Helldunkel

? damp the wood....... ....... I dont really see how you can create an accident by putting some water on a cloth and damp areas of your guitar body before routing.... maybe I used the wrong word...

If I can add my 2 cents.... I dont recommend that you route the body shape if using ELM, ELM is one of the toughest woods out there at least the european one, it also has a tendency to burn even if your tools are very sharp. Best way to do it is to carefully outline the shape from the template onto the body, bandsaw it out and then sand the sides flush. I dont know why you think that its less accurate, because you simply go up to the pencil line if you did a good job. you are absolutely right...I am not just used to sand with this way...but i just did it today to fix the tearouts and did an icredible job..This will be my next friend.... btw i think i found why i did those terrible tearouts...I wanted to share it with you... 1)the router bit's razor had a length 30mm and diameter 19 mm.ALL the lenght cutted the strong ELM..i could not work gradually up to 30 mm.I had to do it once... 2)i did not follow the instruction #2 and generally this philosophy of this article http://www.ehow.com/how_2215700_control-di...king-power.html i was working AGAINST the grain(anti clockwise) BECAUSE I WAS FAMILIAR FROM HOLDING THE ROUTER INSTEAD OF HAVING IT IN ROUTER TABLE.This way router spins by opposite way .... A trick I learned to help preventing tear out when I was studying guitar building was to slightly dampen the wood in the area which you are going to route. Of course you must also follow the method when routing to prevent tear out but in some cases this simple trick can prevent a drama... Sometimes wood will just tear off even if your tools are very sharp and that you are using the correct methods, its just the nature of wood, but ELM is very tough and hard to work.

sorry guys, you are going to hate me... but............... Exactly, most varieties of mahogany actually tap tone bright because of their higher stiffeness to weight ratio. This romantic myth / poetry / legend that the blind mass thinks about when talking about tonewood on electric guitars is sometimes absurd because they always refer to generic terms which dont mean anything. Also considering that inside the same blank you can have various densities and stiffeness to weight ratio... Like you pointed out, he must judge the board his got and not make up an opinion on what he reads in forums because quite frankly it's not even a guide... Also ''mahogany'' does not mean anything already, its a generic term.... However sapeli is a varietie of the ''mahogany'' specie, I wrote this article a couple weeks ago after having enough cup of teas receiving mails from people asking me what sound produces ''mahogany'' and ''walnut'', now I just link them up Sound and Species You are comparing a variete of a specie, in this case mahogany (sapele) and a generic term (mahogany) which does not mean anything.......... "Mahogany" may refer to the largest group of all Meliaceae, the fifteen related species of Swietenia, Khaya and Entandrophragma. I have been using bloodwood extensively, For a neck it could work great, however be carefull its very dens and heavy.... (about as dense as the harder rosewoods such as Honduran and Brazilian) The advantage of bloodwood when compared physically to purplheart is that it has the advantage of not oxidizing to a warmer color over time. Purplheart on the other side will change to a darker colour over time because it will oxidize unless you use lacquer and not an oil finish to protect your instrument. Also bloodwood is extremely stable, good choice if you want to use it for laminates for exemple...

If I can add my 2 cents.... I dont recommend that you route the body shape if using ELM, ELM is one of the toughest woods out there at least the european one, it also has a tendency to burn even if your tools are very sharp. Best way to do it is to carefully outline the shape from the template onto the body, bandsaw it out and then sand the sides flush. I dont know why you think that its less accurate, because you simply go up to the pencil line if you did a good job.

Pink Ivory IS the rarest wood in the world but there is also a very cool legend haha

You know after all "alternative woods" is a description of woods that we either are: - not familiar with, - do not know - OR that we are not aware about simply because the guitar industry simplified the wood generic terms for so many years. Here is another one from my private stock - TANOAK Persimmon Ebony (which is funny because nobody gives a **** about it until we call it by its other name ''pale moon ebony'' ) Then you have the attention of all the little forum kids.... Oregon Myrtlewood Pistachio

I'm suprised that you dont see the truss rod cover.....

