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SwedishLuthier

GOTM Winner
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Everything posted by SwedishLuthier

  1. BigD: How nice to see you back here. The paisley Tele is nice, really like that you use pink pickups. The head shape doesn't do it for me. It is a tad do simple. It doesn't have to be a trad telly head, but something more ornate than now. 87Kevin: Nice guitar, like the top, also like that you design a head shape that is unusual and original. Ginner: Got my vote. However I would have preferred a non-distressed top, as it would have been even more impressive and striking. But I'm no relic fan either...
  2. That, is something I really recommend. I did the small body acoustic (GOTM May) with my oldest daughter and now the younger daughter wants me to build a bass with her. That is true quality time.
  3. IIRC Simon and Patrik are the names of the sons of "Mr Godin"
  4. Oh, thank YOU, I wouldn't use the word master... I still have so much to learn. Actually, following this thread I understand that I still need to learn hand carving. your lines are crisp and the curves smooth. And I absolutely love how we think in the same direction. I did a slightly similar, but still very different thing around the neck pocket area on the guitar I showed earlier. The look is similar to what you have done here, but in reality very different.
  5. For your issue i would recommend using thin super glue and a press. Half a drop of super glue at the fret end, press it down, wipe away excess glue with a acetone rag, let set. Any glue dribble can be carefully scrape away with a sharp razor blade. All of this should of cause in a perfect word be tested on scrap as it takes a bit of skill to do it... All necessary precautions apply etc...
  6. That: is just so tasty. Really nice work!
  7. If you are building a neck trough, most wood will be fine for the "wings". For the fretboard question there are two answers, or maybe three. The traditionalist answer is yes you need to radius the fretboard. The more open answer is that anything goes. My answer is; have you ever played a bass with a flat fretboard? The radius is, IMHO, a major part of how an instrument will "feel". There are a lot of instruments out there with flat fretboards, from classical acoustics to Travis Bean aluminium neck guitars and so on. As an example I have only played one Travis Bean guitar. It had roughly the same width and thickness of the neck as the guitars I build. However the flat fretboard made it feel extremely strange to play, to me that is... So if you are accustomed to playing a more traditional bass I would really suggest that you use a radiused fretboard unless you have the opportunity to check out a flat fretboard bass first, and make sure you really like it, not just that it will be easier to make...
  8. You promised something special and that is exactly what you are serving us! Nice!
  9. I'm quite confident that I will be able to get the wood the conform to the shape I'm after. Some of the curves were tighter right after I made them, but as I didn't care about the spring back so I let them expand a bit as I was busy moving along. However at least one curve (the second from left) is more or less spot on for my design. So I'm going to bend the waist and lower bound on the fox bender, then do the first, tighter curve on the bending iron, clamp it in the mould and let it cool and fixate and then do the last part. This is looking good right now.
  10. I have finally got around to test bending with supersoft. I tested on offcuts of bloodwood, from a set of sides I had previously cracked in the fox bender... I also got a Sloane bending Iron I might do a review of this as it has some obvious problems, even though it is almost the "industry standard". However, I tested three pieces, one only lightly sprayed with water, one treated with supersoft and one soaked in water over night (yeah, a bit too much, agreed). The result was a bit depressing as all of them cracked in one way or another. The one only sprayed with water snapped repeatedly, the one treated with supersoft started to bend before breaking so just a slight improvement with supersoft. One interesting thing is that the one soaked in water sheered lengthwise. Apart from that the piece actually kept together. My conclusion was to go thinner as it seemed that the bloodwood has a maximum thickness before the outer fibers break and the heat is never enough for the outer fibres to soften. So from the next experiment I pulled out the single remaining full bloodwood side I had yet not cracked and sanded it down a bit more, to roughly 1.7-1.8 mm thick (.070-.075"). Then I sprayed it with water when I started to heat up the iron as the iron takes about 20 minutes to reach full heat. I sprayed it a few times during that time. I also notched up the heat a bit to just below maximum. I sprayed the wood with more water during the bending. I think I have the technique down now: The trick is like drilling in stainless steel. Go very slow in the beginning, and increase the speed after a while. I had one outside split when I got too cocky on the third test bend (you know, when you get to: I have mastered this now! I cannot fail! Lets speed things up...). If this had been a side I was going to use I could have saved it with a outside steel slat and a bit of work to glue it back later on. I also got two small cracks at the perimeter, but not bad, being in the binding area of the side. This all got me confident enough to get back to trying yet another set of bloodwood sides.
