pauliemc

Yea, nice band saws are a godsend.

I have a sip 16 inch jobbie with a tilting bed, adjustable blade tensioners & 2 cutting speeds. Takes up to a 1 inch blade & i have had it down to a 6mm blade. but I have to have those 6mm jobbies made up specially.

I was surprised at how good it is for just under €1000.00. Goes thru 9 inch blocks of hard ash with no hassle at all, although blades dont last any time at all doing that kinda stuff.

The cocobolo & ebony are going to destroy your blade in no time man. even the more expensive tungston blades wont last book matching tops with those materials. but so long as you factor it into the cost of a build I suppose its OK.

could also be manufacturing tolerances in the ferrules. I have seen batches of them with outer diameters off by as much as 0.5mm over spec, & 0.2 under. that's a difference of 0.7mm between the biggest & smallest in a batch. with differences like this you will get some loose & some tight, especially if the drill bit was hot for some holes & cool for others.

Hijackers! The whole bunch of you.

I am building a bench eventually. I swear... however I have customers breathing down my neck and need to build some guitars.

Just do what I did man. get a few 9x4 inch scaffold boards froma builders yard. bolt them all together, plain the top level, bolt on a vice or 2 & away you go.

Cant go wrong, my damned thing weighs in at just under 90kg, solid as a rock. & i dont have to worry about damaging the top, as I have easily got 2 inches I can plain away over the next few years before it starts to get light.

Anyway, hows the bandsaw going,

I still might buy a bench... because by the time I pay for wood, vises, and cabinet hardware the cost is almost the same as a small euro bench.

By the time you factor in your hourly rate for labour, you could probobly have gotten 2 benches.

Machine is good enough for hobby work... but if I want to up production it has to go. It is just not tough/fast/strong enough for 16 - 20 guitars a year.

Woe. I can do 20+ gitirs in a year by hand if i realy need to. I saw those camasters on line, Was looking at romax aswell. But the shipping would make it unviable. I need to find a strong machine over here in ireland for those prices. Kinda got sick of quotes of €15000.00 for the platform minus the pc & routing head. Givin up for a while but I will be looking again by summer.

the lads have said it all realy. measure off of the actual bridge itself to be sure.

I will say that I have had a few floyds that were the same dimensions from posts to centre of D-G saddles, for both the treble & bass side. But the position of the posts centre point were not the same for each side from the nut face. I mean that the treble post sat almost 1.5mm more forward than the bass post.

so make sure you are checking ALL of your setout dimensions before you go cutting up your guitar.

Can it be used to advantage, ie if I wanted to have the finish somewhat cracked?

I have "heard" of people taking a nitro cured guitar and putting it in the freezer for a while and then putting it in the sun to cause the finish to crack and look old,but I would never do that and I wouldn't trust it since I think it is too risky

besides...hard to find a freezer large enough for a set neck guitar

Im one of those people. except i do it the other way around. I keep the guitar in my drying room where its a constant 32 centigrade (well, close to constant) Then I dunk it into a box freezer for a few minits. take it back out & hang it in the heat again.

Usualy crazes up the finish. But only if im asked fot it. & it only realy works with nitro varnishes.

As for the guitar having a funny vibe. Yeah it has a real "thing" going on...you can feel it while working on it. I can see the finished guitar in my head and I hope it turns out close.

Yea, it stands out a mile. It one of those gitirs you see in a store & just have to buy, its like a chick wit a 32GG chest - you just want to get your hands on it.

Bad motors are a posability, place I used to work in went tru 4 in the space of 10 days. Needless to say the managers were not happy turned out the magnets had de-bonded from their casings on all of them & got mangeled.

do you fint it a good machine otherwise ?

3 motors in a season ? you must pm me the make of that machine so I dont get caught out. im hoping to have one sorted this year.

but still, regardless of tooling issues, gitir is lookin good so far. has a funky vibe or something goin on, you can already tell its gonna be a bitch to let go

Robo Rad is lookin good. get all the kinks sorted finaly ?

Who did you get the truss rods from ?

you could use heat to change the colour of stainless frets maby. like the blueing you get on race exhausts. but then it would probobly wear away with play i suppose.

I put a light coat of clear over my relic/replicas. nothing heavy. just a single light coat to help protect it a little.

I would do that neck a little.

