WezV

Heres the LP Jnr as it stands now. Its ash with a wenge neck and fretboard. I am going to use a hipshot hardtail bridge instead of the usual stop tail and it will have a bare knuckle P-92 i think. I am also going to start a thru neck flying v in th next couple of weeks, after the LP and 12 are out the way.

The finish on the bass bubbled so is being re-done . The twelve string just needs a lot of sanding to even everything out, i have put it aside for a while because i dont want to rush the final stages. I have started a LP Jnr to occupy my mind for a week or two. Just felt i needed to knock out a really quick, easy guitar. I only started on thursday and its already half done!!

Actually i am definately getting old before my time... I am only 25!! The brains starting to go. Looking at your profile i am about 50 weeks younger than you

I like how i go to hipshots website and they have your bloody guitars on all the pictures for the baby grand bridge. That has to be as slick as it gets!! You see, i aint even sure which smiley qualifies for representing how i feel!

I definately think this calls for a single knob, whether its just volume or a dual concentric with volume and tone. i would probably go with a smaller bridge as well, someting like the stew-mac pigtail wrap-around bridge. I think you want as little on the body as possible when a guitar body has so little room on it. Have you been thinking about Vee's recently?

If you can do it at school use the bandsaw as first choice, scroll saw as second. You need to take it slow which ever saw you use but especially on the scroll saw because theblade will break very easily. I have done quite a few guitars without templates so i am used to cutting them freehand on a saw and cleaning up with a rasp/drum sander. you can still do this without the power tools but you has better be committed to the project. I did my first guitar with a coping saw and hand sanding and it HURT, enough to never do it that way again anyhow.

sorry but you lost me when you said that an ideal bridge solution would be a floyd rose with a tremel-no. Like a very large percentage of guitarists i turn away when see a floyd rose. Its not that i wouldnt use one in the right situation but i wouldnt use one if tone and sustain were my main goals. That calls for a wrap-around LP Jnr style bridge all the way, but then i dont use them often either. There is always a compromise!! I hate it when i see a guitar that claims to combine a tele and a les paul all in one, these are very different sounds and why should a guitar be all things to everyone. Although i have to say there is a british builder called nathan sheppard who is quite close to achieving this and i like to think i have gotten close myself.

I bloody well am!! Just old before my time i suppose, i am only 26. This isnt what i trained for but its what i have ended up doing and i seem to be purposely putting off my other career path because it well get in the way off this.

Woah, just reread what i put before. It sounds like it might come over as a bit arsy so i apologise if it did. I think i took your post to be confrontational but i can understand why, there are a lot of people on this forum that give advice without really knowing what they are taliking about but i assure you i am not one of them. I have looked at your website and can see that you obviously started this hobby with a lot more skill and patience than i did to get as good as you have within two guitars. I hope Fluke takes from this that there is more than one way to skin a cat but i still recommend at least building a few before he decides its his future path.

Yeah ok its probably a bit over 3 years I went to buy the wood for my first one in november 2002. I have finished 18 guitars, number 19 is currently being finished and 20 is at the final sanding stage. 21 and 22 are at the template stage. I normally have a few projects on the go each time so 5-6 a year aint that many really. Please bare in mind i had no wordworking skill when i started this so i had a lot to learn but actually my second guitar was good enough to get me a comission but i only charged for parts so i dont think of it as a sale. I have done similar deals with a lot of my friends and some of them i have even shown how to build. Dont take my comments to mean i have made 19 dud guitars and one good one. My 18th guitar is the first one that i feel i can ask proper proffessional luthier money for and know its worth it because i have payed my dues, made many mistakes and learnt how to fix them. I think of proper money as being at least 3 times what it cost to build, number 18 is the first guitar where every guitar shop i have shown has told me a price above that 3 times boundary. It is the first one of mine i am allowing a shop to sell but i had to tell them to put the price below that 3 times boundary because i want to build up a name for making high quality guitars without pricing myself outof the water. Its ok saying the guitar is worth more but you do have to actually sell it. (you can check out the guitar shops ebay store if you want, they would have been happy adding £400 to that price tag but we priced it to sell http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Handmade-Wez-Venable...QQcmdZViewItem) I was never just in this for money but am actually at the stage where thats a possibility. I am fairly sure if i had been selling some of my earlier guitars in shops (rather than fantastic deals for friends) for proper guitar money then i would have a rather shoddy reputation right now and i wouldnt be able to sell anything. I consider myself nearing the end of a self-appointed apprenticeship where i always intended to make 20 different guitars and actually learn as much as possible before i claimed to be any kind of expert. It aint just good enough to be as good as the other guitars in a certain price range, if you are making individual, unique and different instruments they need to be much better than anything else commonly available to stand any chance of a guitarist wanting yours over the Gibson/PRS/fenders they have always lusted after. Also bare in mind that at least half of my guitars have been paid for and brought by people i know, and i sometimes got extras from the deal by buying a bit more wood than i needed, so the money i spent making all these guitar is greatly reduced. Still cost a lot mind but when you look at what the guitar building schools cost i think i got a better deal. look at my original statement: I think you misquoted me. I was perfectly happy selling my guitars but the people buying them always got a very good deal (parts and a little bit extra). Why should they pay for me my training? I am not sure i agree with this advice because if i followed it i would probably only be on my 3rd or 4th guitar, or i may have even given up on the first one. I still dont even think i have achieved perfection but maybe i am being more self critical than you.

I do to 1200 but if 600 is what you can get do it to that. I think Melvyn Hiscock recomends wetsanding to 800. Try it, it makes the wood feel really nice and smooth and you can get a little bit of gloss with the wax as well. It still dings up quite nicely within a few outings. Oh, check automotive supplies for finer grits.

