mledbetter

Lol.. i guess i have big hands.. I hope it turls out allright.. but like I said.. it was headed for the scrap bucket so i've nothing to lose.. Thanks to all for prodding me a little.. I got a flap sander disk for my angle grinder.. I figured it was worth the $5.49 investment.. lol. i'm going to work on the carve a little more. It'll be good practice anyway. I'm going to bring the top of the hump in about 2 inches or so around the lower bout, then blend it in with the carve on the horns so they keep some contour.

Man.. that's lookin awesome. I was trying to scroll back trough and see what you used and couldn't find it exactly.. You said dupli.. so are you using metalcast silver? and you painted it over black.. what kind of clear did you end up going with? it seemed to work really well. kudos.

if all you do is play lead, or classical style, then flat might suit you just fine.. but flat is very un-ergonomic if you play chords.

A new ebay store called Premium Cuts. Shipping isn't too bad and he'll combine for you if you order multiple items. He had a bunch of neck blanks yesterday but they are all gone.. Has several nice 1 pc ash and alder blanks though.

Do you hate hand sanding cutaways?? Tell us how you really feel..

I have looked at that sander. Was waiting to hear others opinion of the quality. The edge sanding would be very valuable. Yeah I don't see the need for going as high as 600 grit on an oscillating sander.. the oscillation along with a 220 like BigD said should get you plenty smooth..

OK everyone.. thanks for the input.. here's the answers to some of the questions... I've been working on the neck joint actually.. The body isn't thick enough to do an angled neck.. i think it ended up being just a hard under 1.75 and I have been carving it as a flat neck install. You have to remember this started out as a tele body that had the entire heel torn off in the routing proces. I wasn't about to waste that ash. But anyway.. i've got a jig set up to route everything and the top is actually perfectly flat so it's not like trying to route something that is completely round on top like a paul. The size of it.. it's a bit short, but the lower bout is the same width as the tele was. I just rounded it a bit. I'm goint 25" scale so i've got enough wood to dig in with the neck and not have the bridge so far back that it's ridiculous looking.. Because of its shortness, i'm doing the 0 heel neck joint.. The routing around the edge was done with a rabbeting bit.. then i chisled the curve into it. I've never been completely thrilled with it, it was more just a curve to work the grain a little.. Flat swamp ash isn't nearly as beautiful as contoured. I haven't ruled out completely hitting it with an angle grinder.. I have done everything so far with chisels, rasps and a sander. I'm going to do an angled neck one next, but i'll start with a body that was MEANT to be built that way with that id' rather start at 2 inches thick so I can carve down. I would want to do the PRS thing where the body actually slopes up to the bridge, then slopes down again at the same angle the neck is installed. Thanks for the input.. I'll see what this weekend holds.. I may hit it with the power grinder still.. I have nothing to lose.. it was going to be trashed anyway.. Thanks again folks..

Update finally.. I've been slowly shaping this thing and am just about ready to final sand it and route the cavities. Here is a closeup of the cutaways.. I've just kind of sculpted this as I go along but it's ended up being pretty ergonomic.. Detail of cutaway I have the neck blank glued up.. 3 ply laminate.. 5 ply at the headstock. This one is going to be a prs style joint.. bolt on, but the neck is thicker and part of the heel extends under the neck pickup.

I'm building my current guitar this way.. bolt-on neck that extends under the neck pickup.. PRS style.. Mine will have the slightest bit of heel and I will use brass inserts so 2 inserts will be going into about 3/8 of neck wood while the other two will be going into the full thickness of the neck.. so it should be plenty stable. What irks me about PRS is the block heel that extends 3 freakin inches past the body of the guitar.. it's not necessary and it totally blows the look and feel of the thing. I gigged the other night with a friends CE bolton and it's is a top notch player, aside from the hideous heel. Not a cheap guitar by any means.. I contemplated something similar to the neck to bridge idea.. but your neck would have to widen out to a width to accomodate the pups and bridge and unless you covered it up with a pickguard it would be pretty ugly.. or you would have to use 6/4 neck stock to be thick enough to have routing in it and not comprimise the structure. If you're going to go to that trouble, do a neck through with removeable wings. That could be interesting. It would take some specialized hardware to make the wings easily removeable, but maybe a couple of access plates and side bolts revealed inside.. Aside from a construction advantage i have no idea why anyone would want one though..

well I can't comment on the midi area.. i have never ventured there.. but this gibson opens up a lot of possibilities.. not so much in midi but in recording, and in the versatility of the guitar's signal in processing.. I'm blown away by how this will revolutionize processing.. The sound man at a show could be doing everything on a PC with a big touch screen.. Racks of effects aren't needed.. The recording studio could be the same way.. all audio routed over Cat5 cables, all digital i/o, routing and mixing would be a breeze, and again, outboard effects would not be needed. Everything could be done on a virtual mixer. I think that si the best thing about this, is it lets the guitar be itself.. You could just as easily have this installed in a strat or an ibanez.. whatever.. I would love to see what guitarists liek Vai, Satch, etc.. could do with some of this from a tonal/textural point of view.. Total control of stereo field, string level tone control, etc.. I'm sure it's a couple years out t least though before it gets any real attention.

