Lumberjack

Thanks! The lettering on the back was just with a silver paint pen, the logo on top is actually made from chromed aluminum by a company called Pidplates. It was kind of expensive ( I thought, anyways ) and they have a long lead time, but I've been wanting a solid logo for a long time and figured I'd take the plunge.

Alright, finally finished this build! Here she is: Slight scallop in the higher frets, not too deep, doesn't go all the way across to the bass side, just where I need it for bends and such. Super happy with the way these logos came out, first time I've ever had a proper set made. Glad I went with metal too. This was extremely fun to design and build, and was a big step forward for me in the technique department. This is also the best fretwork I've managed to pull off to date, and it plays better than anything I've built before. I'll do a little demo of it soon. Thanks for all the encouragement everyone!

Still chugging away at this bit by bit, but I'm waiting on that headstock decal to come in and I'm not sure if I'll finish assembling it before then or just wait for everything to come in so I can shoot some clear over the headstock/decal and assemble afterward. Cavity shielded.

This is gold, thanks so much for sharing! This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, I'll be sure to try this out on my next build. Really appreciate it, cheers!

Got the bridge and ferrules drilled today. Time for some questions: 1. What bits do you guys use for longer drilling, i.e. 1.5" deep or more? I'm using a set of Dewalt black oxide bits and they got burning hot when I plunged these holes for the ferrules, literally burning the wood, smoke included, had to cool the bit between drills. My drill press is set to 2800rpm IIRC, not sure what I'm doing wrong here but if you guys have any tips I'd gladly hear them. Maybe some carbide bits would fare better? 2. How do you guys manage precise locations with your drilling? Mine always seem to wander here and there, and one of my nightmares is ferrules or inlay dots looking non-uniform in spacing, non-linear, and so on. These came out ok in the end, but they were a little off despite measuring and re-measuring, and I had to do some damage control as always seems to be the case. You can see the middle two ferrules on the top are a little too close, kinda look a smidge out of line, and so on - luckily these are a bit loose now so I'll leave the holes open when I spray more lacquer and just file them back in line using the lacquer build up to my advantage, but I really wish I didn't have to do that kind of thing. Same deal with the side dots on the fingerboard, no matter how precisely they're marked I always seem to get holes a little off kilter and having to fix them up after the fact. I got a laser-guided drill press a couple builds ago hoping to eliminate the problem, but the laser calibration seems to be about as accurate as whatever I was doing before, and I still get some drift here and there and end up having to eyeball some stuff and sometimes fix it after the fact. I see the pictures of great builds online/instagram/wherever and the drilling looks so amazing - I know some of that is being done by CNC for some of the bigger builders, but there's got to be SOME way of getting closer to that uniformity with clamps and a drill press. Any and all advice welcome!

Incredible work on this guitar, especially that ridiculous set of inlays. Looking forward to seeing them set in!

I've definitely made this mistake before as well and had to recover in a similar fashion - wish you the best of luck repairing it, I know it can be done! The build is coming along great by the way, that's an amazing job on joining the 5 peice neck with just hand tools

Lovely build(s) coming along here, love the detail of the matching veneer on the back of the headstock - that's something I've always wanted to try!

Thanks guys, very encouraging to hear. They are definitely way down/out there, and this was kind of an experiment for me. I tend to wear my strap pretty high and my arm naturally wants to relax and fall down the body of the guitar, so I'm always jostling the volume knob on accident when I play. So, I figured I'd try getting things as far out of the way as possible with this build and see what happens. Side note: nice to see someone on here so close by in Annapolis! I'm just up the road in Baltimore currently, but for a little while I worked at the PRS guitar factory right across the bay bridge. Cheers

Shot the neck and body with their first three coats of satin lacquer and then glued up the neck, lots of pics of course: Glue still wet. Still have the bridge and ferrules to drill before shooting the whole thing in more coats, along with a headstock decal thing I have coming which will take a while to arrive, so I’ll update as things come in.

