Andyjr1515

@Prostheta commented on the swimming pool of a control chamber earlier. One of the reasons for that is that there's a lot of hardware got to be crammed in! This is without an extra three way switch, battery clip and the edge of a double decker P90 that will come into the chamber also: The other reason is to cope with those slightly pesky click-in wiring looms for the pre-amp. This sort of stuff is usually an absolutely pig to cram into a 'normal' chamber. As for allowing the cable to come out vertically from the back the small three way rotary switch, that's the mark of a designer who's never actually tried to fit his creation into a guitar.... I still rate most Schaller products ...but really? Not to mention the lovely looking bridge that was a pig to fit that I now realise takes 30 minutes and a brand new set of strings every time just to thread them through the body... But onto less irritating subjects (it's OK - I've taken some tablets to calm me down), all bits in with still some wood to take out of the control chamber (ignore the flour on the 'I never would dream of using the kitchen scales, dear' ): I reckon we're looking at comfortably less than 6 1/2 lbs finished

A quick mock up to make sure everything is where it should be - and this is with the wider 35mm spacing nut: This is fine. It feels much better to play too... The binding blends in fine. Clearly the frets are not yet levelled and recrowned so there's a bit of tidying up at the fret ends but the hand-done de-nibbing (pincers and file) seems to have worked OK I know it's tempting fate, but the plan is that the basic build finishes today and I can start the final filling, sanding and finishing at the weekend

It's looking very good from over here Good to see someone else who uses pencil and paper

Great video and great, great result! Brilliant!

Wow - there's some high-speed building and enviable skills going on in that workshop!!! And that is some wall hanging... Amazing stuff - all of it

Congrats on the GOTM win!!!! I know it's not formally announced yet, but the voting is stated as closed and you seem to have the most votes so I'm putting two and two together... Superb build and great, great result.

I'd already gone to the narrowest nut I would generally regard as OK (33.5mm string spacing). A different ( and not particularly non-standard) bridge certainly would have fixed it but Tim, the intended owner, very specifically wanted the Schaller Hannes - which the whole thing has been built around, to be honest - so it would have been a real bummer.

My 'unconventional' way of building (while probably contributing to the problem in the first place ) probably helped me here. I don't do the final, final, final neck shape until the frets are on and it's actually strung up (yes- I know. Madness ). But I can then tell EXACTLY how it is going to feel and play and I do the final adjustments with a cabinet scraper and sanding block on the fly. As such, the haunches were still a little squarer than they would eventually be, giving me the wiggle room to chamfer in the bottom of the binding without having to compromise the final profile shape. If it wasn't for that I couldn't have done it.

Also, the finished article is going to be much better for it...should have fitted binding in the first place. Ho hum!

It was definitely one of those 'how the hell am I going sort this?' moments

Well, the retrievable 'oops' moment I referred to above was to do with the figured ebony. Probably because of the very grain orientation that is producing the figuring, it is VERY brittle. I quite often use ebony and this is most definitely the most brittle I've used to date. Anyway, not really thinking, I used my usual tools and the usual way and 'ping' - off went a piece of the edge of the fretboard. No problem, I thought - haven't finished finalising the width so I'll just lose that in the final sanding...and then I went a tad too far Cutting a long story short, I fretted it up using spheroidal fret ends to maximise the usable width: But I wasn't happy with it I fitted some trial strings just to make sure I wasn't happy with it And I really wasn't happy with it. Lined up BEAUTIFULLY, but you know those annoying guitars where you lose the top E over the side of the fretboard? Luckily, the final shaping of the neck profile hadn't been completed and the fretboard was still relatively vertical-sided. So - awkward with a through neck but not impossible - I decided to bind the fretboard to give me that extra width. So all those frets had to come out Here it is with the binding gluing up: And now 14 of the 22 frets are back in (it's a slow job because I'm securing them with a tiny bead of titebond and ensuring that sets before moving onto the next. You can see the wenge binding here: ...and in the meantime, I sorted the trussrod cover (don't worry - the headstock profile isn't finish sanded yet): ...and sorted the heel carve (likewise ref the finish sanding): So with some tidy-up jobs over the weekend, next week should see the finishing started (if that's not a blatant contradiction in terms )

