mledbetter

You would be surprised how fast a chisel will rough in your carve. I have done 2 carves to date.. carves turned out great, but i haven't finished them yet so no one has seen the finished product but the carving part is done. I did one with a chisel and I did the other with an angle grinder with a flap disk on it.. 60 grit i think. You have to be very careful with the grinder as it will eat that wood to pieces but it can be very controlled if you have a steady hand and make even passes. The last one I did with a chisel was a limba body. I chiseled out the carve in less than 30 minutes. They were my friends chisels though that had been expertly honed by someone that actually knows how to do that.. They sliced through that wood like it was nothing. You can chisel then use an orbital sander to smooth it out.. or scrapers even, but i'm not adept enough with sharpening scrapers to use them totally. I'm learning still.

I have a tele template from him. Very nice. Made a few copies of it as soon as I got it so I don't ruin the original, but it's nice to know that your neck taper is straight and true, and your pockets are all dead on perfect. Saves countless jigs and workarounds. An excellent use of 50 bucks. If you're just going to make a one off guitar, then get some MDF, sketch on it, bandsaw it otu and use a spindle sander to clean it up for template purposes. Making your own though you'll have to do all your neck calculations and such. Make sure the taper is right for the scale, etc. Certainly doable. I made my own double cut templates.. but having the laser cut one to start with came in very handy.

That's what an LP neck looks like underneath. You basically remove about half an inch of wood or so on either side of the heel where it goes into the body. This tongue corresponds to a recepticle in the heel part of the body. I woudl assume an SG is similar construction although i've never seen the plans for one. Making a tongue in the neck like this gives you 8 faces of wood to be glued rather than just the 4 with a standard heel shape, and that should give you a stronger glue joint. That's what i was saying about your idea is that if you say you aren't that good at woodworking, then you're asking for trouble. What you are drawing up there would be extremely difficult to pull off right.

all of this could be ordered through universaljems.com that supports this forum and the fellow that built it.

Ya Your realy realy RIGHT I just dont feal right about that name I think I liked It's 10second cool effect but now NO WAY do I want My guitars associaded with that kind of crap!! But the skull stays !!METAL MATT!! ← Hey man.. nothing wrong with a good skull. lol... The Scythe would be a cool name.. maybe not for this one though.. Kinda makes me think of scisors or shears.. what's the greek thing with the fates, cutting the life string.. Maybe something cool found in that line of thought.

Right.. well forms of the cross have existed all over the place, long before hitler ever had the bright idea to bastardize it And honestly, the cross in various forms existed outside the christian movement.. It's not a hard symbol to come up with and i'm sure there were many parallel developments of it for use in some form or fashion. I don't know what others first impression of the totenkopf would be.. would just hate to see you work hard on something then get irritated cause people start assuming it's associated with nazi crap... like I just did

It's pretty steeped in german SS stuff.. swastikas, the whole 9 yards.. That's a pretty risky road of symbolism to go down.. If I understand my history correctly, the death head and the symbols were all part of the spiritual/mystical side of the nazi movement. If I'm wrong i'm sure someone will correct me.. But regardless.. you could probably come up with something equally "evil" sounding without giving homage to one of the most "evil" movements our civilization has ever seen.. But that's just me

i don't see how that will work? the truss rod exists in the space you're talking about recessing a reverse tenon. Honestly it would be far less trouble to go the other way around and extend the tenon on the neck like it's supposed to be. Why not try to make a neck? the wood isn't that expensive and there are a lot of things that can be done on the cheap. Most people agree that The neck is the most intimidating thing to build but once you've built one it's not THAT big a deal. You just have to be careful and precise.

There is a video on the Wayne Guitars website of him doing his slotting on a radial arm. Seems to work just fine. No need for a jig if you have a radial. Just an accurate index point you can line your fret lines up with.

