WezV

I have the dremel attachment and the router/bearing set from stew-mac, i havnt used the dremel attachment since i brought the router/bearing set.

Yeah, my favorites are definately the 72 customs and thinlines. The customs have the neck humbucker but keep the single in the bridge and the slightly later ones have a large strat headstock, they look great in black!!. The thinlines are just gorgeous

I look forward to seeing this one done. How are you getting the electrics in there, gibson now cut away part of the centre block below the bridge pickups so they can pass through that way rather than through the f-holes.

I would say the tele needs to be around $300+ because you are practically rebuilding the thing!! For a full scallop you need to be charging around $150 depending on your experience at the job IMHO. If you are unsure check out what other guitar shops in the area quote for the same job and go cheaper since you dont have the overheads. I live in the uk so dont really know how much american shops charge for work but over here a set-up costs you at least £30 which is already more than you want to charge for a full scallop which would need to include a set-up. I ususally charge less if somebody offers me a job that perks my interest.

Heres my favorite tele: It was one of my first projects. It started life as a kit but always sounded really dull. I hollowed it out and attached a spalted beech top with ovationish style sound holes. Upgraded the pickup and never bothered re installing the neck pickup. Swapped the maple neck with a rosewood one from a squier because the maple looked too pale. Its nowhere near the quality of the guitars i am making now but it still gets played regularly, i love it.

Danish oil can be found at any wilkinsons store in the uk right near the briwax which is also useful for natural finished necks. I havnt found Truoil anywhere. I reckon you might get away without finishing wenge for about 6 months, then i reckon it would dry out and become quite rough, especially if you have particlarly bad acidic sweat. If you dont finish paduak you will probably end up with orange hands and everyone will think you have been using cheap fake tan, and it will dry out even quicker than the wenge. I oil and wax alot of my necks and recommend that they be re-oiled every 6 months for the first few years. after that a patina should build up so it wont need doing as often

Have you checked out the barker vertical bass: Barker Bass They are a standard scale bass thats played upright and look fairly simple to build so you should check them out. As far as scale length goes, if you want to keep costs down you need to keep within that 37". If you get hold of the set of bass strings you want to use first then you can check your measurements to get it as long as possible. As far as design goes, using a bridge that doesnt pass the strings all the way thru the body and having a short 2 x 2 headstock will give you a couple of extra inches to play with

I escaped customs on the first few parcels i had sent via USPS, they now get me everytime. The first time i used DHL they added a £10 admin fee because they pretended they thought i was a business, it should be £1.25 for us non-business people. I like DHL because of the order tracking and the fact i have had parcels turn up within less than 48 hours from me ordering them, on some orders i have had from stew-mac its actually been cheaper to have DHL.

Heres one i built for my cousin last year. Swamp ash body with maple top Zebrano neck with ziracote fretbaord and headplate PRS HFS pickups (Swinesheads in picture but we changed em) 24 3/4" scale length I inlayed his bands logo at the 12-14th fret with black MOP, Not sure what to call the colour, it varies from very dark blue/green almost black to quite bright green depending on light More pictures: http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/10.jpg http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/2nath.jpg http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/4.jpg http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/5.jpg http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/6.jpg http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/7.jpg http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/11.jpg

Setch gets my vote. Although i think the top needs a bit of colour. Nice attention to detail. Doeringer: I love the neck laminates and everything but the colour and headstock dont do it for me. The shape is excellent!! (there i was saying setch's needed colour Verhoevenc: I like the body shape and F-holes but the mismatched knobs and flat top put me off. That would look stunning as a fully carved semi. Scott: This is actually the guitar i most want to own, and i love the colour. but you won last month dude and i voted for you then!! Godin: Very pleasing shape, just like a sucked lollipop. I hate wenge at the moment after making a neck from it Southpa: Nice, but i really dislike SG's since i started building (used to love em) cant get past the inherent design flaws. Dan: Excellent for a first (or even 21st), again its the wenge thats puttingme off, i will be over the splinters soon then maybe i can look at a wenge guitar again.

You probably need to drill out the old screw holes and fill them with a wood plug cut from similar wood. You can fill them with dowels but the grain runs the wrong way so its better to make a proper plug with the grain running the right way using some kind of hole saw. A cheap fix is to use some matchsticks in the holes to take up any spare room or run CA glue into the holes to harden off the wood thats there so the screws hold better but i probably wouldnt trust these on a neck join. First thing you need to do is get the neck off and clean out the liquid nails, this needs a proper structural repair. Check the screws are ok as well.

the fretboard looks nice!!!!

You will definately be receiving a hefty customs bill from DHL, so just make sure you are prepared at the end of the month. I have never known them to miss one yet, they have already payed the customs on your behalf to get the parcel to you faster so they make sure they get the money back. I thought i had gotten away with it last time but it turned out the bill had just got lost in the mail and they sent a friendly reminder the month after. When i first used them they stuck a £10 admin charge on top (business rate) it should only be £1.25 if you are not a business so look out for that On the other hand royal mail seem to regularly forget about my customs charge on about half of the things i order that are less than £100.

