10pizza

Speechless, this is indeed art in guitarform.

really creative!

On 7/27/2020 at 2:39 AM, ScottR said:

I've been listening to this song/cd pretty steadily since it came out in May.

great album and songs! Went to see Jason Isbell after the previous album, Something more than Free, great artist.

Nice craftmanship you're showing here @ScottR

When I was young and living in a small town in Holland it never occured to me that I could actually even buy an electric guitar!

After I found out I could, I bought one and regularly visited the guitar shop of Wim Heins in Holland who was also building guitars. I already started tinkering with my guitar early on, changing a SC to a humbucker in my strat, rewiring etc. The ultimate goal for me was to build a guitar from scratch which I wouldn't have thought possible if it weren't for Heins. 

and about 30 years later it happened: MAGIC!

nice playing man! catchy groove!

I'm glad I'm considering this build as a prototype, lots of imperfections I need to deal with on the next build of this model.

Will take some time to write up my lessons learned and share that with you all.

In the mean time, I'm finishing up. First time installing a Gotoh/Wilkinson floating trem. Had to route my neck pocket in an angle of about 1,5 degrees to make the bridge line up better to allow for decent action setup and correction.

Also had to do some routing in my cavity to be able to tighten the output jack.

After these corrections I was able to set it up and intonate correctly. Also installed the electronics and did a test-drive. Playing and sounding good, allthough I think I will have a final look at the neck thickness.

next pics will be in the August GOTM submission thread! yay!

Now I only need to find me some cheap white plastic to use as cavity cover and to make a trussrod cover......

Trying to get this done for the July gotm entry but am faced with a small setback, apparently I used the wrong routing template for my neck pickup 

Will try to route without damaging the finish tomorrow 

Again all high quality builds this month! Well done everyone. Hard to choose, but in the end someone got my vote! If you know my favourite wood then you probably know which one I voted for

These are such different instruments and builds, but all of them very impressive, hats off!

Had some unexpected available time yesterday, nice to make some more progress. Last friday I clearcoated the body after wetsanding with 400grit. I'll let it cure for a week before I wetsand the clearcoat in stages starting with 400grt up to 8000.

A while back I ordered some headstock decals from Rothko&Frost, real good quality stuff, the decal-edges are almost invisible. 

Yesterday installed the frets, beveled, flattened and crowned them, only fret-end-dressing left to do. 

All that work is much more enoyable playing a nice record on the turntable

always love the look of a neck after installing the frets, really make the project come alive!

2 hours ago, Prostheta said:

not using the last in the cans helps get a better finish.

didn't know that, but makes sense! will keep that in mind on the next finishing job!

Finally got myself a dremel workstation for my Dremel. Had a go with it installing the fretmarkers. (advice: don't drop a 3mm abalone fretmarker on a not so recently vacuumed carpet  )

also used some 400grit paper to wetsand the body. It's improved a lot. Still have some spots I'm not happy with, but don't want to sand through the coat, so it will have to do as I have no spare can of this colour. 

today clearcoating and then I'll let it rest for a week. Next week fret-installation and making a trussrod cover / cavity covers!

Dremel fretboard markers

sanded body

nice build! love the back of the headstock, cool design.

Looking good!

Thanks guys, Got me some nice new sheets of sanding paper so will try to get it smooooooth

so, I'm afraid the June competition will be too soon for this build. Weeks went by due to various things: new job, wife crashing the car and fun stuff like that.

Got some nice paints to give this one a solid color, but the spraying quality wasn't wat I expected, not a smooth result. So I'll have to do some sanding (again!) before I put on the clear coat. 

Hope to get the clear coats on this weekend and then finish up the neck with frets, nut and tuners next week before I polish the body. Want to give it enough time to harden so it will be early July before I can install the neck, electronics and hardware.

Putting on the primer

A few coats of blue, yes baby-blue

you can see the result is not smooth at all in places. little drops and orangepeel which I need to get rid off before clearcoating.

congrats! well done, was really some stiff competition this month!

awesome month! piece by piece they are all great builds. Very hard to choose. In the end I chose the one I would probably pick up first when they would all be ligned up in a room. 

my vote goes to @Andyjr1515, and I'm usually not an SG-type of guy! well done!

hope to be a contender next month!

awesome build! love the birdseye maple top with walnut binding!

sooooo, staining did not give a satisfactory result. I dyed it and sanded it back a few times, but not happy with it. 

So I'l be giving it a solid color. Trying to find a nice shade of blue. 

This will be the most-sanded guitar in my history 

9 hours ago, curtisa said:

Is it just me or does that tree trunk look like a pair of legs and a butt?

you shouldn't have written down this, now I can't see anything else in it! 

now that would be nice!

How are you going to saw that piece into planks? 

Impressive work, hats off

Forgot to mention, before carving I radiused the fretboard with my 10" radius block. Easier to do with a square neck. 

and again a nice day to work outside, so I created a very, very simple jig to enable me to carve the neck. ( whatever works right?)

again I'm impressed with the fast results using the shinto rasp. 

My first neck carve (zebracaster) came out a bit too thick, so I first used the rasp to thin the neck down by 3mm. Then I put on some lines for my desired assymetric D-profile and started carving away. The transitioning to the headstock with a volute took the most time, but all in all it went pretty quick. Sanded it afterwards up to 180grit. I found it wasn't perfect in thickness between frets 1-9 and 9 onward so I had to do some more sanding to level it out. 

Yesterday I drilled the holes in the headstock and body for the tuners and trem-studs. I also drilled for the pickup switch, but found that one screwhole doesn't fall into the electronics cavity, yikes! I remember that I first wanted to do a 3-position switch but later changed it to a schaller superswitch..... That will ened some work in the cavity I'm afraid....

My workbench/picknicktable carving jig

making some progress:

looking like a neck!:

On 5/13/2020 at 2:14 PM, Andyjr1515 said:

This looks beautiful!

indeed, very nice result! 

hy JayT, from a distance things usually look better  

I see a lot of imperfections that I need to deal with somehow, but that's what doing a prototype is about isn't it? 

I was looking for a nice stool to work and play guitar on, might as well get one in style haha!

thanks sir! 

done some more shaping today. Tonight I'll start on the neck carve as well. after that It will be almost time for finishing.

what kind of grain sealer would you guys recommend for basswood?

I want to stain it into a blueburst using my keda-dyes.