olyen

If you shorten the top part, you risk having to re-thread/deepen the bolt holes that fasten it to the plate. I'd work on the bottom. Easier to drill a couple of spring holes deeper than it is to re-tap. Also, you want to make sure the plate/block joint remains perfectly stable/square/solid. I wouldn't trust a belt sander to do that.

wow yeah ,I dint think of that ! ,sure it ll be easier to go in the bottom part, according to my measurements I think I can get away with a smaller block just an eight less is all i need ,I think I wont go through to the pickups,hopefully , i ll let you guys know what happened ,thanks for the tips.

Easy enough to shorten, and it doesn't mean you're going to hit the pickup cavity - the Explorer I'm building is a little to thin to fit the springs AND a recessed trem cover, so I've filed the block down a little. Only possible 'problem' is that you're decreasing the length of the lever arm the springs are acting on, ergo more springs may be required/stiffer springs may be needed.

Cool, thank you guys , I think I ll use my belt sander to shorten it ,I saw that i could remove the block unit so maybe sanding the top part instead of the bottom ? thanks for the replies.

Gentlemen ,I am trying to build a strat like guitar with a 1 1/2 inch body blank ,the trem block would stick out according to my measurements, I d like to sand it and make it fit in the cavity, has anybody tried this before ,will I have any major effect on tone? any help with this is highly appreciated.Thank you.

That looks super clean, I love it!

to it for now though,I am just getting used to the way it looks.

ok so I put this one together yesterday,I am quite happy with the way it turned out, so here s some pics;

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS186.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS184.jpg

here s more pics of what I did today,

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS132.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS130.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS129.jpg

IMO a nice gentle amber burst would set off that ebony/inlay :D

thats a great looking neck

thats exactly how i feel about it,I just have done the amber thing so many times that i really wanted different but i also think this piece screams for it,as for the neck ,thanks for the kind words about it ,I think once its ready i t ll look better though ,right now i need to clean it up, and do the fret level and dressing cause i havent yet,i could route the pickups today though,i ll try that tomorrow,PTU 7 i like that purple guitar,i dont think for this one though,maybe on a different one,I am trying to do a turquoise color soon,we ll see.

I like it, dude!

And the guitar it's really sweet with that top.

thanks man,i like it too,and i routed the neck pocket today, i just needto do the pickup cavities wich is going to be tricky with the carved top,but I think I ll use the myka gig to do it, hopefully ill do it right,some pics later today,still would like to hear more opinions about the finish.

this is the third guitar this neck is going to be in,the first one ended up being to short a neck pocket so i made another neck for that one ,then put that neck on my last project that ended up being trashed,cause i didnt like the finish and stripped it and then sanded through and so osn and so on,so here s the project now ,I made this new body and an LP copy, and I am debating wether i enhance the figure with some Dye or leave it natural wich is what i ve been wanting for a while,but the figure is not as strong all the way across the piece so i thougt i might have to disguise that with a sunburst,but then again I could be wrong and it s probably gonna look good in natural,let me know what you guys think,

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS126.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS125.jpg

Its bookmatched... but...

He's either:

Put the "open face" side down (glue line), or removed too much wood from the top.

What Idid isIbought a long board of about aninchand7 wide and justtried to match pieces according to the figure to the best i could ,if anything theycomefrom the same board that swhy the patterns are similar, good eye tough,thanks for the comments Roahds.

I knowI said I was gonna leave it alone,but the whole dayi ve been staining and sanding and staining,this is the result, Isanded the black a little more and played with the yellow and brown, like Maiden said the top is far grom bookmatched, that makes it look a little funny but is what I canafford,anycomments,i ll post more later when i have clear on it.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS095.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS093.jpg

some update,I satained black and sanded back

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS077.jpg

then applied a brown and yellow mix

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS078.jpg

removed the masking from the fingerboard for a preview of how it would look

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS081.jpg

overalli think i am pleased with how it turned out, it s got a little more black than i wanted but I dont think Ican get it any better for now so I amnot gonna touch it, thanks maiden for your help, heres a picture of a bad memory, my 2nd guitar wich no longer exists.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olyen/Picture096.jpg

The top coat will only make it darker. I would just sand the top again and re stain, but that's me! I did what you say on my bass, but the figure was already were I wanted.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v195/Maiden69/DSC02792.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v195/Maiden69/DSC02909.jpg

Yeah Maiden thanks for rubbing it ot my face (that beautiful work of yours) just kidding! ,well I alreadystartedsanding it down to barewood again ,i llpost some pics of the results later

