MOJO

that is awesome Perry!!

[sorry posted twice somehow }

great post Dave.enjoyed the article too i visit quite a few guitar forum and you'd be amazed how many people when they hear the word CNC instantly picture ..you put a piece of wood into it punch a button and out theother end pops a completed guitar the hahahaha.. i don't think they even realize how much handwork still needs to be done to get a guitar completed from that point.... PRS is a good example. i've been on the their factory tour and was amazed how much handwork was still involved even after the rough cut bodies and neck come off the CNC.. lots of handwork still done the old fashion way.. not a ton of Robot's doing every little thing like a certain "Vegas" dealers would love people to believe ( i have it on decent authority that He uses CNC materials too ..hypocrite) the one place i feel PRS has slipped is where you mentioned.. wood and tone selection ( maybe not on the Private stock models but definatley on the production models ) they really don't take the time they use to, to go thru their woods for toneful pieces... but i do believe that there are quite a few smaller builders that balance both the old school hand work and wood selection with modern CNC machinery Joe Driskill and Ron Thorn come to mind..these guys are not producing hundreds of instrument a years, hell i think 20 is probably a closer number per year, maybe even less but i know they both put a ton of handwork time into each of their instrument sanding and fine tuning everything to incredible tolerances..when i got my first Thorn i went over it like a hawk and i'll be damned if i could find a single hint or trace that any kind of adhesive or glue or epoxy was used on any part of it.the woods just seemed like they were naturally bonded together and seem lines when visible at all, looked more like decreative touches then the place where 2 woods were glued together..thats how tight they are and how much attention to detail is there and thats only with Ron, his dad and one assistant, not to mention the whole other inlay business he has to run at the same time..i don't know when he finds time to sleep Joe i don't think sleeps at all, dial his number a three o'clock in the morning and 90% of the time he'll pick it up..still there working..by himself as far as i know ( i don't believe he has anyone that works for him ) if he not working on the guitars he's designing and milling his own bridges or researching some other wacked out space age material ( don't know how many people know this but Joe did 2 years of research on the NASA poylmer materials used in the stealth bomber, so that he could used the material on one of his guitars for a Player who was suddenly paralyzed in an accident. he needed to find a material covering for tthe wood that could tolerate the strain and stress that an air pressured controlled robotic fingering system (which he also built) would put on it , he then built the guitar pretty much from scratch and delivered it... now that freakin customer service and dedication to guitar building if i ever heard it.. like you suggested Dave... CNC is just another tool builders can use like any other power tool and using one is not neccesarily a sign of lazy, bad or shoddy workmanship ... besides you've got be freaking rocket scientist to learn how to program and maintain one of them anyways... ahahahaha

wow!! that walnut is sweet looking, going to really come to life when you finish it..

all points are valid, i don't want anyone think i'm knocking the old school way of building guitars..it really is a highly skilled Art form that i hope never fades out completely... if a luthier really good he produce a guitar thats every bit as good and accurate as CNC machine..i have no doubt of that..there are plenty of you guys here that clearly demonstrate that... Rhoads comes to mind..great stuff no doubt i just can't fault a builder for going the CNC route if he wants to compete in today's competetive guitar market..thats all....really you have to..not much choice As far as prices. i agree with you guys.prices have gone berserk when you consider how much wood actually cost compared to what some charge you for it in the end. i'm all for a luthier making a bit of a profit off the wood prices but i think some have gotten totally ridicules korina's a good example..go to any wood supplier and compare the price of korina to say Hond Mahogany..it's a little more expensive then H mahogany yes.. usually around $20 buck per body or neck blank but when you talk to certain Builders they want to charge you $600 more for the korina body upgrade..it's a ripoff and greed at work..plain and simple, but people are suckers and they pay it not knowing any better..so what are you going do...

i'll bet you if you had the demand for your guitars that they do.you'd be a CNC covert also besides i'm sure most of them have a long history of "hand carving" before they said to themselves " what am i knocking myself out for" ..there an easier and better way to do this.. other then self -gratification for the luthier there's no difference between the hand carving and CNCing...absolutly none at all.. don't get me wrong I fully appreciate the skill it takes to do it the old way i quess what i'm trying to get across is that the term "handmade" or "Hand carved" is the most abused term in the guitar making business these days .if your using any kind of power tool ...bandsaw, planer, jointer or whatever..your using a power machine to do the work exactly like what a CNC does..unless your using nothing but a hand saw, hand planes , hand sanding (no electric ones allowed ) a chisel and hammer for all routing and spokeshaves for all carving on ..then you can claim it's truly hand made

haahahaha sounds way too easy doesn't it ..but theirs quite of bit of hand work still to be done once it's off the CNC.the bodies are far from complete besides when someone can logically explain exactly how hand carved is better then CNC carved..then i'm all for it (CNC that is)

well i know Sadowsky uses a 12" fretboard Radius on his electric nylon string instrument ( as do a couple of others i believe ) so i don't see why it wouldn't work

thought some of you guys might appreciate this roundtable discussion of duplicarvers and CNC machines builders represented: John Suhr , Ron Thorn , Bill Chapin (shades) Joe Driskill( diablo ) , Saul Koll , Scott Heatley rep for lentz an denyle guitars , Juha Ruokangas , Bill Gadow enjoy... http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthrea...&threadid=71800

