Supernova9

You're using MDF for the body?

You should have stuck with the old guitar. A cosmetically bad guitar made out of wood is better than a vaguely pretty guitar made out of MDF.

Justa wacky thought...matte black pickup truck bed liner from a can...seriously.

Already been done - looks horrendous if you ask me.

Me likey the neck - how are you doing the truss rod - skunk stripe?

I use 15 degrees - because I made a router jig to true up the angles and I made it at 15. No need to make another box to change that angle by a couple of degrees imo.

Because he wants to do it SRV style.

Original poster - if at right handed bigsby fits, the left handed one will too. The extent to which the bar gets in the way of your playing is another matter. Cutting down the bar would be rather difficult to do and not look incredibly amateur.

Well when you taper the neck, you should do it with a router so that your sides are flush and square to the fingerboard surface of the neck. How have you done it if that's not the case?

So I have this tele control plate I want to inlay instead of having it rest on top of the guitar. I'm thinking first I need to make a template the exact size of the control plate, then follow that for a shallow pass the thickness of the plate with a ball bearing bit, then use the brass inlay bushing set I have for cutting the control cavity. This will allow me to use the same template for both parts of the process.

I have a couple questions though:

1. How much width do I need to leave in there for controls? Is an inch enough? This would give me 1/8" sides for the plate to rest on.

2. How much wood should I leave around the screw holes?

3. How deep? Is 1/4" enough wood to leave below the rout?

Mickguard, don't jump straight in preaching like you're some kind of father figure to the board. You're a PEER. Someone asks a question, answer it. If you don't want to answer it, don't post. Jumping down their throat does nothing.

In answer to your questions:

1. If you look at the Tele plate, there's at least half an inch at either end (where the screw holes are) that won't need cavity underneath. That can be the basis of the support for the pots/switch. 1/8" sounds good for a ledge, though measure the diameter of your potentiometers beforehand just to make sure.

2. Best way to work out dimensions is to get the potentiometers and switch, fit them to the plate and then work out the spacing around that.

3. Yes, 1/4" is enough, you're not putting any kind of tension/pressure on that part of the body, so that thickness will be fine.

Hope that helps!

That's cool - so is it vacuuming through the particle board, or do you make holes in the board to allow the vacuum to work efficiently?

Just wanted to give this a bump - I received 4 fretboards from Erik today (Mac. Ebony, Mad. Rosewood, Birdseye Maple and Ziricote) and all are superb. Perfectly accurate and exactly on the dimensions I asked for!

I am a very happy customer

Cheers Erik!

Sweet, as long as I can get figured tonewood/soundboards. I want a very exotic wood, but I'm not too crazy about Zebrawood, so hopefully I can get what want.

PS - What is a saw called that cuts on a horizontal plane?

Thanks

You don't want a saw that cuts on a horizontal plane. You want to turn the wood 90 degrees so it's vertical and then saw through that way using a bandsaw.

Though if you don't realise that I'd strongly, strongly recommend you either start with a supplied back/side/top set from someone like Gilmer or Stewmac, or buy a kit to put together.

hey everyone im confused on what to do, i was originally planing on buying an ibanez rg1570 but then i had i thought cause i wanted to customize it, i was thinking instead of buying one i could buy those replacement bodies for RG models or jem or whatever and make my own rg with exactly what i want, but are the wood quality in these bodies and stuff good or would it be the best bet to buy the rg1570 and just repaint it??

cheers

-nate

You should start by giving your thread a sensible name And the quality of the wood in those bodies will vary, but ultimately the saying 'you get what you pay for' is applicable. How experienced are you at refinishing guitars?

lol haha i should of, and ive never refinished a guitar

I'm going to ignore the fact that your posts make my eyes bleed, and make a suggestion. Go find some cheap hardwood, make up a reasonably sized chunk, say 6" by 6". Then finish that. Take it through all the stages, sanding, grain filling, painting, clearcoating and buffing, until you can get a really awesomely well painted chunk of wood. Then do the same thing on a guitar body. Whether you use your RG or another body. If you can't make that chunk of wood look good, you won't be able to do a guitar.

hey everyone im confused on what to do, i was originally planing on buying an ibanez rg1570 but then i had i thought cause i wanted to customize it, i was thinking instead of buying one i could buy those replacement bodies for RG models or jem or whatever and make my own rg with exactly what i want, but are the wood quality in these bodies and stuff good or would it be the best bet to buy the rg1570 and just repaint it??

cheers

-nate

You should start by giving your thread a sensible name And the quality of the wood in those bodies will vary, but ultimately the saying 'you get what you pay for' is applicable. How experienced are you at refinishing guitars?

Nice new build - just a tip - think about tinted lacquer instead of staining ash. Ash is a beast to get to stain right, I've tried twice and both times ended up ditching the idea because it was too patchy. If you're set up to spray lacquer you should be good to tint and spray.

Was there really a need to resurrect a year-old thread just to post what had already been said in the thread?

Cool, I just use the 1 bearing, but I might give 2 a go now

And by the way just to give you an idea of the pricings for that company I mentioned above - I got 840 sq in. of 1/4" clear acrylic and 22 minutes of cutting time on their laser CNC for $60. Shipping was $57. That got me a full-size LP body template, and another template for an inlaid top (two templates - male template for the top shape and female template to rout the cavity in the body blank to receive the top).

