guitar2005

Assembling a guitar is a good start. Buying a finished body would be a good choice IMO. Finish work is one of the hardest things to get right and doing it in an appartement is absolutely crazy IMO. With the overspray, spray particles and fumes, it just seems like a bad idea.

I've sold a few commissioned builds and bodies/necks. The pieces where I make the most money is on the parts but I'm still not at a break even point when I take into account the investment in tooling. tooling wear and tear and supplies. I'm just happy that I can eventually break even and to have happy customers. The completed builds don't bring in as much money. The last one I sold was a very nice piece and it sold for $750.00, after all fees and whatnot. The guy paid around $850.00. It was a thinline Tele with binding and nice MOP inlays. I hope that the two I'm working on now will bring in a little more. Fact is, if you're unknown or a small shop, completed build don't make money. I have sold others for more than that, obviously, but its a tough market and you have to be very patient. For me, repair work, whether it be guitars or amps, its too much time and is not worthwhile IMO. You have to meet the person, they want to chat, you do the repair, then the customer wants to exchange emails with you, you finish the work, meet the person again, they'll want to chat some more... not worth it. I'll only do repair if someone absolutely wants me to do the work. These days, I just say no unless the person is in a bad situation.

Yeah, ok. A luthier I know started dealing with them 2-3 years ago. Brian Monty from Monty guitars. I'll give it a try.

So how does it work? Do you have to send them your completed guitars? I have two I'm completing that I'm not sure how I'm going to sell.

People often ask me why I don't put my guitars into local stores and that's exactly my reason. We've talked a little in the past and I know my approach is different from yours. I sell more by doing non-commissioned builds and selling it as is through DAG or by having people find it posted in some forum. Normally, I can expect a new build to sell within two weeks of making the photos public. Hmmm... what's DAG? I have to admit, I've never sold a guitar on consignment. Lots of people asking questions, liking the guitar but in the end, the brand name wins. That, or the cheaper Korean/Chinese import. Its definitely easier for me to do a custom, commissioned build in terms of money.

Seems like this would be an awesome thread but all the pictures show a question mark. Is it just me or are the pics completely gone?

All I can say is that it can be very hard to make money building guitars. Build two or three and put them on consignment in a local shop and see how that goes.

One thing I noticed with the Jem necks (or any lock nut guitar) is that the nut must be nice and tight. Screw/bolt it down very tight and a bit of glue under it wouldn't be a bad idea. If it has brass shims under it, things get even worse and it will move ever so slightly every time you adjust tuning, use the trem, bedn strings etc. Getting those things tight is key.

I've used quartersawn Birch on a guitar neck and it came out extremely well. http://www.lydian.ca/Portfolio/Pages/Cedar_Top_Thinline.html I'm using it again on two more guitars with a flame maple board and SS frets.

The EM6000 actually works quite well. You just need to know what the quirks are over a dark finish. Most of my troubles came from the lacewood venneer top which was quite hard to grain fill and get an even finish on. On the Lacewood Jem, I basically sanded back quite a bit to get a little more clarity in the finish. It is much better now vs when I first buffed it up. This is a Cherry burst I did with EM6000. It worked very well: And an Anthracite Strat, which also worked well (that was tinted EM1000 with EM6000 clear over it):

I actually finished this guitar a couple of months ago and even played a show with it. Here are a couple of pics of it. There are a couple of minor flaws on it but nothing major. This guitar finish was a major pain to complete. Lacewood is hard to work with. Here, you can see the decal and how I didn't properly apply it There's some air bubbles under it. Lesson learned. The guitar feels great, especially the schellac finished neck. Its plays beautifully and it has settled in now. I've had 3 fret ends sprout up (bound fretboard and no glue used when fretting) but it was fairly minor. The guitar has very low action of approx 3/64" on the high e. I might bring it up a little as that's a little low for me.

I agree and like I said, I've never glued my frets in except for the odd time where a fret wouldn't hold the radius shape and I'd pull it out and install a new fret with a small dab of glue. Another reason is that as I radius and flatten the fret board, sometimes, the frets slots are no longer deep enough on the edges. This is a problem mostly with 9.5" radius necks. Everytime you insert that fret saw in the fret slot and deepen the slot, that slot becomes compromised IMO. My last couple of necks have been superb but I'm still trying to find ways to improve and now that I'm using stainless steel frets, I need the fretwork to be as solid as possible. I guess that the extra little bit of insurance on the fret work is a good thing and only time will tell if it actually makes a difference. In terms of tone alone, I think that a glued in fret possibly has less wasted energy.

The idea with the wood glue is that it will swell the wood somewhat and then, harden in that state.

I've never glued frets in but I think that I want to try it on the next couple of necks. I was of using thinned wood glue. Does that sound like a good idea? The thinned glue should help in swelling the wood fibers somewhat and it can grip better onto the tangs.

Gotoh tuners are pretty inexpensive and are of excellent quality. You can get a set for about $45.00 in black, locking.

I direct mount my pickups whenever I can. I don't like plastic or wood rings holding my pickups. I feel that direct mounted pickups give me a tone and more sustain. I explain this by the fact that the pickup is in sync with the vibration and resonance of the guitar. Some people may say that this is BS but I feel that it does make a difference. I have an explorer on which I tried this (direct vs ring) and the direct mount definitely had more oomph and that extra complexity to it.

Like the title says. I need a white DiMarzio neck humbucker. If you have anything like this, PM me.

I'd leave it as visible as possible and fill it with a high quality clear epoxy before shaping.

That's a beautiful neck.

There's one eBay China guy that has decent pickguards. ALL pickguards come from China anyways. I bought a few and they worked out fine.

I've done it on a few guitars. The reason was never price though. A good quality veneer is pretty expensive and harder to glue on IMO.

+1 on that!

hmmm... that's another vote for the angle grinder, but what do you do in the winter time? Do you still work outside?

On my current strat project, I made 3 major mistakes and I really felt trashing the whole thing. On of the mistakes, I only found out when I put the neck on. It can be VERY frustrating but I found a way to make it work. The problem is that in the back of my mind, I know I screwed up but other guitarists would look at it and love it. Its all a matter of perception.

So what method do you use now?