chops1983

A few progress pics i have been meaning to put up. got the tassie blackwood cut and routed to shape and have the top rough cut and ready to glue to the blackwood. top Wetted Now for joining the top together i used plain old regular titebond and the join seems really strong(i got a small offcut(about 1.5 inches of gluing surface) of the top with the join to test the strength and it took alot of strength and weight to break it by holding it over the corner of my work bench and using two hands), but this burmese teak is supposed to be fairly oily and its recommended to use epoxy to glue. Normally i would just go out and buy the glue but im on a tight budget as im saving to go travelling. So the question is, What do you all think about using titebond to join the top to the body??? Im thinking there is alot more gluing area than just the edge so i think it will be ok.But im worried more about the future, say in many years time. Anyone had any bad experiences with oily timber?BTW thats a pen centre line down the top Ive laminated the neck blank and its ready for action. Maple/sheoak/maple. I also joined up two small offcuts for the headstock veneer and sliced off a 3mm piece. What is the usual thickness for a headstock veneer? Its at about 2.5mm after a level sand with the beltsander. headstock veneer Try spot the join on that veneer. Now i have to work out the fretboard inlays and start working on them. Cheers Chad.

Wow deni! Beautiful timber, love your photos of your mill and your house is incredible. Where abouts in indo are you?

I agree, thats going to be the method on my next carve hopefully starting soon.

But it would not work for a les paul shape otherwise you will see all of one side of the heal and loose all that gluing surface. But if your body permits a full neck joint like spokes its definately the way to go.

Grinder and a flap disc would do that relatively quickly. But you would want to draw it out and take a bit of time cause it does take away timber very quickly!

Its full of calories and gives you horrendous eyesight where ladies are concerned... I hope by 'beer' you don't mean budweiser because thats a soda in all but name! Nah not budweiser. Im in oz so that stuff isn't cheap. Beer does have calories but thats allright. Oh the old beer goggles, been caught out with them before! haha I wish i was 18 again.

220 is fairly smooth so should work good. 600grit and oil will feel great i would say. Just keep gettin finer until its the feel you want.

As long as it takes to do a great job! Don't put a time limit on it. Once you have done multiple carves you will know the technique and be much quicker. Im sure there is guys on this site who could knock out a carved top in no time.

Like you have done before, refill the holes with some wood glue and a matchstick, Let it dry. Cut the matchstick back flush with the body and sand it smooth. The good thing about these holes is you will never see them when the jack socket is in place. Now access with the drillbit is the key, so if you can prop the guitar in a comfortable drilling position on its edge to get a nice drilling angle, thats gonna help. You could clamp a few phone books or blocks of timber to the bench either side of the guitar so it won't fall over. Place the electro socket in position and as ihocky said tape it to the body so its sitting correctly. Use the socket screw holes to drill the new hole on the correct angle and obviously keep the drillbit central. This is the only help i can give you and hopefully you will pull it off!If not and it really gets up you, take it to a pro repair shop. Use abit of patience and have a go at it yourself, im sure you will be fine. Goodluck.

I did my first with a grinder and belt sander but my next im going to use a rasp and orbital sander. Grinders are good but take timber away fast and in the wrong hands with an expensive bit of timber it could be costly. Mine turned out fine but not quite how i wanted as i took off abit too much. I reckon with a first carve to take time and use hand tools and use an orbital to help clean it up every now and then to save the old arms abit of soreness. Just my opinion but chisels,rasps and hand planes can work wonders.

I love a cold coke but now mostly drink it only with bourban. Will drink a beer instead though! Please don't say anything bad about beer!

These guitars look schmick spoke, Top Work!!!

Same method i use, nothing flash just take the time to get it right, no lumps, bumps etc. Nice and smooth like! I glue the paper to the mdf though, sand to the line and then belt sand the paper away. BTW top work Metalhead!

Well i have recently started this build Link with burmese teak for the top. I have listed a heap of properties of the timber if your interested. Im really excited about this build but unfortunately im saving to go on a trip around the world with my wife at the end of the year so funds have completely dried up. I really need a pearl cutting saw for the inlays and an ebony fingerboard but just cant spare the cash at the moment. I have made a little progress though, will try to post some pics soon.

