orgmorg

Depends on the glue. Epoxy will give a more sterile sound than hide glue, which really gives you that warm, pastoral tone. Never use Titebond 4, nothing will ruin the tone of a guitar like Titebond 4.

Just kidding, of course. It makes no difference. At least less of a difference than the different pieces of wood you would be using in each case. My opinion anyway. There are many others. Stock up on salt.

The advantages of 1 piece construction is the look and the simplicity.

Advantages of gluing up is that you can use smaller, easier to find pieces, and glue them up in a way that will avoid the cupping that a 1 piece blank will undergo with changes in moisture content (which we try to avoid anyway)

Nice Stands!

Check out MLCS too: http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/smarthtml/pages/bt_round_over.html

Probably the same quality as the Grizzly bit, plus they have free shipping

If you want a real bottom of the countertop look, 1/8" masonite would look pretty authentic, especially if you added some wads of chewing gum.

And the chrome edging turned out fantastic!

Easy month for me.

While the others are all superb, Hooglebug's entry is just absolutely, mouthwateringly wonderful in every way.

And Wez- good point on the 2 volumes, I will keep that in mind for next time I use a PG mod pickup set.

Thanks!

I like these bridges a lot.

Setting the intonation is no problem. Just loosen the screw and scootch the saddle where you want it. They move easily, but not so easy that they go too far too fast.

This is a great bridge for string through, since you dont have to worry about the strings contacting the body of the bridge, like on a regular tuneomatic (particularly the wider, Nashville style.)

Also the best I have found for use with a Bigsby. Everything locks down solid. Just wish they were available in nickel plate.

One of the things people didn't like about my last GOTM entry was the Hipshot baby grand bridge

Apparently, y'all are not alone~ I got an order for one just like it, but with a different bridge.

I figured I would post some pics of it:

Used a Wilkinson roller bridge, with the strings running through the body in 3/16" brass tubes which project about 1/16" from the face of the body

Pickups are Bareknuckle PG Blues with aged raw nickel covers

Also went with a different back on this one, this is butternut, lightly singed with a propane torch:

This pic also shows the brass anchor block I made.

Birch is about the same density and strength as hard maple. Would make for a pretty heavy body. I have been considering using it for necks.

You know what would be really cool, is a flame maple pickguard, especially if you could get a veneer similar to the flame of the body, and laminate it onto a thin black pickguard, so you end up just seeing the black outline from a distance.

Wow, that's pretty cool!

Thanks for not doing a knock off, but I am very looking forward to seeing what you do with the idea.

I went with the Ikkeenbacker. Really nicely done.

Close second was the Northstar bass. Love 8 stringers, and nice to finally see this shape on a bass.

Mostly Bondo

but the rest definitely looks like maple

Very, very, very nice!

What bridge is that?

That's how we roll here in Dismal

I love the "exotic" poplar

Most of my shop and house are built of poplar much like that.

Thanks Drak, always nice to recieve a compliment on ones' backside.

The back is buckeye, which, as I'm sure you know, is very soft. Instead of worrying about it getting dinged with the slightest bump, I take a polished stone ball and beat the heck out of it. Then I seal it with thinned shellac, and work a dark stain into the places where the wood fiber has torn. After that, I wipe on darker shellac, lightly sand it when dry to lighten the high spots, attack random areas with steel wool, repeat as necessary, and finally rub the whole thing down with fine steel wool to kill the gloss. Lots of fun.

The pickup covers are nickel plated, and I darken them with an antiquing solution, then slip them over a wood block that fits inside, dimple them with a ball pein hammer, and wet sand with 600 grit.

Spectacular!

I love how the burl fits into the burst.

I don't know that the "drying out" is a big deal, but I use the same oil to clean the fretboard when it gets grimy.

Mesquite makes a very nice fretboard; I have used it many times.

I use Stew-mac's fretboard finishing oil on it.

I went with Madhattr's entry, superb! I usually don't like forearm contours that cut through the top, but it really works nicely here.

Very close seconds were the Northstar and Helios. Both very nicely done.

The wood and finish on the Northstar really compliment the shape well.

Only thing I don't like about the Helios is how far the tuners are from the nut. I love Wez'z blackbursts, but this looks great just as it is, suits the guitar nicely.

The Mockingbird looks great. I really like the inlay design a lot, and it goes very well with the rest of the guitar, but it is a bit rough in places, and the filled in dot holes are very noticable. Otherwise, as others have said, everything fits together visually and I'm glad to see it doing so well in the polls.

I also like Crow's PRS, the white/grey scheme is a bold move, and looks awesome. I still hate PRS control covers, though. I know it's meant to be a copy, but that is one detail I would have changed.

I was interested to see how folks would react to my headstock. I don't normally like seeing laminations in the face either, but I really like how this turned out. I have done a couple of these headstocks with overlays, but interestingly, they were both solid necks.

Wez- maybe I will stick a bunch of chicken feathers all over it

Thanks all for the feedback!

All I know is you can toona guitar, but you can't toona febrifuge

Barnstormer SC

In this guitar, and others of the same name, I try to blend the aesthetics and feel of vintage aircraft with those of the barns that they might have performed stunts over in the grand "barnstorming" days of the early 20th century. Those stunts occasionally resulted in a more literal blending of these two elements, and if you could record such an event, it might sound like this:

Body is buckeye, with an arched, beech barnwood top. Neck is walnut and cucumbertree, with a persimmon fretboard.

Pickups are Seymour Duncan '59 with distressed metal covers

Hipshot baby grand bridge, bakelite pickguard,

Heavily distressed finish on back and sides,

Hipshot Classic tuners

back of headstock

Neck joint detail

other side

controls

control cover

Looks nice and rough, but feels and plays slick as a slug.

Excellent!

This is my favorite type of mando

I like how you made your workboard, too.

OK, well the wacky reading I got was because I was mistaking the hot lead for the neutral- duh!

But in the process of figuring stuff out, I tried running a wire from the ground spike to the neutral bus bar, and when I touched the wire to the bar, there were sparks.

Measured 1.2 volts between them.

Turned off breakers one by one until the sparking went away.

Pulled that breaker, and tested between the hot and neutral on that circuit- continuity.

Unplugged everything on that circuit until I got no continuity.

The culprit- My stereo reciever.

Don't know what the heck is wrong with it, but I get no more crackling from my amps now.

Electricity is weird stuff.

After I posted that, it occured to me that that was the wrong way to test it, since that is just the safety ground.

Tested between the neutral wire and the ground spike and the needle on my multimeter went wacky- oscillating rapidly between infinity and like 1kohm.

I could hear it too, and it sounded about the same speed as the crackling noise.

Looked inside the breaker box and noticed that most of the neutral wires are corroded where they connect to the neutral bus bar.

The ground wire runs from the spike to the meter box, but there is not one from there to the breaker panel.

Time to call an electrician, I suppose.