pauliemc

Not much to see realy. Got the black stain on the body, Just have to let it dry out then sand it way back.

I like the quilt in balck. Might have to do a black quilted guitar soon.

Looking great, fluid and smooth, now go watch Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D with those glasses

never seen that, Dont think I ever want to. but maby ill go see if they work on something else, like maby JAWS 3D . Are those the colours ? i taught it was red & blue ?

OK. Did some experimenting for the colour. Got the hardware all sat into place for a mockup.

looks good in natural but !!

I took my safety glasses & coloured them in with a green candy marker (for making spot light gells) on one lense & then did the same for blue to the other lense. Look thru em & Ta Daaaa ! green guitar with one eye - blue with the other.

I rekon its the green for sure. The gold hardware just works better against it.

I think the feather needs a binding inside the edges

Rekon you may be right there. & some gloss poly in the cavity behind it. But then dave is probly way ahead of us on this one

You'd be right there Paul. way ahead of ya's all. You'll see it when it's all done I think. no more updates to busy.

Cool. Just dont pull a paulie, you know. Finish it up & send it off on its way without taking finished piks of it

Always cracks me up when you get to around this point in a build. It looks like such a simple instrument, nothing too flash or extravagnt. You would have no idea looking at it of the amount of work or skill gone into getting this far

Realy cool guitar man. What kind of finish is it getting ?

The quilt is lookin good with the carve on the front. The graining on the edges is getting all funky lookin.

Was thinking something along these lines for the finish. But with less black in the background.

I think the feather needs a binding inside the edges

Rekon you may be right there. & some gloss poly in the cavity behind it. But then dave is probly way ahead of us on this one

I'm ready to glue the neck in, but I'm noy sure exactly how to approach this.

It's a set neck, and it will have a smoothed out neck access. Clearly, this needs to be done after the neck is glued it.

HOWEVER.....

The neck is teak, requires no finish, and will have none.

So how do I handle the smooth-carved transition from finished to un-finished?

Inlay the sides & heel. Put a finish on the inlays but not the neck itself. Like the hilt on a sword. Be cool as fook man

Have you settled on a color yet. What about amber ? just a slight tint to bring out the quilt. Like BC Rich do on some of their geets. I think you should definitly consider it

Maple, Sapele, Walnut & rosewood is a nice combo to mar with a vivid colored finish.

Was thinking about that when carving it. Looks nice in the natural tones, In 2 minds about colouring it now

Anyway, Progress. Not much but progress none the less.

Got the back & front carves finished, The pup routes & back trem cavity cut. control cavity done aswel, & covers recessed into the back, but the camera died so Gotta charge it up for more piks.

Just sanding the hell out of this lot for finishing. Im thinking about oil over stain so im taking this to 6000 grit. But im not sure about the durability of an oil for the stain. so maby oil on the back & Poly, nitro or wiped varnish for the front.

anyway. some Piks.

To me, the headstock looks pretty thick. I'd thin down the headstock, while thinning out the voulte. If you look at killemall's builds, you'll see what I'm talking about. His are a bit oversized, and in a similar location with what you have to work with.

I'd like to see some other opinions though, as I've never made one

+1

headstock looks a little heavy. Thin it out & take it from there. You will be surprised how much of the volute will vanish if you take about 2mm off the head. What thickness is it just now ?

looks like you might end up with some nice grain on the back of that neck.

realy realy cool guitar. The finish is excellent

Fantastic , gold trem is hot, what pickups are going in? DiMarzio XN2?

Na. Dimarzios alright, But a paf joe & a mo' joe. Same as Joe uses himself.

Just got my tickets to the show here in dublin. schweeeeet !!!

Might drag one of my versions of a JS with me.

there was a big patch on the front that was reacting for no reason and i just got angry today and took the whole lot off. and the binding suffered as a result too

Best course of action. I hate when that kinda crap happins.

Just kill the offending part & start over. You staying with the same finish ?

I stained with blue and rubbed back first before staining with black and rubbing back, this brought up the grain but kept it looking dark blue.

So now I am just building up the layers of clear.

Cool lookin.

I normaly do it the other way. Black first then blue. But it ends looking about the same.

Keep it goin man

Mixed up the fretboards on 2 guitars I was building at the same time.

Put the 25.5 on the 24.75 & vice versa.

