mistermikev

I hope this isn't inappropriate or stepping on projgtr vendors at all - if so lmk...

I know guitarwoodexperts has been mentioned here by others but just thought I'd 'pass it on'...

they have some neat deals right now... birdseye top 'med grade' 1/4" for $20!  torrified version for $25!  they also have 2A redwood for $25?

http://guitarwoodexperts.com/birdseye-maple-drop-top-medium-grade-roasted/

dan cook over there is about the nicest guy I've ever dealt with.  I asked "if at all possible - can you pick one with chevron figure"?  He sent me picks and allowed me to pick from 3!  So in short, not only the cheapest in town... but the absolute BEST customer service ever!  $20 in shipping for two tops and a birdseye fretboard so shipping is more than fair too. 

I will post picks when I get them sometime next week.  I just hoped this might qualify as giving back to a community that I am very thankful to have found. 

cheers

18 hours ago, ZekeB said:

Its funny because I was asking all these same questions and after I actually built the body I ended up changing most of those variables because they seem to all be tied to each other.  If its an original design I think the best thing you can do is make a prototype shape out of some laminated cheap wood to see what it actually feels like and also helped me with how i wanted to do my cuts and see where I might have complications.

I think your neck pocket will be fine from what I've seen from other designs.  I actually had an engineer test and see if my neck would be structurally good.  I think the average neck pocket length is around 3.5+", 2" being the shortest I've seen.  I'd just make sure your design has the right cavity depth you need for the controls you want to use.  

I think the belly cut will really be found when you actually build it.  Mine was nowhere near what actually worked for me.  Looks like a cool design!

thank you zeke, I appreciate your thoughtful comments.  I've built my template for the body shape and checked the belly cut... but good point - def something I may want to plan to tweak later.

Like you, I suspect the neck pocket should have plenty of surface area... but less assured of two things:

A - this is an 'almost' fully hollow build. 1/8-3/16" maple top and 3/16-1/4 min thickness on the back. with no bracing - structure is a bit of a concern.  This is based on a popular guitar but I've never actually seen the inside of this model... I've read that it does not have a central cross block like it's brother the dc59. 

B - Neck thickness: Not sure if getting thicker wood(3/4 neck heel vs 1.5") would be wasted here.  Ie I could double the side surface area while reducing the body thickness through the pocket.

another concern is that there will be no channel for the wire going to the 3 way toggle I plan on the top right.  on the one hand... loose wire may be annoying... on the other - assuming a wire channel somewhere, once this thing is closed up, if I want to rewire I'll never be able to thread it through. 

I know the gretsch country gentleman has a set of upper toggles and I wonder how they managed the wires.

anywho, thank you again

must.... buy..... more.... wood!  $16 for these two... 7/8. 

make a nice mild top if I just match up two pieces(not bookmatch)?  Have my doubts.

yep, I caught that part and duly noted thanks for the tip either way!

4 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Thanks a million.

Let's see how it does after the tinting.

SR

either way that's what I'm taking away from this thread: dye progressively lighter colors while sanding back each time.  Mental note to "scott r method".

I was watching that finish going "ok, dark red then lighter red and sand back... looks pretty good..." then the amber and blamo... looks like a million bucks.  Tiger stripes - nailed it!  Also  nice piece of flame. 

Like the finger cutouts for the back plates.

really great looking build.  nice work.

really hard to capture the beauty of wood in my garage and in general but...

good news guys... they had a special on fiddleback masonite at my new fav place... will post some pics asap!

oh, it's just african mahogany... aka fiddleback mdf.

quite unique and quite nice.

wow, you've got a collection to aspire to.  v nice.

57 minutes ago, MiKro said:

Beg to differ with you it is Big leaf western maple. I know where I bought it from. It was green fresh cut straight from the mill in Oregon. I was there.

 

that my friend... was a bit of humor.  the funny part being that of all the different figure types I could choose to contest I would choose to contest the 'western' part.  Not nearly as funny now that I say it out loud... but I assure you - in my head - it was comedy gold.

looking at it again, I see some flame but not really fiddleback so...

nope...............................................doesn't qualify..................................................................................i can tell by the grain patern...............................................................it's not western.

seriously tho... that is some beautiful and interesting stuff

so here is my cutout elevation for my 'delta-lectro'.  I'm planning on making this a set neck.  Looking for feedback on anything you see but also specifically the neck pocket and strength/stability issues.

I plan to make the heel area of my neck somewhere around 1-1.5" thick not including fretboard... plan to leave approx 1/8-1/4" on backside at thinnest points and will likely use a 1/4 bowl at the edges of cavity cutout.  body stock will be mahog and w/o the top should be somewhere around 1.75" thick.  planning to go 3/4" deep at the belly cut and do a 5/8-3/4 max depth on that bevel. 

should be enough surface area for a good strong joint and/or strength through the body?

is the belly cut big enough comfort wise? 

thoughts, concerns, things I haven't considered?

did anyone guess: western quilted figured flamed spalted ribbon fiddleback birdseye tiger burl?

so... I've seen a few guitars such as the larry graham bass pictured here, that have a white fretboard/neck.  I can't imagine it is any sort of dye, correct? 

