Bizman62

That's a good method. I wonder if anyone has actually made a tutorial about making templates based on photos. If not, it could be useful for budding luthiers if someone familiar with the process wrote some guiding lines.

Just out of curiosity, what is your usual method?

Again, a native English speaker nailed it in one single sentence.

Edited the illustration to hopefully make it make more sense. The light blue "nut" marks more or less the measured intonation point for an imaginary blue string that has no stiffness. The pink "nut" marks the intonation needed for a thick and stiff string. The pink line marks the area that needs to be intonated because it doesn't vibrate due to being curved. As you noted I used the word "stiff". Stiffness is the crucial thing here, not thickness - although thickness usually adds stiffness. But it depends on the material used as well. Steel is much stiffer than nylon, for example. And if you take a nylon string set and look at the wound strings you'll find out that the core of them is multi-threaded which makes the unwound G string the thickest of a set. In steel string sets the core of the wound strings is a single wire. That's why classical guitars don't have a compensated bridge.

Now that you said it it's obvious. A string pulled straight over the edge of the nut doesn't make a good solid contact. Had I designed a locking nut there would most likely have been a ridge in front of the locking block without me having had even thought about it creating an angle. My previous comment was more about whether the headstock has to be angled or not for a locking nut to work.

Hah! That's a good question! My best guess outside the looks is that the angle may help getting the tuning right, thus reducing the need of fine tuning at the other end. Then again, there's headless guitars with a Floyd and that tells that the angle is not crucial.

Ducktape or aluminium tape, perhaps?

Seeing capital letters used in English texts often makes me wonder if there's any logic involved. I once did a search and the answer seemed to be that there's no logic, at least not anything as obvious as in German. But sometimes it makes things clearer. You're about the only person whom I know to keep score of the notes of the build. I've seen builders check the tuning of a separate top or bottom but they never seem to tell if they recheck it after glueing the parts together. I find your meticulousness very interesting. I'd also like to see some studies made a) about repeating the tuning and b) building a similar instrument tuned differently to see how much that really matters.

No clue about that but I know for sure that some bands/performers use/have used scorned home instruments both on stage and on recordings. There's some similarity to top guitar players playing el-Cheapo guitars just because of their less than stellar sound, or using the original Lomo cameras for unpredictable effects in photography - don't know how well the emulated lomographic after-effects work.

Just in case you're interested in the "why", it's because a thick string is stiffer than a thin one. For wound strings it's the core that matters. There's an angle where the string leaves the bridge or nut and it takes some distance for the string to straighten. For perfect pitch you have to uniform the straight parts of the strings by moving the curved ends.

Daughters... They really can make a man's life a mess! Just the other evening my younger one, the musician, called to ask if our old keyboard were available because the one her granny bought when she was a child had issues. No problem other than I couldn't find the transducer. But I had some D size batteries so I took it to her (my wife said that she wouldn't have bothered...). Later that evening she sent me a message that she found the transducer at her place! Oh well... The funniest thing is that she now is the keyboard player for a metal band with a female growler vocalist. Now how credible is a 1990's Casio keyboard for a metal band???

Your local woods look fantastic!

Confirmed I'm not too much into sharp pointed guitars but this one has a certain vibe... It's like a good well sharpened kitchen knife, a delight to chop onions with but lethal when stabbed into your intestines.

Keep them coming!

Not to mention having your neck mounted... A certain Dr. Victor Frankenstein comes into my mind.

Now that the name of the maker got revealed Google could tell that it indeed is an aussie thing. It seems to be available from UK through Amazon, but I doubt it's not worth a tenner for the chocolate and another for mail plus some for post-brexit taxes etc. Thanks for clarifying, a double layer chocolate makes much more sense than a travel agency!

Nope. And Google didn't help much either. Please explain. That bookmatched tiger indeed looks dangerous! It may produce killer sounds. Roarr!

Silly me! That option didn't even pop into my mind...

Do you mean like loooooong bolts through the entire mould? If so, have you thought about latches? There's ones with adjustable tightness and you only need to drill small screw holes instead of a long one for a bolt. And you can have them on both sides to eliminate warping.

I was thinking similarly. Actually my thought was very ghetto: Use a black Sharpie! If it looks too bad it comes off with alcohol, maybe some polishing needed after that. A layer of black paint over a clear coat would look similar to having a glass painted black on one side and patched on the other side. That would definitely show no matter what! That's what I feared. If it doesn't come off at all with either 0000 steel wool or a mild abrasive buffing compound then it's definitely under a clearcoat. In that case I'd leave it as is or go the least destructive way (Sharpie). It is possible to sand and scrape the clearcoat and the text off, then sand it all matte and apply a new layer of clear. But there's the risk of sanding through the black as well although you might be able to blend the new clearcoat by sanding the old clearcoat matte. But there's lot's of "if" and the location is very visible. If you want an L2 instead of the XT-2, selling the current one and getting what you want would be much easier and potentially even more cost effective. The clear Steinberger uses isn't just some rattle can stuff you can spray on your porch.

If it's silk screened there's two issues that have to be addressed. First, is there a layer of clear lacquer over the logo? If you have to scrape the clearcoat off, blending a new layer can be difficult. Even if you sand the entire surface matte the edge may end up visible at least at certain angles. Second, has the white paint diluted the black and partially blended in? If so, you'd have to take quite a lot off which poses a risk of sanding through the paint. It looks like the logo is just white paint silk screened over the glossy black. I'm sayin this because the "R" has worn out a bit. Try to feel if the letters are proud with your fingertips. You can try to scrape that "R" a bit more with a scalpel or razor blade - very carefully, you don't want to dig any grooves! Use the blade like a scraper, working your way from the outside in. If that works, continue with the entire area. Of you can try with the steel wool right away, although I suppose the bolder letters would be a pain to remove with that. If you can scrape the text off, the next step would be to sand the area matte starting with some premium quality paper. 3M makes some very good papers that shouldn't clog or stick even when used dry. Wet-or-dry paper can also be used with a drop of soap added to the water. Start from about 600 grit to remove the scraping marks, working in one direction only. Continue with higher grits changing the sanding direction by 45 deg at every grit change. After 2000 you can move to a scratch removing compound and finally buff and wax.

Hey! Your photography has improved! The fret end images are almost perfect! The fret ends look polished and comfortable enough. Old skool instead of the currently popular dome ends. If they pass the stocking test they're fine!

Nice artwork! As @Dward13 said, a hippie's guitar indeed and from me it's also meant as a compliment. Although I've never been a hippie there's something heartwarming elements within the ideology. The file size isn't as strict as it used to be, yet too large pictures. The problem with using cloud services only is that future readers won't see the pictures after your account expires. So please do attach pictures to your post and if needed add links for the better quality ones.

There's been quite a many stringed and strummed instruments other than electric guitars here. Some of them haven't even been guitars like the octave mandolin. Not to mention the old English hearpe which still waits for someone to bite the bullet. The acoustic builds all have gathered a crowd of loyal followers to see how the journey ends. After all a uke is a small acoustic four stringed guitar featuring a different tuning. Put a pickup in and you'll have a hollowbody electric! Same principle, same problems to solve. Lots to learn both for you and us spectators.

@Crusader I suggest you watch this series, some three hours or so. It covers all the issues including the sound post poking through: