piercefield

I usually hand block the neck pocket if I need a little angle... I try to built in my angle on the heel of the neck. I'm not much on shims

Well I accomplished quiet a bit today I feel like...

Got the frets on and leveled and polished back out...

Was dissapointed I didn't have any cedar truss rod covers made up. Had like 20 walnut, 1 purple heart, I decided to go with the walnut and paint it nitro black.

Hanging it up while I make the nut... I didn't have many pickups to choose from... Had 1 dimebucker, 2 emg select, 1 epiphone bridge and a pair of crome paf style. I decided to go with the dimebucker and a paf style in the neck position. looks better than I thought it would

I use micarta because its cheap if I screw up...

Roughed out

I mark it by holding it up to a epi les paul jr. then just file the crap out of it... I leave about half the wound strings above the nut.

I angle them back slightly to keep the fret board side as the high point.

I still have to polish the nut with the micro mesh pads, wire it up, nitro the truss rod cover, make the back cover, adjust the action, and inonate it...

Did I forget anything?

It's finally raining out So I couldn't get any real good pictures tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

But I will say this. I roughly tuned it up, and without adjustment, and with the bridge all the way down, Strings are roughly a 1/16" off the fretboard and only had 1 fret buzz.... Plays fairly good as it is...

Will have to level that fret though... that aggrevates me!

awesome, how about the hammer? does that work perfect?

Perfect? well no lol... It's a small hammer and I would really prefer more weight or at least a dead blow type action... Does it perform as in non-marring? absolutely!

wow how well does that work?? it awesome. I cant believe how well those mess pads work. How long do they last usually?

The video on Stew Mac shows Dan Erlewine stating he uses them wet and leaves them in water for about 2 weeks. I don't know what that says for longetivity, but from my experiance, I can say I use them dry and have used them on 5 complete guitars. They also work on polishing plastic pick gaurds and frets. I have used them on everything and they still cut like the first day I got them. Using them dry they load up quick but as I said before I keep a white T-shirt handy and polish for about 15 seconds, then wipe the dust off on the T-shirt. They are 100% clean with one wipe on the T-Shirt. For 10 bucks you can't go wrong IMO.

It's not always the most technically proficient builder that wins GOTM, A great design and execution of your ideas is a good place to start. You;ve used non-traditional woods, which have seemed to work nicely together. Your wood burning skills are great. Wood burning is something we rarely see. The inlay on the neck looks really cool and ties the theme together. I also love your cost effective fret hammer. Something I wish I would have thought of years ago! Would give me a reason to keep buying Coke LOL.

Some vote on wood choice, some vote on color and some vote on best skilled luthier. I for one simply vote for the guitar that I'd walk into the store and buy. This looks like it could be one of those guitars for me.

Zyon, I appreciate the comments but the quality of some of the builds I see on here far surpass anything this guitar will be.... I will post a video clip once done so you can hear it though...

It's something to coinsider If the end result satisfies me. The idea behind the oak core comes from reading about Brian May when I was a kid. building his guitar from an oak fireplace mantle. There are positives to using oak. Density for sustain, low bass but also hits screaming highs all while capturing a real buttery tone. I have tried this same body style in poplar and walnut and it comes off real muddy and has no tone definition.

I think stairway would have been in most eyes a top 20 at least

Neck polished now ready for fretting...

Ready for a laugh?

Now here goes a good old Redneck hillbilly fret job (yes I really am from kentucky lol)

Where is the fret hammer you say?

Walla! plastic face hammer and it didnt cost $40

I bet some of you guys are still shaking your head

Zyon, I appreciate the comments but the quality of some of the builds I see on here far surpass anything this guitar will be.... I will post a video clip once done so you can hear it though...

Fixing to polish the neck....

I didnt have any pictures of before i started but I made it from black walnut

Stew mac maple fret board

dual action truss rod($27 for 5 on ebay)

Rattle can stew mac clear

Here is a pile i use for necks, approximately 100 boards 3 inches wide about 7 feet long 5/4 thick (Free wood, I salvaged while cutting timber about 10 years ago)

My wood burnt hoof mark fret markers

I have awlays made paddle style necks with a 13 - 14 degree scarf.

wouldnt be complete without the woodburnt name

Ok... finally got all 9 grits complete... Micro mesh pads are awesome! (I don't even have the large ones, I use the touch up pads they are about 2" x 2" )

Thanks for the comments guys!

Pestvic, It really isn't that hard... I have free hand drawn for years but have no interest in drawing... Wood burning on the other hand is my creative flare for guitars. It's unique and artsy lol...

I came up with the idea from the maple les paul I was telling you about a few days ago. The one with the maple off cuts that were to short for a body but plenty long... My wife wanted one to call her own so she came up with the idea of adding a rose to it. I practiced on a piece of pine for about 15 minutes (first time wood burner EVER) then drew it on the guitar and the vine runs off the front all the way around the back and comes back around to the front and has a rose bud at the upper bout where the 3 way would normally go. ( I have since learned to make a template and carbon paper the image to the guitar as graphite from a pencil drawing does not burn and will still have a gray shine once burnt)

Here is my very first attempt at wood burning and keep in mind the image is not blurry this is just how quick pine burns and the heat bleeds quick.

