ADFinlayson

yeah the plastics can get a bit silly, the buytrate pickup rings on crazyparts.de are 99 Euros + shipping, 129 Euros if you want them pre aged

I would rather spend 200 on a braz fretboard than the fancy plastic, but I kind of think if you're building a proper 59, then go all in or it's not a proper 59. 

oooh that veneer looks amazing, never see anything that nice around these parts

7 hours ago, henrim said:

I use it after leveling and re-crowning. Because after crowning the frets are not necessarily perfectly even. The amount maybe negligible for some but I find this tool helpful to find the spots that need some attention. 

I do similar now too, once I've got my frets levelled, crowned and all the worst marks out of the frets, I come back with a rocker and use the stewmac fretrocker file thingy to touch up any that turn out a tad high. I really like that tool, totally worth the expense. 

IMO 4º is plenty enough, I normally shoot 2.5-3.5 on my builds which is the sweet spot, the difference though is that the fretboards on my singlecuts tend to sit a mm or two above the plane of the body where as your 59' the fretboard will be sat on the body, that makes a big difference.

I got this book recently, which I reckon will be some useful source material for you! I've been meaning to buy it for ages but it was crazy expensive - I think they must have done a reprint though because it's only £30 on amazon at the moment. It's got loads of cool descriptions of all the different bursts, all about the plastics and pickups of the era etc. 

I hadn't noticed the wedge was the wrong way round, I was busy looking at how the grain appears to continue nicely from one side into the other, looks good!

17 minutes ago, Stu. said:

Great work so far! I like how the top is the star, so that’s elevated and the fingerboard and back are quite understated.

thank you and good point re the back - I haven't done much in the way of colouring, just darkened it up a bit with some brown grainfiller I made from pumice powder, linseed oil, some brown dye with a drop of lacquer. I've tried a few different off the shelf grain fillers and tbh I'm finding my own mixture is far superior - doesn't seem to shrink, cheaper and keeps longer in a jar - just add a few more ingredients to the old mix and keep it going, like an old sour dough culture

Here's the headstock just after I pulled the tape so all angles are in the thread.

I've got another carve top in the works, well this one has been a bit of a side project I've been doing over the last few months. I think the best way to describe this top is blister maple, it has some blistering, some quilting and what looks like birdseye in it too. I tried staining the blanks a few different colours when I got it a couple of years ago but no strong colours really worked with this top. It's also got an african mahogany back and neck, indian rosewood fretboard and headstock with flame maple binding on the fretboard, small-ish stainless steel frets.

A friend of mine showed me his Beauty of the burst book and I saw there are a few in it with tops a bit like this so I thought I'd try a faded les paul look, not vintage correct at all as I would be using dye on the wood instead of shaders.

I used crimson water-based amber to do the bursty area, then diluted some chestnut spirit based yellow in acetone to do the rest.

I really diluted the chestnut yellow (it was a pot of acetone with 10 drops of yellow in) but it still came out really bright so I left it out in the sun for a few hours and that seems to have muted it a little bit. I should have fitted all the hardware so I could see all the fading but I didn't think about that at the time.

I'm experimenting with some light hardware aging, I got these pickups form ox4, he gets the covers uncoated then polishes them up and they look nice textured semi-gloss without looking too aged. I'm planning to try white vinegar to age the bridge and tuners a little and I've sanded down the pickup rings which came out nicely. Not sold on these knobs so I'll try it with the classic gold knobs without the reflectors

the top has been level sanded with 1000 grit at this point so it looks quite matt. I'm thinking I will buff with the medium compound then the fine polish but leave off the last super fine polish I normally do. I'm looking for hanging on the wall for 20 years, not thrown around a tour-bus.

6 hours ago, avengers63 said:

That natural "binding" is well executed. Well done, sir.

Thank you mate, I've discovered the trick to natural binding is not to do any fancy tricks but to just seal the hell out of the sides before you dye the top, then it doesn't soak through the edges.

Well if it turns out anywhere near as nice as you two are describing then I will be very happy!