I build JS models a lot. But I never realy had plans. I had a fairly crappy radius model plan at one point. & I have had a guitar on the bench to take some measurements from on occasion. No neck plans at all, apart from what I already knew from experiance building.

Id say just get a load of piks, use your radius plan & make up your own templates. Thats all i realy done, & im fairly sure Andy on here took the same path on his JS Builds.

make a big shim. about 5mm thick. glue it in, then re-cut your neck pocket.

I hate to say this. But looking at the grain on the end of your body, it is going to warp no matter what you do here. I think the issue is that you have chambered out large sections of the body, & by doing so you have released a lot of tension in the wood. I personaly would not have made those chambers so open, I would have broken each one into 3 sections with heavy spars between them to lessen the potential for warpage. But I fear that this has not stopped moving just yet & you may have more warpage to come.

If I were to try fix it, I would remove the top. Make an autoclave / steam oven large enough to take the body. Steam the entire body block for at least 6 hours. then clamp it to a level work top, bench or machine table with a load of steel angle or 2 inch steel box section on top & a good number of clamps.

Leave it for about a week. take it out of the clamps & store it for at least 8 weeks in a dry room, away from any windows, radiators, air con units (inside a wardrobe is good). Then test it to see if it has warped again.

If it stays level for 12-16 weeks then re-start your build with your maple top. but use a 12mm thick hard / northern ash back with the grain set to oppose the limba's grain pattern.

But if after 16 weeks it has moved again then I would scrap the sides & use the centre for a multi lam body.

so er. . . .start over?

Nope. I still say salvage it if he can. it will be a realy good learning experiance.

I hate to say this. But looking at the grain on the end of your body, it is going to warp no matter what you do here. I think the issue is that you have chambered out large sections of the body, & by doing so you have released a lot of tension in the wood. I personaly would not have made those chambers so open, I would have broken each one into 3 sections with heavy spars between them to lessen the potential for warpage. But I fear that this has not stopped moving just yet & you may have more warpage to come.

If I were to try fix it, I would remove the top. Make an autoclave / steam oven large enough to take the body. Steam the entire body block for at least 6 hours. then clamp it to a level work top, bench or machine table with a load of steel angle or 2 inch steel box section on top & a good number of clamps.

Leave it for about a week. take it out of the clamps & store it for at least 8 weeks in a dry room, away from any windows, radiators, air con units (inside a wardrobe is good). Then test it to see if it has warped again.

If it stays level for 12-16 weeks then re-start your build with your maple top. but use a 12mm thick hard / northern ash back with the grain set to oppose the limba's grain pattern.

But if after 16 weeks it has moved again then I would scrap the sides & use the centre for a multi lam body.

your top horn needs to be taller (more to the right in the pik above) & be slightly longer aswell. it doesnt have enough mass to it for good visual balance against the bottom one. It all just my opinion of course, but i have always found that a double cut looks a little better if its a little heavier on the top horn.

Bubinga needs a finish. it is realy hard & stable but it is not an oily wood. I rub in a single coat of danish oil.

Then a few days later i chase it with a folded up belt of un-dyed egyptian cotton lightly wetted with external danish oil.

then I use an old leather belt (smooth side to the timber) & buff it up using long strokes & a lot of pressure. Try not to build up too much heat when lapping/chasing it with the leather.

Wait a few days then polish it up with some crumpled up news paper.

Smooth as glass, shines like glass & plays fast as fook

Cut your angle into the body or recess the TOM...Personally,I would just use it as an excuse for a recessed Floyd

If I didnt know this dude was not a student of mine Id swear he trained with me Spot on again.

If you are insistant on the tun-o-matic bridge then you realy need about 3-4 degrees of angle. Depending on the fretboard thickness & if you use an upstand/raised neck like a strat. you will need to draw it all out full size to figure your dimensions accuratly.

Try stay away from any more than a 5mm thk fretboard, as this will eat into your neck dimension. too thick a board will leav you with little or no timber behind the truss rod & ultimatly screw up your neck.

The twisting / warping I mention has to do with removing material from the back of the neck. As you cut timber away you are releasing tension in the wood. if you cut away a large amount at any one time you risk releasing tension over so much surface area that the remaining timber may warp out of alignment by an amount that would render it useless. even 3-4mm over the lenght of the neck would render it unuseable, & that much movement is very easily achieved.

As such. a one piece build requires a lot of carefull planning with constant checking of measurements to ensure everything is working OK.

