82cabby

Thanks for the reply. Should I worry about the filing dust embedding itself in the maple? I can tape off the fretboard between the frets, but not really the side or the neck...

Hi all! I have what I hope is a simple rookie question. I have made a maple neck with a maple fingerboard. I am going to lacquer the whole neck, but I am wondering what tasks I need to do first and what I should leave until the finish is on. Most importantly, what part of the fret shaping, leveling, end dressing, etc should I do before and what part after the lacquer goes on? Thanks in advance for any advice!

Hi all- I am in the process of wiring a tele style guitar with texas specials. It has the typical tele controls. I have the wiring kit and accompanying diagram seen here: StewMacs Tele Wiring Kit The neck pickup has yellow, white and black wires, the bridge has yellow and black. The problem I have is (since the diagram is black and white) I don't know which wires to run to the switch, which to run to the case of the volume pot and what to do with the third wire from the neck! I tried to find a color coded wiring diagram but the search function won't search on the words 'color' or 'code' so I was a little lost on what to search for! Any help would definately be appreciated!

Excellent advive. Thank you!

That's a good idea. It's a moot question now 'cause I asked the wife and she said #3. Happy wife = happy life so number three it is!

So.... one for, one against and one abstains? A three way tie.....

Hi all- I am working on a tele style build and I have gotten to the point where I have to make a decision on the control layout on the body... namely do I want to use the traditional chrome mounting plate or mount the controls through the body. I am frozen by indecision. On the plus side, the chrome plate gives it a traditional tele look and is easier. On the negative side, what's the point of having a figured maple cap if you cover a bunch of it up with a control plate??? So what do you think? A or B A: B: Variation on B: Any thoughts?

Hi all - I have a few rookie questions for you. I am on my 3rd build, a tele-thinline style body with a figured maple cap on a cherry body. I looks like this currently (except it's all apart): My plan is to use a water based dye on the cap (red) and pop out the grain and dye the body either black or very deep red. I guess my questions are: -is it possible to keep the sharp line between the cap and the body? or is the dye going to bleed under any type of masking I do? On the same line, is it possible to dye the neck but not the fingerboard? -Is the dye the first thing to go down no matter what the species of wood is? Or on some species do you seal or fill first then dye? - and, last but not least, is the order: dye -> grain filler -> sealer -> lacquer? and so I need all four? Thanks very much in advance for your advice!

Alright... well... blazing along at the speed of SLOW I have managed to get a few things accomplished in the last few months. Here are a couple shots of the necks sitting in place in their pockets: With that accomplished it was on to shaping the neck profile. I use the slow but sure rasp and sandpaper method, working to match up with profile templates. Here is a shot of the neck underway with high spots marked for removal with the rasp. another shot from further away: Finally with the necks both profiled, I routed for the pick-ups and the f-hole on the practice one. Sorry about the blurry photo. And here it is with the controls mostly in place (no switch yet) and the strings temporarily on it to check for rough fit. Everything lines up pretty well so now to take the whole thing back apart! Maybe I can make some progress before the snow melts....

I did think about it. Turns out it sanded out nicely. Thanks for the nice words!

You've got 1mm between the 12th fret and the string. What measurement do you get if you lay a straight edge down the middle of the frets and check the gap at the 12th? Have you confirmed that the neck is straight? has relief (how much)? has a back bow?

So I got it fixed! I pulled the fret then did the steam trick. That brought it 90% of the way back. I carefully flowed in a little CA in to firm up the wood and...good as new. Well, not quite since I popped a couple of flakes when pulling the fret but. No biggie!

Thanks gang! I will try the steam technique this weekend and report back. There is a SMALL amount of hide glue on the fret tang to fill any gaps, so the steam should help clear that out too.

So.... I was in the process of fretting a new fingerboard on a new neck and I hit the end of a fret a little to hard, or the wood was a little to soft and 'donk' in went the fret. It's not real real 'over driven', but I think it will take a LOT of leveling to bring it into line as is. So my question is, what do I do now? Here's the photo: Any hints?

