pauliemc

that thing is so freakin cool it could re-freeze the polar ice caps

I like that there groovey lookin fretboard very funkadelic indeed

The guys have kinda said it all above when it comes to the price for my Lotus models. The time involved in just finding a piece of timber large enough to accomodate a neck/body/headstock single piece is prohibative. Added to that, the man hours involved in carving one & not having the neck warp is sometimes double or more the time involved in a traditional set neck. Lotus models often take well in excess of 6 months to make because of the time required to trim the neck down & avoid warpage. Whereas an Alpha model (the bolt on version of a Black lotus model 6) is typicaly finished in less than 3 months with time to spare. So I charge a standard fee of €2000.00 for a Black Lotus, be it the 6 or the 247 model. Thats less than most factory standard models, So I personaly dont think its expensive. For what it is I feel the cost is fair, but I have been told I should up the cost by at the very least €1500.00. But I cant justify that kind of cost for such a simple instrument. Westheman . Yea i typicaly use walnut for these things, but I have done a few in Sapele, Limba & birds eye maple. I know the guitars he tried out. I loaned 2 of my personal guitars to a local store to try them out. The lotus he tried was my own personal Black lotus 6 model. Its sapele. The bolt on version is the shops own Alpha. its sapele with a birdseye neck. So to answer you lobo, I charge double the cost of the bolt on because its a bitch to build a lotus compared to a standard, & the exclusivity of the model demands a higher cost Although the prices I currently charge wont be around for ever, As I sell more, expand & my overheads rise, so will my prices. So get em while they are affordable

Have you ever read a book called hand made hand played ? http://www.amazon.co...56189094&sr=8-1 There is a guitar in there with a similar concept. Although if im honest. yours is barley begining to take shape & it already trumps the model displayed in the book.

that top will look savage with just a load o clear put onto it. I sometimes use scaffold board for drop tops on tele's. cut real thin & the face just barley cleaned up. Leav most of the dirt & filth & rot & bits of concrete & rusty bits of nails & all sorts still in there. Looks great under a massivly polished clear coat. this thing is gona look excellent

So you can just randomly go cut down a tree where you are ? Or is this all your own land ? Just wonderin, koz I got into the **** a while back for cutting down the big eucalyptus in front of my house. My property, tree partially uprooted during a storm & I still got into grief for it with the local authorities Still. Nice lookin bit o rotted out pine there, should make some good drop tops

OK. Problem solved. Kinda. I had to give up on the damned thing & go about things a different way. I hate being beat, but its starting to cost more than is worth putting into it at this point. After the Jem7 neck had its heel leveled it still had issues intonating. Nothing near as bad as when i got it, but I wasnt happy with it so I replaced the neck with one of my own. The new neck was from a custom jem I am building the guy so he was on board with it. The original Jem neck is now going on to the custom jem, as it works fine on that body. I cant figure this one out, The body & neck are fine apart, but dont work together. SO. Original jem7 body has a new neck. Original jem7 neck has a new body. Spare 555 neck has a new body (freebee tester body I have used here for years that realy deserves a better life) Done. I hope I never see any of these guitars again. Its lucky this was for a mate, koz man it was hatefull

Nice lookin blanks. I hate you so much

OK. This is a giant pain in the ass. I had to level & then shim the heel of the 555 neck as it was a little compressed/rounded towards the end. So it did not have a flat face. Tried it on one of my own bodies & it was perfect after the work. Apart from the damaged screw the 7 neck seemd fine. tried it on the same body & it was fine. Then I got the body sorted. Neck pocket cleaned up & leveled, screw holes cleaned up, crack sorted. The 555 neck is on there & it intonates perfectly. Even after some major trem abuse. But the 7 neck would not stay intonated when on the original JEM7wvh body. Although it was fine on one of my own bodies with its old hardware earlier, & is fine on there again now. I have notaiced that it is thinned on one corner of the heel on the treble side. 0.02mm off of level with the rest of the heel tapering back about 1/4 of the way to the front 2 screw holes. Im wondering if I should shave back the base of the 7 necks heel. then shim it. Just to be sure. Waiting for the customer to get back to me on it.

whats your recipe for the wax mix ?

It'd be 18 actually if you count the matching lams on the top of the headstock. I'm not fussed about numbers. I was trying to get a certain look and I think I found it. Enough that I've already had an order for a similar neck but in more exotic timbers. Well whatever you were shootin for, it came out cooler than a polar bears nuts. I wouldnt use that many scarf joints, or have them going that far along the neck personaly. But you cant deny it looks savage. Nice work man

Wouldnt help. hes a serial tinkerer. likes to tweak some of his gitirs, & others just turn into experiment labs. Its not like he has not got any to spare, he's just a bit "out there" you know. I might just give him 2 bodies for the other necks, Im building him a new JEM anyway. So throwing in 2 test mules I have here wont kill me. Especialy since one of them is loaded with his 555 neck & original hardware already.

What the hell man! is that a 16 piece neck ? how many chickens did you have to sacrifice to the god of clean glue joints before you got the nuts to try that ?

