Mattia

For an SG - make a set neck.

It's no more difficult, really.

Uh, look up a website with Fender historical data on various eras and associates specs. Headstock shapes for one thing.

MST3K FTW!

I use MDF for master templates because it's more predictable and easier to shape (and much, much cheaper over here) than plywood. That becomes a master template, and working templates can be made from thicker MDF (works fine for a while), but my favourite material for actual working (to route with) templates is Phenolic (trespa, 8mm, scrounge from a variety of building sites at new developments and our craigslist-equivalent has plenty of the stuff as well). Plastics are great for layouts, not so great for routing templates per se, IMO.

What the rest have said. 'Essential' basic power tools are, in my book, a router (preferably one that takes a 1/2" shaft bit) and a jigsaw, as well as a corded drill for a variety of things. Access to a drill press only required for a few odds and ends. Add a rasp, scraper and sandpaper and you've got the bare essentials. At that point, simply buy tools as you find you need them, rather than equipping an entire workshop with tools you're not quite sure what to do with.

It's fairly simple to do, but time consuming to do properly. I find that - regardless of method - you need at least three applications to get a fully grainfilled body, sometimes more. My current filler of choice is Z-poxy finishing resin (an epoxy, search youtube for instructional how-to vids), and I've used oil-based and waterbased products in the past with decent success.

Or just some tinted red (with clearcoat. But that goes without saying, really). Mahogany likes red.

What Spoke said. Same reason I think carving integral braces into a top or back of an archtop is pretty idiotic. Grain orientation makes a huge, huge amount of difference here, and you get to be really picky about which pieces of bracewood you use. The cross-grain gluing also serves as a degree of protection against cracks.

You can simply set the grids in inscape to the correct sizes (inches, mm, whatever) and size up or down to your heart's content. How your printer deals with the output in part depends on your print drivers, I would have though. Alternately, export to a PDF file and print that, as it's a bit more of a standard bit of kit.

Gluing: you're doing it wrong

Titebond Original works fine, even for thin veneers, but in those cases you need to be particularly careful with amounts (thin, even spread) and pressures (not too much, not too little).

Also Titebond is a PVA glue.

Resize how? As in trim to size? I can understand not wanting to slot your own fingerboard if you don't have the right tools/templates, but if you're worried about trimming a board to size, you may not be ready to do anything that requires gluing a fingerboard to anything.

HuntingDoug mentioned this a while back, its worth looking at again:

With the guitar builders on here using/making CNC machines, I believe that this will spin off into a New Topic Section eventually. And I also hope see our members sharing files that they created with each other in a download area.

Last I counted 8 members here with CNC's or are building one:

Vinny

HankMcSpank

HuntinDoug

Mikro

Spoke

JpMarsh

Factory5150

Mattia

What's your thoughts on this? -Vinny

I'm all for it. Luthiersforum.com has a CNC section that's pretty cool, but focussed mostly on acoustics, and this place may draw more people out. I'm also all for the free exchange of models and ideas, although in terms of 3D models only within reason; if I make a custom shape with a custom carved top, model it, it's not something I'll likely want to publish openly on the interwebs. A standard Tele or Strat or similar, sure, why not?

Someone made a very similar sort of 'olde map' guitar years ago, posted it to the MIMF. Looked amazing, doubly so because they'd found a piece of wood that 'became' the parts of the map. Can't find it, though...

Chris: you tape up your tops and backs, that works (and I'll be using that method in future), but you really do need to try the setch method for scarfs. Seriously, 3 bits of tape, 2 clamps, bit of glue, and you're done in seconds, and it's dead on accurate in my experience. I used to do it your way, won't go back to it.

Re: templates, a good layout template is clear, etched centerline, 1/4" thick is fine. Milled edges is just as clean as laser cut if done properly. I'll be making a bunch of templates for myself for layout purposes when the CNC gets up and running, and any form of template that's going to get used for actual routing will get copied from said template, and likely be made of phenolic (I got some 8mm trespa; over here, the equivalent of craigslist has tons of scraps for sale from various building sites that go for pretty cheap, and all are big enough for more than one jig, tool, whatever. Plus, waterproof, tough, not moisture sensitive. But a pain to machine and hell on anything non-carbide).

Weird. Re: the chamfering, it's always good practice simply because the fretwire isn't machined, so you're not getting a perfect 90 degree angle between tang and crown. Even a minimal amount with a slightly tight fret slot will prevent proper seating.

I use:

1) Router for indexed edge

2) Angle grinder with flap sanding disk for rough carve

3) Ibex fingerplane, random orbit sander and scrapers to clean up/finish things off.

.080?!

Dang does that go through a normal tuner?

Heh. It's got a thinner wrap to go through the tuner, so yes, no problems.

There's some whacked-out twisted 'ergonomic' acosutic guitar (look for Robert Izzardy's Building the Ergonomic Guitar blog, I'm sure there's a link there) that helps in this regard. The more 'common' solution to bulk is either a wedge guitar a la Linda Mazner (just google), or an armrest a la Grit Laskin or Kevin Ryan (Ryan Guitars), or even a combination of both. I think stressing the top wood will affect the sound. Whether positively or negatively, I can't comment.

Pshaw! I built my first acoustic in a 3 x 3 meter room which contained a bed, computer, kitchenette. And yes, a rooftop terrace and some hall space to store tools that didn't fit under the bed. So, um, yeah.

Anyway, I'm currently spraying one acoustic, and have the other in final finish prep (levelling prior to spraying). Then finishing a few electrics, at which point I'll start 2 more. Crisis or not, I've already got parts for a few dozen acoustic guitars.

