mistermikev

noice.  looking pretty good.  that buffer seems to do quite a nice job.  

12 minutes ago, JGTay said:

The purpleheart would blend in better from the sides. Have you decided on a volute shape or are you letting the wood 'talk' to you?

thanks for reply.

vollute - I have a design completed... so volute is pretty settled but due to the limitations of my working area I have to revisit and split into 3 parts (boo) so might revisit it.  my stock is about 1" so technically as is the volute would be ltd to 1/4" which is prob fine but on a 5 string 35" scale... can always use a lil' more.

tend to agree... that at least on the purpleheart version there is something there I'm not crazy about with the lam neck stock meeting the plain headstock.  It might look better once it's shaped but that's the trick... trying to see the future.  I get the feeling a 3/8" thick piece of flamed maple might go a long way there.  thanks for the input.

well... finally used the 10 deg scarf jig this weekend.  It went very smooth but I'll fully admit -my ass cheeks were sufficiently puckered with 3" of saw blade sticking out of the saw and spinning around. 

It is hard having the patience in that scenario... to not rush the cut - rushing will flex the saw blade a bit and you end up with a rounded edge.  Go too slow and you'll burnish the surface and glue won't hold well there.  no burnish issues for me but clearly I rushed just a little bit at the start.  all things considered... I'm pretty satisfied with the join.

these shots are with a lot of flash cause I wanted to sit and look at the join... "don't it make my purple heart brown?"  Wanted to step back a moment and decide if I should stick some a piece of mahog/purpleheart-or-maple in between the headstock pieces to allow for A) less obvious transition and B ) more of a vallute.  If you have an opinion I would love to hear it.

38 minutes ago, Crusader said:

I haven't used that piece of wood because the sides are rounded, but I'm glad about that for the reason you mentioned 

Oh and the clamps are made in Germany, I love those things!

noice and noice-er.  those are about as heavy duty as I've ever seen.

idk what kind of wood it is but my guestimate would be fir.  really should consider somehow preserving and incorporating that label... just so cool... but perhaps late for that.

really just came in here to ask: "really?  no one else gonna address the elephant in the room?  I'm the only one who noticed the most epic clamps in clamp history?  those bloody things look like they would take effort to lift!"  hehe NICE CLAMPS!

2 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Thanks Andy, yes I was impressed with the amount of bass, I was surprised because all the research said mahogany braces are a no no. The top is quite thin so is the back so I've only got 10 gauge strings on it which will probably be affecting tone. I was pleased to know that the amount of lacquer I would normally spray on an electric hasn't hampered the sound either. 

Thanks Mike, re picking, I do a lot of hybrid picking when I play guitar but as I've been playing this acoustic over the last few days I've noticed holding a pick is tying up my index finger so I've just got myself a couple of thumb picks, but wow those things are weird, way bigger and thicker than my usual 1mm black Dunlops so will def take a bit of getting used too, I'm tempted to try filing/thinning them down a bit. 

I never could make thumb picks work for me... have had some for years but I can't get used to how far away from the thumb the picking action is.  I spose I could cut one down... but just using fingers feels natural to me at this point.  I had no idea you were into that sort of thing - good for you. 

afa picks... I prefer stubby which is super thick... altho if playing acoustic I like the dava picks because they are thick and if you hold them at the tip they are rigid but if you hold them at the base they are good for strumming.  it's all good.  picks are such a personal choice thing.

1 hour ago, Bizman62 said:

Oh my indeed!

thank you biz.

54 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Oh my!

SR

thank you sir!!

12 hours ago, Nicco said:

The box is closed!! Whoo! Big milestone there, very happy. 

The bottom binding channel has been cut now, I've got the neck fitting and being aligned to centre line but I'm going to need some creative clamping while I'm gluing it, the joint could be tighter. The fret board has been pinned in place on the neck with a pair of 1mm drill bits so now I can start final shaping of the neck. 

I got the fret board sides and tail end all shaped up last night, and then put in the 6mm MOP dots... taking care to do the ukulele specific dot not on fret 9 but 10; I almost got that rather wrong.

Next up, final sand the fret board top surface then bring the back down to final thickness.

coming together nicely.

thank you Nicco.  got another one done this weekend... baby steps!

On 8/14/2022 at 2:43 PM, ScottR said:

Got a text from my youngest brother the other night: What was the name of that lake we hiked to? (actually 3 texts in a row of the same question--I think there was beer involved.)

The lake was Timber lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. He was 16 and I was 22 and we had spent the last 10 days camping and fishing mountain streams in Colorado. Including one spectacular stream where we climbed down into a canyon and fished below numerous waterfalls and caught trout on every other cast. I suppose not too many fishermen showed the dedication to reach those pools.

We hiked 5 miles and climbed 3000 feet to reach Timber lake at just over 11,000 in elevation. And the fish were not biting. The ridge of mountains behind the lake was the continental divide, and blue jays were dashing in and stealing bits of our lunch. We could visualize a path up the ridge and decided to give it a go. It really was a relatively easy climb....except for details like no oxygen and false peaks. We never heard of false peaks before and I'm pretty sure we counted 22 before we got to the top. The top was over 13,000 ft and under 14,000ft and off one side everything ran to the Atlantic ocean and the other side flowed to the Pacific. Naturally we peed in both bodies of water.

