komodo

Thank you sir! And to everyone else!

While it was butchered, gluing frets is pretty common. Mostly for insurance along with the tangs. Doing a great job Ash! That 12th fret is BEGGING for something awesome.....

Thanks Mike!

Oh snap, I thought it was tied. Thanks Andy! I feel the same about your build. I'm blown away by the subtleties of the acoustic build and your precision workmanship!

Had a bit of a noodle on the old girl. Gives you a rough idea of how those Trisonics are voiced. Sorry I set the cam down by my pedals. The switching is really loud!

It lives! And breathes! It sounds wonderful! Your conclusions on the Fluence are the same as mine. They have all the presence and punch of active pickups but are way more open and airy sounding and have lots of voicing that cover so much. How is the input jack cover held on?

If this helps - there is no last place here. It's great to be recognized by peers, but it's not what drives us in this small but strong community. Recognition happens all the time. If there were 500k people in here, a large money prize, and a date with Scarjo, well now then that's different.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA Chaaaaaahlie Maaaaaarphy ahahahahahaha Cocaine is a helluva drug.

Be careful Carl. The longer you throw ideas around, the more likely that guy is going to show up on your doorstep to convince you that the Sand Flee is the best option. My guess is that he would stick around for quite awhile, eating your food, getting muddy boots on your couch, wanting rides everywhere, staying up to all hours of the night and never shutting up about the Sand Flee.

Oh man, I was watching when I saw a girl put two fingers into a jointer in high school. PTSD right there buddy. Have we ever had a workshop accidents post? Probably a healthy thing to have. My worst by far has been hand tools, and usually used stupidly in a rush. One sent me to the ER when I cut my finger with a Swedish carving knife, right on the inside of my middle finger joint as deep as you can. yeesh. I love the idea and simplicity of the Sand Flee with the improvements by @curtisa. Can't wait to see what you do Carl.

It's basically a Sunn amp in a box, with an added clean boost and an octave up switch. The most unholy a fuzz pedal can get really. You can hit a chord and it'll ring for minutes. with layers and layers of texture to the gain.

Thanks to @curtisa for the Sunn O))) reference earlier on. I didn’t know them, but I do now! I was going to build a clone of their Life Pedal, but ended up having a clone made by Kpedals so I didn’t have to source all the parts, and cause he does paint pours. It sounds like hell.

IDK - I've certainly ventured into a wood place and found a deal on something figured, but it's not common. Once I found a large 8/4 board like Mike's at a flooring mill. They didn't want it because it didn't match the plain stuff. lol Most of my finds have been dedicated wood sellers on ebay. Mike, what kind of maple is yours?

I didn't even know these existed! Concept is interesting, it's like a table saw vs a radial arm saw. At first, I was with you wondering how you could build one, and then I watched that video. That dude started going and my eyes slowly turned into pinwheels and there was a brief loss of consciousness. When I came back to my senses, my wallet was out and the confirmation screen said I had ordered 5 units, 50 rolls of different grits, and a whole bunch of extras.

Time for a beer yet? Great stuff Mike, that last one really came together, I bet Page would be drooling over it! 1) are you running out of space yet? 2) which one of the three do you play more?

I had a box for years where I threw semi used pieces, that became a nightmare. This year I pulled it out and went through the whole thing, tossing out anything marginal or not labeled on the back (smaller pieces). I grabbed a stack of cardboard mailing envelopes from the post office and wrote grits on them with a sharpie and then put the scraps in those. New boxes of sheet paper are the same size so they store in there as well. So, it's essentially a temporary file system but its working so well I probably wont change it.

That's awesome. I've seen the original live more times than I can remember. Funny, but when I see this it just makes my forearm hurt - because the only way you can make any Metallica sound right is by playing all downstrokes. Master!

Adding to the post-mortem - Thoughts based on the guitar I was building where we both had the same issues at the same time: - Cracks only on the top which was hard maple (actually I did have a very small crack or two on the back around the control cavity). - Sprayed very heavy, and probably not enough time between coats. - cracks were mostly around holes, though not all. Some were on the top carve and were at an angle. I had three small ones parallel to each other, but not perpendicular to the carve or parallel. These imply curing stress cracks to me. - Cracks definitely developed after wet sanding, but some also appeared later when dry sanding but not as many. - When I enlarged the cracks to apply solvent, the finish seemed to lift at the edges of the cracks which could be adhesion problems. - No solvent worked on the cracks except the Cellusolve. (tried thinner, thinner mixtures, blush remover) - The frequency of the cracks slowed over time, and eventually stopped. My conclusions are: - wet sanding was an issue - too thick of layers was an issue, especially earlier layers. - I'm questioning moisture content of the maple because of possible adhesion and movement issues - Cracking occurred as the clear coats cured, curing took a long time because of the thickness, and was exacerbated by maple moisture content.

That's amazing. It may be what is being played, but its like you can simultaneously hear a mandolin, a banjo, a harpsichord, a fiddle (even), a 12 string guitar and a really nice acoustic guitar all at the exact same time. Sweet.

I mentioned in my other build, that I've been playing these a lot and the neck profiles needed their final tweak. This one had a fat U profile, that was more refined than a baseball bat, but still too deep. It played very well, but depending on where your thumb was placed made transitions a little trickier than needed. Great for rhythm, not so great for delicate passages like White Queen off of Queen II. So, a sharp scraper and a bit of critical attention (not to mention a big gulp as I scraped the smooth oiled and polished ebony), I took the U down right down the center line. It finished with more of a D/C in the lower frets going into a shallow D higher up. This was done strung up at tension, carefully laid on some foam for protection. The scraper can be used pretty heavily without disturbing the guitar very much so it's the perfect tool. Every so often I'd pause, flip it over and play a few things, and further adjustments would reveal themselves again. Now it just needs some minor sanding through a few grits and re-oil and polish.

After playing the last two builds for awhile now, the neck profiles are revealing themselves. I'm not sure I've ever built a neck that wasn't tweaked later, sometimes a hair, sometimes quite a bit. For this one, I was very careful as I didn't want to mistake the extra width and mass as extra chunkiness. Spoke shaves and even finger planes are too much at this point, so a super sharp scraper is the trick. The profile was kind of a shallow, flat D, but after playing I realized it needed to be more of a C. Probably not unlike an Ibanez JEM, but translating that to the 8 string and making sure that you don't creep into the fret board edges and make knife edges takes some careful removal. While playing, the "corners" of the D profile made the neck feel thicker than it was depending on where the thumb was placed, as well as blocking your ability to wrap smoothly around the neck and play up and down vertically with any speed. By shaving it to more of a C, it's a WAY more natural motion as your hand rocks up and down. In the end, a pile of shavings and a way better feel.

Well, that goes over my head. I do know that obsidian edges are one of if not the sharpest edge known to man. Surgeons still use flakes mounted in a clamp. I've read that they can cut cells in two, and reduce scarring.

genius! Slivers reminds me of another hobby, flintknapping (aka making flint arrowheads and spear points). As you chip away at the flint, you are covered in fine shards and chips, and regularly get an uncontrollable urge to sweep them off your leg. Bad idea!! It shreds flesh, and on such a molecular level that it just doesn’t stop bleeding.

Not to derail - but the only thing about a 12 string, and what I've found with my recent 8-string, is that when you are tuning you often have to pause and really reflect on just what string/knob you are trying to adjust.

Awesome super clean work! The sound reminds me of an octave mandolin. Are the strings under more or less tension than a typical acoustic guitar? I reset the neck on a mandolin and when I strung it up I thought the thing was going to explode.