foil1more

I'd be interested in knowing this too. I'm planning on a pair of Dream 90s in my next guitar.

Whoa. I like the tool chest. I'll be interested to see how making your own bigsby works out.

I agree with continuing the bevel around the whole guitar. I like the idea of a carved sg. I saw one at the local Guitar Center a few days ago. I don't remember if it was an epi or Gib. I was distracted by an archtop before I got a good look.

I'm really happy how this is going. I cleaned up the carve with a drum sander on a power drill and my new favorite finishing tools, card scrapers. I barely had to do any sanding. I'm starting to finish this thing. I didn't have any grain filler and I forgot to buy some when I went to Woodcraft. I did have an old batch of shellac (2 years old) so I tested it and it is fine. I used that in heavy coats to seal and fill the back and sides. It's working pretty well. It's also garnet shellac so it gives the wood a nice color.. Got the dye on. I bought blond shellac and tried it on a blue dyed scrap and it looks fine so I probably over reacted a little to the first muddy samples. I'm leaving the tape on for now in case I need to touch anything up. Got the first coats of Tru-oil on the neck. I am using it on the fretboard too. And yes, I will clean out the slots before I let it cure for a week. I not going to build it up very thick on the fretboard. Just enough to bring out the color of the wood and protect it. I'll polish it after it hardens with some micro mesh.

I would definitely recommend using a band saw to cut out bodies. You'll still have marks to sand out but it will be quicker to cut. You can also get thin blades to do scroll work or thick blades for straight cuts. I also don't think scroll saws are meant to work that hard.

These projects make me want to go to the pawnshop and buy and old beater to fix up. Good work.

I tried to do a slightly asymmetrical with the treble side being thinner. It feels pretty comfortable. I'm happy with it being my first neck.

Make sure your tuner is set to A440 (or whatever you use but 440 is pretty standard). If that is set to say 435 (flat) and your tuner says you're 5 cents flat, you're really 10 cents flat of 440.

I made a huge amount of progress the past few days. I got the body glued, fret board glued, neck carved, and body carved. I got the veneer on the headstock and started tru-oil on the neck today. I'm going to try to have all the hardware fitted and have the body sanded tomorrow. The only problems I've had weren't big. I broke a pickup ring screw in the body but fixed that easy. I also royally botched the headstock with a jigsaw and broke the blade. The funny thing is that my redesign around the mess up is better than the original. This is a sketch of my pickguard. I'll likely get cream pickup rings to match the pickguard the next time I order parts. Here is the result of accidentally wiping the maple after rosewood. I was happier with this color (fits the mahogany better) than the amber I had mixed up so I wiped the whole neck. There is a shot of the amber in the background in the next pic of the Here's a mock up of the guitar. Nothing is attached. I got the neck pocket almost perfect. The larger side of the pocket was perfect. The other side got messed up somehow. I shimmed it and now I can pick up the guitar with the neck. I also decided after some experimentation to angle the neck to avoid recessing the bridge. It also looks better with this style of guitar. And I like cutting really thin stuff like shims on the bandsaw. Here's a sample of the blue. It doesn't look quite this florescent in person. There will be burst with darker blue.

Speaking of wiping the board with solvents, you can use rosewood to dye maple. I sanded my board to 2000 grit and wiped it with alcohol and while marveling at the grain, I accidentally wiped the maple. It actually looks better than the dye I was going to use. I don't know it this was the oil or the dust.

PRS is also a big enough company to take a chunk out of Gibson's sales. I highly doubt a company would care much less sue a small builder. I don't know how successful that lawsuit was anyhow. And there is always a chance with headstock design that you will recreate a headstock without realizing it. The head of my bass looks like a PRS. I never saw a PRS until after my bass was done.

Two fairly cheap woods I can think of off the top of my head are un-figured maple for a neck, poplar for a body or neck, and basswood for a body. Or if you could find some nice straight grain pine for a body. Heck, if they turn out well you could even use them for more that just practice.

