Do the front ONLY of the headstock red to match the top, and leave it all alone. The red on the front with that dusty, burned look is just too awesome, and then you can suprise people when they see that grey dusty back and sides. It's gonna stand out of the crowd like CRAZY. GUITAR OF THE MONTH NOMINATION!!! EDIT: Crap... just realized you went red on the neck and back already. BOO!! Heh heh....

Could your necks benefit from an uneven action? Have your high E and B strings riding very close to the fretboard, and your low E riding higher? As a bass player, I greatly appreciate a low action on the higher tuned strings for fingertapping and soloing, but I jack up my low B string so it doesn't clack against the frets when I'm wailing away on it. Is there anything that says you can't do this on a guitar?

Definitely of the Slice-And-Flip camp here. And adding a walnut or cherry center laminate will add more stability and counteracting grain. And look more badass. Now... Fender headstock, or scarf joint headstock?

Even leftover scraps of maple tops would be wiser than using the sappy pine. Even if it's for a crap beater guitar, it's still worth doing it right. MiKro rules.

This video shows everything you need to know with the clamped rails method: Also notice that he used a center block at the end of the neck's tenon, to keep the router from going too far back into the body. A perfect technique. Also, as you see him test-fit the neck in the pocket, his pocket had the router bit's radius in the corners, and his tenon had matching radii on its corners. This makes for a perfect fit both for gluing and for cosmetics. Do a couple practice runs. Scrap 2x4's of pine work well. Just cut a fake neck tenon, then use the clamped rail method to test-route a neck pocket. Do everything as if you really were gluing up a neck joint. I'd say do two complete glued joints. If you can get the tenon to be as snugly fit as in this video, and your glue lines are cleaned up and don't look ugly, then you're ready. But definitely do a couple tests. This is the most critical point in your construction process, so you want this done right!

the Ormsby Method (Heh heh) of using two boards alongside the actual neck is how I did my test fits. First and second practice runs, I did with pine scraps. First attempt proved doing it right the first time is worth the prep and care. I just drew the pocket onto the body wood, and routed to the lines, then fine sanded. Didn't fit at all. Sanding made the pocket crooked. So I chiseled a bit, worsened it. Then I got a small block plane, and squared the pocket's sides to the body. It was horrible, because my horizontal reference lines were off by about 1/2" inch once I tucked the neck into the pocket. The neck sat far too forward on the body, increasing the scale length. I needed three strips of masking tape to make it snug. That moved the tapered neck back into the body the right amount, but was still quite a failure. Second attempt, I just lined up the neck's centerline with the body centerline and quickly clamped it. Then tapped it a few times to align it exactly. Then I clamped two boards on each side of the neck, and really tightened those clamps. My neck will run into my neck pickup's pocket, so no need for the middle block. Then I wiggled the neck out, routed, and my pencil lines were dead-on. Just make sure you use two identically thick blocks, that are about 1/4" taller on your body than your fretboard and frets (if the frets are already inserted) so you can easily clamp some quick setup boards over your two guide boards. Then once you pull the neck out, your router's baseplate will float squarely over the pocket. Drop your router bit as deep as you need, double and triple check your depth, and go for it.

Sap is a horrible mess. Just go get some cheap boards of poplar to make your top. Heck, even a lumber yard might have scraps the size you'd need for the top, go ask em if they got any throwaways for you with no sap in them.

I hate trying to just use a regular drill bit to enlarge a hole, it always ends with terrible chatter and chewed up holes. I have, however, used steel de-burring bits to open wood holes. Takes longer, but far cleaner holes. Just find one 3/4" outside diameter, and go slowly. Cleanest "cheap" method for opening up a hole. But using a Unibit stepped drillbit would be the easiest tool to find at a hardware store. Gotta be careful with the wood chips building up, but it'll do the job for ya. Get one with a 3/4" outside diameter, and you should be fine punching all the way through.

Recessing the CF plate is DEFNITELY the selling point for me. Yeah, you can just screw a plate to the top, but doing it this way is such a classy, professional idea. I salute you!

That white binding is SHARP with that color. Diggin' this big time. White pickup rings, white knobs, chrome hardware.... is it getting a matching headstock? Or using the owner's neck again? If you matched the headstock with the same binding... HOOO BOY!!!

