Narcissism

I'm not sure if these exert enough pressure right off, but Irwin makes these which use hand pressure to squeeze. I've been thinking about making the same thing only out of one of the irwin things. It looks so simple once someone breaks it down though! Nice work Spoke!

I just want to note that I liked the Nova until i saw the ***hole on the back Seriously though, now that i know its called "Nova" it looks more like a nova than an *** but... I'm gonna stop digging this hole. I personally think this is one of the better build months I've seen while being an active member on the forum. I can't wait to be a part of it all!

Lookin good! I just want to point out though, I noticed that you're putting the clamps on the instrument wood. In the end, you're going to wish you had used a nice big scrap piece of wood to go between the instrument and clamp. I learned that one the hard way luckily, contouring got rid of the damage, but i still wouldn't want to see your project have a bunch of dents in it!

The length of your neck should be judged by your scale length. You can use the stewmac fret calculator to figure out where to place your neck and do a bunch of other things like figure out where the frets should go, how far away to put the bridge etc. It'll take some math, but if you use the fret calculator, deductive reasoning, and careful measurements, you can figure out how long to make your neck, how deep into the body it should go, where you should put the bridge, and of course, your scale length.

well, in that case, the sound I'm going for has been Grip Inc.'s bassist on the album Solidify. When you hit those low notes on the low B with new strings, oh man... My bass has a backnote, (or aftertaste... i don't know how to describe it) that sounds like a saltwater crocodile growling/sleeping/breathing/snoring. Its exactly what I was looking for

*shrugs* that's how I was trained. I have a skil plunge router, black & decker circular saw, b&d 18V drill, b&d jigsaw, and a Mikita sander. I like my stuff, but i wish i had that Dewalt 18 volt drill. Its got an LED so you can see stuff!

While i'm building, i normally hear whatever song i currently have stuck in my head. Right now, its Pat Benatar - Heartbreaker. Most of the build was songs from my band though.

as far as good/better/best goes, it would be ryobe/milwaukee/rigid. Then you have Dewalt with B&D/Dewalt, where B&D is your homeowner and Dewalt is your professional. There are representatives from both TTI and DeWalt who come to the stores to sell their product, and they'll tell you the same thing pretty much, only with more sales pitch... If you get there on the right day you can get them to fight to the death!

Me last year at a convention as a guitar hero I miss having long hair. Its growing out right now, and its at that "not quite long enough to not look silly" stage. So i'll be wearing a hat for a while until I can tie it back.

I almost voted for the tele, because to me, it just looked cool. I don't normally even think about teles either. It definately caught my eye and made me want to build one. However, the quilted maple on Simo's bass just sucked me into its pearly depths.

OVER 9,000!

Don't get a craftsman: anything. Please. TTI used to be the company that made all the motors and mechanical parts for all the good craftsman tools, but recently Sears has decided to manufacture their own products. The new product from what I hear SUCKS according to TTI reps. TTI manufactures Ryobe, Milwaukee and Rigid. That's just my opinion though. Other than that, I would go for a plunge router, as you can set that to the correct height a lot easier, and normally plunge routers have a gauge to tell you how deep you've gone.

I'm not too sure what a classic rockabilly sound would be, but I can make the guitar sound from Stray Cats - Rock This Town by running my RG with the EMG 81 turned up to full trebel from the guitar, through my Bassman 400 head, through my 410 ampeg cab, dead strings and a touch of reverb... I also use that setup whenever I want to play surf music... Could you give us an example of the sound you're looking for?

A while back, a guy made me a neck that he bought from Carvin, and he sanded the neck down to get a better profile. Then he coated it in high gloss polyurethayne. Now there's a bunch of spots on the back of the neck right along the center that look exactly like what you just posted in that picture. So I'm curious as well. Hopefully someone has an answer!

Looks like the work of a fan brush to me. Or Airbrush... Just throwing things out there. Welcome to the forum!

Hmm. I was once denied a piece of figured bubinga because he knew I wanted to make a guitar out of it, and not a table. "You'll be cutting away too much of the wood for anyone to appreciate its beauty. If you were making a coffee table, then I'd give it to you, but you really don't seem to care enough about this piece for me to sell it to you." ... Its a freakin' piece of wood, not a magical trophy. *shrugs* I bet it wasn't that pretty anyway.

