Bizman62

The only thing not making me jealous about that guitar is that I'm not a great fan for V's.

POP!

I'm with you and @Splintazert in that the brown looks nice. Some gloss on that and voilà!

I can see some greenish hue in the second last picture but in the last one there's purple. Is it just a photographic thing or does it really shift colours that way? Looks almost like the rainbow figures on a pool of oil, very interesting!

4 hours ago, mistermikev said:

so... got a 9' 10" 8/4 board and a 9' 6" 8/4 board.  just weighed one of the sections I had it cut down to and looks like 3.15lbs/bft - yes! 

Plus you got some weight lifting excercise!

The Master Luthier who guides our group uses a four face diamond sharpening block he bought at Lidl. Once I met him at the tool department at an automotive+hardware store looking at a cheap diamond sharpener for the same purpose.

It's not too difficult to check the flatness. If you have a known flat surface, the block would rock if there's any twist of if it's convex. To check if a non-rocking block is concave, try sliding a piece of paper under it or set a bright light on the other side and look if you can see the light under the block.

Thanks, @curtisa. Never thought about the radio emissions until you mentioned them. Then again, doesn't the metal box of a pedal create a Faraday cage which should keep most of the radio noise within?

Gotta love your way of criminal thinking! It only vaguely occurred to me that one could plug an inverter to a 12V converter for 240V AC. As you said, it will be a can of worms regarding safety. Again, no fire insurance might cover the damages caused by such a monster. And yes, as I've noticed how easy it is to make a radio receiver just by chaining some extra devices between the guitar and the amp, accidentally creating a radio transmitter would be equally easy.

I've been watching Jerry Rosa's channel on YouTube. He has several times told people asking "can it be fixed" and the answer is "yes it can, everything can be fixed". The real question is, is it worth fixing? And that is where plain monetary value isn't the only variable. Restoring a 100 year old quality instrument can apply to the price tag, fixing grandpa's beaten-up old guitar he used to accompany nursery rhymes is a sentimental thing where money doesn't count. Or Willie Nelson's Trigger...

1 hour ago, gpcustomguitars said:

projects such as this are a good place to practice and develop skills

That's a very valid reason to spend working hours and materials for restoring and fixing a basically trash bin instrument.

You seemed to do a very nice job with it!

2 hours ago, curtisa said:

here in Australia I can go down to the local hardware store and buy as many cables. light switches, mains outlets and electrical fittings as I can carry, but as soon as I want to install it in my home I need a licenced A-grade electrician.

Same here. Also, if a DIY guy makes it and something goes wrong, the insurance won't cover the damages, at least not fully.

Pedals and such are DC devices which can be operated by a battery or a factory made AC/DC converter so they're free to DIY.

Which leads to an interesting question: Is it possible to build a small battery/converter powered tube amp with a spring reverb?

Never owned or even driven a motorbike bigger than a 50cc...

But I've done the sanding that way, bare handed without any issues. You've already filed the fret ends flush with the fretboard. Notice that only the first and the ring finger only keep the paper curved and even the mid finger only acts as a guide so it's only the three-fold paper having a springy contact with the wood and the fret ends.

I forgot to mention that the paper is being used dry.

I'd like to add that fiddling with AC isn't allowed for us mere mortals in many countries, it's for trained electricians only.

8 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

more likely to pop out

Yes, think about springs. The more you hammer it the harder it gets. Of course there's ways to soften it again with heat.

@Urumiko, tin plated steel and tin alloy are totally different things. Plating is a layer the surface, allow is a mix. One common tin alloy is bronze which is a mixture of copper and tin. Tinned copper utensils aren't bronze but if you melt and mix them they will become bronze given the proportions are right. 

Anyhow, metals have been used for inlays forever so it's only a matter of choosing the right materials and methods.

Yes, the last shot really explained the issue at hands.

As the images #3 and #4 show, you've already jumped off the path of it being a carbon copy of a Gibson neck.

The angle doesn't look bad at all, only a few degrees. Out of curiosity I used your method on my '94 Fender AmStd Strat and to me it looked like it was angled both ways, i.e. similarly to yours and rounded inwards.

An easy way to make the sharp edge to feel more "played in" is take a piece of 400 grit wet'n'dry, fold it to an inch diameter slightly flattened roll which you can tweak around your mid finger and lightly run along the fretboard edge. That will round the ends of the frets at the same time, the laziest and fastest way to do that.

You're right, the tighter the end grain is the heavier the wood. However, it also depends on the dampness. The wide fast grown stripes are those that carry most of the water, the more the closer to the surface (bark) they are. So a moisture meter might help you some.

Potentially the swirly grain stuff is heavier as you supposed, since it has more of that slow grown grain.

Yet one idea:

Expand the idea of binding to the neck as well to create a semi laminated neck. That would allow for reshaping the neck. A contrasting 0,5 mm veneer would allow for using the same wood without looking cheap.  It would be relatively easy to do at the heel but blending it into the headstock might be problematic with the veneer in place.

