bob123

Hmm, Im sure you will get it goin! It looks very classy already. Glad you are thinning it out as much as possible; some of those "semi-hollows" feel like they are made entirely out of lead lol. Ever pick up a heritage 535? O.o

Random question... how heavy do you expect this monster to weigh?

Makes sense. I am mainly interested in it for veneer or top making, not necessarily for structural uses

haha gent's I apologize! I wasn't being serious, and I came off that way. Ack. I could throw in a mahogany tone block, but that would require too much work for a guitar of this caliber. Im no snob (Hey, I DID buy a squier remember ), I just want it to play and sound better, as well as looking cool wont hurt Wait till you guys see the finish Im using. Its pretty sick haha....

My Lowes/HD does indeed have spruce, but it also has cedar, oak, redwood, "Whitewood"(any one know what white wood is?), and a crap ton of poplar.

I need a planer something awful..... Congrats. 500$ for all that should be a reasonably good deal.

Lol I agree! Its just now seeming to be hard enough to cut and polish..... I'll probably get to it tomorrow, and I'll post results. Still debating as to which pickup sets to put in... Super duper high output, or classic 80's "PAF" style..... Dunno.

Too bad, maple in it's natural color is quite nice. Making it that dark is like trying to MAKE BLACK WALNUT WHITE. I do hope you plan to sand that back and add color? Sorry for my negative reaction, I'm in a pi$$y mood and have not had my meds. Just kidding, nice find. :) O.o lmao I was getting ready with this long winded response about grain enhancement, and what that means... blah blah blah. If I took the time to do it, it would come out great!

Would you care to elucidate this? I don't entirely care about the route, just a bit annoyed because of it's negative preconception with the guitar snobs in the community.

Radio Shack???

Apparently it takes about 3 weeks to cure it. I have NOT cut and buffed yet, but this is what came out of it. Worked very well with the dyes.

For sure. This was the 2nd piece back, Im sure I can find even better stuff there if I kept diggin!

Starting point. I'll spare the nitty gritty bologna we've all seen 10000x's (i.e. sanding). As you can see, its a 22 fret neck, odd for a squier, which is why I even bothered to pick it up in the first place. The rosewood is impeccable to look at Better picture of the fret board. I'll be sanding the neck back and applying some tung oil to protect and smooth out the playability. Im not a huge fan of painted necks (clear or otherwise). and I WILL be having a color matched head stock

Found a GREAT playing 50th anniversary squier strat at a garage sale for 30 bucks. It plays so great, I'm deciding to refinish it, and spruce it up. Pro's -> Great playing, and has a wild rosewood fret board. Its multi-toned in color (which I haven't seen in person before). The neck is in fantastic shape as well. The body is solid alder wood, and has a great resonance. The neck fits in TIGHT for great tone. Con's -> the pickups flat out suck. I ordered some GFS Neovin noiseless pickups, and it should transform the tone -> The color sucks. Its a VERY drab red color... fixing that as we speak The new color is a surprise, Ill post pics along the way -> The hardware is "meh". Everything is rusted out, so I'll be replacing hardware. I have some sperzel locking tuners, a hipshot trem bridge, some new stainless steel screws, and everything will be snug as a bug in a rug. -> gonna take a LOT of work -.- -> not wild about the "Swimming pool route", but theres not much to be done about that unfortunately.

Broke my camera like 2 weeks ago, so I haven't been doing much picture taking... Anyway, got myself a new one today, so Im pleased to bring this to you. This is a crap, rush job just to show you guys what it is. The WHOLE friggen' piece of board is this flamed, all the way down. It's gonna be a great scrap for projects, or perhaps a fret board in the future. It's not AAAAAAAAA quality or anything, but its still REALLY cool, and will certainly fit the bill for a lot of people, especially for the (low) cost. As well all know, pictures don't grasp the true nature of flame tops, lets just say it looks even better in person...

Saw a member posting up pictures of a "lowes find" he had with some flamed maple. Well I was inspired and bored, so I took a look around my local lowes' to see what they had. Well, I found an absolutely SICK peice of flamed maple for 1.83$/foot. Got 8 feet of it. Ill be using it as a dye tester for sure. Ill post a picture tonight after I do some grain enhancing. Bottom line, I've seen pieces of wood like this sell on ebay for 30-40$, so it may be prudent for some of you guys to check it out! (They also have other great woods available, saw some figured oak of all things....)

Robbinst, To keep the maple "light" but still have accentuated grain you can merely throw some amber or light brown dye on the fret board, and sand back as you would with other colors. Hell, for the white/chrome motif you have, Id be tempted to use a blue dye.

I've tried mod podge. It NEVER comes out looking good for me.... I have used sanding sealer with success though.

Random question, did you lubricate your truss rod? Keep up the good work! Love that head stock design.

Lol I've used that stuff as well. Any 2 part resin isn't the most easy thing in the world. He merely said "Finishing Resin" which, in the guitar world, usually implies polyester resin.... Anywho,if that is what you are using, Some advice - Tape the sides with electrical tape. I mean the ENTIRE side as well even the bottom edge, not just next to the top. After an hour or so when it starts to get somewhat tacky, then remove the tape. - use THREE cups, not just mixing in one. pour your hardener in one cup, resin in the other. Pour the RESIN into the hardner (not the other way around). Stir SLOWLY (you have a lot of time to work with this stuff) for about 2 minutes. Then pour the mixture into a third cup but do NOT scrape the sides of the cup to "get it all out". - use a foam brush to apply it, dont just pour it on, or you will be fighting air bubbles. Put on 2 coats. I know the one coat will appear to be super thick, but you will be burning through that faster then you'd think. Its easier to thin out 2 coats then it is to re-sand and redo the whole damn thing lol. Finishing is the same as any other clear coat. Wet sand, polish, wax. Fortunately if you have a thick coat of resin on you can use a power sander to level (much easier!), and go from there yielding great results. Also, once you're finished, lemme know, theres some more details to work out so you dont crack the finish.

Polyester Resin? Good luck if its your first time! haha.

Thanks guys. I had no idea this was such an "industry standard" lol. I always thought the 3 peice necks were ways to cut costs and use smaller pieces of wood. If I had the capacity to do so, I would make necks like ernie ball does (wouldnt we all? ). They use the same peice of wood to make the neck AND the fret board. Really cool idea, wish more companies went that route.

Lot of people dig the one piece neck idea, but the lack of stability kind of concerns me. I was wondering, if it would be prudent to take a solid piece of wood (flame maple?), split the wood directly in half, flip one side (think chevron flame maple), and glue it together. Wood glued together is stronger then the original piece, and it should provide some added stability. Thoughts?

Yes and no. I've tried that one as well. The sheer amount of paint you'd have to put on would be LUDICROUS. It should work, but I lost patience. I've used wood sealer to some modicum of success as well. The way the "pros" (ibanez) do it, is to use polyester clear coat resin just because it builds faster. Im actually tempted to try another material finish soon. I'll be using epoxy resin over black. I fail to see why a properly painted base coat (over sealed wood) would cause problems. With nitro maybe, as it soaks into the wood, but normal paints, I just see it causing issues.

Parker is even MORE cheap lol. They dont slot at all, they just glue the frets directly on the board! edit : that said, Id love to know what kind of glue they use lol