demonx

Never been lent out yet, although her brother wants me to help build his deck later this year. I'm hoping today to get the flake and clear onto the body so I can deliver it to Bruce over the weekend so he can work his mojo with the airbrush. Bruce is local here, was my airbrush instructor when I did a single term at airbrush night school but I had to drop out due to not enough time and too many commitments. When I was freed up enough to re enroll the school had closed down which really sucked. Anyway, Bruce has airbrushed cars that have been featured on magazine front covers and has also done paint/airbrush instructionals for magazines as well, so i know itll be in good hands and will turn out way better than if I attempted it - which I originally was going to do till I came to my senses!

Love the black limba, I wish I knew where the he'll I could buy that stuff from. I really like the carve of your heel, but where ghat little bit doesn't line up keeps catching my eye. Your original one looks quite tasteful also. Very nice selection of timbers

And several coats of Violet Candy:

Primer is all done and sanded, so is the first base coat, metallic silver:

A couple of small updates on this beast: The Bareknuckle painkiller was too much of a pickup to be hardwired. Came out a bit boomy and overdriven, needed something to take the load. Usually with a put or stitch attached it's enough to solve this but the customer wanted none, so I attached a 470k resistor with some aligator clips. Seems to be enough to solve the problem. Will wire it in later. The other problem is the nut, the roller nut I originally planned on using was useless with the thick guage strings the customer wanted, so I replaced it with a lock nut I had laying around (as seen in pics) however I'm not happy with the lock nut as it has no radius, so I've ordered a higher quality lock nut, should be here in a week. Only then will I be able to finish setting up this machine. As it is the thing feels great to play and alraedy plays better than a off the shelf guitar, so once I get a better lock nut it will be unstoppable!

I forgot to talk about hardware and color specs... I went bolt on so it was easy for me to knock up a body and get it ready for the paint outsourcing, then I can work on the neck while the body is away. The paint will be a new process for me as I've never sprayed flake this big - 1550 micron!! PAINT PROCESS: Grain Sanding Sealer - sand to 320 Primer - sand to 600 Fine Metallic silver basecoat Violet candy Clear coat Shimmering silver flake dry sprayed into the wet clear coat Clear clear and more clear Let it dry, sand the clear to 1000 and then base coat the front of the guitar black ready for the airbrush artist. HARDWARE: Melissa doesnt even play guitar, so this is more of a "wall hanger" than a purpose built machine, so I'm trying to use some of the parts I have laying around. Chrome gotoh tuners - laying around from a previous build I screwed up and parted out. Chrome pickup ring - had to buy Chrome Hipshot baby grand bridge - had to buy, but she recently pointed one out and said it looked cool, I was going to use a TOM I had laying about. EMG Select pickups - laying around and I'll never use it.

This build is a bit different for me in many ways. First of all it's a Tele, I normally make agressive shapes. But this ones different in another way too. I started the build last week with a deadline of end April. It's a secret build, a gift, in saying this I'm lucky my other half Melissa doesn't read my threads as it is to be her birthday present. The guitar will be named "Helen". Helen is Melissa's mother who we lost just over a year ago due to a long vicious struggle with cancer. At the funeral they had a butterfy release, turning a miserable time into a beautiful thing. Ever since that day butterflies have had a symbolic and happy meaning to Melissa and other members of her family. This will be the first guitar where I've out sourced the paint. I'm sealing it myself, priming, spraying the base, candies and flake etc, then taking it to a friend of mine who has much more paint skill than I for the airbrishing, then when he returns it I'll finish the clears cut and polish. This photo was taken at the funeral. I know this sounds morbid, but Melissa has a print of this pic at her work startion in her shop, so I know it holds a significant emotional meaning to her. This will be the theme for the build and the front gfx of the guitar: Victorian Ash body - timber wasn't quite wide enough so I added a strip of Mahogany through the center. Huon, Indian Rosewood and Mahoganyfive piece bolt on neck Ebony Board with Pearl inlay Sassafrass headstock Maple leaf inlays: Trying out a new sealer:

You need to find someone with a drum sander for the top. They are basically a thicknesser but has sandpaper, it's the only way to do figured timber. I wish I had one myself. When I need to use one I throw a few bucks at a local luthier and borrow his but I have a feeling that arrangement is won't last forever

Thanks mate. Means a lot since I know you know your **** and have some pretty nice guitars in your collection. Coming from your/our background you should understand the inspiration in most of my builds!

