birch

17 minutes ago, ScottR said:

I like the contouring but like you, I'm not so sure about the jack location. Have you considered rear access? With a right angle plug?

SR

I did but I was concerned with interference with the bridge tuners. Now I'm thinking it's still a better option than the current one 

Started body contouring and tried a mounting location for the output jack. I'm not really happy with that but the body is so narrow it doesn't provide many options. I'll probably widen it next time 

Thanks, I definitely seem to prefer organic type designs. Although I like pointy guitars too, particularly the Warlock and V.

I wanted to try a baritone guitar and decided to go with a batch approach since there was so much waiting for supplies to arrive and glue to dry on my first build. 

I'm using Autodesk Graphic for the plans. It's a nice simple vector program and so far I like working with it.

They are all right handers oriented upside down on the screen. I'm not sure why I work upside down...

Got the mahogany and corian epoxied and the neck and bridge mounted. Next up is making a nut and figuring out just where to put the output jack...

Little bit of progress on one of them... Getting ready to drill holes for the neck bolts so I can epoxy the mahogany to the corian and start shaping the body. It's currently 29 1/2" long end to end.

Finally made some progress on two headless travel guitars. Mahogany body channeled for the corian, swimming pool rout for lightening (corian is heavy) and all electronics mounted on a pickguard. 30" total length for the narrow body and 31" for the other one.

It's possible that  the corian strip is overkill but hopefully it will work like I'm hoping it will. 

Lots of routing and carving to go yet...

I used to travel quite a bit for work between significant humidity changes and besides the bulk of hauling around a full size LP copy, it seemed like I was constantly adjusting my guitar every time I went somewhere new. I looked at plenty of travel guitars but most of them are short scale and would still be subject to humidity changes. So I'm experimenting with making a stable full scale but small as possible travel guitar using a Moses graphite neck and headless bridge bolted to a corian strip. The wings of the body will be some sort of wood (I haven't decided yet) with a swimming pool route and pick guard. Corian is seriously heavy so the body will be heavily carved and as thin as I can get away with. So thats the plan anyway...

I'll throw my hat into the ring with my first ever guitar build.

The build thread is here:                  My first full build from scratch               

I decided to build a guitar as my entry into the world of working with wood. I have worked with metal most of my life modifying cars for myself and friends. Wood is a new medium for me and through this guitar I have discovered I really enjoy working with it. I have turned my garage into a fairly well appointed small budget wood shop, where most of the work takes place. Anyway, on to the guitar, which I have dubbed "Slowburn"

Neck:

•  1 piece Flamed Maple Set neck through the back
• 25" scale, 24 fret Flamed Maple fretboard with Zero fret using Stewmac medium fretwork and wheel adjust truss rod
• Paduk head stock veneer
• Sperzal Nickel Locking tuners

Body:

• Chambered Mahogany, Padkuk and Birch veneer back
• Carved Paduk cap with flame shaped F-hole, chambered to match the back
• Ebony Pickup ring

Electronics:

• Lace Alumitone Deathbucker in bridge position
• 1 Volume, 1 Spin-o-split coil splitting pot, 1 Push/Push Hi-cut, Lo-cut Tone pot
• Tele style jack

Hardware:

• Graphtech Nickel Wraparound bridge
• Knurled Chrome knobs

6 minutes ago, SIMpleONe89 said:

That explains it! Thanks for the help!

So is there a way to get rid of the white spots? Scott suggests blush remover. I could try that but I'm tempted to leave it alone because I don't want to risk any more potential damage haha.

I don't know if that would work on acrylic but it might be worth a try. Personally I would mask everything but the headstock face, scuff it, make sure any ridge is gone and give it a couple light coats to seal things up. Shouldn't take much material to fill and cover the pinholes. Or just leave it, it doesn't look like a huge deal.

1 minute ago, SIMpleONe89 said:

Oh but the surface is flat and I thought pinholes meant areas of sunken spots. 

Anyway I probably won't be spraying another finish for a long time, but glad I learned something.

The rattle cans put a lot of material down really fast and it tends to create a thicker ridge on edges of flat surfaces, something to do with surface tension in liquids I believe... High humidity does increase the drying time though so it could have just extended the flash time a little longer than the normal recoat window. Rattle cans are convenient when you're just doing a project or two but you can't beat the control of an hvlp spray setup. They are expensive initially however...

37 minutes ago, SIMpleONe89 said:

Haha my wife thinks so too! Sometimes I make sanding a fun project and make her do it. :

So I started repairing the chip with some lacquer drop filled.

I also noticed these ugly little white dots in some places on the headstock.

I've had this problem on a previous build where I used the same acrylic brand but with a black finish. Does anyone know the cause of this? I always made sure I sprayed on dry days (<60% humidity in my garage). The spots only came out after wet sanding and weren't there before. 

Pinholes, I've had the same problem with acrylic when I've sprayed the next coat too soon after ther previous coat. The coat underneath keeps off gassing after the second coat skins over. It seems to stick mostly to edges where wet finish tends to pool thicker than the rest of the flat areas. That's probably not the only cause but I cured it by leaving subsequent coats until the very end of the flash window to give the early coats as much time to flash as possible.

Very nice finish. All the sore muscles pays off in the end. I can't stand the leveling stage. My wife thinks sanding is a great zen activity, I disagree.

This is not me playing, this is my good friend James making my guitar sound like a million dollars. He did it with a defective volume pot that caused the signal to cut in and out randomly. It was also recorded on my iPhone mic.

One problem solved, the fret buzz was because I didn't cut the nut slots deep enough and the strings were buzzing off the zero fret.

1 hour ago, Prostheta said:

GOTM her! Couple of days left I think.

This is where the sickness really takes a hold. If you need help with banishing that buzz....

It appears to be closed for the month. I'll try next month maybe, after I change a couple minor details

Wow, high praise from accomplished builders. I'm truly grateful for the compliments. Thank you.

 I'm sorry @Andyjr1515 but this one is never leaving my possession

 I have the next one simmering in my grey matter already. I love this stuff.

And to paraphrase the classic movie "Spaceballs", "Evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb"

Here is the mostly finished product. I haven't set it up or tested the electronics yet and it has some wicked string buzz. I'm also going to change the pickup ring to a simpler design and maybe out of maple instead of Ebony. The knobs are just temporary as well, still not sure what to go with there. Overall I'm pretty happy with my first guitar.

A big thank you to everyone on this site for the direct help as well as the inspiration and problem solving on so many threads for answering questions I didn't know I had yet. 

Now for #2.

I'm pretty happy with the way this is turning out. It's far from blemish free and I've made a lot of mistakes but I feel like I learned more from this one build than I could have in a formal class.

6 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Fantastic...I love cherries!

Not really chancing it with the squeezeout and masking tape eh? haha 

Haha, nope. Don't want any extra clean up at this point.

Lots of progress on the guitar this week. Made and fretted a new maple fretboard. Clearcoated with poly varnish and sanded the whole guitar smooth. Now I have to wait for the glue to dry on the fretboard... I hate waiting...

Lots of clamps on this one.

Also, cherry picking day

Wow you are a very prolific builder. All of them look great.

I am happy with it. I still need more practice with it though, so I'll continue working with it on the next one.

Took another shot at grain filling with shellac. It worked much better this time. Also got the neck glued in and the heel shaped. Next step is to clean up the neck and start on the burst colours.

I found a set of needle files with a grit type coating that works much better than the cut files. Took quite a long time to fit one tiny piece of black mop in one of the smallest voids. I think my cutting was not perfectly square so I had to do a lot of minute trimming. I have a ton of respect for inlay artists. It is not an easy thing