Mateyboy

It's been a long time. Had a million and one jobs to do... But the big chunk of sapele is back on the workbench! I've almost finished sanding it and I'm about to put some grain filler in the pores. Hopefully I should have some pictures to post when I have some dye on the wood!

This is the body, routed: The headstock isn't done yet, I often change my mind when I'm doing something so it may change again!

I think this is what I've settled for: Hopefully I can start shaping the body this weekend.

Thanks... I've made a change already. I'm going to make a pointy jackson/ibanez-type headstock. Simple because I've never made one. I'm waiting for delivery of the body wood and then I'll get started.

Hi Following my first build (many mistakes and mini disasters) I've decided to build a single pickup 'G' guitar. It's sort of a Schecter Tempest, Les Paul double cutaway cross with a bolt on neck. Here's my finished templates: I learned so much from my last build.I keep telling myself that this build will be so much better. I'm putting a Seymour Duncan JB SH-4 in it with volume and tone controls. I've never done any binding so that might be in this build. Wish me luck!

Go for it. I'm interested in how it turns out. It is something I'd be interested in seeing how you clamp the wood. One of the flaws in my design is that the neck has to hang over the edge of the bench because of the angle - I clamp the two pieces to the overhang and then stick them together. If you can sort the clamping out then I don't see that being an issue. Yeah, I generally have to do a bit of sanding to clean up afterwards. Getting the clamping sorted would be great. I will have a think but you will probably come up with something..

That looks much more fancy than mine. I'm never too keen to run the router at an angle. When I make my jigs if I can keep the router level I'm happy, although I can see how your design would make clamping the neck a lot easier. I generally use double sided sticky tape to attach the two pieces together then clamp the longer piece to the jig. I've not had any issues yet. I'm not too great with hand tools and my first build had loads of mistakes in it. I'm currently building another neck and if I can build a jig to eliminate some of the hand tool elements and almost 'machine' a job then up for making a new jig. That's just my preference and part of the learning process for me.

I've used this jig about 4 times now and got fairly good results. I'm a bit better at making more accurate jigs now so I will probably make it again. ;-)

Yep, that's what I've done for now. I made a shim out of maple. I like this idea, seems easier to do than trying to angle a neck pocket using a router.

Hmm, hadn't even considered that.

Looking back my logic was totally flawed! I just made the assumption that because it was a bolt on neck it wouldn't need an angle... Duh! Looking at my 'commercial' guitars I can see the ones with a tunomatic bridge (LP and SG) have an angled neck (albeit glued in) and the Ibanez (doesn't have a tunomatic bridge) has no 'visible' angle, and that has a bolt on neck. So I made a link between the neck and how it is attached and not the bridge. I have learned two very important things today: 1) I am stoopid! 2) The type of bridge is very important on how I construct the neck!

Thanks for the feedback, that is exactly what I am going to do. Looking at it now that I've finished I can see that the fretwork is a little shabby in places. The fret that buzzes isn't seated fully into the slot, I could remove it and redo it, maybe later but I've started my second neck now - hopefully learning from my mistakes. Neither do I now, I think it is pretty ugly, especially with a clear coat. It may work better for a solid colour build, I don't know. Not decided on the next body wood yet, plenty of time for that... I've got a neck to make! Thanks to everybody that has offered advice during this build - if only I had listened!!!

Wow! That looks the biz!

I put a little shim in the neck joint and adjusted the bridge, so I have a playable guitar now but there's a bit of fret buzz on the low E.

Nice one... have a few! ;-)