ScottR

Be sure to show us how it comes out. SR

Maple neck and board would look fine over this top, plenty of contrast. As for the ash back one option would be to grain fill in a color you find in the top, the dark reddish brown maybe, then finish it natural, in other words shoot clear after the grain fill. SR

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=46446 More options on the same question. SR

That top is going to be nice. I like the bottom dye combo. Good to see you again. SR

It's a great river; I highly recommend a trip down it. SR

I mostly use the straight gouges about a half inch wide set up as a palm gouge. I don't recommend that flexcut brand though, too much flex and they don't hold an edge long enough IMO. Crow uses the straight gouge, a bit wider, and set up like your first example to tap with a mallet. That is less work and less control. If you haven't used these before, you should look into the finger planes Mattia is recommending as well before buying anything. A lot of guys here use them and swear by them. Carving with gouges is very fun and rewarding, but there is a learning curve involved. I use the right angle grinder with a flap disk on my back carves, and there is a tremendous amount of dust involved for sure. It is much faster though. I use them very sparingly on the front though. One slip with one could cause a design change, or at least that's what I'm afraid of. SR

Awesome! Are you familiar with the rapids called Hell Roaring Falls? SR

Nice. I've been wondering where this one went. SR

And there you go. It's amazing how many tonal variations there are, and how many different sounds we can achieve with all the variety of materials available to us. Take any one of them, put it in the hands a good player, close your eyes and just listen. If it's well built and the hardware and electronics are decent, almost all of them will sound "good". different certainly, but still good. Your old man sounds like a cool old character Paulie. And holy crap did you just build 8 one piece Lotuses at the same time? How many hours a day are you putting in? Thanks for the input DemonX. It sounds like all three of you have pretty similar neck constructions. Slight differences but pretty close. I share your philosophy for neck joins. SR

I like the extra space as well. My last 3 (I'd say my necks, but that might lead someone to believe I was making dozens a year like you guys ) have been from 44 to 47mm at the nut. Jatoba is somewhere around twice as hard as maple but it doesn't influence the tone the same direction as maple, it seems to add midtone. So the very hard long tenon may very well alter the tone in a positive direction. The ones I've made so far sound great to me, and everyone that has heard them says the same thing. Of course, the description of "sounds great" can pretty much apply to nearly every guitar that is well made with quality hardware and played through a decent amp. It's not a very specific term. One of my favorite statements made on this forum was made by Orgmorg. He was discussing his use of native woods and atypical woods at that, and said he always gets asked how do those normally non guitar woods sound? He said they sound like guitars. No doubt this very hard long tenon does alter the tone and it may very well be away from the tone one could be aiming for. I'm not that sophisticated. I just want it to "sound great". And there are a whole bunch of very different sounding guitars out there, that still fit that description. RAD makes another very good point. With thin tops like he builds, the pickup routes would pretty much cut right through the long tenon. Then all you have is a short tenon and a couple of hard heavy blocks sandwiched inside your guitar. Ballast. SR

Beautiful area. I used to run the Mulberry river several times a year back in my younger days. Similar country to where you were. SR

I like 3/4" tops for carving. I like to use a rabbet to set and even carve line, usually 1/4" up, which leaves 1/2" of rise. You can get a little more variance by doing a recurve off your 1/4" rabbit. I like a lot of change in my carves but that's just me. RAD gets a visible carve out of a 1/4" top. I think an LP used a half inch top with a quarter inch rise. I literally rough carve mine with palm gouges and then sand them, but I don't recommend that to anyone not familiar with them. Your rasp plan is sound, in fact your whole plan is sound. Take your time; you can always cut a little more away, but it's damn hard to put any back. Use your fingers as much as your eyes to check the uniformity of your flowing curves. SR