I agree that it's all about finding what fits you personally. I am a strat man. A strat has a tonal range that is just different. Liekwise a les paul has a tonal range that is equally different, and the majority of guitars out there either are rooted in one or the other. I play a lot of lead and I appreciate all the sounds you can coax out of a strat. I played a 335 copy for a while and while it sounded great as a 335, i felt it was somewhat limited in it's variety.. but that double PAF sound just isn't my style. Someone said it up the page some.. i think it's a great idea to dump effects and just find your comfort zone with a simplet guitar/amp combination and then "enhance" it from there. Unless of course, like Jester mentioned.. if you're into Vai and stuff like that and are all about making experimental tones and completely custom sounds out of banks of rack equipment. It's been said before, a good player with bad tone is more fun to listen to than a bad player with great tone. Focus on your skills, find a guitar that matches your style and personality, and you'll have your tone.

Hey, if the presidential candidates are allowed to vote, then why shouldn't you all be. People don't always vote for themselves. Matt got my vote. Very well executed cool design. Raunchy looking, yet classy at the same time. Very well done.

Dude.. it's been a few years hard to keep track..

That sure seems like a lot of money for an under powered rig.. 2x55 amp isn't much. I don't like the idea of debt for things like computers, tech equipment, etc.. and music stuff would be the same.. What if you were still paying on it a year from now and the new model came out and you decided what you have sucks..Find a good amp to base on and then buy pedals or rack pieces as you go.

uhhhhh huhuhuhuhuhuh you said wood... was it hard? ← Yes folks.. Beavis has entered the thread.. I just ordered my next shipment.. So i'll start stockpiling while I wait for the first to get done One of these days i'll get my arse in gear and take some pics and get the frist one done..

I think that's your problem right there.. if it's as orgmorg says.. then popping the board won't get you anywhere.. espercially if the bed the fb sits on is radiused.. you don't want to have to curve a fretboard. Allparts sells about 15-20 different varieties of fretwire.. all different tang heights. Surely you can find some vintage fretwire that will work. I'd keep the board, and work on the trussrod from the outside. I saw an article online about that kind of problem. I've seen cutting through the FB and matching a piece of rosewood to cover up, i've seen blowing away the skink stripe by rerouting it, and i've seen the fingerboard removal. Your best bet is to try to work with the rod from an exterior basis and dont' cut the neck open unless you just have to.

Any type of carving you do will involve some variation of that method. Check the thread on the rosewood LP project, you can see how XLR8 did his carve.. He did step routes using a contour map then used spokeshaves and planes to flatten it out. Me, I generally route one step to give me the bottom part of the carve, then use a chisel to carve the top down to that point. Takes a little longer but i don't trust myself routing steps like that freehand. You need a good sharp chisel and practice on some stuff.. then you can use scrapers, spokeshaves, or just an orbital sander to knock off the marks and smooth it all down to a nice carved top.

There you go.. a CA dip.. That could be cool.. lol

well, when he said that the most was back in his early days when he played the frankenstrat througha beat up marshall amp and a couple of stomp boxes.. Now he's got more rack effects than just about anybody.. but in his punk days he was much more of a purist..

Yeah Derek.. I don't get the impression you're trying to sell yourself as something you are not.. in fact.. if anything I would say maybe you apologize too much for your work in your auction.. that doesn't instill much confidence in your product.. but then again, that's ebay.. one bubble and you have negative feedback to deal with.. Might be better off selling unfinished bodies until you get your finish absolutely perfect, then sell them finished when you can honestly say they are perfect.. It's a dangerous game, when you have such a growing brand equity in the Varitone to have stuff out there that is by your own words "not perfect" I don't particularly like that yellow color, but i've liked a lot of your other colors. But little things like un scraped binding edges and finish blems.. is it worth risking someones confidence in your flagship product to jump the gun selling guitar bodies? I mean hell.. with that beast of a pin router you could probably crank out enough unfinished bodies to make some good money by sheer volume alone. Good luck with this one,

BOOYAH!!!!!!! DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH........... ← I think you missed my point. Have you ever sprayed poly or lacquer over balsa? If it gets hit its like squashing a bug, the inside is soft the outside is hard like an egg. Either way its going to get dinged but the oil would not show as much. ← You thinking that oil at least wouldn't shatter like hard poly? or spider crackle like lacquer? perhaps, but it's not like it will snap back and look great. It will mar. Something like tru oil, or a tung oil finish coat aren't just oil. They are oil mixed with varnish. The oil soaks in, the varnish hardens, and in the end it's not like you have a shell of "oil" on the guitar.. so you could still have problems.

