The Fool Guy

Are the lengths of the wires the same? If not I'd bet the one with the longer wire is the neck pickup...

Found a little time this afternoon so moved on to shaping the belly and forearm contours.

The carves are quite subtle at the moment, I might take a bit more off as this body is pretty heavy and I only have the control cavity to go in terms of weight reduction.

Another job I've been avoiding is the other side of the neck so on with the carve...

I'd already roughed in the profile at the first and 12th frets. I used a spokeshave for the majority of the work, then moved on to files as it got closer to the correct profile, followed by 'shoeshine' sanding.

Forgot to take pictures before I started...

Done... for now. Really pleased with the end result. Also one of the most enjoyable tasks so far. Still needs a bit more work but will wait until the neck can be bolted on so I can get a feel for the shape as it is now.

Meanwhile, the postman's been. Decided this would get new pickups after all, an excuse to try out some other IronGear pickups more than any thing else. The old Epi ones can go on a crappy guitar I'm planning to do up. Also got some locking tuners.

New drill press should arrive at some time this week so can get back to the body next weekend.

With regards to removing the material for the nut slot a 3mm chisel followed by a file is probably your best bet.

Can’t do too much more on the body until I get a new drill press (don’t trust myself to drill straight without one) so attention has turned again to the neck. I’ve kind of been putting off fretting the neck, not sure why really, but anyway the time has come.

First few frets in...

Trimmed...

Bevel time...

Done. Very pleased with the end result.

That went very smoothly, no glue just hammered in. I did slip with the bevel file and scratched the tops of a few frets but not badly and it should be fine after levelling.

On to carving the neck now. Roughed out the shape at the first fret and started on the 12th

That's all folks!

Oops. Double Post

After delays due to broken tools my good lady wife bought me this for a Valentines/Early Birthday present . Just need a new drill press now...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bosch-POF-1400-ACE-Router/dp/B001E4EJ6M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=diy&qid=1298888429&sr=1-1

Managed to find a couple of hours on Sunday to get a bit more done. Routed the pickup cavities (still need to lower the side portions to accommodate the screws) and the tremolo cavity.

Quick mock-up

I can’t decide whether to dye it (was originally planning on blue) or just leave it natural :-\

That looks awesome! Love the wire inlay idea, might have to steal that one day

Well I've got 25 years on him and I only hope I can play that good one day...

That´s really cool, Brian! Although I don´t have either of those...I might think of an Android phone in the short-to-mid future, though...

I've visited the site from my android phone and it appears to work fine as is (although I don't know if i can post on here, I'll have a look at lunchtime)

Edit - yeah, I can

Got the body roughed out and routed

Just as I finished the pickup wire channel my router crapped out on me for the second time. So drill press and router gone within a couple of hours :D

OK back to my trusty bandsaw, which has never shown any signs of crapping out on me (touch wood)...

Got the top rough cut...

and the neck roughed out...

Time for my first attempt at gluing a top.

Clamp time...

And about 24 hours later

Problems. There's a few gaps around the edge... :'(

So, what's the best way to deal with this? Can i just run more glue in and re-clamp? Advice would be very much appreciated here...

Looks great so far, what bridge and pickups do you have in mind?

The bridge will be a standard tremolo, looks the same as the one on the bottom of the page on the link below...

http://www.axetec.co.uk/axetec%20guitar%20parts%20spares%20pickups_042.htm

I haven’t yet made my mind up about pickups. I’m upgrading the pickups on my Epiphone LP with IronGear Hot Slags so I was going to use the old pickups from my Epi on this as it is meant to be a (fairly) cheap practice build, but I’m tempted to put some IronGear Rolling Mills in it (just an excuse to try them out really)

Been a bit slack with updating this over the Christmas break so here's where I'm at now...

Got the inlays in and fretboard radiused

I did manage to snap one of the inlays but glued it in anyway, it doesn't look too bad

Fretboard sanded to 1200, shiny...

Got the headstock cut out. I did try playing around with different designs but as I have the artistic skill of a 4-year-old they all looked pretty crap so I went with a standard Strat headstock in the end. It still needs a bit of tidying up and a mm or 2 taken off the thickness.

Complete neck

I've gone for a slightly rounder end to the fretboard than a standard strat, still very rough

Next up for the neck will be to recut the fretslots and fret it, then onto the carve, should be interesting :-\

My router packed up on me just before Christmas, but as Santa had already maxed his credit card there was no new router under the tree this Christmas , maybe next year.

After a quick read on the interwebs I discovered it could just be the brushes...

It was. So about £5 and a few minutes cursing over some fiddly router innards and we're sorted.

Got the body rounded over and the neck pocket cut out. Hey, this is actually starting to look like a guitar

I used the "put neck in place and use straight pieces of wood to act as a template" method of cutting the neck pocket. I put tape along the edges to make the pocket very slightly smaller but the router bit chewed them up. Neck pocket isn't as tight as I'd have liked, but it's certainly no worse than my Squier strat.

Next up will be to nail on the neck and start on the tremelo and pickup routs.

Yes, I'm starting another one... no, I haven't made any progress on the others yet, but this should be a quick(ish) one as it's just the body.

Been upgrading an old squire strat recently and it's time for a new body. I stripped the original one years ago as I wanted a 'natural' look. Turned out to be plywood and a bit bruised.

Walnut blank thicknessed.

Now it's only a body so what could possibly go wrong with this?

Where shall I start...

Excuses first, having braved the cold and a touch of flu, I guess my mind wasn't quite as sharp as it could have been.