Today I had a cool visit at my workshop! A four string bass which I built 7 years ago came to say hello to me for a check up Thought I would share some pics because I crafted the neck from a solid piece of padauk which is also an excellent and very stable tonewood. I did not even have to adjust the neck, it did not move since my previous setting 7 years ago! Enjoy

Well personaly I would never level an entire fretboard without taking all the string off..... You want the entire surface to be leveled out first, then I put the strings on and tune it up and adjust the rod. Been doing this for the past 15 years with great success and low action and its also the way I have learned how to do the job when I went to study guitar building... I also mark the frets with a pencil during the job, this way I know where are the high and low spots. But yeah like you say, we all have our own methods, does not mean that the others are wrong.

edit

Well here is my way of using an old band saw blade 14 years ago, this big band saw blade broke while I was trying to cut a piece of wood, so we had this idea to grind the blade to to make it conform to this old european walnut palm plane a friend of mine built using the Irvine Sloane book... Here is the blade which still cuts, just very rusty And the old european walnut palm plane my friend built...

Another option... I highly recommend Kent Armstrong pickups! Kent Armstrong® P90 Family

They sand off the blue to only leave it inside the low spots of the maple figurine.... We call this a negative thype finish, there is no white stain... The secret is to not sand too much and not stay in the same spot, you want this job to be even... Just look at the cutaway aera, they removed less stain to make a visual contrast....

This is what I use for the job.... to check how level the fingerboard is... Precision Straightedges to level out the frets 6'' Fret/Fingerboard Leveling Files to take off the file marks Diamond Fret Levelers to recrown the frets Double-edge Fret File Then use some very fine grit sandpaper to take all the marks off and 000 steel wool, eventually some thype of metal polish to make them become mirror shiny...

I once made a guitar using MDF Wish I still had some pictures. Was very heavy

There is no such thing, lacquer is lacquer, there are slightly different formulations here and there, but all lacquer at heart is a film finish product which dries from the top down, and shares all the same properties of film finishes. If it is 'super tough', then likely it is not regular lacquer, it would probably be some sort of crosslinking 2-part finish which dries from a chemical interaction, which could be catalyzed lacquer, but that is a very different product alltogether from your standard lacquer, totally different catagory of finish. Yes you are totally correct and I am perfectly aware about this since I have been using 2 part finishes for a long time on my instruments.. Of our days all commercial cars are sprayed with a 2 part finish, I would be suprised if a car painter would use nitro cellulose lacquer unless he is touching up or refinishing a very old car but who knows lol In french we use the generic therm ''laque'' to describe a sprayed finish and since I mostly speak french, I was thinking in french, my bad...

There is another theory which says to use a thick top 3 - 3.2mm and use a slimmer bracing design... The theory wants that a thin top vibrates much less with bigger bracing then it would if it would be thicker with slimmer bracing... I have personaly done this in the past with great results on my first 6 acoustic guitars but again wood is wood which could result in many different opposite experiences... The best is to first build the traditional way, use references which are already written down, then start experimenting...

Before to say that its expensive, ask to yourself how much it would coast to run a CNC to cut out 2 little rings..... Then you will understand that 25$ per ring is very cheap, infact I dont know how he can make a living out of that, over here they would charge me 250$ per ring + charging me for creating the CNC programm if I would go to see a local CNC company... Like westhemann pointed out, check out frets on the net, he does a wonderfull job. About clear coat I have done this before on brass by going to see a pro car painter, extremely tough lacquer which is designed for metal, but i'm sure there are other ways of doing it, I just happen to know somebody who runs a car painting shop which did help...