LOL!! It might yet happen!! Its a bit more normal looking than one of the basslab things. Neck is going to be natural oiled zebrano with rosewood fretboard, i aint getting into spraying fretboards coz i dont want to be touching it up every week!!

Nice !!!

the LP jnr now has a non-traditional sunburst, made it a bit more green but i am quite happy with the colour now! http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/Picture_1_066.jpg http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/Picture_1_063.jpg Heres the blue we are trying on the bass as well http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/Picture_1_077.jpg

I keep changing my mind about making a Vee. The guitar workshop in ibstock sold my guitar at the london guitar show last weekend, they have requested 3 more for the next guitar show they are doing in november so i was gonna use the Vee wood i have to make something more original for that. I already have all the hardware and parts for the bass so please let me use them I havnt committed to a price yet but since it was all an experiment and practice i was thinking sub £500 for the completed thing, and i do want to complete it myself because its only the second bass i have done and i need the practice. It would be more if i didnt already have the parts on hand gathering dust. The pickups are a dimarzio J-bass set, it was gonna have a black scrathplate but that might change now the colour of the body has I will probably be playing with the colour, its a bit too translucent and slightly to green. I was expecting a more solid colour so put a little less effort into sanding the edges and thats now come back to bite me. It may end up sunburst with white scratchplate, will have to see how the mood takes me.

This finish on the bass kept bubbling so we abandoned it, its been stripped right back and shellaced to seal against any possible contamination. The bass will now be sprayed pearlesant blue. We were gonna avoid mettalics but got drawn in by a pretty colour Looks nice in just ash eh! heres another pic (ignore the cavity on back, it was a lazy day): http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/Picture_1_035.jpg I also have the first few coats of colour on the LP Jnr, not every body likes it but i think it will work ok when all the hardware and scrathplate is on. I wasnt expecting the lacquer i mixed to be this translucent but i like it. http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/Picture_1_037.jpg

Well the guitar above sold at the London Guitar Show yesterday Its gone to a guy called Dann from a new band called Vanton (myspace.com/vanton), he phoned me up yesterday evening to say how happy he was with it. the guitar shop that were selling it for me have requested a few more to take to the next guitar show in november. Apparently it was getting a hell of a lot of interest all day. They guy that brought it told me he walked past it 3 times and it always had a crowd around it, he finally had to buy it when he saw somebody taking a photo with his mobile and texting it to his mate. I still aint a proffessional luthier but this is a bloody big step in the right direction. Still not into the huge profit area but i feel confident i can slowly start to raise prices till i am

Thats the way i do it as well, if you leave this stage till after you have sorted the fret ends out you are able to clean up any gouges you may have gotten in the process. I believe it is also the way fender custom shop does it.

I completely agree about the floyd rose thing, but none of my guitars so far have had any trem systems on them (other than a bigsby which is so easy to fit it doesnt count) so i want to get a bit of experience at fitting one. But the V looks like its gonna be pretty nice and potentially sound great so the more i think about it the less i want to put a floyd rose on it. Problem is that leaves me in the same position i am in now of telling people that "i could do it one but havnt yet!" and thats never very reassuring. I may have somebody lined up who wants a floyd adding to his cheap V copy so that could be my practice i suppose.

This is the guitar they have of mine, shouldnt be hard to spot they dont have many high end guitars in but its a nice little shop with less of the BS you normally get. This is the logo i am currently using, its hard to get something original with the initials W and V but i have started using this. I dont put any huge name on the guitar, usually just the symbol. You can just see a carved rosewood version of it as a faux trussrod cover on the headstock

Picture fixed! Sorry Mods i forgot. I am currently thinking the finish will be a somewhere between a TV yellow and a blonde/butterscotch. Black scratchplate, black P-90. I might use a darker grainfill first though, not sure yet. Natural neck, probably just a bit of wax on that, i dont think wenge needs much. The thru-neck V will be African walnut with neck lams going American walnut/wenge/maple/wenge/american walnut and i may also put another strip of maple between the neck section and the body wings. It may have a floyd rose on it but i havnt really decided on that yet. I try to have at least two guitars on the go so that there is always something else to turn to but i have a bit of a backlog forming at the moment because the bass is taking so long to get right. Dont try to do this till you have built a few though. I am mainly doing it because i have quite a bit of interest building at the moment and its good to keep that watered, so to speak

Craft supplies carry a micro-mesh finishing kit with grades from 1500 to 12000 with a rubber sanding block and an emery board to do your nails with And you can always throw some into an order with stew-mac from the states. Really though its overkill on lacquers, it gets to a certain stage and buffing compounds do a much better job. I use the micromesh mainly for polishing fretboards before i fret and the frets once they are installed, makes em all dead slinky. Wetsand a fretboard with danish oil going through all the grades, buff off the excess and stand back in awe!! I regularly get my finer grades of paper from halfords. I usually get a mixed pack that goes from 240-1200 if i remember correctly, that will probably get me through 2 guitars worth of sanding if you are economical with it and go through the grades properly.

If you are anywhere near ibstock you should check out the guitar workshop. They are the first shop to have one of my guitars. They offered me a much fairer deal than the main guitar shop in burton