meatloaf

It's just my bad photography in fact they are sitting on a sheet of white paper.

I was having a bit of a clear up in my shop a few days ago and found a small piece of black/white pickguard, instead of trashing it I opted for a experiment. after cutting it on my band saw and laminating it into a pen blank, I then turned it on my lathe, the shavings were then used together with clear resin to mould a second pen blank.

I'm not sure I can wait for the final reveal, How about some more photo's, after all we like photo's, lots of photo's

+ 1

Wow time flies and life just got in the way of this build and I must admit that another little project distracted me as well. Guitar building (and other recent projects) have involved attacking stationary wood with fast spinning sharp pieces of metal and I fancied attacking fast spinning wood with stationary sharp pieces of metal. I haven't done this for about 50 years, anyway using an old washing machine motor I built a wood turning lathe. Having absolutely no turning skill I played with this for a couple of months and it worked quite well but it did have some limitations so using my kids inheritance I splashed out for this. Sorry I digress back to my build, yesterday I glued on the fret board And today I trimmed it up using my router. I finally got to use my radius jig which worked out quite well. I cut out the body on my band saw and routed it using my template and routed the neck pocket, I got so focused on the job in hand I forgot to take pictures. Some time ago I cut out a MOP inlay for the headstock, it was my first attempt at this and while I was quite pleased with the result for a first attempt I'm not sure if it's good enough to use. I'll think on that for a while.

A lot of wood turners use thin C A as a finish and when done properly can result is a spectacular finish. I did experiment with it once but failed to use a mask and the fumes were overpowering.

wow that's incredible

That's cool, one of my favourite TV shows in the UK at the moment is Robot Wars.

That's looking really good

Congrats Scott I just love what you did.

wow that did turn out to be a killer, stunningly beautiful, well done that man.

Slight change of plan, I was out visiting a friend in Essex a few days back and made a detour to a wood yard just for a browse and ended up buying a piece of maple and some black American walnut. Using my new toy it was time for rip, flip and stick. Sorry no photo of the glue up but after leaving it overnight it was time for thicknessing unfortunately before I could route out the truss rod channel my on/off switch on my router table had an internal failure and wouldn't stay switched on. new switch on order. Decided to make myself a fret slotting mitre box to use with the G & W fretting template and indexing pin but should I cut the slots before routing the radius or should I radius first and then cut the slots.

I thought about that but decided to keep things simple so I left the hose attached to the router which works up to a point.

That's the plan Scott

Just an update of a little progress today. By doing a little mod to my thicknesser sled I was able to use it to route my truss rod slot, It was just a case of fixing the router to the sled so all I had to do was fix the neck to the base and fit a stop so I didn't overshoot and make the slot too long. As you can see I didn't quite get the slot perfectly central but that won't be a problem but I must be more careful next time.

Before starting the neck I borrowed 2.5items radius jig idea but added a couple of sleds. The first is a thicknesser Then after cutting the scarf joint by hand I made a scarf sanding sled but in hindsight I should have made a sled for my router as my cutting was far from perfect and it took a lot longer to sand than I anticipated. But after a lot of sanding I got the result I was after. scarf joint glued up.

I've really got the build bug now and am starting my third build. Although the shape may be familiar this is not going to be a copy. I am still playing about with headstock designs but I'm sure to come up with something by the time I need it. The specs are 24.75" scale a Sapele body , maple neck with a rosewood fret board and headstock veneer, a pair of irongear blues engine pickups, a strat type tremolo bridge, with the possibility of using three six way four pole switches so the pickups can be switched in as many ways as possible. I've called this "out of hell and back" because my plan is to airbrush the body inspired by the artwork on Meat loafs three bat out of hell albums, I've have done some airbrush painting but this is going to be a bit of a challenge but of course these specs can and probably will be changed at my discretion

It certainly is, I'll be making one for my next build.

I am just loving these designs

That is an awesome guitar Scott and that finish is just stunning

Like you I read every build thread on this forum and while there are really awesome guitars here, some of the ones that really impress me are the ones built by non professional's like yourself, good job looking forward to your next build.

I hope you don't mind a bit of a newbie asking a question, how important is the rip and flip, I have a piece of maple for the neck of my next project but I haven't a table saw to rip it and was thinking of using as one piece, I understand the reason behind this process but is it necessary to make a stable neck?

I'm not sure where all the time has gone but I finally found some time to finish my sons uke. I really need a lot more practise spraying clear coat, watching hours of you tube videos wasn't enough to stop getting really bad orange peel but after hours of attacking it with wet and dry and then cutting compound I got a really smooth glossy finish. All it needs now the string tree fitted a final tune up and wrapped up ready for Christmas day. Here it is with his genuine Fender, I just hope he appreciates all the work that went into it.

@Skyjerk that's perfect, with your description and the picks I can see how to make one. Looks like I'll be making another jig for my router ( can't have too many router jigs). For me it's not about time saved but about getting a better result. Thanks for sharing

I'm loving that radius jig, now that's got me thinking. Do you think you could share some details about it?