If paint, seems like you would want to do the finish before doing any frets, but my experience with frets has been that you are almost guaranteed to nick the board at some point.  I suppose you would face this issue also if doing a refret.  So... my question was: would you finish before doing the frets? 

I know with some nitro necks they tend to finish after the frets, but even taping off the frets I don't see how you wouldn't have issues with potential chipping along the frets.

anyone have experience with this sort of finish?  what can you tell me?  Is there white dye out there that works?

https://www.google.com/search?q=larry+graham+bass&client=firefox-b-1-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIlrbx-4XcAhXG0J8KHYr_BpYQ_AUICygC&biw=1222&bih=872#imgrc=2ZXt-fePifZLFM:

fiddleback mdf... lol.

all right fine... it's clearly tamo ash

clearly a real stumper (hehe)... here's another hint.  (somebody get this monkey a typewriter!)

I can't believe you guessed it so fast.  made from the finest tonewoods - crushed up and glued together.

seriously tho... as I was just spray painting the ends I noticed the bottom piece has some very nice ribbon on half. 

also this shop has some amazing 1" bubinga with light figuring 18 or so inches wide.  Not sure I want 6 bubinga-top guitars but... I'm gonna ask for a price anyway!

this week I went to a new source that - as it turns out - is right down the block from my work.  It is really a commercial place so I was hesitant... anywho I called and got a price and it was better than I'd heard of so... picked up some new 8/4 x 13.5+ x 11'.   at $4.13/bf I paid 110.  Should be enough to do 7 1 piece bodies or perhaps 8 depending on what I build.  That's $15.86 per body.  as I tap on it with my knuckle it goes 'pooooong'.  better than my recent walnut.  it is ruff so it's 2" actual.  a little cup but not bad.

I'm not going to tell you the type yet cause I bet you guys will enjoy telling me what it is... what say you?  what type of wood is this? 

your explanation on the tenon is crystal clear.  makes sense.  Hadn't considered the deeper neck tenon and now that makes even more sense.

afa glue joint... I have seen the proof of that.  I'm a believer, nice illustration tho.

scottr - you cracked me up with that last line!  "they're my believies - they make me feel better"

I hear ya on the physics, and always good info - thanks for that.  I've seen your long joints and I have to admit I was thinking "why aren't they all like that, or none like that?"  Long story short - i believe you but I don't know why.

I suppose the continuity of the fiber is the factor.  Then again would it be a stronger joint if the tenon was multilam?  that's probably rhetorical.

Name: "The Pic-a-low"

Materials:

  1 piece black walnut body

  1/2" 5A maple burl top and 1/8" headstock overlay

  black walnut neck

  gaboon ebony fretboard with maple burl markers

Config: 32" scale length with "fat c" profile

Hardware: very modest... wilkinson tuners, song il (korean) bridge, no-name pickups w replaced alnico II magnets (didn't have a lot of faith in myself to make this worthy of more expensive gear as this was my first build but will likely replace some things given how moderately well it turned out)

Electronics: again very modest... 3 way rotary switch  + 3 way toggle wiring for parallel inside vs parallel outside, series inside vs series outside, series vs parallel, master volume, hand built 2 band active preamp with push/pull on/off and bright switch. EDIT - forgot to mention... kinda cool... if you look at the right side f hole... my preamp trimmer is accessible through the f hole.  Kinda gimmicky but cute none-the-less!

Experience/Background: did some woodworking (lot of sanding!) and solid surface fab as a young man, have built a few things like a desk and a futon... have assembled quite a few guitars from parts, always wanted to build one from scratch and got the (false) confidence from seeing so many skilled builders here making it look sooo easy (it wasn't).

Where: built in my garage w jigsaw + drill press + router + palm sander

History: I pawned off my first bass guitar - a yamaha motion b - for $75 in 1995 while broke in L.A.  Always regretted that.  It was a 32" scale bass and as primarily a guitar player, it was perfect for me.  32" scale is very rare to find and generally quite expensive so... in the diy spirit I set out to replace that bass on my own.  Picking it up the first time, this neck felt like coming home! 

Design: used fret-2-find to layout the fretboard, took some p style bass diagrams from the net and scaled it down a few percent, then smoothed it out in photoshop -pretty standard but a bit smaller.  Wanted the body to be as light as possible but also wanted to avoid neck dive given the plan of heavier/cheaper tuners so I did some forstner weight relief but kept the f-hole cavities about 3/16 wider than the f-holes themselves.

Journey: my build thread here

Standing on the shoulders of giants: special thanks to protheta, curtasia, scottr, norris, andyjr1515, mr natural - if it hadn't been for your advice and encouragement, I'm sure this could have looked like some sort of picaso/dali impression of a bass!

I've always heard that a good glue bond will actually make the joint stronger than the wood - do you agree?

So afa a les paul neck pocket: why would a longer tenon make any difference at all?  at a short tenon joint theorhetorically the two pieces become as strong as one piece of wood.  perhaps stronger.  It would seem that extending the neck piece would have no benefit whatsoever given that you agree with sentence one.  I suppose by extending the glued area the strength you get from the glue joint is more because there is more glue joint... but it should already be as strong as the wood itself.  thoughts?