Gentlemen, i am not too happy with the way this guitar top turned out,if you look at the pictures you ll notice acertain kind of i dont know how call it ,blouchiness? ,looks kind of dirty maybe ,the thing is the figure is not really defined, i amthinking that maybe i sould have sanded more the darker dye before applying the second color? but anyway,is there a way to disguise this and make look more even with maybe color coats, i a mthinking a red brownishcolor on top of all this,do you think it ll do the trick ,or am i just hopless and i need to go back and start from the begginning? thank you very much for your time.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS068.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS073.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS072.jpg

Images aren't working. I'd love to see them, fix them fast!!

maan! I accidentally erased my whole album and there went all the pics from this thread,very sorry, I am posting a couple i had in my PC ,it takes sooo long to upload at photobucket I cant do more sorry,but here are some of them.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...UITARS005-1.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS004.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS014.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS011.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS012.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS016.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...UITARS003-1.jpg

ok, here is the DC put together,it gave me a lot of problems to get it to where it is, but i can say that i am more than happy with the result,and of course the things that went wrong will only teach me for the next,hope you guyslike it.http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olyen/OLYENSISGUITARS011.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS016.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS012.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...UITARS003-1.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS017.jpg

for the next one i am gonna try something of my ownl,and hopefully will be nice,of course i am avery conservative when it comes to guitar shapes so probably wont be something extreme, not that its not good ,just not my thing,anyways thanks a lot gents.

Very Nice! How do they play?

ok,again I couldnt wait the 3 weeks,so after about two i had to put it together and here s the result, a couple of messing ups but gladly i was able to disguise and come out with a decent finish that i am pretty happy about,of course it makes me like nothing when i saw this morning what an amazin guitar Godin built ,but hey it all good fun,hope you guys like it and comments are welcome.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS004.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...UITARS005-1.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS007.jpg

link

6 hours left and 11 bids. But take a look at the bid history, this worries me. That guy cohrstrom has 0 feed back and it looks like he kept outbidding himself to make the price go higher Is this guy trying to scam me? Should I be freaking out?

my opinion is you shouldnt,on the last bid it looks like he outbided someone else,and on the previous ones it looks like it would be one of those automatically generated bids that just increase themselves after a certain period of time ,but i could be wrong,and about having no feedback at all ,i wouldnt see it as a bad thing necesarilly, we ve all been there once,like a said before i could be wrong ,and there is a lot of scam in this place too so ,it pays to be cautious.

I have another piece of ebony wich is 0.200 '' thick,i just read in a previous thread that some companies use fingerboards that thin ,anybody here tried that before?I am planing to use this for a bass.any tips would be greatly apprecciated.

Ebony is a tuff wood to dry because it tends to split during drying. That does not look like it is seperating much looks more like a sight fracture(if that pic is pre-repair). Fix it and let it set for a good long while. The wood may still be drying and you will not stop cracks by attaching it to a neck if it is still drying. A Gaboon Ebony fretboard is so dang cheap. I would not even think of using it if you are not positive it is fully dry(and is not going to crack in a year or two). Buying lumber and slabs is a good idea , but you have to be sure it is ready. You also have to be willing to accept some waste it is part of the deal. That is all part of the reason why buying ready to use blanks cost more than billet or slab lumber(loss,seasoning,as well as machining).

Peace,Rich

Man, that makes so much sense ,yeah that pic is before repair, and I dont know man,I think next time i ll buy a already machined blank , I have a light duty planer I just got ,and even with that is so much work to get that piece to where it needs to be that i think it s so much more worth it to buy it ready,unless I find a really cheap supplier for ebony,i ve heard it s kind of scarce right now is it true?

I sort of begs the question "HOW did it get this bad?"

to be honest with you, this is the way it was when i bought it ,i bought a rough piece of lumber from my supplier and this was a part that had all this flaws in it ,i didnt think it was that bad till i got it thicknessed and sloted ,that is when it almost split open in the one side of tha board,i actually glued it back with titebond but like i said i have my doubts about it holding the load and the reason i want to use it is because it s just a nice black piece of ebony and id hate to let it go if there is a way of saving this one ,but then again i would really hate if it s in the finished guitar and then cracks.thanks for you replies ,I think i ll give it a try.

Apply thin CA glue, clamp it, let it sit for some hours, you even notice there was a crack in there

you mean wont even notice? ok ,how about strenght? you think it will hold?

gentlemen.I have a problem with an ebony fingerboard i got for a bass, it has three cracksalong the lenght in it and they re pretty deep,two of them go all the way to the back of the fingerboard,i wanna know if it s possible to use ca glue and dust to fill this and still be able to use it wothout having to worry that it will break sometime when i adjust the truss rod,thanks you for you time.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/olye...SGUITARS003.jpg

man, that is a nice finish,Maiden you keep getting better and better,superbwork man!