maull

Stew Mac sells the micro mesh pads.

Seriously love the grain on that wood. Is it all flat and tricking my mind or did you finish it rough?

Good plan. I respect that you can walk away for a bit. I tend to get a little crazy and cannot let go of what is bothering me. Take your time, a deep breath, and plan out your next move. It is looking great so don't lose heart.

Started the body carve.

I love this scraper. As long as I can keep it sharp it is awesome to work with.

Carves completed. I added cutouts inside the horns more for aesthetic reasons as I have no problems reaching even beyond the 24th fret.

The wife snapped this shot of me while I was sanding. I think I need to start working out more and drinking beer less. Sucks to get old.

Body sanded up to 220 grit. I am going to bring it up to 600 before starting the finish.

Lot's of awesome guitars this month but I had to go with mattharris75. Interesting design, great timber choices, and great workmanship.

Routed out the pickup cavities and recessed the bridge.

Test fit of hardware.

There is an open source project called RepRap that starts at around 700 bucks. I also just ran across one called Makibox that costs $300 plus $50 for world wide shipping.

I seem to be striking out on this as well. Any distributor I have contacted will not ship to the US. Axeminster refers to it as a "hazardous chemical".

Here is a link to more of his printed guitars. Pretty cool.

http://www.gizmag.com/olaf-diegel-3d-printed-guitars/21787/pictures#1

Any updates on these? Your work is astounding. I am excited to see the finished products. Any tips you can give a newbie on inlay?

A couple minor additions.

Routed the shelf for the cavity cover.

Cut the cover to size. Not perfect which kinda ticked me off since I used the same template as I did for the body but not excruciatingly bad either.

Interesting idea. I am anxious to see how it turns out.

Control knob holes drilled.

Input jack recess started.

Drill bit wandered when drilling the actual input jack hole. It has since been fixed by gluing in a dowel and redrilling.

Bridge mounted and strung up to see how much of a recess I will need.

Control cavity and battery box routed out. Still have to route for the control cavity cover.

Comments Suggestions?

That blue looks awesome. I am loving how this is turning out.

I was just about to ask if anyone had found a US distributor. I am thinking of contacting Rustins directly to see about gettiing some shipped to the US.

If it goes away when you touch it I would be concerned that perhaps your solder on your ground wire isn't good. Take a look at the joint and if it is dull rather than shiny you might have a cold joint.

Since the main aspect of a bridge is mainly to transfer the vibrations of the strings you could also consider gluing a block of hardwood inside the shell under the bridge point. Just a thought. I am not an expert by any means but I think it would be worth trying. If my thought isnt valid or someone else has seen this tried before I am sure they will pipe up.

Beautiful guitar.

The f-holes reminded me of holly. That combined with the green makes me think Christmastime.

How much are you expecting the aluminum shell to weigh? I don't have a ton of experience with aluminum but I wouldn't expect it to be too heavy.

Surprised no one said anything about the wavy seem in the middle of the Cocobolo headstock on this guitar...

I actually did see it. After your ebony/maple cavity cover I have started looking for little eccentricities in your work. Love it.

Tuner holes drilled out.

Back rounded, heel to body transition smoothed out, belly carve sketched in.

Belly carve sanded to 280 grit to look for defects.

I decided that I will be recessing the bridge. Live and learn I guess. It would suck to lose all the work I have done so far but if it doesn't turn out correctly the wood is the cheapest part of this build.

Body routed out to shape. Need to start ordering more parts so I can keep going.

Last pass with the router left me with a little tear out. I am pretty sure my router bit is starting to dull a little. Thankfully this will be taken care of when I round the back edge over.

I stand alone....

Funny, that statement reminded me of this:

I have to agree with the masses. Wenge to add contrast.

No, no neck angle. I was debating in whether or not I should recess the bridge a little bit. I planned on mocking it up and seeing if I could achieve the action I wanted first.