Cam

why did you have to dye that beautiful piece of wood? I really liked the grain on it...

that looks really nice, do you have any pictures of the back of the guitar and the back of the neck, i wanna see that birdseye

nice top, it doesn't look like a really high figured top, but even tops with hardly any figure show up nicely with stain and lacquer so we'll see

i like the teak, its grain looks pretty crazy in the last picture

i always thought that a bandsaws size was its cutting height. but are you guys saying its the throught?

i too am not sure of 6" bandsaws. By throat do you mean the cutaway bit?

Cause at 6" thats plenty of height to fit a body through.

where do i find out what is copyrighted or trademarked?

why can't you use 6"?

I don't see why not

6" bandsaws are (usually) budget bandsaws that guys buy for little stuff. Think cabinet maker where they cut small bits of MDF or a luthier (you wouldn't be able to bookmatch though.

Theres actually lots of uses

did anyone else see the eagle in the wood on the first pic?

The beak is at the bottom of the guitar, it is cut off a bit, the eyes are around the bridge area and then the streamline feathers run down to the neck.

You wouldn't actually believe it, but I looked at every photo.

that neck looks so fat on the little body haha

I actually have a mini explorer build going on like this, our scale lengths are very similar - mines 15 3/4"

Nice job on this one!

You wouldn't actually believe it, but I looked at every photo.

i am thinking

routing the edges, doing the carve with a chisel and smoothing it out with an orbital sander and then hand sanding.

Until I get more experience and more age I won't be using the angle grinder. I guess because extra work will be put in chiseling i'll love my guitars ore and more!

thats what i was thinking, making the steep bit in step 2 looks kinda hard...

I guess you could skip it and like deepen the carve around the edges?

i am thinking this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiJNwIPALs8...re=channel_page

4:30-5:30

I am now thinking of doing the carve with chisels and a orbital sander.

I am wondering though, are there any special chisels i need to use for the job?

I am thinking of carve 3 with a small steep bit like 2, but more so that the carves flows nice over the body:

-think of a more rounded 2 i guess.

what do you think the average time on start to finish on carving a blackwood top would be with chisels and an orbital sander?

So I have a build coming up with a 3/4" carved top. I am of course going to do lots of practice, but how can I practice if I don't know what tools to use?

I was originally going to use an angle grinder, but I have been denied access to the Angle Grinder because it is 'deadly'

So now I have a few options, but I am unsure as to which one is the easiest (or will work):

Chisel and a Random Orbital Sander

Spokeshave

Random Orbital Sander with real high grit sandpaper, carve it the same way as you would with an angle grinder.

Which one do you think would be the easiest?

Do you have any other ways?

I was leaning more towards the 3rd option?

yeah, i've been talking to him about necks and tops recently and he had sad that he was unable to update his site. So i'll go and give him an email

Great build by the way, i vote the 2nd picture for the body if you haven't already chosen

I saw that tim had nothing listed on his site solid body wise so i guessed that he had nothing. Although last time I emailed him he said he was sick and needed to update his site. I'll go ask him

you've done a really good job on this one john, especially joining the top

i like this build, always like an aussie build

Did you get the body blank from luthier supplies?

SJE Guitars: African Blackwood is more black...

this is looking great john. Looks like you did a pretty nice job on that neck for a first time

wow thats defiantly some nice wood your using. What are you using for the neck?

these guitars look very nice. A great inspiration

that dragon inlay is going to be sweet when its done. What material is it? It really matches the body cap.