komodo

btw- I didnt draw the center bit, thats cthulhu art ripped from the web. Same as I used on the bottle caps of my Cask of Cthulhu imperial porter. After bringing it into Illustrator, I blended the previous version I’d done and that one together. Just showed the wife and got just a little bit more than “thats nice”, so, hit out of the park. wOOt

Hmmm yes, there's that. Either I can excavate a bit looser, cut pearl tighter and fill the gaps. Or, I can excavate perfectly, fill with crushed stone and be done. The second certainly sounds better, but the perfect excavation is going to give me nightmares. I mean, one slip and boom. Actually, I could still kind of fill a gap using a teflon dam, but that gets into some uncharted territory. Or, I could steal a page from the graphic design manual and just do it. Then whatever happens, you come up with a bunch of explanations and rationalizations of why you did that and sell it to the client ("I was going for a distressed look here . . ."). Unfortunately, I am the client, and I know my game better than anyone except for my wife.

Refined the inlay some more, it's more inline with a Cthulhu vs an octopus. Similar to the one in my avatar. I need to scale it down a little I think, but it's getting close. There are still some rough bits where I was connecting the center design with the extended tentacles. ignore it for now. This certainly isn't getting any easier to pull off LMAO. I'm trying not to think about that part too much. EDIT - even further tweaks, getting the tentacles to flow better

Holy crap! Koa attack! Or is that insane claro that looks like koa?! Man you gotta warn us before that.

Well no, they tell is we only have weeks. I’m in no race, I’ve still got the other build to finish and many things to work out still. Which crushed stone, I’m still finalizing the design, there may be some black pearl for the head area, blah blah blah. Not to mention I need to establish a perimeter, dig a well, place landmines, build a windmill, work on my MadMax car, build a forge, setup a canning area, plant a garden first (duh!), reload some shells, etc etc etc. Stay safe everyone.

Stunning. It’s all so clean, and the end result is a guitar I bet anyone would want to play. Awesome!

Me too Scott. Love how he just grabbed the damn guitar right out of the block of wood. You don’t see many one piece guitars.

More deep thinking. I think @Prostheta is right. The excavation needs to be CNC, though at any other time I could've made that happen, in our current state of the world I'm not sure it's possible. Any resource I had is closed and gone. I'm pretty sure I'll go with some kind of crushed stone inlay which will save A LOT of ridiculous pearl cutting. The biggest issue here is, My routes will need to be bang on perfect, as the cavity decides how good the inlay is. There would be no gap filling using the ebony trick. More deep thought.

Hmm, you will only be able to play Loudness on that. My first guitar was a custom explorer with a large headstock Strat neck that somebody had made. It also had an arm bevel just like a strat. Years later I decided to take a jigsaw to it and make it into a star just like this. You would think it an abomination, but the Strat neck still looked amazingly ok on it.

I wish my planer would start blasting music when I turn it on.

@Prostheta wins the day with the last 1/4 of his post. Read some Algernon Blackwood or Clark Ashton Smith if you haven’t, a couple of Lovecraft’s big influences.

@Prostheta When I was at a stopping point, I stepped back and said "oh crap". It's like cutting a whole bunch of those really thin, pointy planet edges. I've had this design for years now, so it must be done. CNC may be an option, we have labs on campus that are world class, but I'm not sure they are cutting ebony or pearl everyday. Robin (wife) said the body needs to show up more. So, it's not done, but close-ish.

Pushing it down the road a bit. I worked on the potential inlay design today, there's really no reason not to start building other than the world is on fire, and I need to do final polish and bits on the last build. Maybe I'll just get the FB cut and start the inlay. Scale(s) are 25.5 - 28". I think the perpendicular ended up being the 8th, but I bounced it around a bit to adjust the geometry at the ends.

Welcome! You are building a bass? Is there any angle on the neck?

