idmicheal

Do you go on to use rasps after the gouges, or do you try to sand it out? How light is that cedar?

Zebra pickups were a good choice. Too many people hate on Zebra and I can't figure out why.

Awesome. I need to add a lapsteel to a list of things to build. I just need to get over my fear of getting my finger stuck in the slide and having to amputate it... but maybe that's just me... What woods? How does it sound?

The bottom right isn't bad, but IMO you should do the traditional f-hole. I think if you took the top left design and slimmed it down some (unless you plan on binding it) it would look good. I think right now it looks to "gapey", if that makes sense.

It's always scary drilling the hole for the pickup wires to get into the control cavity. I've done it on an old Kramer that I put a neck pup in. I missed the bridge pickup cavity with the drill bit and ended up coming out into the spot where the tremolo springs are anchored, so I fed the wires through the hole the ground wire goes through *act casual* Looking good. I was wondering if you were planning on leaving it with just one pickup, which is pretty atypical for a PRS, but it could be cool

Your inlay cavities look great. WAAAAYYYY better than mine. I need to remember to do that primer thing. Your fretwire is huge! Or maybe it's just the picture, I don't know. But those frets look massive!

Don't you just hate that? "Work" totally kills my groove. Like today, I was in the zone and then *brakes screeching to a halt* it was time to go to work. *sigh* I love your carving stuff. Carving is very enjoyable to me. It is the closest thing in lutherie to drawing IMO, which I quite enjoy. I love feeling something just shape up right under your hands.

Nope, this was my first time going down there, but I'd really like to do a float or kayak.

Wow, I don't know how I overlooked this thread for so long! That is one sexy goldtop Don't have much to say, other than I love your builds. Your cherry blossom is one of the things that inspired me to get into lutherie! And update soon!

Thanks! And to make the tedium of cutting the inlays worse than it could've been, I didn't think to cut out the middles of the numerals before cutting them from the larger piece, so I had to hold down these tiny little pieces while I sawed out the holes. I don't think I had any inlays break while doing it though. I'm really pleased with the result and got a lot of confidence from it.

We ended our hike at the Mulberry. After miles of hiking there's nothing as good as diving into cold blue water. We swam across the river and did some diving. It was like heaven on earth! We also did some swimming in the Little Mulberry, but it was a lot colder.

Yeah, after about six hours of cutting inlays I called it quits. My shoulders are still tight from being hunkered down really close to the pearl. Yep. I had to. If I don't get out of the city frequently I start to go a little crazy and scare the neighbors. We were in the Nothern part of the Ozark national forest. It was like 75 F the whole time with no rain, but the water was cold and refreshing. Made for a great 28-mile hike I'd go back again right now.

But I re-cut some pieces and I think I fixed it pretty well. Fretboard gluing to the neck. Last time I glued a fretboard I had some slippage problems, so this time I put some staples in the neck and clipped them off, so they'd dig into the fretboard and old it in place. Polished all shiny-like

I didn't rout the inlay cavities as deep as I should've, so when I radiused the fingerboard I ended up losing a bit of V and III.

Headstock routed for binding and inlayed. And then I started inlaying the fretboard. I decided to go with stylized roman numerals, which I'd originally wanted to do on my first build but got intimidated. It's pretty tedious, but well worth the work.

But they take FOREVER to glue on, because they're too stiff to use tape, so I have to clamp each stop individually, and then wait for it to set and move on. Then I put a 1/8" taper on the headstock (which entailed cutting up my thumb)and blended it into the neck. Gluing headstock veneers and my brand-spankin'-new headstock template

Well I had a slow couple of weeks. I had to do some backpacking down in Arkansas And I took a nice piece out of my thumb with my Safe-T-Planer *oh the irony*. I guess no tool is safe if you get careless Here's the body side of my dovetail jig. I sacrificed one of my clamping cauls for the jig because they're so easy to make and I needed one in a hurry. When I was doing my test runs with the jig I noticed that the center of the mortise was a touch off of the centerline of the jig, so I compensated for it when I made rout in the body. But of course once I had a look at the body mortise it was off center. So if I hadn't tried to compensate the jig it would've been fine. So to then fix that I put another laminate on one side of the neck, which was nice because I was cutting it really close to the finished width. I decided to go with a plain maple binding (thanks avengers) so I had to steam bend them.

That's a lot of clamps. It's beautiful

It looks great! I'm actually pretty fond of the colors; the black hardware really works. I love mandolin shapes! I really want to do a guitar like that with a fully arched top! Well done

Thanks guys, I appreciate the advice. Yeah, I think I'll go ahead with the neck. I can always make him another perfect one later

And here is it! I'm really liking this guitar. The body is super-light, and incredibly loud and resonant I'm getting more and more bummed that it is going to be left-handed The neck, however, is not going so well. I made up a routing fixture for my neck, to use with a dovetail bit and bearing, and I started the cut, and when I was almost done, the bearing started to vibrate and slide up the shaft and I didn't catch it before it had gone up above the template and cut too deep. So I was just going to live with this; maybe try to fill it or something. But then this happened: I had a fence clamped to my routing table to route the truss rod channel, but it was an awkward situation and I wasn't able to get as many clamps on it as I would've liked. When the router turned on and I started making the cut, the vibration started to slide my fence. *facepalm* I haven't decided if I want to scrap the neck or stick with it. If I was making it for myself I would just live with the mistakes and the knowledge gained, but since I'm doing it as a surprise for my Dad (he knows I'm making it, so he's down in my shop with me all the time and he know that this happened, he just doesn't know it's for him) and I would really like it to be perfect. I would feel kinda cheap if I keep it, like I'm sloughing off a scrap neck because I know that he won't say anything about it. I know that it's salvageable and still structurally sound, but it irks me. Anybody willing to weigh in would be appreciated!

So I took the sides out of the form to glue the linings, and it was a bit of a squeeze getting them back in. The place where the bend was the most severe started to split out a bit, but I put some glue in the split and it glued back up nicely, and I'm sure it will hold fine. Gluing the back on. Last look inside before it's closed up! I did two coats of shellac inside, just so it has some protection against rapid moisture change. I did the same on the top. This shows the color of the walnut better, but still not like in person. And the top gluing up with cauls.

I second that. I have a standing press, but I just decided I need a machining vice. I was talking to my neighbor the other day, and he mentioned something about having a machining vice and needing to clean out his shop... Hm... I love the headstock too! It is a great mix between traditional and kinda shredder I love the fact that you do that volute by hand. There is just something about when people do such perfect work by hand that really gets me. I hope I'm that good someday

Thanks Scott!

Lacquer. I've been waiting for the weather to get warm so I can practice spraying it though! I've never sprayed a finish before Thanks! The walnut back is really beautiful in person, and I'm sure it will really pop once it's finished. I'm really pleased with how this one is turning out, but I'm making it for my dad who's left-handed, so I'm kinda sad that I'll never be able to play it