guitar2005

You'll want to stain it with anilyne dye. Sand it clean to about 220 grit then apply the stain several times. http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=...,42996&ap=1

I'm tempted to use the Minwax wood hardener because it is easily available and comes in large enough quantity to do a guitar top. I'm intrigued with the CA glue option though. I wanted to try this but wasn't sure if it was a good idea. I'd have to buy several bottles of the stuff and some people on this board have said that it can create some blotchyness on the wood. This is for a 1/2" Black Limba top (see pic below). I'd really like to hear the pros and cons of both methods. drak mentioned adding some acetone to the minwax hardner. Would that would as well as CA? If I were to use CA, how much would I need?

Book: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Books,_plans/B...Inlay_Book.html You can make your own dremel base for under $10.00. mine is made with a clear acrylic base.

Normal 5mm dots. Although when my brother saw the shark fins on my 540Pii his eyes litt up. But as I don't have any experience with inlays, that has to wait till another build. Oh man! for the inlays, you should try it out. Its really not that hard. It takes a lot of patience though. This is my first attempt: Not perfect but the next one will be better. Had I gotten the stew-mac spiral cutter bit, I think I could have followed the outlines better. Its now on order

Did a bit of work over the holidays on this one. 1- I routed out the body outline from the Mahogany 2- Received the Black limba for the top 3- Thicknessed and jointed the Korina 4- Glued the tops on both guitar bodies (Notice how well tops are joined in the middle with no visible glue line) 5- Routed the top to match the body outline 6- 320 grit sanded the sides and top of the body 7- Glued the mahogany headstock. The Black Limba "triangle" overlay will be applied separately when I have the base headstock deisgn cut out, routed and final sanded. The tops were a real bitch to glue. I used all the clamps I had but I still have a couple of spots where the glue line is visible. Having both pieces perfectly flat to mate as closely as possible was really tough. I have a question regarding the Black Limba. It is a lot softer than I thought it would be. Is there a way to "harden" the wood. I want to use a thin nitro finish but if the wood is too soft underneath, it won't last very long. Any suggestions?

What's all the white stuff on the body? Nice neck! I like laminated necks and ebony boards. What are you doing for inlays?

According to this, big leaf maple is slightly harder than Mahogany (Honduran i.e. "real" mahogany). You're right to say that they're similar in hardness but I beg to differ on density. Maple is denser that mahogany as it has closed pores... unless you have a different notion of density. I have both species here and from what I can see, the maple does seem to be a little harder. Regardless, the difference is minimal and big leaf maple should be just fine for a neck, especially with hard woods included in the laminate.

The pin holes can be filled with more epoxy. Sand what you have now flush and see if they still show. To avoid the pin holes, heat the epoxy for 10-20mn with a heat lamp. That allows the tiny air bubbles to escape and helps with the settling of the epoxy. Good Luck.

Big Leaf maple is perfectly acceptable wood for guitar necks. It is harder than Mahogany and Mahogany is used on a lot of guitar necks. I'm using it on a 5 piece laminate with Jatoba. The one on the left is the soft maple... See pic below. http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL912/43163...0/206954969.jpg

I conducted a couple of non-scientific tests. I made 2 scarf joints with gorilla glue and 1 with yellow glue (Lepage Carpenter's glue - Titebond I equivalent) All tests were done with maple to maple joints. The maple is either hard Rock Maple or Silver Leaf maple. Conclusions: 1) All Gorilla glue joints failed at the glue line and only a couple of small snippets of wood were torn off. For these tests, I had hard rock maple to hard rock maple joints. 2) The yellow glue joint withstood the test where correct pressure was applied. The wood gave before the glue line. Where I had less pressure, the glue line failed. For this test, the wood that broke was Silver Leaf maple. Did the silver leaf maple break because it is not as strong as the hard rock maple? I don't know. 3) To break the joint, I had to stand on the neck portion of the glued up piece. So why did the Gorilla joint not perform as well as Yellow glue in my tests? I don't know. I didn't take any more care in preparing the surface for one test vs the other. I cleaned and vacum'ed both surfaces before glue-up in all cases. On my laminates prepared with Yellow glue, I noticed that the wood breaks near the joints and usually, there is a spot where the glue line is the point of failure and most spots (80%) are wood failure. I didn't try Gorilla glue laminates. In the end, it takes a lot of force to break the joints regardless of the type of glue used but I think that I'll stick to Yellow Glue for now for all my laminates and scarf joints. Just thought I'd share this with you.

