mistermikev

thank you sir! I have a pcb design with wire labels in the copper that I intended to start using, but too lazy to etch something right now... and vero works just fine!

did some relicing to the hardware... control plate was the first thing I did and started out with fine steel wool to remove protective coating but it didn't do enough damage so switched to coarse... that was clearly too much! Not crazy about how it turned out so will redo that... and didn't realize the knobs are a hair small for my pot shafts so will have to order some replacements. All in all it went ok. wired up my broadcaster controls. again no tone control here. have a middle hot rail hidden under the pickguard that will be used for hum cancelling. mode 1 will be std tele operation. 2 will be the tele pickups operating as parallel humbuckers with each one paired with a single rail. mode 3 will be the same but in series. the vero board there is just a common place for all my pickups to be wired to. In case I've got something wrong I just swap the positions and don't (in theory) have to screw with my heatshrinked wires.

glad to be of help.

right on and thank you for the reply! the sled rails are steel and the main reason I chose that is that it is rigid. Orig I used aluminum but they had too much flex in the middle over 36". W steel they only flex if you push down hard in the middle. I'm going to be building a new version of it someday and I'll use 1/8" steel square tube so I can extend to 4' for bass necks.. these are 1/16". I wasn't familiar with elmers but it looks a lot like stew mac. def didn't cost much to build this and that is nice, but I actually think it might be better: 1 - more room under it means less struggle maneuvering the piece. you wouldn't think you'd need it but trust me - I almost want more of it... specifically when doing the horns you can take a more natural approach going straight into it. 2 - the clear plexi allows you to 'see' the work and I find this handy. prevents me from doing something dangerous like getting eye level with the bit. 3 - the drawer slides I use have a counter spring that pulls back down... this makes the thing float very nicely. there is a little tension and I like that. I don't know if some of the other designs would have that. also prevents a 'violent' drop if you pull the piece out. not trying to be a 'mine is better' guy, that jig looks very nice and I'm sure it runs smooth and is clearly more heavy duty... but I'm very happy with this jig and def recommend giving it a shot if you need something like this. It was very simple to build.

no, not quite. just something simple. it's not 100% perfect as the escutcheon caused about 1/32-1/16 drift in the depth but it's not really even perceptible because it drifts in and out of the slop. good 'nuf fer me! anywho, thanks for the response.

@ADFinlayson here you go. the part that holds the router is 5" x 9" x 11.5". If I had to do over again I'd make the 9" a 6.5" as when going around there are a few spots where I would make contact with the corners unless I pivot the body a certain way. Put some female velcro to protect the surface of the guitar. Drilled the hole in the back for cable relief but that didn't work out quite the way I hoped... could have made the 5" dimension 7" but it works fine, just a hair hard to get the router out. the lexan bridge in the front there is just to help stiffen up the lexan... again probably would have been less flexible if I had gone 6.5" across instead. had to play with the springs and distances they were attached to get the thing to float right. not particularly fancy but it works very well. see here... the white part there is called an escutcheon . you can find in hardware stores - for dressing up where a pipe disappears into a wall. there are other methods of things that follow the body but this is cheap and easy. Just glued it to the lexan with super glue. here's a shot showing the springs attatched to the eyelet screws on one side. on the other side they are just attached to the other piece via some woodscrews. crimped the hook on the spring and screwed it in to fasten. the back side where I usually use two clamps to clamp it to my table.

I didn't use a plan... just looked at a number of builds online, but I'll tell you all you wanna know and take all sorts of pics if you like. one key element is a light router. you don't want to fight a lot of counter weight so... the rigid is good, has some good torque, and is very light. there are other candidates that would be fine but I wouldn't use a 'full' router - just a laminate router. basically, I just build a simple 3 sided box. put a piece of plexi on the bottom with a little spot for the router to place the bit at the edge of the two 'legs' of the box. this is important so that you have enough room underneath that your body doesn't hit the other part. (I can take measurements if you want) on the back of that I used some drawer slides. you can find one's that have a spring that 'pulls the drawer closed' - this is a nice feature as it acts against the springs pulling upward and lets it sort of 'hover' - but is not required. any drawer slide will work. I built another box at the back with just some simple triangle sides, a face and a bottom. this allows you to clamp the jig to your bench at the back. bought a couple of furniture springs (hardware store) and bent the hooks such that they'd hold on to a screw. on the other side I put eyelet screws so they could be detatched for taking it apart later. I'll try to take some more shots when I get home but I'm old and could forget so don't be shy to remind me.

thank you sir... probably more luck than anything but it's coming out the color I was shooting for (pardon the pun). Sort of on the 'banana' side of butterscotch blonde. hoping to get some clear on this weekend. Have sort of focused in on the broadchaser as I'm figuring on some cure time and then relic time, but hope to get back to the les flaws next weekend and do a template for the neck channel. thanks again for the reply and support (as always)!

