Bizman62

Good to hear the nut fits that way too. On my current build I kept scraping the nut area because the rod was proud at that end. When carving the neck there was a funny looking spot on the palm side of the neck and whaddayaknow, I could poke my finger through the wood! There was less than a hair's thickness of wood to cover the truss rod nut! As it is a laminated neck I could pretty easily cut a clean opening and patch it from the bottom side but it wasn't too much fun.

Hi and welcome! I can't tell you anything about how to wire your pickup but I guess those who know would like to know what you're after. For a single pickup you don't necessarily need a switch, just the pot(s). BUT since your pickup is a humbucker that has four leads a three way switch can give you some new sounds. What are the sounds you're after? Here's already four ways: https://www.premierguitar.com/diy/mod-garage/humbucker-wiring-options

Just to make sure we're talking the same languate, how thick are your hair? Some builders like to put a piece of masking tape over the channel, cutting it just a mm wider than the channel and some put a thin veneer over the rod to keep glue out of the channel. Some other builders roll a few pieces of masking tape and lay them over the top of the rod to keep it from rattling. Some put a few drops of silicone into the channel for the same reason. The common nominator is that the rod lays a bit deeper than just flush. Knowing that a common veneer is about 0.55 mm thick and a four fold rolled piece of tape about the same thickness (4 x 0.15 mm) it's safe to assume that 0.5 mm below the top of the neck is well within specs. Instead of routing it's fast and easy to scrape the nut channel deeper with a chisel. By experience I can assure it can be too easy so be careful and test fit after every stroke.

The flat part should be against the fretboard. Now that I saw it it looks a lot like the ones I've been using with the difference that the rods I've used have that blue shrinking tube covering both parts. Göldö makes that type as well. The reason for the nut being in the bottom is to ensure there's enough space and wood so the rod's nut won't nudge the fretboard's nut out of place.

I'm hesitant about sinking them into a tub although that might work. Then again they may warp back when they dry! My guess is that they've warped because there hasn't been too much airflow between them. Wood tends to cup towards the side that can't breath. I wonder what might happen if you laid an overlength piece of moistened paper towel between the pieces and stacked them on a dead flat surface with another flat board and lots of weight on top. The free hanging ends of the paper should slowly dry and draw the moisture out from between the boards. If you're going to glue them as tops on solid bodies the rule of thumb is that if you can pinch the gaps close between your fingers there shouldn't be issues with the top warping the body. Same with fingerboards and laminates.

That looks like a StewMac Hot Rod and according to their instructions the nut should be at the bottom. Double check yours before gluing the fretboard on! Having the rod a hair deep is better than a hair proud. If you think about single action rods, they're more than a hair loose until you tighten them.

Guess I should go for a picnic more often... Carl, you most likely have never seen the Spede sketch where he had made a calibrated stick to measure the amount of coffee in the cup so he could tell if there's enough to flush down a bun?

If you like them and can make them so they sit tight and don't split, why not? The beauty of building for and by yourself is the freedom to choose any material and try all options.

I bought mine at the local metal supplier. That's the stuff they use for building frames for lightweight walls used in e.g. public toilets and such so if you know any construction worker or pass by a building site they may have some scrap pieces available.

Not only that, it can be any sort of masking material. The Pebeo Gum mentioned is a masking fluid - the word "gum" made me think of engraving tombstones by sand blasting. They apply some liquid rubber on the polished stone, cut and peel the letters and images off and blast away. When finished, they peel the rubber off and melt it for reuse. Back to the original question, the biggest issue with any masking material is to level the paint with the inlay. With tape, stickers, whatever on the protected surface you'll end up with a gap when you remove the protection. Often there will also be a rippled edge especially if you let the paint dry before peeling. I've heard about applying a thick layer of clearcoat to protect the inlay but applying that on fine details can be too tricky. Anyhow, the idea is to have a clear layer of finish right on the inlay and paint surrounding it and when you sand it level the paint covering the clearcoat should sand off and reveal the inlay. If you paint the wood once before inlaying you can be a bit sloppier with the clearcoat as the base would already be of the desired colour! Another option is to leave the inlays a hair proud so when you do the level sanding to remove the orange peel of your final coat of paint you'll also level the inlay with the paint. A layer of polished clearcoat will then finish the job.

A long beam has its benefits indeed as it doesn't cup the center of your piece. However, instead of steel I'd choose aluminium for frets as it's more lightweight. For rough work like you did with the 80 grit on the neck the steel bar sounds perfect, no need to put any weight on it, just push it back and forth and let the paper remove the material and the beam keep it level. That said, I let a company cut a bunch of 28 cm long pieces of a 2x4 cm aluminium beam. The reason for the length is that it's the standard length of wet'n'dry paper sheets. There was some dents and nicks but as aluminium is soft they were easily sanded level with a piece of 320 grit laid on the jointer table. They're quite nice for various jobs including fret leveling. The length is also suitable for sanding the neck as it fits nicely between the heel and the headstock. My necks used to be bumpy until I made those sanding beams.

I've gone up to Abranet 400-600 before the first coats and used the fine Mirlon Total nylon abrasive comparable with 1400 for applying a number of pore filling coats with the slurry it makes.

There's nothing wrong entering the GOTM after such a detailed build thread. You've been both educating and entertaining us with your ideas and stories for a month and a half now so you're definitely worthy. I would think differently if the GOTM entry were your first post ever after 10 minutes of joining.

