mistermikev

Roger that... oddly enough at first I was trying to sand down the high spots... and in the end I found that full length strokes worked better. Also trying to lighten up my pressure - both things you have advised. so thank you for the good advice!

right as rain as usual. I suppose in the end - even if I use a jig/router - I will have to sand it to get the tool marks out so... no way of escaping! Have to get better at sanding to a dimension for sure. I think the thing that has been holding me back there, is I was using a 3m sanding block... only 4-5" long. I've recently picked up a harbor freight auto-body sanding block. it's about 14" long and has a nice big handle... for $7! working pretty good so far because this morning I sanded my neck blank and it looked pretty straight. We'll see what happens after a few days of 'adjustment'!

hehe... my whole thought process on that is "yeah, YOU might be able to keep it straight but me - unlikely!" I find it difficult to get a perfectly straight flat neck blank! goes something like: sand, sand, sand... still a crack of light... sand, sand, sand... dang it it still hasn't moved... sand, sand, sand... and on and on like that! more importantly... I feel like it is the same technology - to radius a body or a fretboard. If I can learn how to make it work for one - the other will be a piece of cake... maybe. Also if I can make a radius that flips I'll be able to make better fb sanding blocks. Seems like a lot of benefit from one skill/jig.

thank you sir!

thanks as always for the advice. doing it by hand... I'm not sure it would be accurate enough to glue a top on to afterwards. and the top in mind is too thin to carve the radius into. I don't know... will have to think on this some more but i appreciate the feedback.

UPDATE: *-==========08/12/18==========-* made a little more progress this weekend... 1 outta 2 ain't bad: toggle cavity control plate worked swiimmingly - that dewalt saw is awesome... used a bigger saw for the other cavity but failed as the blade was too thick... so I'll have to pickup some 1/8" mahog for that. revealed some nice grain planing down my neck blank...

thank you gentlemen! (sorry didn't catch these responses right away)

good to hear from you prostheta. that jig is very nice - hardly worth the work to build one but then the experience is worth something. I've seen/heard of lam fingerboards before... I think they offer it as an option at musikraft or warmoth. to be clear... the laminate part is regarding a possible 60" radius on a radiused body using a 3/16ish top. my thinking is to build something that could do both a 20" fretboard radius, and then be re-used for a radiused guitar top. for now its just dreaming but I def appreciate the input!

for anyone wondering the same thing (how far can wood bend without steam or releif cuts)... this is an interesting read regarding cold bending... https://www.popularwoodworking.com/techniques/bending_wood_the_wright_way summary: recommended radius/thickness 2-4" radius - 3/32" 4 - 8" radius - 1/8 8 to 12" radius - 3/16 12"+ radius - 1/4"

Sorry, kind of jumping back and forth between radius for the fretboard and radius for the body. if you mean the comment: "...consider is how to manage the radius but miss the neck/fretboard on a neck thru guitar" -I was talking about radiusing the body and missing the fretboard/neck when I radius the horns. afa radius a fretboard attached to the neck... no need to do that here.

share your wisdom? some questions if I may? Can anyone tell me approx what would be the maximum you could bend and glue down a 1/4" top without making releif cuts in it, and without steaming? is this "crazy talk"? in the below drawing I'm planning out a 60" radius planing jig. the drop on either edge would be a hair less than .325 on a typical strat body (pictured in gold'ish below). so both sides figured in the bend would be a .75"ish change over 12.15" body. Ultimately I'd like to be able to put a radius on the front/back of a strat body and then glue down a top over it. any all thoughts would be most appreciated.

You are too kind and I appreciate.

jeez, that finish just look like a million bucks. you da masta

roger that... avg - good to know. yes, going to hollow out this one... but have 11 feet total of this mahog so... trying to get an idea how heavy an eventual les paul might be! thanks for the response

Just wanted to say thanks to all, and acknowledge the skill and innovation in the other entries this month that I am humbled by.

so... I've broken ground. starting off at 6lbs 7oz... that is fairly light for 2" frican mahog, yes? all for now. wait... I may have read that wrong (new scale) - that's 6lbs 0.7 oz. Edited 1 minute ago by mistermikev

Wow, you do a lot of elaborate jigs. not anywhere near this level yet so I very much appreciate you sharing all the detailed photos. rock on.

nice work... congrats. your bass is a standout over there even amongst the many beautiful examples.

some sort of black burst... red to black, green to black... or paint.

that looks like a burn through on the f hole as well. if you were going to do stain - against the odds... prob have to do a dark burst edge for the spots where you burned through.

that's a burn through

Looks an awful lot like finish that has been sanded off in some places but not in others... to my untrained eye. if that is the case it won't take stain well, and I'd guestimate it will be next to impossible to get all the finish off w/o burning through what I suspect is a veneer... so with that in mind you may want to consider paint.

ok, back to thinking "dang, dude carved that whole thing by hand!" so... one thing I need to consider is how to manage the radius but miss the neck/fretboard on a neck thru guitar...I suppose I'd just have to be careful in that area.

ok, right on - I actually thought you hand chiseled that out - based on your neck chiseling... "the great oz curtain is being revealed!" I'm pretty sure my belly could fill out at least a 45" radius! good point on the control cavity. I think I want to leave approx 1.25" of body. well... back to the drawing board as they say! edit... perhaps I need to angle my wings for that build... that might be an answer... I wonder how spector does it because it looks like the body is about 1.75 at the edge... just thinking out loud.

right on - what sort of style body is that? just curious. thank you for the confirmation. in my case... I'm going to radius the top and back - this is for an eventual spector-like build. My material is 2" to start with... so leaving me with a 1/2" body - well I'm not sure that's going to be right. I suppose I could leave a flatter middle section... and technically the piece I would be working with would be just under 13" wide, so my change would be less than .8 either way but... I think I might redo this drawing and shoot for a 40-45" radius. when I worked as a solid surface fab guy, I had to do a taco bell counter that had a 16' radius. I screwed two 9' boards together and screwed that into the floor... cleared out a bunch of floorspace... mounted my router and cut the pattern out of sheets of mdf. I had to create it in 2 pieces so we could load them into a truck and glue em up on site. don't know why I'm telling you this... just a good memory I guess... was so proud of that counter! anyone have a guestimate what the typical spector radius is?