*drools*

I goof around with leather from time to time. Cowhide bellies, latigo belt material, and deerskins of different styles. I'm quite interested to see how your plans for a leather covered guitar turn out. As for the sound-deadening properties, take the adive posted above, and attach all your tone-sensitive parts through the leather, not on top of it. And any effects will be minimal. I'd love to see someone do up some really evil horror flick inspired leather guitar. Like doing a tribute to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and make a leather covered body with scars, stitches, blood stains, tufts of hair... make it really morbid! Maybe channel Sir Anthony Hopkins to bless/curse it with some Hannibal Lector mojo!

The body is the shape of a fatherless child.

Okay. Totally being obtrusive here, but want to throw this idea out there in case you dig it. The top of the body looks awesome, but the bottom looks very plain and round. To me, it needs a little styling there as well. And in that little cutout, you can install your output jack. Thoughts?

Whooooooaaaaaah. Now we're talking about some serious originality!!! I'd shred that sucka on a stage. Wait. No. I'm a bassist. I'm toootally showing this to my guitar players. \m/ \m/

Time for an airbrush kit. I think the color scheme WILL look good with the crackle over it. But, as you've discovered, the crackle process sucks. Here's what I propose instead. My guitarist has a Fender that his dad painted up for him with some hot-rod muscle car techniques. In his finish, they started with a dark blue base, letting it dry completely. Then they sprayed the thing entirely with silver metallic, and as it was still very wet, they quickly and randomly placed cellophane saran wrap onto the silver. Then they pulled the saran wrap off randomly, creating some wickedawesome silvery markings and ripples and streaks and swirls and dimples all over the body. Trust me when I say, it looks outstanding! It's got the overall solid blue look, with the very faint silver patterns all over. Now, I'm not saying rip that idea off completely. I'm suggesting you use that idea and run some tests. First, just quickly cut and sand a guitar body, paint it with your sunburst color scheme, and do a serious test. Once the sunbursting is dry, quickly give it a clear coat, maybe even a sanding. Then, shoot the whole body with gloss black, and lay the saran wrap on it. It'll give a different texture and pattern than a crackle, but you could end up with a really unique design. Remember, I'm suggesting a test-body because if you don't like my idea, it's easier to bail out than trying to paint-thinner off the black coat!

There's some tricks you can use to make a pointy guitar LOOK pointy, but round over the points. First off, I've found a 3/16" to 1/4" endpoint is typically safe. If you design your layout, and then at the points draw a circle around this size, then bring your body lines tangent to the circle, you'll have a small enough roundover that the body looks like it has a sharp point. Sometimes, even as small as a 1/8" circle, creating a 1/16" radius, is small enough. Then, you can slightly bevel the top of the body. It doesn't need to be as extreme a bevel as a Jackson Randy V, just enough that the top forms a point and edge, and that edge widens down into the rounded-over point. From any standard observation angle, the body will certainly look sharpened.

I'm worried that epoxy resins don't have the penetration of wood glue. A good wood glue will creep and soak into the surrounding fibers of wood, whereas epoxy gives a surface bond. If I were gluing two pieces of glass together, or metal, or other non-porous, non-absorbing materials, I'd be all over the epoxy. If I were gluing fibrous materials like wood, I'd definitely stay with wood glue.

I've got two year old photos printed, and their color sure as HECK ain't staying true. I'd invest in the stains. Using the inks is great for color testing especially seeing how it behaves with the figuring of the wood. Once you pick your scheme, just buy the wood dyes, knowing those are designed to stay their color forever without fading or discoloring from UV deterioration.

Here's a method I've used many times on all different kinds of stripped screw heads. Dremel tool and Vise-Grips. Use either a cutoff wheel or a sanding drum, and create two flat sides on the screw head, almost parallel with the shank of the screw. Then clamp on the Vise-Grips and twist it out. Go get new pickup screws.