  11. There is at least two ways to produce vacuum, either a dedicated vacuum pump, or what I believe is called a venturi valve in english for your ordinary compressor. I have only used vacuum to glue bridges on acoustics and for that the venturi valve works like a charm. However I don't think that the valve I use is sufficient for laminating a guitar top. Check LMI for an example of the type of vacuum pump that people use for glueing tops, bracings etc.
  12. I have some serious issues with this one. First we need pictures with the walnut pickup topps installed. Secondly I cannot believe you didn't inlay a 3D-carved walnut heart on the back of the head, you are slipping my friend... Seriously a stunning guitar. As usual. Bravo!
  13. Let's quote Yngvie Malmsteen "how can less be more? More is always more!" If you think you will have use for three necks, why not. However consider the weight. I built the double neck that is competing in the (C'mon vote. Scott has built a truly amazing guitar for this months competition). My double neck is very reasonable in weight, only 4.9 kg due to some conscious design decisions like body thickness, body and ned material, tuner size etc. That is not really possible with ready made parts. As an example a SG double neck can clock in at over 11 kg. Add a third neck and you might end up with a truly backbreaking guitar. My other though is that if you are planing on buying the necks and chop away at the body, why not build the body from scratch. That way you can come up with something truly original.
  14. Yeah, well... its a shame there so little action here. I was expecting a land slide victory for wicked with that build thread and an excellent guitar like that. You had my vote for sure. C'MONE GUYS, vote!
  15. I found this: "I asked Jim Donahue about Luthite once a couple of years ago, and he described it to me as basically a dense slab of solid foam-like material." So the white stuff is Luthite actual. The yellow stuff is either a heavy base coat or an "exoskeleton". Cant tell you what is actually is. I found several pics of guitars where the finish ans a similar yellow coating had chipped of and revealed a whitish core. So the chipping is common. I would hesitate to sand through the yellow stuff. Heck, I would hesitate to try to refinish anything like that at all. Maybe you should send Westheimer Corporation an email and ask, they make the stuff and can probably tell you how to do this. Edit: I cannot read. This is what Wiki states; "it possesses considerably less resistance to impact than its wooden counterparts", so yeah, the white stuff is the luthite. The yellow is probably a polyester base coat so I would try to patch the chipped areas with a hard epoxy (make sure to test on a very small area first so that the epoxy doesn't dissolve the luthite ), sand that flush and put a finish on top of that.
  16. The Acetone trick works WAYYY better than when I tried it. Great! I even tried a purposely made product (yup, you can sell me almost anything...) and it didn't work av good as it dig for you
  17. I googled luthite and the pictures show a yellowish material, like your middle layer. However I find it very unlikely that the yellow stuff is the luthite "wrapped" around some other core material. As Luthite can be molded I would not bother with a different core material. That would up the production cost considerable. However this is pure speculations... Is the white stuff solid and won't dent easily (according to Wiki, Luthite is harder than natural wood) I would assume that is the luthite.
  18. Guitars are like typography, maybe they look similar but have unique character... actually, you will see how, even having similar body shape, can be totally different. I know that because is not the first guitar I build with this body... I just want to keep the mystery until the end, as Scott does. ^^ Great! Looking forward to se the result even more now.
