mistermikev

noice, lookind fwd to seeing this come to life. that oak sure is silky!

right on. building def has a therapeutic quality!! I suspect we all have similar stories... I was taking apart/modding my guitars by the time I was 14. just drawn to it. rawk on.

well, yes if you are going to invite me to derail well I can hardly turn you down on that... yes have a cnc but A) just got it and have a number of things to work out in the design yet and B ) I don't think you save yourself any time building just one guitar on cnc. I've easily spent more already on this build just designing it (again, I'm new to the cad/cam and mach3 but I've got power friends who are tutoring me here!) and C ) my goal is to use cnc to up my game more than crank things out so... admittedly pushing myself to things I might not have attempted otherwise. when building by hand... once I'm actually building things go pretty fast but that's usually because of an awful lot of forethought... the only way I can keep myself out of trouble. I get the sense - only 4weeks or so in to cnc, that the amount of time I spend thinking ahead is about going to be doubled in the cnc design time and really the manual build time doesn't amount to much in contrast. It really is everything they say - not going to speed you up for one offs. That said... now I really feel like I have the ability to 'see' things before they are built. for instance, my current bass has got a radius top and a radius back... setting up a digital model allowed me to see that my ctrl cavity was going to be close on space... so I was able to modify my radius on top/bottom to give me a hair more room.

so... with 18v batteries you are going to setup some sort of charge pump and push them up to 36 or you are installing two batteries and combing them to reach 36v?

right on. have a whole stack of em just sitting there... mocking me... saying "why aren't you building faster mike... what wrong with you mike..." it's quite embarrassing!

well, I think ebony and typical rosewood are pretty hard to find anywhere but africa or india! that said... apparently indian rosewood grows here in az so awaiting a find of that someday! further, curly soft maple is one thing... curly hard maple is another entirely. i see pallets of both at my local spot but there is almost zero curl in the hard and all sorts of it in the soft. I believe it's just more rare to find a stunning piece in hard maple. anywho, yes, az is def a good place for wood!

i suppose so. lots of soft curly maple... hard to come by hard curly maple. lots of white ash... hard to come by black ash. I spose every place has it's specialty.

arizona.

jeez, that's what $5-6 bd ft? my local sells poplar for $2.35ft... but you have to buy a 12ft stick. they sell mahog for $4/bdft. then again some of the other places near me are a lot more expensive so perhaps I'm spoiled.

right on. def hit the nail on the head w home depot - the do not do a lot of drying. their top of the line pine looks pretty good but honestly, the commercial lumber yards def get the better stuff and all the stuff I've got from mine - the water content is so low I can't even measure it. poplar can be quite nice. that said - what you'd pay at home depot is probably more than you'd pay from a good lumber spot... or at least that has been the case for me.

well, $20 seems pretty reasonable esp when you look at the stew mac equivalent (I'm sure). They look nice. perfect thing for the job. anywho, rawk on.

note to self - if you ever do an acoustic... def buy THOSE clamps. can't help but wonder how the heck you got them in there! looking good.

pine - well if it's good 'nuff for bill kirchen... probably too good for me. (hot rod lincoln y'all!) like any other wood... man there's pine then there's pine. I love the smell of all of it! the stuff they get at home depot is a pretty bad example... but the stuff they have at my local lumberyard appears to be quite nice. have thought about using it for a gretsch roundup one of these days. anywho, never saw a tele I didn't like and yers is no exception.

you had me at battery powered tube amp. love it. should be a wonder of nature when it's done.

meanwhile... out in the garage... gluing up panels... then realize I put one of the long boards on the short one (glue is dry now) while I was applying glue to the long one... so bunch of swear words... wet rag to get the glue off... I'm guessing my 1/4" flamed maple piece is going to look like a ski when it dries. old smell... such is life. will get some more practive milling down new longer puple heart piece today!!

right on... I will take the advice, but find a free xml editor and edit it. I haven't opened mine up yet, but I believe it should be this one: https://www.ebay.com/i/224181412357?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=224181412357&targetid=935083617267&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9032152&poi=&campaignid=10897367470&mkgroupid=108153776780&rlsatarget=pla-935083617267&abcId=9300403&merchantid=101708222&gclid=Cj0KCQjwufn8BRCwARIsAKzP697QKf966av-r8hGnaFu7gGH-3pqFiqlA5_Gv8LaD6aV0sF-E_Hbt38aAp87EALw_wcB It at least uses the bobcnc driver.

