Supernova9

Godin, how thick's that maple? I love the figuring on it, and I really like your previous work, so I'm looking forward to seeing this one develop. I'm about to start my own carved top Maple on Limba singlecut, so this is my kind of project!

Flatsawn necks are fine, Gibson have been making Les Pauls out of flat sawn mahogany for years, I think you'll be fine

I like the heel, I'm a big fan of that more comfortable joint. Just a couple of questions regarding the body carve, in the second body pic you posted, (the shot from the side), it looks really uneven on the edge, is it really that off? And are you sure you've left enough space for the TOM/Stoptail bridge between the bridge pickup and where you've started the carve?

Not a problem, I'm pretty new to building and it has plenty of visual imperfections already, however considering the size of the crack, the reiforcement may be more trouble than its worth. My wood is from an old table, so its definitely not fancy. Would that extra info change anybody's advice? do you still think I could get the PVA / epoxy to penetrate into such a narrow space? Thanks again Use Titebond or similar aliphatic resin glue, flex the neck to work it in.

I swear this has already been answered in this very thread, but the answer is NO. Router bits are for routers, drill bits are for drills. Don't use one in the other, you're asking to lose fingers or not be able to cut what you're trying to do. If your budget is so low you can't afford a router (even the cheap porter-cable routers), then you should not be building. You can do instruments on low budgets, but a non-existent budget, you can't.

The length of the neck pocket should be approximately the same length as the flat portion of the bottom of the heel, yes. But that's not really important - the important measurement is the distance from the nut on the neck to the twelfth fret on the neck, and then the 12th fret on the neck to where you put the bridge on the body. These two dimensions should be equal, which makes the scale length of the guitar. As long as you join the neck to the body so that it looks clean and you can place the bridge that far back on the body to match the distance between the nut and the 12th fret, you'll be alright. Though might I recommend, that a better investment than buying necks from random model guitars and trying to build with them, would be to by Melvin Hiscock's Build Your Own Electric Guitar, which covers these points and more.

To cut the cavities, use a router + template to make it clean and consistent. To join the cavities, if you're using a one-piece body, get a long drill bit, and drill from the edge of the neck pocket straight down centre line of the guitar, connecting the neck and bridge cavities. Then, connect the bridge cavity to the control cavity using the drill bit slanted to get the angle right. For pre-made fretboards, LMII or StewMac sell various options. As for the colour choices, it's your decision to make, either would work. To check though, why not try Kisekae, (click the link), where you can make a mock-up of your chosen design to see what it would look like, helpful before you get started buying.

Telecasters are usually made from alder, northern ash or swamp ash. If you're looking for parts, you can get them online at StewMac or try guitarfetish (he's a seller on ebay, with good deals on hardware/pickups etc). And good luck! I'm just putting the finishing coats on my first guitar, which was a telecaster, it's a great project to start yourself off with - just measure 3x, cut once!

I've found the people asking for fast neck profiles are usually asking for thin profiles, maybe like the Wizard necks from Ibanez? If you're looking for the thinnest neck profile possible, and you're a newbie, I'd suggest getting a Hot Rod truss rod from StewMac, adding 1/8"-3/16" thickness on the bottom of that and then making that the neck depth at the nut (not including fingerboard). Then add maybe 1/16"-1/8" onto that measurement, and have that be the depth at the 12th fret. That's just a bit of speculation on my part though - why not just find a neck you like the feel of and take some measurements from that? E.g. depth at the nut, depth at 12th fret, width at nut and use that to make up your profile?

Setch, you mean like this one? actually, my favourite of his guitars is this one: Acoustic Guitar

I'd suggest, if you're looking to make it look like flames, try carving the contours of the flames into the face of the guitar, so they look 3D, that just looks a few really hefty dings at the moment

Not to derail this guy's thread. But 4 days to do your entire finishing of the guitar?!?!? All I'm saying is "Good Luck".

The premise of the site is good, but I think some of the forums are unnecessary and a bit unclear. For example - Cabinet Design - if it's about people designing and building cabinets, it's "In Progress Builds", if it's a tutorial on what to think about, it's already covered in "Amp Building Tutorials", and if it's related to the cabinet design of production/already made amps, it's covered in one of the first 4 forums. Could do with a general chat forum up the top? Guitar Setups - if it's for electric it could go into 'electric guitar', if for acoustic, similar. Just feels like it's un-needed with those two already there. And as for songwriting - you only really need one forum to discuss all aspects of songwriting, same for homerecording. All the really successful forums I've ever seen develop small 'sub-communities', (take Harmony Central's Effects forum or Amps forum for example), of members that post on the board most suited to their interest. If you have too many categories, people thin out amongst those other forums, and those sub-communities don't develop, which keeps the board as a whole thin at a certain number of members. I think the forum's a great idea, just needs a bit of refining to make it clearer - so people know exactly where to post whatever they have, you know?

Gibson guitars range from 3-4 degrees if I'm not mistaken, I've got a set of plans here that say 4.5 for a carved top style guitar. Give us the scale length, thickness of fretboard and bridge height and I'll double check it for you if you'd like.

I swear I've seen this before..... Do you post on the Thorn forums? Either way, sweet Tele, that limba should give it some great rock tones!

No, think about it. He's using a neck from a Mustang --the neck is 24" scale, presumably the frets are properly spaced for that scale. He's NOT trying to convert the neck from 24.75, he's trying to convert the body (i.e., either the placement of the bridge or the depth of the neck pocket) to match the neck. And the award for most gormless looking forum user goes to........... yours truly

Mickguard, You ignore the fret positioning, and the effects that would have on the guitar. You'd hit open notes fine, but other notes would be a bit of a challenge

Design the pattern, glue the dark wood onto the top of the guitar, then inlay the lighter wood pieces? Done right would give the gapless match

Charvel got bought by Fender. People say quality may have suffered.

I think they need to be repositioned or reshaped. They just don't flow with the curves of the body in my eyes (specially the one on the lower bout). The thing that's great about standard f-holes is the way they move with the curve of the body. The first f-holes you designed on your site (the ones that are more like slits in the wood) are much more sleek, elegant, and frankly look better to my eye. Just my $0.02 though, other than that I really like your design.

My bad. Well, I'll let you all know how I get on.

Well, I think it's kinda like those P90 rings that thegarehanman made for his last project - rout the inside then the outside, and it's not too bad. We're only talking a lip of about 1/4" high, bit wider. Provided the cavity rout goes ok and I take small passes when I get close to final thickness, I hope it shouldn't be too close to collapsing on me. Though test runs will abound before final attempt I could use purfling between the top and body to hide a join, but I'd really like to get it flush perfect if at all possible. I'm not a big fan of abalone on bodies, though I suppose wood strips like Koa/Rosewood may look pretty cool.

I think I'll do some test runs, and then try actually inlaying the top. If nothing else it'll be a fun test!

Seen them before. Disturbingly expensive. I mean, $15,000 base price? And a $250 upcharge just for a bevel on the front and back of a headstock? $1350 upcharge for ebony laminates instead of purpleheart? Wow. I'm in the wrong busines.