guitarnut

Thanks! I appreciate the kind words. Peace, Mark

Hi Rob Thanks! I think the PU routes are shallow on purpose. Since the PUs mount directly to the wood with no adjustment, there isn't the need for the extra depth. I've seen an interview with EVH where he states that the routes were cut to just the right depth to place the PUs at just the right height. I guess this works for him but "just the right height" is subjective. And your kit may be different. Mine are 3/4" deep. I need to shim them to get them a bit higher. But I'd rather have the option than be stuck at a single height. I would bolt up the neck and lay a straight edge on it and out over the bridge area with a PU in place...see what kind of clearance you have. Don't forget to allow for string height above the frets. Peace, Mark

Thanks Buzzedd! It was a fun build. Peace, Mark

I've been cursed for less.. Thanks!

Thanks!

Well, I'm very close to having this one finished. I did a dry fit today and everything is looking great. I need to take care of a few high frets and wire it up. I should be able to do that tomorrow. Fingers crossed...I'm eager to hear this one. Peace, Mark

Same thing my wife said...different meaning I'm guessing. Mark

Well, the rampage is over. I have measured, cut, resawn, and planed until my hands ached. It was worth it though. I have set aside 6 mahogany body blanks, 6 basswood body blanks, boards for 2 walnut body blanks, 6 figured maple tops, 2 plain maple tops, a quarter sawn ash top, 16 mahogany neck blanks, 9 flame maple neck blanks, 28 rosewood fretboards and 14 flame maple fretboards. All stickered and ready to work except for the walnut that needs to dry another 6-8 months. One of the reasons for working ahead like this and having things ready to go is I plan to produce a video series as I go thru some of the builds...being an animator and video editor by trade, I should be able to bring some fire power to the effort with multiple camera angles and graphics & animation to illustrate things that are tough to shoot. It was a ton of work but well worth it. My next dozen builds will go much quicker with alot of the prep work done. I had hoped to take more pics during the process but I was constantly thinking about yield and not making any mistakes. I was able to get the numbers I was shooting for except for a few neck blanks that have some worm holes...they may cut/route away though. My thought process was to look at my list of remaining items and with each piece of wood, start out by taking the largest pieces and considering how the scrap might be put to use. It was a great exercise in being frugal with the stock. I still need to cut some ash tops for carving but it hasn't come i yet. My local WoodCraft owns a mill and kiln just north of town that supplies their hardwoods...they have some 13" wide ash that I have dibs on. It should be in by Tues. Then I cut about 100 stickers...that was fun. Just rip and go...no worrying about important cuts. :cool: Much building and many new threads with video support to come this summer...even some first run designs by yours truly. Stay tuned! Peace, Mark

Blueburst Hybrid This one is a blending of two classic styles. The body profile is Tele from the lower waist around to the bass side of the neck and Strat from the same spot to the treble side of the neck to accommodate the pickguard. 3 on/off/on switches replace the standard blade switch to allow 7 on/off combinations and out-of-phase variations of the 7. Build Thread Body: Alder with flame maple cap with wide radiused edges White pearl pickguard Standard tremolo with white pearl trem cover Neck: Flame maple neck and fretboard HotRod dual-action truss rod Gotoh 16:1 tuners Tusq nut Electronics: Golden Age single coils with over wound bridge PU. 500K pots 3 on/off/phase switches Finish: Tinted top is TransTint dyes applied in DNA Opaque blue is ColoTone pigments sprayed in EM1000 water based sealer Clear coats are EM6000 water based lacquer Additional shots: http://www.crenshawweb.com/stratele/fin14.jpg http://www.crenshawweb.com/stratele/fin12.jpg http://www.crenshawweb.com/stratele/fin13.jpg http://www.crenshawweb.com/stratele/fin16.jpg http://www.crenshawweb.com/stratele/fin17.jpg

And if that's the case, why not get 8/4 and 4/4 lumber instead of 16/4 and then cut it down? Fair questions: In this case, the 12/4 boards found me... I got a great deal on them. And yes, ripping them allows me to work the boards in my shop. I don't mind a 2 piece body at all. Even when the grain isn't a perfect match, to me, a centerline implies symmetry. In the same way a one piece figured top just wouldn't have the same lines as a bookmatched top with a centerline. Maybe someday I'll have a saw that can resaw 14" stock and that may change my mind. Right now, I'm not letting it stand in the way of building. Peace, Mark

Just to make sure my math was correct, I did a cut layout. It'll be handy to have during cutting just to keep me on course. By offsetting the body cuts as shown, I can keep the grain lined up from the original planks. The 11" and 9" pieces left over will be used for neck heels, headstock ears and veneers as needed. More tomorrow... Peace, Mark

