ADFinlayson

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

Worlds most elaborate air guitar, can't hit a bum note though

It takes up quite a small footprint actually and the previous owner bought the casters for it so I can move it if need be - not that there is anywhere in my garage to move it to haha. But yes, it doesn't do anything that I couldn't do myself before, just makes a huge difference to time and joint quality.

Ta, that is Macassar ebony, often just listed as figured ebony on ebay etc, It's the hardest variety of ebony I've used so makes for a great feeling fretboard, pain in the arse to slot and inlay though!

Wow, we have snow like that once per year if we're lucky.

Orange peel is the symptom of the lacquer drying on the surface before it has had a chance to level itself out. Try holding the can a bit closer to the work so it has less time to dry in the air, you can also try gently warming the body with a heat gun (very gently) before spraying - obviously i you're using rattle cans, that's a 2 man job.

That stain job looks amazing. How have you done it?

yep, we had the first frost last night and I had to bring the projects in (made me realise I have too many projects on the g0) brrrrrr

Some more progress though not much as I'm still full of the lurgy. Finished shaping the body template, so it fits around the fretboard. Then routed the top to final dims, then fettled that to fit around the fretboard too. Fret slots are also cut now. Can't remember if I mentioned earlier on but I stuck some bog oak veneer under the top for a bit a of a contrast between the pheobe and the limba (did the same on the back of the headstock). I'm tempted to do the same between the neckthrough and the wings, if nothing else it will mask my amateurish joinery I need to recess the neckthrough now so the top/bridge sits low enough in relation to the fretboard, though I'll probably wait until inlays and frets are done for accuracy. I've ordered some jumbo stainless steel wire for him, which I'm sure I'll regret when it's time to install them. Side dots and binding mitre is also done on the other one, looks fantastic if you don't look too closely Also ordered some wire for this one, decided to go for jumbo but nickel silver instead of stainless, only really because I haven't found a nice way to nip the tangs on stainless wire yet and I know getting the fret ends down over the binding will be a pita with stainless.

It's actually called year

You have created a monster

Wow that’s a deep looking carve, how thick is the cap? It’s a stunning piece of wood. The maple really pops against the ebony. What are you doing for fretboard, are you planning to bind it? I’m just thinking anywhere where you can add maple over the ebony would look great. really enjoying watching this one progress

Jenkins Jecofil grainfiller is what I've been using, I recently found out that Atkin guitars also use the same stuff, so confirms it's not rubbish

Been meaning to do an update a few days ago but I (along with rest of my house) have been struck down by the flu season. I got a new tool last weekend, and it's changed my life I saw an ad on Facebook for it, apparently I responded to the ad within 5 minutes of it going up last Saturday so borrowed the Mrs car on Sunday morning and went across to Worcester and picked it up. The chap I bought it off is a classical guitar builder, I spent a little while with him and got a lot of insight on sound boards, bending sides etc, got to see one of his finished guitars and one in the mould and in turn her quizzed me about carving. It was a real treat to see how another builder works in person. I haven't done a huge amount on the builds, but the stuff I have done has been made a lot faster with the new toy (I wish I had it before I started working on the quilt top as levelling it off would have been a much quicker job). I got snuffy's top through the sander and cleaned off all the excess epoxy Adrians neck had been sitting roughed out for well over a week so I planed the headstock and stuck some ears on - which was stupid because I forgot to route the truss rod while the blank was still square, and to use a router bushing and a straight edge, which as it turns out is not a great way to do it, just made the process awkward because the bushing makes visibility very poor around the bit and it was difficult to see where to start and stop routing. Bookmatched a quilt offcut to make the headstock veneer and put it through the sander too, At this point, it occurred to me that 80 grit on the drum sander, is great for removing material, bit it leaves a lot of fairly deep scratches (at least much deeper than and grit hand sanding). Pretty sure the roll on the drum was spend anyway, even after cleaning it with a rubber bar, it was still not in good condition - apparently the sander is 5 months old and he never changed the paper on it. So I changed it out for a cheap roll of 100 grit that I happened to have in the garage, which worked a lot better and gave a perfect glueing surface. That I think is where the sander really provides benefit, I find the quality of a joint from the thicknesser is not good enough for glueing, but anything off the sander is perfect. Prior to changing the paper over, I also put a ziricote fretboard through it, which didn't do as well. I had read that hard woods should be run through slowly with light parses, but actually running the ziricote through slowly caused it to get hot (I'm guessing to do with the oils in the wood) but the dust was burning. So I got the majority of the material off with the thicknesser and then went back to the sander to finish off with feed motor set as fast as it would go, which worked much better. Also made some quilt binding strips from offcuts, again sander made this job a doddle So fretboard is on, slots are cut and I glued the binding strips on too. I used a paintbrush to apply wood glue for binding this time, results were much better - much less glue used, so less squeeze out meant I could see the joint much more clearly and tape accordingly and crucially, far less glue to clean out of the slots! I also used proper binding tape for the first time, which is far better than painters tape Need to glue in an end piece which I'll attempt to mitre, I've done that before a couple of times, but it's never come out perfect. Then I'll be on to inlays, he wants a monkey at the 12th fret, so will do dots for the rest of the neck. back to the bass, I've radiused the fretboard - I was going to do a 12" radius and bought the extra long crimson radius beam especially. But annoyingly that beam is no wider than the fretboard at the bottom so radiusing with the beam just didn't work. After some swearing, I decided to get the no7 out and put in a compound radius which came out 9 1/2" - 12". Happy with that, but I'm going to have to come back and make the nut slot a bit deeper. Snuffy being a culinary enthusiast, want's a skull and cross bones at the 12th, but the cross bones to be a knife and fork, and I'm thinking about inlaying some googly eyes into it for a laugh.