Definitely! I’ve tried it before using just tape, and since the dye is so viscous there’s always bleed and it’s really hard to get clean lines after that - even razor scraping leaves a sort of soft edge when I’ve tried it. Thanks! Definitely the most risky I’ve been with edges/sharpness, and it’s been fun to try something new. I’ve decided to name this guitar The Hatchet due to its sharp edges Alright, finally got to my favorite part of the build process today: color! The body came out plenty dark so the neck can stay as is. I was planing on screws for the cavity cover but had some magnets left over from a previous build and decided to use those. Base coat of blue, and a little truss rod cover I cut from some some scrap rosewood and colored with the same black stain as the fingerboard. First coat sanded back. Second coat with a lot more green mixed in. Second coat sanded back. Final coat leaning a bit back towards blue. I absolutely love the dying process, it’s easily my favorite part of the build; something about the magical transition from “guitar shaped hunk of wood” to “hey this is turning into an actual instrument” just does it for me. The color tests didn’t have me convinced I would get a rich enough color, but this looks great to me, and it will only get deeper once I put some lacquer over top. Despite wiping after each coat of stain, some color did build up on the binding, but I’m fairly certain I’ll be able to scrape it off before my first coat of clear as it’s floating on top of that sealing lacquer I put on yesterday. Once I get a couple coats of lacquer on both pieces I’ll glue up the neck, as I figure this will let me take off excess glue by just scraping down to the lacquer, that way I don’t have to risk scraping any of the color out when I clean up the joint. Definitely going to mask off the glue-contact areas to leave them raw though. I also won’t drill the bridge until I have the neck glued, as I don’t trust any measuring/marking I do to locate the studs until that neck is actually in there. Got some bad memories of uh, certain... adjustments... I had to make with previous builds.

Another batch of progress pics from today: Binding taped off for a bit of lacquer to seal it before staining the fingerboard and neck. First time using fingerboard stain, pretty happy with how it came out. I initially had ebony in mind when I started this project but didn’t have any handy, though this stain seemed to do the trick visually at least. Neck came out on the darker side, I may sand it back a bit and hit it with a lighter shade, depends on what the body looks like. Testing colors for the top and headstock. Body binding getting the same sealing coats of lacquer. Honestly the hardest/most frustrating bit of masking I’ve ever done. Seems like it was worth it though! Should have enough time to get the body and top stained tomorrow. Cheers!

Thanks for all the kind words everyone! I can’t tell you how encouraging they are to hear coming from other builders. I’ve been going it alone for quite a while now, and it’s great to find such a welcoming community with similar interests. Komodo: to be fair I definitely use an aluminum block and a flush cut bit for the neck pocket, which is basically the same idea as a template. Seems to me the pickup routes and control cavity don’t have to be that exact since they’re covered up, at least not when I’m just building for myself anyways. Neven: I’m almost sure you must be right! Can’t think of what else it could be. Such a simple thing to mess up, but since this is just for me I won’t mind leaving it as a reminder to myself to never drill those guide holes without depth checking first More progress today: Early neck pocket fit test. Contours marked. Said it before but this is my first time using this Japanese style rasp and for $20 I can’t recommend it enough. Outside of an angle grinder (which is what I should probably be using to hog out this amount of wood) I can’t think of a faster way to tear out shapes. Contours cut. My last build was very conservative as far as shape/contours goes, so I swung all the way in the other direction this time. Heel carved to final shape and test fit. Last three shots are of everything wet down to look for problem areas. This helps me catch stuff I might have missed: rasp marks hiding in the sawdust, dents from clamping, or the blotch of glue at the bookmatch seam near the bottom. Got about 1.5 days off from work still, hoping to get this ready for staining and the first few coats of lacquer by then. All that’s left is about ten million hours of sanding.... my favorite...

