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mledbetter

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Everything posted by mledbetter

  1. mledbetter
    The smoky's are really cool little amps. I was going to recommend one. in fact, you could gut one and mount the electronics in your guitar if you wanted to. But i think the cig pack ones are pretty funny.
  2. mledbetter
    oh i'm totally sold on the scrapers.. i'm going to get some good stuff to sharpen them with this weekend. It's funny, i got into this itching to use powertools for everything but the blades and such have been the most fun to work with.. definitely more control as well.
  3. mledbetter
    if I over burnish, my cuttings look like little shavings.. otherwise, it's dust. I'm new to hand tools and these are brand new. I haven't honed them yet on a stone.. just used them out of the package.. They put a great finish on maple and on the straight grained part of the ash, but on the really wide grained part, it's a little rough. Over burnishing has helped a lot on the concave parts.. I'll get a good file to true them up in the next day or so. Thanks for the advice..
  4. mledbetter
    well, that's why i was thinking forstner.. it should make a much cleaner hole. Spiral bits pull the material off of the acrylic rather than scrape it away.. they'll also make your surface jump while drilling. You said "pickguards" so i assumed you were making more than one.. and if that's the case, you don't want to mess with little detail hand tools.. With the right template you should be able to do it all with a router and a drill press. For the pickup holes, you could always use a dremel router setup.. Straight bits work better with acrylic in my opinion, the spiral cutters really fuzz up the edges..
  5. mledbetter
    Use a drill press with a 5/8 forstner bit to start the hole, then go back to your router but with a straight bit to blow out the rest of the hole. Just use the same template. If I remember correctly, outside edges are beveled, pickup, post, switch holes and bridge route are straight, and screw holes are beveled. I'd attach the material to the template, drill a hole bigger than your router bit in each enclosed cavity and you're off. Use the drill press for all the holes and the router for all the cavities. Not sure what to tell you for the switch slot (if any) maybe a dremel with a 3/32 bit on it or something.
  6. mledbetter
    Thank you!! I have wanted to see a guitar with a sycamore top. My dad just cut down two 3 ft diam dycamore trees and the wood was beautiful, but unfortunately the neighbor came over with his log splitter and gleefully filled his firewood shed with it That turned out really pretty. What is it like in terms of hardness and workability? Very nice project, and great design to work with too. Did you make the neck as well?
  7. mledbetter
    It's kinda like David Carradine used to beat the crap out of people with his bamboo flute in Kung Fu movies.. Now the guitar has become a deadly weapon.. You two actually have bladed weapons and Godin's, being wenge, will be a quite deadly instrument of bludgeoning
  8. mledbetter
    Is your name really Karl Thompson? That's awesome.. You might have to change it if you want to build basses for a living. lol. Great looking instrument. Very elegant. Get you some active pups in there though A buddy of mine has converted all his vintage stuff over to EMG sets and swears by them. Got the pre-wired harness and the pups for his j bass. They do sound really good. But on the other hand, if you like the sound, that's all that matters - and you don't have to worry about changing batteries!
  9. mledbetter
    Lowe's sells it, WoodCraft sells it. It's a common clearcoat product. People debate as to whether or not it's "real" nitro. From what I've read it is real nitro, but maybe they have altered it somehow. Look through Maiden's prs 7 string thread, he talks about it a lot in there. I don't know what stores you have down there. Look for a Woodcraft or Rockler.
  10. mledbetter
    Try deft.. Maiden seems to have no issues with it, and if you want to seriously bake it, build the little 250 watt IR lamp setup like Myka was experimenting with. Bake that puppy till it's hard as glass. I was looking at Setch's tuts on the LP and he used some 2-pack poly that they sell over there in a little kit for hobby type stuff.. Can't get it around here apparently, which stinks, i'd like to try it.
  11. mledbetter
    if you win, the impaler might come after you.. Both those guitars are really nice looking.
  12. mledbetter
    And if you didn't want to rough the neck pocket out with a router.. get a couple of forstner bits and use a drill press.. They will leave a clean hole and you can get out the bulk and just use the chisel to remove the last 1/8 to 1/16 of wood up to the perimeter. Rasps are indispensable for shaping body curves.. I tried doing contours on a bandsaw but there's too much room for error without some kind of jig.. With the rasps, I can get it perfect every time.