lol.. i hear ya.. i'm the same way.. i'm all about digital recording though.. nice thing about the gibson digital and the breakout box is you can output to whatever you want.. It's just digitally carrying the audio signal.. at the end of the chain you can run through tubes, or into a modeling rig.. or into one of the fx units they are developing for this thing... Also, 100 feet capability over Cat5 with no latency. That's another thing.. Cat5 is CHEAP.. it's a heck of a lot cheaper than standard guitar cable.. You got a short? No problem. just grab an rj45 connecter and crip it on and you've got a new cable.. @15-20c per foot, making patch cables and stuff would be cheap and easy. My "geek" factor is really coming out here.. i'm a programmer and have been immersed in computers and networking for the last 10 years or so, so it's cool to see things come full circle. I would eventually see this crossing paths with what Line6 is doing with the variax.. They are two different technoligies with two different end goals, but you pair digital audio transport with digital modeling and tone generation and you've got about as futuristic a solution as you can imagine. And again, the nice thing about the varix is it's only designed to affect the line level signal.. so you can still output to whatever you want.. I know it's new and unproven but I can't imagine how far along that stuff will be in another 2-3 years. I guess in 5 years there will be no tuning machines because they aren't needed you just pick your tuning and key, your guitar model, your stereo separation and your effects and start jamming. lol.. (no tuning machines.. MasterMind won't know what to do with himself ) I am joking of course.. i don't really expect that to happen that fast, or that way - i feel the need to say that before i get flamed..

I think lou reed's guy plays one of the Gibson MaGIC equipped guitars.. They are bleeding edge. It's a cool technology, Gibson developed a delivery system that pushes enough bandwidth to carry 32 realtime uncompressed audio channels through a standard Cat5 network cable.. They show prototypes of completely digital PA systems where you have a series of Cat5 cables replacing the good ole snake.. folks on the stage playing and the dude in the back with a touch screen monitor that has a powerful DSP managing a digital mixer, effects, routing, etc.. all in a digital environment. The guitar, you can gind it at www.gibsondigital.com i believe.. is a les paul with the Cat5 output that lets you have complete control over each string in a digital environment. You could mess with stereo effects, plug into special effects units that work with the MaGIC interface that could let you make the bass strings sound like and acoustic and the high strings a lead solo tone.. the possibilities are endless. Whats cool (and i'm of the camp that doesn't care much for gibson) is they developed this as a separate company and as a developer you can go get the developers kit and hardware resources to develop your own MaGIC based technology.. so as soon as it takes off it should proliferate the digital music and audio production world if it in fact does all that it claims to do. The tech specs and some other things are at www.gibsonmagic.com It blew my mind the first time i saw it and I am a little worried that it hasn't caught on by now.. maybe something about the tech isn't ready for prime time. This has been going on for a couple of years.. But once someone comes up with a way to dump all the analog audio delivery mechanisms we rely on, i would bet it would be nothing short of revolutionary.. Probably more info than you wanted but i thnk it's a really cool idea they had. Much cooler than the midi guitar..

spray adhesive is the best for mounting thin material to a flat surface.. you mist the back of the item and then rub it onto the surface.. the glue doesn't build up thick so it's pure contact.. a wood glue or something like that you're going to have a huge mess on your hands when you squeeze it all out from under the decal. I'd just go with water slide decal paper.. then you dont' need adhesive. If it's inkjet though, you have to spray a sealer on top of the decal so when you soak it off the backing paper your ink doesn't slide off into the water as well.

That's a really cool process you have going there. Who knows.. you might start the next big fad n the guitar world That would be totally nerve racking. When i was in high school (many moons ago) my friend wanted me to route out his USA strat flametop for a different type of trem.. I know the feeling and the pressure.. My route job turned out great and the Kahelr flyer rocked on that guitar.. but 2 weeks later, he dropped it on a concrete floor and the clearcoat just shattered across the whole face of the guitar Have fun wtih it, and keep up the good work. Nice to see some different stuff in here.

Yeah, my strat i believe is basswood.. Where I can see the wood it is pure white.. real powdery wood. My neck has a heel adjust rod so the lock nut didn't interfere with that..

