komodo

Finished 12” fretboard radius and most of neck carve. Forgot how much (fun) work it is. Pau ferro is hell on power tools but yields to the blade amazingly well and shapes wonderfully with dragon rasps and sandpaper. The new neck isn’t an exact clone of the old Carvin neck. I used it more as a rough guide, though it definitely looks like a clone.

How many volutes have you carved?! Every time it's just like the last, always incredible.

Pickguard templates made and pickguard made. Neck has been fit, and time for final neck shaping which everyone knows IS THE BEST PART. More importantly, with the neck installed, I can finally sit down and give it “the lap test” to see how it feels. The X-factor of it, the tangible-intangible. It feels awesome. Balance without hardware is great, body shaping fits right as you lean into it, the whole thing feels “right”. Obligitory rough placed hardware to see it in it’s more final form. I was excited before, but now I’m vibrating.

one word of warning on Truoil - I had a small 19" scale guitar that I did in korina with a Truoil only finish. It was beautiful, but sat for a while with a coiled guitar cord leaning against the body. The cord melted into the finish! I had to pull it off, and sand and buff the hell out of the Truoil to get that area to look relatively normal again. Mind you, this was WELL after the guitar was done and the finish cured.

This is not my guitar or picture. But it definitely is a somewhat of a distant relative to this tele I'm doing. I'd say May's Red Special and this Voyager were two guitars that really set me off to building in the first place.

Ya Scott, I'm stoked. You know so many woods, while different, really have many similarities and can be somewhat interchangeable in most things. But there are some woods that just really stand out – the interlocking grain of mahogany, or modulus of pau ferro, the resonance of limba or swamp ash (and pine!), ease and beauty of finishing or polishing ebony. Pau Ferro doesn't seem super spectacular at first blush, but when you start machining it, you realize that ITS REALLY HARD. And when you scrape and final sand, it polishes up incredibly. I remember reading about Reb Beach's Voyager guitar with a Koa body and Pau Ferro neck and was entranced by it. While Koa is one of my all time favorite woods visually, it's a tad dark sonically. Limba/Korina is just spectacular, 3D and rich sounding. Of everything I've built, this one really has me the most interested as a guitar player.

Im not dead, but life is in the way. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a herniated disk, will find out with MRI soon. Anyhoo, I’ve managed to get some final clear sprayed, and redid the headstock by sawing off the sides and “re-earing” it. The neck past the nut was just too extended visually and I knew it would drive me insane. I ALWAYS save off cuts, and heres a great reason why. I’ll let the finish cure for awhile as I work out my final electronics and final pick guard. I’ve kept that loose to reveal itself once the rest of the guitar came to life more fully.

NICE. That is going to sound amazing.

Also, I’m trying to figure out my electronics. My plan was the three way toggle, as on an LP, one volume, one tone and two mini switches for coil cuts. Now, I’m thinking one volume for each pup and two LCR type filters ( like a Lawrence Q). It would be awkward to have the neck volume farther back though. I could also use the minis for series/parallel, and maybe some variable tone in the rear hole. Any thoughts are welcome.

The Aquacoat has done about all it can do. I’ve applied more of the tinted lacquer to darken the edges and accentuate the “old” look. This is definitely going to be a fantasy relic rather than anything based in reality but I love the effect so far. Next is some final clear coats and turning my attention back to the neck.

Nice! Seems the Tele bug is going around. How are you going to deck it out hardware and electronics-wise?

I’ve been doing nightly scuff sand and filling with Aquacoat. I’ve never used it before so the jury is still out, but it seems decent. When dry it does seem to shrink back quite a ways so we’ll just how many coats it really takes.

Obligatory rough hardware placement pic. Also the paper sketch / template that shows the eventual rough pick guard idea. I’m not doing a very good job documenting this build, I’ve never built something in such tiny little cobbled together moments. Goal for the day is glue in finger board, drill control holes, and get a couple thin coats of clear on. The Colortone vintage amber salvage was a success, I’ve got a few mini techniques that I’ll write up for anyone encountering the same situation.

Not sure if I'm confusing what you are saying, but you can't just cut off frets to make it shorter. The string length from nut to bridge is the scale length. The fret positions - regardless of the length of the fretboard or how many frets there are - are in predetermined positions based on that scale length. So, if you shorten the string length from nut to bridge, a whole new fret board with proper fret positions for the shorter scale length must be used.

OMG this whole build is just off the hook. Everything is executed so beautifully.

That last one is JAW DROPPING. The laminated curly neck is just sick. Total porn.

I feel your pain! It is my worst fault, starting projects on top of projects until the madness becomes too much and I just have to finish one of them or I will explode. Awesome work so far on the 335.

Well I’d say that was 90% successful. With light 220 sanding and using finger pressure for very fine control you can do a pretty good job removing it evenly. Just enough orange removed to bring back a golden hue. Very careful attention to edges where sandthrough is easy, with frequent dust wiping as it obscures what is actually happening. I always use a sanding block, but here you need finer control. I’ve got an edge or two with sand through and a couple thin areas, I’ll see if I can fix those and LIGHTLY dust the thin areas. Cool thing is you can get a kind of faux sunburst / vintage edge darkening thing this way.

I don’t think it’s bad, but it’ll probably always bug me as its 10% too orange. I’m also looking at the stark change from the raw limba, and no hardware. Sand and respray never killed anyone. I’ll try some light sanding and see what happens. Stewmac says NO! so I have to try. I still want to take the dragon guitar back to bare wood and redo the stain.

Yeesh, hit it with Stewmac Colortone vintage amber. It was’t very heavy but I did make a few passes to even it out. Looks too orange in my opinion. They say don’t sand at all or you’ll see it. So, I can either 1) leave it, 2) try a light sandback, maybe with steel wool or something-worst case is fully sand and respray lighter, or 3) full sand and respray lighter.

Bravo on the radius top.

Woah I didn’t tone that photo. The light in my shop makes it look sickly greenish but it’s more straw colored. The amber should warm it up a lot.

Sanding and multiple coats of vinyl sealer, light sanding and more coats. White limba is such a strange wood. Sonically it’s incredible. Machining, it’s excellent but can chip easily. Sanding, the dist is SO fine it’s a little annoying. The wood feels soft and dents easy until you get a protective coat on it. Pau ferro (the neck), is also a killer sonic wood but is VERY hard, and the dust quite irritating. But ut cuts and carves very very nicely. Next up is an amber tint lacquer and several coats of clear. I’m keeping it relatively thin and vintage feeling. Just enough to try some crazing techniques.

Slow but sure. The cavity covers are now to thickness, the neck and fb are rough cut and truss is installed. I used too much silicone in the channel. Pfft. It's taped off so there isn't any silicone on the glue surface, but I'm afraid whats in the channel might not dry as it's practically sealed in that rosewood. I'm debating pulling the truss, trying to clean out the slot and wrapping the truss with teflon tape to keep it quiet. It's a snuggish fit, just not quite as snug as my previous. Also when I decided to swap from 25.5 to 25" I had already shaped the end of the neck. Somehow I've ended up with a slightly longer head/neck join than I like visually. Maybe I;'m overthinking it. I'll look at it again tonight and see if I'm just being sensitive to it. The body just needs a jack and final sanding and I can start finishing.

I've always loved this guitar. How will you tackle the body radius?