Skullsession

Scott got the edge routing for the ebony binding this weekend.

Nortwestern US....Oregon. I fell in love with that fist-sized burl!

http://www.oregonwildwood.com

Looks like we've got the profile shape finally in order.

Right....and if it makes anyone feel any better, I think he's got enough of that ebony left for another guitar - so I'm sure we'll be seeing a neck with that grain eventually.

It really wasn't a tough call since the intent was for it to be jet-black from the beginning. If you look at the mockups, you'll see that the neck was never supposed to show grain.

The fact that the grain was ever visible was simply a consequence of getting there.

Though, we DID have a last minute discussion about dying it or not....we did agree that the grain was killer, but just not meant to be on this one.

Thanks for your concern!

I had a change of heart when it came to the silver inlay on the signature. We just couldn't get the surface finish to be consistent across the whole thing, so I removed it and had him fill it with a clear epoxy/silver flake mixture.

Here's a shot of it before we dyed the fretboard:

And here's a shot of it after dye and fretting. We still need to drop on the nut and the truss cover, but the neck is finally all but done:

Yep...that blue is STUNNING!!

It's OK guys... laugh away. If I were afraid of being laughed at for it, I for dang sure wouldn't have posted it.

When you do this, you cuss. A lot.

Then you get really mad and want to break something.

Then you think "Am I really that much of a bonehead?"

Then you get dejected because you know that you are.

Oh well. At least it was fixable. It's 99% invisible at this point.

roll with it, ..make it a glove compartment...... .....pics, cigs.......

Yeah...I saw a photo the other day of a guitar that had a compartment in the back where the guy stored a pistol. Very cool indeed. You could go with the whole Dragon theme and keep throwing stars in there.

The neck is almost there. He brought it to me today to make sure that I really, really wanted to dye it black. Such pretty grain here, but in the end I think the gold frets and gold-flake markers will look much better against the black as originally planned. Here's a peek prior to fretting.

More to come soon....

Here's the neck with the truss dropped in.

And some more shots of the headstock as it nears final shape:

I've been kicking around the idea of adding a Bigsby to this guitar. I'm being told by my local guitar tech guy that the use of a Bigsby with a non-roller bridge is less than ideal. He's saying that I'll experience string "skipping" on the round wound strings. I guess that makes sense. This is why I gave up on the Bigsby idea in the very beginning.

I'm not a "dive bomber"...I just like tremolo for very light movement.

The bridge I'm going to be using is the Fishman piezo loaded tuneomatic....I'd hate to hear what that sounds like if a string slips on a saddle.....

I've never used Bigsby though I've always loved the look. So, I'm curious - anyone got experience with these tremolo systems? Any word of advice?

That's awesome....I need to do this myself, as I've been wanting one forever. Seems like a relatively simple thing as compared to some of the other projects I'd be sure to screw up!

It REALLY does look better in person, so I'm going forward rather than looking for another top.

And that bottom cut will be different by the time we're done.

Thanks for your input once again.

Then, we came across a problem. The boards for the carved top were quite a bit longer and wider than I had represented in my mockup. Therefore, the mockup design is a bit flawed in that the wood was not really to proportion of the actual cut. My intent was to get as much of the burl in the guitar as possible...so we took some out of the middle to move the burl inward.

The burl wasn't very symetrical anyway to begin with. That's actually one of the things I liked about it, but I'm afraid that now that we've taken an even bigger swath out of the middle, the boards look funny together. We did take out the same amount from each side, but it doesn't look like it....

Can I get some opinions from you guys on this, please. Did I just hammer the top? There is still time to get something else if you guys agree that I just screwed the pooch.

Here's Scott squaring up the boards before we glued them.

The actual boards rough-cut as I asked Scott to do.

Here is the same photo, but I dropped in neck, pickup, bridge, and stop piece placment. I feel better about it knowing that some of those places that don't marry up quite right will be hidden...but still not sure I'm cool with it.

This last weekend, Scott glued on the headstock faceplate.

Fretboard with the signature carved into it. Again, the board is thicker than needed at this point.

After sanding.....

After filling, and sanding a bit more. No radius yet....and still not to final thickness, but he's getting there.

A shot of the Myrtle being pressed to keep flat as it acclimates to the Houston humidity. Oh...and the ebony for the headstock faceplate.

I can answer that one for you, Drak....

Oregon Wild Wood

The guy who owns the place is named Dana. I spoke to him briefly on the phone, and he seemed like a nice enough fella. Lots of good lookin' tops on his site and as far as I could tell, the pricing was better than any place I was able to find.

More steps taken this weekend. The builder (Scott) was out of town late last week, and actually came out to see my band this weekend...so I was surprised to hear he had moved forward at all. PLUS, I've been draggin' my heels on ordering the fretwire until I made some other decisions. Good news is that I ordered the piezo bridge and preamp late last week, and the fretwire this morning.

BTW...I'm still urging Scott to sign up here to answer a couple of questions from earlier. He knows better than I what/how he's doing this stuff!

And another view of the mahogany after glued:

Here's a shot of the fretboard. Still not to correct thickness or width, and not stained. He's just making mock cuts and markings for me so that I can figure out the exact size of the HOOK signature we're putting on there.

That really is a beauty man....very sleek!

Here's a photo of the African Mahogany we'll be using for this guitar.

It's actually left overs from when he buit another guitar. Here's what the back of that one looked like - gives you an idea what this new one will look like on the back.

Oh...and the headstock from a previous build. Same shape, but mine will have the ebony plate.

On to the neck work....

BTW: Is it customary here to just post links, or is it good to go ahead with droping the photos in the posts?

After the headstock has been roughly formed with a bandsaw:

Shaping has begun on the neck:

These show the headstock a little closer to the final size. He still has to lay on the ebony headstock plate....sometime.

you should put a disclaimer before you post wood porn like that....

LOL...I'm going to assume you're just talking about how pretty it is - unless you come right out and say that you see the same thing that I do in that grain.

Can you explain the knob selections? Man, it just seems -so- busy.

Taking a stab....

2V

2T

pickup 3-way

piezo volume

piezo 3-way

Not complicated, but I agree, knob-heavy. It might be worth it to pick up concentric pots for the pickups, or move the LP 3-way to its usual position. Or both?

Loving the mockup 2.0!!

Right....you've got it exactly.

It's only one extra knob and one extra switch from the normal LP config...I don't really consider that knob heavy. But I do appreciate the ideas...and I'll discuss the concentric options with the guy who's putting this thing together. Though I don't mind 5 knobs and two switches on a guitar, I also don't mind reducing the real estate needed to obtain the same level of control.

Thanks again for your thoughts!

A few questions...

Do you have a real pic of the Myrtle you can post?

Sure...here's the photo of the boards. Of course, later as you see the top during carving you'll notice that it looks pretty gray. In this pic, the boards have been lightly wiped with mineral spirits to simulate the clear coated look. It really IS that pretty...