mistermikev

that'd probably make short work of it! (or firewood)

nice job not letting the blue get too dark. not an easy feat! that brown really pairs well with it. nice work.

right on, well I don't want to message him yet as there is zero chance of me getting down that way till saturday (traffic makes a 1 hour drive = 3 hours) but later in the week I'll probe him for some more info on what he thinks it is, how thick it actually is, how recent it was cut, etc. right on... well my recent experience trying to carve a maple top was really more physical effort than I'm willing to do very often (yes I'm that lazy) but I have an idea on how to setup a jig to do the majority of a les paul carve via router... then again not sure I want to be running a router on something that is hard as a rock! from what I gathered, that ironwood gets it's name from the fact that it is "hard as iron"... which doesn't sound like fun! but oh that color... might be worth it.

so... is it heavy like "you wouldn't want to build a body from it" or heavy like "you wouldn't even want to use it for a top"?

don't mind at all. it's on facebook marketplace... just a guy selling locally. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/988511004881180/?surface=product_details if you reach out to him lmk. I was thinking I might shoot a line closer to the weekend as he appears to be about an hour south of me. you can see the one piece that is turned sideways (under the oil) is what appears to be 2" thick(ish). I don't know if all are. I wondered about mexi cocobolo as it does look like some I've seen, but admittedly that 'desert' ironwood looks spot on! good call. edit: "impossible to work with hand tools" - hmm... sounds hard/heavy! man it is beautiful stuff tho.

i think yer right with the rounded = looks thicker. looks nice.

when you oil beck... it's best to have him sing "loser". also good to be drinking becks. fretboards are looking great. doing some slotting myself right now... I hate this part. I like it when it's right... but hate the work and constant fear of slip/scratch. putting a pretty large rollover on my current and am really liking the feel but prefer the look of bound neck. might have to try the thicker wood binding like you do to get the best of both worlds. anywho, be careful... beck might take a liking to you if you oil him too much!

dang, that's crazy that WD sold it (note to self... avoid WD). Like you... all the gotoh gear I've bought has been in gotoh packaging... in fact that is exactly what I look for on ebay auctions now because I've seen so many fakes. Usually deal with philedelphia luthier. If I don't see gotoh packaging - avoid. That said... I have bought some gotoh from allparts that came in allparts packaging... but it's legit gotoh so... who knows. I've recently found a place that has great prices on gotoh - japarts, and they are international. The shipping is a bit more for me ($30 for two sets of tuners, probably less for you) and wait time isn't great... but they have everything. fyi.

very much appreciate the response/wisdom. Not sure the oil can is included but I can ask (jk). This was apparently "just cut" and the pieces are 2-3" thick. So at a minimum it's something I'd have to store for a year or more. I was thinking that one block would make a pretty cool body, and what lit my fire was the word "rosewood". I wondered what sort of 'rosewood' grew in az. I went on the wood database and tried to look for a combo of those two terms but no such luck. As you mentioned, cottonwood is a very light colored wood so??? looking at it now, specifically the piece right under the oil... look how half way down the color changes? to a plain tan? I like the idea of a build in the future using something interesting and locally sourced... but perhaps this isn't it. As you pointed out there is a lot of grain going a lot of directions so perhaps a lot of potential for splitting as this dries.

there is a local guy who advertised as 'cottonwood/rosewood'... certainly is beautiful. I believe he's asking $45 each. I need more wood like I need flesh eating disease but wanted to ask: would this be dumb to pass up? Probably not is my guess... school me.

where did you get your Gotoh? I used the Gotoh vs100 for my sweetspot blue... and it was solid top to bottom... but there are some really shady dealers on ebay passing off stuff as gotoh that is def counterfit. Had to wade through a sea of them to get to stuff I knew was legit. that said... wilkinson does seem to be solid stuff. hard to go wrong.

earlier today I saw a meme that said "woodworking is 33% planning, 33% execution, and 33% changing your plan to cover up the mistake you just made". lord is that true for me. anywho... I think it'll look fine but if it bothers you, you could put a cool square insert of some exotic wood in there around the entire pickup - call it a natural pickup ring. you could put binding around the inside of the pickup cavity (been wanting to try this myself). the important thing is to realize - it's never as bad as it seems (unless it's me... then it's way worse!) ooh, just thought of another one... do up some waterslide with a decorative surround around the pickup.

funny, you addressed my question before I asked it... hehe. "Nevermind the logistics... will the height screws scratch it?" Seems like it would def be an improvement on the acoustasonic design in that the intonation/string-height will be adjustable... good call.

happy to be of some use.

