Reinhold

I went to a place for CAD training recently that resold 3D printers and their largest machine that could print about 20" by 20" was 15-20 thousand dollars if I remember correctly. Don't think the market is cheap enough quite yet on the larger machines.

Now that is an interesting idea. Something like that may be better if it can work with what I'm planning. I may have to end up just buying a premade neck (probably warmoth unless someone else can do one for a comparable price) for time's sake since I'm hoping to get this done before summer is over and I don't have access to tools all of the time (I used a friends shop for my first build, still never put pics of that one up, I'll have to do it sometime). If I can get some time in his shop this seems like the most attractive route at this moment and if I can't maybe I can machine a block that a bolt on neck will attach to and the body could attach to that in this fashion. Thanks a lot.

The aluminum like that would probably make it lighter than a normal les paul. I was originally going to weld blocks of aluminum in there to mount the pickups but now I might just them leave hollow there. I feel like I should still put one under the bridge because I'm unsure of how I would be able to mount the tune-o-matic studs without it.

It won't be solid, I'm going to do a semi-hollow out of aluminum and just weld it on my welding robot there or have one of my co-workers do it for me. I know I need to rework the neck joint but since I didn't have a neck to measure I just sketched a pocket to get something there. I'm thinking of making the guitar tree/nature themed so I designed the f-holes to what I thought gave a leafy feel.

I decided that I'm going to build an aluminium guitar now that we have a new laser cutter at work that would be able to cut out everything I need without taking away too much time from making product. Since I don't own an LP style guitar I'm pretty sure I'm going that direction with this one, but a semi-hollow doublecut would be another option. Didn't have time to do a model of that yet but here's one I did of the LP style while I was taking a Solidworks class this week. Let me know what you think so far and any suggestions you have. The dimensions on the P90's might be a bit off because I'm not sure of how accurate the dimensions on the drawing I found were, they look a little fat to me here. Do they look right to you and does anyone have dimensions on a dogear set that I could use to redo them?

I think because of some spam problems they needed to make it so that you needed be an established forum member with more than a couple posts to do PM's.

Looking forward to a really rustic acoustic. Nice grab.

I'd agree with a bass vi, I just planned one out (sort of fender jaguar meets a melted P bass) that would look fantastic with that wood. A piece like that screams offset guitar to me for some reason.

I think they may have just invented a type of wood again, here they say that the fingerboard is just "obeche", then they also say that it's a dark wood that's an alternative to ebony.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/gibson-limited-run-sg-gothic-morte-electric-guitar

Not that it's economically feasible for most people, I use Autocad to do the initial 2D sketches and mockups of guitars then make them in 3D with Solidworks once I have all of the parts and can measure them and recreate them exactly. Then I know exactly how all of the parts will fit and can get templates lasered out easily at work.

When I chipped the back of my strat, I just went to the autoparts store and bought some car touch up paint, one of the really small ones with a brush in the cap. It took like, 20 really thin layers to get it thick enough but it worked well enough for my purpose of sealing the wood.

The neck was so thick that I was able to plane it down and the blemish on the side is now gone. I'm considering a few different ways to handle the headstock, one of which is reshaping it to a more unique take on the Fender headstock like this:

I kinda like that headstock better than the fender one, it makes it more your own.

Here's the Schaller product page on it.

http://guitar-tremolo.com/hp135038/Artikel-Liste.htm

It looks like he's using the speedloader thingers from EMG

yeah that's what I thought but will there be enough travel on the fine tuners to tune it properly?

I don't know how this system is supposed to work - (but as to your post before you edited it (I caught it lol!) there doesn't look like there's room on the h/s for tuners)

With the Speedloader, you set the tuning range with an allen wrench in a bolt under each saddle, then you just do minor adjustments from there with the fine tuners, you set it up just like a normal floyd despite that and the double-bulleted strings.

Ok, so last weekend we managed to route out all but the back control cavity on the body, so here's the body and a mockup of the whole thing.

I'm actually really diggin' it. It's giving off some really nice mojo.

Doesn't the EMG PA 2 have to be wired into both at the same time? Because I thought based on EMG's wiring diagrams that you had to put it right before the output jack in the circuit.

Well, time for a long overdue update. Progress has been slow, but I've gotten a lot done since the last update. The neck now only needs frets and side dots. It has been bolted to the body, so now I can figure out where to place the floyd.

Here's the headstock cut out with my initials.

Here's the clamping of the fretboard

And here's the nut attached

I don't have any shots of the fretboard trimmed or the way I did the neck bolts, but I'll try to get some soon when I route the body out.

I just drew my own templates based off of the dimensions on the Floyd Rose site.

What scale length is it, because we can't do anything without that.

I think the dragon is a little much, but on a different guitar would be awesome.

Im on that step in my own first build and I plan to bandsaw it close, then use the spindle sander to get it perfectly even.

This just keeps getting better and better!

Nice one! Is it going to be the same as the one you entered in GOTM? That was really sweet looking.

I use steel also, it's pretty sweet.