Mitch

blue sunburst?

Just interested as i am considering making an acoustic some time.

I carefully cut mine off with a saw then spent a couple of hours with a plane planing it until there is no gaps round the edge and it doesnt wobble at all.

I don't really know anything about floyd roses but if the strings go over a sharp edge behind the saddle they will often break there. A trick to prevent this(which i saw in a guitar maintainace book) is to put 1/2" to 1/4" of that wire insulation tube stuff over the string behind the saddle where it goes over the hard edge. I know this works on a strat trem but like i said, i know nothing about floyd roses so it may not work.

Thanks!!! Sorry about the jubilee clip thingy. UUs british come up with stupid names for stuff. anyway..

I have been thinking and i have absolutely no idea what shape to inlay. Any ideas? It can't be to hard as i have never done any inlaying apart from dots. Thanks everyone!

A fillet it a strip of wood that you glue into the truss rod channel over the truss rod to hold it in.

If you get a stewmac.com hot rod then you wont need an anchor, fillet/filler strip and you also wont need to rout a curved channel as the hot rod works in a flat channel.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Truss_rods/Adj...75.html#details

Those are the instructions for installing it.

Get melvyn hiscocks: make your own electric guitar if you havn't already. It's the greatest guitar making tool ever made.

Oh yeah? Well, the other day I was working with a random orbital sander at the end of a long day of work, and found myself asking, "I wonder if this would hurt if I touched it." So I did. And then I decided I was too tired to work safely anymore.

I did that with my orbital sander (the vibratey type with the rectangular base). It's kinda massagey and it makes your fingers smooth. I'm gonna miss that sander. It's the safest tool i have and the motor's going on it (it works fine for the first 10 seconds then it starts to slow down and make burning smells).

I would say craft stores. Or you could just push a normal roll through a bandsaw.

OOOF

Man, why diddnt you use a template for that rear recess cover rout?

Yeah, It was a dumb thing to do. I thought I could get away with just pushing the router to the lines. Im gonna make a slightly bigger cover and do it properly. I would have used a template(i have one made up as well) but i dont have a bit with a bearing at the top(only one with a bearing at the bottom). I'll just have to wait until i end up going to my friend-with-a-decent-router's house. I'll be hitting 2 birds with one stone doing this as I didn't plan the control cover screws and 3/5 don't actually go into the wood.

I'm not gonna paint it by the way.

Dam I was going to say that LOL

I think you many want to play with some stain here and a small paint brush. Apply some thinner to the wood and see how dark it gets. Then you can judge where you can go with the stain so it does not look way off from the rest of the guitar. However the light wood is a problem. You may also want to float some color on top by first sealing the wood with shellac and use real paint.

The nut I don't think exists the best I have seen is a 3/4-16 and you need a 3/4-12. That is a 3/4" x 12 treads per inch which is the Dremel thread size. A tap costs around $24. You could use a set screw if all else fails, with the cap on of course.

Eek, the stainy paintbrush thing sounds a bit complicated. Plus the join isn't flat its all lumpy and there is bits of wood chipped out. I think I'll make a dremel base and do inlay.

Who's Stupid idea was it to put a put a thread that doesn't exist on their tool!!! Why!?! Anyway, Do you think a jubilee clip with a bit of rubber padding on the inside would hold it okay? I think i could fit 2 clips on the thread and that should hold it.

Are you getting any sound from the guitar when you strum the strings? If not then it would probably be what mammoth guitars said: You got the wires the wrong way round on that jack.

If you do get a sound through the amp when you strum the strings then you may have got the ground wire from the strings attached to the live somehow. Check where the ground wire is going/making contact. If it's none of those then I have absolutely no idea.

Good luck.

Bump.

Just a different tree. Same type of wood(cherry). The colour difference isn't quite as much it looks on this pic(cam flash) but its still pretty different. The center laminate is a completely diffrent wood all together, The top is sycamore and the bottom is ash. I'll try making a dremel base some time. It shouldn't be to hard as soon as I find a nut the right size, we have a mig welder here.

I'm not gonna paint it by the way.

How can I cover up this join? I was thinking of inlaying veneer over it but I don't have a precision router base. I could make a dremel base but I don't really want to for just one job plus I'm stuggling to find a nut for the thread on the dremel. Any ideas would be great.

Thanks guys.

If you have a fillet then thats where any glue would be, but if you don't have a fillet then I would just pack it with silicone stuff that is used to seal around baths. Don't go putting it in just yet though, wait for some more experienced guitar maker come along as I might be wrong on this.

Camoflage it with camoflage paint or something. Maybe you could get a precision router (dremel thingy) and go round the edge making a channel just inside the binding then stick some binding or veneer in the channel. Maybe purfling?

The headstock

you can see the wood isn't smooth but i'll sort that out

The pathetic and tiny belly carve

Sorry everyone, I haven't done any updates in a while. The guitar work is starting to move on now and I am hoping to get it in for GOTM march (possibly). Since the last post the truss rod has been installed(packed with silicone which is the white rubbery stuff they use to seal baths but this stuff is brown), the binding has been thinned down because the fingerboard was a bit wide, the second pickup cavity has been routed, the fingerboard has been glued on, the neck has been tapered down to the fingerboard the head has been fully cut out the neck has been shaped, the top has been fully carved, the pot holes have been drilled, the control cavity has been routed and the little hole for the control cavity to pickup routs has been drilled. The neck on this is quite thick(personal preferance) at about 50% thicker than my red guitar with a bought neck. Anyway I'll put the pics up now. Any question just ask.

Sorry, the fingerboard is masked up to stop it getting damaged. It is there though, I assure you.

Here is the back.

Control cavity

Here you can see the join where I put a wedge of wood because there was a big gap in the back where I put the neck angle in and if i planed it away the body would have been too thin. I'm planning to do some sort of marquetry over it to cover it up. Any other ideas for covering it up would be REALLY REALLY helpful. And the colour differance isn't quite as obvious as in this pic.

Out of the guitars I have done so far the shortest time has been 3 months. My current build (telecaster shape) has been 7-8 months so far and I think I will be finished in the next week maybe.

Definatly get a better router. I would have a look round ebay for them, I(well... my dad) got an Elu Mof 177/00 (amazing router) off ebay for £60. You just have to look round a bit.

I'm gonna change my mind to the jack plate idea. Thinking about it it wouldnt be hard to do all the wiring outside the guitar then all that has to be done is shove the pots out the holes. Doing the electronics before the top is glued on would be impractical because you might have to scape all the laquer from the pot shafts or mask them off. Not sure how the pup selector was done though.

Where did you get the neck and body from? I got one off ebay for £28 including postage (admittedly it isnt amazingly good). £48 sounds like quite a lot to be paying for second hand strat style neck. Mind you I am a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to guitar guitar parts, I bought the wood for the body and neck on my current (telecaster shaped) build for £6 (thats not including the fingerboard which cost me £12 from stewmac.com).

Anyway, good luck with the build.

Go on ebay.

The whole back might be a back plate. Maybe it just takes a bit of steaming to remove.