Everything said so far is excellent. I will say though, that while you can go budget on lots of individual things in guitar building, the process of guitar building isn't really an economical one. You will end up purchasing tools and materials that will probably put you well inside the price of a guitar. Much depends on what you have on hand already, and the processes of building you use. Somebody was in my shop and asked how much money I had in my build, and I did a quick mental tour of "well, the bridge was this much, the wood was this, I had to get this . . . . ", until I was thinking OHCRAP.

Understood what my ‘72 Marshall Super Lead was and how to use it rather than run my guitar into a Boss DS-1 and then into the amp. Nobody told be about jumpering channels, bias, tubes, etc. I bought it for $300 around 1979-80 and I sold it for $300 in ‘86. Now I can hardly think about it without

Great builds, love the rosewood neck! Ive been on a chorus pedal bender for the last year, and landed on a Kelley Dyno My Roto that has a really thick tri-chorus. Recently I bought the guts of a vintage Ibanez CS-9 (Maxon) for cheap off Ebay and then reboxed it. Holy wow. This is one of those times when all the analog chip cork sniffing really pays off. It's lush but focused, can go from a subtle swirl all the way to pure Boston sound.

Looking at Warmoth, most necks clock in around $200, pau ferro $400, rosewoods $500+, considering I got the neck AND the body wood for that, I consider it a bargain. Pickups usually cost more than the neck.

@willliam_q Yeah looking back now, it’s stunning that he got that wood. I work in marketing, and yes ads work 100% LOL. Though, it wasn’t just the ad - it was rock n roll in general. It’s like learning how to build a wizard staff imbued with arcane magic. Hell yeah I wanted a piece of that.

@willliam_q I’m INTP. Sophomore year in high school, last day of school, I saw a guy I knew come from the woodshop with a semi-hollow he tried to make. It was mesmerizing. I’d started playing guitar after being smitten by an ad for a Fender Lead II, and was struck by the romantic mechanical nature of the thing. Since I had taken every single woodshop class, the teacher basically said build what you want, just tell me the wood you need. I told him I needed billets of African mahogany 2” thick and built a Flying V. He got me beautiful pieces!! Anyhoo, after working on tons of other parts guitars, and when I got a bit older and had amassed some serious tools, I started building from scratch in my own shop and haven’t stopped.

If you buy straight up lumber, it's not that bad. The Black Queen used two pieces from Ebay. $78 and $87 for 1" x 3.5" x 36" And, those were choice pieces. I was communicating with the lumber place and telling them what I was looking for and they pulled some killer ones. Also, I got my full neck with headstock, the body center 'spine, and extra for the tremolo cover and more. I did splurge on the quilt top because I wanted a killer one (figure and color), one that was thick enough for a deep carve (without compromising depth), and I had to snipe an auction and beat others. If I had a good lumberyard where I could set up a relationship and be a regular buyer, I imagine the deals would get way better. If you saw the metal tele I built before my current build, it had a solid Pau Ferro neck. As much as I love the ebony, the Pau Ferro is spectacular for necks and considerably less expensive. It smokes like hell when you route it, but it carves great and is the best guitar neck I've ever had. It polishes up nicely. This could all be thrown out the window when the current build is finished.

Well, the Fishman pups came and I dug out my cocobolo neck that I had started. Much to my dismay, I forgot that at the time I decided to shift gears and make it a 6-string fanned fret. So, the neck is way too narrow and there is even a slotted fanned board to go with it! How could I have forgotten that?! So, I’ll start from scratch, but I’ve got another nice coco piece for that. I’ wondering if I should finish out the 6-string neck more and sell it? What kind of value would that have? It’s a Macassar 24 fret, 7th fret perpendicular board and a cocobolo neck with a compound scarf done. Scales are maybe 25.5-27? Just a guess.

Yes sir. That thing has my attention until I come up with something else that might work. But, waow is that cool.

I'd set it on a bench and run a file/sanding block up and down the side of the bench like a shooting board. You'd have total control on speed, and feed. 5-10 minutes and wearing magnifiers to make sure you just kiss the plate.

I go at it like a rabid beaver, and soon enter a trance. om nom nom nom nom *poof* New guitar.