SwedishLuthier

Good questions Carl. Not to distract from Tylers thread, but here we go: I'm using a fox style bender with electronic temperature controller, silicone heating blankets and double spring steel slats. I always break at the same point, the very start of the cutaway bend, first bending the waist, then the butt end and then moving to the cut awe section. the wood breaks at that apex of the cut away "tip", actually several breaks after each other. The last time I removed the cutaway press and used a wooden block to carefully pressing the sandwich down towards the cutaway, being extremely careful to not pressing to hard. That part itself took maybe 15 minutes! Then I hooked up the cutaway press and still got crack in the initial ben, were I did it manually. This is freaking me out.

Really nice having you back here. Great stuff. I already liked what you were doing before but it is evident that you have evolved even further. I gotta ask: I have been getting more and more interested in building acoustics myself. However I have a hard time bending bloodwood. OK, easiest would to step away from that wood, but I have already an intricately inlayed bloodwood fretboard with a a neck that has some bloodwood stringers and stuff and I have also already made the sound hole ring and the bridge... yeah you get it. The question is, at what temperature are you bending the bloodwood? And do you laminate the sides first and bend them laminated? Or bend three sets of sides (bloodwood, maple(?), bloodwood and glue them together after they are bent?

I didn't read this a few days ago and I'm very sorry to hear about this John.

OK, fair enough. If you use masking tape or similar and paint a pattern over that the result will look pretty muck like this: This is the best you can expect with that method, not very subtle, not very close to the look in the picture you linked to. Still a nice design if you like that. If you have access to an airbrush you can get a result that is much closer to the maple look.

Unfortunately the "flame" maple pattern is very distinct and if you try to fake that it will be very obvious. For flame maple there is no alternative than...flame maple. OK, or a photo print of real flame maple. Curious: Why do you say you cannot buy flame maple veneer? It is available from several suppliers that ship world wide. E-bay has several items up for sale, reasonable priced. OK, shipping can be pricy, but if you really want to restore this guitar and want that look... you need to use real maple, of a photo print of some type. And I don't know if a custom made photo print will be cheeper. And even so, I would prefer real wood, just because a photo print will never have the 3D quality a real piece of wood has.

Excellent!

Without covers for sure. You could even go that extra mile and paint the base plate black. Or change to a fibre base plate. That however will change the sound of the pickups slightly so that might not be a good idea. If you are interested Monotone has those base plates

Much better! Not that it looked bad in the first place, just a bit too... busy

That looks great. Glad you decided for the Ibanez tailpieze. My first guitar had that bridge tailpiece combo and I still like the look. I'm looking forward to see what it looks like with a burst om the front. My first reaktion was "NOOO! leave the nice purple heart/reg mahogany contrast" but I'm starting to see what you probably see and now think that its a bit too much going on there.

I will follow this. Your builds are always very clean and nice. Looking forward to this tis one evolve

I don't get it. It looks like you're already done. Just slap some string on it and you are ready to rock out.... On a more serious note, were do you get your templates cut and how much do you have to shell out with for a full set like that. As I already draw everything out in CAD it seems I can save a lot of time by getting the actual templates done for me if the cost isn't too high.

Herdins tak- och panelvitt, standard white. The plan was to put hard wax oil on top, but when trying it the oil ended up as a yellow sticky goo on top of the white wash instead of entering the wood. Saw yesterday that Osmo has white pigment hard wax oil, so that would probably be my next pick for experiments :-D Didn't notice the answer, thanks! Herding, I should have thought of that, the most common local brand... Looking good this far. Now we are eagerly waiting to se how it looks after you put it together.

I can just give you my personal opinion. I go for as little tension as possible in the neck so I would plan it until it is as flat as possible. Consider the time needed to plan that single piece compared to all the time you will invest in making the neck. If you stop now, make the neck and then have to scrap it further down the road because it twists... I just know I would be pretty mad at myself.

Lika mad man I keep pushing the notion that we usually doesn't utilise the graphite/carbon fibre reinforcement in the best way. If I had time I would re-do this 10 year old experiment with real carbon fibre: http://projectguitar...h...st&p=216422

Glad it worked out for you! It aslo sounds like you are on your way to get hooked on this. Be warned, it is addictive! Thats right, for that funktion you need to have the picture hosted somewhere. Most of us use photobucket. Just copy the direct link and past it when the forum software asks for a URL. IIRC the same aplies to hosting the pictures here on the forum.

Agreed, really nice jig!

First I would make sure that your notched straight edge is actually straight. Do you have a verified straight edge to test you homemade version against? The reason for me to zero in on that is that you say that there is a 2mm backbone when the strings is off and the trussrod is loose. That is IMO huge and the guitar would probably be more or less unplayable if you use normal string gauges. So I would first turn my attention there. Secondly, you do not actually need to use a notched straight edge. You do not actually play against the fretboard... It is of cause very nice to start with a dead flat fretboard and all, but it is the tops of the frets that are the important parts here. If you can adjust the neck so that the tops of the frets are reasonably level you can go ahead and work the frets from there. Having said that I always start a fret job by adjusting the neck so that the fret board is flat... Re: pictures, you can either post picture here or host them somewhere else and either just link to them or embed pictures via the "normal" funktions of the forum

Wait a second while i write the list... LOL No seriously, CAD have helped me figure out a lot of complexed trigonometry that would have taken me a lot of time if I should have done it with a calculator and good old math. BTW, check out the CAD drawings from the download section. There are both complete instruments and parts like bridges tuners etc to download.

