Zack

Finally got summoned from my laziness and tooled around with this one today. I cut out the body template last week and did my best to make sure it was flawless. I loved the way some of y'all laminate the scarf joint so I decided to go for it on the most expensive piece of maple I had. If it crashes and burns it will be a glorious spectacle of failure. That's how I roll. Anyway, I did the cut on the bandsaw before sticking it in my high tech 13 degree scarf planing router jig. Then I just smoothed it out a bit more with 220 on a block of MDF.

It works really well

I went for a three ply "Oreo" with wenge-maple-wenge

And glued it up with another high tech jig

Also cut out some of the body and glued ears on it because Im cheap. Apparently I also like to risk myself and my work to take photos of this stuff. No shame....

That's all for today. I can hear the beer calling my name. Enjoy Mother's Day!

I might give a suggestion, this is a good opportunity to experiment with digging deeper without ruining an already finished guitar. I bought one of these to get me started with building. It was a set neck but the concept is the same. I carved the neck thinner and replaced the frets with jumbo ones and even did the Gibson style binding/ fret ends. I will say I was very impressed with the hardware although every soldered connection was garbage and I had to replace every wire. The pickups actually sound really good. I was left with a decent guitar with that gained me some experience.

One note: Don't cheap out with the finish or it will be nothing but a headache and end up costing more in the end.

Thistle, you are dead on. It costs me about $600 just in wood, hardware, and lacquer to build a simple Tele. Unreal.

Looks a bit like one of my designs. You have great taste!

Very nice. I'm guessing the cutouts in the back plates are for easy removal?

The blush eraser worked and did so quickly. I was worried becaus so much time passed but it took care of it instantly. I'll post pics when it's finished.

This is always a great feeling, from the computer screen to wood.

Thanks Scott, I tried the airbrush last night with minimal success. I guess in my raging battle with impatience, I'll order the Stewmac stuff and have my wife taze me if I go near it with sandpaper because that never ends well. This may be my 2nd build but it comes after about 6 refinish projects and if I've learned anything, my heavy hand has not lost an ounce. On a side note, while the lacquer thinner just sort of beaded up on the Colortone lacquer like water, the cheap Lowes (Valspar) lacquer I used last time melted on contact with just the vapor. Another lesson learned about how expensive and time consuming it is to be cheap with the finish. That last guitar is still semi-soft after about 3 months.

This sums up my reservations about building acoustics. You guys have my respect. I love your inlays and that sound hole piece is pure art and craftsmanship. Very nice!

I'm pretty jazzed about this showing up this morning. It's the Schaller Hannes. It's like 6 single string bridges in one.

And then this happened today after about 6 coats in two days I get blush on the last one BAD. Darn Mississippi humidity skyrocketed this afternoon. So on the last guitar I sanded it out, but I'm far too concered with sand-thru this early in the clear coating. I have an airbrush and some lacquer thinner. Do y'all think that will do the trick?

Out of nowhere this happened last week. With three daughters, the only buzz around the house is about kittens.

I've seen a couple of you mention bleaching wood. The faux binding on my current project is pretty dark with only a couple light coats of sanding sealer. What is involved in this?

Correct. I knew they were made in Korea. That didn't mean they couldn't end up in China. I would have been more suspicious if it was $20. Lesson learned. I've ended up with some pretty decent parts from China for next to nothing through Amazon, especially the tuning machines. I wouldn't put any on a high end guitar but they are far better than the stock ones on low to mid-line LTD, Fender, Epiphone, etc. 4 sets at less than $9 a set and nothing but good experiences. If they can build the world's supply of iphones and pretty much everything else there are great deals to be had, if you can avoid the fraud.

Let's just say I'm pretty big into triple checking for all of the cues of a fake product. I bought a "REAL" Floyd Rose Special from China and it looked dead on correct. Well known guitars are build in China with real Floyds so it didn't throw the red flag like it should have. I got it in the mail and it still looked perfectly like the real one. I already had a real one I bought to put in a buddy's Kramer so I compared the two. It seemed that the ebay one looked to be even better quaility. Well, I installed the ebay one and the first flag - the posts and bushings were garbage, flag two - the claw was wrong, flag three - it could not be tuned. I yanked it off and just 5 min of playing had exposed a copper color on the knife edges. The fine tuners were hard to turn and the bar had too much play. I paid $50 for a paper weight. They are far too convincing so just beware.

Well, I am not finished with the Tele yet and I've already started ordering on the next one. The local music chain has allowed me three slots on their wall but they recommend filling all three so there isn't just one random guitar in between all the CNC stamp outs. So I've been waiting to do this one for a while. It won't be a carved top but rather a taper like a Fender Aerodyne. I tooled around in Photoshop today and am 99% on this design.

Alder body, 1/4" maple cap

Master grade flamed set-neck to be finished PRS Private Stock style

Inlay from DePaule

Schaller Hannes bridge

Thanks Scott! That's not a bad idea. It may never be seen but I know it's there and I will lose precious sleep tossing and turning at night, haunted by shoddy wood filler.

I had a bad experience staining a Chinese "Res Paul" kit guitar. It was nice to have a real slab of maple to work with. The kit guitar wouldn't take much more than 1000 grit before you broke through the veneer.

This is bugging me. The router hated the end grain and took it out on the neck with furious vengeance. I tried stainable filler but just sprayed sanding sealer. It looks like crap. Any ideas?

I taped off for the faux binding and sprayed sanding sealer to protect it from stain.

Here is the stain. It's Stewmac tobacco brown then antique amber. I wanted a slight burst. We'll see if the laquer lets it show.

I think I'm at a stopping point for the day. Really did a number to the back drilling the ferrules so I owned my shame and ordered a string block. Hopefully it will be here soon. In the meantime, sanding, sanding, sanding........

I finally got a chance to get back on this. I had to sort of wing it on a couple things that I couldn't find very clear answers on. Clamping the drop top left me wishing for double the clamps once it was glued on. I ended up moving all the clamps to the outside to prevent gaps. I hope that doesn't make the middle get a belly when I stain it. I'm also pretty sure I've officially wussed out on the idea of gluing the neck and shaping the heel. My mind can't get arount the small area of the neck pocket would provide a solid glueup.

Made some more progress this afternoon. I LOVE the new tools. I would never build another one without the spindle sander, fret press, or real fret nippers.

I learned a valuable lesson about quartersawn wood and the router. It made a pretty bad mess of a couple places where the grain was perfectly 90 degrees parallel. I'll be looking for a little more rift in the next blank.

Finally got some free time yesterday.

Very nice!

Great advice.Thanks!