Cool!! I have one of those squiers.. it's in pieces at the moment being gutted, but it has been my main axe for 15 years.. i have yet to find a new fender that I like better.. The bridge I could do without but I block it and never use the bar so it doesn't matter. It's heavy duty though and the rollers appear to be nrass whee i've rubbed the chrome off.. has great tone. They are single locking via a cheap locking mechanism that sits behind the nut.. was kind of an afterthought. I took that thing off and used it standard. I haven't tried it but I imagine you could swap a wilkinson trem or something with a half knife edge on it to adjust for the post spacing. Also, it's a wider trem than a standard strat so the pickguard that comes with it is custom. If you buy a new one, you will have to cut the guard away around the trem. Those are great guitars though.. aside from the cheap attempt at a floyd

Are your eyes sealed off too? Toxins can absorb through your eyes. even if you have goggles that keep particles out, if fumes get through to your eyes you could be getting exposure there as well. You've helped bring me back full circle to where I started.. So much of that crap is hideously bad for the environment (not to mention yourself) and while i don't consider myself an environmentalist.. or have any political motivation towards environmental issues.. it just seems responsible to phase out that stuff and work towards cleaner solutions. I would love to do all oils. If I could figure out how to do semi opaque colors under oil I'd be there in a heartbeat. All of my experiments of oils over dye have come out really well. I can work with tru-oil in my home and no one smells it. It washes off my hands and leaves nothing harmful behind on my skin or in the air.. Now to get the best finish you thin it with naptha so you get to introduce the bad stuff back at some point.. but i haven't given up on oils. Tonewise, i'd rather have an oil finish anyway.. Folks go on and on about how much better nitro sounds than poly, but the pre finish process is the same for all - loads of pore filler and sealer.. so what difference does the final coat make when your wood is alredy clogged up from within. Non grain filled oil finished guitars should be theoretically (i say theoretically, so don't flame me) superior sounding instruments. Perfectly safe for who? Go outside of your exhaust fan and count the spider webs. Health is the biggest and most compelling reason I can think of. I cannot smell the fumes when I wear the mask I have (yup it's charcoal) but I still can feel it after I spray. It is not an immediate and intense feeling but I can tell. I am not the only one. There is a reason for the move towards water based finishes. The 50's chemical/production mentality has to go eventually. As far as sticking with what I know, well I taught myself how to spray nitro and have only used it for 2 years (about 30 guitars). I don't mind learning something. If I had my way I would french polish my guitars or use an oil finish. They are more fragile but gernerally my clients take pretty good care of the guitars. ←

Personally i've seen more evidence of bridge pup placement being more affected by harmonics.. That close to the end of the scale you have a wide range of nodes coumped in together.. I think a 1/4 inch from th ebridge is pretty much standard and you'll sound just fine. Having the neck pup close to the 24 fret position you'll get a good sound. But on 24 fret guitars you still get different tones on the neck pup, so I would imagine you'll be just fine with your 1/4 inch rule. You'll certainly be close enough.. and much in line with how most pups are placed..

That is great. Thanks for posting the results.. Guitars look really nice too

Figure in maple, curls and quilts come from places where the wood is compressed.. the compression puts bends and ripples in the grain. You'll get curl at the crotch between two trunks, at the base of limbs, places where the tree is bent.. there are several causes for the phenomenon.. but compression during growth is the main cause for the curl (flame)

That is a S-L-O-W machine.. if you're wanting to do audio.. look elsewhere..

Yeah that dude is fast. He's probably the best ebayer i've bought stuff from in a long time. He sells a TON of stuff.. He's got really good prices on humbucker sets now.. some overstock he bought.

probably had something to do with the fact that the acceleration of a bullet coming back down is only as much as what gravity can pull it.and things reach maximum velocity fairly quickly...so basically it would have been as if a rock of the same weight had been dropped 3 or 4 stories onto the top of his head.it would hurt...but i doubt it would really penetrate,given the small mass of a bullet. but i really don't believe that story anyway.the chances of it coming straight back down are astronomical...especially given wind speed and all that. but could you please all drop the stupid nonexistent kkk connection?who cares what those fools are doing...it has nothing to do with guitars. what if some guy named mario ibanez killed hundreds of college coeds at spring break(for example)?would you expect ibanez to change their names? and kxk is only as similar to kkk as cat is to cot...the more literate you are,the less one letter is going to fool you ← Dude.. i was only trying to explain the possible mixup. I'm not trying to perpetuate anything so no need to get testy.. I don't care if you believe it or not.. it was in all our newspapers and it happened about 20 minutes from where I love so...

Awesome.. yes. post the test pics. Are you using an enclosed bx or just parking it under the light? Heating it in the booth may be the best bet (after vapors have been expelled of course ) with the fan running you'd then have heat and moving area.

My only reference to IR heat lamps are for curint waterbased finishes.. There was a link a few threads back to a hot box made out of a cardboard box.. But i've heard Doc say a couple of times that IR banks are a common cabinetmakers trick for fast curing waterbased finishes. It seems I heard you don't want to speed up nitro too quickly or you'll get problems. I may be wrong though. here we are.. heat lamp link on PG forum..