No set-up charge, I just provided the DWF files and they cut them. Brilliant customer service too. With the dollar the way it is, that's great pricing I'd say.

Seeing as all the problems in this thread were resolved, and the poster didn't even contact the company for resolution before dragging it into the open, I for one think this thread should be deleted.

Wouldn't want project guitar to get sued for libel.

What I mean is - why use the relatively expensive 10-12mm material for anything other than master templates? One slip of the router on a plexi template like that and you'll be out at least £40 (including manufacturing costs), use a 6mm template to make a 3/4" ply template or similar and a slip would only cost like £5.

Also, why run two bearings on your template cutters? Surely just being accurate with your depth settings whilst using one would be more efficient?

Edit: I just re-read this, and I don't mean it to sound harsh/critical, I'd really love a [curiousity] tag on this board - I'm genuinely interested in the benefits of using multiple bearings.

www.pololu.com are well priced. They are in the states, but is there a real reason why you need 10-12mm thick acrylic? Why not 6mm acrylic? I've got plenty of custom templates made by pololu, and I use them as masters to make copies on ply/mdf.

Next month I'm going to get some templates made (full-body size), we could talk about sharing shipping if you want.

I know what you mean - but if you're talking about a design with absolutely no gaps, then you've got absolutely no margin for error, so even a small shrinkage would be too much, know what I'm getting at?

This looks like a great build though, even if I'm dubious about your reasoning for not using glue on the neck joint after gluing together some laminates. Anyhoo.

You know, if the neck tenon slid perfectly into that slot (no gaps at all), I don't think you'd need glue OR screws. Think about which direction the strings are pulling in, and which direction the neck must move to fall out... and with the torque of the strings, the tenon is so long that if the top-to-body glue joint never fails, the neck will never move at all (but you could slide it out with the strings off--pretty cool!!!)

You might be right if wood wasn't an organic substance that moves, contracts and expands based upon changes in temperature or humidity. But when you cut your perfectly fitting neck joint, then a day later find out you can't get the neck back in because one's expanded or the other's contracted, what are you going to do then? Or if gaps appear when the wood changes?

Otherwise people with CNC machines wouldn't bother with bolts or glue.

Dear God, please tell me you're not about to carve up a perfectly good Gibson LP studio just to add binding?

Can't fault you for that my bad. I meant to suggest that if money is a issue put the work in, good old tools aren't to expenxive but you need to do the research.

Totally agree there is something satisfying about tuning a plane from something that barely cuts to something that swishes off razor thin shavings!

The trouble with second hand planes on eBay or garage sales are that without a lot of research you won't have a clue which ones are good and which are not. I love my old stanley planes (#5 1/2 and #4) but that's because they're both pre-war, straight from my Grandad, and have been well cared for.

Starting to plane with cheap poor quality planes can be incredibly frustrating for a user. That's why I recommend something like the Veritas LAJ - it is big enough to true up blanks with, and can be adjusted to smooth reasonably well. They're not that expensive these days, and they work straight out the box, which shouldn't be overestimated.

Hi all!

It seems that I need / could realy use a plane.

Now I've been browsing around speciality stores and webshops, and I'm a bit overwhelmed by the different types and sizes I can get.

For obvious reasons, I can't exactly go out and buy all different models and sizes.

As far as I can see, I just need something for trueing / joinging laminates and surfaces, and for getting the contours on the body.

However, I realise I may need one for different jobs too, like say thicknessing and and maybe radiusing / contouring the neck.

Dunno if thicknessing is essential, and if radiusing or contouring can only really be done with a plane..

Anyhow, I need some input for type and size for one or two planes that serve me for any job I need for the time being.

Also, does anyone know if Ibex is a good plane brand?

Ok, to do all the different jobs you've listed, you'll need a lot of planes.

Truing/joining laminates and surfaces:Get a jack plane, you won't need bigger than that (#7 or jointer planes are unnecessary). a Veritas Low Angle Jack plane would be a good start here. Maybe a smoothing plane (#4) to finish up.

Contouring a body: You can get carving planes by brands like Ibex, which are good for this, but power tools or spokeshaves would be a better bet for carving a top.

Thicknessing the neck: More easily done on a bandsaw (cutting the neck profile from the side), or with a router jig.

Radiusing the neck: If you're talking about radiusing the fretboard, then don't use a plane for this, get a Radius sanding block and do it that way. If you're talking about shaping the back of the neck, then Use a spokeshave, or rasps and sanding, more effective than using a plane.

In all honesty you'd be better off getting a router and making some jigs. You could do all the above with a router and a combination of bits and a couple of jigs. You'll spend more on the handplanes, plus there's a steeper learning curve.

I really like the TOM with through-body strings, where the ferrules are placed where the tailpiece would normally go, but it's something which I've only really seen before with recessed TOMs. My Patrick Eggle New York is similar but the strings go through the body a lot further back.

So my question is: are there any problems associated with such a sharp break-over angle and/or is the neck angle reduced to compensate?

You wouldn't reduce the neck angle to compensate. The only time you change the neck angle is when you change the height of the TOM. The neck angle is there to compensate for the height of the bridge above the body/fretboard. In this case, you don't change that, you'd only change the position of the ferrules - if you want a shallower break angle over the TOM, then you position them further back, just you have to make sure you don't have them so far back a string won't reach the tuners!

However, there isn't a problem with ferrules that close to the bridge, I've got one that's the same as the guitar pictured and it's not a problem.