I have one of these truss rods in a length of 17". I want to use it in a 25.5" scale neck with a locking nut. I'm not sure where the block at headstock end is supposed to sit. Do I place the adjustment nut under the locking nut, flush with the end of the fretboard? I also assume that the flat part sits up, towards the fretboard. Any help is appreciated.

Yeah... I know. We're also both doing a Ken Lawrence explorer style guitar. I was looking for something different that fit the Jem for which this fretboard is destined. Since Jems had the pyramids back in the 80's and I'm a huge Iron Maiden fan (ref. Powerslave album), I thought that this would be cool. I just can't find a logo for the guitar's headstock

Thanks for the encouraging words. I know I can do better. For this one, as the wood darkens, the epoxy filler won't show as much with time.

Hand plane if you really want to have it the "correct" thickness. Keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with a thicker body.

I finished my first complex inlay and the result is OK. Some parts are nice and tight and others have a bit more filler. I had a bit of trouble following the traced outline. I used the tempra paint trick to make the outline. I also had problems with fuzz. I'll buy a downward spiral bit for the next inlay I do. For this one, I might darken the wood in some areas to blend in the filler... although, the wood will darken over time. http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL912/43163...1/217738477.jpg Any tips or comments are welcome.

Why is wiping the glue line a problem? I always wipe the glue lines. If you don't do it, you will end up with gobs of dried glue that are a real pain to get rid of. Are you saying that you wiped the glue into the pores? I always wipe with a scraper and then follow a couple of times with a damp rag, which sucks up any leftover glue.

So for ebony inlays, it makes sense to use ebony dust to mix with Epoxy to fill the inlay gaps and set them in. Black on black will not show around the inlay gaps. I wonder though, for rosewood (Cocobolo), the black will show around the inlays. Has anyone tried rosewood dust. The Inlay Techniques book doesn't mention anything else tham ebony dust. Is there a reason why only ebony dust in mentioned?

Dude, You already have a thread on this subject. Why start a 2nd one? Geeez...

the neck's "bending axis" moves when you thin the neck...so make the rout just deep enough for the rod,put the (thinned) fretboard on top,and thin the back as much as you feel is safe. i leave 1/8" in maple...plus of course the volute it works for ibanez.that's why i started profiling them like i do...ibanez uses 3 piece lams in their neck throughs with 2 way rods,thinner fretboards(little less than 3/16") and volutes...they have quite stiff yet easily adjustable necks. I like the look of a nice thick fretboard. On my current project, I'm considering using a 1/4" fretboard on which I will route a 1/16" deep channel so that the truss rod is 1/16" "in" the fretboard as opposed to fully in the neck itself. What do you think? will it work? This is the truss rod I'll be using: http://www.alliedlutherie.com/truss_rods.htm

That's a real nice guitar body. Congratulations on a great deal. Here's what I would do: 1. Add binding around the top of the guitar. Plastic will work best for a guitar like that. 2. Carefully measure the neck pocket. Determine if it has an angle. 3. Determine the scale length. 4. Build a neck that will match the neck pocket. 5. Glue the neck on to the body 6. Get all the hardware you'll need to complete the guitar 7. Finish the wood 8. Install the hardware 9. String her up 10. Rock Out! Have fun!

Shim the neck to give it a slight angle.

It can be done. You'll need to make a template made for the bevel. Simply follow the custom template with a ball bearing bit.

Depends on your fretboard thickness. Overall thickness is 1", with the fretboard. http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/necks/necks....fuseaction=faq2

Plane the wood down until 90% of the rough saw marks are gone. Then, let the wood sit for a couple of days and check if it warped. Flatten one side and plane until no saw marks are visible. Wait another 2-3 days and plane to final thickness. The wood will move a little but keep in mind that the top doesn't have to be perfectly flat unless you're gluing a top on the guitar, which you are not doing. Honduran Mahogany is one of the most stable woods out there. I would not worry about warpage too much.

2 Seater? Any cargo room? What kind of engine? I hope GM picks up on this baby