You bring up a great point, what i'm trying to say is that the actual final size of the heel is not even formed yet when most of the front work such as truss rod channel routing is done ( so when ED says the large heel is the result of doing it this way. he's full of hot air ), if you look at the neck furthest on the CNC( the heel part has not started being finally formed yet) their is a larger squarer piece of wood that the vaccum grabs a hold of when the the front work is being done ( you would need to have that regardless of whatever the final heel size was) know what i mean? the picture i posted is actually the last stage of a neck being formed by the CNC the front of the neck has already been routed for the TR channel, the headstock wings added and carved to shape, the tuner holes drill. the final 2 thing that are routed are the actual neck shape and then the heel ( if they wanted to they could easily have the CNC make the heel a shorter one if they wanted to at this stage..remember they already do 2 different types of heel carves.... a shorter one for 24 fretters and Longer one for the 22 fretters..wouldn't take much to change a couple of number in the CNC parameters for the newer 24 fretters models to make an original even shorter heel or even carve the last 1/4 inch by hand ( i suspect they do it one of those 2 ways for the PS program if that what the customer wants

i'm always amazed at how much of ER B***S*** some people believe First of all the the Heel on PRS 24 fret models has only increased by 1/4 of inch from the earlier 24 fret models ed's famous comparison picture is a sham...what he did was put an original short heel 24 fret model next to the larger newer model 22 fret model ( the 22 fret model always had that sized heel..it never increased in size at all) to make it look like there was a large increase in size then there actually was) now if he had put a newer 24 Fret model next to the older 24 fret one you would see the size increased very little from the original 24 fret models its pretty simple if you want the smaller heel buy the 24 fret models..its that simple the larger heel has absolutely nothing to do with how the CNC machine holds the neck in place {picture proof} http://www.eastcoastmusic.com/prstr005.gif as you can see the neck heel is not even carved facing heel down ..its carved face up with the heel on top like the picture shows with the exact same sized tenon on the end like the original models the real reason paul decide to go with the large heel for the newer 22 fret models was due to the fact that many of the shorter heeled 24 fret models were turning up with Dead spots in the upper region (notes that were either not ringing properly or decaying prematurely i have owned both the older short heeled 24 fret ( had 2 dead spot on both the 13 an 15th frets) and a newer 22 fret model ( which has no dead spots at all ) so i know this to be absolute fact..... the upper fret access on the newer models is still better then the fret accesss of either the LP or your average Fender strat and the biggest myth of all ( as someone mentioned earlier ) ..that PRS guitar before 1995 were hand made..no they were not... the bodies and necks were carved on a duplicarver which does exactly the same thing as a CNC except alot less accurate.. to get a PRS that was truly handmade you would have to have a 1986 model or earlier ... if you actuallly go on the PRS factory tour ( which i have been) you would see that other then the initial CNC carving of the bodies and neck and 1 stage of finish buffing everything else is pretty much done exactly the same way as the old days by hand ..but just in a larger scale regarding the PRS set design VS the longer neck tenon (wonder who they got the idea from for a longer neck tenon...PRS most likely) that Mcnaught and other use ..the longer neck tenon can be great as long it 100% done accurate and you make sure your wood is completly dry ( no potential of neck warpage or twisting or extreme movement or have the neck broken in an accident )because if that happens you might as well throw the entire guitar in the fire place and buy or build a new one... it's unfixable ...you'd have to saw off the off the entire Top wood of the guitar to get to the rest of the tenon with a PRS if theirs a neck problem its a much easier procedure and the neck can be replaced if it need to be, you just have to remove only the neck pickup to get to the the tenon, while leaving the rest of the face of the guitar as is...

i know Blackmore usually glues in his fender Bolt on necks, so i guess it's possible ( if thats what you mean)

kinda inlay the wood flames into the top i assume?? that sounds kinda cool, it could be done but a lot work routing out the channels in the top wood for the flames i would think..but with time and patients i think it could be done Ron Thorn has experimenet with something like that. he inlays the whole 1/2 inch figured top into the backing wood ( although he has the benefit of a CNC to do a more accurate and precise cutting ) here's the first one he did ( pretty cool i think ) http://p092.ezboard.com/fthornnewsanddiscu...opicID=77.topic

thats a great visual reference Thanks for sharing your wealth..Perry..