Here's how I did mine:

So, progress has been slow, what with summer vacations and all.... I did get the neck pockets cut though: Cheers!

Got a little done today... not as much as I had hoped. Necks are ready for truss rods and fretboards I'm using the Allied Lutherie truss rods which really seem well made and fit a 1/4" slot precisely. Why (you might ask yourself) do I have three necks for two guitars? Well, the first one worked great but the router took a serious chunk out of the second one. I glued it back on as best I could but this was the result: Sooo.... I made another one and sure enough, I made the same mistake again. This time though, fortunately it was a much smaller chunk and some creative sanding salvaged it. The two are shown below. Allied instructs you to glue a strip over the truss rod. Here are the pieces ready to go: And here it is with the strip in place drying.

Oh I know, but I really did get the inspiration from yours. I'm thinking that the cap will stay natural and I will try to pick up one of the tones in the leaves for the body color. For the neck, maple with a rosewood finger board.

because we havent seen that before *cough cough* hehe looks good so far Well, technically it's the third one I've seen, and I liked them all. Yours is the only one that carried the inlay across the fretboard though. Ahem, carry on 82cabby, don't mind us, this is going to be great! SR Hey, I never said it was my IDEA...just my work! I'll definately give credit to those that have done this before AND better. Hooglebug, thanks for the inspiration. That is one of the best things about this forum is that the high quality work shown raises everyones level. I could never dream of inlaying all those blossoms though. The leaves were MORE than enough! I'll try to get some progress pics of the necks up after this weekend. Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Hi all- First of all, I have to tell you all what a help it is to have Projectguitar out there as a reference. As a new builder, it's unbelieveable the benefit I get from reading everything everybody has to say! All right, I am off on my third and fourth builds. I am making two at the same time, one as a guinia pig to check all the jigs and such and the other as the 'good' one. The general concept is a tele-thinline style guitar with a more strat type neck. The 'good one' has a maple leaf theme inlay. So far: Good cap ready to bookmatch: The glue up: Body blank for the good one (ash): worked out the layout for the inlay: Drew it in Illustrator and printed it on transparecies: Did the inlay on the 'practice' cap. Didn't like it (the leaves are too small and I didn't do the best job. Guess the practice body will have a plain cap! Tweaked the design. Here are the leaves laid out before inlaying to get the feel for how it will look. Glued the replacement (not inlaid) cap on the practice body. Took a chunk out routing the cap to the body. Any ideas what to do with this? Chip is long gone in a pile of shavings. Inlay done on the good body. Next the necks.

Good point. I forgot about the humidity/water thing. The stereo speaker cabs I've made are A)veneered and sealed B)sitting inside on a shelf. MDF soaks up water like a sponge and is never the same again. Exposure to the elements would be bad.

I can't speak for guitar amp speaker cabinets, but I have built many stereo speaker and sub-woofer cabinets. The material of choice for those is MDF since it is really dense and acoustically pretty neutral. It's heavy as hell though.

Well, I gave filling it a try. I didn't have veneer at had to attach to the back, so I backed all the knots with tape and filled as best I could with Stew-Mac's black epoxy. If it works it's going to take a couple of layers to fill the holes all the way. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for your reply. The wood is definitely stable moisture content wise. I like the idea of using a vacuum to draw epoxy in, I have never heard that before. These are bigger, so I don't think flow will be a problem... I might fill them for structural integrity sake and then try to hide them with an f hole or control plate though, that sound do-able. Thanks for the feedback!

Hi all- So I need to make a front piece for a tele thinline style project. I was out in the wood shop today kinda messing around seeing what I could come up with and spotted a piece of walnut which was destined for the lathe. It had some spalt in the sap wood and seemed like it had possibilites. It was a bit short to do a two piece book match, so I did a four piece, kalidescope style glue up. It looks cool BUT there are two big knots that will have to be dealt with. I think I can get rid of one with a well placed f-hole type opening, But the other..... Is there any way to fill these with epoxy or some such that will end up looking ok? Obviously I can't hide it, but I figured maybe stabalize it some how and still have it look cool. Or do I bag this and move on? Any help is appreciated! Here are the photos: Thanks!