Stolysmaster

Your avatar looks beautiful, I love that color too! But, the color on my top blank was just a test to show me some grain pattern better so I could decide where to cut the guitar out. I could still end up with a dark,vibrant red like yours in the end, but right now I'm leaning towards a Brazilian Sunburst, I think. Fortunatly, I have quite a bit of work to do before I have to decide on a final finish! Thanks for your comments.

Nitefly, I would like to hear what your opinion is after looking at my decription of the build under the "In Progress" section, titled "My First Project...now the ball is rolling". (I know, I know...you hate binding ) Thanks

I thought I would take a poll to get some opinions on whether I should go with a flat top or carved top on my Dean Cadillac copy. I'm still undecided. A flat top, like the USA models would be an easier build, but I do like the moderately carved top on the Korean made Select models too. The full description of my build is listed under the "works in Progress" section, titled "First Project...now the ball is rolling". Would anyone care to give me their opinion?

I don't know which catagory to vote for...60's and 70's rock are pretty different from each other IMO. And I don't consider AC/DC(started mid 70's) or Scorpions(started early 70's) to be 80's hair bands, even though I like them both. Hell, Whitesnake are generally considered to be an 80's Hair Band, but I like their stuff from the 70's best. What catagory should I vote for if I mainly listen to anything by Ritchie Blackmore(Deep Purple & Rainbow), Micheal Schenker(UFO & MSG), Pat Travers, Gary Moore, Glen Hughes, Paul Rodgers, Ian Anderson(Jethro Tull), Black Sabbath, and Uriah Heep?? I guess these people are probably considered 70's Blues influenced Hard Rock(mostly English), but they all continue to make new music to this day. I also enjoy George Lynch, Eric Johnson, Satriani, Rush, and Mr. Big. I appreciate and like Tool, Offspring, Jet, Disturbed, and Audioslave. I love the feel of old Blues, although not so much the tone. There are also times when nothing will suffice but Mozart, Bach, Hyden, Vivaldi, Purcell, Telleman, or Paganini. Not a big fan of Country (but I like the attitude, and most of the politics in Country, with the exception of the Dixie Chicks...ignorant bitches) or Hip Hop, and I absolutely cannot stand Metal with vocals that sound like the singer just swallowed a dozen razor blades and chased them with a gallon of hydroflouric acid!!!

Thanks Mickguard, lets see if this works. pic1 pic2 pic3 pic4 Woops! I just wanted to post the thumbnail LINKS, not the actual pictures. I think I may have violated some rule by posting more than one actual picture. Should I have used the HTML thumbnail option instead of the IMG option??

I'm not really sure how to post these URL links that show my template and maple top wood blank. When I click the link icon on this forum, the window will not allow me to paste the copied URL onto it; it wants me to type it in one character at a time. There must be some way to paste the entire URL that I have copied into the window, right? Will someone please help me with this? Anyway, It's going to be a Dean Cadillac copy with : Black Limba set neck w/ebony FB & diamond MOP inlays, 24.75" scale, jumbo frets, already made by Doug at Soulmate Guitars (thanks Doug, great job) Black Limba body back w/belly contour, either flat or carved figured maple top , white binding Gotoh TOM bridge, strings thru back, one volume & one tone, 5-way strat switch Probably 2 Wagner "Darkburst" HB pickups Nitro Finish - Transparant dark cherry back & neck, Transparant Brazilian Sunburst top, gold hardware The next step is to build a neck pocket jig (Myka's design), and resaw the top into two bookmatched pieces. Any and all comments are appreciated, thanks, Robert UPDATE : I have just edited this post so that the original links through MSN are no longer here. The pics are in the post below.

1) No 2) A 3) F 4) No 5) What Phont24 and 28if said!

I suppose all this talk is about getting your final body shape using a router. What is wrong with using a band saw to get to within 1/8", and then using a spindle sander (or "drill sander") mounted under a table to get to the final shape...slowly sanding down to your line that you drew around your template?

Incredibly nice! Very inspiring as well. Looking at the "in progress" pictures was so intriguing that I dropped the template of the "Cadillac" that I'm working on and spilled my beer! Fortunately, it was almost finished (the beer), and now I am feverishly working to get to the next step....hoping mine will turn out as nice as yours! Again, great job. Was that little plane that you show on the carve one of the ones with a convex bottom sold by Stew Mac?

Someone told me recently that Epi inlays are not real; but they are painted on or something like that. Is that true?

In my 36+ years of playing I have changed strings on guitars more often than I care to think about! I have to agree that DR's pure blues are my favorites too. I think they really do hold their tone longer than any others that I have tried. However, I have lived in a dry climate for the last 19 years, and all strings seem to last a lot longer here in the Rocky Mountains than they did when I lived in Texas and Georgia! I think that when you live in a humid climate, you really do have to wipe down your strings much more often to get the most life out of them.

