Narcissism

First 8 string TOM in the world. Wow. I thought of one several times, and seeing it makes it a reality. I want to build my 8 string LP now! Thanks for showing it! That's really cool!

I personally think that those screaming blue pickups are asking for another screaming blue thing... perhaps blue LED fretboard inlays/position markers?

6 reminds me of New Hampshire

So what's your favorite part about building a guitar? My favorite step is lining up the neck pocket, doing a bunch of measurements and then placing the bridge and pickup locations. I like doing this because its very mechanical, and you can tell when you've done it right for the most part. I also enjoy the sanding and contouring part. I like this part because its like you get to put your own personal touches into it, and its all freehand. You don't have a template to guide you; just your hands, your eyes, a pencle, and some parts laying around. Sandpaper and chisels are pretty cool to have too. Anyone else?

having the neck "plugged in" also allows you to line up your pickups with the neck, determine your scale length for bridge placement, and figure out where you want to put your tail piece if you're going to have one. I normally take a straight edge and line it up with the entire length of the body and I draw a straight line from the end of the fretboard all the way across the body, on both sides of the neck. That way I get a markup that sort of looks like a neckthrough, but works very well as a center guide. Just tossing it out there Most people start with both a bridge, body and neck.

Spam away If I add more coats of poly, it'll eventually level out as I sand it. I'm calling it done now, because I want to concentrate on my bass more (which is ALMOST DONE). In one more week, i'll be doing my first inlay job!

Well, at least it looks that way

I recommend following John's build over mine as far as examples go. John's was carefully done, and he made the least amount of mistakes possible. I hit this thing with a hammer & chisel for 11 days until it looked OK My serious projects are going to take time, and I'm going to make sure that I don't make any mistakes. You should do the same with yours (that goes to everyone, not just Dirge)

Looks like a neck. I'm impressed! Makes me think i can do it

BLACK AND WHITE Chris's Corvus of Doom (Build Thread) Corvus I style with modification MODS: 25.5" Scale Pointy Rear Routed Strings Through Body Ibanez RG neck Scalloped Frets 12-24 Oh, and there's 24 frets BODY: 1 5/8" thick 7 Layer Cherry Ply Clear Duct Tape Control Cavity Cover All Access Neck Joint Pickup Rout done using a hand drill and a chisel NECK: Ibanez Wizard II Neck Rosewood Fretboard 25.5" Scale 24 Frets White Binding on Fretboard MOP Iceberg Inlays Jumbo Frets (heavy wear on upper frets) Partial Scallop HARDWARE & ELECTRONICS: Gold Schaller Tune-o-matic Bridge Black Metal Dome Volume Knob Black Plastic Pickup Ring (short stack) Side Mounted Jack... unmounted Ibanez Tuners Chrome Fender Strap Buttons EMG-85 Pickup FINISH: 2 Coats of White Primer 1 Coat of Black Laquer 3 Coats of Minwax Rattle Can Polyurethane, naturally leveled Some reaction between Poly and Laquer No Filling No Sanding Black w/ freehand White Pinstripes

Done. I'm not proud of it at all, but its done. I basically just kinda knocked it out and used it to practice on with my new tools, and figure out what tools I'll need for the future. I may have to hollow out a spot on the lower wing and add weights so it'll balance properly. When I first plugged it in to hear it I heard the worst screaming noise. Naturally, my first reaction was to turn it down via onboard volume. Well, the pot just kinda spun around. Soooooooo yeah, pot is broken. When I replace it, I'll give you all some sound clips. Sweeping is pretty much impossible with this thing though, due to the lack of balance, and its low sitting position. Other than it being a rushed corvus with many design flaws, what do you all think?

I tap them out from the other end.

I tried 13's on my Ibanez. I don't think it could take it because I heard a pretty loud pop somewhere while I was tuning up. I took them off immediately lol. That was during my "SRV IS GOD" phase. Now I use 10s or 11s. Mostly 10s. I still haven't found a brand of guitar strings that I like especially for recording. I use the elixirs now, just because I really hate buying/changing strings.

I sprayed it with primer on wednesday, and then a 2nd coat on thursday Friday night, I put detail masking tape on it for the pins, and then I sprayed it black. The pinstripes are pretty messy, and I really should have taken my time with them. Honestly, I think they're too thick, and there's too many of them. Here's me pealing off the pins. I used an exact-o to start them off. Here it is next to my awesome snowboard. On the snowboard, next to the spider sticker, there's an upside down crow sticker. Now you can compare! couple coats of poly are next as soon as the weather stops being a bitch.

I've got a block plane. I've only used it properly a few times. I've never used it for jointing, but I've used it for bringing a dowel down to the surface that its mounted on. I can't seem to get the hang of using it for jointing. Then again, I don't have a truely flat surface to tune it with It is a pretty handly little tool though!