First mistake, having just rough cut the horns, concentration lapse No. 1, touched the horn against the (still spinning) bandsaw blade cutting a nice line about 2mm into the lower horn. OK, not a major problem as I hadn't cut the back end out yet so let's just shift the template down a few mm, redraw the outline inside of my little error, and problem sloved.

Should I rub out the previous line so I don't confuse which one I'm cutting to? No, haven't got an eraser unless I go back in the house, and I'm not going to make a mistake as stupid as that...

...concentration lapse No. 2. Yeah, I cut to the inside line

Oh well, worse things happen, I'll just have a strat a few mm shorter than usual, won't be noticable.

This will though...

Oh yeah, I forgot about that huge gash in the body blank :'(. The walnut had a slight crack at one end and I positioned the template appropiately to get around this, unfortunately I didn't think to check where it was in relation to the gash. There's still about a mm to take off, so I guess I'm just going to have to wait until it's routed and rounded over to see the full extent of my stupidity, I might just get away with it

So there you have it, a foolish afternoon out in the freezing cold fighting flu and stupidity and losing on both counts...

Life goes on...

Got the neck cut out this weekend.

There was a gap in the fretboard join (not enough clamps) about a cm away from where the edge of the fretboard would be...

Got the neck cut out...

Result!!

The gap was just on the very edge of the blank and once the neck was cut out the join was perfect. Finally something goes right!

Will still add a lot more clamps next time.

Been off work with the lurgy for a couple of days so decided to get started on the inlays rather than sitting around feeling sorry for myself.

So... a few hours and about 20 blades later...

They still need a bit of a tidy up, they're not identical but as they're flames it doesn't really matter...

Hoping to get the board routed and these things in this weekend, also need to cut out the headstock and start sizing up the neck profile

Wow! What a month. Some truely outstanding guitars, it must be Christmas!

Sergiokuns - For a first build that is great! Hope my first is anywhere near as good

MKM - Nice idea of the interchangeable bridge and adjustable neck angle

Hufschmid - Another great build. Personally not a fan of 7 & 8 string guitars (I have a hard enought time playing 6!)

SwedishLuthier - Cool. Particulary like the inlay idea.

NotYou - Love seeing your 'apocalypse' builds. Not really my cup of tea though.

Maikkeli - This 'almost' got my vote (were it not for a later entry). Very clean

Quarter - Really nice.

Menapia - Love the artwork, don't like the fretboard extension tho

Metalhead 28 - Really like this apart from the cavity covers (tremelo in particular breaks the flow of the grain on the back).

3DogNate - Nice, but think a dark fretboard would look better.

Stereordinary - This is really cool, don't really like the headstock shape

ScatterLee - Just WOW! Got my vote.

Ok, so having barely got my fingers wet in my first build, I'm getting started on No 2 (and shortly No 3, with maybe a 2.5 in there somewhere). There's been so many fantastic Tele builds on here lately (GuitarNuts purple tele and Drak's Rising Sun very nearly made me jizz my pants) so I thought I'd better redress the balance <img src="http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

Wood and things...

It will be a mahogany body with quilted maple cap. Haven't yet decided if it will have a contol panel or just knobs mounted through the top.

I'm using the neck I made a mess of in my first build. Can just about squeeze another one on that blank. Ignore the PRS template.

I'll be using one of these tops, haven't decided which yet...

Pickups & things...

It's going to be a slow build, as it's winter and I don't have lights/heat in my garage

Neck: Truss rod channel

Another cock-up ...

Fretboard slotted...

and glued (yes, I know, more clamps needed)

That's it so far, apologies for the brief run through, willl keep this thread up to date from now on...

This is my first build. Mainly a practice run, done cheaply (if there is such a thing with guitar building). I've had a thread running on the UK Guitar Builders Forum, (http://simnettguitars.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2034.0) but thought I'd add it here too.

A quick summary of where I'm at so far...

Body Blank, complete with huge knot...

Planing Jig - copied from someone here on PG but I can't find the post now, so sorry for not giving you credit...

After planing...

Body rough cut...

Routed...

Cock-ups...

That's about as far as I've got with the body...

If you're not on there already, there is also the UK Guitar Builders Forum (http://simnettguitars.co.uk/forum/index.php)

As for building guitars get to your local library and see if they have Melvyn Hiscox's book (generally considered the bible of guitar building)

Whichever colour you go for that is going to be one very sexy guitar

Has anyone used an oil stone to level frets? Also, which one would you suggest? I've found some hits on a web search but not a lot of detail. They can be a lot cheaper than Stew-Mac's bar.

As long as it's good quality then it should be fine.

I currently use this:

http://www.toolnut.co.uk/products/sharpeni..._and_1000G.html

They also do a 1000/6000 grit version but 1000 grit seems fine enough to me (you're gonna re-crown them anyway so they don't need to be super smooth). I tend to mainly use the 1000 grit side as I'm paranoid of removing too much.

Jesus!

Who was that in the video? Serious skills (or very patient recording 50 takes of each shot )

Didn't actually listen to the song as I'm supposed to be working...

^

Good advice. When I got interested in making/repairing guitars, I put an add in the local classifieds asking if anyone had any broken guitars they wanted to get rid of. Had a couple of reply's, and one guy gave me three guitars. There wasn't a lot wrong with them except that the electrics didn't work and a few other minor issues. One I'm going to completely f**k around with (refinish/refret/rewire etc, maybe thickness it and give it a nice top), and the other two i'm fixing and will sell to help fund this rather expensive hobby of ours.

That looks fantastic. Colour reminds me of a conker... a very shiny conker