Our Souls inc.

and myself, I have a piece of wood with a hole drilled in it a little bigger than the base of the stud bushing , thread in a stud and use a pry bar to lift it out. The board protects the body and keeps the guitar top wood from lifting up when you extract the stud.

Knob and Bushing Puller Stubborn hard-to-remove guitar control knobs? This must-have "two-in-one" tool from Schatten Design applies a steady, controlled pull to safely remove them. It also includes hardware to easily extract Gibson, Schaller or Gotoh bridge and tailpiece stud bushings, without damaging the guitar. It does that too .......

you can always use the yellow thats down under the pups as a testing bed for readiness........

I'm pretty sure you could get those big ovals on B.C.Rich's back in the day.... This design reminds me of a Steinberger guitar, mated with a violin. I'm thinking :headless with Strandberg's tunerless tremolo system would look very cool.

Thanks for the replies fellers. I have other bits that have way more hours on them with no splitting-in-two action going on , so I think its the bit itself. ...and yes, Wes - two of the routs were in BW. as if noone ever routed BW before.

My router bit split in two today. right where the shaft clamps into the router chuck, it just sheared off. I don't force the router, or make it strain and I don't cut out much depth at a time either. I have a pretty steady hand and there was no adverse conditions in the board - knots or nails or what have you. just a normal piece of mahogany when - snap! I've never sheared off a router bit before so - what are your thoughts? Faulty bit? I've only put maybe an hour total on it.15 or 16 truss channels. I might give up on the hot rod altogether - its a bit thick and you need this stupid bit. which I now dont have. Grr.

...and as promised , some gratuitous pics of some spalted elm tops.... the "plain" pair ( a 4 and a 6 string ) and the busy pair , gonna be a 5 string bass and a 7 string guitar. and a close-up of the busy guitar top. I know these are not ideal guitar/bass tops, but I don't mind the knots n such for that cheap of a price.

Sorry to hear about the situation.... just my opinion, but as a guy who lost hid dad this past October, I can honestly say that if it were me and mine, I'd work on it night and day and finish it so he can see it. you can sleep next year. My wishes for your peace of mind in the coming months.

Thats some price tag. does the use of several key words regarding your potential tone justify the expense? I'd have to hear them, but I can't see ever paying that much for a pickup set.

Thanks Muzz. How have you been anyway?? the big island treating you well?? I posted some pics from the auction here: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=44504&view=findpost&p=481355 2 bodies will be very active, two will be so-so, but they'll match so I think it'll be cool I am doing - gasp and swoon - standard strat shaped bodies for the guitar and the bass. nothing radical. I'll also post pics of the killer swamp ash bass body that just came from Carvin too. I restored a 5 string Alvarez bass neck and decided to buy the body when I saw the buy it now price.... $92 to the door on that one. but their website lists the bodies at $155 and they don't even offer swamp ash, let alone with the active electronics already routed. to top it off, its a beautiful piece of bookmatched swamp ash, which makes for some killer grain lines. Now I just gotta settle on a color to dye it.

Thanks Scott, I like my dog too. 80 lbs of cuddly beasty for the family to enjoy. .....and there's a 3 letter word for Shillelagh? That horn is kinda wobbly looking the more I stew on it.... and hear back on it... which is one thing that encourages me to post pics during the build. Nothing like having many different viewpoints while developing a build. If it was a copy of something , or I was in charted waters, it'd be less compatible for morphing. On a lighter note, I got nowhere with it today. My kids Honda blew a headgasket so I played frozen mechanic, cursing the Japanese in the cold. then I came home to find my big spalted elm boards had arrived. O happy day ... I can get 2 guitar tops and two bass tops which will be in book-matched pairs and I got the 4 of em for $10 each, to the door......

Looks awesome. Whats with the plastic wrap under the plane? Can't wait to see it finished. Edit: looked again, you're using the plane as a weight during the glue up... the plastic is to keep it from getting glue on it.... gotcha...

gee thanks... now I'm photoshopping smooth upper horns on it and thinking of cutting it down. You bad, bad man, you. It *would* look more normal that way. I like the Mahi-mahi head and left it in on porpoise. Now I'm considering lopping it off. I'll sleep on it tonight. Thanks for the suggestion though, whether or not I utilize it , you got the wheels turning.

