ADFinlayson

Lacquers barely dry on the other one and you're already looking around, tart. To be fair, I'd leave my current build for that walnut.

I've done a bit more work on the headstock over the last couple of evenings. Thicknessed the headstock on the spindle sander and carved the volute, it came out slightly taller than usual, quite like it though. Finished filing in the moustache And the inlay has been sanded back to 320. Really impressed with that abalone laminate. Fret wire arrived today so I'll be getting it fretted soon. Then I'll be getting back to the monkey one.

I posted this on instagram a couple of days ago. I laminated 3 flamed maple offcuts with bog oak veneer for accent strips. It's black naturally so no dye needed. I don't know what sourcing it on your side of the pond will be like, but it was pretty cheap for me to get off ebay, something like £20 for a long sheet. I've also used it between the top and body on the Billy Bongo bass.

I agree with Mikro, and if I get skint, I can alway stick it on ebay

Yeah, I was filming in a bit of a rush to be honest, just wanted to get a video done as it's been months since I worked on them. I wondered how long it would take someone to pick up on that. the centre point was accurate, so was the pilot hole I drilled (that I didn't bother including) but somehow the spade bit managed to work it's way 2mm off centre. Not too worried though because it would be covered by a jack plate anyway.

yeah that's true, but these are the one 2 that I'm building at the same time, the others are separate projects and I work on one until I get a bit meh with it, then work on something else.

It's been a fair few months since I've touched these builds, but I made some progress on the bodies this weekend. Here's the latest vid:

There is a timber yard 1/4 mile from me that sell oak, ash sapele, meranti etc. Ash and Sepele from them I use, they're also a good source for ply occasionally I get them too resaw billets I've bought elsewhere. So it's worth you looking for a local timber merchant, there must be some in NI - I doubt very much that carpenters in NI import their timber. There are 3 within 5 miles of where I live so that gives you an idea of how common they are. I get some off ebay, just from searching flame maple top etc. Ive bought from Woodwise and Exotichardwoods uk ltd before, they are near stoke on trent. I also buy the really nice stuff from A chap called Mevla who sells on facebook, he's based in Bosnia and sells eastern eurpean walnut and maple. It's not cheap but it is superior to anything I've seen listed by the exotic hardwood suppliers in the UK. I've bought Ziricote from a USA ebay seller. Really it's just a case of trawling the internet, there is always a risk when you buy something from a new seller but that's just how it goes.

I am in the same situation, the grass in my garden is super long but it's just too wet to cut. If it doesn't dry up soon, I'm going to get the strimmer out.

Well if you're anything like me, you definitely need to stop buying wood - The stack of carve tops in my office is about 1m high and that's not including the 10 or so tops in the cupboard, and If I open the cupboard door, fretboards fall out.

You do have some very good heavy metal though

I've Sanded fretboard to 320 and some more dust and glue touch ups on the inlay. really happy with how it came out, it's of shine like I'd expect from a solid piece and loads of colour variation over different angles. After cutting the headstock logo and losing it in the messy garage (which warranted a deep clean of my workbench and floor) Fortunately I found it in amongst the sawdust and it was undamaged. It's not inlayed, just needs filing flush. You'll also notice that someone had a whoopsie when drilling the D string tuner hole, fortunately on drilled at 8mm so after plugging with an 8mm dowel and redrilling, the issue should be well hidden. This is not the first time I've done this and I doubt it will be the last. I can't fret yet as i'm waiting on a fretwire order, so I shall get the headstock to final thickness, file this inlay flush and finish shaping the moustache which is looking a bit sloppy at the moment. I seem to be flying through this build, I need to get on with some of the other ones I've already started, like the bass and the single cut

