Johnny Foreigner

bloody hell. I find it hard enough not making catastrophic, project-killing mistakes when I'm using templates. Freehand would be a nightmare.

+1 on better pictures

Seems like I didn't get much done this weekend, but that's because I spent a lot of time working on the carve, which now looks like this:

still a couple of rough spots to even out, but it's 90% there, I think.

to give myself a break from working on that, I thinned down a leftover piece of maple with the safe-t-planer to use as a veneer for the headstock:

and an even thinner piece to use as a TR cover:

See what Project Guitar does to the unwary?

They've got me fixing things I didn't even consider to be broke!

You're welcome!

This belongs to my son, who decided some years ago to paint a Union Jack on the front!

well done that man. You should be very proud of him.

It took me some time to strip all of the paint off, down to the bare wood.

WHAT? sigh.

The bit I use is from RouterBits.com (Whiteside) and I've never seen another like it anywhere else.

Chris

Would that be their part number 2580??

http://www.routerbits.com/cgi-routerbits/s...028885_29226+38

s'actually pretty cheap compared to the $100 equivalent on the Swedish site.

sounds like a plan. i was planning on buying some micromesh anyways, but I was really hoping it lasted at least five eighths of the way to forever....

I was basing the 1200 grit on stewmac instructions. probably foolhardy.

i'll give it a try with finer grits and micromesh and see where that gets me.

thanks all

dude.

put a shirt on!

scott,

yeah, that pretty much answers it. man those compounds are expensive! ah well, suck it up.

just to price up some upcoming costs. I'm going to be using the stewmac waterbased lacquer on a couple guitars, and i'm assessing buffing / polishing options.

the stewmac route would suggest the foam drill pads at $14 each and polishing compound at $20 per grade.

Part of me thinks I could sand to 1200-grit and hand buff with just the fine grade compound.

The other part of me thinks i need to buy a couple of the drill pads and at least the medium and fine grades.

how realistic is hand buffing? are there better or cheaper alternatives on the compound front?

You don't really buy into that whole 'less is more' ethos, do you?

I ordered mine from Speedy Metals - good prices and quick delivery.

Its this one

http://www.amazon.com/Skil-1825-2-Inch-Hyb...IN%3DB0000C6DY0

same as mine. exactly the same.

maybe your aluminum is too thin. Mine is 1/8" and seems fine.

I built one just like Metalheads, in fact I pretty much copied it because it looked very good and simple. The aluminum I used may be too thin, but Im pretty sure mine bends in the middle, making it kinda useless

or your router is too fat.

the 1st fret doesn't need to be taller than the 2nd fret, so why would the 0 need to be taller than the 1st?

if you imagine that all you're doing is the same as putting a capo behind any other fret. If you put a capo on the fifth fret, the string isn't fouled by the 6th.

anyone had any experience with adding graphics to plastic (a la EMG) pickup covers?

I'm planning a build based on a picture of a friend's face (we share a weird sense of humor) and I would like for the pup not to obscure the picture, but for the picture to continue over the pup. Potentially also over the end of the fretboard, but that might be ambitious.

any experiences?

my fear is that the aluminum would be too flexible causing the router to dip in towards the middle of the blank.

no, the aluminum is actually very stiff and unyielding.

one of the cleaners at my school when i was a kid had a full on tache stubble - like she clearly had to get the gillette out each morning and take off the growth.

FYI, I copied this design:

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...st&p=379441

but now I'm looking at it again, I'm think I probably need to use a thicker base and find some way to make the slidy bits slide smoother...

can i ask what went wrong with your sled? i have been thinking of building one.

almost certainly my own failings in constructing it, but I find it impossible to move the router with any fluidity - I can either move it forward/backward (so the sled moves along the rails) or side to side (router moves along the sled) but never both at the same time.

I also find it very difficult - and again this is probably user error - to get all four corners of the rails the exact same height so that the router gets a uniform thickness on the work piece.

i'm in the same position as you.

I tried building a router sled assembly using aluminum L bars and found it next to useless.

I'd say safe-t-planer all the way. For thicknessing it's really quick - you just have to take shallow passes, and clamp a flat piece of MDF or similar to your drill press to make a bigger table.

okay, makes perfect sense.

thank you!

btw instead of 25k using a 250k you will get more output thats about it. it changes the output impedance tries to make it look more like a passive system.

okay, to clarify, I'm going to have two humbuckers on 500k pots.

then i'm also going to have a piezo pickup, run through the preamp ripped out of one of these:

the preamp already has a volume control, but it's going to be tucked away in the control cavity. I want a pot after the preamp that is accessible. and obviously i want the output of the piezo to be comparable to the mag pups.

maybe I will use them to hold the car up next time I change the break pads... seems like a good use for a tele.

You relic people are plain weird.

Thanks guys - yes, I meant the plastic binding nibs. The blocks make sense.

Is this the scraper you meant? And would I use it first before the blocks?

http://www.stewmac.com/shopby/item/0654

(and thanks also for the heads-up on that less expensive fret tang tool too)

that's the type (you can find them cheaper than stewmac tho) and they're good for take fractions of a mm off binding.

On reflection I'd probs go with the blocks first and then if you really needed it you could use a scraper for final leveling.