Our Souls inc.

and despite the archie folks having no sense of hoomor - here is the finished product in all its glory :

Thank you - I appreciate the comment and agree wholeheartedly about "dissing" the original artist by removing their work. I like to think I elevated it to another level and actually got it viewed by alot more peole than would have seen it. Not that it does the artist any good , but yeah , incorporating it into the build seemed more better than destroying all those hours of carving. Pics soon - she's coming along good.

That is sweet looking work .

I agree with all those statements. Thats what the little reading guy was about. Even with the "data", every tree , and indeed - individual piece of wood has to be examined. I'm sold on the 'Duke as a neck wood though. First go with it proved it to be easily worked. Its just the little splinters and the red dust.... gotta love it.

ha ha ! me, too. I appreciate all the advice put forth , but in the end , I do what I can with what I got. Like I always have , . I have learned a LOT from interacting with the people here , both in discussions and just by observing. I like to think that I , like many others , have taken ideas from what I've seen here and contributed my own ideas to what is seen here. They are there to ignore , study , question or disregard , but the interaction and reports on all the different ways to swim the channel - thats the key to me. BTW - totaly off topic - The Comicaster will be up for sale later today. I'm taking a break before final setup/tuning , then I'll do a vid clip and put it on the 'bay.

Yes, very reliable. The owner is a friend of a friend and since I first tried 'em back in '05 , I've used dozens of sets of his pickups. The wood-topped 'buckers sound sweet too. I just put a pair of the hexbuckers in my "Sam n Ellas" guitar . http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...ic=42894&hl Nice, punchy, harmonic rich distortion , and they clean up real nice with just a roll of the volume knob.

it depends on the model you buy......... For Sabbath type crunchiness , try some "guitarheads" hex-buckers. $40 a PAIR ....... www.guitarheads.net . I think they have sound clips up to let you hear the differences in pups. The "Megametals" sound Brootals too.

No doubt , and to each their own , I say. I don't knock anyone who uses templates , and actually recommend it. I just don't do it myself , out of this twisted desire to feel like an artist , lol. I think of it more as wood-carving with a distinct set of parameters I'll do a side by side shot of mine and a Gibby when I'm done. Should be fun !

Awesome ! so , according to these nice folks , it's as heavy as Maple , which kills the "too heavy" theory....... it's as hard as Rosewood or slightly harder, and not as stiff as either one , but real close to both ..... Interesting. Thanks for that info . Good stuff.

We ( LungBuster ) used to play at a place in Phoenix called JugHeads a lot. Then the Archie people came by and made 'em change the name. Now it's J-heads.

That color + that board = I feel comfortable making this prediction based on views of your previous work. Looking sweet.

Everybody knows that Archie was the shizzle anyway .... . so there.

Actually , those kinds of boo-boos happen more often with templates , or so it seems to me. Bits wandering , clamps sliding , mis-aligned , BACKWARDS ! I've heard a lot of tales with templates. Of course , the trade-off with free-hand is the templates ability to reproduce the same guitar repeatedly , and get clean precise cuts. To a degree at least. I could churn out 'splorers and strats/teles all day by hand and make em all look good enough when compared side by side with a proper one. The thing that holds me back right now is my own building and finishing skills , which I'll only improve if I practice. One guitar at a time , I suppose. Try it out on a headstock shape once. Draw it out and jigsaw it. rasp and sand to taste. Its fun. I just compared my HS up there ^^ with an overlay of a real hockey stick and for a "look once , draw and cut" its really close to accurate. I have enough meat to trim in one spot to make it exact , but I overcut the bottom curve by a bit already. After tidying , it'll be a bit smaller than stock , but I'm still happy with it.

Muzz ------ the "strat" comment was aimed at Git kidd....... asking about his strat , not yours. lol This is looking good still .... might have to hand drill your bridge posts ? Make a block of wood on the drill press to keep your drill bit plumb and true. Just put a hole thru the center and use it as a guide for the hand drill .

Nice touch with the HS veneer. TR cover and all. Looking good , and for what its worth , I have that router too ! lol

Muzz - I like your suggestion , I just won't use it. I have this mal-function with templates. I like to use my eyes and hands to carve guitars. This is fresh off the saw and hit with 50 grit , the "pretty" will happen next. Am I crazy for cutting guitars out without tracing tools ? Maybe. I dig the process of penciling in some lines and free-handing them out of the wood. I looked at templates for this one .... they were almost as much as I spent on the whole build . Can't do it. besides , I'm coming up on my goal - being able to freehand guitars that don't look awful. Give me a few years . I'll be turning out head-snappers with no templates. Then what ? lol Only way to get there is to try.

I was poking around at Goodwill 2 yrs. ago, and there was a $10 guitar made of MDF. The body was MDF, but the neck was maple. Trust me, I threw that body out yesterday, and the horns broke off. Where's the Strat?

Well , here is the neck I'm building for it. I did a hockey-stick-like HS , no templates or drawings or printouts , just a sketch and a jig-saw. I'm happy with it. I managed to get the cavities done like I wanted , no front or rear routs. The fretboard and frets are from a broken neck , I recycled them instead of trashing em , plus it saved me about $45 All the hardware is from a '79 Gibson SG and it looks a bit tarnished , so I might give this some slight ( slight ) relic treatment just to match the hardware. some faded patches just to mimic heavy play. blending the carving into the back a bit............

Well, my V didn't really have "joints" between the maple and padouk , sort-of , but that was the one with the displays , so they were down in the padouk ( just to make it even more difficult to keep the dust out of em. ) - Comprehend it or not - I sanded , burnt and sealed the maple first , then the 'duke. and believe me , I know about the dust getting into and on everything - I've built with it before - I'm looking for specific qualities as a neck wood , not just as a wood in general.

I got around this by sanding and sealing the maple first when I did my 'duke and maple V . kept the dust from getting into the maple like a champ. If I were to use it as a FB , I'd do it on a maple or mahogany neck , something with more contrast to it. Thanks again for the advice.

Thanks ! thats just the stuff I'm looking for! lol It looks like you left the pores unfilled - any reason in particular or just personal preference?

I was JK about the MDF thing and frets .. Don't waste your time and money because of me.

Thanks guys . Reinhold- you should wear a dust mask with any wood - some more-so-than others , but all dust is pretty much carcinogenic and shouldn't be inhaled. / preaching I'm currently doing two necks - one out of Mahogany and one out of Padouk . I'll weigh em' afterwards to check the difference. I do know the Mahogany was a BEEOTCH to rasp into shape compared to the 'Duke.

It aint cosmo black but for $50 I just scored the hardware off of a 1979 Gibson SG , knobs , stop bar , TOM , pots , etc. and ,AND - all new gold hardware from Stewmac that matches the gibby stuff - TOM , tailpiece , switches n stuff. deals are out there if yoo keep looking . If I come across a cosmo black Gotoh w/ big posts , I'll shoot a PM -

DAMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm son ................. I need a smoke after lookin at that . I passum peace pipe in your general direction.