demonx

Hey RAD...

I know you've been pretty busy working out other stuff with your CNC, but I'd still be keen on these templates! The build where I was going to use this scale is still on the back burner while I get other stuff done, so I'm still interested in buying them if you get the chance to play.

I think the bits with more shaft and less auger are stiffer, aren't they? They do need regular waste removal though. I wouldn't mind my own V one day. Still hankering for my "modified Jim Martin V".

Yes they are, it is one of those I want, but they are 3 times the price. It's on the wish list along with many other things.

Shame the business went under. My former Muay Thai teacher runs his own school in the UK now. It's a very low profit and fragile business, i know. Thankfully as defending UK middleweight champion, he gets the high profile and loyal business. Was also the singer in our last band :-)

Fragile business alright. Very political and full of backstabbing and bullshit!

I was teaching at a club with other instructors in the '90s under an association when a heap of the students convinced me I should teach them outside the club as the association goverened what could be taught and I wanted to teach things they didnt approve of (in other words other styles and not so traditional)... Anyway, I started out teaching after hours in my backyard as it was summer, then in winter it moved into my garage.

After a while other people wanted to join in training so I rented out a scout hall a couple times a week and started charging training fees, started advertising and making a go of it. We trained at this location for many years. I had guest instructors come in and teach sessions, for example a guy I knew who ws a Golden Gloves boxing champ came in for some boxing coaching etc. Other style coaches as well. BJJ, Muay Thai, you get the idea.

The club grew to a size where I had to put on more training nights and find an even bigger location. I did a lot of research and decided to buy land and build a dedicated location. For some time I was running two training locations out of the scout hall and the newly built location, however I ended out killing off the scout hall to focus all efforts onto the place I had built.

It was going well, covering costs enough that I put on a staff member, a guy who had a world title and pretty much every national title you could think of and was very well known here in Australia. I thought this would be a great business growth as he travelled from out of town to teach, so I didnt consider him a threat, I covered his travelling costs plus paid cash for his teaching time. I got many new students just by advertising his name.

Long story short, I had the local govt trying to shut me down (which they did) for building codes that they decided to enforce years later even though when I sat with them before the place was even built they told me I didnt have to worry about them. I just didnt have it in writing. The local Govt wanted me to tear down the building, have the 4" slab demolished and an industrial slab poured. Total cost would have been nearly 100k, and for a business that was not massively wealthy hard that wasnt going to happen. Then the guy whom I trusted screwed me over, stole all my students, opened up his own gym in this city which is now very successful.

After that I had to run it not as a business but a cash in hand "hobby", couldn't advertise, couldnt continue with the retail side of things I had been setting up, or i'd be in legal trouble.

I still had my die hard students which I decided to keep teaching till they eventually dropped off which lasted a couple years until there was only a couple and I said to them "thats it"... I just gave up and I'm still paying the mortgage etc years later. It was then I quit a Martial Arts career that spanned about 25 years training.

Gave me more spare time for things like building guitars which I never had time for, and here I am!

Layout for the output jack in the upper wing:

A few holes with the forstner bits:

This guitar has no electronics cavity, so the hole for the pickup wire is nearly 10" long!

The drill bit I use for this is flexible, so all I can do is mark it out the best I can, try and be consistant with my angle and pressure and hope for the best.

I had to pull the drill bit right out of the chuck to extend it to about a 14" long bit, then I put a few layers of tape over the timber so if the chuck bumped it wouldn't make dents in the surface.

Well... I was aiming for center, but this is good. It didnt bust out the top so I'm happy!

I've looked at less flexible drill bits for this job but they are about $60.00 EACH so I've put off buying one for sometime. Maybe it should be on the cards this year

I reckon it takes me longer to mark out the bevels than what it does to file them!

The guitar is kind of in a limbo position. Theres a heap of jobs on it I want to do but I'm waiting for the inlay to cure in the board before I can laminate the board to the neck, so I'm just fiddling doing odd jobs like pickup route, bevels output jack position etc.

not sure how that happened, but I've just fixed it up.

So basically you're just trying to start another version of projectguitar.com ??

I figured I'd just go make one myself! It's in the usual voting section.

I took the first pic of each winning submission. There's some mighty fine guitars in there!

I had a bit of trouble with Crow's DEC: pic. For some reason his picks always get blocked on my computer and don't show, I've tried bot firefox and explorer. No good. Hopefully a mod can help edit that one.

It's all for a bit of fun, a trip down memory lane - hope no-one takes it the wrong way or gets offended I used their pics.

Cheers

JUN:

JUN (a):

JUL:

AUG:

SEP:

OCT:

NOV:

DEC:

This is an un official poll, thought it would be a bit of fun.

JAN:

FEB:

MAR:

APR:

MAY:

Yep.

Posting pretty much anything here add a bulk to the price, which means a lot of things that our American members take for granted, we see as way overpriced. Timber is one of those things. For example, a while ago I was looking at a set of figured quilted maple wings, price $90, shipping $120. It just adds a lot of cost to the building process.

Simple things like shipping a whole guitar, I've had quotes everywhere between $300 and $600 from different stores in the USA. Buyer beware!

I enquired about the CNC machine that RAD purchased. They offer free shipping in the USA. To get it sent to me was either $1500 or $3000 freight. CAnnot remember which one, either way its a big addition to the initial cost.

