2.5itim

The last 2 days have been pretty successful! I didn't know if I was going to like the walnut headstock so I decided to make 2 necks exactly the same except the other one will have a padouk headstock. I got the scarf joints cut, glued up and then made my decision on the walnut headstock, I will use the other one on a later build so no worries there. I also got the scarf joint area under the fretboard leveled with a sled on the table router and truss rod slot cut. This is my first time doing a headstock adjust truss rod, should I fill the area above the adjuster with a little piece of walnut or will it be fine the way it is?

Very nice! That's pretty much what I did for a router base except I made mine out of 1/2" ply to begin with which warped over time and then remade it out of .167 aluminum. The aluminum is nice but it would be way better out of acrylic because it does suck not being able to see what you are doing. As for the b&w ebony I'm extremely jealous, I was going to buy a piece last week but I just couldn't justify the $60 cost when I could get the same size piece of rosewood for $20. Butttt good for you, it's gonna look killer!

That was great info, thank you! I will go pick up some shellac and timbermateandsee what I can come up with. I will go ahead and order some water based analine dyes just in case the alcohol based won't work with the shellac.

Oh I do, it's like Christmas every time! Lol. I should have a package showing up just about everyday this week I believe, so I guess it's more like Hanukkah this time.

Well, this build has been extremely slow and still at a stand still waiting on my damn templates, I'm actually starting to kind of worry about it. But I did get the first box of parts in, Prs tremonti neck/bridge pickups, Hipshot tremolo, pots and 3 way toggle.

Oh yeah, I have a whole lot of scraps to mess with so I will take notes of each so I can go back to it. "If you understand the basic idea of how this is done" this is precisely my problem! I have never even seen shellac nor have I ever tinted grain filler so I really have no idea on how all of this works. Lol, I will have a whole bunch of trial and error in this I'm sure!

Haha that's my plan is to just try different techniques and figure out what suits me best. I can already tell myself getting into a groove. On the taking off to much material I always leave myself with .115-.125" of "meat" before I get into the truss rod just because I know if that happened to me I wouldn't take it nearly as well as Andrew seemed to have. I would probably have what's left of my neck sticking out the Sheetrock on one of my walls!! Lol

So @killemall8 you didn't use a sealer? You just simply painted the parts you wanted red?

Pros that video was perfect thank you! The last piece that he did there was pretty much what I am going for. Just a couple questions, so do I not have to worry about my sealer clogging the pores? From just my thinking is that the pores would also get sealed just like the tight grain would. 2nd when tinting my grain filler can I just use my alcohol analine dyes to tint it the white color I would be wanting?

That's great, thank y'all!! It has been kind of a pain getting the taper perfect with the rasp so this is what I will do on my next few. I also think it will help me get the flatter profile that I like, more ibanez ish than the roundness I have been getting.

My dyes should be here within the week and I am going to start practicing for the finish I want to achieve. What do y'all think is the best way to get this finish? Media blast, dye black, push colored grain filler into the softer growth rings, finish sand to get the grain filler off the spots that I want black and then laquer?

Do you like using the router to thickness your necks? I've been doing it with my rasp and never would have thought to do it with the router and then start the shape with the rasp.

I got a little work done today, got the neck laminates planed to the width I needed and all glued up. I am going to plane the neck down tomorrow to .750" and get the scarf joint cut and glued up.

Haha your ok pros I don't mind at all about talking about it in my posts. I like to here people's opinions! I could see where ash as a full neck would be a pain to finish, with the differences in the growth rings and also how it could tend to warp due to the soft and hard growth rings.

When I started out machining I bought a pair of 8" and 12" mitutoyo digital calipers, it wasn't long before I thru them against a wall for lying to me. I ended up buying dial and vernier calipers and swore off digitals.

Ibanez's sealer is the devil!!! If you don't know if you got all the sealer off then you probably didn't. You will know when you get past the sealer and into the wood because the wood will look more like the color of the wood and the part with sealer on it will be really dark still. Ive refinished about 10 ibanez's and I have promised myself I would never do it again because of the sealer.

Yayyy!!!!

Pros, I completely agree with this! That is actually why I edited it and took that question out. I held up a piece of maple that I have laying around next to the walnut and padouk and it just looked way out of place. I think that leaving it without a laminate in the neck is the best option here. I arranged the body, neck pieces and headstock out like it would be on the guitar and I really liked how the headstock and body were the same and then the padouk broke it up in the middle. I really think I will be happy with it this way! That is quite a good observation on the ash, i have actually seen that a lot while researching certain things, mostly over at places such as tdpri, not saying anything bad at all, there is some good stuff over there but it seems like a lot of "well Leo would have never done that!" While no he probably wouldn't have, is there any certain reason why he wouldn't have? On something that I would like to use on an instrument Im not going to Guinea pig it but I wouldn't mind making up some test pieces someday

Went and picked up my neck woods yesterday, got them cut on the table saw, now just waiting for my buddy to get back from his weekend lake trip to use his planer. It almost killed me to cut this padouk board up because it really would have been a great candidate for a body blank but oh well, I will even have enough left over for about 3-4 more necks if I plan right. The laminates will be padouk/walnut/padouk with a all walnut headstock.

This is new to me so please don't take anything I see seriously or go and do anything that I say without confirmation from others, but I don't think a fender style bridge requires a neck angle? Would it be possible to inset the bridge into the body to bring it down in the back? I would think this would lower the string height right? i wouldn't say your bridge needs to be moved, the way all these guys explained it to me was the high e should be a right at 25.5" and the other strings should be a little farther back on each string. So it should be fine I would think!

Thanks Andrew, I'll see if I can steam the rest of this dent out. I never would have thought of that. Haha @sirspens it's sitting on my table saw, I think it's an optical illusion because I held my camera crooked to take a picture of the body because it was sitting at an angle.

Nevermind, I decided to hand plane and sand it and was able to get all of them out except for a little bit of one, even hand planing I only lost .015" so I'm still fine on the thickness.

I chamfered the back of the body tonight (mental note taken, cut a 1/4" chamfer not a 1/2" next time!) I really like the chamfer instead of the rounded over I did on the other body, I just think that it's to big. The part that isn't chamfered I am gonna use a chisel to tie it in. I couldn't cut there because if I did I wouldn't have enough thickness to mount my input jack. The main reason for posting this picture is, I really really should have used cauls, my clamps left pretty bad indentions in the walnut, do y'all know of any way to fill these up? Maybe some kind of glue/sawdust mixture? I was thinking I could just plane the body down until they are gone but I really can't lose any thickness or else I risk my pu cavities coming thru the back side.

Hopefully I'll be able to get the wiring thru it. Thank god the body gluing turned out ok. I routed the body out today and there isn't any gaps!! I ecspecially like the end grain, I didn't plan for this.

Is the tremolo there?