Our Souls inc.

I realy like the carving, as an aspiring artist if this was hand done by the original creator then you would've done hi,/her an injustice by not keeping it. Besides it adds character to it. Can not wait to see it completed!

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.

My tele has a secret micro-kill-switch...and a sustainer too!

You can't really see it without that bright flash to show it up and I forget it's there. But I use it as a kind of manual tremolo occasionally on held chords and such. Put it on because I could and for fun!

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.

I use templates. But have never bought one. I make my own templates. Most often AFTER I freehand one out.Sometimes the body template gets made 1st. This way I can make the next one quicker. To me, paying for a tracing of a guitar is insane.

I either freehand draw out the guitar, or trace one I want to build. More often than not the former.

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 !

The pertinent hard data for you, courtesy of the www.woodworkerssource.com species library; I've also included the same information for hard maple and East Indian Rosewood so you can see how it in context with well-known neck/fingerboard woods.

Padauk:

Stiffness: 1,688 1000psi.

Weight: 45 lbs/cu.ft.

Janka hardness: 1725 lbs

Hard Maple:

Stiffness: 1,830 1000psi

Weight: 44 lbs/cu.ft.

Janka hardness: 1450 lbs

East Indian Rosewood:

Stiffness: 1,737 1000psi

Weight: 53 lbs/cu.ft.

Janka hardness: 1720 lbs

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.

bloody hell. I find it hard enough not making catastrophic, project-killing mistakes when I'm using templates. Freehand would be a nightmare.

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

That certainly was a find, the animals look great. The neck is looking lush, terrific match for the body. If it was me, I would trace out the headstock on a template, clean up the lines with a flexible curve, smooth the curves back with a file and sandpaper then use the template to trim up the headstock with an underbite bit, trust me it will look amazing

but if you don't like my suggestion just tell me to but out beaky and blow it out my poofoo valve

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.

No muzz - no plactic goop for me , thanks. and the "practice" geet ? when you're done with the real build , finish it up so we know what MDF sounds like!

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.

As spoke said, a big problem with it is the colour gets everywhere and anywhere. As a fretboard Ive not played one before, but Ive seen manufacturers use it. I think there are better looking/performing woods to use for a fretboard and a padauk FB doesnt look good on a padauk neck IMO.

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.

s-h-i-n-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e------