feral_smurf

I think my problem is that i reached saturation point with the oil before a second smoothing sand, so all the oil added now sits on the surface and leaves a poor finish. I think i will take it back to bare wood and then sand up with micro mesh before adding any more oil on. Then i should get the finish i hope for, or somewhere close. And thanks Scott, its always nice to hear praise specially when there are so many amazing guitars on this forum.

Simon

Hi, my most recent build has been pottering on for a while and I'm in the finishing stages. It's english walnut atop sapele with a sapele, maple and black walnut neck. I've used danish oil over the body and neck and on the most part it has come out lovely, But I'm finding after sanding smooth the oil is soaking in to the top and isn't building up a shine. Has anyone experienced this before? I'm undecided as to whether try and sand it all back and start again or just leave it as a very low sheen.

Thanks,

Simon

PS sorry about the poor quality photos, no need for glamour shots just yet

Well this is finished up. I'm still learning at this business, there are a few places that look a little rough. Still a while off avoiding all those little imperfections. Here are some pics anyway.

Progress so far. Body wings are glued on, headstock is cut and fretboard is being glued on as I type.

I feel the body shape is a little off-balance and am thinking about taking a little off the right hand side, what would you guys do, any thoughts?

Cheers,

Simon

I have begun the initial Glue ups for my neck project - A Thunderbird shape neck-through bass. The wings are made from sapele sandwiched between two peices of wenge, and neck is maple wenge and oak laminate with a rosewood fretboard form stew-mac.

This is the current stage of the project, my next step will be to get the wings to shape and get a smooth joint between wing and neck. However I am still undecided on whether I am going to have the body all the same thickness and rebate the bridge or have the bit of neck under the fretboard 3mm higher than the rest of the body. Would rebating the bridge 3mm leave the strings too close to the body?

Cheers,

Simon

Shades of Purple

Specs:

Refinished Ebay body and maple neck from scratch with wenge fretboard

1 vintage style humber with tone and volume with push/pull coil split

Right finished this one up, took me another couple of reswirls but i'm very happy with the result

This is a recent swirl i've just done, as you can see it has not been swirled equally. I'm just wondering whether you guys think i should reswirl it or leave as is. I wouldn't normally ask but this one is to sell so any opinions would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Simon

This is off topic, but just browsing through that site, the designer mentions his "unique" trapezoid neck profile. Doesn't pauliemc do the same thing? I'm just wondering as apparently the guy on the site has applied for a patent for it

I might be interested in the fret crowning file

How do you do that?

Here is a good youtube video that demonstrates it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cY4LXZqX-w, otherwise there is plenty of info if you use the search function, specifically a topic titled "swirl swirl swirl"

So inspired by andyt's swirls i have tried out the practice on a cheap guitar bought off the bay.

The first results are good, except i have had runs in places where the paint didn't spread out as nicely. I am yet undecided whether this adds to the effect or whether i should re swirl. What do you guys think?

that is indeed one purdy guitar

I'm looking forward to this one! I wanna see what you can do with it.

Cheers Narcissism, If I can get it to look anything in the region of a les paul standard I will be happy.

As I mentioned I am planning to start winding my own pickups. I plan to build a winder using a fan motor and some cams for the traverse, but I am struggling a bit on the counter side as I have not done anything like it before. Is it ok just to use a reed switch attached to a cheapo ebay counter and a magnet on the motor shaft? Or is there a better switch that I could be using?

A while ago I bought a hohner arbour series les paul from the 'bay as a general practise piece really for my finishing skills and fretboard and inlay work.

This is the guitar that bought:

I am removing the old tired fretboard for an ebony one with square block les paul inlays. I am also doing a complete refinish and veneering the top. I think i may also experiment with winding my own PAFs form stewmac's kit.

This shot shows off the vacuum veneer setup i got going. This is the first incarnation of the bag which i have replaced with a more airtight version. The pump is a tyre compressor in several plastic bags with a pipe leading in. It works pretty well as instead of taking in air from all around the air is sucked in form the pipe leading to the bag only.