I like the big oval inlays............

24 frets with the neck pickup that far forward could result in a bridge thats too far forward too. I like the top video, chip, chip, chip, chip..... Thats a cool way to carve. Love the bound fret board too.

...and thats where we are . I'll save the rest of the pics for the finale.

I would love to have him make me a body... if only my funding allowed it...... I made some progress on it today , taking the sanding up to 80 grit. Took out the remaining scratches/gouges from the rasp and saw plus the 50 grit roughage. Actually started the 100 grit today, but will start again tomorrow with the 100. A grit a day keeps the scratches away, or so I've read somewhere on here The little curves are starting to show up...

Gotta love building without a plan too !!! I had a thought ... " why not make it a 22 fret bass instead of 24... he's more traditional anyway"...... so I shortened the neck, had it all set together and checked the scale length. Oh, yeah... the scale length. My bridge was now off the body by a few mm .. So.....scrap the neck or the body ? The body. Neck is all fretted, inlayed and shaped. The body... So, here we are tonight... Sapele with a bloodwood racing stripe : He'll be getting a jazz SC and a kramer SC, 3 way V V T. pretty simple setup..... Hoping to complete his along with mine.

so, took a break from the action and wet it a bit to get a better look. Still rough, but getting close to what I'm after. Here's how the back is shaping up thus far. and a shot of the dual pockets. I may go with a bolt-on setup, so I can make multiple necks for this body and try out different scale lengths.

Auerswald I had to look that up. Oh my. SR I had to look it up too ! Oh my indeed. ... and y'all thought I was wierd. This was actually inspired by my sucktastic artistic ability. I wanted an Octopus-looking bass - all carved up n stuff.... I started to draw it, realized I couldn't execute it and went for this - - "shape" . Its actually quite comfy. The big horn thing has gone on a 50 grit-diet and lost quite a bit of weight.......

Specs are: Chambered multi-lam body with Padouk wings multi-scale,semi-fretted fretboard on a bloodwood neck with dual truss rods. E A D G B/b E/e tuning, an octave lower than a standard guitar. dual pocket set neck/upper horn section. Active/passive electronics module from Carvin ESP six string bass pickups Gold allparts six string bass bridge 3 bass tuners / 5 guitar tuners Its still rough, but getting closer to being done. Thoughts?

The glue up: the madness begins... The huge chunk of PH was added to the back to help the 1" x 1/2" foot that the BW and PH was joined by at the HS and shaped into That ^^ so far. Its sanded only with 50 grit right now, tomorrow I'll start the 80, then 120, 150, 220, you know the drill.

A handful of weeks back I was asked to join a surf band that is led by an old friend of mine. He writes really fun songs, and it's been a while since I was in a gigging band,so I went for it. I have a bass to play for now but wanted something that could be explored a bit further than a regular 4 string bass. I took down a pile of boards and got started.... ^^ thats my dog keeping inventory for me. This had started off to be a 34" scale build, but after realizing the direction I wanted to take it, a multi-scale was a better option. This is my initial photoshop version of my intentions: So, I used a paddle bit to take off some weight from the inside of the pieces I got almost two Lbs. ( 815 grams ) of dust from the inside of this thing, which will make the final bass a lot easier to shoulder, pun intended.

Its not always a matter of long fingers - mine are long as heck too, but they are thick so I make all my necks wider than normal. Thats why I started making my own nuts - finding them in "my" width wasn't easy..... I can play an Am chord with two fingers on a regular strat or LP, and always mute out the G string on an open C . Spreading the width out leaves me with enough room to get my digits in there. Probably a good thing I switched to bass recently.....

Thoughts? : You're doing fine so far , carry on. Templates? Who needs em? I've built almost two dozen guitars without one template. Suggestions? Keep up the good work, keep up the motivation, and practice patience every chance you get.