KnightroExpress

Short and sweet today- main carve done, neck is set! 

Tomorrow, I'll have the neck and heel blended together, then I can start the final sanding process.

My bodies are normally 1.5" (38mm). I think @demonx (Searls Guitars) does something like what you're talking about with threaded inserts in a thick tenon extension. 

Thank you! You're correct, the extra tenon stays. I just haven't routed it flush with the bottom of the pickup cavity yet. The idea is to have a neck system that works as either a set-neck or bolt-on, the only change necessary is the addition of bolts. In either case, the extended tenon helps: as a set-neck, it's a good bit of extra gluing surface; as a bolt-on, it prevents the alignment from ever shifting out of place a la Fender or Ibanez (I've had to realign tons of these for myself and others). Also, I'm not sure if you can see or not, but the tenon extension's thickness will be about 0.25" (6.35mm), so it does have a fair amount of strength on its own. 

That'd be an LP  

That's a very nice way to talk about my gadget addiction   Having a bunch of very specific tools drives my wife crazy ("you bought another router bit? I thought you already had one!"), but I enjoy it, so there. 

Back to the 7 string thing!

Dot installation via eggbeater:

Carving the neck. Unfortunately, while Yucatan rosewood is a true Dalbergia, it does not smell nice like its relatives.

I'll be able to finish up the heel area after getting it glued into the body. 

Radius and fret installation:

It's very nearly a guitar! 

I'm hoping to get the neck set in by Friday, so I can finish the carve over the weekend. Time to order more hardware, I suppose.... 

Hey, welcome to Project Guitar! 

More work on the sapele bros...

Pioneer neck pocket:

I scarfed this neck blank up yesterday, so there's a bit of a time warp here. This is a compound joint, as usual for my multiscales:

Truss rod channel:

Neck outline:

Headstock and tuner holes:

Lightly stressful wiring holes:

Quick little belly carve:

Mockup time!

And the Voyager 7 gets its neck pocket:

Lookin' good there! I like the new zebrano neck.

Yup, winter is lame. I hope you're able to get re-motivated!

So after all that, I went to a local lumberyard and stumbled into some amazing sapele. I'm sure you can guess what happened next.

Another Pioneer:

And a Voyager 7:

I've already got a solid rosewood neck for the 7, now I just need to make a matching sapele neck for the Pioneer. 

This pair has been my first set done at the same time with different designs, and it's gone well so far. Over just a couple hours, I took these from blanks to nearly complete bodies, which is easily my fastest time yet. I've worked a lot to establish a set of common measures and an SOP (my Army is showing, haha) for standard no-frills builds like these, and it feels great to have it work out. 

That's enough out of me for today, thanks for checking in!

Working on the headstock:

Cutting the pickguard and control cavity cover:

Output jack and strap locks:

The cover ledge has some pretty tight radii, so I have to use this adorable little template bit:

String-through and neck bolt holes:

It's starting to look like a thing!

And finally- give me a rasp and some wood, things are bound to happen:

Indeed! Though now I'm stuck waiting for my fretboards and truss rods to arrive....

Damn, I've been out-beered. I really need to get a fridge for the shop....

Well hey, it seems to fit so far! 

Time to move on to the neck. I'm going dead simple- quartersawn maple, flat headstock, bolt-on.

And this is where I finished up for the night:

I've been working with cantankerous exotics so much recently, I'd forgotten how pleasant and easily workable alder is. 

And with that, time to grab a Jai Alai. Thanks for checking in!

OK PG friends, I just got in from a nicely productive day. As mentioned above, I'm working on a new design for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Songwriters in the Round event in March. Some of you might remember that I did this very same event last year- I ended up donating my personal padauk Voyager MS6 as the invitation was on somewhat short notice and I didn't have anything else in the chute at that point. Fast forward to now... there's plenty of time to prepare, and prepare I have! Given that this event is based around Nashville songwriters telling tales and singing songs, there's a decidedly country flavor to the affair. With that in mind, I'm doing my take on the venerable Tele- with details that Mr. F may or may not approve of....

Alder body blank prepared:

Box o' templates:

Body cut out, holes marked where necessary, outer contour routed. 

Drill some holes, rout some cavities:

Rout some more:

@psikoT Yep! It comes off very quickly and easily. 

@2.5itim Me too, I'm just annoyed that I took so long to make the decision...the damn guitar could have been done by now, lol

Ok, I'll play this game! I usually try to have everything nice and organized (especially when shooting for build threads), but oftentimes I get carried away and forget to put things back where they belong. Case in point:

I was actually looking at a Laguna IQ when setting up the new shop... it fell just out of my budget, but seems like a solid contender for my bucks. 

Thanks Dalton! 

More work on the multi 8. This neck is about 75% done- just need to radius and install frets, then I can glue it in, blend the heel, and get it all finished up. 

Back to the surf green Pulsar...well, I actually decided that I'd rather show off the natural ribbony goodness of this sapele, so it was time to break out the acetone. Thankfully, nitro lacquer is exceedingly easy to remove. 

And finally, I've been invited to do this year's iteration of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's singer/songwriter charity event. I've decided that it'll be a fun way to debut a new design, so here's some alder for this fresh project:

As it turns out, I did indeed start the multi 8's neck carve!

Homely homemade thickness/taper jig:

The result- a flat and consistently tapered surface at close to my final thickness.

Now it's just a matter of getting the profile right. 

There's still quite a ways to go, but it's starting to feel like a real guitar!

Sounds like these will be great little basses 

Ok, so you're right: there's an enormous variety of pickups out there. As a starting point, are you aiming for a vintage-inspired tone, or something more contemporary? Without more info, I'd have to suggest that you try to find a bunch of different good quality samples or demo videos online and figure out what you tend to gravitate to. 

Switches and pots: for humbuckers, you'll typically see 500K pots. Any standard switch can work, it's just up to you to figure out what features/functionality you'd like to have.

EDIT:

@curtisa- Ah, you beat me to it! 

New year, new thread! I've got high hopes for this year...a lot of good projects are already underway, several are planned out, and I'm hoping to do a few wacky experimental builds. We shall see!

So, on to the good stuff. 

Installed the padauk/wenge multiscale 8's side dots:

And then went back to carving. 

A dash of mineral spirits here:

Coming together nicely! I think I'll start the neck carve tomorrow. 

Thanks for taking a look and best wishes for the upcoming year!

@Norris- Haha that's always a good reaction to aim for!

@Prostheta- I suppose... though to be fair, I'd say that it's more like under 10 that I'm okay with showing publicly. I started guitar and sculptural woodwork back in 2002 and have produced my fair share of ugly/nonfunctional pieces, believe me!

@killemall8- Thank you! I just used Behlen's aerosol vinyl sealer. 

@Skyjerk- Pearl metallic eggplant 

@sdshirtman- It's a custom House of Kolor blend that I had loaded into an aerosol can. No real spray equipment for me, yet 

Man, this is turning out to be a beauty. I can't wait to see it all wrapped up!

@Skyjerk Congrats on the GOTM, Chris!

I do remember that builder, he did the 'Layla' and 'Eat a Peach' album covers. Can't recall his name, but he did some incredible work.