Devon Headen

I set my TOM with about a 1/8" skew between the studs.

Here you go. Try looking for dyed veneer, the ebony veneers are usually macassar and not uniformly black. I'm assuming this is for laminations anyway.

EDIT: Scott beat me to the dyed veneer comment

Well the two closest places to me either sold out very quickly after the lawsuit, or pulled them off the shelves. Apparently you can find them new still.

McFaddens is nitrocellulose spraying lacquer. It's the brand I use.

I use it all the time for marking steel. From my experience with it, I'd never use it as a nut. It's fairly brittle stuff. Give it a go and see what happens with it, though. Nothing to lose now that you have the stuff already.

8mm! Maybe if you plan on shooting some gravel. Don't forget your decimals my friend. That gun should do you fine, but I've seen better guns for less. Look around some places online and see what you can fin at that price.

First off, you can't get a new singlecut anymore. PRS had to stop making them after Gibson sued. Secondly, you're gonna have to be more specific than "Les Paul". What model Les Paul are you looking at?

Unless you're doing production, there's no reason to go powered in my mind. Add a spokeshave in there and you'll shave at least an hour off that time. Maybe some kind of machine cutting would be nice to rough one in, but in my experience, the roughing in doesn't take very long by hand. It's one of my favorite parts of the build, so I'm biased.

I'm diggin it and I don't like wild body styles. Obviously, the finishing isn't too good, but the actual carving looks pretty cool.

Well I get off on little details like that, so there's no question that'd I'd make my own. I can certainly see someone buying them, though, it makes perfect sense to me. I've seen them on ebay before, might want to give that a search.

Matt look at the picture David posted. He just used a little end of one. I made something that looked almost the exact same as that (wooden 12" radius), and the first fret I pushed in busted the center laminate (the part that's radiused) in two. I'm gonna get the brass piece from stewmac in my next order.

I've ordered a lot of wood from many different places. In my experience it doesn't make much of a difference how it's packed. I've gotten loads in nothing but a single wrapping or cardboard that stayed in great shape, and some that were even bubblewrapped. I never noticed any difference once the wood acclimated

Right now I'm playing a Fender DG-20ce. I got very lucky with this one. Found it at a pawn shop in CRAPPY condition. Stuff caked all over it and strings that sounded 3 years old. The action's a little high, but that's the way I need it for my style. Not too hard to remedy if I need to anyway. Something about it had the x factor going on, and I just felt like it would sound good with some new strings, and removing what seemed to be 1/8" of tape residue mixed with beer from the entire soundboard. Plugged in it'll stay with just about any acoustic I've ever heard, except the new Taylors with the Expression pickups. Wound up gettin it for $125, took it home, gave it some TLC. I've never found anything below a grand that can keep up with this thing. Moral of the story is, don't buy a guitar just because it's a model that somebody else likes or just because you like the wood. Buy the specific guitar that you like. That could mean playing a LOT to find that one, but it's worth the hassle.

Oops, I didn't realize it was a neck thru, my bad. I'm glad you're going for new rings, I think you'll be happy about it in the end. I'm with you about humbuckers needing rings. I think it can look alright not to have them sometimes, but I've never looked at a guitar and thought 'those humbucker rings need to go'.

The refret with the fretboard levelling will obviously work, but there's no reason not to try another suggestion first. If you can fix it with less work, there's no reason to do the extra work.

In Siminoff's mandolin construction book, he uses leather dyes. It's a usable idea, but I'd stick to wood dye--it's actually made for wood

Bondo them. I'd go with the two part stuff, it dries in about a half hour, so you can get right on it.

Now what Devon has said (Don't take this as a stab at you okay?) is that he has accepted the outcome as playable because of a fret dressing (and leveling I presume).  But this in the long run will turn on you because if the frets aren't well seated, the will either, buzz, sound dead (internal slot play), shift (seat themselves in time, killing the leveling effort) or simply come loose due to play, humidity changes...etc.

These are the sorts of details I've discovered as I go and still amazed at how many production guitars are not fretted all that well.

PS, I forgot the NUT in my first description. 

←

I've accepted as playable because it is . I see your point, but your first fretjob won't be perfect. If you keep putting off building a neck because you think it won't be good, you'll never build one. So what if it isn't even playable? You WILL learn something in the process and the next one will be better.

Go for it. I made the neck for my first guitar and it turned out perfectly fine. It's not perfect, but a good fret dressing took care of not getting the frets to seat properly.

Most of my issues have been mentioned. The control pad thing just doesn't work for me. I think the carve on the top is too severe for that. The whole body just flows so smoothly, and the there's this thing sticking out. We'll see, at least it's different. The inlay I'd say no way. I'm not a big fan of inlay unless it just works with the guitar. I personally would have passed on the stars on your first design. Side dots tell me everything I need to know, so unless the inlay REALLY works with a design I just don't dig it.

A couple things that haven't been mentioned. I'm worried about your neck pocket, there doesn't appear to be much support. Even if you rout all the way into the neck pickup pocket (not enough heel for that I think) there's still not much gluing surface. I've gotten away with small, but that looks a little too far for me. Also, the pickup rings. I know it's hard to get things like that clean looking, I've tried before. I just wouldn't put them on that instrument. It's frustrating to hear, but I really think something that small could detract big time from the guitar. People pick up on little things and latch onto them sometimes.

Great looking work BTW, can't wait to see this one finished.

I've not done much inlay work with these bits since I got them, but the bits work just dandy. I haven't actually tried any of the spiral bits, I've just used the rasps. There are some TIIIIIIIINY little bits in those sets. I snapped one right out of the package. I'm sure you can find those in Canada, I've seen them from all sorts of places. Most electronics places worth their salt that I've seen have them.

Welcome thegarehanman

I've used those retipped 50 pc sets before. Grizzly sells it for 12.95 I think. That's where I got mine.

I don't think the pearwood is going to be bright. It's light which means low density. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's going to be dense (it's not) or bright sounding. I'd say give it a shot, though.

EDIT, looks like wes already posted the same thing, I just skimmed over the thread

Ditto on the Bigtommyb advice. Drilling out the knob will drill out the knurled portion, and there's a good chance that you won't get a perfect fit.

I've had a similar problem. Try putting some 10s or 11s on there and letting it sit a little while.

EDIT, and the thread mentioned earlier

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...topic=16279&hl=