Bizman62

Welcome to the forum! Your basic idea is right, that's the common way to level the frets. 1) You're overthinking. When you level the frets on a dead straight neck you could basically leave the neck straight after restringing and just raise the bridge so the strings won't buzz. However, strings move simultaneously in several patterns, the most significant after the skipping rope pattern being an eight pattern which requires some space over the lower frets as well as over the pickups. That's why some relief can help keeping the action low. Also note that putting relief in a leveled fretboard there won't be any high frets in between unless there's something seriously wrong with your neck break angle. 2) The statement applies most to a stringed guitar. When turning the truss rod with strings on you should always lower the tuning first. With strings off there's no such counteracting force so you can turn the truss rod more freely. However bear in mind that the rod may be stuck either by glue or friction so let the neck settle a while before attacking the frets. Otherwise the straight neck may warp during the leveling process, ruining your job. Tapping the neck may tell you if the rod is stuck. A rattling rod is loose and even if the neck is straight tightening the rod just beyond rattling is recommendable. And yes, a good luthier may let the customer's guitar settle even for a week or more!

Not necessarily too expensive. I've seen good reviews about Warman pickups and I even have a triplet of them on my Strat. Having heard them our Master Veijo Rautia just couldn't stop wondering if he should stop making pickups when you can get all three sounding that good for half the price of a single one. His pickups aren't too expensive for boutique wounds if you want something really special.

I hope you're going to include a permanent "Built by @David Ivy marking on both the body and neck. If you don't want it to be immediately visible the heel and neck pocket would be easy to access yet out of sight.

That clearly tells that no matter what you do you can either hate or love it. It's a matter of personality and attitude. Some people are built so that they are happy to see what they achieve no matter if it's the same day after day, week after week. A job well done is their goal and reaching it makes them happy. Some are happier with a constant change. There's a young lady I know who used to work at the grocery store, being the delight for both the customers and co-workers. After a decade she then tried telemarketing for some months but no matter how social she was, it just wasn't her place. So she went on the conveyor of a medical device factory with strict hygienic restrictions. She said that it's very refreshing not to have to worry about her looks wearing the mask and cap and lab coat.

Have you drawn the graphics by yourself? Pretty immersive!

That looks interesting! Re pickups, have you considered the fatter single coils like P90?

There's pine and there's pine, a lot of the weight of any wood depends on the soil where the tree has grown. Also, a double neck weighs a lot in any case. With all the hardware I guess 10 kg/20 lbs could be close. Then again, especially looking at the little knot, it could be alder but the colour isn't quite right, alder is a tad darker than maple and it also often has diagonal streaks. Judging by the similarity in colour and the grain pattern on the slab sawn necks on some of my guitars it could also be maple. How do the sides of the body look like compared to the neck? Also, there's several maple species in North America. The body could be soft maple and the neck hard maple. That would also explain the weight.

Congrats! That was a win well earned! For some reason I keep thinking of the Sorting Hat of Hogwarts'! Your guitar is as full of mystery.

The body looks surprisingly similar to my floor which is pine. My upstairs wall panels are spruce which also looks similar. Anyhow, I'd vote for some conifer. The neck looks like maple.

Ultimate workmanship on the bevel!

Ahh, alright, now I understand. That should have been a solid layer of abalone, the pieces are round and have a shiny flat surface but I had not opened the tube enough for the piece to fall nicely in. I guess abalone doesn't like hammering either? And obviously neither the abalone puck and the brass tube gives in a hair if the fitting is too tight. Other than that I didn't find it more difficult than a standard dot inlay.

Hey, that was a tube with a 2 mm inside diameter and I used a 2 mm bit just to get rid of the burr from filing the tube flush. Drilling to a solid rod would be a different matter. I was thinking about filling the tube with abalone dot pieces before assembling but then I started thinking: What if the tube had to be leveled just a hair proud between two dot pieces? That would create a gap as you can't cut a slice of 0.1 mm off a 2 mm abalone disk. Much easier to fit the abalone inside the tube afterwards, and if something goes wrong you can always drill the center open again.

I just had to file it deeper... Not perfectly sanded as you see and definitely shattered. But it's perfecly centered. And actually that was my first ever abalone inlay!

So I found the abalone dots and instead of dry fitting I used super glue. Either the abalone dots were a tad over 2 mm in diameter or the drill bit was a hair too thin. As I beat the dot into the tube with glue I saw a shard fly which most likely knocked half of the top off... Thus reaming the tube with a round needle file might be advisable as brass doesn't give in like wood does. Also I should have filed deeper as the bevel of the tubing cutter is still visible. An inexpensive pipe cutter starting from diameters of 3 mm (1/8") can cut 8 mm short pieces of the thinnest pipe, very recommendable.

