ScottR

Very well said amigo. SR

Amen. Nice haul! SR

Man, you went from an absolute paucity of tools to riches beyond imagining in terms of tools! Holy cow.......well done. SR

Every time I see your Erwins lined up I think of the marching hammers in The Wall. How much time did the CNC save you getting the blank to this stage? SR

Drak always cut his bodies on his scroll saw, and we all know how those came out. Personally I agree with the majority here, in that it would be a lot more trouble than it's worth. I think it might be better than a hacksaw though. SR

Thanks Paulie and thanks for the dims info. It would be interesting to know what dims all the other builders around here use and see how close or far apart we all are. As far as the offset profile, that's exactly what I do. I shape the neck and volute and body join to feel perfectly fit to my hand, taking a little here, leaving a little there until it's as comfortable as it can be. I have relatively small hands, so that usually feels good to anyone else that picks it up as well. And there's no reason a customer couldn't ge t a custom fit....if he wanted it bad enough. SR

That's essentially how I do it. SR

I'm a bit different to other builders in this reguard - I don't even try make my fingerboard look nice until after the guitar is painted. After it's radiused thats it until the end. I sand the inlays and wipe the glue off from when I glue/hammer the frets in, but that's it. I only radius at 80, 120 and 320. Past that I dont bother as I clean it up at the end. After I paint theres always a little bit of paint that gets in under the tape, so anything before the paint stage is work on vein (using my build methods) - after it's painted, cut and polished etc etc, I then razor blade the timber between the frets (like other people razor blade their binding) - only takes a few minutes to do the whole board, gets rid of all the paint, dirt, scratches etc from the build and looks like fress planed wood. I just think of the razor blade as a miniature hand plane. Then I wax and it's ready to get assembled. I was going to say..... actually it's not. It's .819", or 13/16th", or 21mm at the first side marker. It feels even thinner because I start the carve half up the side of the fretboard and remove a lot of wood from the sides of the neck. You can see the fretboard on both sides from the back. It is 5/8th" of neck, which gives me 1/4" under the truss rod and a 3/16th" board. Then I compared that to my single cut and found it to be a little thinner, with a half inch of neck wood and a little thicker board. This will lose a little more when I contour the neck to body join and blend everything in. You seem to have boiled the build process down to the bare essentials required to get a high end result. I'm impressed with your work. SR

Just to officially move on from neck work, I cut out the top. The good news is the voids to not appear to be too deep. I should be able to get under them in the carve. The bad news is it looks like I may find more when I carve. Almost playable. SR

It seems like I've been working on this neck forever. And like every neck I've built so far, I boogered up the fretboard while dressing the frets. So I had to go back and polish it all over again. One thing I learned worth passing on is the best way to clean oils and resins and general gunk out of micro mesh. I've used everything from soap and water and a toothbrush, to rubbing alcohol, to lacquer thinner and a scrub brush. Today I used denatured alcohol and a terry cloth rag and it is hands down the best. Cuts fast, cleans quickly, and drys soon; it leaves the sheet looking like new. So I did get done with the neck shaping and fret dressing. that should be enough about the neck until I set it. SR

Measure from the front edge of the nut to the center of the 12th fret and double that. That is your scale length. Adjust the saddle of your high E string 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the way forward and locate your bridge with that saddle at your scale length. For example a strat has a 25.5" scale and so that saddle would be set 25.5" from the nut. Based on your questions, you should probably get someone with plenty of this kind of experience to help you out or at least check what you are getting ready to do before you drill any holes. You've got a lot more questions you need to learn the answers to before you get started. SR

I've picked these up at Walmart, Lowes, HD, and Sears. They've always been with the Dremel accessories. http://www.blackanddecker.com/attachments/RT1000.aspx They don't shatter like the dremel wheels do and those things are like shrapnel when they go. SR

I started dressing the fret ends last night using my regular steel triangle file that I smoothed the edges down for this purpose. It works fine. It takes longer on these SS frets, perhaps twice as many strokes, but it gets the job done. iwasn't getting anywhere setting the diamond file up, so I gave it a shot. I've never worked with or played on SS or jumbos either for that matter. I'm pretty much only building this for the fun of building it anyway, so I figured I'd find out what all the fuss was about. SR