This is where I am up to as of now. The top has been veneered and dyed to get that 3d effect and the sunburst is drying as I speak. The neck is still in the stage just after striping as i need to wait till i complete my router planning/radiusing jig combo thing before i can do the fret-board and glue that on.

Here's the deal:

I'm making a Rhoads body. I had everything planned out except for the input jack. I've never done a strat style jack before. I'm putting the jack in the standard jack location for a Rhoads style V (upper wing above the strap pin). My question is, is there any special way to get a channel from the input jack to the control cavity (on the bottom wing) without routing out a surface channel and then covering it up with a laminate?

an extra long drill bit.

http://www.wealdentool.com/acatalog/Online...N_1869_657.html

Its a UK company but i suppose anything similar might work.

I don't know whether you really want to do this but one way to hide the neck is to have a les paul style angled neck. This might ruin the tele vibe but it would mean the neck would follow the carve and look alot neater without changing the carve.

This idea may be a whole lot of work but here you can calculate a possible neck angle and see if it could work

Simon

i don't understand why you have posted this cause those pics are photoshopped and you haven't built any guitars. I am just confused what you want because you claim to be showing us your creation but it does not exist.

Please enlighten me

Simon

Hey There simon i dont see what there is to be confused about...if you click on the links for the videos you will see the guitar being built and conceived in real time by a bunch of strangers that have just met or never met yet,Thought you might enjoy the process for connecting people and ideas in a fresh inspiring way which is what i do.The guitar will be finished and full documented on video at tom jones lab in the week 2 come.Hope this clears things up a bit.

Momo

Yeah i sound like a complete idiot. Sorry

I didn't look at the video and from the pictures it looks like the guitar control cavity goes through the guitar on one side but not on the other, same with the pickup cavities. I didn't realise that it was made from 2 shells. May i ask why you decided to paint it before gluing the two halves together.

Once again i'm sorry for leaping to conclusions, i've just never seen a guitar constructed like that before

i don't understand why you have posted this cause those pics are photoshopped and you haven't built any guitars. I am just confused what you want because you claim to be showing us your creation but it does not exist.

Please enlighten me

Simon

personally i quite like the way the pickguard breaks up the solid finish and it blends the silver on the headstock in.

However it looks like you photoshopped it in quite quickly and the shape looks a bit off to me i think it would be better if it followed the contours of the pin striping better.

It is a fine looking guitar either way

Simon

Thats a very fine choice of drill press, is the light still working on yours?

Simon

Nope. Actually, it never worked even straight out of the box. Any idea where I can get new bulbs from?

Not really but it is really a bit annoying because it was quite a brilliant idea. Mine stopped working after like 10 goes with a forstner drill bit. I do know it is a halogen bulb but i think it is more likely that the whole thing is wired poorly and the vibrations made mine fail out.

Simon

Thats a very fine choice of drill press, is the light still working on yours?

Simon

That Nitrocellulose stuff from reranch looks like the biz, it's in the sort of price range I'd be willing to pay for my first refinish attempt. I'm guessing I'd probably need about 4 cans of the stuff, only problem is it's in the US and I'm in the UK so I'll have to have a little look around for some equivalent Nitrocellulose stuff

Don't really know about the price but these people do nitro in the UK

http://www.tonetechluthiersupplies.co.uk/L...duct-flyer.html

they also do it in a non-aerosol from

Just to throw in something crazy; Maybe you could come up with a combined pickguard/pickupring-thing.. a chromed metal-thingy, cut with a dragonish-kinda-style.. something to go with the f-holes..

.. or mayby something pearloid.. ****, I dunno. I'm positive you'll come up with something wicked.

+1 a chrome pickup ring for all of those pickups together would look insane

I'm loving the whole body and the way it blends together. Unfortunately i agree that the white pickups don't really work with the whole vibe. I actually like the blue pickups . It may sound stupid but from that picture I think they look actually quite good. Another idea would be to use emg type pickups but thats mainly cause i don't like the open black hum-buckers.

Sorry if this is a bit late

Simon