Hi Will and welcome, where in the UK are you? You will find there are a few Brits on the forum I've used sapele but not pommel, it is open grained like mahogany etc so will need grain filling prior to sealer/nitro if you want a glass like finish, otherwise you will end seeing specs in the grain. I've used black limba twice now, the first time I used it was for a one-piece body and it moved A LOT even though it was kiln dried ( I was working on it this time last year) so I recommend roughing out the body shape and leaving it a good while prior to getting it down to the thickness you need. Limba is a similar situation as sapele, needs to be grain filled ideally. I just used minwax poly on the last limba build, but I'm working on a limba neckthrough bass which I will be spraying with clear nitro too - I'm using Morrels lacquer which is available in the UK, they're really helpful in terms of questions if you're new to lacquer, I highly recommend them. Good luck with your build, looking forward to seeing some pics

Hehe, it was a venue with poor lighting

Put the fretboard in the bin and order one from someone else

Well it’s a damn fine axe, glad you’re chuffed with your results. It’s funny isn’t it how us amateurs (at best in my case) can build something in our garages that genuinely blows away experienced musicians. I had an actual PRS endorsee come up to at a gig a few weeks ago to ask my about my Private Stock PRS, I thought he was taking the piss but we are now in talks about me building him something next year.

Get some strings on it already

My reamer only goes up to 16mm unfortunately and I struggled to find a larger one. I had success with the 16mm flat bit and the 17mm hss bit, my new drill press has made jobs like tuner holes a damn sight easer, however holding a bass neckthrough blank up to the drill press while at the same time manning the drill level was not very enjoyable. Still some tweaking to do on the final shape and some tidying up to do but really happy with it. I've made some good progress on the procrastinator too really enjoyed carving the f-hole, I cut most of it out with a coping saw and finalised the shape with a carving knife. I've routed the hollow chamber in the mog too, he asked for the back not to be carved because he wants a deeper acoustic chamber, so I shall just roundover the back of the guitar, no belly carve eaither (makes building the body a big quicker. I was going to go larger on the chamber - more around the bridge to end much closer to the control cavity. But I am concerned about how light it's going to be (not a problem I've had before). Now I have a question to ask: On the previous semi-hollow build I did, I oiled the inside of the f-hole cavity to add protection, make it look a bit nicer, but that was closed grain ovangkol. Should I leave it unfinished? fill the grain and oil? or just oil? I've got lots of tidying up to do with the orbital sander now, especially around the burnt pot recesses before I can consider sticking the two pieces together. I also need to sand the underside of the cap so it's completely flat as it's currently far from flat and the joint is just not going to be good enough with the reduced glueing surface.

yep lovely looking axe, you really made the right choice going natural instead of paint.

Good idea, the long tenon on the prs design is very thin anyway for the neck pickup to fit in, having a long piece glued along the bottom would definitely be strong, of course it would be highly visible so might be worth using a contrasting wood and make a feature of it,