mistermikev

well I have the equivalent... slab cracks! they just collect stuff and the only way to clean them is with the compressor and air... and then it makes for a cloudy room for a while... but i get your point!

yup... that is it right there. for a stint I worked putting edge banding on lam top tables for nurse stations and store displays. sometimes we'd edge band black malamine... and you'd have to hit the edges with a file and clean them up... man one slip on that stuff and you'd have white lines you could see from space. Needless to say: over and over i learned that lesson!

i guess it never occurred to me that by veneer someone could have meant a thin top... could be either way I guess only op knows for sure.

that's crazy clean... I haven't seen my garage floor in months... all purple and maple colored!!

my advice: don't. I've sanded lots of veneer in my days as a cab maker and I can tell you that anything more than a simple "once over" - just to say you hit it... is gonna result in a burn through. it is super easy. the best part is... you don't even need to burn through to make a blemish that you won't be able to hide later... simply make the lamination thin enough and it'll have a "splotchy/dark" spot that stands out. when you say "smooth out"... that doesn't sound good to me... is there a bubble in your veneer or something? veneer is typically 1/40" thick... that is less than .03". even with 220 on it... hit a high spot with an orbital sander and you will instantly burn through. I say this because you say you've never done before... that sounds like a recipe for a burn through. Personally I would suggest you manually sand it with 220 and up... little more work but much harder to burn through. just one aholes o... i wish you the best of luck.

thanks, yes a classic combo. thank you for noticing! this job has been riddled with re-work... and today is no exception... in starting to put together my electronics I realize 1) that I have to do a "left handed" version of my piezo preamp because the "right handed" layout puts the board right where the barrel jack will poke into the cavity... and 2) the top is too thick for the pot shafts... so will have to take another manual wack at the control cavity. just never ending!

well sanding softer is def faster - I've learned that lesson as a solid surface fab. the key there being to join things with no visible lines... and to do that you have to remove mill marks w/o taking things out of square. If you sand w a lot of pressure... you are guaranteed to take it out of square. Also heats up the sandpaper and makes it wear faster. So a lot of benefits to sanding w very little pressure and it makes sense that pressure/heat would be much more likely to burnish. Is a good point to always remove dust as much as possible while working. def believe that sanding reveals figure, but all that said... still think there is something to just letting wood sit and age. when I buy wood that has been sitting... even rough cut, that surface always shows the grain really well. as soon as I start working it... seems like I'm always trying to get back to that state the wood was in. this top has all sorts of mill marks and yet the figure is really popping right now... not a smooth surface on it yet as I haven't sanded the face at all. It def did not pop like this right after I milled it. makes me wonder if I should try some future experiment with making some tanin and doing an extremely light application.

if it was handling... you'd think you'd see it more around the edges... but it is very consistent and I doubt I touched it quite THAT much. which makes me think it's something else altho I am aware that hand oils def do influence. fully aware of the risk that I've asked you this before... but as i recall you sand up beyond 400 yes? It sticks in my mind because I've read many say that after 400 grit you start to burnish the wood.

well I s'pose that it could be that the body got 'buffed' by being handled... but it is so evenly spread that I really think there is something happening afa ageing that is bringing that flame out. that said... I'm sure sanding it up really good and then ensuring all the dust is gone... will also bring out the flame well. thank you for your input sir!!

tru dat

yes... an air gap under the nut would seem like a bad idea to me. that said... not sure anyone's picking that out of a lineup. I think this nub is there because all sorts of folks just buy a nut w/o much thought to whether they need a radius bottom or not... and graph tech probably is combating returns in such an event that someone buys this to find out it's a flat bottom... also could just be due to an unknown radius and a need to easily match it. sand down on the fretboard and then toss it in the slot. I'll stick to flat bottom nuts for me lol.

i always do flat bottom because it is easy. I believe there is an argument out there that the advantage of a curved slot nut is that the material under the string is more consistent... but I'm certain this is just legend that sprang up after the fact. I don't believe fender ever did them curved out of a belief that it sounded dif... as curtisa mentioned it's more of a product of the mfg process for early fender. "hole needed for the notch in the nut" If I'm not mistaken... you are referring to the notch that folks like graph tech put in their curved nuts... I think this is just meant for folks who want to use a rounded nut in a flat slot if I'm not mistaken. I think the fender radius nut slots have no center slot/hole. If I'm wrong here... would love to know. graph tech nut fender p bass nut

something like this.... you really need to take several pictures. better shots of the connections on the 3 way and the pot. i assume red is the live to jack (to middle lug on vol pot), then lug 3 on vol goes to middle on 3 way (yellow)... and yellow and white are to your pickups... so if that's the case right there you should hear something assuming the jack is wired right and not grounding out on the cavity (common).

altho I'm sure it wasn't specifically for me... I appreciated seeing it!!

oh man... epoxy with some leaves embedded in it... being able to look through in some places and see the tree limbs... would be cool. I'm sure what you've got planned will be just as lovely. looks great!

