Norris

Unfinished project of the month? That's all I'm likely to enter! Fabulous bass btw - I don't think I've commented on your build thread yet, but it's providing lots of inspiration for my next build (if I ever get there!) ... which will be a bass, being a bass player and all that

It's certainly inspired me to get the garage cleared up properly once & for all! Certainly there will be some bandsaw-related DIY going to help justify it . There's going to have to be a lot of that, as Mrs Norris doesn't yet realise that she's never ever going to be able to get a car in there The bandsaw is certainly nice & quiet, but I'm not sure about the extractor yet.

Stunning work as ever!

I'll give them both a good check over, but I don't think they have been used that much really - and they were purchased new by the previous owner

I have absolutely nothing to update on building progress. I have been busy for the last few weeks redressing the spousal happiness deficit by doing a load of DIY around the house. However, last night I did get some new toys which I thought I'd share. A self-employed mate of mine is not doing so much woodwork these days, so is offloading some of his kit. Of course I jumped in to "help him out" - at a very reasonable price! Electra Beckum BAS 316 G bandsaw with the optional stand (not fitted yet), mitre guide and a few spare blades of various types. It needs a bit of a clean up of the table which has some surface rust, but should do for most of my needs. A decent industrial dust extractor. Now I just need to get the dump of a garage cleaned up a bit...

Great photos!

When I did mine (disclaimer: and I'm still only about half way through my first build!) I used a jack plane to get the two halves of the top completely flat - holding it up to the light to check for gaps - then repeated for the two halves of the back. Once the top & bottom were glued up with sash clamps, I then used the jack plane and a decent straight edge to get the two mating faces as level as possible, before finally spending a couple of hours on a sanding table. By scribbling witness lines with a pencil, once you have sanded them all away your piece is flat and you shouldn't see much of a glue line

Me too! I've been offered a planer/thicknesser by a mate of mine for reasonable cost, but really don't think I have the room for it. I'll have his bandsaw & dust extractor off him, but I think a router thicknesser bed would be far more practical & probably more accurate

Make a small scratch plate? Then you'd have a feature rather than a mistake & can still use your intended finish

Guitar wood is usually seasoned for a couple of years. It would be very unusual to use "green" wood for a build, as it can and does move around a bit as it cures. I have some logs from an old plum tree and they have split all over the place as it's dried out. It's got beautiful purple/brown heartwood, but unfortunately is only good for one thing - fuel for my wood burner

Also, if you're not doing it as a business I'd discuss timescales with him to make sure he's aware. Doing it in your spare time is going to take a while

Ooh. Pretty lights. Nice job

I wish! Mine must be the slowest build ever

Spot on - that is a work of art!

Several hundred watts of power concentrated into a rapidly spinning and very sharp chunk of metal? Yes, I'm very careful when I use my router, and try to minimise any element of "luck" Stay safe

I liked it at the "came back with more black highlights" stage - it looked almost like the markings of an exotic big cat. I think I'd have been tempted to leave it like that and finish off with a clear coat . Having said that, the blue looks great

It's looking good, but I'm curious to know what you plan to do about the missing chunk

Oh, and I might add, I tried to keep the centre pencil line intact until I'd got the basic radius sorted at the edges

It was easier than I thought it would be, and easier than it sounds. I didn't do the radius at the two ends and join them up like you would in a neck carve, it was a bit more "organic" than that. Basically start planing away at the sides, taking a little more off the heel end (wider, so more material to remove), and regularly checking with the gauges & a straight edge. The whole thing took 2 hours to get to where it is now, and a fair bit of that was sorting out the cawls & clamping. Thanks for the compliments

So my instructor was right - it wasn't too difficult to put a compound radius on the fretboard. He has a set of radius gauges, so we picked 9.5" at the nut and 12" at the 21st fret, and got busy with the plane and sanding stick. This shot is having just started on the planing And then some shots from this morning... I still have an hour or two of rough sanding to do in order to remove the last traces of dents & scratches - I ran out of time (and energy!) last night. Then I can move onto a finer grit. The grain looks good though We have a few weeks off from the class due to Easter, so progress will be slow. I have a lot of wife-passifying DIY to do

"Flight com, I can't hold her! She's breaking up! She's breaking—" PRS CE-22 - a guitar barely alive. "Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic guitar. PRS will be that guitar. Better than it was before. Better...stronger...faster." Cue theme tune Good luck!

Good tip. I'll give that a go if I ever try it again. It might might be fun trying to get a 6mm tall dot aligned correctly in the chuck though - rod would be much easier to use, especially if it's softer plastic like the side dot rods.

It was partly inspired by the MSR6 "Catalyst" that @curtisa entered in the Feb GOTM (great guitar btw!). I'd already thought of putting in the small white dots, as those other frets are so often neglected . Then I got the idea to fit them into the black dots too. Once I had decided that, I just tried to think of the best way to give myself half a chance of drilling in the centres consistently. I destroyed several black dots in the process - they are quite brittle so have to be drilled slowly and the bit removed often to clear the waste. Luckily on the mark 3 drilling jig (mark 2 can just be seen at the other end of the block in the picture I posted - a complete & utter mis-drill!) I drilled the 6mm hole deep enough to give a bit of headroom for the waste, which helped greatly. That was more by luck than judgement though as it's something I hadn't consciously considered . What I probably didn't mention was that I used double-sided tape to stick each dot to a board, then clamped the jig over the top. The tape was enough to hold the dot in place for most of the drilling depth, until eventually friction of the drill bit would be enough to twist it free. Then I just held the dots between my fingers to drill the last little bit out and cleaned off the tape residue with a drop of lighter fluid. Even using the jig a few of the holes are not quite dead centre. I took the best 10 out of the batch I drilled & made sure that the "offsets" were aligned in the same direction on the fretboard when I glued them in, to avoid the "googly eyes" effect . The 12th fret double dots were the only ones that really looked aligned - the others are off by a few thou, but I've minimised the impact by carefully aligning them

Customising the dot markers took a lot longer than I expected. First I made this drilling jig ... which is a 2mm hole all the way through, with a 6mm hole at the bottom. I used it to destroy dozens of drill through the centre of several 6mm dots, and fitted a 2mm white core using side dot rod (note different work holding jig - actually the failed first attempt at a drilling jig that came in handy later on) Glued in place... Then scraped level (Yes, the 2mm white dots are very slightly off line but won't be noticeable when the pencil lines have gone) And then last night I prepared the bone nut and started cutting the slot I'm quite pleased with how the dots turned out, and there are not going to be many guitars like that due to the effort involved Hopefully I'll start radiusing the board next week. I'm told that doing a compound radius is easier than I think - we'll see Edit: I forgot to mention that I managed to chip a small flake out of the fretboard while cutting the nut slot. A dab of titebond and clamping overnight fixed it almost invisibly

Nice tutorial. What are the implications when sanding back for multi-coat dyeing such as on figured maple? Sanding back will disturb the surface again - would you raise the grain again with water, or do the sand back slightly off-grain (11-6)?