this is a subject that has really caused me some grief. the machine has no mechanical zero stop mechanisms ie no home per se. I've seen a bunch of threads where folks have added them... but I'm not there yet. I have taken the machine to lower left corner and max y and set that as home... but then I am unable to utilize the soft stops. Using machine coords and trying to alter the soft stops... it just does not seem to respect them. I know this must be an issue with my brain... PEBKAC error/operator error... but had chased it around one day and then just got beaten into submission. the machine itself seems to be setup to have a center zero... because using machine coords none of the corners are actual zero. I need to dig into that xml file and figure out where those settings are but just too lazy to install an xml viewer on my pc as I'm about to build a new one anyway. for now... my kludge is that I built in some center lines on my spoil board. if I toss a 15deg engrave bit in there I can get the center dialed in pretty well... but yeah - it's a pita and not the best way to do it.

right on. certainly good advice there. I have become familiar with the tabs - it's a very nice feature - just wish that had an easier toggle-on/off for it. I've seen that you can do a 2 rail sweep or a tilt at the component level that will give one the appropriate angle... any issue with using those? I ask because it's common to see folks recommend tilting the work piece as opposed to using this and I wondered why - something I'm missing? I used the 2 rail sweep method for my 1 deg neck pocket. I do see the down side of the butt edge remaining 90 deg (not 89 deg) but in my case that part will be covered by my neck overhang anyway. I could make the neck stock an extra 2mm long and back bevel it to fit the 91 degrees. i see amana tool makes a 3 degree bit... will keep looking for 1 degree and 4.5 degree but not holding my breath!!

hehe, was already thinking I should build one and put some leds in it. was going to run them to a motherboard battery. option d you say... well sir, I don't have a hand plane but I do have a beltsander and/or my rigid oscillating sander has the sort of belt sander attachment... that might work quite well for this. thanks for the suggestion. pick your battles - tru dat. that said... you work it out one time and it will be there for you in the future. guess I'm just itching to do some real work w it!

starting to be able to visualize it. We're looking at the back of the bass here. the opposite side will get either a flamed maple slip match top, or a figured oak slip matched top. Haven't decided which one to go with. couple notes: to self 1) building a big heavy 2x4 planer sled makes for solid rigidity going through the planer as well as a very soar back. 2) the upper horn there... going to require some forethought to have that come out w/o the tip being part of the centerpiece wood there. I want that detail to be part of the wing... so after I glue these side wings up I'm going to have to take a strong 1/4" cut on the table saw up to the start of the horn... then stop the saw (mercy me - a very serious proposition as it is a doable cut but one that should def be taken seriously). This middle piece had to be that wide so that the lower (left) body would fit within the lovely piece of purpleheart I wanted to use. This means the upper right horn would go into the centerpiece territory. 3) my tablesaw is only 10" which means I have just uner 3" of blade height to work with. The neck blank is just over 3. I'm doing a scarf joint on this neck with a multilam headstock that will be a sandwich similar to the body wings. So... I can do that scarf with: A) the tablesaw (not enough blade height) B ) my headstock angle router jig (might be too lean of an angle) C) the cnc (I'm not confident this will leave the kind of flat finish I want)

so... channeling the spirit of carl thompson this weekend as I practice resawing and planing pieces for my bass. I have oscillated back and forth about doing a glueup of 4 pieces of purpleheart + top or and more 'pieced together' thingy in the spirit of carl thompson. you can see my orig blank top left here and my 2nd one front ctr below. purpleheart is so heavy that I'm thinking I might try to work in more lams of maple for my wings of the body. I guess I can always use one as a lab rat and choose what one I like most towards the end. no resaw expert... but I'm learning... made a great big planing jig out of 2x4... works fantastic. my floor is starting to look like some sort of psychadelic purple snow christmas... might hold a rave here next weekend idk! getting more familiar with the cnc too... did up a spoil board complete with training wheels... and a dust collection boot.

I'm told it gets pretty brutal in Louisiana too... but I recon not this time of year anyway, right? Usually in AZ if the power is going out it's gonna happen during the monsoon which likely means it's not that hot (fortunately). Anywho, have to clean up the shop and organize the tools while you wait it out!!

on that note... you are going to want to go over to mylespaul.com and do some searching on 'bartlet plans' and also '59 burst plans'. there are some guys there (a few visit here sometimes) that take 'as close to the original' to a whole nutha level. there are documents over there that were drawn from actual 59 bursts and such. they take it down to the exact placement of the control cavities and everything. It's really obsessive and I respect the hell out of it. Anywho, if you want to get close that's a great source for info - just thought you might appreciate.

this is kind of a rolla coaster reply - at first I'm like "what? power out everywhere and you still have to work??!?" then I read the part about charging the cell and thought "well I spose that whole workin' thing is pretty fortunate!" hehe. I always keep some candles around for power outtages... but here in az if it happens in the summer - BRUTAL!

sorry to hear that... keep safe.