Looks sweet! Keep us updated

Thanks woodenspoke. I figured as much but i thought i would ask. I alreadly have a guide set that comes with your router but the problem with this as woodenspoke said is the offset. I have made templates that work with the offset but it is a bit of a pain in the a**!

Keegan i choose D. I think a tele needs two pickups to begin with plus i like the contrast in the white pickup covers.

What router bit do you guys use for routing your cavity cover routes? eg. a 2mm deep route using a 12mm template.

Wrong person Haha i just realized. I saw Metalheads quote and just typed his name, what a wally! They look great blackdog!

Me too! They look great metalhead.

I like that carve badger. Are the horns symmetrical or is it an illusion?

Thanks Peter! Well i can tell you that its a type of teak and that it comes from burma!haha Joking. It is used in the marine industry alot and SJE was telling me it has a high oil content which will make it hard to join. I have a neat program called prospect which is released by the oxford university and is a database for timber. Theres not many timber species its missing. Mate I can tell you that the texture ranges from fine to coarse(?) It weighs in the 600-719kg/m3 on average. Movement in service is stable. Very small to small shrinkage once dried below 12% MC. The hardness on Janka Sidegrain is Soft/Medium (Don't think this will be too much of a problem as i dont usually belt my guitars around). Very durable and resistant to fungal staining. Slow drying rate but easy to dry. There is no drying degrade eg. surface checking. No drying degrade - Twisting,warping,spring,bow or cupping. Sawing is easy green or dry. Machining is easy and blunting is slight. It's telling me that gluing is easy/moderate! Finishing is good but sanding is poor, im guessing that means it is hard to sand, this will be interesting!Varnishing and polishing are both good. I haven't told you all the properties but there is alot about drying methods, hammer drops and all sorts of other info. I have got all these Properties from "Prospect" I suggest if you work with timber (and we all do) to download it and install it on your computer. It is very useful. Hope this answers your Q Peter. Here's a couple of pics of a PRS modern eagle 2.

Cheers guys. I definately agree with hints of a PRS but if you put a pic of one next to this its quite different. The butt of this is offset,whereas PRS is symmetrical, the waist comes in alot more skinnier and the horns are quite abit different. I wasn't wanting to copy a PRS shape and i didnt have one on hand while i was drawing it but it definately has the stylings Goining to try and glue up the body blank today!

Well the other day i had a bit of a creative urge and came up with this shape, The last shot is with the neck off my other d/c project which im halfway through. The body is going to be tassie blackwood and im thinking my burmese teak for a carved top. Disregard those carve lines drawn in on the template, thats just fooling around. Im thinking this shape needs more of a rounded over carve, not 100 percent sure yet. The neck will be a sandwich of Maple/sheoak/Maple and set into this body.Ebony fingerboard hopefully a nice plain black board if i can find one. My usual scale of 25.125 with 22 jumbo frets. I was thinking going to 24 frets but is there any benefit other than 2 octaves up the fretboard?The higher fret positions are going to be smaller so thats a con. Thoughts? And i was thinking of using a 12 inch radius instead of 9.5. Now this build is for my wife, She's not a player but it earns me some points and ill play it for the both of us! So in saying that, she loves egyptian mythology, so i want to use abalone and inlay hieroglyphics down a plain black ebony fretboard and run the egyptian theme. If that inlaying goes well i may even incorporate a bigger inlay in the body or headstock. Hipshot hardtail or tremelo for this shape i think and i was even thinking about some EMG active p/ups! How do these sound for clean work? Im not a metal guitarist but maybe some EMG's will inspire me to dabble! Controls im not sure of yet either. It's gonna depend on what p/ups i suppose. But it will most likely be 1 vol and 1 tone and i was thinking if i use passive humbucks a 5 or 6 way rotary switch for series/ parallel options. I really want to incorporate a built in electronic tuner but at the end of the day how hard is it just to use a floor tuner! Some Blackwood Closer Blackwood Some Teak This build i will take abit of time on as i now have 5 guitars and am not in too much of a hurry for a sixth, but i will post up progress pics as i go. Thanks for reading and your thoughts and opinions are always welcome! Cheers Chad.

Looks hot Peter!I really Dig the shape!