mistermikev

guys like him, colter wall, and tyler childers offer a lot of hope for the future of music. not that "all that new music is crap" is my thing... but just love the idea of the new take on more traditional sounds. she's looking nice and smooth there. the hair almost looks like it's moving. lovely work as always.

bizman has you pretty well covered there... but a little trick that I recently learned that you might find useful in case you opt to trace your actual schecter...solder actually works better than a contour gauge for capturing the neck profile... provided you don't move it. simply form it to the neck at the 1st and the 12th... then trace onto paper. voilla. also... you'll learn a lot building your own templates. Plus you'll have the option to change things you may not like. highly recommended.

immediately reminded me of this pine table from the 1940s at my family cabin. That was not light either. much higher quality pine than you typically see and quite a bit harder - table still in good condition last I saw it in the 2005ish. Had a very 'shiny' quality to the actual wood... which I don't think I've ever seen before on pine other than that table. so, that gets my vote

so... feel like I didn't accomplish a whole lot this weekend... but I did spend a lot of time designing necks, jigs, finishing my body plan... and I glued up two blanks. you know... it's harder than it looks! Plenty of times I had the perfect cut... but the wrong grain... or visa versa. I kept getting a very slight (about the width of a human hair) pocket in the middle - which is odd and could spell danger. I wonder if my fence has a slight bulge there. Will have to inspect it a bit and perhaps clamp on some wood fence on the outside to see if I can improve it. anywho... ho hum... body blanks. one turned out pretty decent, one turned out 'ok'. both have a rock solid joint... just not spectacular on the grain match. Good news is there is plenty to learn yet!

lotta nice on that. good job.

yes, congrats. well earned.

fantastic resource. I'm going to have to place an order with them. thank you so much for sharing! hey also - happy new year! good things your way in the new year - I hope you wife is doing good and hope you are surviving taking care of her!!

if I may... where do you source a 1/4" x 4" end mill?

i know master po - you are full of good ideas!

that is a very interesting idea. lot of potential from that one trick.

that is a very interesting idea. I think it would be a little more work so might not use it for this... but I could see some very cool applications for combining maple with wenge or other colored binding. Def putting that in my trick bag for later - thank you for mentioning!!

hehe, well in carls defense I think he is evening out the tension... just not where he thinks it is. the even tension strings.... the concept doesn't seem possible.... but what do I know! I'm in... I'll try it!!

well... balanced tension strings... have not heard of them. Will have to try that. again, I'm not certain that it is anything to do with the strings themselves... you and other folks have quite convinced me of that... given that I've observed a difference... and tested it by trying to straighten the claw and consistently had less stability... there must be 'some' explanation. anywho, I very much appreciate the reply! also, happy new year!

well thank you sir... borne out of lazyness... can't see taping off the binding and f holes... hope it doesn't come to that!

well thank you for saying so!! technically this one is not going to change!! I'm going to use osmo polyx raw... which in theory is going to keep it almost natural and actually lighten it if anything... but I have another 8' or so of this maple so... I'm sure I'll do one with stain sooner or later!!

total necro bump here -as the kids say... but was thinking about this as the topic came up on the axe fx forum. so... it would seem like this "shouldn't" work... yet for me and lots of other folks... it does at least 'seem' to work and I wonder why? Was thinking that perhaps the tightening of one spring allows that spring to act as a "coarse adjust" of tension while the other spring acts as a "fine adjust"? IOW perhaps it's just making it easier to zero in on the 'right' amount of tension? have had success with it on a 6 screw, a 2 post, and even a fulcrum style tremolo. I dunno... just a thought.

oh, i wasn't saying your method... more the method of putting abalone dust/chunks in and then epoxy. yeah, abalone/mop is surprisingly delicate stuff.

well... technically 2mm does not fit inside 2mm. it likely fits inside 2.05mm! haha! I had considered the abalone chunks as well. I don't get what you are saying with the issue there? my main concern with the method is you don't really get the benfit of a nice looking solid layer of abalone.

