Lwguitar

I’ve spent a lot of time on that site! The pickups I’m making for my build are going to be super low wind and probably a preamp. I’m just doing a slanted mini hum bucket though, nothing crazy like what your doing!

these are the preamps I’ve loomed at...

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessories/bartolini-brmagdb-918-2-adjustable-gain-dual-buffer-preamp

V-shaped pickup? Are you going to have 2 coils that cover 3 strings each?

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

 

 

I love how you have that held down!

Got the center laminated sanded flat and glued together. 

The pieces warped a little when the were initially cut so I allowed them to de-stress and settle down before glueing. 

I'm gonna go against the grain here and say go with the gold pick guard. I think if you did all gold hardware and gold pickup covers it would look pretty slick.

1 hour ago, ADFinlayson said:

You've got a print out of your fret slots, that's the main thing to worry about IMO. You can work out position of tuners, bridge etc from that. I make it up as I go along most of the time anyway, most fun that way  

haha, I have a print out of my frets glued to a piece of MDF unfortunately. I can use Fret2Find to print out another fret layout, the big loss was the bridge drawing and the pickup drawing. Hopefully I printed out some of those.

Make sure and back up your computers! I just lost all of my design work for this guitar when my hard drive went down. 

Just throwing this out there...

I freaking love that satin finish! If I ever do a ziricote top that’s probably what I will shoot for.

What ADFinlayson said.

This picture is from before the magnets were installed.

I carved that on with a dremel. 

1 hour ago, mistermikev said:

gotta say... that is pretty nicely done.  I bet your getting a footrub or some other benefit - well earned.

30 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

If you have a spare i could use one too for my wife on Thursday!

Send me a bunch of fancy figured wood and I’ll get right on that! 

Make sure the pieces are big enough to make a guitar out of.

No work on my actual guitar but I did try out some Odies Oil and my electronics cavity cover concept on my wife’s birthday present. 

The top is held on with magnets and you push on the corner to pop it off.

5 hours ago, Norris said:

Just a thought that occurred to me - would a grub screw that presses on a cam work as a height adjuster? The grub screw could then be at either the front or back of the saddle instead of sticking upwards? Silly, impractical idea or something I should quickly patent?

That could work! going off of that concept it would be a bit easier from a manufacturing standpoint to have a screw threading into a wedge that lifted the saddle. The biggest problem with these kind of mechanisms is that they tend to rattle. The only way to get them quiet is to manufacture them to very tight tolerances.

My bridge is going to have a saddle similar to this one by Mera with the adjustment screw in the middle.

Congrats on the GOTM!!! 

It was a hard month to vote with both guitars being so awesome!

On 6/4/2019 at 8:29 AM, mistermikev said:

ah, I think I may have seen this earlier (terrible memory here... probably Alzheimer's ).  looks like it might have some sort of string locking mechanism?  looks like the bottom may slide along a screw hole for intonation? 

it will be interesting to see this come together.

btw... totally looks like a mini airstream or streamliner!

The base plate will have a keyway that goes in the slot and a sliding nut under the base plate to tighten the saddle down. There will be an intonation adjustment screw on the front of the saddle. This thing will be a pain to install and adjust!

The idea behind the design is to have a bridge that is extremely smooth and comfortable and also looks good. I had to cut corners on ease of adjustment and manufacturability to meet my cosmetic and comfort goals.  

3 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

That is looking bad ass, good joint along the top too. Is that walnut offcut big big enough to make a headstock veneer? If it was me, I'd be tweaking the headstock shape to make sure I can use it, too nicer bit not to use.

Thanks!

I modified the shape a bit and it will fit! 

8 hours ago, mistermikev said:

wow, that's going to be cool.  so... tune-o-matic style bridge but handmade? 

afa pickups... you have an elec winder or using the fishing rod reel type?  this is something I want to try at some point but just... figure there is a learning curve and so many can do it better than me!  will be watching for sure.  wooden covers - birdseye sounds pretty cool too.  looking fwd to it!

Nope, not a tune-o-matic. It’s my own design, here are some pictures of a prototype saddle.

The plan at this point is to use my wife’s sowing machine and double sided tape! Haha

I’m going to get some sort of cheap counter off amazon.

33 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

WOW DUDE... body is looking like it is going to be a real looker. fretboard is very nice too.  what type of bridge/pickups?

I’m happy with how it’s turning out so far!

Im going to be making the pickups and bridge from scratch.

The pickups are going to be super low wind mini humbuckers with wooden covers (Birdseye maple from the fretboard off cuts).

The bridge is my own design, I’m gona borrow a milling machine to build it. I couldn’t find a production bridge that I liked.

Got some templates completed and laid everything out to get an idea what it’s going to look like!

That thing looks awesome! It looks like the wood is soaking in the poly like crazy.

Looks awesome man! 

Got lots of work done today!

top os glued on!

Spent the last 2 hours level sanding the body and top with a Stew Mac leveling beam.

They are flat enough that when you try and pick the top off the body it sticks to it for a bit.

Thanks @Bizman62 for all the great hand saw tips. 

1 hour ago, Norris said:

Good advice from Bizman. Perhaps you were a little eager in the sawing rather than relaxed and letting the blade do the work. If your saw is getting a little blunt it can make you more likely to "force" the cut, which can introduce flexing and lateral forces

Pretty sure this was the issue, after about 2 hours I was getting tired of hand sawing. I’ll know better next time. 

Done with the big hand saw cuts for this build though!