you should give Ron a calll, i'm sure he'd be more then happy to talk shop. i can't say 100% sure if he is or isn't building the CNC machines any more ( maybe since he got his guitar line off the ground he doesn't have the time any more between them and all the inlay work he does for other guitar companies ) but like Drezdin said the last one i know he completed was for Scott Heatley and that was within the last year or so..if he's not then he'll definatly get you headed in the right direction in what would be best for your needs actually another guy whose brain you could pick is Joe Driskill at Driskill guitars..he's like a mad little scientist when it comes to CNC Techy stuff. he actually built one of his guitars to be played by breath pressure ( for a guitar player that was Paralyzed in an accident ) really far out space age robotic stuff .he's good folk too.. funny as hell

check with Ron Thorn at Thorn inlays.. ( besides inlay, and guitar building , he also builds CNC machines... he may be able to build you a custom CNC to meet your needs..he's a great guy to deal with too

there is a wood called "paulowina" that is suppose to be quite light.. Kevin Brubaker at Brubaker guitars and basses uses it quite a bit here in the US i'm not really familar with it myself but have seen positive things said about it for body woods... Maybe you can contact Kevin for more info on it..i'm sure he'd be happy to help..he's a goodfella

Hello, Mojo - great to see you here and thanks for the support as always. rhoads56 - You're taking this like quite a gentleman I have to say. Mojo sent me the image of your fretboard a couple weeks ago. My e-mail reply to him was "he ripped us off". Now I read you posted the images months ago... I am no stranger to having my inlay designs "ripped" by other builders. Some blatantly. It stings. I can only hope that you can take my word that I had not seen your fingerboard prior to this. Based on your above post, it seems that you have already considered this. Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt. As Mojo explained, this concept guitar was in the works for quite sometime, close to a year. I have quite an extensive library of Dover copyright-free artwork/clipart books. Most of the sharks came from a variety of art books, coloring books, tattoos, and even children's stickers. (Mojo doesn't know that , however ). A little tweak here and there to fit within the frets was all. In any event, thanks again. I hope to spend more time over here - this is a great forum from what I've read so far. Sincerely, Ron Thorn ← Hey ron ..good to see you here buddy i do want to stick up up for Perry also..i didn't think it was a case of anyone ripping anyone off...just 2 great artist visionaries coming up with a similar idea..thats all as i stated earlier neither Ron nor myself had ever seen Perry's sharks before acouple of weeks ago and i had my guitar for acouple of months already by then and theirs no way Perry could have seen our sharks because it was never shown anywhere on the internet till after the guitar was completed and delivered in OCT (ron and i were very "top secret" about them no one except anyone who happened to wander by Ron's shop knew anything about them..well thats not true Jeff who designed the tribal shark F hole.knew what the inlays looked like ..but thats it ) Perry's a good guy and Ron's a good guy..no foul on anyone... Ron hope you stick around here some.. ron really is great down to earth guy and a wealth of information in not only inlay and guitar building but also designs and builds his own CNC machines and other goodies..he's like a mad little Dr Frankenstein..no challenge too crazy to attempt

hre's the completed Thorn gallery to date ( for anyone interested ) http://www.thornguitargallery.com/

like this??? http://www.thornguitargallery.com/images/008-body.jpg

ron uses a dremel to create a channel just off the edge of the fingerboard and sets the purfling in..pretty much like stated above its not on the edge of the fingerboard so no outside binding is neccessaryto keep it in place.he also does the same thing along the headstock, the top of the body and the side of the body where the top wood meets the backing wood.. here's a good shot of it http://www.thornguitargallery.com/images/035-17.jpg

no.. i'd probably glue myself to wood by mistake.. i've anly gotten as far as slapping a warmoth parts together...

honestly Perry, i never saw your shark inlays before till like 3 weeks ago when i went onto your website after seeing your Super strat thread and started looking around..it really was just a coincedence that we both had the similar idea.. i got the idea from combining the shark inlays from Rainsong acoustic guitars ( they've been doing shark inlays for years on their guitars ) with a guitar Thorn (#12) did with Orcas completed Jan 03 http://www.musicianmatcher.com/LeonsGear/ i just told ron i wanted the same kinda thing with sharks instead of orcas.. actually he did 2 mockup drawnings he sent me 1) with just alll hammerhead sharks 2) the one with various sharks ( which is the one we went with ) i ordered my shark guitar around AUG 1 of 2003 about a week after i got my first thorn

my two Thorn guitars.. basic shape but wild woods and inlays #21 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/MOJO...RS/dd0e33df.jpg #48 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/MOJO1/d55c1b0c.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/MOJO1/c88b6ffc.jpg

A little to radical shapewise for me, but very nicely done..love to see what you could do with a more tradition shape... reminds me a bit of Mcnaughts work ( thats a good thing )