Supernova9

Or use the jig Setch showed once upon a time (used for making radiused sanding blocks), make a long one (the length of the board) that matches the radius of your board, then double stick tape the board in that, making sure it's level, then use the router thicknessing jig to take the extra off the back. I love my complicated solutions

As you're not doing f-holes, get some shielding paint like this and paint all the cavities (and maybe the back of the top that'll be positioned at the cavities) with it. Completely invisible solution, and the guitar will be shielded. As for the neck questions you had earlier, use a deep-set neck tenon (going back to the bridge pickup maybe?) and run it into the body with the taper of the neck, then carve the joint from behind. You shouldn't have any problems with too little wood.

From my experience (limited though that is), spirit-based stains under oil work fine.

how thick are they? Unless you're kiln drying them - the rule is that they need to be stickered and air-dried for one year per inch of thickness. I'm afraid you won't be making anything from them any time soon really.

The previous posters have a point - no place is going to clearcoat for less than $27. Not a chance.

I rigged up a gantry set-up so that I could drill the string-through holes on my telecaster - I took the head unit of the drill off the column. That worked pretty well, but there's no 'easy way' - that issue is the reason they sell radial arm drills, or big floor standing units.

Use wood, preferably the same type as the body's made from.

Without a router, chisels are the best way to go - I know Boggs (another member on here), cuts his pockets like that. You need to be careful tho - I'm guessing you've realised that from your current work with a chisel. To rectify - level off the pocket as you have it at the moment - get it flat with chisels. Work out how many mm you need to bring it up, then make a shim of that thickness and glue it into the neck pocket area, will bring it up to the correct depth. I'm sure Boggs would give you some more pointers if you ask him (try a PM if he doesn't catch this thread).

Jammy, lovely work, there's a problem with your first link (pile of wood), you've written http://http//www. etc If you fix that link it'll stop directing everyone to the Microsoft homepage.

I like your guitar designs, and I like site design too. It's a good idea, just feels like it needs some refinements to make it better. The main source image you use for your site looks 'fuzzy'. Maybe it's just the stark contrast between the black and the guitar, but I think it could do with being a higher res photo, or sharper somehow. Do you have photoshop to play with? The inlay gallery scrolls a bit too quickly, either give the user ability to move through designs themselves, or give at least 3-4 seconds after the fade in of the complete image to view before changing. As for the guitar gallery - take photos on white or black backgrounds, with decent amounts of light. People (and possible customers) will not look as favourably on a guitar that's leaning against a windowsill or on a pillow as they will a guitar in a semi-professional setting. The main photo on the front page is also too long - I'm on 1024X768 and I have to scroll vertically. It feels like your site doesn't want to use pages of scrolled information (hence the current layout), so maybe you should consider shrinking it vertically to fit the world's most common screen res (at present that's the same as mine). Also, your articles are word documents. Bad idea. Use PDFs. If you want them converted to PDFs, I can do that for you, chuck me a PM. I know I've put a few points down, but my view of the site is not a negative one, it shows promise, I just want to give my views to help you make it better, hope you take it in the spirit it's meant

I think you misread my user name. Freudian slip?

I'll never understand this 'fake mojo', but hey, who am I to judge? It doesn't look too bad a job, but the thing that looks most artificial is the wear you've done on the edge of the body contour - looks too much of a neat straight line.

For a DIY Project, you can buy a preslotted, pre-radiused board, and go from there. If you're buying from StewMac, costs (excluding tools you may need): Ebony Board (looks like a PRS clone, so 25" scale, 12" radius) : $30 Cream Plastic Binding (Or you could use flame maple for more class) : $5 Black Side Dot Material: $1 12 1/4" Gold MOP Dots (will do 24 frets): $6 Fretwire: $8 But when you factor in tools, it'll be more expensive, you'll need fret nippers, a radius sanding block, crowning files and more. The question is, have you done anything like this before? And if not, how attached are you to this Tokai guitar? It looks pretty nice to me. Are you willing to run the risk of spoiling it? That's not meant as a 'don't bother', more just to make sure you think it through. Only you can answer the question of whether you can DIY this.

It's not large enough. I've not seen many guitars 10" wide or less - most around around 13" or so, and they're definitely longer than 10". Maybe if your design accomodated that, you never know, but to be honest, if you're that strapped for cash, maybe spend some time saving up, and use that time to read up/research/plan the build.

One-piece tops can be just as attractive as bookmatched tops. Some of Ron Thorn's guitars have one piece tops, using woods such as Koa, and they look absolutely stunning. For example: You can make stunning guitars with two pieces for the top that aren't symmetrical also, just if there's a sharp divide it can look a little different from the norm. But who's to say that's a problem?

I love it when people post 'no disrespect, but....' They're always followed with a needlessly inflammatory comment. Just like this one. The majority of this board are hobby-builders. I don't see more than 2500 pro luthiers on this board, do you? Maybe if we did we wouldn't get ridiculous suggestions like filling every cavity on a guitar with marine epoxy

Well, if you rout the current holes into regular shapes, you should be able to get a damn tight fit if you're careful enough. It's just a much cleaner (and imo more professional) job if you do what crafty says, rather than just plugging holes with epoxy, or putting on thin veneers that you then need to cut reinforcement pieces for (and if he is too lazy to bother cutting wood to fit the holes, what's to say he'll be any different with those reinforcement pieces he'll need?).

Don't use marine epoxy to fill gaps that big. A thin veneer wouldn't be thick enough to support anything on the face of the guitar either. If you can't cut wood to the right shapes to fit those cavities, then rout the cavities to regular shapes (e.g. rectangles), and then fill those shapes with rectangles of wood. If you want to add a drop-top (1/4" or so), then build the router-thicknessing jig that you can find on here, use that to take 1/4" off the top of the guitar, then you have a flat surface to attach the top to, and essentially once you've cut it to shape, the guitar will be the same in terms of bridge height etc. Don't want to pour water all over your fire, but are you sure you want to do this to your friend's guitar? Hope he's a good friend, and won't make you pony up for a new guitar if you trash this one completely.

Maybe it's a stupid question on my behalf, but why do you want to do that? Wouldn't it just make it really likely that you'll knock the tuners whilst playing, or have them press up against you whilst you're playing? Or how about when you want to change the tuning of a string slightly during a song or something, it's far easier to reach to the headstock and turn one there then fiddle about with a part of the guitar up against you.

You're in the states right? Try Home Depot or Lowes, they're always cheap and would have coping saws. They'll be more than a dollar, but you can probably pick one up for around $4 or so.

The first thing you missed was turning off the caps lock. Don't do it again. As for the stain, alcohol-soluble stains will work as well, use a brown rather than a black as your dark base, and be very careful when sanding back, to make sure you don't sand through the veneer. If you're worried about spoiling the veneer, just use a stronger amber coat for the first dye, sand back a little and go from there. Just do what you feel comfortable with.

Nice site, looks good, but what you've just mentioned is a big design flaw. If you're making a website selling artistic products, then the site should reflect that by being artistic, sleek, stylish. Having Times New Roman font peeking out from behind images is a big no-no. I'm guessing the reason you used an image for the text is so that you can use a specific font?

You'll need more cash than that for a bandsaw for resawing. Save up until you have more cash.

The execution is good but I just think the base of the wings should curve out more, away from the central point, where they sit at the moment just doesn't look right to me. But then again, I'm not one for the "BREWTAL!!!!!!!!!#@@:~@:~@:~{:!£!" designs so much.