About 15 minutes later I had it drew on there and cut loose... I found out maple burns super slow and you have to move slowly to get the desired darkness.

After it was done I thought to myself the leaf on the top should have been moved because I wound up with to much dark in a straight line... It doesn't matter though. She loves it and it hangs on the wall and gets tuned about once a year a never played

I like the fact you repaired it even though it would have never shown... True pride in craftmanship!

<_<

It's an dust cyclone for my vacuum cleaner - the blue plate is a lid of an 15l paint can, and the beer bottle is supposed to separate the dust into the can instead of the vacuum cleaner. The attachment shown is for my sander. Still have to test it, to see if i got the proportions right.

I was wondering myself... I was picturing this as some sort of pressurized epoxy injection rig to fill the knots

is it worth having a channel under each height adjustment set screw - might help to keep them all parallel

also worth remembering that the saddles need to be set quite high on a kahler style trem to give enough string pressure on them - they look a little low at the moment. definitely worth considering trying it on an actual guitar to get all those aspects correct before going much further

hmm. i think i would also thin down the long saddle sections from just behind the grub screw so that they all looked like the low e saddle

Good ideas! I think a channel below at least D - E1 is needed... Otherwise If you banged around pretty hard I could see it flexing and moving around. I also agree that if they were thinned down it would give more uniformity, not that it looks bad as it is, but would just add to the overall appearance.

I guess watching tv is counter productive... I only made it through 4 grits

I love this post... I think the detail is great

5 grits to go.... will have to wait till tomorrow...

I haven't worked on any new guitars for quiet awhile...

After reading this forum every day for awhile it has sparked an interest again. Decided to complete my buck and a half guitar.

I don't have the skill that most of you guys have but I can amuse myself...

Hollow core white oak with red cedar skins(the aromatic cedar haha) (weird combo but I use to be a timber cutter and I have a nice stockpile of cedar, oak, poplar and black walnut)

Stew mac rattle can clear

All free hand routed with pencil lines and a dewalt laminate trimmer (want to talk about brave? free hand an F hole with a laminate trimmer

Woodburnt with my trusty soldering iron

Most of the cedar I have is like 4 inches wide which alows me to mix and match the boards to get some sap wood lined up down the middle, once the neck is on, the maple freatboard makes it resemble a neck through.. Kinda reminds me of the old Carvin koa guitars.

I use the knotty and splotched cedar for the backs so I don't waste any.

Here is after about 20 coats of rattle can clear

At this very moment I'm setting on the couch with an old T shirt and those 9 stew mac polishing pads from 1500 to 12000 grit.

Damn I forgot how long this takes with these but I did get it level sanded to 1500 now i'm ready to polish (easier ways I know but I can do this while watching TV and keep the wife happy because I'm not outside lol. And those little pads never drop the dust, it clings to them and when they load up I wipe them on the T-shirt and it's pretty much mess free.

I like the way the grooves are still there and it seems like moonlight glistening off the barbed wire.

Still see a few low spots on the radiuses

After I finish watching this movie I should have it down to 12000 and I will post more pics...

Maybe tomorrow I can start polishing the neck, it has hoof prints for fret markers...

And as long as you have good clamp pressure and adequate cure time either one used in a glue joint will always be stronger than the wood itself... you can do tests with scraps to test this... the wood will break in the grain before the glue joint.

Yeah, some i havent played in so long i am going to go back through and write them down just for something fun to jam with.... brings back memories of when i played every day lol

Have you tried power cut versus climb cuts? looks like the chatter was from a climb cut... you could always run your finish cut in a power cut direction which should yield a clean smooth cut regardless of the wood hardness due to the continuous inward pull on the bit... Be careful with the power cut as it can shear out splinters on hard brittle wood though... When in a situation you can't cut a certain direction because of end cut chipping you can always make an initial "in" cut at your end point say 1/4" in, then make your normal pass which will end at the 1/4" in cut you made

You may already know all of this and I'm wasting breath... If so I apologize lol

And you can always slow your feed rate which will be equivalent to a higher spindle speed... either way your decreasing bit load...

wow brings back memories... either played or tried to play most all of them...

You did a hell of a job. clean and crisp looking

Might be the lighting but it looks like the frets havent been recrowned yet... Last pic looks like you can still see verticle sand marks in them.

Great job!

Great job with the black on the NM... great highlighting of the figure...

The sealer really made the cove stand out on the LP... I'm not so sure now

I'm just thinking you should have made 2 or 3 while you had your setups lol...

I was concerned about the unpolished surface in the flat but i see where its going now...

Looks great!

Why didn't anyone tell me I forgot the side dots on this neck?? !!

Lucky I noticed in between paint stages, so I can still add dots and sand back before laying last layers of clear!

I have done that before... I was completely finished and playing the guitar when i noticed... Had to disassemble and call a redo.

Looks great and after looking around a bit, looks like it can be had fairly cheap too...