1) I use a tiny bit of vaseline. Be careful to just keep it on the threads, you don't want it to get on the gluing surface of your neck. 2) You can get away with 10 degrees without string trees. I've never used a locking nut, but I'd think that if you had any break over angle at all and locked the strings you would be fine without trees. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on that one. 3) Locate your fretboard starting at the nut end by placing the nut where it needs to be in relation to the point of the headstock angle. The nut should sit on the last piece of flat real estate with the HS angle falling away immediately past it. Make your body whatever size it should be. Just figure out which fret you want the neck join to be at. I figure that by leaving just enough room for the neck pick up to clear whatever cutaways and scoops I have planned. Locate that and butt the other end of your fretboard against it. 4) I start with 60, then 100, 150, 220, 320, 400, 600, then micromesh from 1500 to 12000. SR

Nice inlay work. Holy crap just thinking about cutting those makes my fingers (and head) hurt. HAD to go hiking in Ark? Ha! I've done a bit of that, where abouts was that pic shot? SR

Ha ha ha, this reminds me of a cock up I once made. Realy late at night, just finishing putting the tops on a run of 15 guitars. The last one of the night all glued up & ready for the top, BUT! I grab the template from the bench beside me & glue that on instead. Didnt even spot it till the next day Still. this is lookin realy good. Im liking the Almost neck thru tennon approach Holy crap Paulie! I bet you invented some new words....or at least gave some old ones a workout. Were you able to save it? Or did "don't eat that" get a new chew toy? I'm a big fan of the long tenon. It feels very stable and solid and the bridge screws get into it so you have the old strings anchored into the smae piece of wood thing. That's all possibly only in my head voodoo, but it makes me feels better, so that's the way I make them. SR

I could not tell you mine.I just make mine similar in feel to the Japanese ESP C shape...then I slightly flatten it in the back to make it a hair thinner in the hand I wouldn't either unless someones asked..and they did so I measured. I normally go till it feels good and then make it just a little thinner. Now I will measure everytime and make them the same unless otherwise requested. SR

These are for Brett. This one's for me. SR

I am going to epoxy this top on just in case I cannot get the voids to not suck. I think I have a plan for the worst case scenario......but we'll have to go all the way to the end if there are bad problems to find out if it works. I do know that I can get the top off with heat if it is epoxied....because my earlier guitars were built in the direct Texas sun. I taped up the sides to make clean up easier. T-88 is good stuff. Once glued the center is secured with the screws. I made cauls out of plywood this time to increase the cone of pressure from each clamp...and to avoid clamp marks on the body. They would be carved away any way...but this Spanish cedar is quite soft compared to what I'm used to. SR

I like separate wiring routes for each pick up. I cover them with scotch tape trimmed close to keep the glue out. i did not do this on my first guitar......and I invented a whole bunch of new curse words trying to get the pick up wires to the control cavity. SR

This is my set up to plane/ level the neck tenon to the body...and square the the neck end and fretboard up to 90 degrees to the body. it was 3 degrees off due to the neck tenon angle. Now that's a long tenon neck. Top located and screwed on in the pick up waste area. It's looking like a guitar finally. SR

I love my router. Time to glue in the neck. SR

Neck set routed and dry lift tested. It passed! Then I clamped the top to the body and used the tenon rout as a guide for the neck pocket in the top. As long as the sides of the neck are square this works great. I changed to a bottom bearing pattern bit for this part. SR

I guess everybody else's neck dimensions are secret. Time to dress the surfaces of the body and top. I don't have a thickness sander so I glue four sheets of sand paper to my flat surface. I start with 60 grit and mark the surface with pencil lines. When they disappear the surface is flat. My plane makes a geat sanding block and surface flatness tester. Time to locate the neck into the body. Setting up a routing template out of MDF. SR

White oak stains beautifully especially when flat sawn and contoured across the grain. The pores are closer to medium, no where near as large as red oak and configured somehow so that they don't leak...? I'm not exactly sure how that works, but it is for that reason that white oak is the wood of choice for barrel making. It doesn't leak. SR

Wow, that truss rod head is way back in there. You're going to need a flashlight to find it. I really like the maple bubinga combination you've got on the head stock and the way the wings and the binding are the same piece. I think I even like the way the head stock looks from the back better now than if it would have one piece. That accident definitely had some bright sides to it. SR