I bought 6 blocks of basswood that are 4" x 5". My goal was to resaw them to 1.75". At a width of 5", this would give me four 15" wide blanks...a bit overkill but that's the way it worked out. Pretty easy cutting compared to the mahogany. The way it worked out I also ended up with three .125" veneers...I figured I might as well cut them from the blocks instead of having them end up as shavings from planing. You can see them sitting lower right of the pic below. Then I moved on to the rosewood. My plan was to get 32 fretboard blanks but a slip of a clamp on the resaw fence...actually, I didn't completely tighten it...kept me 4 short of that goal. I did end up with some nice rosewood veneers though. :grin: So, the 2" mahogany will be cut to 18" lengths yielding six 2-piece body blanks. The 1" mahogany will be ripped at a shade over 3" and cross cut at 30" yielding 16 neck blanks. Anf the rosewood pieces will be quartered yielding 28 fretboard blanks. The basswood will be glued in groups of 3 and yield 4 body blanks. After sweating thru 2 shirts this morning, it's time to head inside for some guitar assembly...I have 3 builds waiting to be dressed out. :grin: More tomorrow on the tops. A wide range for carved top maple, carved top ash and some flat tops as well. Peace, Mark

I didn't use a fence for this step. I just ran them thru by hand keeping the saw blade on the line...I'll clean them up on the jointer. Here they are after ripping and cleaning up on the jointer. Now I'm ready to resaw to get things to the proper thickness for bodies and necks. I set up my resaw fence at 2". With the pieces being a hair over 3", this will give me plenty of extra thickness for planing. Here's a shot of the first run yielding a 2" thick piece that will be cross cut for body blanks and a 1" thick piece that will be cross cut for neck blanks. And after all 4 pieces were resawn. Time to move on to basswood.

I have been quietly buying materials for a serious production run...well, serious for me anyway. I located 35 BF of beautiful Peruvian mahogany, some very nice Bolivian rosewood and some thick quartersawn basswood. I also put together a stash of plain maple, figured maples and ash. that I'll be using for both flat and carved tops. I don't know if I'll cover all of the guitars in this thread but I wanted to cover some points on my experience with mass producing in a small shop and getting maximum yield from my lumber. I spent alot of time thinking about the best way to resaw all of this wood to get the maximum yield. The mahogany was shipped as 2 pieces - 61" x 14" x 3" each. It was originally 122" long but I had them cut it in half knowing that the 61" mark would work for me. My plan was to get 6 body blanks and 16 neck blanks. The problem was, that I needed the neck blanks cut to a different length than the sections that would be body halves. Each 61" piece could have been cut to 18" lengths for the bodies but obviously, that's too short for necks which will be 30". So, I needed to resaw each piece before I did any crosss cutting. I started by marking the center line down each 61" piece. This was at roughly 7". The max resaw height on my band saw is just over 6.75". This cut will leave me room to clean up the edges on the jointer before resaw. Then I built an infeed support out of a stack of stuff that was roughly the same height as the resaw table...I really need to invest in some roller stands. The bar clamps held it all together and the pipe ends hanging down past the cabinet top kept it from scooting forward. Casters locked inplace, were ready to cut.

Thanks Geo! Disclaimer: I am not responsible for the bending, warping, breaking or otherwise misshaping of one's mind. Such occurances are the result of one's complete immersion into all things guitar. There is no known cure.

Here we go... audio of the Stratelecaster. Setup: Line 6 FlexTone II, a bit of reverb and some delay. Gating and compression on the dirty lead parts. Single SM57 slightly off axis about 6" out Helixboard 18 pres into Cubase SX3 I threw these together in the hour that I had to myself this evening. I realized after the fact that the pre on my I/O converter might have been a bit hot. Still. you get a good feel for how it sounds. I don't have the phase side of the switches hooked up yet so this is the 9 main sounds of the switch combos. I only did each of the 3 PUs on the dirty lead parts...ran out of time. The PUs (StewMac Golden Age) have a nice dynamic range. You can hear in the rhythm clips that the picked notes articulate nicely, then the strummed chords break up the amp pretty good. They have plenty of power for the dirty stuff and back off nicely for the clean parts. Rhythm Bridge Middle Neck Bridge-Middle Middle-Neck Bridge-Neck All Clean Lead Bridge Middle Neck Bridge-Middle Middle-Neck Bridge-Neck All Dirty Lead Bridge Middle Neck Peace, Mark

Well, after a day of shoveling dirt, grilling burgers and a brief afternoon nap, I was able to get this one wired up this evening. I'm not diggin' the switches...guess it takes some getting used to. It's a nice look. I just need some practice with them. I'll post some sound clips tomorrow. I still need to set up the bridge and file the nut.

I started assembly on this one today. I;m going with the Guitar Fetish Super Strat wiring kit. I've the pickguard and kit sitting on a shelf for over a year now. I figured since this is a cross between two models of very different sounds, why not give it the widest range of sounds I could without buying another wiring kit. I had to do a fair amount of sanding on the neck heel and pocket to get it sit there properly...I'll have to rebuff the heel once I get it all tweaked in. I hope to get it finished today.

Thanks Muzz!

Thanks! That's very kind of you to say. I've been learning my way thru these builds over the last 18 months and I'm excited about all I still have to learn. I'm very happy to know that my experiences are helpful to others. Of course you couldn't have known this but I was having a hell of a crappy day before I read your post...nothing going right in the shop. Your thoughtful words helped me to focus and put the frustration behind me. Thanks! Peace, Mark

After a pass with swirl remover. The finish is really deepening now. Peace, Mark

After a pass with swirl remover...

After a pass with swirl remover...

After a pass with swirl remover...