ADFinlayson

post your image on here so we can all see

Thanks, you are very wise - I weighed myself and the guitar on the bathroom scales and subtracted my weight and it came to dead on 7lb which is more like it! I can’t see that a bit hogged out for pickups as removed 1lb so I think you’re right regarding the fish scales. Also many thanks for the advice re the fishy floyd, I will do some research and make my recommendations

Well bollocks, it’s heavier than I anticipated, coming in just shy of 8lb. I’ve still got neck carve, body carve, neck access carve, pickup and control routes to do so I might me alright... touch wood. It definitely doesn’t feel like 8lb though, I guess down to the length of it. I’ve shaped the problem area where I didn’t have enough wood and it came out ok. Then I used my new radian round over bit to do a roundover. Came out really well, just annoying that little bit of sap wood down the middle. I’ve got two other little wobbles too, in one spot there is a tiny gap where I clearly had a jointing issue, then one other spot where the veneer slipped a little. Hoping to sort them both out with the appropriately coloured wood filler. Got pick up routes ready to go tomorrow, although I’ve got some work to do with the template for the neck. Then I’ll need to make a template for the control cavity and cover

Amazing!

Thanks chaps, pain in the arse to glue them up though! I'm looking forward going back to 1 piece bodies and necks for my next few builds! BTW, slight tangent but I've just had the deposit for another commission - Going to be a suhr modern carve style build, maple top, neck and mahogany body, ebony board and headstock. I both can't wait and am a little apprehensive as he want's a floyd rose ghost piezo system in it. Blanks below

Wing glue up went well, no dramas. I had to take a hand plane to the centre peace as it was a bit high on the front but fortunately flush on the back This is a problem I would rather have than the middle low! So I used my little block plane to knock the middle down before I rough the wings it on the band saw. Offering an entire guitar up to a bandsaw is a PITA! Freehanded a channel for pickup wires with a router and gave the top a bit of a sand so I had a good glueing surface and did a dry fit of the top. I drew some taper lines on the top a couple of weeks ago once I'd got it nicely centred and these came in really handy for checking it was centre - the pocket shape on the top is a tight fit but there is still a few mm of will room where the could move with glue and clamps, so once it was all centred I don't think it was strictly necessary as I was fairly happy with the weight, but I did do some "chambering" really only for the reasons that @Andyjr1515 mentions, it always comes out heavier than you expect! Put a few locator pins through pickup cavity locations and pot locations and got it glued up. I'll need to craft a template of sorts to do the neck pickup cavity - So I'll get the cavities sorted on the front and probably cut the blade switch slot, then on to carving the top. But at some point, I really need to tackle these inlays!

Whatever weight yours came in at, mine would probably come in 1lb heavier, my guitars are not known for the lightness. In fact, I suspect the V will turn out heavier than I think it is because it's so long! BTW, congrats on your guitar heading up Amateur Luthier, it's very pretty!

You're weigh in is far more precise than mine! For the V, I can't put it on scales because of the awkward shape (I should have put the wings then the neck on the scales and totalled them up, now it's too late for that). I ordered a hanging scale the other day so I can hang it from one of the peg holes. In the meantime, I just fitted the top, slapped the box of hardware on top, pick it up and said, yep that'll do Binding channels came out great!

just place a pickup ring on the tenon behind the fretboard and see if the end of the tenon sticks out behind the ring, if it does, it means your fretboard is too short. I had the exact same issue on my blue prs style build, I had to stick some "Extra binding" on the end of the fretboard to fill up 5mm of space

One thing I've noticed is that your tenon (after the fretboard) appears quite long. Are you planning to hide the tenon underneath the neck pickup? If so I suggest you offer up a pickup ring to see if it's going to overlap

21 strips of walnut and 20 maple veneers and my wings are on. I guess my life would be a lot easier if I did the inlays and fretwork first, but I got excited

The hole created by the bit is just too tight. Might have been ok with a softer wood like mahogany or Ash, but the difference of .2mm between 1/2" and 12.5mm was enough to crush the brass well. it's crazy because .2mm is nothing!

Those dims are fine mate, that's very close to what I go for - generally I have a 47mm body. I start with an 18mm cap and 30mm body blank, cap ends up 17mm after carving. So where you have a 20mm rebate for your pickup, I have 22mm. 15mm un the pickup is plent, so is 10mm under the tenon I must say though, good work on planning, I stumbled across those dimensions in my builds by happy accident as I normally make build decisions once I've built them

the studs that came with the bridge are really good quality, they just don't fit in any wells that I can use because I can't find a 1/2" bit. It was the brass wells that the studs screwed into that compressed - The PRS bridge didn't actually come with wells I had to order some brass wells from Mannmade. The body wood on that build is Ovangkol which I found out is the wood equivalent of granite , I don't think titanium wells would have cracked it I agree though. the schaller signum bridge is far superior to the prs equivalent, and it's half the price too!