FWIW, I like big honkin' strings on my baritones - they are long scale, like 28.5-29.5", and acoustic instruments to boot (so thicker is the norm), but I string 'em up with 'mediums' (.080 - .015), although I'd like to try some 'lights' (0.070 - 0.14).

Folks like it for fingerboards, bridges, bridge plates. I've even seen it compared to brazillian rosewood, tonally speaking.

For oil finishes I go to at least 800 grit, usually 1200 grit, apply with an old t-shirt, buff with synthetic steel wool (the metal kind can leave bits of, well, metal in a pore, which can rust and discolour) and then wax and buff. Works great with tru oil, liberon finishing oil or rustin's danish oil. You can even get gloss out of TruOil if you go the micromesh route, but then I'd be tempted to pore fill, and it doesn't give me what I like from an oil finish (open pores, natural 'woody' feel); mahogany looks and feels fantastic with an oil finish - I usually do either oil or shellac finishes on my guitar necks.

I have to give credit to Avengers63 for me starting this topic when he said "I had a weird dream last night..."

Over the years I've had various ideas that are crazy and yet sometimes actually turn out to be very plausible. Some come from weird dreams and the first that comes to mind is the idea of angled frets. I tried this in 1996 and recently discovered its a well accepted technique. I never saw or heard of it before I did it, so I'm something of a pioneer (tickets on myself ha ha) The only time I saw it was on a classical music album cover showing a guitar with one fret on an angle. It may have just been an artist's impression but then I'm sure no idea is totally new

You were a few centuries late - google Opharion, a variety of lute that had multi-scale (or Fanned Fret, if you want to use the Novax Patent Speak) fretboard. Very little exists in lutherie that hasn't been tried before. Heck, adjustable bolt-on necks (ie, adjust the angle under full string tension) appeared in various forms (Stauffer, Larson) before the turn of the previous century, and now the acoustic guitar world is going 'look! New techology! EMBRACE ME!'.

Angled or "Fanned frets"

I once had this dream where I had a guitar with a neck that was bent, strings and all. Even during the dream I questioned "How could this be?" and the answer was that the strings were made of stronger, thicker steel and were designed for the purpose. A really nutty idea but it went towards the angled fret guitars I've made

There's a company out there that does a compound 'twisted' neck that rotates along the same shape your hand does when it moves up the board. Not sure if they're combined it with fanned frets as well.

Second Fret capo

To complement the concept above I had the idea of using a capo so the guitar could be used for D tuning or E to suit whatever you were playing. I quite often wondered if you could somehow have a built-in capo or even get the second fret to raise up to become like a zero-fret. The lever-thing the chick was using (mentioned above) kept me thinking along those lines

Some crazy folks have invented a bass that converts from fretted to fretless at the flip of a lever. And banjos have had 'built in' capos (for the 5th string, at least) for a very long time indeed.

For the record, I think all the 'alternate fret marker ideas' are fairly pointless, because by definition the guitar is an instrument with multiple potential tunings, and I use capos a lot, so....just learn to play without the dots, checkerboards, whatever. It's also not a piano - there's no '1 note, 1 key' concept, which is what makes it a little more complicated to sight-read non-chorded music on guitar (at least, that's what I found. Mastery is a different issue).

I like the idea of "true pitch" rather than "tempered pitch" but thats impossible with a fretted instrument

(This idea just couldn't work but its still an idea and I'll mention it)

Instead of having frets fixed to the fretboard what if they were attached to your fingers?

Obviously you would be restricted to a 4-stringed instrument and each finger would be "assigned" to a string - It just wouldn't work

The last bit is called a 'slide', and 'fretless instruments', and are older than fretted instruments by far.

As for alternate temperament fretboards, again, a company came out with (and possibly still makes) swappable fretboards with a variety temerament tunings, with micro-fret placements. There are articles on the topic in some of the older (volumes 1 and 2, I think) Big Red Books, which means about 20-30 years ago at least.

Self - tuning guitar

Have little electric motors in the tuning pegs and a tuner built into the control cavity connected by wires through the neck. And have a switch next to the volume control to choose different tunings...

RATS - its already been done!

Yeah. In the 1970's. Modern version's been implemented in Gibson's Robot Guitar, but Jimmy Page was using this decades ago.

Erik: now that's nifty!

Since I'm in a drums-guitar duo nowadays, I'm looking for ways to fill out the frequencies and increase the complexity of the overall sound.

And since I'm starting a baritone build, it strikes me as a good opportunity to try out:

Two separate electronic circuits --one for each pickup. It will mean having two cables (or a stereo cable) dangling off the back of the guitar --but since the guitar risks being neck-heavy that won't be a bad thing. And I have to stick close to the mike, so I don't jump around a whole lot anyway.

I'd be able to treat each pickup's signal with a different effects chain, and run them to separate amps -with the neck serving as the 'bass' pickup, natch.

But I'd also add a switch that would let me join the two pickups together to a single output.

Taking the idea a bit further -- I've been toying with the idea of using half of a Precision-type pickup for the neck position, so I could focus that sound only on the bass strings. Not sure if it's possible to separate the two halves of the Precision pups though.

This sort of thing is essentially done all the time on guitars with a piezo and a magnetic pickup - it's how I prefer to wire dual output systems, as it's a good bit more flexible, tonally speaking, than an onboard blending preamp. Which, yes, can be insanely useful.

P-bass pickups can easily be 'split' and run seperately - a fair few electric mando makers use half a P-bass pickup as a mando pickup. They are, after all, nothing more than wire wrapped around magnet cores.