ADFinlayson

That’s an awesome looking guitar, can’t wait to see it finished. I’ve made a mistake on the finish on my current project. So I’ve decided to let it sit for a couple of weeks and do something else. I find the worst mistake are made when trying to frantically fix a lesser mistake. if that last dot mark bugs you. It’s quite an easy one to drill out and make a paste from ebony dust and wood glue to fill the hole and redrill. I like ebony because it’s very forgiving, dust and glue don’t really show up at all

I've made a bit of progress over the last few days, I wanted to take a slither off the back of the body blank as I only want 30mm of thickness under the top. 1, to not waste so much of a lovely piece and 2) I thought I'd have a go at properly matching grain up for a control cover instead of just using an offcut with the same grain direction which I've done on previous builds. I made myself a kerfing plane from some scrap oak and a cheap tenon saw from screwfix. I don't have a band saw that will do this job so had to do it by hand. It was hard work and took a couple of hours to get through it.. but there was beer on the other side. I got to work on the neck blank this evening, now that it's had a days to do what it wants to do, I had to take a hair off one side with the jointer plane. Then I bandsawed off the headstock angle and and planed to a consistent 11º with my no4 Routed my truss rod cavity, used some cocktail sticks for locator pins and glued and clamp the ziricote headstock. I'm doing the headstock a little differently to my previous builds. Previously I have routed the truss rod channel and access before doing the headstock angle, then route the cap to match before glueing it on. This time, I've decided that I'll just drill through the to the truss cavity in the same way I would if I was building a fender style headstock, seems like less work with routers. Another thing I've done differently is to start the headstock cap where the fretboard finishes instead of leaving a channel for the nut to sit in, I'm going to flatten down that area of angled cap to create a flat for the nut to sit on. I doubt this method is any better or any worse, just different. I've also rough cut the body shape out with the band saw, I figured the less widget there is on the blank the less it's likely to cup, thought I've noticed it has started to move a little bit, so has the slither I cut off. I left the body a good 5 mm over thickness but I hope it doesn't move too much or I'm in trouble. I am however, already in love with this wood Cheers Ash

Here's my entry for what it's worth. This was my second build that I finished in the summer, called The mk2: 2 piece khaya body Book-matched flamed spalted maple top 1 piece kyaha neck Gabon ebony fretboard 9.5" - 12.5" fretboard radius Flamed maple binding and block inlays Flamed maple headstock cap Gabon ebony headstock inlay Gabon ebony truss access cover 25" scale 30 jumbo frets Gotoh locking tuners Gotoh wraparound bridge PRS HFS treble pickup PRS treble-bleed volume pot Coil splitting mini-toggle Graphtech tusq nut Finished with artist oil paints and crimson finishing oil The maple top was only 11mm thick, so I carved a shallow arch shape into the top and also carved the same shape into the back of the body, using an offcut of the top to make a carved control cavity cover. The khaya body was sold as reclaimed "reclaimed" with several deep cracks, so I tried to make a feature of them by filling with a black resin, I then used a black grain filler on the rest of the body to match. A video of me playing her (pre finish) https://www.facebook.com/ashfinlayson/videos/10157359805007316 Cheers Ash

This was my third build. It was both a bit of an experiment and a prototype for #4. The experiment was that I was going off-template, I had templates for a 24.5" 22 fret single cut, but I wanted to build a 25" 24 fret guitar, so it involved moving then tenon out and changing the position of the pickup routes. I also wanted to play with the idea of making a guitar entirely out of Ovangkol. You will notice that the guitar never had any finish, that is because, although it sounded and felt awesome. It weighed 11.5lb so I have since decided to strip it down, remove the neck and I'm planning to thickness the top of the body so that I can hollow it out and put a maple cap on it. I already removed the neck a few weeks ago using some water and my girlfriends hair drier (scary stuff) and I'm letting it sit for a while before attacking the body. I'm thinking about having a go at an F hole for this.

