SwedishLuthier

I wouldn’t do this. Some years ago (like 15 or so) I had a really cool, red vinyl covered (yes exactly like a speaker cabinet) Höfner Strat rip-off from late 60-s or early 70-s. This guitar was then worth absolute NOTHING. I took off the vinyl covering and finished it with clear lacquer. I later trashed the guitar completely and reused the pickups and the fretboard for another project.

The other day I walked into a second hand guitar store and found a guitar much he same but in white. It was now worth more than 6000 Swedish Crowns (=around 750$)!!!

So I say:

Build a replica body, use the neck, put away all of the pieces you got left and remember were you put them. It might come a day when you, just like me, badly regret what you have done, and would like to reassemble the guitar. It might also be easier to build a solid body instead of what you planning.

But if you decide to go ahead with this:

Good luck and I hope that you succeed

Peter

Don't think that the router would tear up the wood if you:

1 Have a sharp bit

2 Make light passes and

3 Stay away from figured woods.

I havn't tried it myself, but I saw a guy that did this on a bass. He soaked the thin wood with low viscosity super glue(after the routing) to reinforce it.

Link to humidity meter:

http://www.bercu.com/EN-Gann_compact.htm

More of the same kind (main list):

http://www.bercu.com/Products%20A-Z-EN.htm

The wood should idealy be dried to about 8% but wood up to 12% have been used with success.

About the planing and jointing:

This can bee done with a simple hand planer, a straith edge and a lot of elow grease

Peter

I would recomend a book called " Make your own electric guitar" by Melvin Hiscock, before you go ahead and purchase a lot of expensive wood and hardware. The book goes through a complete design of a custom guitar and Hiscock teaches you a lot about building guitars. The mesaurments you need to know is (among others):

fret board with at the nut

fret board with at the end

bridge hight

neck angle

body thickness

and so on

This book covers it all. It also have a list of necesary tools, a section on finishin and setup and so on. Im sure there are other good bocks/Videos/DVDs out there to get ou started, but this is the one I started with and I'm still (after 15 guitars) using it for some references on neck angle, fret board with and so on.

Good luck

Peter

I agree with westhemann. If you are unsure about the methods suggested, leave it alone. If you deside to try this; I agree with Setch. It looks more like a dent. Thy Setch's method. If it doesn't help have a look at this:

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Te...fboardivot.html

Its a bit tricky, but I have tried it with good results.

Good luck

Peter

It’s very important to get things lined up properly. You should plug all of the holes, and drill new ones for all screws. If you are going to reuse any of the holes, start with the middle two and work your way from there. If you do that you will keep he strings centred over the pickups and the fret board.

Peter

Depending on how "deep" the arm rest is, it might be possible to plan a little more, add a thicker top and contour this. The new finish will hide the fact that the top is wedge-shaped in the arm rest area.

And you might consider using a chemical stripper. Its hard work to sand away the finish.

Good luck

Peter

Have a look heretoo.

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=18146

About pickups, but its generaly the same.

Good luck

Peter

C’mone guys! We all were novices in the beginning. This is for Grape Nut and everybody else that needs to get this straitened out:

“The difference between a router, drill and a saw” or “How to make place for a humbucker in my guitar”

-A saw cuts straight trough the wood. You cannot start in the middle of a piece of wood and cut a recess with a saw (well you can but I wouldn’t advice doing so…)

-A drill is made only for drilling round holes (You were dead right on that one Grape Nut).

-A router is like a drill held in a fixture so that the router bit is always held perpendicular to the surface of the wood. The bit (not drill bit, but router bit) is lowered a suitable amount (max 3mm/0,1”) and the fixture is moved across the surface. By doing so wood is removed. The bit is then lowered and more wood is removed in each new pass with the router.

Be careful. The router bit will try to wander away from the line that you originally planed it to follow. This can be remedied by taking very light passes, go slow and be careful. The other, possibly more used, method is to use a router bit with some kind of bearing: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Routing_...outer_Bits.html with the bearing running against a template: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Routing_..._Templates.html that has been screwed or taped with double sided tape to the body. This will give you a clean cut out and the pickups will fit well within those cavities. Also be aware of that you need to get the recess quite deep before you can run the bearing against the template. If you start too early you will run the cutting edge of the bit against the template and ruin the template.

I assume that you have a strat style guitar with three pickups. In this case you will benefit from also using a template like this: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Routing_..._Templates.html for the cut out in pick guard. Sorry for only referring to StewMac. There are other good suppliers for this material.

All this is very fine if you own or can borrow a router or maybe a Dremel-style tool with a router attachment. Personally I wouldn’t use a Dremel for routing out the pickup cavities. In my opinion it’s not strong enough, but if you are careful and make light passes it might work. Just remember to PRACTICE ON SCRAP before.

In your position I would consider a more low tech approach, the same I used on my first singlecoil-to-humbucker conversions, before I got my self a bunch of guitarmaking goodies: cut the recess with a couple of sharp chisels and enlarge the existing pickguard cutout with files. A pair of sharp scissors or a good knife can in most pickguards get you a good start before you clean it up with the files. Use some masking tape on the top of the pickguard to stop you from scratching it and to get you a surface to draw the new cutout onto. This is the method I strongly recommend for the beginner. God luck and please tell us how it went.

Peter

One thing about Mike Walachs CNC that some of you might not notice:

It is x-y CNC, with means that even though it has a motor for moving the dremel up and down, the softvare is for transfering a 2D-picture onto plywood or similar. This is not suitible for carving archtops, necks or similar.

I sell komponents for CNCs in my day job, and I know how much more processing power a tru 3D-CNC will need to do the job, compared with a 2D-CNC. To syncronice 3 axis (and thats whats needed to get a smooth 3D shape) requires much more power than an ordinary PC offers. For this you need a profesional motion control system that will cost a fortune (even for me that can get the parts for about 30% of the list price). To get a 3D-CNC to pay for itself you probbly need to make more than 1000 guitars/year. Sorry if I dissapoint you gus, but thats the truth.

BTW, Even if I could get my hands on a 3D-CNC for free (nd I have had that oportunity), I wound hesitate to bring it into my shop. I know how much time it takes to program the thing! I would probably be able to hand-carve 10 to 20 tops in the time I had to spend programming the thing, not including the time to correct my errors,, and thats for the first top. New top shape; another hundred hour to program. Sorry to let you guys down, but tru CNCs are for high volume companies.

But as someone pointed out. it would probably work well for inlays:

Cut the inlays, scan them, transform them inte CAD-files ('cos thats what the softare is using) and rout the fretboard. This means I could have saved a day or two on my latest trea-of-life inlay...

Peter

I use a drillpress to press in fretts, and I can only add that I apreciate the ability to turn the fret setter. It actualy makes it easier to position the neck. I do the fine-positioning bu sligthly turning the setter. Much easyer than trying to adjust the neck when using a drillpress.