Yeah that fungus-y looking stuff is either wet-sand residue that collected or polishing compound residue when the body was buffed. Standard fare, seen it in just about every guitar/bass I've ever opened up. As for the neck screws, here's what you should start looking at. Eye-balling down the bridge looking alongside the fretboard, do you see the neck having the same amount of curve from front to back? If the top of the fretboard is curved more than the bottom, then that's twisting and warpage. That's the wood aging and shifting, and nothing you can do to undo it. You CAN... however, have the fretboard resanded so it's once again flat and true, then have a refret done. That'll get flattened worn buzzy frets replaced, high frets or low frets taken care of, and any minor cosmetic dings and scratches cleaned up. Now...the strings compared to the fretboard. At the nut, the E strings (Or low B and high E strings for you 7-slingers) should have a certain spacing from the actual edge of the fretboard. All the way down, that spacing should be consistent. One string should not be closer to the edge and the other string farther away. If you see that happening, then the neck is crooked in the pocket. This either needs some small shims (masking tape, metal shims, wood shims, a layer of epoxy, anything can be used to fix the pocket) to make the neck sit straight to the body again. In this process of removing the neck and correcting the neck pocket, you can then look at the screw holes in the neck itself. Are there only four holes? Are there extra holes cuz the previous owner stripped the wood and drilled that crooked screw crooked to find fresh wood in the neck? The neck cane easily be salvaged if this is the case. First, you drill out the existing holes with some forstner drill bits. They make very straight, clean holes with square bottoms. Then, you glue and hammer in hardwood dowels. Maple neck, use maple dowels. The glue will be far harder than the wood around it, so plugging the neck is a stable and structurally sound repair process. This lets you redrill your screws into solid wood again, instead of the ol' toothpick-And-Elmer's trick. Once the neck is plugged and cleaned up, sand it down carefully and clean the bottom surface. Put the neck back in the pocket, and do your shimwork. For this process, you can use dental floss in the outside string positions to see if the spacing stays perfectly parallel. Then, use a piece of flat rubber between very large clamps to hold the neck in place. Anything can work here, from buying a couple squares of urethane rubber, to a flip-flop sandal's sole. As long as it doesn't damage the fretboard or frets, it'll allow you to put lots of clamping force on the neck. Then, flip the body on its side and drill some new pilot holes for rescrewing the neck. Remember, even the smallest pilot hole, smaller than the bottom pitch diameter of the screw, will assure your screws go in straight. If your body's screw holes are large and loose compared to the pilot drill bit you're going to use, you can wrap masking tape as a drill bushing. This makes sure your pilot hole is located coaxial to the body's holes, and assures your screws go in straight and clean. After that, reassembly. It should be easy, if you go slowly and test-fit every chance you can.

Hey at first I thought they were manatees dressed as Manowar, but I figured that's not likely what they were supposed to be. Better inlay work than I'll ever try to attempt!!!

Best thing I can tell you for learning AutoCAD, is by watching someone actually drawing something up. My brother caught on how the trim and extend commands work, just from watching over my shoulder as I drew up our band logo. So if you have someone handy around, show them your design and let him start drawing it, then watch all the commands he uses and how/why he's using them. I dunno if you've had any drafting classes, but your top and side view projections are your most important layouts. Keep them accurate with plenty of construction lines as you go. Bouncing between Ortho and Free drawing is very handy. Remember that CAD is mathematically exact. If you've got funky fractions, don't be afraid to enter them AS fractions instead of decimal equivalents. And if you get good enough, doing a completely 3D layout of a guitar before building is very very handy. Especially when trying to visualize the edges or any beveling.

Right. But you must consider the effects of this change. First off, the strings will be closer to the body. Which means your picking will be closer to the body. Which means you could inherently scratch up the body cuz 1/4-3/8" above the body is not a lot of room. Will you plan for a pickguard? Are you a strong picker? Also, your pickups will protrude from the body less to meet the strings at your comfortable spacing. So your pickup pockets might need to be deeper. Otherwise, you should be fine doing this.

Wait wait WAAAIT wait.... I thought the tuners were black! Crap... shoulda looked at ALL the extra photos. DURRRRR. Okay... so the knobs are the stand-out feature. I thought the tuners and knobs were black. DURRRR. Okay. So... get new satin chrome knobs, then everything will match and synch together. Blammo, awesome guitar. Sorry, I'm just a dumbass, man. And by dumbass, I mean bassist. ;D