I agree with pretty much everything in this thread, though I guarantee you have spent more than you think - for some perspective, I used to save > 1/3 of my salary each month, since I started building guitars, I have saved maybe 5-10% so I have started keeping a spreadsheet as of this year. The spend is pretty much down to acquisition of wood for future builds, investment in larger tools e/g drill press, drum sander etc and also more premium specialist tools like nut files. But the hope is that these tools will last me a long time and they will pay for themselves before too long. There are also the other expenses that would come under overheads. e.g my electric bill is double what it was before I started building guitars. However I am much more of a hermit now preferring to spend time in the garage woodworking than going out socialising/spending money. I only see the time aspect as important if you're building a guitar for someone other than yourself - but if you are building for others then it is an important factor because for factory guitars (certainly guitars built in Europe/USA with a high minimum wage) staff wages is always the largest overhead. Also wastage is a factor when producing on mass - When I buy wood from someone selling "tonewood" if it comes split etc and I can't use it, I send it back and get a replacement/refund, but when you're a factory churning out 100-300 guitars a day, problem materials just go in the bin until waste is audited, suppliers changed etc. On the other hand, I expect I pay 5x for a mahogany body blank what PRS/Gibson do. Anyway, going off on a tangent. It's a fucking awesome hobby and I don't really care what it costs

You sir, have created a monster.

hehe, they doo that. I showed my other half my latest headstock inlay that I'd just cut out of lam abalone and she immediately pointed out a bit of unevenness. Still, nice to have someone working in Quality Control. You probs didn't see because I edited the above post... Did you start wiping back right away or did you let the stain dry fully before you started pulling colour back?

Love it, I'm going to have to try that method on one of the current builds. I'm trying to avoid water all together if possible because bleeding into natural binding is usually a problem for me, and sanding is never much fun anyway.

So that's alcohol based stain you used and then drew it back out with alcohol? no sanding back. I like that! Did you let it dry before you started pulling colour out or start wiping it back right away?

fantastic job on staining the quilt, you can really see the contrast between the whites and blacks. Mind sharing the stain/method you used?

You're gonna struggle to get perfect results without spraying, but you could try thinning the poly with mineral spirits a bit as well as tinting with the dye, a thinner solution will be better at self-levelling and reduce the colour streaks between strokes. BUT make sure you brush it on along the grain, not along the flame and you would need to be quick about application and do as few brush strokes as you can. Ditch the foam brush for a good quality synthetic brush too.

There is a video of someone building one on youtube somewhere, @mistermikev shared a link some time ago though I can't remember the channel. Rare though because the piece of wood would need to be about 3" thick, 14" wide and 40" long, that's a big piece of wood. Also worth considering that the body wood would be sawn in the same as the neck wood and you probably wouldn't end up with a quarter sawn neck because quarter sawn would be even harder to get in those dimensions. I imagine there would be a lot of movement when you're removing that much material from a big slab of wood. Edit: I found the video

I want to touch that neck

It's getting there, the laminations seem to be ok, although it looks a little faded in that bottom left corner. I've still got some more tidying up to do - there are some more gaps that need filling, you can probably see abalone dust, that's where that gaps are so I need to try and dig that out and put more ebony dust in (could really do with a compressor to blow it out). I'm also not happy with one of the gaps between the pieces, it's noticeable smaller than the others do I'm going to scrape some of it away with a graver to even it out. Dots are in though too so it's getting there. I might tackle the headstock inlay tomorrow.

The transitions between the layers is exactly what I was concerned about, it's a compound radius with the radius at the 12th fret being around 10.5" so I was concerned that I would get a visible line between laminates. But I have filed it pretty close to flush and begun filling the gaps with ebony dust, so far it looks pretty good in terms of transition. So keeping my fingers crossed for the final results.

that seemed to come out pretty well, definitely one of the more awkward inlays I've done on account of the symmetry. I stuck all 3 pieces to another copy of the design to ensure they were lined up, then glued that to the fretboard as lining them all up by hand was really fiddly. I'll fill all the gaps with ebony dust and superglue tomorrow before filing it all down flush. Hopefully the fact that it's laminate sheet will not make it look utterly dreadful.

Good job rescuing that!