Man, outstanding job! I did not see any pics of how you carved the top. How did you do it? How long did it take to carve it, and how difficult was it to carve?

Nice guitar. Congratulations. Did you make the neck yourself, with inlays, binding and all? What kind of finish does it have? One small note: You might want to bone up on your spelling and punctuation; it would make your posts much easier to read. Again, good job. You're already way ahead of me!

On the Warmoth site, the diagram for the bridge says the bushing is 11.3mm wide. So I would have to agree that 11mm is the correct drill bit size for a bushing with splines like these.

Thanks to all so far...very helpful. I'm trying to think all of this through multiple times before I get started. My neck from Doug should be coming soon, and I'm getting close to ordering my body wood from Gallery. I went back to the faux binding idea after I decided to have a flat 1/4" maple top (on a Black Limba back), instead of trying to go for a carved top with my limited experience. I've been taking my time trying to get the template just right lately. Buying a router and practicing with it will be my next step after ordering the body wood.

Good idea. Thanks again.

Thanks Russ, I was not familiar with pinstripe tape! When I get to that point I think I will get some pinstripe tape, and tape inside the faux binding area. Then tape below the faux binding area on the side of the body. Then I'll spray the entire faux binding area with one coat of vinyl sealer and two coats of clear, before dying the top.

The only tape I know of that's anywhere near flexible enough to do that smoothly is "electrical tape", and I don't think that would work for this application. Don't most people have to scrape regular binding after dying or color finishing a top? If masking tape were flexible enough to use around the top edge, I would think that most would we doing it that way with regular binding. I have tried using masking tape along the top edge of plastic binding without any sucsess at all, and ended up just dying the whole top and scraping the top of the binding with a razor afterwards. I don't know, maybe there is a technique to using masking tape in this way that I am not aware of.

I saw picture of a guitar the other day that had a beautiful masked/natural binding. The coolest part was something I have not seen before with this type of binding. The face/front of the guitar had "natural" binding about 1/16" all around the front edge just like real binding! How is this done? Has someone invented curved tape? Or, is it somehow scraped off evenly after applying dye and the first couple of clear finish coats? Thanks

No, rumor has it that part of his contract with Fender is that they can only offer the pickups installed on new guitars, and he cannot sell copies of the pickups himself. Then, how do his pickups differ in tone from the Fender SCN pups that he designed, and why do I see NIB SCN pups for sale on ebay independently from guitars?

Yeah, after checking out his website and listening to the other guys talk about him, I'm impressed too! If his pickups sound as good as Kinmans at one third the price, I might have to check out a set. Does anyone know if his personal strat pickups are the exact same ones that Fender markets as SCN? I have a hand built strat made in 1984 made by my friend Scott Baxendale. The guitar has not had pickups in it for quite a few years. He used to make Mossman acoustics after he bought the company in the early 80's, and now builds mostly acoustics under his own name in Denver (Colfax Guitar Shop). I don't play strats anymore and thought I might sell this one. I would have to put in a set of good sounding pickups before I sell it though. Maybe the Bill Lawrence would be a great choice at a good price. It's pretty unique; cherryburst one piece ash with a solid piece of rosewood for the neck. The fingerboard is scalloped, and Yngwie played it once in 1985 (whatever that's worth). It has an original Schecter Trem on it, that I think sounds better than any strat style trem I have ever heard! Anyway, I'm rambling.

Chech out Kinman Pickups before you buy! They are outrageously good sounding Strat pickups...and no hum.

I once owned a 1982 all maple Gibson "E2" Explorer that sounded very good, with the exception that the low E string was dead no matter what you did to try and fix it! But, the top five strings sounded excellent! I absolutely LOVED the fat, baseball bat neck on the thing. I wish I knew what the diminsions were on that neck so that I could duplicate them on my new guitars to be built!

The typical Ibanez Artist is NOT the one you reference in your post. Most do not have the short, pointed SG style horns. However, the typical Artists ARE still symmetrical. I love 'em. I own two that I have refinished in nitro, and I'm about to build my own as soon as Doug @ Soulmate finishes my neck(NO rush, Doug...take your time). But, like you, I also like the offset LP Special/Jr. look that Hamer and Ron Thorn use. Maybe I'll try one of those when I finish this one. OR, maybe I'll just build my own Black Limba Flying V next, not sure.

As far as tone goes...they're different! I don't agree that one sounds "better" than the other. I like 'em both! By the way...how does one beat the "holy hell" out of something anyway?