Narcissism

My bass weighs in at 11 or 12 lbs. Yeah, its heavy. Does it look good? Yep. Does it sound good? Yep. Is it comfortable to play? I'm comfortable playing it for 2 hours straight with a wide strap. Honduras Mahogany's a little heavier than African, and Les Pauls are made out of African. Strats would be just as heavy if they weren't chambered, and were made of mahogany. I personally don't think weight is a factor, unless its obviously a pain in the butt to lug around. 11's kinda pushing it for me but I can deal with it.

Here's the outline on the spot I thought would look best with the given figure. Personally, I think the only way pins would look good on this is if they were suspended above the guitar about 5mm inside 10mm of clear. The finish would also have to be bursted. However, it would look like a modern Mac computer, and I don't want a guitar that looks like a computer. I deal with enough computers, and guitars are sort of my escape from them Anywho, I'm gonna get cuttin with the new coping saw I got from my father in law, and see how much I like doing that. It'll probably be cut out by next week

I woulda voted for Low End Fuzz, except I think the laminate should have been put on the front of the headstock instead of on the back. It looks nice on the back, but the theme with the pickguard matching the headstock would have made me vote for it. I voted Davvo's LP, because of the lacewood green. I also enjoyed reading his posts with the accent of the slack jawed yokel in his avatar.

I said mahogany, but the Cherry looked nicer, had less knots, was level, and it was more available. glue! *waves arms around* clamps! *waves arms around some more* The Cherry actually had a pretty neat grain on it, so its tempting to keep it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to just stick to the plan and go for the pinstriped look. I'm going to draw up a scale model tonight and cut it out tomorrow after the glue dries.

If i had to pick a KISS album I liked, it would be Lick It Up. I've heard the name Vinnie Vincent, but I never really knew who he was. I was born in 85. [edit] nice guitar by the way!

For the most part, all the noise problems are corrected in the higher end SLRs, but as far as the consumer digitals go which are supposed to be higher end (anything Canon under $500 for example) you're wasting your money for a bunch of bells and whistles that don't produce results. My favorite camera is my Canon EOS650. Its a 35mm, full manual functions and- I'm thread hijacking... *stops*

Concept art I've always loved black/white in combination with pinstripes in any combination. Hopefully it'll make this a little less painful.

Well.... Here's all the parts for it in the MDF V! The finish is something i'm still thinking about. Right now i'm thinking of experimenting with all of the router bits I got for christmas. The wood is going to be Mahogany Ply The body shape is going to be a pretty tweaked out corvus (stretched/warped, in all the worst ways) The finish will most likely be black with some white accenting (I'll probably use this build to practice pin striping) The bridge is a Schaller TOM String-through Bolt on Ibanez neck Partial scalloping (12 through 24) 1Volume, 1 Tone EMG 81... or 85 in the bridge... I haven't decided yet. We'll see which sounds better. This is definatley going to be a project guitar. I'll be learning about refretting, pinstriping, material finish, neck-angle, and how to decide on weather to dispose of the monstrocity or hang it on the wall and call it "art". Wish me luck!

I think it has something to do with engineers going "Hey, lets try this!" and then they say "its better!" and then its not better, but since they've put all that hard work into it they just try their best to convince themselves. At least that would be my Dad's answer. He hates MBAs, because he thinks that they have no common sense anymore. Another thing is that the quality in materials has gone down so that its cheaper to make things (screws, wire, copper, components etc.) There's also just... something.... about having a vintage model. Chances are that someone else used it, and maybe someone before that. Who knows that kind of musician they were? Its the magic of other musicians playing this awesome old thing, and now its in your hands and you can channel that magic through your fingers... or something like that... I gotta lay off the beer.

Strange how little crappy cameras completely beat out today's top of the line 1000MP space cameras. I have a better appreciation for this guitar now that I've seen it from a different lense.

I'm workin' on it

Best neck I ever played with was a 7 string Ibanez Jem. It fit my hand like a glove. The string spacing was perfect, my fingers could hop from note to note and bar and form chords with no problems whatsoever. Then I went back to my guitar and said "awwwwwwwwww..." because I missed the Jem. My acoustic has a pretty thick neck, and it makes my hand lock up if i play it for more than a half hour. I'm loosening up and getting better, but I really like those thin flat backed necks.

That's really nice work. aside from the color from the sanding, you would never have known that there was work done!

A clean work area is a happy work area! I can't say that I have a clean work area, but if I had one, i'd be much happier! As for the redwood, It doesn't look like it has eyes anymore, but I still want to see it after its been cleared. Even if it doesn't have eyes anymore, it still looks awesome for a natural wood pattern! [edit] Actually, looking back on the other pictures, they're all taken from another angle. Does the grain dance so that the eyes disappear? that would be AWESOME!

I could see Bart Simpson playing that

I'm done with my 5 string neck through bass if you want to take a look at that. It should be linked in my signiature. Its not the most exciting shape, but it does cover the gluing process. If you have any questions, PM me, or ask these fine people! Welcome to the forum!

I'm thinking you could double up and put two nuts of your material choice next to each other in the same slot. That's probably what a luthier would do when they are done cleaning up the area.

You're right about Wilde using an 85 in the neck, but the discription on EMG's website says that the 89 is similar to the 85 in dual coil mode, where it sounds more like a strat in single coil mode. So I guess that's a bad example since I don't have any real experience with an 89. Crazy pickups and their numbers...

most of everyone's radius block jigs look like repurposd scrap wood. With the amount of bodies you've built, I would expect you to have pleanty of it! However, I'm just happy to see you're getting ready to build a neck! I wish I could join you!

I've got an 81/89 set. If you want a good example of it in action, just look for a zakk wylde solo where he plays with the knobs and switches on his guitar a lot. The 81 is the weedeeleeedeedeelee/waadaalaaadaadaalaa sounding one, and the 89 is the woodooloowoodooloo sounding one... Sorry, I think words like "warm" and "bell like" are kind of inadequate ways to describe tone lol. But I'd say one of those live solos are a pretty good example. edit: He uses a wah for accent, so look for one where there's no wah.

Careful with this. Remember when I shortened the neck on my fretless bass and found the truss rod was only a half inch away from the end? I would do it the right way (not my way with cut-n-pray), and get a stud finder.

for SRV's beloved guitar: #1, he used bass frets, 13 gauge strings, a lefty trem, stock pickups/wiring, and beat the living **** out of it during his cover of "3rd stone from the sun". It also had a nitro finish and SRV's initials nailed into it in several places, several times. But aside from that, John, Dean Markley's Blue Steel are the only bass strings i've ever broken. I heard their guitar strings were pretty sturdy though. I heard someone on the forum say that they would add solder to the twisted area near the ball of the string to help strengthen that spot. Checking for burrs like everyone else said would be my first option though.

That tutorial thread in another post here has a lot of good examples of pretty much everything having to do with building a guitar. I think its on the 2nd page or something http://www.ronkirn.com/tutorial/index.htm it shows how to drill through control cavities from pickup routes and other places.

*whip crack* build a neck j/k, take it at your pace. I'm sure that when you're ready to build one (you have all the tools) you'll build one. I noticed that you're doing a lot of projects at once. Why not take a little time to make your first neck? It doesn't have to be a really good one (I Imagine the first one will fail for everyone!) but I'd at least go through the motions and try it out. The only reason I'm giving you a nudge on this is because I think the explorer headstock won't match but to each his own!

That was pretty cool! Thanks for sharing!