  19. Toddlers double neck thread reminded me about not having showcased my double neck. So, on popular demand (OK, Chris wanted to se it at least...), here is the NorthStar DoubleNeck, a guitar I built as a "showstopper" for guitar and trade shows. I brought it to the Holy Grail Guitar Show in Berlin in November and also to the Fuzz guitar show in Gothenburg this May. It didn't exactly stopped the shows, but it got a bit of attention... the specs Design Peter Naglitsch NorthStar DoubleNeck Body FSC--approved Spanish Cedar with a quilt maple top Neck FSC--approved Spanish Cedar with laminated maple and graphite reinforcements Fretboard FSC-approved Ebony Scale length 25" and 25,5 Pickups StarStruck Custom made Hardware Grover Mini Bridge Gotoh string through Nut Earvana Controls 1 Vol, 1 Ton, Freeway six-position-switch Frets Medium Fret marks Mother Of Pearl Finish Waterborne lacquer on top of body and heads, try-oil on back of body and tung-oil on the back(s) of the necks. The web page promotion text...: "This is really something special. A few very talented players have made the combination of 6-string and 12-string necks iconic. However the design of those instruments have left a few things to wish for. Better ergonomics might be the first things that come to mind. But also pickups specialised for those instruments and maybe a better switching system to make it possible to access all tonal combinations without having to fiddle with three different switches. Add to that the pretty wide 12-string neck we have been used to and the weight of the common double necks and there are certainly room for improvements. Enter the NorthStar DoubleNeck. First thing to notice is that the necks are not parallel. By Angling them out with 2 degrees the strumming hand can be left in the most comfortable position, regardless of what neck is being used. The 12-string neck has also been made slightly longer than the 6-sting to make the most out of the chiming sound of the double chorus setup. A clever use of light FSC-certified Spanish Cedar for the body and neck make sure that the body is really light and resonant. The 12-string neck is also unusually narrow to make playing easier while still retaining room for complicated chord shapes. The custom made StarStruck pickups have been tailored to suit the guitar with two full size, but Filtertron-ish pickups in the bridges (both customised for each neck) and mini humbucker sized Filtertron-ish pickups in the neck positions, and just like the bridge pickups, customized for their individual positions. The use of a 6-position Freeway switch means that the guitar can be operated with one single switch. Go from full throttle 6-string bridge pickup rocking to warm and lush 12-string neck pickups with the flick of a single switch. Brilliant! And the look! Vibrant curly maple tops and body and heads, luxurious bindings works and flawless finish works makes this guitar stand out, even if it would have had only one neck." And some pics: A few more pics here: http://peternaglitschluthier.com/guitars/eng_northstar_doubleneck.html
  20. i like the body shape... It's so damn hard to be unique! Its a bit like Nitros first and my NorthStar, similar designs, meaning both designers have excellent taste!
  21. Really like were this is going. One suggestion though, if it is OK. The truss rod cover is really nice. However I would make it a tad wider so that the maple line is in line with the fretboard maple binding. The offset in the lines really catches the eye in a bad way and its a pity as there is so much more really nice stuff to look at here
  22. You know, as I ordered a gallon, and if it works, I gan easily part with a litre or so and ship it to you. The "magic stuff" will arrive in about 10 days and I will try it on a rosewood and a bloodwood side I have left from cracking the other book matched half. I'll let you know how it works out
  23. Really valid point. Its all about the song! Great songs have been made and performed on totally inferior instruments (seasick steve, anyone?). However a great instrument is always going to be inspirational and, as fas as I'm concerned, inspire new music in a different way than an inferior one. However I doubt that the world will be able to reach a consensus on what a great instrument is, nor if wood is important or not in guitar building...
  24. Good text on bloodwood. Thanks! I have a few ideas, moahahaha... No seriously I'm thinking multilaminated curved "sides" for Yamaha silent guitar type instruments, a bit like the electric cello I did a few years back. Or I'll just make furnitures instead.
  25. I just ordered a gallon of super-soft 2. Shipping is probably going to be as high or higher than the product itself, couldn't find it here in Europe. Some builders have had so-so results and some have excellent result using it. I just know I need to do something different. Please do not let me derail this whole thread now...
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