Gosh - what a wonderful trio of jaw-droppingly good builds. argtar's 'Danae' warmed me up with a familiar, comfortable look but with some features of its very own that just enhance that feeling further. I love the colour and figuring of the top; the neck is nicely bound and inlayed; the neck looks very playable. The only change I would make if it had been built for me (in my dreams!) would be maybe for the rear body wood to be toned with orange stain to get closer in the colour spectrum of the neck...but you can only be that picky in your dreams Then what can you say about MassimoPL77's 'Ladybug'? I have simply never seen inlay done that well before. Ever. On anything. From any time period. The quality of build carries through to the guitar itself with excellent binding details, a very nice scarf joint and volute and a great finish. Again, it is only in my dreams that I would own a guitar of this standard, so what would make the dream perfect? Well, possibly a slightly thinner body? Again, you can only be that picky in dreams.... And then to seb's 'Model 222'. Well this ticks so many boxes for me it's just crazy. You will have seen the stuff I've been doing with my piccolo bass build and the 6-string electric ongoing version...well there are so many parallels. I'm VERY interested in the ways of building light. I LOVE a decent offset. I LOVE the colour. In short, there is NOTHING I don't like about this guitar And it weighs 6.4lbs! In that I generally vote in the end with 'which one would I want to take home with me the most' , it's Seb's Well done all. Superb stuff

Thanks for your encouraging words, Carl Like aways, there are many 'oh...whoops' moments along the way (just had one, in fact) but, so far, none that are irretrievable Balance SHOULD be OK. Certainly on the strap it will be fine because the top button is decently far forward. On the lap is a bit of an unknown but I think it should be OK. Once I've drilled the tuner holes and done a dry-fit I'll have a better idea. If it's rubbish, I can always change my name, leave the country and take up crochet....

I'm not sure I've ever seen inlay of this quality on a guitar before... Last time I saw anything close, it was on a priceless cupboard made in the 18th Century and now pride of place in an English Country Manor House that tourists flock to see.... How will you prevent chipping when you drill out the 5th string tuner hole?

Neck carve is pretty much finished. Bit of a tweak to do on the volute, but I reckon it's time to start fretting.... Here's how it's ended up:

Divert away I'd like to see that too!

I think yours is Camphor camphor, @Prostheta , like that I used on my single cut bass build: The new build is Camphor Laurel - I'm pretty sure the 'camphor' bit is simply that it smells a little bit like proper camphor. Of course, I may well be talking out of my a**e

It will all be slimmed a touch at the nut end, but this is broadly how it looks prior to finish-shaping:

I've agreed with Tim the headstock shape. He wants 3 a side and staight runs. I've tried to go halfway between the long thin Ibanez SR bass approach and the short, triangular Wolfgang EVH/Seagull electric and acoustic approaches. I've also managed to cut another sliver of the camphor laurel off an offcut as the headplate: The plate at the nose will be sanded through to reveal the laminates beneath. While doing that, I've been continuing to creep up on the neck heel. I'm still doing this more by feel than anything else. To keep the fairly modest lower horn cutaway of the front view, but to get better access to the top frets I'm now deepening the rear cutout carves into the neck itself. Because this takes away wood where the side of your hand would normally hit the body, it makes a BIG difference to the feel: Still got to reduce the neck depth taper for the upper frets and get rid of the lumps, bumps and sharp edges, but it's starting to get there. At the other end of the neck, the headstock wings are just being glued as I type

I think you are right - I do something similar and certainly from a functional and visual point of view it needs nothing else. I do, though, generally add a single thin wipe of oil which I immediately buff off in what is probably a misguided and unnecessary last step

Once more I may have confused the issue by answering the wrong question above For clarity, the fretboard will be oiled and buffed (likewise the neck), but for the body I'm going for gloss on this one. The wet-look versus dry look is like chalk and cheese when you see it in the flesh.

Of course, I'm talking about the wrong figuring, @Mr Natural Yes - the figuring on the ebony is still there just as strong. On the edge of the board you can actually see the waves in the grain that are causing it. Once it has been fine sanded and treated, it should stillbe quite visible

Hi, @Mr Natural I know - I should go back to building one at a time Yes - this one has the ebony fretboard. I've filled the fissures - the main fill with epoxy mixed with wood dust, and the smaller dints by slurrying with tru-oil. Still a few dints and hollows left but it's almost ready for the gloss coat. The figuring is great already but will really pop out once I've put the gloss on!

Done I think he's going to LOVE it

Well....I've had an even BETTER idea. How about a glass cover at the front ! And a mirror stuck to the inside of the back cover. That way the light from the LED's would not only illuminate the Flagship, but also bounce off the mirror and shine a beam onto the music stand. Great for dark venues when you're trying out new songs. It won't take me 5 minutes to rout through to the top. I'll just get the Bosch out now. I'm so excited. And Tim will be sooooooooooooo surprised - I just LOVE these builds