Jehle

You are taunting me! The string through body is a must. I'll do that one for sure. I have already thought about leaving the pickgard off to show off the figured maple top that I'm adding. Nice looker now. Good job!

BTW, what are you doing with that piece? 1" is a little thin for a body. Are you going to top it with another 1/4" or so of maple for a guitar body?

Now there's a thought. I've seen all these pictures of y'all dressing up the guitars with fabric and swirly paint... yadda yadda yadda... Now, what about the inside? Recently, extreeme gaming PC's have clear cases, or windows cut in the sides, they have low voltage neon lights in them. All the cables are extra neat and bundled to look purdy. Now, with a clear pick guard, it seems natural that you could also make the inside of the guitar just as interesting. Neat wire job, chrome plate the route "walls", or inlay Burl Walnut just on the inside... Hmmmm... Experiment time again...

I have two tube amps with 12AX7's. For a tube amp, yes, you will be better off to get a matched set. Tubes typically will work in a push-pull configuration. You can think of it as one tube sitting on either side of the amp speaker. One tube pushes the speaker while the other one pulls from the other side. They go back and forth like this and that's what makes the sound... Now. If you didn't have a balanced set one tube would be a little weaker (like playing tug of war with a 5 year old). Or, the speaker wont rest in a neutral position. While it'll work, it won't be nearly as loud because the speaker wont be able to move through it's entire range. I've used Sovtek's before. They were cheaper than most everywhere else. Really, there are very few American companies left that make tubes. Russia is still in the business though. They still have radios over there that use 'em and stuff. I can remember back in the 80's even that every 5-and-dime had one of those huge tube testers. You don't see those around anymore. *sigh* I'm getting old. I remember when tubes were mainstream the first time around.

Since I'm going to have this very problem in a week or so... (Kit's here, BTW Brian. Taking my time and pictures.) I was going to use the old "pencil trick". I was just going to take a piece of printer paper and tape it down to the body and rub with the side of the pencil lead. That way, I'd have a reference from the pickup cavities, the control route, right down to the smallest screw hole. Wait a sec, did someone say that they are putting a pickguard over the veneer? I hope it's a clear one...

This is the closest I could find on Norm's site... Look for "Band saw circle jig". Bit scant on the info... but it's sorta there. http://www.newyankee.com/fanmail/search_sh...hop_notes2.php3 Here's the same idea with a router. Seems like you should be able to cut out the circle bit and keep the concave "leftover". http://www.woodworkingtips.com/etips/etip102000sn.html I don't have a router yet though. :|

Alex, you are quite a wiz with the computer graphics. If your career as a meatloaf impresonator doesn't pay off, you can always get a job in computer graphics. My idea was similar to that, but I was thinking more about cutting the arc directly (rather than scribing the arc first like you suggested). I've seen Norm Abram on the New Yankee Workshop cut large circular arcs like this with a large jig. Basically it's a huge slab of plywood with a nail in the center. A rigid wooden rod slips over the nail to mark the center. The other end is used to guide the saw for cutting the arc... Time for me to do more web surfing on it. I'm on the case, even though I don't need to do this step quite yet. I just love to make jigs. And pain. I love pain too.

Wow. I'm a rebel. I run everything through my SansAmp, well except the banjo or course. Most of my work is in recording and not giging, so the small rig is good for two things. I can play anytime and not wake the neighbors (or the cats even), and it's really light weight. If I need more volume, I can always run into any power amp.

I've seen in several places now where people have made their own sanding blocks to radius the fretboard. I'm wondering how this is done. My first thought is that you might use a jig and a band saw. Perhaps a block mounted at the end of stick that is then rotated on the band saw to get the proper radius. Are there other ways to make such a sanding block?

Dremel tool can burn wood if you spin the bit too fast. Don't some of the higher end models have an adjustable speed? I have a Sears knock off of a Dremel with two speeds: Off and On. It's way too fast for most work. I always have to test on a scrap to see how the bit's going to behave. I have used some Dremel bits (like the combination bit - cutter and drill bit) in the drill press before with decent results. It's slower work as you move the wood under it rather than the tool. It's also really easy to goof up too. Oops.

Bugger. I think I ordered mine (a now backordered Tele) before the deal. Oh well. How longs the backorder delay going to take? Nevermind.... Just got email from Brian I'm happy now and will be futzing away on the new project this weekend.

Oops... I did it again I like the Jem style controls. Nice touch. Time for the challenge level now... Can you make a Paul all carved out to look like fire (like the strat that Steve Vai played in "Goin Crazy").

