DrummerDude

+1

Thanks. I thought that the inbuilding of the beech plank was whаt people would consider "revolutionary" Frankly, I have never seen anyone doing anything similar. All the unorthodox things I did on this guitar were the result of the total lack of good tonewood around me.

For those of you who can't watch YouTube - I just edited my first post and added photos to it.

Man, this is so cool...

Thanks man. Forgot to mention that I am interested in 25,5 inch scale necks only. How much for the Bronze series neck? Is it in an acceptable shape? Also, are you in for a trade? I don't need my spare Strat neck anyway. It's in top condition by the way. Thanks!

I want to buy a neck from a cheap Jackson guitar (JS30 series is what I am after). Also, any neck from a cheap Bronze series BC Rich. Or maybe a low-end ESP (LTD) neck. It doesn't matter as long as the neck is pointy. The no-no list: No Ibanez necks. No shark fin inlays. No Floyd Rose locking nuts. I will buy yor neck or I will trade you my Stratocaster neck for it. Whatever suits you best. Thanks!

There is something about PVA glues that people like to call the "creep". The joined details tend to "slide" over the glue between them. Under pressure PVA joints would show the "creep" more often but it could happen to all kinds of PVA joints. I guess that your problem may be caused by the PVA glue's "creep". I'd use epoxy for this particular job - it's freaking rock solid. It never moves. As a matter of fact I saw sparkles coming out of my router's bit when I was routing over the seam of an epoxy-joined wood blank. It is that hard.

Yes, beech is the most unstable wood in the world. Definitely not suitable for necks if not stabilized properly. And even if you use good quality beech, there's still a huge chance that it will warp. It produces almost the same sound as maple, though. If it was not that unstable, it would be an awesome tonewood. For thos ehwo can't watch my videos on YouTube: I will post pics soon.

Yes, I thought of that too. Beech is used for necks pretty often here, in Europe. But it is very unstable. Chances that the neck will warp ar elike 80%. In other words, I don't have access to well prepared steam dried, aged and stabilized beech. Just the timber they are using for rough construction beams.

Thanks man. My next project is going to be a copy of that freaking cool Jeff Waters signature Ran. I may be able to find some maple from a few local alternative sources (this excludes all the carpenters and timber yards - they don't bother dealing with maple for sure).

Yeah, I told my old man that this rusty thing is not going to forgive him if he makes the slightest mistake. Ge's brave I guess. Then I saw a professional carpenter doing this on a huge jointer. He did the same - hi put his hand over the plank and was careless of the scary blade underneath it. @Cyclone, I live in Europe. Far from Louisiana, man. Actually, I don't need spruce. Have plenty of it already - it is great for acoustics but i don't know how it would sound on an electric. I will try to order some Maple from a forestry yard or something.

Cool design. I have always liked the ESP-SV for having this high frets access cutout. I don't like the straight Ibanez-style headstock that you've chosen to use on this one, though. These axes have prolongated bodies and adding a straight headstock makes the overall design look tooooo loooooong. But htat's just me. Good choice of body shape too - the Jackson Rhoads has a considerably smaller body than the ESP-SV an that's what, in my humble opinion, makes it a little bit more "fast" and sleek looking. Cool stuff man. You took the best from both and put it in one whole piece. Can't wait to see it finished. Are you going to add a rear cutout for the belly? SVs have them, Rhoadses do not.

Hahaha, I am surprized that you didn't ask about the spruce too... Well, I have absolutely NO access to quality tonewoods and luthier's supplies. Don't have cash to order them online and pay for expensive overseas shipping too. Where I live no carpenter works with anything else but spruce, pine and beech. So my choices were pretty limited to these woods. This is my very first "from scratch" guitar (been doing only very basic guitar repair jobs like refretting and guitar setups so far) and I just decided to make it out of whatever I had at hand. And I didn't have much, apparently... I can't even make my own neck and I am forced to buy one because I can not find Maple anywhere. No body uses this lovely wood and they are even surprised and think you are crazy if you ask them about anything else but Pine, Spruce or Beech. No warehouse or wood supplier carries anything but these woods and no carpenter cares to use other woods besides these three species. They also use MDF, Plywood, PCV sheets and have millions of varieties of these artificial things but who needs them anyway?!... Not cool, eh?

It is fantastic!

Hi guys, I am posting two videos. The first one is my current guitar building project - a Jackson Randy Rhoads copy. CHECK THE VIDEO OUT And the second one is another project of mine that I recently finished. SECOND VIDEO I am adding some photos for the ones who can't use YouTube. http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5712/s5001883kx4.jpg http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5336/clipboard02zd2.jpg http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/9604/s5001916ho5.jpg http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/7374/as5001922se6.jpg http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/2924/s5001937bj1.jpg http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/5319/s5001942eo0.jpg http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/306/s5001962sx9.jpg http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/4672/s5001967fg6.jpg http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/5453/s5001984mg6.jpg The final photos (click on the links below to see them): http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/889/s5002090ce5.jpg http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/2919/s5002103vj9.jpg http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/2421/s5002117tz7.jpg http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/7743/s5002115wy5.jpg

I made a simple plywood jig and it worked like a charm. Took me 2 minutes to build too. Now I have a perfectly thicknessed body blank. Thanks guys!

