zyonsdream

This is a Fender but I'm pretty sure it's converted guitar

looks like fire wood to me!

The top looks great and I like the controls! I’d like to see more too. The only thing that bugs me is how the guard goes over the bezels for the pickups. Could be a top vote getter in the GOTM.

Using dowels or biscuits when gluing wings to a neck through blank or even just gluging a few pieces together to make a body will help with one thing....creep. Eventually most wood will allow for small (or large) amounts of creep. Basically means, it lets the two boards move a little bit over time. Newer glues are not quite as bad but in a lot of cases, if you don't give adequate time for your glue to cure (not just dry) and you thickness sand your blank you might see a step show up at the joint over time. Look at older guitars and in many cases you'll see imperfections in the finish at the joint. A biscuit or even dowel pin configuration would help to prevent the wood from creeping. That being said, I dont do it myself but just a thought on why some people would think it would be beneficial.

I'm Mc-lovin' the fretboard!

Some people design better than they build. I've seen a ton of original designs done in photoshop that never make it to wood simply because the designer is better at designing than building. I think selling a design has its pluses, You can design a shape in photoshop and if the right person likes it you can make a few bucks off of selling the rights and you might even get some royalties out of it. Owning or running a small guitar company is not an easy thing to do. I'm sure a lot of folks here can back me up on that. I've also seen people do stranger things than sharpie a headstock and have it turn out pretty cool.

I'm not a fan. There is a ton of scratches in the chrome which makes me think its not triple plated. It's small but the switch tip is not chrome and the mounting bolts are not chrome. I understand the story but it just seems a bit off to me. There is a reason wny very few guitars are complete chrome. I saw the Satch model in a store and it looked like chrome on wood not chromed metal.

can't you just buy a pre slotted board (stew-mac or something) and cut frets off the nut end to shorten the scale length to what you need? In short (ha ha) just chop off the first 3 frets and have a go at it?

That's really cool! Might have to try this out.

The inlay work and fretwork is bad but you are right that it will give you a lot to learn from. Fixing a messed up guitar is often harder than actually building one. Those Chinese rip offs are a plague on society but if you can take one and make a real player out of it then you will be an accomplished repair person for sure. One thing I would do is strip the logo off of it and come up with something creative.

Well, I’ve done stupid stuff too. I built a sent neck guitar a while back and ended drilling the post holes about 1.5: too close to the 12th fret. Not the end of the world but before I checked everything I routed the humbucker cavity so if I moved the bridge back to where it belongs The bridge pickup will be in a very odd looking spot. To fix it I could do two things: Fill in the holes for the bridge and tail piece and fill in the pickup cavity and then redrill and route in the correct locations or figure out the scale length and construct a new neck to fit it. My second mistake: gluing in the set neck before I made the first mistake! I don’t feel like removing the neck or filling cavities. The guitar serves as a reminder to me about my own stupidity!

For some reason Fender never jumped on the stringer bandwagon (Guess it was mostly a BCR and Carvin thing) but I’ve always thought stringers looked good on Telecasters. I was actually debated using Padauk for stringers over Bubinga but I was afraid that the Padauk dust might get into the grain of the very light limba and never come out. However, I don’t see any of your guitars with bridge pickups in the gunslinger position! 

I started a new project yesterday, glued this up and got it shaped in just a few hours. It’s obviously a standard telecaster body with a bolt on neck. Wood: 3 piece white limba with bubinga stringers, mahogany neck and Bolivian rosewood fretboard. Neck specs: 24.75 Scale 12” radius with Jumbo frets and pearl position markers. 4 point bolt pattern with ferrules- no plate Body specs Rear belly cut Single humbucking bridge pickup- gunslinger style! (angled) Wrap around tail piece Limba Matching cover plate Not 100% sure on finish right now. Might go with an amber tinted clear coat. Should be pretty simple but elegant too. Nothing super flashy about it. The color is a bit washed out in the picture, it’s more of a golden color in person. I also designed a new headstock shape. I love my current 3x3 shape but I thought I needed something a little less radical.

if it's exotic or figured you can cut it up into knife handle and gun handle blanks and get some money back out of them.

