ScottR

Looking good amigo. That is a serious bandsaw you have there. In fact it appears to be a well equipped shop. keep up the good work. SR

I was sooooooo loking forward to getting back to woodworking this weekend, and I did. Only it was a beautiful and dry weekend...and chores were calling. so for the bulk of the time this was the wood I worked. And did I work....I 'm sore in places I didn't know I had places. I did get some work done on this build finally. I got my fret board planed and then rough surfaced in prep for glue up. Here's the handle I made for safe planing on the jointer. It's sitting on a sheet of half in white acrylic that was left over from a job at work. I'm thinking of using this and the other sheets I got for making templates. It's not clear, but then neither is MDF. I sliced off a couple of thin pieces of the ebony drop from the fretboard and glued them up for a headstock cap. I need my trussrod before I can do too much more on the neck. I got my parts from StewMac in 3 days and my order from LMII two days later, but my trussrods from Allied aren't due to arrive till the middle of next week. So I cut the body out and am cleaning up the edges. This Spanish Cedar does work easily, but I can tell I'm going to have to be careful with it. It dents easily. SR

But it is soooooo worth it. SR

Which of your models will a 12.5" x 9.5' x 4/4 fit? Oh. 9.5 FEET. Er....nevermind. SR

It doesn't appear that milling down the maple boogered up your bookmatch at all. It still looks very sweet. SR

You missed what I thought was the coolest part of the video. If you pay close attention that board he puts on top of the fretboard & slams once or twice right before he frets puts little divots into the fretboard to mark the slots. (I had to watch it a few times on full screen to catch that) They make everything look too F@#$ing easy. I most definitely missed that little detail. I wonder how many slots you have to cut before the turn you lose to cut those slots freehand like that. SR

I couldn't see any templates or guides for cutting the slots. SR

That headstock looks like it got up close and personal with a bird of paradise. Stunning! SR

I'm curious about the responses to these questions as well. I have zero point zilch expertise in things electrical....but what I did on my last build was use conductive paint inside the concavity including the cover they did make contact. I grounded all the housings to each other and to the paint. I also painted the pup cavities and grounded the pups to that. I checked that I had continuity between all housings and all the painted parts. No issues. I did not wire it up as a test without the shielding paint for a comparison.....so I honestly don't know what I gained by doing all that either. SR

My significant other thinks I should do it that dark too. I'm torn on it. I like the darker edge too but just want the binding I worked so hard on to show nicely. Oh did I mention that on that sample that if I turn it 180 degrees the dark flame almost completely disappears? I have high hopes for this finish. Here's the deal. Your walnut is medium brown, almost dead center on the scale of light to dark. The best way to get it to show is by using high contrast. Your choices to do that are either to go light, the extreme of which would be to leave the top natural, or to go very dark, which you have already tested. To my eye the dark is more visually exciting, plus you get that cool flip. This not unlike John's choice with his hands of God inlay. He was torn between a maple fretboard or a dark one feeling like the maple would show off the wood of his scroll work better. He was afraid the contrast would be too low and the darker woods would get lost against a dark background. But he went with the wenge board and of course it looks great. By the same token, your walnut binding will be quite visible against that dark tobacco burst you've created. SR

I wonder if you could use a lacquer as an adhesive? Then you could use a pigmented lacquer as a base, coat it with a layer of retarded clear and spread your fabric into that. You could even build a clear over the top for a different look. SR

You are turning into a regular production machine. Have you ever explained (here) what the various elements of your model nomenclature stand for? SR

I was looking at that shot too. For a different reason. I love that tobacco burst exactly as it is. The walnut binding will show up as a lighter different shade of brown. I suppose you could let the top edge of the binding get sanded off and dyed with the top. Then the color break would be at the corner. I've never seen it done, but it could work. Maybe you should bind a test piece to see what whatever you come up with works. SR

I think you need something to act as a primer. Too much light passes through that fabric. Use the cream of the background color in the fabric, white or light grey which is the best base color for covering patterns or multiple shades....like wood grain. Paint it first. SR

Wood does speak doesn't it. I usually hear more from my carving stock--that pecan log was growling long before it became ol' bear. Well, I'm often amazed by what grows in there.....but if that is what it is growing in, who am I to argue? Actually, I was just about to push the button, and noticed it was misspelled. I had left the "t" out. That probably wouldn't have been too far off the mark either. SR

It's funny how differently smells affect people. I found it very pleasant. My absolute favorite so far is bocote. Dill pickles! It seems so out of place coming from sanded wood; it's a surprise even when you know it's coming. SR

Well, it still needs a set-up and maybe a new set of strings. The Spanish cedar I have has a nice mellow warm ring to it when tapped. That's what I expect it to add to the tonal flavor when strung up. SR

Any plans for it cooking up in that fertile mind of yours? SR

Well hello Joe! I was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to hear from you again. I had understood it had a cedar smell to it but can't say that I noticed it......until I sanded on it a bit. Then it smelled very nice, a mellow cedar mixed with cinnamon. SR

Most of the carved stuff I saw in the Mexican markets was bland and nearly black, like ebony. But that could be from the polish I saw them putting on it. It looked just like black paste shoe polish, it was even in a flat can. I saw some very nice pieces in La Villita in San Antonio, mostly jewelery boxes and free form shapes that were just gorgeous. SR

You could be right about the F-hole shape. I've got several rolling around in my head, this is just one I sketched out. I'll make a number of shapes out of black paper and try them out before I actually cut anything. It won't be traditional, but it may very well be reminiscent of traditional. Or not. SR

This stuff. http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/ironwood,%20desert.htm SR

Well, the nut's a little heavy and the bridge is kind of light........ This is stunning, absolutely stellar! SR

Very rough cut jatoba for the neck. It's free and very stiff and helps create some excellent midtones....extremely good conductor of sound. Squared up....at least everywhere it counts. It took a lot of passes on the jointer to get this cleaned up. Unassembled guitar. SR

My next build has been cooking in my head for several months now. I knew it was going to be a double cut and I wanted to put a single F-hole in it like a tele thinline. Other than that I didn't know much about it. I knew I didn't want to make a replica of any existing commercial guitar. I mentally kicked around all kinds of designs, from radical to traditional and from offset to symmetrical. Turns out I like fairly traditional shapes. My plan was to make a quilted maple carved top.....I know, it's overdone, but everyone should have one and they look so cool. Red and black is to be the color scheme. I wanted an ebony fretboard and HS cap and I planned to use more of my granite crate jatoba for the neck. RAD is making me some humbuckers, PAFs with some blues engine characteristics. The hardware will be chrome and black. I found a nice billet of maple and set up my table saw to bookmatch it. Then I got my first little surprise. I had a set of perfectly bookmatched splits. I think the carve will get past them. In case it doesn't I took steps to turn them into a feature. I dyed the interior of each split black and filled them with thick CA. They should look like black flames in a top that is red with a black burst. If it ends up sucking, I will rip the maple top back off and go with plan B. I'd rather put this ziricote on a black limba body, but I'll use it here if I have to. I picked up a nice piece of Spanish Cedar for the body. Has anyone else used this wood? It apparently is traditionally used for necks for classical and Spanish guitars. It is neither cedar nor grows in Spain, but is in the mahogany family. It is a little plain and soft, but I got this piece because it was light and resonant. SR