well, looks nice. a lot to potentially go wrong drilling twice on the face of the fretboard, and potentially into brass. on a 6mm dot facing front you are def going to see it more. getting that to work 10 times in a row seems like a lot of risk but in a pinch it would solve the problem. what I'd really like to find is liquid abalone! one thing I've considered: i have some faux abalone binding... could try taking short lengths of brass tube and pounding it into that. maybe sharpen the edge of the brass and put it in the drill press and press it. then chop off the end. lot of work tho. might have to do a little experimentation with a few methods. thanks for the input.

right on. for me... I could cut the abalone dots myself with cnc and get a pretty close match on diameter. but obviously taking epoxy and filling a brass tube with it, then chopping the tube into slices would give a tighter fit. If I can find a brass tube with the right inside diameter that might be best... just don't want a gap inside it because getting the hole centered could result in results I wouldn't like. can be done... but can I do it 10 times without a mistake? prob not!! thanks for the reply!

well one of the things I thought it would buy me... is that usually when I cut with my router it takes a few tries to get a good join. however I typically draw a line of where I want the grain to be cut for a good match. so I rarely get exactly what I wanted after I cut a few times. with the cnc, in theory it should be good first time thru... so it might actually give me a better result. or at least a more predictable result. if/when/someday I will upgrade my spindle to one that accepts a half inch bit... that would def make it a sure thing. bigger longer bit. anyway... something to think about! thanks again for your input!

thank you, thank you sir!!

well jokes on you jack... I'm thinking I'm going to stain the top, tape off the f holes, and follow the f holes with a small ogee bit. sm with the body 'faux' binding... that is unless I decide that a dumb idea and do something else. haha!! headstock inlay is going to be abalone for the mv logo and then the gold transfer paper like I did on the les flaus. also planning brass tube inlays... I'd love to do abalone inside brass rings... but I'm not certain that won't end up being a pain. might just do epoxy and something blue inside brass tube.... still kind of working that out. thank you very much for the reply sir!!!!!!

all good points there. I think I typically do 80ipm but still that take a fairly long time. That said... I have a camera and can spend that time at my pc jacking around with other things. Further, if I was going to do it regularly I could setup a jig I could just mount and fire off. is it worth it - yeah, probably not. the bit length... currently my bit sticks out 1 5/8" and I've used all of that without issue nor noise. Literally had her up to the hilt and hand on the stop button in case there was still one pass left!! I would just need to get to 2" of cutter below the collet but I like to have my bit at least sticking out of the back side of that collet a little bit. further.. I don't know if this is crazy talk... but was thinking that if I do one pass in .08 increments... and had a bit with 2" of flute... and then moved my x by 1/64"... I bet I could get a pretty solid join. Any mistake would be certain disaster tho so... I dunno. thank you very much for your wisdom sir.

so was thinking about setting up to do a body join on my cnc. I typically do it now using a 3" long 3/4" diameter cutter in my hand held router with a top bearing... yeah... it's a bit crazy. I generally am just barely taking off 1/32 at a pass but even that is pretty dangerous. I am careful not to choke the router and it does fine... but I'd rather just do it with my cnc if possible. It'd be safer and even if I just do an initial cut with the cnc it will even out the material right at the grain line I want it at... and worste case I can do a final pass with the hand held. My cnc doesn't accept anything bigger than 1/4 bits. (no, not talking about 1 pass with the cnc.. this would still be .08" passes). In order to do this... I'd have to buy a longer bit. I also would need some bigger hold downs. So before I go spending money on this adventure... I thought I'd get any input you'd be willing to give. ever try it? if I'm going ahead... I know that bigger diameter bits - the cutting edge is going faster... and with the momentum of the extra metal - they tend to cut better/smoother. That said... a sharper bit would leave a much nicer edge. My spindle can handle the bigger bits, but I'm not sure that's necc the way to go. I don't want to spend more than $40 on a bit and it'd have to be at least 2.75" tip to toe. what say you? fools errand?