Veneer swelling and distorting because of water from the glue? Don't be too embarrassed. We've all done that... I sugest using epoxy to laminate the three pieces of veneer to avoid water in those joints. And then maybe I could have used titebond for the final glue up when the wood sandwich were a bit thicker or I might have used epoxy also for the head joint. If you use titebond for the veneers you need to make sure you have good clamping pressure over the total area, using rigid clamping cauls and lots of clamps, also for small areas. The power in the veneer when being wetted by water is significant. If you have enough wood left lengthwise (for the neck) it shouldn't be a problem to cut the joint open, re-plane the surfaces, redo our favourite cookie with epoxy, and glue everything up again.

I like the result of that. What brand are you using?

I wouldn't say I hate them. The problem with the green poplar is if you want a tinted finish the green streaks will change the top colour, making it very problematic to dial in the end result. On this particular guitar the green parts ar offset and not centered, and is disrupted at the arm rest. That makes it a no-no for me. But as long as boybach is happy it's OK. Good to hear that the neck angle thingy is under control! Using CAD is also my personal preference for nack angle issues.

I guess that it is really an oil based filler rather than an alcohol filler. Water based filler dry faster than oil based. I think that an alcohol based filler would dry insanely fast. I guess that it might be alcohol soluble. Both versions work fine. As oil based gives you a bit more working time that is my suggestion for the first attempt. BTW, after 80 grit I always hand sand. Less chance of catastrophic errors...

That is a very typical green of Poplar. Often not very good looking and in need of opaque finishes. Just a thought: You say that you are going to use left over HW from a Gibson (TOM bridge). Have you calculated a neck angle for the guitar. Bolt on guitars usually don't have neck angles and therefore it is easy to make the misstake to assume they don't need one. But you have hopefully already ironed out that particular problem...

OK, I think I get the part about the grain filling (sorry to confuse you, now I don't believe we are talking about dents) I believe you have sanded past through the wood that earlier was grain filled. So the areas were the pores are open and not filled with black are the wood "as is". Those areas need to be grain filled to get an uniform look and feel. To do this follow my suggested working order (clear, pore filler, shading etc...). I have used mainly water based finishes made for instruments. My current choice is the LMI KTM-9 finish. It is almost as hard as nitro finish, can be sanded, tinted and have very little of the blue-ish characteristics some water based finishes have. It can aslo be applied with a brush if being carefully. Were do you live? LMI ships to Europe, but the price can be a tad too steep when shipping and import taxes add up. If none of the specialised finishes are available I would look for poly urethane floor finishes and experiment with those. There is of cause always Rustins plastic coating, a classic finish, of Brian Mays Red Special fame... Available from England OK, about the process: You got it right. I might add that both steg 2 and 4 in your list should just be a thin sealer coat. I can really recommend shellack for this. It can be applied by hand, dries very fast and if stick to almost anything and anything sticks to it, ensuring you get minimal compatibility problems. Don't use readymade solutions of shellack. Those doesn't dry hard enough. Dissolve shellack flakes in pure alcohol and you got the best stuff there is. I aslo would like to add that a white- tinted, see-through layer is better applied thin and covered up with additional layers of clear. If not you risk wearing through the white down to bare wood. The best way to apply the white is to sparsely tint the finish with white pigments an apply several thin layers with a spray gun. If applied with a brush you risk getting streaks that will show up as whiter lines. They can be sanded out, but then you risk sand-throughs... My suggestion is to make all the preparations up till step 4 by hand/brushing. Then take the guitar to a car painter that really understands what you want and then do the top coats by hand. Just make sure he uses the same finish you use and that he shows you a quick example of how the end result might look like. Not all car painter understand guitar finishing. Or find a kitchen refinisher or something similar

Welcome to the forum. I will try to answer your questions. Let me just first say that it is generally better to link directly to the specific picture you want to show, also to embed them here so anyone trying to help doesn't have to open a link, try to figure out which picture you mean before being able to look. 1. You have black spots in the wood and to get rid of them you ask if you can fill them with black grain filler. I'm guessing you have divots or "dents" that still have the old dark colour and you ask if you can fill those dents with tiller. If so I would advice against it as filler, even grain filler, vill react/move differently from solid wood and a bigger area filled with filler or putty or similar will over time be visible through the finish 2. Do you want to create a see-through white finish with accentuated black grain? If so I would sugest that you seal the body first with a thin coat of sealer or shellack or similar before applying the grain filler. If not the wood will get stained and you will have a hard time sanding that stain out. Also, after sanding the excess grain filler away I would strongly digest that you use a tinder lacquer instead of a white stain. I actually sugest that after sealing, grain filling, sand back you first seal the surface to stop the filler to react with the tinted coats. I have had som reactions between the filler and the white-ish lacquer. 3. Polish is polish meaning they clean up an already finished surface (can also be slightly abrasive to remove very shallow surface scratches) and lacquer/varnish/finish is film creating products. Ordinary polish shouldn't be used on bare wood. They doesn't add material at all. It usually also contains silicones that make future finishing a nightmare Some pictures of what you want to achieve might also help to get us to understand what your goal is