pauliemc

Here you go. No glue, No bolts, No tennon, No nothin. Just all one single piece of timber. Why complicate things No disturbance of vibration/transmission between the neck & body either. I know it probobly not the point here. But screw it (or dont, more to the point)

I like my teles a bit more over the top. But this ones prety good (I know its not a telecaster, its tele styled) I assume you are looking for creative criticisim putting a prototype up here ? SO, 01) It needs a belly cut, I know its realy thin but I think it would work well with the heel carve as a visual thing. 02) there is no excuse for a black nut on a maple board with white binding, it realy should be white. 03) the black string retainer should be chrome like the rest of the hardware. 04) Id swap out the white knobs for chrome or nickle. they stand out too much. Apart from that its prety cool.

Have to agree with you there. Just take the sharpness off the edge & leav it. Makes a nice contrast to the curves & is a nod to the typical edge you would get if this were slab backed. There is an edge along part of the carve on the back of mine, starts out as a round over then sharpens up. I used to think it was prety cool, but you have kinda bitch slapped my single cut with the ugly stick with this one

Lookin realy good Scott. Nice to see somebody else carving the hell out of the back. With the cut you have there this thing should sit realy nice against the player. Realy good grain aswell, God I hate you

you need to clean it all up before applying sealer & colour. Level sand everything to at least 320 grit. the apply the sealer (what are you using ?)

Recurve is what I call it, Been carvin them for years on my Les paul-a-likes & never heard of it referd to as anything else. Dont chicken out. So long as you plan it ahead of the carve you will be fine. You know how deep your top is so you should be able to make it work. Even 3mm makes a big difference in the look when its cleared. & that depth is a walk in the park.

You could probobly use some epoxy to fill the gouges in the body. maby seal the whole face, then you can level sand the entire front & back. When its painted up you will never know there were any problems. As for the trem cavity. Maby the same approach, epoxy, then shapw it with a flat file. no reason it cant look great with a little time put into it. Just slow down & take your time with it, you will be much happier in the end

They're 'crimp beads' sold for making jewellery. They normally come with a hoop on one end, so I snip that off with some fret cutters, add a drop of black superglue in to the hole and tap them in gently with a small plastic faced hammer. I leave them slightly proud of the surface and once I've added some more black superglue (if needed) to fill the centre of the inlay, I use a small, flat file to make them flush to the fretboard. Ill be stealing that technique please thank you very much. i used to inlay brass or chrome wire into boards, looked good. but this just too cool. As for the rasps. I have a pair of those dragons from stewie mac, Pretty good. Iv used them on a few necks & find them very easy to work with. Got a pair of shintos orderd, a traditional styled jobbie like the one simo has pictured, & a plane styled one. always good to experiment with new tools.

Where did you get them ? Heard about these things but never actually tried one.

Man thats cool.

Hmmmm. I must hit him up for a set of buckers, out of phase to each other. real screamers. Anyway, MORE PIKS PLEASE !!!!!!!!

Maby its just me, but your piks give the impression that your shop is an environment of absolute serene tranquility, So clean, so bright & so pristine. very relaxing. Not like the mindless swamp of khaos mine seems to turn into every day Still. Luv your builds, this one is turning out realy well

Hmmmm. with the top on yours, i think id stay away from a stain. Im no stranger to staining Walnut, it takes black realy well as an exagerator for the grain & cherry looks amazing on it under a gloss coat. but I think yout figuring does not warrent any additional colour. Maby a bit of binding & purfling.Even just cream abs or cellulose binding with a black & white 1mm pinstripe purfling. My "Skinny Les" single cut has a poly top with an oiled neck & back, plays realy nice. so your finish is spot on as far as im concerned. Will it have chrome hardware ? what about the pickups. I rekon nickle would be a little less brash, Chrome can have a very bright snap to it. I duno. iv been painting all day & i rekon the fumes got me a little so probly best to get out of here into the air for a bit

I know what you mean. Sometimes you will be carving one & it gives you a funny vibe, its like its sayin "I dont want to be cut like that" then it takes over & you end up with something totally different to what you originally started out for. What kind of finish are you gona give it ? As for the single cut Im doing. Im kinda torn between brand new lookin, or just the tinyest bit of wear. buff thru the finish just where my arm would rest. Iv already slightly beaten up the neck but the chick likes it as it is. but then she also loves my SRV so she cant decide either. No way im starting a Relic or dont Relic poll. So... YOU DECIDE !!

Hey Scott. Lookin good, Love the top on this thing. How are you gona carve it? PRS style, or some variation of your own ? I think its way too thick for just a PRS type job. You have to go to town on that. This is the single cut Walnut top gitar iv been trying to build myself for god knows how long. Was almost there untill I saw your figuring on that top. Just had to stain it then Anyway. keep it comin, this should be seriously cool when its done

Ha Ha Ha heat in Dublin, not a hope in hell. Maby a few weeks in summer, it might get up to about 25c. but thats usually accompanied by 4-5 hours of rain a day. As for the green thing. Im getting the finish polished up a little at a time, should have piks in a week or 2. since I put up piks of one of my Black Lotus guitars online I have been building nothing else, on my third one since december. Not that Im complaining Building a Lotus/JS hybrid aswell. But enough of that, we need more piks of this single cut.

Hey scott. How did you find using the blue tape ? I had a roll of it from scotch, supposed to be ultra low tack stuff you could leav on for 14 days with no worries, But it tore out wood fibers from a rosewood board after just a single day, Needless to say it went into the bin. Build lookin good, I have to get some progress piks up of some of mine soon.

Juha Ruokangas uses birch for some of his tops as far as I know. Never used it as a neck material before, but as a carved top its fine, never had any complaints.

Id say that the cost has a fair bit to do with the age of the timber. Im not getting into the whole old timber sounds better bit, Just that hundred year old timber does not just sit in your local yard as typical stock. The only reason I have anything that old is from part time work in renovation of old buildings, I have some 14 inch wide ash joists from a church roof built in the 1870s, Yes its just ash, Yes its as much work making a body from it as 2 or 3 year old ash. no you probobly wont be able to tell its 130 something year old wood when you are playing your guitar, but I still want €500 if you want a body made from it. Simply because its hard to find. Exclusivity comes with a price tag. this thig is not your bog standard strat so they hike the price.

I am in 100% agreement with you here. (Sometimes I go in for the understatement thing). As far as the checks go, neither are more than 1/4" deep. The one along the back will get carved away....and the other should become invisible, or so I hope. I'm so used to carving from whole logs that filling one of these is routine to me. All my carvings have them somewhere. Maybe I should be freaked about it...but I'm just not. You know, I grew up where black walnut was so common they used to cut it down and build barns out of it. But I've never seen the kind of tree that produced that piece. I think they grow in California....everything looks a little different out there. SR I have seen some funky lookin stuff come out of the root balls of beech trees, dont find it very often as most of the mills tend not to be bothered cutting them up here. But man there can be some freaky lookin stuff in there. As for walnut, its not that common here. But we have more ash trees than we have blades of grass

Comin along realy well Andy. This should be seriously cool when its done.

As far as I know, Fender have done this. Poly sealer laid on very thick & then a nitro top coat over it. Id have tt look it up to find out which models, but I think it was most of their nitro finished models over the past 5 years or so.

Show off !! Seriously cool work Scott, As usual. Have to get myself another set of those chisels, Cant find mine anywhere

This is seriously cool scott. The grain from the fretboard just running on into the headstock is sooo fookin trick !!