I'll look into some proper wood bleach then and try it if it's not too expensive. I don't have any spray equipment or a place to spray lacquer or auto poly. The last time I tried to use lacquer I tried brushing it in my basement, which didn't work and made the house smell like the lacquer. I'm thinking of trying to spray shellac though. I'm probably making a run to Woodcraft next week. I'll either get bleach or the lightest possible shellac. I guess blond shellac would be light enough to mix blue with. And I can do a burst with spray. Is it possible to use tape with bleach? If that is what I use, I only want to bleach the top and not the mahogany.

I'm starting to experiment with my blue dye on scrap pieces of the maple I used for the top. I thought the maple was light enough but it turns out I am wrong. I need a good (and inexpensive) way to bleach it or figure out a way to keep the brown grain from showing. I also found out that tru-oil is horrible over blue so I'm open to trying to spray. 1. I have at my disposal a bottle of clorox. Through searching, I've gotten a mixed message about how useful this is. Some people say it works fine, some don't. So, to the people who have gotten clorox to work, what is the best way? How should I apply, how heavy, and how many times? I only have a limited amount of scrap to test on. 2. Instead of dying, will shooting a clear coat over the wood then spraying a color coat keep the blue from turning muddy? I'm really set on having this guitar have a blue top. Any help would be great.

You might be able to fix it but I would definitely second psw.

So what are the differences between bass and guitar pickups anyway?

Can I have some of your luck?

If you can find a local hardwood supplier to buy your body and neck wood from, you'll probably save some money. I got all the wood for my guitar for about $65. I bought quarter-sawn rock maple for the neck, 3/4in. figured maple for the top and a 20X19X1.5 piece of mahogany.

Okay, long time since an update. First semester of college pretty much shut down working on it. I routed the channel for the truss rod and got the pickup holes finished. I'm on Christmas break right now so I'm going to try to get this done in the next few weeks. I'm planning on working on it for most of the day tomorrow to get the top ready to be glued on and getting the fretboard glued. Any time left will go to experimenting with making an ebony nut for my acoustic which, if successful, I'll make one for my bass and this guitar.

Here's the way I figured out the dimensions for my current project. 1. Find a picture of the whole guitar taken directly from the front. If the picture is taken at an angle, this won't work. 2. Use the most accurate measuring tool you have and measure something a dimension you know. I measured the width of the pickups since humbuckers are pretty standardized. 3. Use a calculator to find the ratio of length on the picture to length in real life. I would recommend using mm on the picture measurements. They are more accurate 4. Measure what you need to measure in mm then multiply it by the inches/mm ratio. This worked very well for me. To check I measured the distance between the bridge and nut and got 24.75 inches without rounding the number.

I just had a conversation about humidity with the luthier who works on my cello. He keeps his shop at 50%. Winter's dryness is the most dangerous an instrument.

lol okay. The pickups on my bass are like that. They are attached with a thin wood screw and the spring is below the pickup. Drill a small hole for the screw to get started. Screw it in to make the hole. This is how I did it so that the screw would make threads in the wood and hold better. Then you just have to take the screws back out, put them through the holes on the feet of the pickup, put the springs over the screws and mount the pickups.

Interesting, but I wonder if the speed of sound is the reason. Speed does not equal frequency. The speed of sound is the speed with which a sound propogates through the air - e.g. the delay in hearing a thunderclap. However, if the resonant frequency of a metal string changes with temperature, then we are onto something Actually, it has to change, because metal contracts with cold, and that puts more tension on the string. The question is if it is enough to change the tuning significantly. It's the reason your voice sounds higher when you inhale helium. The sound travels faster in thin helium than air. I saw this on Mythbusters. Adam also inhaled a gas heavier than air and his voice went lower.

Remove the screws.

You mention using a 1 to 1 ratio of thinner and lacquer. Do you know what a good ratio for brushing is? I don't have equipment or a place to spray so I tried brushing a 1-1 and failed miserably on my bass (ended up with poly and I'm still not happy with it)