Other than that those alien creatures are just mindblowing, what is the idea of the steps in your mixing spatula? Are they for measuring quantities and if so, are the steps matched with a certain cone, or are they equal to match a cylindrical mixing cup? Or is it just for stirring various quantities, the narrow end optimized for tiny amounts or stiff stuff near the bottom?

Umm... I'm married, should I hide this from my wife? Jealousy is as the name says, lousy!

Huh? Architecture school trick? And I thought I had just cooked up a variation of the old hollow template thingy... Oh well, that's the problem with all of my inventions, someone has already thought similarly. Which on the other hand proves that the ideas must be good, bad ones wouldn't have survived and spread all over!

Recognizing that it's rushing makes some good progress as it should teach you not to rush... Which you may well forget with your next build! Don't ask... As @ScottR says there's ways to salvage the neck. That looks like something I might have built, my necks always seem to start a bit wide with similar issues. Often I even find out that the right sized nut is too narrow which means the neck is too wide! It doesn't look like top AAAAAA grade maple you won't lose a fortune in carving a new one. But if you choose that way you'd miss an opportunity to learn how to fix issues like this. The tuner layout isn't that bad, you disliking it may also be because of the shape of the headstock. There's an easy way to reshape it for testing purposes without cutting any wood: Take a piece of black paper or tape and mask what you think you might want to cut off. Look at the result against a dark space or surface to see how the new shape would look. Re the orange peel or texture question, it may actually be both.

Just read in the morning paper that "you can buy but you can't sell in English", meaning that being able to communicate using the local language is the key to success. I just meant you've got a model of your own and you're productive. Professional builders may not build more guitars in a year than you.

Yes, everything is possible to build. Am I seeing right, is there about half the thickness of your heel under it, something close to ½"? That's a good amount. My main concern was if the bottom of the neck pocket would only be 1/4" or so. And a pool type pickup cavity with a 1/8" bottom in a 1" body made of poplar burl...

I seem to be seeing a pattern there, are you sure you aren't an industrial builder?

Calculated, estimated, taken into account... I mean when you go thin enough with the body there's at least these two points that require some further thinking: The neck pocket and the body between the neck and the bridge. Instead of strength we may also use the term "structural integrity". If the bottom of the neck pocket is very thin the screws may pop through. A set neck in a neck pocket deep enough to have the neck at the proper angle or depth might be a bit stronger as the sides of the heel would be a bit more supported. But if the bottom of the neck pocket is too thin it may give in. Also, a cutaway like on a Strat or Tele would take most of the support away from that side, not to mention dual cut bodies like the SG or LP. Also, if the body is very thin it may bend or wobble. Channels and cavities in a thin body can almost literally cut the body apart - think about a Strat with a pool for pickups, there's not much wood between the neck and the jack even in the standard thickness. There's ways to strengthen the construction but it requires some understanding in the forces like string pull in rest and during playing. Simplified, we know that the scale of a guitar is ~25" and that the neck including a stiffening truss rod is about 2/3 of the scale length. Imagine building a bridge that long with a joint after one third, the measurements being similar to a guitar. How much weight would you dare to put on the joint?

Three quarters of a year gone and you're the first one to notice that! Unfortunately I can't edit that post any longer. But you're right, nut slotting is what the feeler gauge set is for.

That looks like a serious tool!

Many people prefer an oiled neck over a lacquered one. Shiny lacquer can feel sticky when your palms sweat. One trick is to make a shiny neck matte with 1000 grit wet'n'dry or steel wool for a similar feel but oiled and waxed is still slicker. Again, oil. TruOil and the likes work fine, they all are a mix of oil, turpentine and lacquer so they when applied several times you'll eventually fill the pores for a mirror finish. But you can stop at any stage when you think the look and feel are what you like. Oil finishing is a wipe on method and there's a couple of things to know. The main rule is to rub the oil in vigorously until it becomes tacky, then wipe it all off with a clean towel. After some 10 minutes some more oil will sweat out and you'll have to wipe that off as well. Oil on the surface will never dry! Let dry and repeat the next day. The first layer or three take the most oil until the wood is saturated, the following coats are for pore filling. After a few coats you can even use fine steel wool, nylon abrasive or wet'n'dry sandpaper with the oil to create a slurry to faster fill the pores, then go back to plain oil. Finally you can buff the surface for a more or less satin sheen. If you level all the pores and grain you can even buff it to a gloss. But as I understood you'd rather get a bit more organic surface, more like "it's shiny but there doesn't seem to be anything on the wood".

That's true. There's ways to go around that although 2 mm is even on the thicker side. I just took a look of trapezoid MOP inlay pieces, the widest was 43 mm across the fretboard and only 1.5 mm thick. I suppose your inlays are about 15 mm long/wide across the radius? No matter what, I did the math with a 12" (300 mm) radius at the widest end of the fretboard. As a 4 string bass fretboard is 40 to 60 mm wide, half of the max width is 30 mm. Thus Y (being in this case the "quarter line") would be 0.375 mm at the most and 0.3 mm at the least. Since your inlays are narrower than half of the fretboard you'd have to put about 0.1 mm more glue at either end of the inlay pieces to fill the gap in a radius bottom cavity. That's the approximate thickness of a human hair.