Helldunkel

you mean dampening by pussing with your hand against the wood just over the spinning router bit???

to be honest i am afraid...we just mentioned 2 accidents,with much luck..i won't risk it...

do you have a protection for this dampening to propose??

?

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...

I am very sad today cause i had many accidents with my router...First I cut the wood with a bandsaw right off the pencil line,and routed using a template

copying the matrix..But the elm i used was very very strong and had 2-3 tear off ...i am deeply dissapoined and dont know where i went wrong....The only

which i can think is that in some point the router had to cut 3-4 mm distance to meet the template of a wood which was 4 cm deep...was that tooo much?????

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...............

my experiences of sapelle are quite the opposite of super dark, some has been shockingly bright with absolutely none of the mahogany warmth - so judge the peices you have rather than rely on internet talk

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

Sapele is SUPER dark - darker than mahogany.

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'm building a 34" scale length ,6 string bass. I'm going to go neck-through and was going to use a solid bloodwood neck blank.

Any reasons to not to??

Should I lam up a purpleheart and bloodwood neck instead?

also for the FB - Purpleheart or rosewood ?

Please state your reasons for your opinions if you post ! Thanks....

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...

I am very sad today cause i had many accidents with my router...First I cut the wood with a bandsaw right off the pencil line,and routed using a template

copying the matrix..But the elm i used was very very strong and had 2-3 tear off ...i am deeply dissapoined and dont know where i went wrong....The only

which i can think is that in some point the router had to cut 3-4 mm distance to meet the template of a wood which was 4 cm deep...was that tooo much?????

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.

Wow! That's a great collection. The only place I've seen Pink Ivory was in the Warrior factory. Their master woodworker, Basic Nick, drooled over it, called it the rarest wood in the world. I've never seen the curly variety.

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

Pink Ivory is the royal tree of the Zulus because only the royal family were allowed to possess the wood. Anyone else possessing the wood (including foreigners) was said to be punished with death. (The death sentence was a legend started in order to increase the value of the wood when sold overseas.)

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

is there a truss rod in there at all? and arent we looking for a straight neck anyways(no bow)?

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

Would like to use a white colored stain for a look like a PRS modern eagle, anyone know where I can pick something like this up at? I've looked everywhere I could think of (stew mac, lmii, a few other places) and just can't find the stuff. Anyone have any suggestions on where to look? I owned one of these and I suspect they used a white on it instead of just sanding the light blue back for the effect.

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....

I have a neck I bought to put on a body that I made. Theres quite a bit of buzzing all around so I want to basically level all the frets. What do I need to do and what are the most cost effective tools. I looked at Stew Mac and there are many options.

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

extremely tough lacquer which is designed for metal

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...

I just received a pair of $25 brass pickup rings for my bass. yes it's $25 PER ring and it's that expensive because no one else makes them

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

Now stop analyzing a fairly simple process and get to work.

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

If you wanted to take it one step further, the same species can grow in different places, but due to varying conditions it can be structurally different in subtle ways and sound different. Heck, different parts of the same tree could potentially suffer from the same effect. You could literally say that you will never truly know EXACTLY what it will sound like until it's done.

exactly

thanks for the response guys and good call patrick.

and that's probably why so many people has got polar opposites experience with walnut. some said it is slightly less bright than maple while some say it is slightly brighter than mahogany.

i will be using black walnut since they are readily available.

care to chime in about black walnut's tone?

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....

hey guys,

i am planning to build a 7-string tele with a bolt-on 25" scale neck.

guess i am pretty fixed on using wenge and ebony for the neck and fingerboard respectively due to the fact i like the feel of raw wood. question is, what will a walnut body add to the tonal equation?

this guitar will be used for rock/metal where a quick bass response especially on the low b is required as well as a rounded tone on the plain strings. read not ice-picky.

i did consider swamp ash for its tight and snappy lows but am afraid that it will have too toppy a high end. i read on frank's falbo wood guide that walnut is a good choice since it has snappy lows like swamp ash, mids like alder and highs like mahogany.

any of you who built/played a walnut body guitar had similar experience? what else would you recommend besides walnut taking into consideration the neck and fingerboard wood.

many thanks,

dani

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

Yeah have a huge Elm tree in my front yard that is slowly dying.I am afraid I will have to cut it down soon before it takes out the house.Shame though,because it shades most of the yard.Hard to see in this picture because it is behind the other tree.You can see the branches spreading out though

That's awesome! Dont burn it! Make guitars out of it

if i may ask,......... what kind of bridge/tailpiece is that?

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.....

Spend 5x's as much and get 2 cherries or pfeil. They're the only thing good enough to satisfy your ego apparently....

even though it took you at LEAST 4 hours too long to do a simple shallow chip carve

Good luck to ya hufshmuck-

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