The way I've been doing it (which seems to work quite well) is radius the board at my starting radius, but focus more towards getting the nut area perfect and then sort of gradually lighten the sanding effort but making sure its radiused with no flat spots as I get towards the end of the board. I have different cauls here I can test guage with and even though it sounds weird, it works. I'm pretty much free hand radiusing, except I'm using a radiused block to do it.

Searls Guitars - SUPERSTRAT - 7 string

Mahogany body

3 piece Maple Neckthru

Ebony board with white binding

Rosewood stringers

25.5" scale

6150 Jim Dunlop fretwire

Compound radius starting at 16"

Mother of Pearl large diamond inlays

Reverse Sasafrass headstock

Kahler Trem

Grover Mini Tuners

Bridge p/up - Bareknuckle Painkiller

Neck p/up - Custom order Bareknuckle single

Switchcraft selector

CTS pots

Oil paper cap 0.022uf

2k automotive finish

Build Thread: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=45901

We could also have like a second chance draw, as in a battle of the runners up! All the guitar that came second have another chance!

I guess these polls don't have to be offical, it's not like we're giving away cars or holidays!

Looks pretty good from where I'm sitting. Nice color! Would look sweet on an old Chevy!

EDIT: hey! no fair! You edited the post and removed the finished pics so now my comment above makies no sense!

hahaha. Just stirring. It does look quite good. Cheers

Have to start somewhere, I can tell you that modding, changing, cutting up and at sometimes destroying cheap guitars that I owned is how I learned a lot of what I do now.

Good luck and make sure you have fun!

Bit of basic progress today.

Layout the rough shape:

Plane the back so it's square on the bandsaw table:

Having a quick look:

Knock the front flat with a hand plane and a rasp around the neck area:

Get a center point on the rear of the V:

One of the reasons V's are awesome to make - the edges are straight!

Today I did notice a screw up. I accidentally skipped a step by putting the wings on before I'd cut and planed the headstock tang, so this meant that I had to cut the tang and plane it very very carefully by hand rather than just running it ovr the jointer. I was worried there was potential I'd screw this up major - I winged it and it's all good. No pics. I was busy!

This pic is part of what my workshop used to look like:

To the left of what you see in this pic was change rooms and entrance etc, that is now been stripped back and is my paint room and storage

To the right of what you see in this pic used to be the weights and fitness area, that is still weights but I've sold all the other fitness equiptment etc trying to pay debts. All the mats etc etc are all gone for the same reason.

Wow... I give you massive respect!

I'm pretty happy with the workshop, bigger would be awesome but it's so much better than what I was using. The floor space is 9m x 15m. When I'm in a good mood I see it as an awesome workshop, when I'm depressed I see it as the second mortgage I struggle to pay!

Im a on call/casual worker. Have had the last 4 weeks of not getting work as the factory closes over Xmas so have been living on credit card. I live in a high unemoyment area so i consider myself lucky to even have this job. Got a $55 parking fine yesterday and I dont have the funds in my account to cover if! I'm not stressed as the factory started production again this week, I've been called in for one shift already so thats a sign I should get plenty of work. I just need to work as many shifts as they throw at me and get on top of my credit card again.

Back on topic though, I'd really like a drum sander for my workshop. That and a CNC would really make it a bit more complete. Maybe a bigger band saw too.

Has there ever been a guitar of the year poll?

I think it'd be kinda cool if we took all the GOTM winners from 2011, made a poll and then let the people decide!

Anyone else think this would be a good idea?

Cool. Lookin good so far. Dig the workshop, Id kill for that much space

Thanks, but it does come at a price.

About eight years ago I bought the land and had the shed built for a business I was running at the time that was expanding.

When the business went under a few years ago I sold everything in the shed and turned it into my "hobby" workshop that you see, however this hobby doesn't make any money and the shed I'll be making mortgage payments on for another twenty years that the business was meant to cover. **** happens.

By dead spots I did mean frets buzzing out. To me thats a dead spot as it needs attention. I probably should have been a bit clearer on my guitar slang!

I have a bit like this. Same size different brand.

I'd never consider using it for a neck. I can imagine how pissed I'd be it it ripped a chunk out! I'd rather do it by hand.

I have used it for the edge of a guitar before, but I mostly use it for furniture edges.

Sadly, I guess no one's had a chance to try them yet.

Probably cause they look horrible!

I though I should add a bit more to this conversation.

I live near a well known/respected accoustic luthier who's instruments sell for massive dollars up to five figures. He does not fret level. He hammers and uses only a fret rocker. I've had lengthy discussions with this guy as he is one of my mentors, even though our builds are a complete different beast there are many carry over skills.

I've tried his fretting method to no avail, buid after build I have tried. Then I worked out what the difference is and why I couldn't pull of his method. Every single time I attempted it I had to mill the frets afterwards.

His action is a lot higher, which means dead spots will not show themselves. Acoustic guitars are WAY higher action than what I desire in an electric build so a board thats very close to level but not filed level does not show any imperfection.

With this in mind I have succumbed to the fact that no matter how perfect I endevour to get the blank fingerboard perfect, no matter how much I try to get the frets in even and sometimes I get it bloody close testing with the fret rocker, I'll still have to level the frets every build if I want them to be great.

Just my 2c. I'm sure there'll be opposing opinions, but that's what makes this site great!