You may already have found this: https://www.electricherald.com/product-tag/guitar-templates/ Note that you'll still have to print them in real size, glue them on MDF or plywood and cut along the lines for routing templates. Then again, for "something similar" you can take a big sheet of paper (wallpaper is very good for that) and draw the outlines with a pencil. There's only a couple of rules in guitar building: The 12th fret has to be right in the middle between the nut and the bridge and the strings should be within the width of the fretboard. Everything else is just shapes. A friend once built a semi-hollow dual cutaway and made the body template by gluing a real size photo on MDF.

Should be easy enough. The trick is to redrill the tube after gluing and filing. I've done the tube side dots on my current build but the abalone dots I have don't match with the brown turtle binding. I could do some dry fitting, though, if I only could find the bag of 100 abalone dots!

At first glance I thought you were ruining the edge of the body, be it scrap or not! The screws actually look very cool on the moisture darkened wood! Somehow that reminds me of horse saddles, Cup washers and oval head screws...

She's grown up from an innocent well developed baby girl to a woman with a strong will - and the only difference is eyebrows!

Some seriously pretty woods there! Does your friend want it painted pink or black?

All options are usable and have been used in the past. There's surface mounted pickups, there's those that require either a ring or a scratchplate and there's those that are mounted to the body. If the top vibrates a lot, I'd be tempted to mount the pickup to the backbone and leave enough clearance for the opening on the top so that it won't resonate against the pickup. Then again a surface mounted pickup might produce an interesting sound effect with the vibrations... You don't know until you've tried! The reason for the Hofner bass not having sound holes may be an attempt to reduce feedback. Back in the day guitarists used to stuff their hollow body guitars with foam rubber to reduce feedback, modern pickups may not be as prone to it because of wax potting or some other magnetic magic.

Bill Kirchen has been using a pine Tele for decades. Pine body, pine neck, no truss rod! And it works, both tonally and structurally. Pine can be rough and splintery when you use power tools. Not only that, you never know where a resin pocket lurks, covering all your blades with a sticky mess which obviously can be a problem in mass production. There's also a big difference in hardness between the lighter "summer growth" and the darker "winter growth" which can cause issues in leveling the surface. Then again, if you manage to get slow grown pine with very tight annual rings, it can be about as good as any wood can get. As with any wood species it's not only about the choice of wood, it's also and possibly even more about the properties of the very piece of wood.

Hehe, the headstock continues the cartoonish line!

Routers have a lockable depth adjustment system. So if the router bit is 32 mm long (the bladed part, the yellow one in the picture) you simply push it down until it protrudes 29 mm outside the base plate and lock it there. When you're using a template you'll need bits with a bearing like the ones shown. Make sure that you start so that the bearing rolls along the template. If you need to go deeper than the length of the bit, you can first route with the template attached and then remove the template and run the bearing against the walls of the freshly routed cavity.

That's no excuse and your artwork shows it. Actually the shape reminds me of the cartoons of late 1950's and early 1960's - Pink Panther, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear or longer movies like The Sleeping Beauty or The Sword in the Stone; and I finally remembered The Truth About Mother Goose. You know the style where the perspective can be a bit wonky and the edges a tad sharp... Very interesting!

How come it just happened that the luthier friend just visited us today, it's been about a year since his last visit. Knowing that he still has contacts to his previous workmates in a guitar factory I told him about this thread and my comment about specialized tasks. Well, his answer wasn't what I expected! If someone in the smallish factory said that his job was boring, the other workers told him to enlist himself to PRS as they were in need of a 320 grit sander. Yes, they really have sanders for every grit! They also have separated fret levelers, fret crowners and fret end rounders. Only in their Custom shop you may be allowed to sand through all the grits by yourself. Maybe. There's currently open vacancies as for sanders, both first and second shift: Essential Duties and Responsibilities’ of Manufacturing Production Positions (Sanders) (include and other duties may be assigned) Specific duties appropriate to the specific job will be reviewed during the interview process Able to stand for long periods of time Close vision, depth perception and ability to adjust and focus Regularly exposed to moving mechanical parts; fumes or airborne particles and vibration Able to lift 15-25 pounds (depending on which area you are hired) Requirements: To perform well in production position, we require self-motivated, team oriented individuals with a passion to help out when needed and are willing to adhere to the quality standard of PRS Guitars. High attention to detail, a desire to work with your hands is key! Education and/or Experience: High School Diploma or General Education Degree (GED); Trade School/or Luthiery School a plus Woodworking experience and an interest in hand crafted products a plus Guitar players - guitar aficionados and general guitar & music appreciation is always preferred!