Restain done, I got some sealer on the top and you can see a touch of that green has started to come through from the cellulose. Neck is glued on and I shall do any sanding touchups needed on the sides/neck and get some clear coat on it.

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

That ebony board is HOT!

SR

My thought exactly, amazing work!

I don't know if I missed the part where you were talking about the inlays, but man that is awesome. Very jealous of your inlay skills!

Love the idea of this one, are you planning to bend one long piece from the bottom to the cutaway? 

that really is an incredible piece of wood. Almost as incredible as the carving, amazing work as always!

11 minutes ago, JAK said:

Really love that purple! Interested in what your process (incl. which dyes/colours used) to get that result. Is there some visual tomfoolery going on? At some angles looks like it has a thin black burst border.

Nice work mate

when I get round to editing, there will be a 30 min video on the finish!

1 hour ago, mistermikev said:

so couple observations... #1 - love the kill button.  you somehow have a momentary push pull?  what part are you using there?  love it.  buckethead would be proud.

#2 can't help but notice, and forgive me for pointing out, that there is an awful lot of noise going on there in the background?  tone sounds good and playing is very nice, just couldn't help but notice.  

#3 Guitar looks amazing, that finish is my fav so far.  Just a 10 - nice work.  

1). Firstly, thank you for noticing that it has a kill switch rather than noticing the demonstrator is clearly unqualified to show it off! secondly, it's not a push pull it's just a 500k with a momentary on the top of it, it's really cool. Here's a link to it. 

https://www.thomann.de/gb/shadow_sh124500_kill_pot.htm?glp=1

If you want to try one, they have quite a thin shaft, I had to drill a hole only about 6.5mm for it, if you have regular holes already drilled for your pots then you might need to find bigger washers, also they're course nurled so you need alpha fitment knobs to go on them!

2). No that's fair cop, the amp is being turned down by about 90% with a cheap attenuator in the fx loop so it's humming like a stadium stack while outputting as much noise as a church mouse (it was 10pm when I recorded that and didn't want to makes the neighbours sad).

3). Thank you Mike, really appreciate it and I am very happy with how it turned out, and I've already had another order from the USA for the SAME GUITAR off the back of it, next one is going to North Carolina. Super happy!

Well I still haven't got round to editing the last two instalments of the series, but the guitar is finished. 

Got some dye on, it's a mixture of Angelus turquoise and light-blue diluted slightly in some acetone. He want's it blue/aqua which the turquoise colour does look like but I think by the time the lacquer is on it will be a bit green so that's why I did a mix. I'm hoping the addition of the lacquer yellowing will add the touch of green rather than go too far. 

Fortunately I mixed up plenty because I've found a couple of scratches that I need to fix and restain.

I'm with Biz re cranking the loose rod up, you can turn it enough to tighten it without adjusting relief, though I've only ever had to do that once or twice. 

Re truss rod access, I made this crude but effective jig a few months ago.

it's a router base I made out of perspex with a strip of wood slightly thinner than the channel, then I clamp in a stop block to stop it going too far towards the neck and the strip works as a stop block going the other way

I use a round nose router bit which doesn't give me any tear out and if I start at the front of the channel then it's a much shallower pass to start with due to the headstock angle. That gives me a neat access channel which I just drill through to join them up. 

this has happened to me more times than I care to admit. It's an easy fix though - Glue a thin veneer to the walls of the neck pocket and you will get a nice snug fit again. 

9 hours ago, Crusader said:

A friend of mine had a Kawasaki KX500, broke his leg a couple of times on it! I've never seen that logo before but looks really good on the fretboard, very nice work

I think the river mark is a fairly new thing. That being said, I know close to nothing about bikes!

Nice one Mike, well deserved!

17 minutes ago, JAK said:

Not sure why this is called an oddball build  

Sure, it’s not a standard body shape, but I think it looks quite elegant. 

P.s. 3rd picture down (the one after you talk about chiselling the blade switch slot) isn’t loading. 

Thank you mate, should be appearing now! must have been some weirdness during upload.