Keep in mind that I'm still new to guitar building. This was for a senior project about... 10 to 12 years ago. I had the entire thing assembled and basically took COTS transfers from an office supply store. Just simple letters and basic shapes. So now I had every dial and switch labeled. To protect it (it'll scratch off with a fingernail), we sprayed on a clear coat (I forget what it was). Instant melt down. Everything curled up and it had to be taken apart and redone. I tried about a 1/2 dozen clear finishes, all failed and melted the letters. Then my wife handed me this can of plasticote from one of her fleckstone projects. Perfection. I put a few light coats on to build it up. It was still a little ugly from all the scraping that I had to do on the plastic bits, but the marking were flat and protected now. As for where you get the stuff... Walmart, Staples? And from the sounds of it. This site suggests that you could use that iron on transfer stuff. Hmmm. I have my doubts. Experiment anyone? http://www.wyndstone.com/mouse.htm

I've had problems with that stuff before. Most finishes that you would want to put on top of it will react with the ink and make it disolve and pucker up. Really a mess to clean up. What I have done that worked in the past is to use the dry transfer and then cover it with clear plasticote (some left over from a fleckstone kit from Walmart). There's no reaction between those two. I guess that you could protect the dry transfer with the plasticote and then put a proper finish on top of it. Worth a shot anyway.

Wel I did Look at this OMFG! You did it! That's cool! I want one!

I figured it out as I was writing the initial response. I thought that some other newbie, like myself, might have the same "huh?" response. Now if I could only find some Maple or Rosewood toothpicks. I'd be set.

Alex sure makes it look simple. I have two comments: 1) I'm not sure what he means about drilling through the fretboard at the 1st and 15th frets. There might be a dot marker on the 15th fret to cover a hole. But, the 1st fret? Does he mean to drill on the fret slot location? That makes more sense, but the instructions could be really specific about that. I think the problem is that as a guitarist "the first fret" actually implies about two square inches of wood to me. 2) The inner tube idea for claming in the glue phase is a much better solution than the rubber bands that I had suggested. The missus might not like the idea of me stealing her inner tubes though.

For other projects around the house, I've used rubber bands (more like in a chain for a rubber string) to clamp items. Each wrap of a rubber band applies more pressure, and it wouldn't risk denting the wood. You can build up pressure quickly (exponentially) with rubber bands. I also have about a million rubber bands from the newspapers too. It seemed a shame to throw them out... So, for glueing a new fretboard, it seems that a "rubber string" method would be perfect to clamp the wood while the glue dries. You wouldn't risk denting the wood, and you could just wrap the puppy up until the glue seeps out of the join. Any thoughts?

Bingo! I had discovered the plug idea over the weekend. That would make for a nicer dot rather than a dowel. The grain in a dowel is running the wrong way for a fretboard dot. The only problem now is that I can't seem to find plug cutting bits small enough for my taste. I've seen them as small as 1/4", but I would like to have something a little more small than that. I'm after the dot size on the MusicMan guitars which appear to be much smaller. Anyone have one handy to make a measurement? On another note... I've also now seen Red Heart and Yellow Heart woods now too. They appear to be just as hard as their purple cousin. Anyone ever work with these woods before? I wonder how Yellow Heart would look on an Ebony fretboard? Hmmmm. I have a serious guitar building bug now.

I've been thinking about replacing the black plasticy dots on one of my maple fingerboards with purple heart. First off, it this wise? Removal of the dot is one concern, but could there be a problem using purple heart on the fretboard? Next, where in the world can you get a purple heart dowel? Any help or advice appreciated. Thanks.

Hope I inspired someone to at least massacre an Epiphone copy. I'm just about to start working on my 1st kit. It's starting out life as a Tele copy. A monkey grip is on the list of many modifications. I'll be sure to post plenty of pictures for y'all. Oh there's so much to do... wish me luck.

Just curious, has anyone put a monkey grip on a Les Paul?

I'm actually a little more interested in how he got the aged look on the finger board. Seems like that section was pretty brief. I'd love to make mine look like that.

Oh... That's sweet. Makes me even reconsider getting a Tele. I really like the bits about aging the hardware.

Wow. That brings back memories. I used to have a guitar that looked almost exactly like that. Same pickup and everything. As I recall, it had a tunamatic sort of bridge on it. To bad I got drunk one night and threw it off the top of the dorm roof... about 5 or 6 times...