Pibrocher

Yeah, that is looking much more like a unified theory. Keep up the good work. I am all about instruments that push the envelope. This flame guitar of yours is doing just that. Be glad Hendrix aint around to see it, he might have gotten some inspiration from it and try to light it on fire. Hah, can't wait to see all your hardware. Rock on!!!

Looks like a nice job man. Bet she plays pretty sweet.

Yeah, bitten is the right term for this. It was an honest msitake and as long as i learn from it then everything will be all good.

Thats a very good point about the controls. I hadn't really thought about the pots fitting in the cavity comfortably. I had that problem with my Mushroom guitar Mushroom Project I ended up having to carve out the inside of the cavity more to make room for wiring. On this bass though i was gonna make sure i have enough room, but i haven't got to the point of making the final adjustments. I think i'll be ok if i turn the solder points towards the inside of the guitar. I don't mind if the knob is right at the edge of the roll, but i don't want it out on the roll. Well here are shots of the most recent work with my trusty router. Everything went really well right up until i made a HUGE mistake. which i'll explain in due time. Check it out... Here is my setup for routing off the top of the neck-through. I needed to bring it down flush to the sides so this is how i did it. It had to be done in several steps since it was hard to clamp the guides and still get the router where i needed it all the time. I did the middle, then the bottom then the end of the fretboard. Here you can see the progress as i removed the wood. I went down about an 1/8" with each pass. It was important to rember the bit spinning direction when i got to the end of the guitar. The bottom came out perfect, no chip outs, nice sharp glue edge. Its always imporatant to make your glue lines good where they will be seen. Here you can see my lovely palm sander-light. Heh, have to improvise sometimes. You can see how i have the neck lines laid out already and then clamped on the router guide. I was using a 3/4" bottoming bit as you can see. So then i started making my passes, 1/8" at a time. More shots of the neck routing progress. Notice my marks near the horns to make sure i didn't clip it with the router. You can see how the laminates will come together at the end of the freatboard. Also what parts will be exposed above the ash overlay, that has yet to be glued on. I have it laid on to show you the basic height. Everything was going beautifully until... I let the router roll toward me a little and it left a bit of a divot in the side of the neck. This is isn't realy that bad, as all that will be removed as i shaped the neck. I got lucky with this one. BUT. What happened as i was finishing the neck at the horns floored me. I was dumb enough to keeping droppping the router bit lower and lower until suddenly i had lowered it to the point that the collet was exposed below the router-base. You can see the area where it contacted very clearly. How could i have been so stupid? Still not sure, but i was pretty upset at the time. I know i can fix it but its a particularly bad location for this to happen. A veyr hard lesson for me. Its even right on the top where everyone will see it. I am up for suggestions on how to fix this botching. Probably just fit another piece of ash in and sand it down flush. Won't be too bad but it wasn't not what i was going for at all. Everything else is looking great, so i am not that upset anymore. I'll just move forward witht he project as planned. Rome was not built in a day. Here you can see the end result of my routing. On the back i have the basic contours drawn on. Just about time to start carving. I still need to glue on the ash top before i do that though. So i'll be posting after this weekend, more to come...

Thats looking great. I like that big curivng horn on the top. You may want to consider shortening the length of the neck making the body start around like the 15-16 fret or lower even. What were you thinking would be the starting point of the body? I did this i my most recent project to help strengthen the neck (8-strings) and the balance the body a bit more. The rounding you reffered to would be the carving he was talking about.

Well i think that settles it. We all love shiny finishes but its really those crazy woods that get us all excited. I agree too, i am a sucker for a top like that. Would never want to cover a beautiful piece like that up. Great work southpaw. Keep the good pics coming.

That is xactly what i was talking about. I'm glad it helped. I think you could leave the outside edges as they are and just do the cutout but its your design not mine. The outside edges are going to affect how the tuners look as much as anything and i kinda like the hourglass over-all shape. The licks at the top look good, can't wait to see the cutting done.

Well guys i finally got back to work on the bass. Man, it seemed like forever since i had the time. I'm not at my home PC right now but i'll post pictures later today. I have now routed the top of the neck section down to flush with the body, In preparation to put the ash laminate on. Tonight i will be tapering th neck, also with my router. Then it will be truss rod time! Sweet. I need to get that ash on there as soon as possible so i can begin figuring out my mahogany lattice design for the final top. The part that has got me concerned is the triangle design around the control knobs. I'm not sure how i want to do it. I was originally planning on making the circle and triangle into a pickguard piece. One that could be removed to expose the guts. But now i am thinking that i want it to be more of an inlay, similar to the headstock, with the hardware coming through the top from the back side. I don't mind putting in a control cavity and a cover. I'll make the cover from mahogany i think, there will probably be enough left over from the top lattice to use there. Let me know what you guys think about the control area.

That is so awesome seeing that machine at work. This is the first post i've seen with such extensive CNC work. Looks great, i'm sure it takes alot of measuring and plotting to get everything dead-on accurate. Keep it coming. Any ideas on finish?

I'd go with 6- inline and maybee a beffier headstock than what teles usually have. Might make the carving look more robust. IS that going to be string-through? With ferrels? Or the standard tele oufit?

Thanks, i'm glad everyone is getting something different from the headstock. Thats probably a good thing. Take it as you will.