You'll get varied answers based on opinion: My opinion is - no difference

My advice is to spend double whatever your budget is. When I bought mine I set a budget of four hundred, all the real nice ones were above six or seven, I found a big powerful one at a shop that sells mostly Chinese stuff, it was in my budget, looked good so I jumped on it. It's ****. Drill always gets stuck in the wood and jams up. I wish I had have saved up for another month to get one of the dearer ones.

Also, you wanted to discuss headstock angles. I use 12 degrees on all guitars. Why? I learned all the angles of neckbuilding from Neal Moser who uses the old school Mexican method of building. His headstock angles are measured in a drop from a distance and not an angle, to start with I followed it blindly until I wanted to know why certain decisions were made. So after I worked out that this drop was 12 degrees, I then went and did a lot of reading as to how different angles effect string tension and the results, I measured my favorite guitars and they were all twelve degrees and twelve by the data I read on the net just seemed like the perfect average to cover all bases and not run into any trouble.

Sounds like good news for me!

If I was to attempt flat black I'd spray exactly the same as I normally do except I'd add about 25%-50% matting agent into the clear. I usually don't wet sand past 3000 but in this case I'd sand to 4000 and skip the machine buff and just wipe it over by hand

I've got a neck/headstock I screwed up that I use as a clamping block all the time. I looked at how think your board is - when I used to make them that thick I had a bad habbit of doing exactly what you did. Sucks real bad. I refuse to use cheap chunky rods anymore.

Searls Guitars - "Black V" Specs: Mahogany Neckthru Mahogany Body Mahogany headstock Ebony fingerboard Abalone inlay - large diamonds 25.5" scale 24 frets Solid Black paint Hardwired pickup Grover tuners Kahler fixed bridge Build thread: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=46118

Have been flat out getting this one done the last few days - I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Lets see what you guys think:

Ok, thanks. I use a random orbital with 40 grit on of during carving. I guess it'd be similar but not quite as aggressive as the grinder with 60

Isn't that always the way though? Build something that'll cost a fortune when you've got everything to build a dozen other guitars already? As far as the router/grinder.... I have never tried it. I was assuming. Nearly every guitar I've made has been neckthru and I've always just done the heel by chisel, file and sander. I've never tried a grinder but it seems a lot of members on here use them to carve. Do you use a special timber cutting tool or a standard metal grinding disc?

The back of that neck will look great once it's cleared. Routing the heel just looks like too much hard work! I'd rather chisel it out! Looking at the p/up routes I assume it's a 7 string?

I tried heaps of different rods until I used the allied luthierie ones. They are the best by far.

Thankyou. I ws going to put a gold logo onto it, but I'm now thinking black would be more appropriate. The yellow tint in the wood will pair with a black version of my logo quite nicely I think.

Today I didn't get a whole lot done as it was another household chores day (mowed the damn lawn) however I managed to get the truss slot routed into the headstock ready for when I glue the board to it, which is where I got thinking... My fret slotting saw is as blunt as a butter knife and I've been meaning to order a new one. I jumped on ebay and bought a small sliding mitre saw and have ordered a stew mac fret slotting blade. Hopefully they arrive really quick! I plan to screw the current stewmac mitre box that I have onto the swivel base of the miter saw, then I can still use the stewmac templates, it'd also make fanned slots a breeze, plus it'll make fret slotting a so much quicker job! I can't wait!!! Heres where I got the idea for this setup:

I've been playing pointy guitars since the '80s - you learn to be a bit more careful. I think I'm going to go rosewood on the board this time. It's had Birdseye maple and stripey ebony and neither worked out too well! This guitar is certainly putting up a fight but I think it's about time for it to surrender.

You could route it where it's meant to be and then glue a strip of wood down the side to pack the truss rod. If it's only the 1/16 you say then it's an easy fix but not one you'd want to make a habit of.