I've found drill bits to be a bit of a nightmare. The studs that came with the PRS bridge I used on the ziricote build require 1/2" wells, but I was not able to get a 1/2" drill bit in the UK, closest was 12.5mm and that was hard to find. £20 for a bloody drill bit I tried using that to install them on an earlier build but it was still too tight, when I tapped in the brass wells, they compressed and I couldn't screw in the studs. So when I got round to installing the bridge on the ziricote build, I had to buy new wells and studs. I tend to stick to schaller/gotoh bridges now because at least everything is metric and I can get bits for them.

I get my mop bits and pieces from them for the ziricote build, good stuff and not insanely priced like some luthier suppliers. I didn't know they did custom inlay cutting though. I've been thinking about getting a batch of my logo cut by someone so I might get in touch with them again, thanks

ha, I know it's funny how us Brits do our measurements. weigh the guitars and lumber in pounds, buy lumber in inches and refer to scale lengths in inches, but I always measure them in mm during the woodworking (I do anyway). Drill bits are another one, when you read the dimensions on the box, length is always in inches and diameter is always in mm

Did a bit more routing My neck blank being only 30mm isn’t quite thick enough for my desired tenon so I glued an offcut of my droptoo onto the the bottom which should make a cool contrast. Drew around the body with a couple of washers so that I can carve the heel to the shape of the body. Then I made a crude routing jig and got the under side of the neck to thickness, hope I haven’t gone too thin! The fretboard is 5mm and the mahogany is 15mm so I’ve got 5-6mm under the truss rod, will be my thinnest neck yet, I normally shoot for 21-21.5mm. Last up tonight, I glued some ears on the headstock so I can get the top glued in that.

you could do a carve like that with a small hand plane, like a no3/4. Route a rebate round the body for the outer depth first, then just plane from the centre out to the edge, if you keep pressing down all the way through the stroke, then it will create a slope, thats how I do the most shallow parts of the carve (behind the bridge) on my carved tops anyway. Then finish it off with a random orbital.

Fretting after carving is only more awkward when you're hammering frets in, if you're using a fret press or a fret caul in a drill press, then it doesn't make much difference. But a round neck caul makes life easier to hold it steady if you carved prior to fretting. One argument for carving first - if there is any movement in the neck after carving, you have the option to correct it on the fret board before hammering frets in, but that will never be a problem if you're making a laminated neck.

Great looking carve that, kudos for pulling that off with the neck attached! It is hard work but I find it very satisfying to see it finished knowing I carved it by hand, with each one of those chips of maple representing a hammer stroke of creativity! @mistermikev the easiest way to go from rough carve go finished carve is to use a random orbital sander and 40 grit, but you can get through a fair few pads doing that. Other option is to move to a wider, shallower gouge that just removes the high spots, then thumb planes and scrapers but there are a lot of hours involved in that method.

interesting, I've never seen a Jatoba neck blank (I'd better start looking), but I agree it feels great - very hard like ebony. My only reservation was down to colour but I like this contrast, it's also so similar in colour to the khaya neck blank that I can barely tell the difference between the two until looking closely. Happy days!

Look into the image permissions and they can only be altered at album level so if it was a perms problem, there would be no images visible - seems to be a strange anomaly that happens some times. Didn’t have much time today but managed to get a bit of routing done. Fretboard glue up was a success so trimmed that flush with the tenon, leaving a bit of an overhang that I will sand don’t to size later on. epoxy was set hard so I went at it with the random orbital and a 60 grit pad, took a fair bit of work to remove all the excess, but I’m very happy with the result! I’ve routed the neck pocket and the hole for the trem, haven’t routed the pickup cavities her because the template is for direct mounted pickups, which I’m not doing and are too large for standard rings, so I’ll whack a different template on to finish that off. Also I have no idea how deep I should make them while leaving enough clearance for the rear route for the trem springs. Once the trem arrives, I’ll offer it in and see what I need to do. Reservations in the jatoba fretboard are gone, really like how it looks against the top

Thanks gents! I was surprised to win. Smug mode engaged!

I’m a big fan of the end grain pattern you’ve got going on on that body, the way it curves round the same direction of your arch shape, that’ll look awesome once’s it’s all sanded