I liked the one that was in 2nd the most. It reminded me of a really deep version of EVH's "brown sound." It also stood out to me the most. The clean in it sounded to me like that perfect ring you get when you find the best accoustic in the shop. You know that "magic" sound?

Sketchers

I've only had one guitar with EMGs in it. Every other guitar I've heard/had has had Duncans or something else. But based on that, I am retracting my opinion on EMGs sounding the same in every guitar, as I simply don't know because I've never heard another guitar with EMGs in it... besides on a Metallica record or Black Label Society... etc. I got some more work done with the router today. I have a feeling that the MDF is going to basically be a poly-U sponge when i'm done with it. It'll be nice and rubbery by the time I get it shiny at least! I'm guessing it'll probably have the density/feel of a skateboard wheel.

I was feeling ambitious today, so I decided to work on the headstock a little bit. I had already carved it out, installed hardware and used the bass for a show, because i needed a 5 string. So there's been a headstock on this thing for a while. I just never mentioned it as everyone here's probably seen a KL headstock before. As you can see, there's a bit of tearout around the peg holes. The cool thing is that this headstock is going to have a nice little laminate to cover up those tearouts. I went to work on cutting that out today, and dying it with the new dye that came in. Here it is on the headstock. I also did some work on the body with the wood dye, but I'll hold those pictures until the project is done, as it looks like complete crap without Poly on it. Instead, i'll give you a shot of the practice piece: I tried out some of those grain popping techniques found in the finishing section of the forum. I gotta say, its not as easy as I thought it was. Lots of trial and error on my part, but I feel I did a pretty good job on the bass. Now, if this -9F weather would crank up to 65 or 70, I could go outside and finish this. See ya in April!

That makes me feel a lot better! I'm going to change my opinion on the EMGs, and say I'm not Tone Deaf. I'm mearly following what I've read and I accidently repeated it without figuring anything out for myself. We've all done it... And drums are very different from guitars... Things that go "meedilymeedilymeedily" sound different compared to things that go "bang, boom, crash" I've routed out the control cavity and the pickup cavity. I'm not too sure how i'm going to do the 3way blade hole though... maybe I can replace it with a 3way switch... HMMMMMMM I'm trying to avoid using a pickguard.

Its funny you mentioned the trem stabilization thinger you showed in the picture there. I just found the old one from my old trem, so that should help a lot. The test I did for all the plywoods i was choosing from was the fingernail test. If i can dig my fingernail into it, then It should be strong enough, right? I don't think I'm right anymore with this MDF stuff, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. I may just abandon this all together and go for the birch... or actual solid wood... but at the same time, i would like to use this as a test piece, as it is all the right dimensions, and I just got a bunch of new router bits for Christmas that I'm itching to try out. I'm going to continue for now, even though everyone is telling me not to lol, because I am curious, and I can't seem to find any sound clips from MDF guitars that other people have built. Maple, Mahogany, Oak, Birch and Poplar are my next choices. I'm probably not gonna go for poplar though.

Its true, i could be tone deaf. Hell, I couldn't tune a drumset to save my life. I do know a good sound when I hear it though... Getting that sound to come out of any amp that I play with is another thing. However, i'm stubborn, and I'm going to complete this! That birch plywood was pretty tempting, though. I'll probably end up doing that later on in this thread.

*shrugs* I think its worth the 10 dollars I spent on it, lol. If I really have a problem with it, then i'll use this as practice and then i'll go buy some actual wood. This is an experiment in reply to "The Plywood Discussion Thread" by the way. I'll be taking all the hardware off of the RG250DX and putting it in the MDF body. So in total, the amount of money i'll be spending on this is 10 dollars, and the worst i can get out of it is experience with my tools, experience finishing, and possibly a body for my poor guitar. I'm not too worried about tone, as I'm using EMGs, and I play metal. I believe that "Erogodyne" basses are made out of MDF. They sound "OK." Thanks for the feedback! Enjoy the show!

If you would like to get some more tone out of your strings and you like the feel of roundwounds, there's strings out there called "pressurewound." They don't eleminate the problem where your strings cut into the fretboard, but they do cause a lot less wear than roundwounds. They have a unique sound, too. My favorite brand is rotosound