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Neccisity being the mother of invention and all that I made the covers with off-cuts from a ziracote fretboard and the headplate i was debating whether to use on this guitar or not, i think i am going to round the tops of them to show a ziracote boarder around the pickups. This means the bass will definately have the 3-piece flamed maple neck showing on the front of the headstock, but i may make the truss-rod cover from the cranberry flamed maple. At the moment the covers have 1/8" of flamed maple on top, not sure if this is too much or not so i may thin it down slighty. I was wondering whether it would affect the pickups strength, obviously its 1/8" extra distance between string and pickup but if i adjust the pickups close this shouldnt be a problem. I dont think the maple would affect the magnetic field because its not magnetic, so i dont think it should make a difference, but i am not sure how fields are affected by other objects. Any thoughts? I can easily get them down to 1/16" and i really wouldnt expect a problem with that thickness

Had to be the tele!! I dont normally like tele's with figured wood but that colour really does it for me, and i think it goes pretty well with the cream. The only thing i dont like about it is the binding near the neckplate on the back, i like the fact its bound on the back it just looks a little odd in that area.

Heres more progress on the bass, I decided to make wooden pickup covers after a small router slip-up.

I have seen the pearloid and it looked just like a pearloid scratchplate does, went well on a black guitar.

allparts do it UK Link USA Link They also have tortoise, red tortoise and white pearloid if you fancy it

You need to abandon paint and use something that will let you draw the guitar full size and accuratly, maybe a piece of paper and a pencil i use lining paper for walls to draw my plans on because it comes on big rolls and is easy to get. I like the general idea for the guitar but it wont look like that because the proportions are not correct. heres how i start to plan my guitars: 1. draw a centre line, usually about 40" long. 2. mark the nut location about 7-8" from one end of the line to allow for headstock. 3. From the nut location measure your scale length to see where the bridge will be (25.5" = fender, 25" = PRS, 24.75" = Gibson (general guide only)) 4. Decide how may frets you want and find the measurement from the nut to the end of the fretboard (you can measure another guitar for a general guide or use a program like wFret for accuracy) 5. Decide on the width of the neck at the nut and mark that on (around 42mm is a good start) 6. Decide on the width of the neck at the end of fretboard and mark that on (around 56mm is a good start) 7. Join up the edges of the fretboard 8. If you have the bridge or pickups you can draw them on now, if not allow room for them. At this stage you should at least have the fretboard and bridge position accuratly drawn, you can then go crazy on drawing the shape of the body and headstock The main reason i posted this is because your fretboard has no taper from nut to bridge and there seems to be too much room between the fretboard and bridge. You will find that your design may look completely different when you have these drawn accuratly. Your design has a lot of parallel lines that wont be there in a real guitar, like the headstock shape and neck support that follow both edges of the fretboard. I think this guitar could work well and i like your initial ideas.

Cant really go wrong for $20 can you, i would try it and see. A lot of fender guitars dont have the join in the middle so for that price i wouldnt worry about it.

normally i would definately add the headplate, i definately will on the burl maple guitar. But the bass has a short section of neck between the fretboard and neck pickup that will be showing, i dont think that will make sense if i cover the headstock as well..... plus the headstock is already at the right thickness so its easier to not cover it. I still havnt decided, i might cut the headstock shape first and then decide, not the way i usually do things but probably the way to go here.

love the double bound neck!!

I am wondering whether to add a headplate to the bass. At the moment it is showing the flamed maple and wenge laminates and i really like it, But i did get a headplate that matches the top wood and i always feel i should use these things once i have brought them

there has been a bit more progress on the bass today I have got the neck ready for carving and cut the route for it into the body. I think the design is starting to come together now!! I only have photos from my cheap camera phone but here goes: The hardware is just on it to show what i am planning, it isnt really in line. It has a hipshot bridge and will have two seymour duncan soapbars but they havnt arrived yet I also want to remove more wood from the cutaways, i have marked with pencil to show where the final outline will be. I should be able to get my speed up a bit with these projects soon. I break up for the summer holiday on friday (teacher not student)

I dont mean the headstock shape, although they are pretty good. I mean the way he uses laminated wood for the neck shaft and a solid peice of wood for the headstock. I have seen it on some basses as well. You could use the short mahogany neck blank you have for the shaft and a seperate peice of wood for the headstock. You could either use another peice of mahogany that matches or use something different and make a feature out of it. You could probably find a piece of wood (or a few you could laminate) to make a headstock in your scraps bin and scarf it onto the mahogany.

use the mahogany for the neck shaft and another piece of wood for the headstock, you can get quite creative with it look at thge headstocks on these for ideas: black machine

That looks in great condition for its age, the old ones i usually see have the ribs on the back caved in or missing. There is lots over at the mimf site in their archived library on repairing splits in tops. If you post pics of it in their repair section i am sure you will get some good advice. I dont think that mando is ready for retirement yet

it does look a bit olive green, still good though

acme guitar works Didn't think this was a bad price!

I got most of the parts for these yesterday so progress can start properly Still waiting on pickups though so i will sort the necks out first and get them right, then carry on with the bodies. I am very impressed with the planet waves tuners i ordered.

i like the look of it alot, it could save a lot of guitars, but i cant quite see $229 worth of tools. Although if you are doing this regularly or trying to save a guitar thats worth the expenditure then its small change i suppose.

stf-electronics I ordered a tube amp kit (champ) from these guys last year. It had fairly detailed instructions and safety advice and once i had installed some vintage mullard valves (valves because they are english ) it really sung. I dont think the price was too bad compared to the other kits i have seen.

why not give this guy a PM: the decal shop Or invest in some decal paper for your printer and do it yourself!!

I imagine its how the first guitar on this page was done: chevrons It can look very striking but you might need to start with a bigger than standard blank, i wanted to do it once but to get a decent angle you need to remove alot of wood

I like this shape, but i think you might have problems with the stop tailpeice being set so much higher than the TOM. I dont think there will be enough downward pressure on the bridge!!

+1 on the smoother transition!! I think there are a lot of really nice design elements and features on this build and i look forward to seeing it done. Is the finish on the back going to be solid, if so i can probably forgive the car body filler

Yeah thats a bloody good look, dont be surprised if i steal that idea

My experience with coil splitting is that on 95% of humbuckers it is just not worth it. However i have had a few that sounded ok, the PRS pickups on the current GOTM for example. On that guitar i have a normal 3-way switch with master volume and tone but the volume is a push/pull coil split switch. The sytem works very well, but more importantly doesnt scare anyone away because of too many controls. It could easily be improved by having another push/pull switch on the tone control so each pickup had its own coil split switch but i dont really think its neccisary. Parallel/series switches can be much more versatile but again it depends on the pickup. I always try to get a system that looks just like a normal guitar but has hidden options. The next one will be a H/S/S+peizo set up with 5 way switch and strat style layout and one extra switch. The extra switch will choose mag/both/acoustic sounds and the 5-way will work just like a normal strat. One pot will be mag volume with a push/pull coil split, one will be mag tone and the third will be acoustic volume with a push/push tone preset selector. I cant work out how many sounds that will give me but its more than most people ever need and more importantly they will all be easily accessible with a few simple controls.