What wood are you finishing? What procedure have you used so far? I usually oil the guitar thoroughly and let it rest overnight, then i start wetsanding with the oil till about 1500 grit. Then the guitar rests again for a few days. Final stage for me is applying wax (briwax) with 0000 steel wool. Cant say i remember it feeling oily, but it is very, very smooth

I am just about done with my 20th guitar and its only now that i feel comfortable trying to make a reasonable profit from my instruments. I have sold some of my earlier work but it was usually for not much more than the cost of the parts so i could build more. I recently took my 18th guitar to a shop for them to sell (my first one in a shop) and we decided on a price of £999. Value wise i have been told its worth somewhere between £1300 - £1800 and i could ask £2500 if it was made by a famous factory. The price we are hoping to get reflects the fact i need to make some money and i am still an unknown builder. It taken about 3 years of building to get to this stage and a lot longer taking guitars apart and trying to customise them My point is that you should build twenty guitars and then see if you can make money rather than thinking guitars could possibly make you money and trying to build them. And try to improve on what exists as well, whilst i would quite clearly do a strat if somebody asks for one i dont want to make a living copying other peoples designs. The ML style guitar i have as my avatar is a copy but its quite obviously one of my guitars and recognisably different from the Dean that inspired it. I still dont think i am at the stage where i can make my living doing this, thats probably gonna take at least another 3 years of building and repairing and getting people to play my guitars. It might not even ever happen

That looks reaaly nice!! How do you like the swineshead pickups, i've had a few sets and been very happy but i havnt tried the condors yet.

Well the neck could have been repaired but i dont see the problem with replacing it if thats what the customer (you) want, i would have to try and save that headstock though, even if it is an awful design. In hindsight is was a mistake to chop the fretboard without getting the distances you needed but thats hindsight for you. Personally i would just decide what scale length you would like it to be and make a neck fit with the bridge position where it is. It doesnt really matter that the guitar used to be feitenized, now it can be whatever you want it to be.

Thanks Al, thats good to know.

The green wasnt from a can but the grey was. Im at a loss really but at least nobody jumped in and said the wood must be contaminated with something

Or probably just clear. Wet the wood with some white spirit and see what colour it goes, you might not need any tint at all. Korina is quite yellow under a finish, i am fairly sure the old V's and explorers where just clear coated korina

Yeah its definately not painted over debris. Heres whats happened with the finishing so far: 1. Grainfill with epoxy 2. White primer 3. Metallic green (cellulose i think) 4. Clear lacquer (Acrylic) The bass was just about done but when we came back to it bubbles like the ones in the photo had appeared. We decided this was probably because of an incompatability between the green and clear lacquer. The front of the bass was fine so we decided to spray the back with metallic grey that was definatly acrylic and should match our clear. We also added a black stripe around the edge to tie the two together. Again we get to the stage where its just about done and bubbles have appeared. heres a photo from the other day showing how close to finished it was (and that there is no debris under the grey). My guess is something is releasing gas thats trapped under the finish somehow, i just wondered if anybody else had had a similar problem and could shed some light on it. Could it be issues with temprature/humidity

Some weird bubbles have appeared in the finish of my bass as it was curing. Anyone had a simlar problem and has any ideas what might be causing it

Well in that case you can have some more pics of the twelve string, i just carved the top . http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/12_04_06_1128.jpg http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/12_04_06_1131.jpg

Might as well post another guitar in this discussion as well. This is a semi hollow twleve string, kind of the bastard offspring between a thinline tele and a 335 http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/10_04_06_1728.jpg The wood isnt wetted with anything in that link, i havnt even sanded the belt sander marks off it yet It started out being built thinline tele style, i.e. hollowed out body blank with a top attached, but i was having problems with the cherry body blank and decided to do it more gibson style, i.e. rims with top and back plate attached. Because of my indecision it has a cherry rim with quilted maple top, bocote back and black limba neck. Since non of the wood matches i will probably have it all sprayed black with a black burst on the front. I still have to carve the plates which isnt something i have done much off. The headstock is rickenbacker style with 6 tuners mounted normally and 6 mounted classical style.

I have thought about that, or spraying the pickup covers grey, but these are high wear areas and the lacquer wouldnt stick to plastic very well...................... Actually you have just given me an idea, i could get some clear scratchplate material and get the reverse sprayed gray, that should protect it from scratches. I have a black one ready for it so i will probably try that first...............ouch!! another idea just hit me. Anodised aluminium for the scratchplate, tends to be a bit pale though. or black pearloid, bit flashy for my tastes though

Yeah i am pretty happy with it now, the two-tone finish actually makes the bass look a lot slinkier than it looked when it was one colour. The neck will be Zebrano finished with danish oil and bri-wax ala Melvyn Hiscock. Its a really stripy peice of zebrano so i will try and get some pictures of that at some point as well. I have done a few zebrano necks on guitars and i really like the way it feels with an oil and wax finish. The bass is also having a rather large scratchplate on the front, it was going to be black with black pickups but i am open to suggestions as to what would be a better colour match with the green and grey. I am having a scratchplate because i left two rather large pickup holes on the front of the guitar. I havnt built many basses so i wanted to be able to experiment on this one if i get chance. The idea is that the routes should fit most pickups and i can quickly make a new scratchplate in a few minutes and swap stuff about as i see fit. The reality is that it will probably stay with its original pickups when i am finished with it because there just aint enough hours in the day.

Thats a nice LP, i have always liked the white ones. Whats with the pickup rings? are they normal ones with binding added or where they made from scratch.