==============update 12/04/2020============== started work on the broadcaster finish. wanted to document my steps here as who knows... might turn out good. grain fill: finish sanded to 320, made up some grain fill using some rit camel die... sort of a chocolate milk color. generally with ash, and with this grain filler, it's going to take a few passes of grain fill as the filler recedes. In this case... I don't want to totally fill the grain, so I'm going to do one pass. sanded back the grain filler and prepared for first coats of laquer. two light coats of mohawk whitewash laquer. since the grain is not fully filled... the whitewash sort of 'dissapears' into the heavier grain. works to my benefit here as it's keeping the grain more visible which I like, however it's still so open that I decided to do another grain fill but this time clear. my plan is to let the grain fill sit overnight and sand it back. have a couple spots that got a little too much white so will feather those out as well. did did my binding channel on my les flaws. Piece of binding seen here sitting just a hair proud in the neck join area. and worked on my broadchaser neck... used a chamfer bit to get my first facets done... then completed those facets with my rasp: completed a secondary facet... hard to see here but I have drawn lines down the center of the neck to show me where the facet ends... from there I approximate a 67.5 degree chamfer. this neck will have a vintage spec soft v... have owned a hard v but it was a bit much... thought this might be a nice pairing with the 9.5" radius fretboard. Here's a shot of her all sanded up... =================update 1/10/20========================= slapped some frets on the neck... amber dye here is looking pretty orange but a lot of that is my camera... 186.24 kB · 0 downloads sneak preview of my butterscotch body in the corner...

right on well... not sure how that varies from east indian... but the pics I've seen of it look quite similar and it's sm family so.... good 'nuff fer me! hope I can find something bigger that would be unique like a top or neck. I spose it'd be heavy as all get out but could always do a 'semi hollow neck'! I hear they are all the rage.

I did see that it meant indian rosewood, and wondered where all these mills where getting ahold of it... now I know! I'd love to get a nice sized chunk of it for a top, body or neck so will be on the lookout. thanks for the article!

for years I thought about building guitars from scratch but was held back by two things: didn't have a garage/place to do it and didn't think I'd be happy with the precision I'd get sawing fret slots myself. If I'm honest the thing that got me to start building was the fact that you can readily buy cnc slotted fretboards. built lots of partscasters for the reasons you describe - specific combo of features. good question - fun to answer.

I've learned a lot from this thread and thanks to all for your input. there are a number of places I've found looking on craigslist and facebook that apparently have 'sisso' and 'ironwood' for $5-10bdft. it's far more common than I thought. Most of them say they work with local tree services and get their wood from trees that have fallen or are otherwise removed. No idea how 'sisso' can be from local trees but I'm intrigued. I think given how common it seems to be around here, I'm in no hurry, but sooner or later I'm going to hit a few of these places and snag something. One of them is actually a small mill so, in case they offer shipping (will ask about uk), I'll report back on what I find.

I'm thinking a guy who has cut a tree before should know if a wood is relatively soft/hard compared to other trees he's cut... but who knows. seemed more like he was telling me whatever he thought I wanted to hear to get me to drive all the way there figuring I'd just take whatever was there. Rubbed me the wrong way. there is a lumber supply a block away from my work where I can get teak, bubinga, zebra, purpleheart that is 4fs for $5-9 bdft... think I'm better off spending my money there.

tru that! well... the fact that he won't tell me anything about dimensions, can't tell me anything about what it is... could be a waste of $45 and/or an hour drive so... rather spend that money at my local lumber mill where I know I can get something useable and dry.

yeah, the soft part... I'm out.

so couple questions: what are general dimensions? specifically thickness (8/4?) what is the widest slab you have (approx)?. hard recently was it cut and how hard is it? do you know anything more about the exact species because I'm confused by cottonwood/rosewood and trying to guage if this would work for my project. thanks ----- Terry You just need to come and look at the wood ---- was just trying to prevent the wasting of either of our time. I build guitars and not all woods will work for that. is this a tree you cut down on your property or something? ---- Terry It’s cut down from another property The wood is soft and easy to work with but you can come by and see it ----

my sarcasm detectors might need new brushes. right on, well I'll message him tomorrow night and see if it's worth the ride. will let you know how that goes.

ah... your post had a thumbs up so... I thought THAT was the two letters. again, I imagine he's like waiting for you to tell him you're gonna pay him with a money order then OOOPS my boss made it out for 2k, but just cash it and give me back 1555 and keep the difference... you know. I imagine shipping 8/4 10" x 4' would be pretty spensive? probably well over the price of the wood no?

right on... so I assume that was "OK"? I don't know what the question was but I assume you asked about if he'd ship to the uk? I'm guessing anyone who contacts him that is not locally - he's going to think it's a scam... that's what I would think anyway... so he probably is going to be a bit offputting at first.

looked around a bit... pretty cheap on craigslist. I would assume it's a lot like a more aggressive da sander. sm spinning wheel but different grip and more torque. I would imagine the MOST efficient way to carve without CNC is a duplicator... but I smell what yer steppin' in.

that is surprisingly light. I don't know what those kg things are, but I'd probably go for that model as as 2 < 4. Also, which weighs more... a pound of kg or a pound of lb? also, when you go to your grinder... do you oil up the beck first or after? I have a pretty light belt sander (6lbs ish) but it's the weight plus the pull of it that kills me. Lot better than those porter cable monsters but still I can only use that thing for about 10 mins. I'm sure I could manage w the grinder should it come to that, and will keep it in mind for when I get to that point, so thanks for the info.

those angle grinders look heavy and my experience with belt sanders is: my back can't take much of that. Second it removes a lot of material in a way that is not bound to a form. Seems like it would be some work to wrangle it into symmetry. I could see setting up a router jig similar to my radius top jig, that would have the lp carve profile instead of radius, and smaller at one end. This could make short work of smoothing the north/south pattern. Who knows, could always fall back to using an angle grinder... but I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to explore possible alternatives. If at all possible I'd like to try to substitute careful consideration for brute force.

sure, there are lots of folks who have done the angle grinder, and yes I think I did see a gentleman route everything by hand. Both fine approaches. That said... you have to pick the approach that is right for you. For me, my hammer is the router. I think it could have gone a lot easier with more template layers... and if I had a giant compressor I would love to have a dynabrade air sander with the right pad/paper. Furthermore the scraper set I got is already getting worn down so perhaps I need to learn about burnishing or find a set made out of better metal.

I thought what I said was funny... but you two had me in stitches.