I don't see any reason that you couldn't do it like an angled neck through with a shim from the 16th fret (± depending on the desired angle/scale) calculate the appropriate neck drop, & plane it to spec w/ a #6, #7, or #8 plane.

Tim is correct. You would preferably dodge the neck angle & do a flat set guitar. The main reason (for me) is that the only glue I want to use is to apply the fret board. the addition of the shim from the 16th fret & the angled headstock would taint my Lotus philosophy. As little glue joints as possible is my goal.

Also. working an angle into the neck would mean that the grain of the neck is not running along the correct axis, ie - with the strings. This would be an issue for me. In a case like a Les paul, where there is a pronounced neck angle I still maintain the single piece philosophy. The neck is made with the grain of the timber & the body is then carves on an angle. So for the sake of the build I angle the body & not the neck. this wa I maintain straight grain in the neck, where I want it.

But making a one piece with a neck angle is very very expensive. A billet of timber would need to be sourced that was 14 inch wide, about 4 foot long & 4-4.5 inch thick. all with the grain running is a fairly uniform direction.

The guitar you propose is best tackled as a multi laminate neck thru. Try it as a one piece when you have a bit more experiance. Trust me, a one piece needs to be worked very slowly to prevent the neck from twisting & even at 6 months for an average Black lotus (which is a very simple looking guitar) I will typicaly loose 2 out of every 10.

Sorry if im being a bit vague here as Im a bit fried at the moment. But I do have a build thread for a black lotus on here that you can follow that may help you a little. Although it does not realy go into intimate detail on the process, It still may help

Sorry bout that man was wondering why you suddenly went quiet.

But not to worry, its all good. at least you were only cornered into playing for a halfwit guitar builder. Try being put on the spot with Joe Satriani, thats pressure !!

yea, but what he did do with it was pure unadulterated guitar gorgeousness. Gary was an unreal player who will be greatly missed.

As usual Wes is spot on. the cost does not dictate the quality of the instrument. I have plenty of work come my way month after month from guys with brand new Gibsons or Fenders they paid well over €2000.00 for, all needing fret levelling, dress & setup. & some of them cant be helped even with that work.

I see no reason to up my prices at this point. in fact im in the process of sourcing a cnc machine to allow me to produce standard models at a reduced cost. let the machine knock about %70 of the hours out of the build.

As to the guys who knocked the guitars in-store, 2 of them have been in & ordered guitars.

& lobo (the guy who started this thread) found me in a similar fashion.

Not for a Lotus, couldnt possibly justify it. The most expensive gitir I ever built was €6000.00. & that was one of my ultra custom omega models.

It had a 5 piece multi laminate neck with birds eye maple, ebony pinstriping & a AAA flamed maple scarfed headstock, ebony board with jeweled heather block inlays, flamed maple binding. body was carved front & back from Quilted maple, F holes on the front bound in abalone, red cedar core so chambered the thing had braces like an archtop. trapeze tail piece made of ziricote (only piece i have ever had here) 3 TV Jones humbuckers, a tun-o-matic with piezos, lignum knobs, waverly tuners, a custom fit aluminium flight case. The absolute works. Must have had over 300 hours in it. & even with all that I still did not feel right charging that price.

Well done Paulie......and it sounds like you are being invited to make a little more on your masterpieces. I am envious of those guys that get to test drive your guitars.

SR

Yea. another lotus getting ready to go out the door. I realy like building these things but they so rarly get orderd. biggest issue is the time involved in building one.

I was talking to lobo in the workshop today, checking the neck dims, hardware, weight & balance were OK for him on the Omega he is getting. He was trying to prize a lotus style jem out of me, Im building it for a friend as a gift - so no joy there.

The guys in the store that had a loan of my own guitar said it didnt go down too well with the majority of customers, They said the feedback they got most was that the thing was too cheap to be genuine, that It must have fake duncans & cheap knockoff chinese hardware. So they started asking the test players what they taught it cost before they told them the price & I couldnt believe some of the numbers that were coming up. one guy rekoned it was around €5000.00 second hand (used) & probobly about €8000.00 for a custom comission. He based this on his factory customised PRS costing him €11000.00 *** ??

I realy dont understand these kinds of prices for such simple guitars. Something like an arch top or mykahs sunbeam or dragonfly OK. but a fookin solid body ? for €11000.00