mistermikev

well... maybe maybe not. usually you'd notice that within an hour or two of cutting it... and it has to get pretty hot.

well... as I recall they make special saw blades and special bits for it because the heat generated by a reg saw blade/bit can warm it enough that it will bend... and once it cools it is going to maintain that shape. that said... those tools aren't really worth it to the casual user.

corian... I knew it the minute I laid eyes on it. I built solid surface coutertops for a year or two when I was younger. is very interesting material because it's hard as a rock but if you heat it in an oven you can bend it all over the place. have often thought of doing inlay with the stuff... but it comes in half inch sheets and you really don't see it thinner than that. Not sure cutting it with a bandsaw would go over well... esp for the blade. should make for a very interesting fretboard. good to see you back at it sir. cheers

right-o. lot of dif ways to get to the church.

sugglers route is just a term that has been used to describe what they did on some early fender teles. basically they routed the area under the pickguard down to within 1/4" of the back. afa radius top... this is what I meant: kind of like a fender aerodyne but semi hollow.

I think I'm going to have to try it at some point... if for no other reason than to widen my horizons.

weight is really important to me... so a while back I was weighing my guitars b4 and aft I did various cuts. at the time had a tele that was solid body with a smugglers route being built along side an aggressively hollowed thinline. I believe it may have been @curtisa or perhaps @Andyjr1515 who first told me that removing even a thin layer from the entire body would make a bigger difference than doing a deeper cut in a smugglers route or other. Of course it's all about volume of wood removed but point is it's deceiving how much volume is removed making the whole body 1/4 thinner. I found this info to be pretty spot on as when I did my radius cuts on the thinline that actually removed the most weight. Long story long... just making your body really thin might be one option. another thought is to use a radius jig (of course I would suggest that) would allow you to remove a lot of material but have a top that remains suitable for a veneer. another creative idea might be to resaw the body wood (similar to what curtisa is suggesting), hollow out the one part, then glue back together. some other things that may help - make your control cavity really large. hope something there is usefull.

i appreciate the response biz. it is true that if you look at true temp there is quite a bit of variance and you wouldn't get anywhere near that variance on a fret by screwing up with a triangle. that said, if you had two consecutive frets that were off in opposing directions I wouldn't be surprised if it made intonnation a bit screwy. esp if it was the 12th. I just meant that it's probably something you have to be careful of whereas with a crown file it's a no brainer.

on another site... with a lot of folks who are in the biz here and there (not a luthier or building site)... I was kind of surprised that the majority of folks chiming into a thread were sort of bashing crown files. I'm ok with that... was just surprised by it. one of the main complaints is that the shape of the fret is sort of 'baked in' whereas a triangle file you can go along with the shape of the frets. It's a fair point. generally I've always been under the assumption that a crown file would make the job faster doing both sides at once... but taking off more material (if the crown file you have isn't an exact match for the fret profile) might actually make a triangle file faster. I can see a lot of down sides w a triangle file... namely the consistency. it's hard to get a straight line at the center of the fret. working on my frets right now... and even with 7 or 8 crown files on hand and 3 of them "jumbo" (working on jescar jumbo frets) some fit better than others. usually my stew mac is the go to but on this job the philli luthier 's' style fit best. so... penny for your thoughts.

i bet. the one time I did off white it was hard. of course I paint in a temp greenhouse outside which doesn't help... but little fuzzies kept making me sand back and do more coats! i imagine alpine white was even worse. bravo and a great build.

congrats on gotm!!

when I hear blotchy I automatically think minwax. because dye isn't also a varnish... it doesn't do that. my personal feeling is that the darker edge doesn't look great, but the central part looks good. If it were me... I know I'd be much happier in the long run sanding it all back down and trying to do what you did on the faces on the edge as well. the face part looks pretty good to me. the darker three piece section... once you get it all sanded back down... leave the other two pieces sanded to 220 but bring the darker 1 piece of up 400. i believe I learned that here and probably from scott r - that sanding to higher grit will burnish the wood a bit and prevent it from soaking up stain as fast. I'd also recommend using keda dye instead of what appears to be varnish if I'm not mistaken. with dye, if the one area looks darker... you can sand it back a bit to even it out and it will blend well. most of it will be covered by the pickguard anyway... but that's what I'd do. actually... what I'd probably do is sand it completely down and buy a veneer and glue it on. $23 well spent over at b and b rare woods: https://www.dyed-veneer.com/product-p/1227-10.htm then just lay down some glue, clamp a piece of scrap wood to the top with some braces to keep it flat. all just spit-balling. do what YOU think is best.

right on, hope you find them useful. cheers

I guess if you are planning on doing more than one in your lifetime... a jig is the way to go imo. as demonstrated above it's not all that hard to do. If I had to do it... I'd probably try to use a router and pivot point to make the arches so that they are smooth. I've seen folks use pvc as the rails since it is slipery and won't hang up anywhere. If you go google hunting for images of jigs... there are a lot of options out there. sanding blocks: there is a lot of folks making these these days. I had bought a couple back in the day and they were rock solid straight. now-a-days there are even some folks making them out of plastic. I think if you hunt around you can get something decent for cheap. best of luck.

yeah, worlds worst speller here... but yeah!

shame on me for not looking back... is a handsome body... will pair well with that headstock and def some mikro signature there. nice work.

i hate to hear you struggling mike, but know I'm right there with ya brother! good to see you striking while the iron is hot and I look fwd to seeing what sort of body goes with this neck and what sort of mikro signatures end up in it. rawk on!

maquaray (spelling?) work is something else. really classy touch, bravo.

running in slow motion o'er here... this picture is pretty much the fruit of a 4 day weekend - as sad as that is. I apparently didn't learn my lesson with small letters and and have gone even smaller on a new label ring for my 5 way rotary. when will I ever learn... probably never. All that said I've got my neck blank all ready for frets... as soon as I can get through these detail pieces... or I get disgusted with them for a bit... will be fretting.

right on. i freq wire with either a 4p4t, 4p5t, or 4p6t... kind of the std for my type of wiring. used to be able to get a cool alpha 4p4t that was actually as small as a 16mm pot... but sadly apparently you and I are among the very few who would appreciate. rawk on.

i see something in this shot that reminds me of home... 2p5t and how they take of so much space and freq req creative bending with the lugs to fit! lovely build. some great details there.

yes the wood matters... generally you look at how many ppul have issues with the skunk strip on a strat neck... because the two woods (maple vs walnut) expand contract more/less... it often results in issues of the walnut raising out of the maple. that said... you could be totally fine with two very different species of wood that end up similar in density anyway... so it's not the end of the world. I would say find the closest match you can that is decent wood. humidity... well again it would likely be best to use wood that is seasoned and has a low moisture content. qtrsawn does tend to be more stable in one dimension... not entirely sure it would make a big dif here. ymmv I'm not really sure what you are asking about finish. Perhaps someone else will chime in on that note.

ok, I'll be honest only 1 post on here made me a bit leery. That said I see you have the sm avatar at strat talk... and I vetted you (creepy)! My main criteria was I just wanted these to inspire some other builder... I think you meet that criteria. I will be happy to send them to you at my cost on a few minor conditions: 1 u agree to do something nice for someone somewhere. 2 u agree that you will actually use them, or you will give them to someone who will. (I just mean don't take them just to resell them to make money... trade to someone for something ok) if that works for you... pm me your address and I'll get them in the mail as soon as i can.

lovely photo.

i always buy precut nuts... worth the $10-20... then just a few strokes with the files. saves the files too. not really changing my methods based on this debate or its' parallel debate on facebook group... other than my choice is now more informed.