mwcarl

The angle that the strings break over the bridge saddles might also be affecting the playability that you're seeing. With a steeper angle I can imagine that you might experience less buzzing at similar action since the string is being partly 'encouraged' away from the frets. Other than that, I can only imagine the other effects are just ergonomics and how they relate to ones picking hand mechanics.

I agree with Scott, the laminations at the neck heel are distracting. I know how difficult those would be to line up, and the fact that they don't would bug me. Love your explorers.

You had me at curly black limba... I've got to work with black limba sometime, it just looks way too interesting to pass up. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

I've heard a few mentions about the Hipshot headless system, but I can't seem to find any specific information. Any leads RAD (or photos if you already have the hardware)? I assume it's 6-string only.

Love the ziricote top. Always appreciate how you show your process (even if I have to bite my tongue a bit every time you call it the 'heal' instead of 'heel'), you've helped me a lot in my own builds.

In case you weren't thinking about it, the size of the knobs for bass tuners is usually your limiting factor. I'm not sure how close together is acceptable, but for your purposes I'd pick smaller knobs. The Hipshot ultralights have different options, the dimensions page shows the sizes of the knobs. With the smaller ones, it looks like you could do spacing of about 1.4"-1.5".

EDIT: Link to the ultralights dimensions document.

That's some gigantic neck binding.

It does sound like it might still be possible to save that fretboard, but it would depend on how bad the radius errors are. I suppose part of the question will be whether in the process of correcting the radius you sand through your inlays.

I used to have all sorts of problems with radiusing (over-radiusing the edges as you have), but I've learned to go slow and check the radius and level of the board constantly. Without inlays I'd also use a hand plane to speed up the work.

I love watching acoustic builds, eventually I'll give one a go. For your build, that bocote is beautiful, a infinitely nicer than the bocote I've seen before.

Actually I'm pretty sure I know the reason. It's so that when he does builds with a slanted neck single coil, the neck pocket is the same. I think I remember seeing that in one of his builds.

The stain and finish looks amazing. Very clean work all around. If I'm being really picky I'd say that the top join is a bit too obvious.

Is that fretboard Cocobolo? I love the grain, it's probably my favourite wood when it's close to straight grained. I also say go with the F-hole, your design looks good.

I'm not crazy about Les Paul copies, especially painted ones and bullseye at that, but that fretboard looks fantastic. Your work always looks great.

Well I'll be. I didn't know there were flush mount strap buttons for those, and I just bought a bunch of the regular ones from StewMac to install as flush mount. I guess I'll just have to deal with it. Looking good RAD, you're really cranking these out this year.

I like the cocobolo top, I'd love to get my hands on one to work with one of these days. That fretboard however is hideous to me.

Thanks Prostheta, I missed that when I was reading the original post. Looks great, and I like the concept. The body shape really matches well with the bridge.

Am I right in noticing that it doesn't have a nut?

Looks fantastic. The finish looks really nice, and I like the design (although the butterfly seems a tad out of place for me). Great looking inlay, I love the soundholes and the somewhat understated one piece top. I wish my second was anywhere as nice as that, maybe at number 6 or so...

Looks great, as much as I hate Fender-like headstocks. Do you think the binding is going to look a bit weird when cut out for the nut slot?

That burst looks fantastic. Not sure I like the red for the back and neck though, but I'd have to see it alongside the bursted front.

Full back:

Control cavity cover (yes I know there are some that think using wood is overkill):

More flame/quilt on back:

Full front:

Angled front:

Full back:

Didn't post any other progress photos since there didn't seem to be much interest, but it's all done now and plays great. Finished in two months, which is much better than my last one and a lot fewer mistakes. May inlay the headstock at some point, but the weather means I won't be doing that until at least next year.

Body:

Headstock:

Full guitar:

Flame on the horns:

Controls and bridge:

Neck heel and back flame/quilt:

That spalted beech looks nice, but I'm disappointed about the wenge stripe. I may be biased though since I don't really like the look of wenge.

Looks great, it's probably really light too. You really went all out.

That's a fantastic looking top. I have to agree with one of the above posters, I don't like the truss rod cover that much. Too angular maybe or something.

The neck angle adjustment idea is really neat. Do you feel you've lost any sustain by having it adjustable? The body shape reminds me of a Godin.