pauliemc

I was looking at your work, you have gotten better with those gouges, which is hard to fathom since you were so damned good with them already. Im wondering if there is going to be an attempt at a one piece les paul now. Id like to see someone else have a go. see how they approach it.

Hey Scott. Well, Ma is gone (wont get into that here) And the little one, well hes not so little anymore. Hes starting to get a bit of an interest in guitars, especially Les Paul's, Big gary moore fan. I see you won guitar of the year, well done.

Iv done this before. Its very involved to get the type of grain you want in the neck for stability. You need to work from the fret board surface as a level. That way the neck grain is running the length of the neck. You carve the head stock just like the Gibson factory would, so you get a typical les paul neck joint. But carving the body is the tricky part. you need to carve the whole body at an angle, using the fret board face as your level starting point. Best thing to do is get hold of a les paul & make a few templates along its neck & body. this will give you an ides of the shape you need. The biggest issue I had was finding a billet of timber big enough that had no issues with grain. Also, when you cut away that much wood, the remainder of the billet starts to move about a lot. So you need to give yourself a lot of extra material to work with. It took me 3 attempts to get 1 guitar. Using Sepelle that was close to 600 euro in just timber. Hope that helps

Hi Scott. I do still build them as it happens. Just have not been very active online for a long while is all. Thanks for the mention by the way.

pinstripe it. easy as can be. unless you realy want it to be a black line of timber. you can get pinstripe tape in most decent automotive repair shops. any decent car painter / hot rod painter could do it in minits. Its gonna be under clear coat anyway so why not cheat if you dont actually need it to be timber

Things are slow, more to the point Im slow - so I dont have much time to pop on here. The arm is still fairly bangd up, no grip strenght just yet so Im dropping a lot of tools but no fallen gitirs just yet. Actually turning away work at the moment because I would never be able to get to it in a reasonable abount of time. But screw it, It will all work out soon enuf. few days off over the holidays to chill & get away from the heavy stuff will be cool. get some playing in & chek out the forum. I found micro mesh years back when I had to polish an acrylic jem I made. was recomended to me by an aircraft tech that uses it to repair windscreens on air planes - coooool

pallets are usually just soft pine. I would not put much faith in its ability to handle much stress. But still, I have made an archtop out of absolute crap from a shipping pallet just to prove a point & it turned out to be a great guitar, telecasters from old scaffold boards that rocked & an acoustic from a clients old fire mantle. you never know till you try.

looking good Scotty. I see you have come over to the micromesh team. great stuff - if a little time consuming. I use it on a lot of finishes up to 12000 grit, then hop onto the polishing compounds & swirl removing paste. gets that nuclear diamond shine hapnin good n propper. pitty you lost most of this thread, was a good one.

I would get a plane. But then I have been using them for 25 years or so & feel very comfortable with them. But still - Id get one. A No. 5 at the least. Also get a decent rasp, maby a shinto. Some decent tool shops will have big 10 inch plus things called a bastard file. brilliant if you can fin a decent one. BTW I sent you those drawings.

the lads are spot on with evrything here, especially the spalt issue - stay well away untill you have a few guitars built. Even then it can be a nightmare to work if you get the wrong piece that just want to fight you at every turn. I would recomend sepelle, mahogany, alder, basswood or ash to start. All nice timbers & not too hard to work. Poplar is nice aslo but can have a fluffy edging when worked that can be offputting & ruins the build for early builders. Stay away from cedar, it can break too easily if cut wrong. If you do try make a neck, get a pre radiused & slotted fretboard from stewart mcdonald. make sure the grain in the neck timber is bolt straight - or close to it. If you dont have templates yet them PM me. I will need your email address to send you some CAD & pdf drawings of RG, JEM & Universe guitars. Also strats, teles & les pauls as these will most likly be the basis for all of your setting out of hardware. A doner guitar is a good idea. just make sure you dont go too cheap on the hardware, $30.00 trems are a big no for example. get a fender or gotoh hardtail bridge, much cheaper than you would think. If you like I can have a look around here & see what is lurking in the dead guitar pile. I know I have a neck from an Ibanez S model, Im not sure what else I have. Anyway - good luck, enjoy - & make sure you ask lots of questions & put up lots of photos

ha ha ha been there. ebone is a total tool killer. so god damned hard. but i find it carves nicely precisly because it is so dense. just have to not mind sharpening your chisel every 2 minits

lookin good Scott. I think this is your best head stock carve so far. the darker central strip taking the SR motif & the black tuners is perfect. The rest of the guitar is realy sweet but that fookin headstock just stands out as the best feature here - for me at least.

I dig how this one is comin along. I especially like the back carve, reminds me of my own alphas & lotus guitars. Except that I would never be able to pull off the mad carving you can. Man im realy starting to miss building but your threads always make my day gitir wise. So come on son MORE PIKS !!! Do as daddy says

Spandex & studded codpieces ? holy batmobile Muzz what the crap do you be wearing when ur jammin ? I think you spent waaaay too much time watchin kiss & judas priest videos. as to the lasers, you just reminded me that Vai is on tour again, hope he hits Ireland but probobly wont Last time he was here the lights all went out & this big neon funkadelic robot lookin freak (steve) walks onto stage with lasers shootin outa his fingers - ha ha ha cooool. Still, just pales in comparison to my diamond encrusted chainmail kilt & bejeweled manolo blahnik stilettoes. stylin bitches