I've done it both ways in the past but at the very end I prefere to pre shape the body and glue it using the waist wood from the cut as a clamping caul... Here are some pics of a very very rare neck-thru I built: I actually got the grain perfectly aligned with the 2 wings which gives the impression that the guitar was carved in the mass. But watch the back and you will notice a joint, that's because the neck is one piece going thru the entire body but to match up for the thickness of the body I add another piece below the neck itself... The truss rod cover is bloodwood... long time ago lol, body and neck are sapelli and on this one true oil finish

I have something pretty special here: Here is an amazing piece of old western maple, its been cut in the scrotch, the place of the tree where you find many colours. This is not spalt... How cool is that? Cant wait to use it

That's the thing, he would learn much more by actually putting his hands in the dust and learning by what he created as opose to ask for different opinions which at the end dont really make much sens since there are so many different varieties and sounds and most of all opinions... If 10 members tell him that walnut sounds bright, you will convince him if that's what he is looking for and maybe who knows the final result may very well be a bright sounding instrument but that would be more a hit and miss experience for him instead to actually try and understand what is really going on and why its not accurate to say that walnut sounds bright with more mids for exemple... The reason why I enjoy posting in here from time to time is because I receive about 30 mails a week from guys who want to start a project and expect some free tips and information from me... So I end up sending them to project guitar exactly

exactly, finally, thank you EDIT: about the black walnut (The Eastern Black walnut (Juglans nigra) is a species of flowering tree in the hickory family) It all depends how you are going to combine it with the hundereds of other ingredients which makes for the final sound of your instrument....

While I wont talk about sound (and you will understand why), I thought I would shime in to explain something.... Here is an article I wrote about the subject: sound and species When you mention ''walnut'', which ''walnut'' are you talking about? You do however mention the specie of the ''ash'' which in this case is swamp ash..... ''Walnut'' is a generic therm which does not really mean anything... My point is, there are several different species of ''walnut'' out there which all have a different stiffeness to weight ratio... What does this mean? Basically and to make this simple, this means that they will sound totally different from eachother.... stiffeness to weight ratio is the major factor of what produces the sound of the wood on a musical instrument and which makes you say that it either sounds warm or bright........ Here are some exemples from my private stock: Claro Walnut: Some more Claro Walnut but this time with some figurine which means that the structure of the wood totally differs from the previous exemple so by default which means that in no way can this wood sound the same then the previous exemple... Franquette Walnut Here is a neck for exemple which I built using Claro Walnut which is extremely stiff: etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc....... Now here are some more exemple of different species... My point is, be sure to know which walnut you are talking about before to say ''walnut sounds bright'' walnut has more mids'' etc because it makes no sens..... Hopefully this clarifies what the big marketing guys have done to try and place a specific sound on a generic name... Same when you buy a ''mahogany'' guitar.... What does this mean? Nothing... haha Yet people still say ''mahogany sounds warm and muddy'' and maple sounds ''bright and snappy'' *Argentine Walnut *Brazilian Walnut *California Walnut *Hinds' Walnut *Nuevo Leon Walnut *West Indies Walnut *Arizona Walnut *Texas Walnut or Little Walnut *Mexican Walnut *Andean Walnut * Juglans nigra L. - Black Walnut *Peruvian Walnut * Juglans soratensis Manning - *Guatemalan Walnut *Venezuela Walnut *Japanese Walnut etc etc etc etc....... Something else which is very funny.... Before guys used to say '''rosewood sounds like this, like that'' until finally the customs put their hands on the brazilian rosewood (dalbergia nigra specie) which is now illegal to export and about to dissapear.... Now the funny thing is that the indutry started to use different species and we all know now that there is ''indian rosewood'', ''bolivian rosewood'' which also all have their very distinguished sounds etc etc etc

That's awesome! Dont burn it! Make guitars out of it Schaller Hannes, here is a LINK I have also made this video to show the bridge in greater details... Schaller Hannes Bridge Its a very high quality bridge with really brings out the looks of the instrument, I just wish they would make a 7 and 8 string version

Very smart way to change the subject dude, the more you talk, the more you sound like a real forum troll I see what you are doing there and exactly where this is comming from..... Well apperently you are the one in here who is showing an extreme EGO since your very first post in this thread my friend I'm very happy that you find it funny that it takes so long but I stated several times that this is new for me and that I am practicing my shops at chip carving... Maye you also cant read? Clearly you are Trolling