My most recent build isn’t book matched, in fact the 59s that people spend £300k on aren’t bookmatched, so I wouldn’t let it worry you, just match the flames up as best you can

Here’s the bench I made, it’s nothing fancy, just very heavy duty with ability to slide my hover etc out and stand some of my bench mounted power tools, I’ve got a pillar drill there now too and I use it as an area for carving my tops. I see a lot of people using power tools for carving but I find it quite therapeutic doing it with a hammer and a gouge, at least until I get a hand full of blisters.

Thanks for the kind words. Yes started in February, In 2016 we bought my late, great uncles house, he was a carpenter and is old bench and vice was still in the garage so I have a good work space. I was researching on YouTube how to build a cupboard under the stairs and stumbled across some guitar building videos, while I was at the local timber yard getting down stock for the cupboard, I picked up Sapele and thought I’d have a go. This was the first build that I finished in March. I got an Ash plank off eBay for £9 that I laminated to make a 3 piece neck. This is the first build: It’s far from professional but I learnt a lot from it. for some reason I can’t upload the 3rd build. I’ll try again later with a different format. between 5 builds and a stair cupboard I’ve also made a second workbench to help with my tool hoarding problem. So I started out looking for a hobby, but seem to have gained an obsession

Here is the new one I'm just starting on - #6 is what I was dreaming of when I first started but couldn't justify using such expensive woods on the first couple of guitars: Black limba 1 piece body and neck blank, Ziricote carve top, ziricote fretboard and headstock cap. I've got some white and gold mop blanks so I can have a go with some shell inlays as I've only worked with maple an ebony as inlay materials in previous builds. It's not going to be a les paul (that's just the sellers pencil line), it will be based on a custom 24 with a slightly greater break angle to cater for a schaller signumb bridge, then a 57/08 neck and HFS bridge pups and wired up with 1 vol, 1 tone, a 3-way switch and 2 mini toggles like my Pauls guitar. I'm considering finishing this one with a wipe on poly, I love the feel of an oiled guitar, but since I've started gigging #2, I've found that it scratches too easily, but I haven't got the space or the knowhow to take on a spray finish just yet, So far I've roughed out the neck blank profile, but I'm going to let that sit for a while to allow for any movement. Planning to take my time on this one, in fact I will probably end build building a flying V for a friend before I finish this project.

Hi, I'm Ash, a hobby builder from Oxfordshire, UK. I've been a lurker for a little while but posted detail of previous builds on the Crimson Guitar forum. But I thought I'd start posting here I've been woodworking since Feb this year after getting hooked on videos by Ben Crowe and Paul Sellers. Here are a couple of my previous builds: #2 - 30 fret PRS style build - 2 piece khaya mahogany body, 1 piece neck of the same, spalted flame maple top, and headstock, gabon ebony fretboard with flamed maple binding and bar inlays, hardware is all gotoh with a PRS HFS pickup and PRS volume and coiltap. Stained with artist oil paints and finished with Crimson guitars finishing oil. #4 - my first commision - 25" scale LP type guitar made from wenge body and neck with a flamed sycamore top, macasar ebony fretboard with flamed maple binding and headstock. The entire upper bout round to behind bridge on this one is hollow but it still weighs in at a hefty 9lb once hardware was in. Again, PRS electronics with Holcomb alpha omega pups, schaller signum bridge and sperzel tuners. I really like the feel of a wenge neck but I wouldnt hurry to use it again for body wood. Again, oil finish but this time I used a water based dye to try and create a charcoal effect. This top had a knot in it which was a real PITA to carve, I flooded it with superglue before carving then resign afterwards, in hindsight, I should have flood the top with resign while it was still a blank. #5 - Another commission - currently I'm on the finishing process. Another PRS style build, a bit of a mish-mash between a custom 24 and a mccarty style guitar as it's 24 frets and 25" scale but with a tail piece. The player has several les pauls so I tried to make it a bit more gibson with 12" radius and a slightly thicker body and deeper carve in the top. For this one, I started with a 1 piece khaya mahogany body and a 2.5m plank of flamed maple. I used the plank to make up the top and laminated strips of it with some offcuts from #2 to make a laminated neck, in fact I used the same plank to make all of the maple on this guitar, including control cover and inlays This was my first serious attempt at cutting fretboard inlays, using some les paul plans and hand cutting them all, about 20 hours in total to get them cut and inlayed.