On one hand, I feel like I'm pretty mistake prone when it comes to building. On the other hand, I'm going to call it a bunch of mistakes that I'm learning from. This is only my 2nd guitar, and one of the lessons i'm learning is that plywood doesn't sand too well... whole wood is just easier to work with. However, my wife told me that my corvus looks better than my bass The bass was entirely hand made, and the corvus is made mostly from power tools (except the control cavity). I do like building the guitars quite a bit though! The mistakes definately aren't discouraging me. I don't feel like I'm really good at this or anything, but I'm still happy about what i'm doing, and I have a drive to keep on learning and building.

No need to drill holes. You'll need to drill holes for the mounting screws, but no holes for strings. The strings should be held in place by the bridge.

More progress! Over the past week, I've done some routing, sanding, etc. I rounded over the edges using a roundover bit for the first time. I think its clear that I need practice lol. I think I like pickup rings! You would never guess that the pickup cavity looks like this: Hahaha. I decided to see if i could do a better job than Eddie using my "chasp." I'd say I did a pretty good job. I used a drill to loosen it up obviously, but the edges are straight, and the pickup fits in the spot perfectly. If i cleaned up the edges and mounted the pickup to the body you'd never know it was a ****ty job. Anywho, I also routed out a better control cavity than I did on my bass. I'm proud of it! I did it freehand. Its big enough for a volume pot and a battery: As far as the neck goes, I'm sad to say that this neck is going to be the official corvus neck. I accidently cracked the fretboard while mounting the neck to the body. That's why there's risers for the screws on the back. Neck's not ruined, but I don't want to use it on any other guitars now. Who knows, I may keep this thing

Looks like your standard hardtail bridge. The strings are going to pass through the back of the bridge and that's it. In the 2nd picture of it, i believe you can see the holes to the right of the intonation screws.

I'm impressed! 24 frets, just the way he wanted it lol. That's some really nice work there!

What used to be an Ibanez RG250DX (has since been parted for a corvus build entry lol) Yanked out the pickups and installed Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge, and a Hotrails in the middle positions. Later on I switched them out for EMG's 81/85 set. Then the bridge died on me, so i replaced it with a Gold Schaller Floyd. I found a piece of useless metal in it and threw it out. Turns out it was what was keeping the trem posts from leaning due to the lack of density in basswood. I also scalloped the neck from frets 12-24. Pretty sloppy scalloping, but it was my first time. Here it is in its prime. This next one is an Ibanez GSR100. I had the body routed to hold a J pickup, which made it a GSR200. Then I switched out the necks for a fretless. Then, because the luthier that made the neck for me was retarded, I had to remove a bit of the end of the neck in order to get the scale length correct. I removed the end of the neck incorrectly. Lesson learned. Then I replaced the pickups with EMG's p/j set. It sounded A LOT better with both fretless and fretted necks after that.

Didn't know there was a kinko's here. Thanks!

The front of the bass is finally level as of last week. So this week (now that its supposidly fully cured) I've taped off the front and i'm ready to do the side and back. I made sure that the poly around the edges was exposed just a little bit so I can bond it and sand it flush when the time comes. I sprayed on a few more coats of black laquer, which responds well to the poly that I've been using. Obviously i'm lightly sanding with 600 between coats. After the coats dried (2 days later) I applied a coat of poly to the entire thing, including the neck and back of the headstock. The difference is pretty sweet! The first coat is definately absorbed by the wood, and this second coat definately shows up a lot better. I'm probably going to add just one more thin coat to the neck and headstock, and 2 or 3 more to the body before I take the tape off and sand it all nice and level. Then I'll attempt to inlay the headstock... any suggestions for a first time easy inlay? possibly something crushed into a paste and glued into a cavity and then sanded level? After the headstock is inlayed, I'll poly that and i'll be done!

all cut out! Since I can't figure out how to print out full sized templates on multiple sheets of paper, I've been reduced to using photoshop to get the guitar roughly to size. First i'll get the guitar to actual size by squaring off the space between the bridge and nut. Then i'll go into the image size editor and i'll change it to whatever the scale length is supposed to be. In this case, the scale was 24.75". The neck is for a 25.5", but whatever. Then I take the percentage increase and apply it to the entire picture and voila! actual size! Then I take my ruler and make sure that it matches up with the ruler on the screen. Then I take my trusty laptop and some trace paper and I trace the design onto several pieces of paper, cut out the design, tape it together, trace it onto the wood, and cut it out with a jigsaw. I tried the coping saw, but it was retardedly slow. So I went for the jigsaw. Today i'm going to work on shaping, sanding etc.

cool! I'm looking forward to it!