ADFinlayson

@mistermikev interesting, those blades are very different to mine (I expect that is what the problem is) the blades for my coping saw are about 1/8" so do not turn corners well. The link you posted looks like just the ticket so I'll see if I can find an EU equivalent, thanks.

I expect there is a delay because it's loading all the images at once. Short of having some sort of progress bar to say the site is loading, not sure what I can do to actually speed up the loading process other than use low res images which I wouldn't want to do. The pics aren't scanned, some where taken by a photographer who knew what he was doing, the rest are just iphone. But they're hosting on photos.google.com which do all the conversion - they seem to do a good job of keeping good resolution with a smallish file size. I've made a start on inlays, though managed to superglue 3 fingers to a piece of mop on wednesday night, had to get the mrs to rescue me with some acetone, she had a good laugh. Got most of the pieces roughed out with my coping saw - I could really do with a better saw/blade for cutting shell, this one is useless and I end up wasting a lot of material, if anyone can suggest a saw, I'm all ears. Will be filing them all to final dims over the weekend. I've been informed that my wood pile is getting out of control and that I have a problem, told the mrs I would stop hoarding when it's level with the desk

Please put a Ziricote fretboard on that

I didn't find dust bunnies to be a huge concern when I was spraying this summer. I was spraying in my garage (which is very dusty) and did see the odd spec landing on the surface, but must have just sanded through them all because it came out dust free by the time I got round to buffing. Apart from one little spec that was, I'm pretty sure it was under the sealer though - I had the guitar laid down flat so I could spray light mist coats of sealer to lock in the colour on the top prior to spraying lacquer with the guitar upright.

A bit more info would be useful. If you're talking about glueing a wood inlay e.g logo on to the headstock. I suggest you score round it with a scalpel then scrape off the lacquer inside your score marks to give a bare wood glueing surface. If you're glueing on a decorative cap/veneer, sand the whole surface of the headstock to bare wood and in both cases, use wood glue.

Well I guess they are little things on the end of the frets. There is always lots of talk about Gibson quality control and lack of it. I've only played a few proper Gibbos - a few of les paul customs and SG standard, I've gotta say none of them have been bad in terms of playability. The SG I played recently had some sloppy inlay work (IMO) but the nibs/binding was done very well and it played wonderfully. As I understand it, they've moved factories again so the Memphis factory where they made the ES models is no longer, that's bound to have an affect on the instruments coming out of production.

Helps the solder stick though!

Alas those aren't nibbed frets, those are bound frets. Nibbed frets are when you fret first, file the fret ends down to be level with the binding channel and the binding goes up to the frets. Watch the master (Freddy Gabrsek) do it in the video below (I must have watched this series 10 times). Great work all the same, I love a bound fretboard

I think I've got procrastination down to a fine art. I got as far as starting the inlays on the bass, didn't want to tackle those, and I was also on the inlays for the lp, didn't want to tackle those either So I had a good week off guitar building and built my website. That's all finished now - http://www.adfinlaysonguitars.co.uk. So back to building and, procrastinating. did some more work on the LP, finished carving the underside of the top and got it glued on to the body. Both the top and the mahog had moved slightly (again), so thank heavens for the drum sander Anyway, pics Planed in the neck angle Go the heel to correct thickness and square and got the pocket routed I also routed in a little recess for the toggle switch, it was a real PITA to sand the finish safely on Lukes hardtail, but It looks cool so I'm sticking with it, I've got to blast over the whole thing with the random orbital now. You can see there is lots of quilt appearing on the top side but not a lot on the left, that's all covered in scratches/divots from my thumb planes so the figure is hard to see. I was hoping to get the sanding done this evening, but my garage is a pig sty and I couldn't find my soft sanding pad for the orbital. So I spent a couple of hours tidying. I think I'll do some tidying and a bit of a garage overhaul before I do too much more. It'll get me out of doing those inlays anyway.

The thing I like most about a 1-peice neck, other than looks as you say, it's a lot less work

3" is a lot and way more than I normally need for my angled headstocks. Blanks I get off ebay are normally 2" which is plenty for my 13º angles. G&W do some fairly thick african mahogany blanks. But it really depends on the species you're after as different trees are larger than others.

Looking at the photos I very much doubt it, you can see from this pic there is some neck/neckthrough wood exposed under the fretboard, after the neck/body join, so few mm has been cut off the neckthrough where it joins the body so the bridge sits lower. Pretty much what I'm doing on the billy bongo, but I'm also removing the thickness of the top in addition to the few mm of clearance.

Looks amazing @ZekeB GOTM in waiting

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Not sure what you're asking here.. .006" is 0.15mm which is nothing at all. I normally inlay 1-2mm MOP into my headstocks. When you say routing into the pocket do you mean cutting into the headstock wood (through the veneer)? in which case, that is fine. just do the inlay work after the headstock veneer is glued on to the headstock.

It's not the end of the world if the lams aren't completely flat, if you had a maple neck blank and you slice it down the middle to make 2 bookmatched outer laminates, if there is any bowing, just align them so the hump is in the middle. When you're glueing up lots of pieces, be mindful of the laminates slipping under the clamps, it's really easy for that to happen, especially if you've got veneers between the lams, so it's worth making everything oversized, just in case. The most awkward thing I found with lams was getting the neck blank perfectly flat and square again after glue up, easier if you've got a joiner, but it's wise to knock off the high spots with a hand plane before jointing/thicknessing, because while you will end up with a square piece of wood, it's easy for the strips in the middle to go off square with the sides/top of the neck blank. As for alternating grain. If you've bookmatched a piece of maple and put in a wenge centre strip, you shouldn't really need to do any flipping, the wenge piece should counter any movement from the maple. Laminates make the most stable necks IMO, I just prefer using one piece 1. it's much less work, 2, the people that will be ordering them have it in their heads that one piece is better.

Yep, it’s bliss to use. The vac actually works surprisingly well, but yes I am looking into a dedicated extractor, something with a 100mm shoot that I can use for this and the band saw,

Sounds fantastic

I've found that to be the wisest course of action when something goes wrong. What finish did you go for, is it nitro?

A junior for Junior

I don't think Vik sprays his bursts, I was under the impression he does a sanded burst. Basically just dye the whole thing black with a strong mix, then sand the middle up to the edges to blend, then put the colour over the top. In order to achieve the deep black within the quilt, barely any sanding back of the black is required, then just one coat of heavily concentrated colour so it doesn't wash out the black. It's difficult to do well tbh. One thing worth trying is mixing alcohol dyes with waterbased. So do a waterbased dye for the black, then use an alcohol based dye for the colour so that the colour doesn't mix with the black, it just sits where the black has been sanded back. I did the same thing on this one, though the contrast didn't come out as well as I'd hoped, probably because I used such a dark blue which doesn't contrast as well with the black, one thing I'm learning is that the stain colour looks a lot darker under finish, so it's better to use a lighter stain.

Yes, do the radius before you bind so you can double check the slots are deep enough once the binding is on, otherwise it's a real PITA to make the slots deeper once the binding is on (although your slots look plenty deep enough from the above pic). You'll also have the option of doing nibbed frets if you want to.

Stunning building bud, looks amazing!

Thought you've been a bit quiet lately, should have known you would be quietly scheming new builds. Especially looking forward to the paul caster

After a few months of procrastination and worrying that the lacquer might change colour or crack. I've finally wired her up. New mahogany body, Croatian maple cap and rejig of switch/pot positions. It's a done deal. Didn't enjoying going over old work, but really enjoyed the finishing process. To be collected on Sunday