Well one thing I just can't do without is real distortion. Once you've played through a maxed out tube amp and heard all the beautiful overtones and subtleties that come with true power tube distortion, you'll never be happy with fake distortion again.. The best way to do that is with some sort of l-pad or variable active load device between your tube amp and the speaker. I use an l-pad but I got specs from weber's website on how to match the resistor pairing to my output and ohms so i don't risk hurthing anything. I've had no troubles. Folks say it hastens the death of your tubes, but I'm thinking if that IS true, it's because you're playing with your tubes fully maxed out all the time rather than just the occasional blast. I have heard that you can blow your output tranny if you don't have the right setup for your power soak.. You have to keep the load in line what what the amp expects or you can damage your amp. I haven't tried the tube screamer. I was always a Boss DS1 guy.. I'm always surprised when i hear of some famous guitarist that uses a DS1 in their mix.. On a solid state amp, the DS1 sounds thin.. on a tube amp you can use it as a gain boost and you really get a nice drive.

For versatility, i'd go something hot in the bridge.. unless you want a vintage type tone, get some kind of hot ceramic like you mentioned.. Then get a regular single for the middle, RW.. then get an overwound hot neck pup. Check out Rio Grande.. get you a BBQ for the bridge, a tall boy RW for the middle and a Muy Grande for the neck.. That would be pretty sweet. Right from your home state too.. That should give you raunchy bridge sounds.. srv type neck sounds and different combos with the middle pup on..

yeah a pickup isn't that complicated a piece of gear.. it's just shrouded in mystery mojo like a lot of guitar things are.. Like guitars, getting started can be expensive depending on what kind of a source you find for wire, magnets, etc.. but once you get going you can save TONS of money winding your own. Check out www.guitarjonesusa.com for a load of pup supplies.. You'll have to email them. They have tons of stuff, even pre formed bobbin/mag/eyelet assys you can just load up and wind.. but for some reason they don't put it on their home page. IMO it's a good way to get parts to get started and is cheaper than stew macs bobbin kits, and probably more vintage accurate too. Plus their mags are pre charged. Stews are dead and you have to buy a set of rare earth mags to charge your rods.. You can get wire in small qtys from http://www.schattendesign.com. Beyond that most mag wire places have a 2 lb minum.. Honestly most have a 5.. 5 lbs of wire is a LOT of wire. 1/2 lb should do 6-7 single coils, or 2 - 3 HBs depending on how you use it.

well let's qualify that statement.. You won't save money over a showroom factory guitar.. however, if you build and you are skilled and patient, you will save money over say a PRS private stock or a fender custom shop model.. It's not hard at all to spend a grand on materials for your first.. The first is always the most expensive as you will buy a ton of tools and little "have to have's" along the way.

That's what EVH always said about his "brown sound".. it's all in the fingers.. To me there are 2 camps.. 1) the purists, and 2) the sound designers.. I am a purist. I love the sound of a guitar straight through a tube amp with nothing in between.. Just pure power valve distortion. The other camp, designs their sound through an arsenal of effects and can dial in whatever kind of tine they want.. I think of folks like vai, satriani, etc.. their guitar tone can be 100% different from song to song, but their "style" is easily identifyable.. I guess it boils down to separating the style from the tone. I rely a lot on style.. pick attack, vibrato, picking position, etc.. so the raw unadulterated sound lets most of that come through.. 10 years ago I would have lusted after one of those giant racks with thousands of dollars worth of effects in it.. I was going to say too, bue Jehle put it into great terms.. The recording factor makes a big difference.. Guitarist records, then the engineer tweaks the signal for maximum clarity and position in the mix. Kinda follows the thread on Iron Maiden's tone.. It's hard to tell what their tone really is from listening to a record. So many things happen in post.