mistermikev

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.

4 minutes ago, Tony_goya said:

there you can see the wierd wood a bit better

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.

3 minutes ago, Tony_goya said:

there you can see the wierd wood a bit better

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.

25 minutes ago, ScottR said:

 

It's a Les Paul outline....this one:

You've seen it.

As I said, it is not a constant radius, but rather a compound radius. The point being that much change in thickness from center to edge is not a problem in looks. A half inch thick edge on the belly cut side is quite comfy. Take into account how much room you need in the control cavity before radiusing the back that much on that side though.

SR

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.

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

My current build has a 1" top with quarter inch edges, so the rate of change in that (top) is .75". Of course the radius is compound depending on what part of the body you are looking at, but at least that would give you a visual of what you are considering.

Obviously, I don't think .8" is too much.

SR

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?

so... given that it's regularly over 110 degrees here... have been doing anything but finishing my templates in the garage so... spent a little thought on this the other day:

cross section of what would be a flip-able 30" radius jig for radiusing the front/back of a guitar.  the blue squares are the rails from my router sled jig and are mounted on carriage bolts that can move up/down.  yellow are cleats that would connect two radiused rails.

this jig has a 'rate of change' of .8" from center to edge on a 14" body.  ie a 2" body blank would result in a 1/2" radiused body.  I think that is too much but am unsure what would be a 'typical' radius for a guitar face/back.... anyone have advice on this?

1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Well - I thought exactly the same thing after a couple of years of modding and making solid electrics and basses.  Then a guy posted a detailed step by step build diary on a forum like this and I thought, 'Actually, that might be just possible!'

Yes, it was quite a learning curve and yes, I had to make a few jigs and stuff (and you know me - I don't even like making routing templates!) but this was the result:

 

To be honest, I'd have been over the moon if it had sounded like a rubber band stretched over a baked bean can - but it sounded (and still does) brilliant!!!!

The trick, I reckon, is to get a decent detailed drawing (there are a number of good ones about) and follow every detail, tip and hint.  I'm known for being a bit of a rebel with some of my builds, but with acoustics I follow the conventional wisdom every time!

So yes - cut your teeth on a few more solid / thinline builds but, based on what you've been turning out recently, this is WELL within your capability

that is a beauty.  nice work.  I appreciate the encouragement... leaving that in the 'someday' bin.  can't wait to see how this one turns out!

that lacewood guitar above... huba huba.  I'm going to watch this thread for sure... not that I'll ever build an acoustic but I'm betting there is a ton of stuff an avg joe like me can take away from it.  Still trying to wrap my head around the taper above!;)

like how you used the natural stripe in the grain to line up with the toggle... looks nice.

thank you sir!  I couldn't hand over the money fast enough!

so... for lunch today I decided to check out a new lumber yard nearby... the guy at the desk told me they didn't have any figured woods.  I asked to take a walk about anyway.  low and behold... 8/4 rough flamed maple in the soft maple pile - 2 pieces 9ft long.  asked for a price: $4bf.  one piece is 5" and the other is 7.5".

I was all set to build the neck for this build out of some 4/4 flamed maple with no neck angle... because I still have not found a band saw that can tackle the 12/4 7" mahog I have...  not anymore! 

also - I fully recognize that I have a problem.  I have an unhealthy need to buy more wood than I can use.  I'm going to try to work on that.  also my wife may kill me as my wood pile is growing so if you don't hear from me - now you know why.

that is a very interesting/clever trick.  thank you for sharing it!

so... question: the top for this is 1/16-1/8 - probably closer to 3/64.  I know how to joint the two edges... but am not sure how I'm going to get good clamping pressure without tearing or buckling the top?  would love some advice.

my current plan would be to clamp one piece down to a 3/4 piece of mdf with a channel cut for the seam.  use 2x4 to keep it flat.  then place the other side and put bar clamps across... adding 2x4 to keep it flat.  the mdf with the seam would be a little short of the edges so the bar clamps can overhang. 

2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Not at all sure I understand what it is you are planning here.  I shall wait in eager anticipation - I'm sure all will be revealed in due course

nothing revolutionary - just describing how I made the templates for neck/neck-pocket and control cavity.  in the pics above you can see(leftmost) the 1/4 template for the neck and neck pocket... the grey line around the neck is epoxy.  those are two separate pieces that pull apart and the pocket template is a nice mirror of the neck template - no gaps.  that's all.

I know there are lots of ways to make a neck pocket that is a mirror of the neck... but this method doesn't require much skill and that's perfect for me! 

well boys... I'm afraid nothing much too look at yet as I've been focused on my templates... just a few more moves to do there and I can start choppin' up mahog/flamed maple.

In the meantime, just thought I'd share a glamor shot of my templates:

have been working on perfecting the epoxy template method

for anyone who cares: the process is - 1)make my neck template (for instance) then 2) trace it onto something else and cut out about 1/16 around it.  3) put down wax paper, put two layers of masking tape around the neck-template edges, clamp everything in place flat, fill the gap between neck-template and neck-pocket-template with epoxy.  I guess the proof will be in the puddin'. 

thanks for looking!

next steps (this helps me keep on track):

transfer the neck-pocket template to the body-template.

transfer control-plate-pocket template to body-template

drill holes for control plate mount and knobs into control plate template.

On 6/27/2018 at 11:58 PM, Prostheta said:

http://www.mykaguitars.com/tools/neckpocketjig/

that's a good tut.  thanks for that!

compound radius... naw... not tackling that one!  std radius is complicated enough for this simpleton!  Thanks for posting tho, looking at it - I admit - I have no idea how that works!

is it me or does that finish just keep getting better!  pics really show how it changes depending on the light.  what a nice job.  your elbow must be titanium!

looks pretty cool.  that wood looks really cool.  design suits it well.  looking fwd to it!

it would seem like routing binding as usual and then building some kind of wall around the outside might be the only hope for me given my skill set.  I guess if you wrapped the guitar in 3 or 4 layers of tape... then cut the binding, then taped on a card stock barrier to the outside of your already taped guitar - you could build up a little more channel in hopes that you could sand it back and be left with a fairly uniform binding... in theory.

would almost have to build a test body to attempt... and then it's getting to be enough work that just doing binding might be easier for a one-off. 

thanks for the input guys!

good idea on the purfling tho... that could work!

thank you sir.  that is a very thorough pictorial on that jig and def some good ideas there. 

it's really similar to the scheltema jig.  this vid is another variation on the scheltema... being used to profile that back of the neck but I assume it could be also used for the fretboard radius perhaps w some modification.