Pan-kara, I replaced the bridge, posts & nut. So no wear to contend with. Tim37, yea, similar issue with any neck they use. But i am getting somewhere with this now. I took off the Jem 7 neck to try the 555 & found a few issues. The body: 01) the screw holes are mis-shapen, oblonged & over sized. 02) the small section at the back of the neck pocket between the heel & pickup, is broken away on the treble side. 03) the floor of the neck cavity is uneven, it has a very slight dip in the area of the rear treble screw hole. 04) lastly, there is what appears to be a hairline fracture sarting to run up the body from the treble side screw hole all the way to the back of the bridge pickup cavity. Jem 7 neck: The screw under the 23rd fret- treble side, there is about 4mm of screw tip snapped off & permanently stuck in the neck. so only part of that screw is actualy gripping the neck when its installed. (kinda explains why they did not want the neck removed for the refret) I tried the 7 & 555 necks in one of my own bodies with the original hardware form the white jem. No issues at all, no matter how abusive I was with the trem arm. I contacted the player & explained what I wanted to do & got the go ahead - so. I sprayed some steel rods with teflon, positioned them in the body screw holes with a jig & flooded the holes with epoxy. Flooded the fracture in the body with some realy thin CA. Then I leveled the neck cavity floor & shimed it with some ebony. Drilled out the broken neck screw (always fun) Clean it all up tomorrow & see how it goes from there.

The guys tech taught of that before, The post sleeve was moving up & down in the body at one time. But he epoxied it into place years ago. It was one of the things I checked when I replaced the studs & bridge anyway. If it was a basswood body id suspect post movement to be a problem again as that is quite a soft timber. But this is an alder body Jem. I dunno Anyway, I spoke with the owner today. It has another neck to go with it, (there were 2 more necks than guitars left in to me) He sometimes swaps out the ebony boarded JEM7 neck for a 555 neck with a rosewood board. I refretted that today, Im gonna swap them over tomorrow & im wondering if the occasional swapping of necks is having an effect. Its not like its only had its neck swapped out once in its life, it happens 2-3 times a year & hes been doing it for about 7 years at this point. They tell me that for a while this was happening during gigs. he might just get an urge to have a maple or rosewood board. A neck would be sitting offstage already strung up with the bridge attached. They would just pop the trem srpings, unbolt the neck & swap it out for another one - bridge, nut, tuners, strings all in one. bolt on the new neck & tension it all up in a few minits.

so I bought a CNC. I'm still learning how to use it. I will also make with it tops and embossing. Yea, the learning curve is pretty massive with this stuff. I still have trouble doing up a top carve 3d program

& as if to rub salt in. the chick is messin with it here, & its perfect again

Bstrd of a thing is driving me nuts. After I refretted it & it wouldnt work, I went back & ground the frets realy low. I mean micro fret low. No difference !! The neck is bolt straight & matches its 2 siblings in a crap load of dimensions so Its not big frets, not sqewed nuts, not neck movement. Not any sort of misalignment i can find The pickups are backed well off of the strings as the player has them almost level with the pickguard anyway. So its not that pulling thing you can sometimes get on oddball gitirs. So then I replaced the bridge, posts & nut (I like the guy, so pull all the stops here) & TA DAAAAA !! it fookin worked perfectly !! Untill this morning when I checked it again. back to the same problem as when I got it. The player thinks its funny because his usual tech has been fighting this thing over a decade & he cant get it either. It plays better now, but still wont intonate properly. ***.

Yea man. I like this thing, very cool. there is no reason you should not GOTM this gitir.

I had a few guitars in from a guy for neck work, hardware overhaul, upgrade bla bla bla. Everything went fine apart from one guitar. An Ibanez Jem7VWH, Son of a bitch just wont intonate properly. The G & B just dont sound right & I cant get them to intonate the way I want no matter what I do. The guys Tech was hving the same issue with it but just refuses to send it back to the factory as they have had it so long & hate to be beaten by a problem gitir. Anyway. Its a late 90's JEM7VWH with a gold edge trem. Anybody any previous issues with intonating these ?

Thats some nice figuring you have there. Not too much so its over the top, just about spot on for the design i rekon.

OK man. Big pile of info gone over to you there. Load of drawings & an ebook to help you understand exactly whats involved in the build. Good luck & keep us all posted.

You may be surprised at just how much weight that actualy is. Sometimes I am surprised at how light a body gets after the cavities & roundovers are done.

Hmmm. sounds like you have a battle scar situation there. If the finish is ageing & sinking to allow the timbers graining to become slightly visable then polishing is gona suk. Like you said, it will leave a flat spot on an otherwise textured soundboard. But it also sounds like you have a finish that is so thin that maby polishing it would just go right thru to the timber in a flash. Personaly, id probobly try drop fil it with some realy thin CA. then level just the scratch & about 2mm either side of it - otherwise id leav it man.

I do so like these black bursts. Black out the edges & fade to raw wood - fookin classy look far as im concerned. This thing is turnin out realy cool man.