Didnt spot it till they were inlayed, fretted, wired up, sprayed & buffed. heavily inlayed swell.

only spotted it when I was stringing them up, the number of frets got my attention

2 les pauls left in for a re-fret & a floyd to be mounted on one of them. I put the floyd on the wrong one.

forgot to put hardener in the poly before spraying a Jem. then wondered why it was still wet the next day.

used a non UV resistant clear over a realy nice blue quilt, It faded out to nothing in a few weeks.

let go of a rhodes V before checking it was properly on the hook for spraying.

Ended up in hospital from not wearing a respirator when sanding materials I knew I was alergic too.

Lots of other little stupid things to add to this. But these are definitly my most absolute braindead kokups.

Got a little more of the top done aslo. The carve is prety much finished for the front, Just needs some sanding. The back will need to be profiled a little more but for now I thinks it OK for 3 days in total

Thats it for now. Ill get more up as I go.

OK. So hot pink, lime green & neon yellow yea ? Sounds like a nice swirl combo to me, Might look into that, But not for this one.

Anyway, Progress.

Got my bridge assembled (minus the trem so far, but thats around somewhere) Started on the trem recess for the front & post locations.

Marked it all out using 2 machine rules to line up the neck & bridge. Double checked everything - then drilled the post holes. All lines up fine.

So I Went ahead & cut the trem recess for the top aswell.

Got a nice piece of rosewood for the fret board, Lots of cool streaky figuring on it. Slotted it, Just gotta radius it now.

You da man, Paulie.

I was afraid your maple was a mite thin for a proper carve....but I see you didn't let that bother you at all did you. This is looking sweet. I like black quilt...

SR

Nope. A little on the thin side means I get to have a funky kinda foe-binding around the edges.

Colour came out cool. Kinda looks like a Tiger shark

Hey dave, I was thinkin. would be cool if you inlayed the central strip of the feather with MOP slightly raised up off the surface, Kinda rounded. Like a real feather.

Was asked to make a replacement neck for a friends JEM7.

He wants it slightly thicker than the standard ibanez. Ash with a rosewood board, & no scarf joint, Something similar to a standard fender neck as opposed to the standard ibanez jem unit.

It will be northern hard ash, im fairly sure the wood will be more than strong enough for a neck ,but never having tried it I am wondering about tone.

Has anybody here ever tried an ash neck ??

i have made two ash necks, a 5 piece out of alpine ash(australian native possibly) what came out rather great i thought rather sharp tonal effects

and then a European single piece carbon coated neck(think parker on steroids) which in comparison to my other carbon coated necks is really dull and lifeless so on the tonal side of things aussie alpine ash is a feasible tone wood although very heavy!

but euro on the other hand i will not bother touching again.

This is American Ash. It is fairly bright on the tap tone. I will let you know what I think when they are done.

purple

NOT A HOPE IN HELL !!!

Im thinkin maby green or blue. done 2 testers earlier, Just have to put some clear on them and make a decision.

There will be gold hardware on this so these 2 colours will probobly work out well.

OK. Some piks of the body profile being carved & the neck pocket fit.

After the rough shaping with the router this is all shaped with a rasp. Roughed in for now.

Top horn & neck pocket.

Begining of the elbow carve. Just roughed in untill the bridge route is finalised.

Checking the neck fit. I think it may be a little too tight, Im thinking about movement in the woods over the seasons. The Walnut in the neck moves very little. Im thinking 0.25mm should be enough to allow for this & still have press fit (tight) @ the heel. Or maby im over thinking it ?

Anyway, Its all very rough for now. Needs some serious cleaning up. Time to start looking into a colour i think.

Got going on the neck & body carve aswell.

Neck will be 01 piece Black Walnut with a rosewood board. havent decided wether to make it realy thin like a stock Ibanez or just stick to my usual AEolian flat-back profile.

Rough cut for the moment. Headstock needs thining to thickness, truss, fretboard & so on. But for now it will suffice for the purpose of the neck pocket cut.

Yea I know its another Satriani styled model, But I love carving these things so screw it. This ones for me anyway.

Been getting grief from ScottR about my woefull habit of not uploading piks, or just not documenting builds. so heres a few from this one. Started day before yesterday.

Got the body blank ready & glued on the top thursday (no piks of that process . sorry Scott - didnt remember to take piks untill friday)

Got it out of the clamps & cleaned up the edges roughly. Doesent need to be spot on perfect around the edges as this is going to be extensivly re-shaped with the rasps to achieve my version of the JS profile from Ibanez.