  13. mledbetter
    Bought a set of scrapers and it's really starting to come together now.. I'm slowly putting a PRS style "dip" all along the edge, enhancing the recurve. Behind is the 3 ply neck lam. Hope to get it cut out this weekend. Having so much fun carving.. at some point I have to stop carving and build the damn thing!! Man.. those scrapers are just the ticket though. I was having some problem with the scrapers pulling the softer wood from the grain, leaving unwanted bumps, but following some advice in the tools forum, i think I got that licked. At least 90% of it. The inner part to the left i'll have to sand some. The ash is kinda freaky, the dark spots and light spots make the topography look off but it's pretty symmetrical finally.
  14. mledbetter
    well, like I said.. it's ash, so parts of it the grain does complete swirls.. so i can't always scrape with the grain.. and yes, it's scraping across that makes that happen. Mostly I wanted to know if there was something stupid I was doing.. but since it sounds like is a common problem, i don't feel so bad I have been burnishing them quite a bit.. making sure sharpness wasn't an issue. so far, so good. I think i'll just have to scrape as much as I can, sand the rest, and try to blend it as well as I can. The scrapers leave such a nice surface, i just hate to sand it.. Thanks for the replies folks.
  15. mledbetter
    You're right.. Bending would make it go flat.. You stretch the string, the nut binds and keeps it in the lengthened state, but the tension goes away so you have flat. The nut could be binding in a way that it lets the string go one way, but not like to come back the other.. so say you do a vibrato, the string slips back toward the post just a tad, you let off, it binds and you're sharp.
  16. mledbetter
    How many coats did you spray? That shouldn't happen.. Did you grain fill? A thin coat + grain impressions would give your fingernail something to grab onto making easier to mar the finish.. It should be fairly abrasion resistant though if thick enough and cured the right way.
  17. mledbetter
    I'm having a hell of a time using the scrapers on ash.. Using the goosneck one to clean up the recurve of my carved top. It is pulling the softer material out of the grain leaving a "trough" wherever the grain is. In areas where it is tight grained, no problem.. butter smooth finish.. but in the flatsawn areas, it really mucks up the grain and the smoothness. Is that just the wood? or am I doing something wrong with the scrapers? I'd appreciate any words fo wisdom from you blade gurus Obviously scraping with the grain is the goal.. but as swirly as ash gets there are some places where I simply can't.. and it's when it goes cross-grain in a really flat area that this happens.
  18. mledbetter
    Check ebay for "varitone" BigD makes and sells them. It's a cool little rotary switch pre configured for several different tones.. Kinda like a tone knob with presets. Tehre is much more information about them online.
  19. mledbetter
    I would agree with BP.. the temp probably has a lot to do with it.. At high altitudes.. it's butt-freezing cold and the cargo area isn't generally heated.. accompany that with a climate change in travel, and you could devinitely have some movement going on.
  20. mledbetter
    Scenes from "the life of brian" come rushing to my mind..
  21. mledbetter
    When did Billy Gibbons become Billy F Gibbons.. It seems so un-rock-star-like.. Cool guitar though.
  22. mledbetter
    well if you've sanded off the finish, i assume you're down to bare wood. To do a solid you will have to lay down a layer of primer and you might be able to smooth that depression out during the primer phase. I'm not sure what the ramifications are of using a paste wood filler under primer.. someone else might chime in there, but for filling large areas, bondo or epoxy putty work really well. But primer does build some thickness as you lay the coats down and that's why i'm thinking that might do the trick for you.
  23. mledbetter
    I don't know what your budget is.. but the mesh skin drums play the best. PinTech is made by roland and a set of pintech drums will run you considerably less than a set of roland Vs.. The roland sound modules are unreal.
  24. mledbetter
    i dont' know what to tell you. I am not precise with a chisel.. I can freeform carve with one though. Some guys can make flawless dovetails and mortise/tenon joints with nothing but chisels and hand saws.. i'm not one of thsoe folks so i'll stick to my router and templates There is somethign really enjoyable about using hand tools though.. carving is my favorite part
  25. mledbetter
    You might be surprised..
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