You sould try to mimick the body in the headstock. I think if you cut a taper out of the top making the headstock look like two licks of flame it would be sweet. Don't cut too much out, just make it look like the tuners are on fire kinda. You could cut downt he middle without weakening the headstock if you don't go down too far. Don't know if that makes any sence, I really like the flame body style. Definetly like all your laminations and color choices. Oh and the neck looks normal against the body, must have just been the way the picture was taken in the earlier shot.

Great looking turquoise. Its nice to see some good photos too. I hate fuzzy low-res shots. That light across the fretboard makes it look even more awesome. It reminds of something an artist friend of mine was saying about pedistals. If you take a sculpture and stick it on a table, then its a sculpture on a table. But if you place that same sculpture in a museum on a pedistal it becomes a work of art. Makes you question how much the surroundings and situational details afect a person's perception of beauty. The pedistal (and its affect on the presentation) is as much a part of the artwork as the sculpture itself. Too true, is that a well taken photgraph of an excellent piece makes our impression of the artist and his/her art that much higher. Know what i mean? Anyway, nice work man. Can't wait to see it SHINE!

Man it kills me when i don't get to work on my project for more then a few days. It was Monday when i last did an work and it already seems like ages since i made some dust. Hopefully this weekend will lend me some much needed routing time. I am dying to start shaping the neck and heel transitions. I have ALOT of carving to do on the body and would very much like to start that ASAP. Oh well, going back to work slowed it down some. But money is one of those neccesary evils. Thanks for all the great comments guys, keep em coming. Check out all the cool basses being built by members right now. 4 strings, 5 strings, 6 strings, 8 strings. Who has time to count?

My dad is the reason i started building guitars. After seeing his wood-shop sit in non-use for like 2 years it dawned on me one day that i should be down there building axes! That bass looks great. Alot of good looking basses coming along here at PG of late. Makes me feel good about my curent project. I like the tuner assembly particularly. Love the long pegs. I especially like the way you shaped the transition at the headstock. I've seen a few like that recently. Is that done for any reason other then asthetics? Its to reinforce the headstock on account of the extra string? Great work especially if that is your first. Were there any mishaps along the way? Keep em coming...

I love SG's Definetly my favorite Gibson body style. Mahogany has also become one of my most favorite tone woods. That refinish looks great. Its always interesting to see what happens when you strip the paint away. I assume you left the fretboard untoched? Linseedoil would not be a very druable finish to have on a fretboard. I agree with you about the "feel" of an oiled guitar.

Like the body syle but it is hard to get a feel for the "asthetic proportions" without seeing the neck in place with the body. LIke the horns though. Would like to see it next to a carbon based life form to get a better feel for how it would play size-wise. The neck looks extremely thin in your hands there. Whats the width of it?

Sweet looking tele. Are all those pieces mahogany.?

Thats looking great man. I've been wondering about the multi piece fretboards. Nice to see how you put yours together. It was also great to hear your input about truss rods and stiffening rods. The eight string i'm building was going to have a truss rod and two stiffening rods but i think my multiple laminations will make it more then sturdy enough. Do you think an 8-string will need stiffening rods? seems like it might not.

The latice on the top will actually be another 1/8" mahogany piece i have. It will go on top of a 1/4" ash overlay. The inside of those latice holes will be smooth lines like in the headstock. Everything molded. Proabably use the palm sander for a lot of that.

EH, you don't need that fret anyways. I like the grain on the headstock particularly. DId you buy that fretboard? Was it notched already for the frets?

I thought the tops looked real nice. Are all of these guitars to have maple necks or do you have somehting more exotic in store for any of them?

The single-coil and humbucker combination might be an interesting way to go with the twelve string. Seems to me like the single-coil will really birng those overtone strings to life in the mix. Making it that much brighter. Used in conjunction with the humbucker in the neck i think it will really give you the full range of sounds that a 12-string guitar is capable of. I don't think you will have problems with pickup range, if you know what i mean. I ran into this situation with my 8-string bass, i wanted a pickup birhgt enough to do the over-tone strings some justice since bass pickups are geared for low-end. I also ended up using an active pre-amp to boost the highs. The 6-string is gonna sound more like you would expect it to with traditional pickup combinations.

My first came out pretty well. I hit most of my bumps after finishing the guitar, during the setup phase. I had an awefull time getting the intonation right on mine, and ended up having to plug the bridge holes and re-drill them farther back. I had my Tune-O-Matic bridge saddles all the way back and i was still way sharp! Its was a mess, but i got it finally and now it stays in tune and plays like a dream. The other mistake i made was with the finish. We put a wax on it at first but found that it didn't offer anywhere near enough protection, expecially on the neck area. Se we tried to remove all teh maxe ( which didn't go too well). Then I coated it with a polyuerethane finish. This loked much better and sealed much harder. Well two months later now i am experianceing some chippping of the finish, so it looks like i will probably end up sanding it all down again and re-finishing soon. I'm up for the practice though. Heres a link to the finished guitar pic. Mushroom Project

CARVINS CARVINS CARVINS i love my MTS3200, lots of range and a very warm clean tone. The reverb is lovely too, have been playing it for years and it has now become an essential part of my sound. Being that this is a guitar building website. I think eveyrone here understands what it means to play your own orginal music on a unique instrument that you built. Its part of being a great guitarist. Tone is everything. I think an amp should say somehting about the person playing it. Wether they are modest or over the top. Excessively loud or deceptively quite. That sort of thing. mmmm, big your amp is, but small is your tone. Master tone the, and bigger then amp you will be.