Coming down we sang old Roger Miller songs (Dang Me and You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd figured prominently). We made up a crazy story and got caught in the dark about half way down. We are pretty sure we heard African lions and Indian tigers in the dark forest still several miles from camp. We cooked a steak, drank Yukon Jack and rehashed the day. In the morning, we decided there was nothing we could do to beat that, so we packed up and went home.

My brother's text came over 40 years later. Now it occurs to me how lucky (awesome) we were to create an event that we still remember  vividly 40 years later. Who does that? I can count on one finger all the other events that occurred when I was 22.

Those were the thought going through my head whilst cutting out chips one at a time this weekend.

M

My license plate is showing. I know I've blurred it mostly, but have missed enough pics that it's a bit like Miley Cyrus saying: Oh are my tits out?

There's no real point to covering them up anymore.

SR

nice... first few nibbles... you are just building the anticipation over there!

sounds pretty good.  lot of bass.  some nice playing too.  look at you and your right hand style.  nice work.

3 hours ago, ScottR said:

I'm with Andy. I love the inlay choices and execution!

SR

very much appreciate ya sayin' so brother!

4 hours ago, Crusader said:

Sure is!

So you reckon a maple scratch plate? I like the white Strat pick guard I think it makes it pop, but it is a shame to cover up the wood. I don't know but should have placed the controls on the tele mock up, makes it balance out a lot better. Photo posted now
 

Can't really do that with Tele neck pickup...! but I have thought about making wooden pickup rings. Guitars that have no pick guard my fingers get caught in the gaps while playing

 

I have a Tele pick guard on order but it is still a month away but I have all sorts of options going through my head, the main two being;

1) I have the gear to make this a Strat so why not use it? I have a Dimarzio Fast Track 2, a SD little 59, pick guard and switch. I just need a Hard Tail Strat bridge

2) I could stay with the Tele theme and do a 1/4" round-over + no belly cut etc. Basically do everything like a Tele but shaped like a Strat

Either way I do like a pick guard but I don't like how the pickups are mounted onto plastic on a Strat. From experiments I've done I know what a difference it makes and after all thats the thing that sets Tele's apart

 

maple scratch plate... well i figure if you are gonna cover up the wood... do it with another piece of lovely wood.  

tele neck pu - well you can buy a topless pickup cover for it and place wood there... it's what I did on my last tele build.  i guess I'm just into wood more than plastic but nothing wrong with a pickguard either.  that said a tele neck pickup is such a dark sound... just changing to an open cover makes a world of dif afa sound too.

just thoughts.

is a really lovely piece of ash.  if it were me... (and it's not) I like when things match.  it'd be cool to have a pick guard from the sm wood as the neck... or perhaps if you could make a veneer-thin piece of that neck wood and glue to the top of the pickup covers... might tie the room together nice. ymmv... and just a thought.

40 minutes ago, Crusader said:

Oh that's sweet!

thank you sir.  i came in here and looked at it 3 or 4 times yesterday and daydreamed about how I'd use it... so worth every penny at this point lol.

21 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Works! There is a bit of a rattle which sounds like it's coming from the saddle which I need to investigate, fretboard is not currently glued down so could be that, could be that the string barrels aren't snug with the bridge plate or could just be that the action is set very low, needs some investigating.

nice... looking fwd to hearing it.  

so needed a little therapy at lunch yesterday... so off to my local spot... "I haven't bought any wood in a while... why shouldn't I?" despite a garage full of great wood.  that said... hard to pass on some flamed maple at reg maple prices.  Just thought y'all might need some wood therapy too hehe.

1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I just love those inlays @mistermikev  Unbelievably classy

thank you sir, very much means the world to me coming from you.  giant pita but this is territory I really want to expand into so... grab the scuba gear and dive!

1 minute ago, JGTay said:

Thanks @mistermikev 

I am gradually getting used to playing bass, not something that can be done quickly , but I am using it on Rocksmith while I am learning.

I don't have a bass amp yet, but hopefully by the time I get one I will be able to play something resembling a bass line to show how it sounds.

right on.  you might consider... there may be a freeware app for recording video games/screen-audio-capture that could work to capture from rocksmith.  just a thought.  that said... hoping for a nice bass amp in your future!!

wow, you made a lot of progress in a short time... good for you.  looks great.  wood grain really came to life with some clear.  hope you'll let us hear it (no pressure).  rawk on.

nice save.

6 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

A piece of popcorn would fit into almost every tiny hole, wouldn't it? Just squeeze it and it will squash into a notch of any shape!

That's some nice puzzle you've got there.

yes good point... however it sidesteps the idea that one can simply eat the popcorn and continue looking for the maple lol.  nom nom nom.

stretching my patience muscles this morn... kept the suausage fingers in the picture for reference lol.  takes about 2hrs to cut all the pieces for this... then took about 2 hrs to get this far (still have to finish the eye and several little dots along the spine).  

NOTE TO SELF: in future, vacuum room right before you mess with anything this small or you'll end up looking like a crack head sifting through the random bits of leftover popcorn and other crumbs wondering... is this the piece that just went flying?

3 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Every geek is skinny on the inside. Fat or muscles don't count.

lol, fair enough and hard to argue with that.