I did not get a chance to post my thanks for all of the votes I got in the GOTM competition. It was my best month to date but more importantly I truely appreceate the spirit of competition on this site and the genuine feedback that I've recieved over the last few months that has helped me improve my game to earn a few more votes each time I enter. This site truly helps to push me to be better. There are so many talented people on this site that really serve as inspiration! With 5 entries already posted for this months competition it's going to be absolutely impossible to figure out who to vote for! Again, thanks to everyone who thought enough of my work to cast a vote my way and to the top two builders this month... both were excellent builds!

I don't mind the F hole but it would have been neat to see something like using the same rosewood but cross graining it at an angle. So instead of the grain running with the body, in the F hole it would run at like a 45 degree angle. I think the F hole would still be pronounced but also blend in a little better. Otherwise, just replace it with a neon color and call up Paul Gilbert!

My thoughts: If you are not sure you can contour a neck profile then taking a fretboard off, making a tenon and then fashioning a heel and then gluing on a new board, leveling it, fretting it, and making it all line up with the bridge might be an advanced mod and it also seems like working harder than smarter. Just make is a short tenon set neck. If you have a tight enough fit and enough meat on the sides of the cavity then you will be perfectly fine.

isn't waterslide basically the same thing Fender does? BTW, I love your logo. That whole guitar was cool and that thread pretty much convinced me to try waterslide simply to get a crazier font than I could get with having logos printed. Both ideas work but yours requires less clear to finish.

I really really hope that the title of this thread does not indicate that you want to make a Gibson logo for your SG guitar. Since I'm assuming you have no desire to recreate a Gibson logo to fraudulently put on your guitar I'll suggest these guys. They have a ton of fonts colors and graphics and their vinyl really holds up to being sprayed over. Also they make small runs so you dont have to buy 1000 of them to get a good price. I've used them alot in the past and I've been really happy with them.Check them out at Decal City

this thread reminds me, I need to polish up my Dr. Martins!

It's a nice looking body and should be really cool looking. Just wondering how the walnut will hold up to being a fretboard. Are you planning on putting a clear over the board since you are using maple?

Just posting a ink to this because he is an automotive painter who does work for Neal Moser. It's just an example of what you can do with automotive paints and hardcoats. Click here

good idea, just wouldn't want it rubbing off on my hands and if you didn't scuff the clear it's likely that it will wear off quickly and return to it's shine. Never know how shoe polish might impregnate the clear coat though.

I'm interested in this one. I can't wait to see how the woods contrast to eachother with a finish on it! It should be very interesting.

carousel182: It's really cool to see a firebird and this one has an interesting mix of Fender and Gibson features. I really liked the natural maple top with the F hole. It was a cool combo. I'm not sure that the zebra works with the maple or at least I would have liked to see an alternate wood used for a headstock cap. All in all it's an interesting build and would be fun to play. scottyd: I love the top! I have some canary that I just haven't been able to use yet so it's cool to see some in action. Everything looks spot on with this build. I personally thought that the walnut clashed with the polished canary wood where the neck meets the body on the face of the guitar. when I look at the pictures that is where my eye goes every time. It just sort of sticks out to me. mattharris75: I love the story for this build. He is likely the youngest person in history to receive a custom built guitar....umm ukulele! The shape is interesting but yet a bit hard to imagine at full size. One thing that really stood out for me with this build was the finish. I love that color and the pickguard really worked well with the color choices. Not so sure about the bridge though. I might have matched the color of the tail piece. Orgmorg: Dude, I always love your stuff and I need to get with you to see about building me one of these rustic recovery guitars. This one is not my favorite but I absolutely love the tail piece and thepickguard. Danelectro should be proud of you! On this one I thought that the back wood was more interesting than the front. Argytar: This is a very clean and classy Les Paul copy. I'm a fan of the finish. More red than open grain face. Just enough to look great. Everything about it looks standard Les Paul issue to me. However, I'd avoid putting the man's name on a guitar he hasn't endorsed but I'm a strict fanatic on stuff like that. pinefd: I thought this was a cool build when I first saw it but to me a guitar has to have form and function and I did not really think it was a viable instrument for my collection...until you posted more links to someone playing it. This really helped me understand that this is not just a high end kids guitar but a functional musician's instrument. All of the finishing is done nicely and everything looks to spec except for the pickguard. I don't recall seeing a les Paul where the guard went that far into the bridge but I could be wrong. All in all, an interesting build. Since I posted a guitar for the competition I threw a null vote. Although, It was a tough month and it was hard not to vote for myself just ensure I don't go voteless with this crowd in competing against this month!