That said, what @curtisa and @ScottR said are better alternatives unless you really need to get the edge square.

Tin plated steel? Like that used on roofs and cans? The "tin" (zinc) is there to prevent rusting and if you cut it you'll get plain iron/steel. Lacquer will protect it to some extent, but at some point it will wear, leaving the steel prone to the corrosive sweat of your fingers.

A piece of rectangular wire might be useful. Silver can be a little expensive, some £30 for 2 metres of 2 x 1 mm wire but you might find other metals as well.

2 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

I'm tempted to get some palmwood for a neck of my own

Based on the video series I've developed some sort of fear for it. Agreed, it looks very interesting but having seen how it behaves... The soft parts definitely seem to need something to make them as tough as the hard parts - resin with matching coloured wood dust maybe? That said, the build already is on the heavier side and any impregnated stuff will add to the weight.

That's an interesting build you've got there but the neck really makes me worried. It looks like the player could easily get remarkable shards of it into his left palm unless you find a way to stabilize it.

Your neck looks like mine! I mean the ones I've carved, that is, not the one my eyes can't see. No matter how much time and effort I put to shaping them, they always have a flat centerline. Then again, there's a reason for classical guitars to have a flatter neck so that obviously is an ergonomic decision.

The biggest issue with that is that although my friends seem to like them for noodling, they aren't perfect for the palm and thumb muted chopping - the only style I'm at least decent...

Anyhow, nice job!

1 hour ago, ADFinlayson said:

all jobs are done before I step foot in the garage, then regular application of wine and flowers with lunches out most weekends

Boys, boys, you're doing it all wrong! What if one day you'll notice that the money coming is barely enough for some mac'n'cheese and the necessary wood? Should that day come, and it will when your babies start wanting a smarter phone than the kid in the kindergarten, you'll be in trouble. Keep your ladies on the edge now so reality won't hit that hard when powerty knocks on the door.

You know what happened to the luthier who won big in the Lottery? He continued building guitars for as long as any money was left.

Just now, ADFinlayson said:

right as usual

Now that sounds scary!

A simple way to see how it might look is some shiny sticker cut to the dimensions you planned to make the MOP inlay.

56 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

I'm tempted to inlay a smaller version in MOP inside the ebony to give it an outline.

I've always loved your logo. Inlaying a smaller version into it might look good as the outlines often do. Then again it might spoil the characteristic graffiti tag look by making it too sophisticated. Like real gold rivets on jeans...

Ahh the matching covers! Just got to love those!

Oh dear...

The first question that popped into my mind: Is it playable, and more importantly, does it feel nice?

If the answer is yes, then the next question is: Does the angled fretboard matter other than that it may not be identical to that of an original LP?

If the answer is yes, how about accepting it as a feature customized according to the preferences of the player?

The biggest issue with lacquer on the neck is that it becomes sticky when your palms sweat. For what I've learned about Nitro is that one of the main features of it is that it can be applied very thinly so using it as a transparent filler seems illogical. A thick layer of lacquer of any kind may start cracking which can be very inconvenient. Lacquer fragments in your palm don't feel nice!

If the edge of the fretboard really is so sharp it's uncomfortable to play, re-shaping the width or cutting the neck off and replacing it are the only viable alternatives if your goal is a quality instrument. For reshaping the existing one, squaring the edges and binding the fretboard would look nice, but instead of lacquer or nitro I'd use wood filler and paint the neck - and ruin the nice looks of mahogany! Also bear in mind that wood filler can crack as well as lacquer or nitro. Anyhow, painted necks have been around forever, hiding the most beautiful pieces of wood.

@verhoevenc pretty much nailed the main issues.

To take it a bit further: Is the curve even or at one end?

1/16" is pretty much. The string pull will take care of some of it but routing the truss rod channel and gluing the fretboard can be a little challenging on a convex surface. However even if it's thicknessed for a bolt-on there's still enough material to plane it flat since the neck will be thinner than the ends. Also, 80 cm is longer than a guitar neck, cutting the extra 15 cm off will take care of some of the hump especially if it's more at one end.

Unholy Moe! I wouldn't like that thing hanging on my wall! For nightmares, that is.

Outstanding creativity!

1 hour ago, DerMax said:

fret job

You live quite near the Netherlands... "Fret job" might not be guitar related there.

3 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

hehe... if I told her now it might as well be in my will!

Oh you 'Muricans with guns all over the place, making an  accidental "I was just cleaning it when it just made a huge bang" so easy...

Then again, can't remember if it was Hammett or Chandler who had a story about a heat wave back in the days of refrigerators working with ice, an ice pick was mentioned to be the favourite weapon of the wife. Punch it into the ear and wipe the excess off and "he just sorta paralyzed and then fell down".