I've thought about that, Rog. These 3 milimeters won't hurt my playing at all. It could be the uniqueness of the guitar too, sure. But I am after an exact Rhoads copy and if I leave it this way, it will bug me that the guitar is not 1:1 with Randy's. That's why I will have to even it out. I have no more than one day of work left ont he body and it's a shame that i don't have a neck. I will be using a pre-made neck for this one but I can't find a reasonably priced one. It must have a headstock angle, be with a pointy headstock, without sharkfin inlays and without bindings because I hate those things. Sounds like I'm asking too much but basically any neck from a Jackson Dinky fits me fine. Have two spare Stratocaster necks but not a single "pointy" one that would fit this project. Converting a Strat neck means removing the original pretty thin frets and installing Super Jumbo frets, doing lots of scary work on the headstock to apply a backwards angle and lots of other nasty things that I am trying to avoid. Hopefully I will find a suitable neck from somewhere. But that's a different story, hehe.

That's an awesome thing you've build, fryovanni. Really neat and tidy setup. My English is bad but if a pin router is that machine the guy from the video is using, then I think I can built a wooden substitute in no time using plywood and wooden beams for support. Actually, I had something similar built but I dis-assembled it. Its purpose was different but then I saw that it could be used for thicknessing too. I will re-construct my jig and try to use it. Thanks!

Thanks guys, I will tak under consideration everything you said and adviced. I thought of another way that this guy is using: CLCIK Was too lazy to assemble my dis-assembled router jig and do something similar. Now i know that I have to do it anyway. Will consider which one of the two methods would be easier for me to build and adjust. I hear you on the tear out, Southpa. Will try to be as careful as I can. Hopefully this would help a bit in keeping the plank one whole. Thanks guys!

I am thinking of something like thsi (sorry about the crappy diagram - my drawing skills are not what they used to be when I was 95 years old :D): If you have any tips and tricks or ideas for improvements, please share. Thanks!

This is what I intended to do from the very beginning but I was unsure about the whole setup and it sounded like a lot of tedious work to find the right blanks for the router guides. I have several more ideas but they require too much sophisticated and precise cutting and measuring that I can't do at home which, in turn, makes the whole idea of making a jig for work iat home pointless. I will listen to your advice and make rails out of wood planks (hopefully I will find straight ones). I have a hand power planer and I have a big stationary power planer at my country house too. I used the big one for evening out the surface because the small hand-held planer was too narrow and it simply dug fullers in the wood plank making its uneven surface more uneven than ever. I was thinking of a planer jig but then the router is what I am going to use for this job. By the way, here is a photo of the body blank - it is thicker at the horns than it is at the front: It's gonna be a Jackson Randy Rhoads style guitar. I left wood around the neck pocket to have something for the router's base to step on. If anybody has a visual representation of his thicknessing jig, I will be very thankul to see it. Thanks!

Hi guys, I am working on a guitar and the body blank turned out to be 4 milimeter thicker at one of its ends than it is on the other. I know that there are professional machines that could even the thikness of a board but I need to know if there is a way to do this at home. Any planer or router jigs or something? Thanks!

I just want to share my method - it's nothing new but is something that works. At first, let me say that I am using a cheap-o-router and it does not become more powerful at low speeds. It does not use mechanical reduction but rather it is the power that goes into its motor that controls its speed. This means that if you set the knob at lower speeds, the router not only reduces its RPM but it also becomes weaker and underpowered. So I am forced to use it at maximum speed no matter what size or diameter bit I am using and no matter what job I am trying to do. But I guess that a good brand name router will behave otherwise. Once I tried to use a forstner bit with my router and I set it at low speed of course. It simply stopped - it was too underpowered to spin the forstner. Then I set the RPM at maximum speed to increase the router's power but it burned the wood because forstner bits are not suitable for work at high speeds. So it all depens on your router. If you have a cheap no-name router like mine, it is best to use your drilling mill and make multiple holes with a regular drill bit or a frostner bit. Then just "clean" with the router. I never had any problems cleaning at full depth and never had to do multiple passes with the router - I simply do not leave too much material in the pre-routing stage. More sweat in pre-routing, less tears in routing. And by "tears" I mean both its meanings.

This is just a bump. Common guys.

Wow, the monster of Dr. Frankenstein. This is *SO* friggin' cool.