ScottR

I decided to go ahead and add the side dots while the side and top of the neck was still still square. I put them right down against the edge of the fretboard join to insure room for the radius. Then I went ahead and located and drilled the tuning machine holes before the headstock was completely thicknessed. It is very difficult to get a backer block behind the holes with my carve, so this allows me to clean up any minor tear-out as I get it to the final shape and thickness. That milling vise made lining up the bit to the punches a breeze. I am very impressed with it. As it turns out, I had no tear-out at all. SR

I had kind of a strange week for building. I got a little bit done several nights after work, which is new, but there is now light later into the evening, according to our clocks. Then I had a four day weekend, since I took a couple of days off to entertain my parents who had come to visit. Four days of no building till about the middle of today. I finished rough shaping the headstock and started rough sanding. I'm slightly modifying this from my previous headstocks. Just a little. I did buy a new toy that I've been wanting for years. A floor standing drill press. That was a lot more of a challenge to acquire than it should have been. This, on the other hand was relatively simple. I've been looking at these at Harbor Freight for years thinking how useful it would be if I had a big drill press. SR

+1! SR

I recently discovered I have a place like that too. http://www.clarkshardwood.com/products/exotic-woods/ I was pointed to it by a fellow PG member, and like RAD, I can pretty much walk in and back out with pretty much anything I want. SR

Yeah, those blades have been stuck in my head ever since you got them. Between your comments and Brett's over the last year and my love of the P-90's he built me, my desire has steadily been rising... SR

Dude, you've got way too much wood to play with. It must be driving you crazy. SR

I like the ziricote board with that top. What are your plans for the worm holes? SR

New single coil? Any characteristics you'd like care to share? You going after a specific neck tone here? SR

Right now, that combo is really really busy. It probably would look less so if you took the neck out of the middle of the top woods..... Once they darken up, you are probably correct in that they should be fine. I've got a bocote fingerboard that started out just like that-minus the sapwood- over a brown flame maple top and it's fine, the bocote might as well be Indian rosewood now. On the other hand it's going to be pretty busy for the better part of a year till it ages enough to settle down. And on yet another hand guitars have been getting busy paintjobs forever, so there's nothing wrong with busy if that's what you're going for. SR

Sure. SR

You guys with your arched top hollow bodies and that acoustic are really impressing me with the amount of work that goes into those. This is quite good so far, do carry on. SR

Your guitar turns into a sitar. SR

While the fretboard was in clamps, I went back to cleaning up the body outlines. I decided the bass horn needed some modification. So I did. Man! It feels real good to get some carving tools in my hands again. I can't believe how much I missed doing this. Long tenon neck with a 3 degree angle and a 15 degree headstock with a step down. SR

Fret board glue up. I think the clamp police will let me slide on this one. Out of the clamps and cut to shape. The neck is finally liking more like a neck than a floor joist. I know I posted earlier that a drum sander would be real nice to have.....it still would. But there is something very satisfying about squaring up and shaping wood by hand. SR

When I took the fretboard out of the clamps it had gone back about halfway to flat. I marked the back and sanded it the rest of the way flat. next I lined it up to the neck blank and drilled register holes in the waste area. I set paneling nails and clipped the tops off. I spotted some silicon in the trussrod channel and laid the rod in. Before doing that I lubed the treads with Vaseline and added a thin coat to the top of the rod. This is a double action rod from Allied Luthiery btw. I covered the rod and channel and access port with a thin clear tape which I trimmed to 1/16th" of the channel. I coated the live area liberally with T-88 epoxy. The lube keeps the tape from sticking to the rod. The tape keeps the epoxy off the rod. The epoxy will fill any gaps-- however minor they may be, and act like the fillet that Allied recommends. The T-88 is great for exotics. It has a very long working time and doesn't care how oily the wood is. You should always start training your guitars early. Just like you should play music for your kids beginning while they are in the womb (mine got massive doses of Led Zeppelin and ZZ Top--now he is my favorite companion to go see live music with)you should get your guitar used to the music it is being made for during its formative stages. This is the blues machine that is priming my lumber for its new life. SR

I'll be damned, I had no idea he was in poor health. I just saw him play a few months ago. Massive skills and talent. RIP indeed. SR

Sanding Sealer is usually a high solid content though and since he is going to fill the gap the and put more clear on top I would not worry so much. However if it was filling in the final coat I would not use Sanding Sealer but use the finish lacquer. The problem with using finish lacquer is it is very thin (even before you thin it for a gun) so it will take a long time to fill. Those are true statements. My thought process was (if it were me) to paint a line in the groove a couple of times between each new coat sprayed. He's got a ways to go yet before his pores are filled enough to level after the shrinking is done. That would be like putting a triple coat in the groove each time. I figured it would catch up on the way to level. SR

Wasn't Drak always saying that sanding sealer was basically lacquer with soap or some sort of additive in it? I misremember exactly....something about it being softer than lacquer as well. IThat would scare me, but you know the lacquer will burn in fine. SR

+1 Nice piece of work there. SR

How big is that in real life? It doesn't look any wider or much deeper than those maple pores (somewhat longer though). Since maple pores are typically about the size of a gnat's posterior oriface, I'd probably go with the lacquer drop fill if it were me. I'm not familiar with the lacquer burn in stick that RAD suggests.....but I've found him to be a fairly knowlegeable fellow, so it would probably be worthwhile to look into that first. I do agree about staying away from CA at this stage. I think if it were me I'd consider myself well past the backing up and reglue/reclamp stage. If it is as small as I'm guessing, it should heal up fine with lacquer. SR

I like B best, but C leaves more room for embelishment. SR

That is HOT! Love the white inline. SR

I was thinking the same thing. All you really need is a square back fence and a correctly placed locater pin for the tmeplates....and a saw that lets you set the blade hieght....depth accurately. SR

Thanks, not that there is much that can be seen so far. And yeah a drum sander is looking pretty good right about now. AS far as the $200 saw goes, I was just looking at those a few weeks back, and the cheapest one with rails to extend the cut was right at $199...at Lowes. I didn't look any further than that. Oh well, we makes do with what we has, until we gits more. SR

Yeah.......that is becoming painfully evident. I'm thinking a number of the battles I've had with builds--some documented, some not--may all lead back to that. As Robin Trower noted between songs on his 1988 Live From Austin CD: it gets warm in Texas, don't it? SR