I guess it is a an age old woodworking technique... nothing new. come to think of it my grandfather had this figured walnut end table that had that exact design for the top. It never even occurred to me to use that on a guitar... but it looks great.

saw this and thought y'all might appreciate some cools details here... https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=3468057386793920 hope the link translates (it's komarproject on facebook... for a guy who's never built a guitar... pretty good and a lot of other interesting ideas on that page) specifically I liked the idea of taking a bunch of thin boards and cutting into triangles and glueing back together for the back... might have to try that some time. also a few other cool ideas like the skull on back.

i was actually looking at the "butterfly burnisher" which is only like $15 and there's a lot of buzz about them... but I like the idea of having less specialized tools - especially with so many folks getting good results from just a nail set or as biz is using... just a screwdriver!

I didn't see that vid... and if you have a great piece of maple perhaps it'd be fine... either way... could be great today... tomorrow... I wouldn't wager my fur lined bathtub on that one!

right on. seems like a good method. will give that a go.

looks like you put a hellish good burnish on that scraper... what do you use to burnish? I've been reading about it and some guys say just use anything round and hard while some swear by the specific purpose burnishers.

something on my mind as I post this moch up... keep making a mental note that I should do my finish sanding way ahead of time and let my wood sit and age... because it brings out the flame better than anything else I know! this flame hardly shows at all right after it's sanded... and I'm doing a osmo poly x raw finish on this so I can't darken the wood at all prior... I just hope I can retain this much pop!

thank you biz, really appreciate it. have been practicing with the manual focus... works so much better but still a bit hard to see on the screen... I'll get there yet!!

so literally working on this in my spare time for the last 2 weeks... milled oak, purpleheart, mahog and maple down to .22 thick for the dome... milled purpleheart, maple and ebony down to .88+- for the letters... several issues with trying to mill two letters at a time and how close they are to each other so had to rework... then the inevitable snap of a letter or two while I try to get them into the pocket using giant sausage fingers... then wearing out my hands sanding them down to flush... it's a real trial but I feel like I'm getting slightly better at it anyway! bass (acoustic), treble (acoustic), volume (acoustic), tone (magnetic), volume (magnetic)... p or z for piezo was too big!

I immediately was thinking of this too. is a cool video. my initial impression was that - on the one hand... very cool... on the other - that low string is literally so low I can't really hear it and my ears are attuned to 5 string bass so... it's too low imo. You see in the video he doesn't spend much time w the stuff below a normal basses range. all this... just my observations... ymmv. a standup bass is typically 42" as well and the lowest note is a B. I can see going a little lower than that but not quite as low as this bass in order to make the lower range more useable. all that said a 42 scale is fine... just not sure I'd tune it that low. assuming a 42" scale... I see some unique challenges here. that is one long stick that is unsupported. I'm thinking you'd want some carbin fiber reinforcement or at the least some rock maple and a fairly thick profile... or perhaps a single cut with more support on the lower range of that neck... maybe a multi lam neck with some wenge or other super rigid wood in there. the other consideration is truss rod. 24" truss rod is going to be about the max you'll find for std truss rods. this type of neck is probably going to require a custom rod in the 28"+ range. lots of folks will make those (lmii or allied luthier for ex) but it is probably going to be expensive for a truss rod ($50?)... just something to consider. Also going to require some seriously long range strings and likely some thick guages which may present issues with the tuning machine holes (idk). getting long scale strings for my current 35" scale basses opened my eyes to the idea that getting strings for 36" scale is expensive and only a few sources. something to think about. the other day I saw a thread about ibanez and the new "electric stand up" they came out with... it instantly made me think about a long range bass altho the ibanez is only 35" scale. Carl Thompson does 36" scale as the standard if I'm not mistaken and swears by it. Def adding a 37-40" scale to my 'someday' build bucket list.