"I'm an IT guy for my day job " - I'm sorry to hear that... we've reached our quota on IT guys in here. pretty sure everyone that freq this website is in IT/Dev! hehe. afa narrow... I guess it all depends on how close it is. You could do a 1.1 piece... just use a small edge piece glue on. Might be a nice option. Seems like you are on the right track and in good hands with all the input above so... you got her otter.

(see what I told you about nice folks chiming in? keep in mind that you should always weight responses... there are many veterans here and while I've been a woodworker all my life... I am only on builds 5/6/7 so keep that in mind) while I think you could probably just fill those end splits with epoxy... myself I would avoid them. the most expensive part of a guitar is your time... and if they decide to start running further that'd suck... just not worth the risk to me. Then again you see lots of folks using just a few sticks and the rest of the body is epoxy so... def could be done. I guess once you have epoxy in there it's probably not going to be able to run. What about taking your template, scaling it down a few percent, and making the center wood work? I know you pretty much got yer template done... perhaps do this one as a 2 piece with plans to do a smaller 1 piece later? well, something to think about anyway. My first build was a p bass that I scaled down a hair... then again it was a 32" scale. afa weight... for me... the lighter the better but my end goal is generally in the 7-8lb range. that's going to be about a 65/35 split between body and neck... so IME you really need your body wood to be 4.5-5lbs or less as the bridge/pickups/finish is likely to add a pound.

cheap and good... very few real examples of that but ime gotoh is def both.

wow, that fine detail there looks really great. nice work.

they use gotoh on the suhr guitars... need I say more? they also make a lot of the fender orig equip parts. Haven't tried the callaham, but I'm certain it is made out of superior metal... I'm sure it's nice. The babicz stuff - have a full contact bridge. It is extremely nice and def a step up in terms of design, quality... does that translate to better tone - doubtful. Better tuning stability - def. Still, if I was doing a vintage strat style (srv) I'd go goth. They have some good upgrades (the elongated post holes) and are (for my money) the most innovative company making guitar hardware. Support them for no other reason than to encourage continual research. locking studs, heigh adjustable tom, auto adjusting string posts, heigh adjustable string posts, side adjust truss rods... I could go on. On top of that their stuff is top notch quality and very competitively priced. https://stratosphereparts.com/new-gotoh-510t-sf2-vintage-tremolo-for-fender-stratocaster-strat-sb-5325-010/ https://www.amazon.com/Gotoh-Traditional-Tremolo-Strat-Chrome/dp/B00EB125KW

hello and welcome aboard. sounds like you've done some good homework. I think a jazz bass is a great place to start because it is a well documented build. afa blank... I love one piece, but also hate the idea of wasting wood. Perhaps you can get one 1 piece and two pieces that you glue up? afa thickness... I generally plan to loose 1/8" flattening things so if all goes well that puts you in the 1 5/8" range which is pretty common for fender. If you've got a lot of bow you might find yourself too much lower than that... you can always consider adding in a drop top. Ultimately, you just need approx 1/2" below the neck for mount and 5/8" depth for pickups so in theory you could go for a thinner guitar if you wanted. nice looking ash. I highly recommend you update this site with your pics and just link/copy to instagram... you'll find lots of great folks that will be willing to help you and I'm sure most of us would appreciate being able to watch your progress. hard to really see any major issues on that slab. Voids - as long as they aren't structural, can be filled and personally I like to see little imperfections in a guitar, but ultimately you have to decide. one piece of advice I'd give is to spend $20 and get a postal scale... that way you can keep a close eye on weight as for me that a big consideration. Get your templates perfect and check them with your fingers... lot easier to get mdf smooth than 2" of hardwood. look fwd to your progress, and hope some of this helps.

congrats!

looking great, nice work.

haha, I suggest you post pictures. I came here for guitar porn and am terribly offended when I don't get any! (jk) afa moog pcb... not sure I'd want to do a layout for this! one look at the schematic and my thoughts are: eh, I'd just build a few other simple pedal circuits and chain em together in there. You could go all out and try to do your own layout for that exact circuit... but I suspect you are going to have issues finding those transistors. tl022 is avail and so is cd4007. I spose you could find a substitute but then why bother trying to create that exact circuit? anywho, good luck.

that's the spirit. there's a lot of talk on various forums of guys sayin' "you gotta have a 35" sl for a lob B. I have a 35 and a 34 and to me... I sorta like it floppy on the 34 altho admittedly you get more fret rattle - even with extra thick strings. I also like my action super low tho so perhaps that's not as much of a problem for others.

ma bad... for the record doesn't really look tv yellow or gold... personally never cared for gold tops... just incredibly gaudy to me... and I own a jem floral! that said... some folks like it like that.