Stu.

@mistermikev I’m still alive! Progress stopped for a while, whilst I submitted an assignment and started a new job. I made some orange dust at the weekend though!

Thank you, chaps! I've actually been considering scrapping or reworking this one. The transition from beech to veneer to walnut isn't working at all, I'm falling out of love with the beech, and it is HEAVY. Like, I've never held a complete guitar that's packing as much weight as this. I kind of want to blast the beech and top fumed eucalyptus veneer off, chamber as much as possible, and then slap a new top on.

What a steal! I think that I have the same machine (sold in the UK as an Axminster AT406DS) and it’s excellent.

Scott’s back on it and not wasting any time! I can’t wait to see this developing

Dark blue or root beer finish would be fun! Gotta love the classic guitar builder/luthier’s mindset of getting partway through a build and thinking “right, time to start another one!”

Everything is looking very nice and clean! That’s a great piece of maple you’ve got

It’s a curse! I physically can’t make myself move on without tidying. This is why I’m so, so slow. I did a little work on the rough neck profile for this and tried getting the body carve to a state I’m happy with. I’m really struggling with the fumed eucalyptus veneer though - it’s very brittle and won’t give me a clean edge. I think that I need to take inspiration for the Les Paul and contour the top more heavily. It’s still very flat across most of the middle.

Tiny, tiny update from the weekend. I did a little sanding on the contours around the toggle switch and cutaway, which I’m much happier with now. I smoothed the rest of the contours, however I still need to get the edge transition and a little recarve down. It’s a bit too lumpy for my liking at the moment.

My head is in the same place. They look very nice with a subtle recarve around the bottom, but not past the waist - just enough to give a comfortable transition to the edge and remove that flat feeling. I'm not a fan of really extreme recarve. Thank you! I forgot to add that I also worked in a 0.5º pickup plane. I initially tried 1.5º, however that only cut as far as the bridge pickup. A bit of trial and error lead to 0.5º to bring the plane as far as the bridge/tailpiece.

I’ve been working on a few things recently: Tenon shoulder fit - seems pretty good now and I have a block ready for the heel. Headstock faceplate and nut shelf - next time I’ll cut fibreboard closer to final dimensions, because it is TOUGH. Pickup routs (including tenon) - sorted and checked for depth. Carve roughing - sanded out the steps from the templates and still lots to refine. I need to decide how to do the switch area and whether to add recarve to the edges. Transitions still need finessing. Here are some shots:

Love that weight relief pattern, nice work! I spent ages drawing out weight relief vectors and then bought the lightest wood known to man

Only minor updates. I planed the neck heel down to meet the tenon, so it’s all at 30mm now. I have a little piece of ebony to use as a heel block with a small inlay. The neck is also now all trimmed to shape, headstock rough shape is in, and the fibre board is ready to attach. Next steps: trim and re-bind fingerboard, glue on headstock face plate and trim back, cut in pickup plane and rout those cavities! I’m excited to finish all of the routing. Soon.

Neck mortise and tenon sorted today. I’ll be getting the fit dialled in manually. I was expecting the template set to have more tolerance on the cutaway to sand the body to match the neck line, however it’s actually bang on. The fingerboard is slightly wider than the template, so it overhangs slightly. I need to either trim the binding back on both sides for symmetry or trim the board and re-bind it.

I’m looking for the happy balance between the two approaches! Now it has carve lines and a 4 degree neck angle. I need to get the mortise routed next, followed by the pickup plane and cavities. The carve has uncovered a little gap in the top, but hopefully it’ll disappear into the burst. I bought the top on a whim as a pre-jointed set and won’t do that again in a hurry.

Thank you! Fingers crossed it continues that way - I usually spend too much time planning and not enough time doing. Yeah, they often look like an afterthought and I wanted it to read as intentional. For placement, I just wanted it safely between the strap button and tailpiece posts, close enough to drill a hole through, and nowhere near potential comfort carves. I did think about the upper bout, but that would have removed the option of an ESP Eclipse style carve and also could have ended up with the hole going through the top (the box is only small, so it creates quite a steep angle to drill through and into the control cavity). I guess you could route a channel between the body and top, in the same way as the switch cavity is connected through the pickups and to the control cavity.