Do you have one of those flexible extentions? I love mine. Except for routing that's the only way I set mine up. I hang the body with a bungie cord let the extension dangle near my work space. Very handy and much easier to control and get into tighter places. Which cut off wheel do you use? I like the ones made for the B&D Wizard much better than the Dremel wheels. SR

Doesn't that give you equal gaps? SR

Additionally the content of your post--what you say--plays a large part in generating responses. Use a "here's what I've done" format and people are going to watch with interest if the work is good--and yours is--but may not feel compelled to say anything. Throw out some bold statements or opinions or methods that others can relate to or disagree with can start discussions. To wit--your last comment in main post was one that made folks feel compelled to respond to and so they did. Not very subtle, perhaps, but it was a conversation starter. And lo and behold, we're still talking about it. SR

+1 SR

Yea. Same here. silently following. i realy like this build. I would not worry about the lack of posts from others. It usualy means you just havent fukt up badly enough for any comments. +1 Sometimes during a build we just can't think of what to say, but we still can't wait to see what happens next! If your view count goes up everytime you post, people are definitely interested and watching. SR

Let me know how it goes. The tool we have here is basically a shear. I'm thinking a shear type cutter would work just fine. SR

My heavy docks (wire cutters)weren't doing a very good job cutting it. It took way too much effort and the ends deformed quite a bit before being cut off. I have a great tool here at the plant that is used for cutting rules for steel dies.....but that was not where I was. The cut off wheel was fast and accurate and even useful for trimming up close to the board. Did make the frets hot though, I had to hit them with a little compressed air before touching them with my fingers. My StewMac frett cutters are great for cutting up close to the board, but they already had a small dent or chip in the cutting edge from nickel frets. They worked fine for EVO too. I didn't even try them on the SS. Jumbo SS is pretty dang tough stuff. That's why I am trying to fix up a diamond file for dressing the ends. The angled bastard file I set up for beveling the ends workd fine BTW, although it did take longer. SR

I've got a stone on my grinder that was intended for cleaning up the edges of granite slabs after they are cut up into counter tops. Didn't touch it. Didn't knock the first crystal off. The file did make a pretty good grinding wheel dresser though. SR

Thanks guys. Soooooo, does anyone know how to smooth one edge of a diamond triangle file? I thought I might be able to knock off whatever it is they used to bond the crystals to the metal of the file. But so far.....no. So far not even another diamond file is working. Huh SR

Thanks, It's in the first pic of the second post today on the corner of the portable workbench. I did a little thread when I made it a while back. http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=43964&st=0 SR

Frets are in trimmed and beveled. I think before I level and dress the ends, I carve the neck. I clamped it into my portable work bench and went to work with my handy dandy rasp I made from a used bandsaw blade. That thing's still the fasting cutting rasp I own. The neck is now roughed in and the inlay is leveled but not polished. SR

Yesterday morning while I was fretting the neck in my garage, a young lady walked up my driveway. She had a clipboard and I was afraid she was either going to be selling or preaching.....but what she said was, I want to complement you on your music. She said who's playing? I said, why that's Gary Moore! She said she stopper her car and opened the door and went, whoa....that sounds nice. What does he play, jazz? I said, well, he gets jazzy sometimes and he's played a lot of rock, but mostly he plays the blues. Is this from his latest release? No, that's something live from Montreux. I'm gonna have to look him up. Always glad to help educate today's youth. I use a wedge of jatoba with a grove in it to hammer in my frets. The ends are rounded to keep it off the board and between the mallet and the fret-set, I don't get any bounce. I just slide it along the fret and tap. It does a nice job of focusing the energy of the tap too. This is stainless steel jumbo wire. I cut one fret with my docks and moved on to a cut-off wheel on my dremel. The 12" radius that lmii ships there wire in is perfect for my 14" board. I made my first attempt at cutting shell for an inlay. It was very tedious. I used a Stewmac router base for my dremel (very nice piece that) and a 1/32" down spiral bit. I cut a tighter hole on my practice piece. Man the strokes on thee letters sure looked narrower when I was cutting them. SR