Another long day in the garage = another pic dump: Frets filed flush. Hoggin’ out the neck profile. First time with a Japanese style rasp, these things really cut! Another last minute style decision: cutting a diamond into the volute. All shaped up. I’m tempted to inlay something into that diamond, but I’m not sure what. We’ll see. Headstock finally cut to form. This random worm-hole (or whatever it is) showed up while carving, never seen anything like it in wood this hard. Wasn’t showing on either face of the maple, just appeared as I carved. Drilled and filled. Not happy with this, but it’s better than a hole I guess. Frets beveled and ends partly dressed, and partial scallop roughed in. This partial scallop is something I’m doing on a lot of my guitars these days. Mild depth, maybe 1mm or so, fading in gradually from about fret 7, reaching further across the fretboard closer to fret 12 but never all the way across, and receding away toward fret 24. First saw something like this done by Perry Ormsby around 10 years ago when he was still a one-man operation posting his builds on Ultimate Guitar. Not sure if he was the first. Neck nearly ready for glue! Cavities routed. This split appeared while routing, looks like my flush cut but is getting too dull; this will be its last cut. Bled some warm water into the crack before introducing glue to give the glue something to ”follow”, wicking deep into the crack. Works like a charm.

I sure hope so! Not certain, just a picture I figured would go with my username. Get it? Lumberjack...? Axes....? But also, guitar axes.......? I’ll show myself out. Major pic dump from a long day in the garage: Body trued up to 80 grit, controls drilled. Control cavity roughly routed, and a shot of my “method” for cavity cover fitting; I’m not a big template guy (although I know I should be) and cut almost everything free hand, including routes. Pressing aluminum foil over the cavity gives me my shape, as every cavity I cut is unique to the controls and layout I decide on, which changes for most every build. Cover cut And fit Neck cut and trued up Side dots drilled Gluing up the MOP dots. Fretboard radiused to 1000 grit Frets cut and tangs ground off. Stainless steel is a bear to work but I’ve become somewhat addicted to the feel for bends/vibrato, and have found cutting the frets and grinding the tangs to be easiest with a dremel metal cutting wheel with the fret locked in a vice. Let me know if anyone’s got an easier way, I used to try nipping them but wore through tools pretty quickly that way. Sealed the binding with a spritz of lacquer as I’m fairly certain I’ll be darkening the fretboard with Stewmac stain and didn’t want it bleeding into the maple. Frets pressed Current status after a full day of work.

Thanks for the warm welcome fellas! This particular maple top is from Kimball Hardwood's eBay store. They're a relative new-comer it seems, and frankly I have no idea how they're selling their tops as cheaply as they do - I got this bookmatched 0.32" thick top for $40. I don't know if that seems like as crazy a deal to you as it does to me, but they have dozens of listings like this up on eBay all the time. Definitely wish they were around when I was getting started, 12 years ago I could have hardly gotten the faintest ripple in a quarter inch flame maple top for $40.

Hey PG, I’ve been building off and on for about 12 years or so at a very “side-hobby” level and this will be my first foray here on the forum. It’s going to be a straight forward 2-humbucker guitar with 24 frets, pointy horns, and lots of flame maple. Here and the specs, pics of my starting lumber, and the progress so far over the last few days: Specs: - 25.5” scale, 12” radius, set neck - 24 stainless steel frets, slight partial scallop in upper frets, MOP dot inlays - Reverse headstock with maple cap to match body - Hipshot locking tuners, Gotoh tune-o-matic bridge, string-through-body ferrules - Volume, tone, 3-way toggle, individual coil splitting switches for each pickup - Bareknuckle Holy Diver humbuckers - Blue/teal stained top, natural “binding” a la PRS, natural back with neck stained to match, satin lacquer over everything African sapele with a wavy ribbon Big leaf curly maple top Eastern curly maple and ebony 5-piece neck, pau ferro fingerboard Scarf cut, maple cap glued to headstock face, fingerboard cut, slotted, and roughly radiused Top glued, body roughly sawed out. Scarf glued, truss rod routed and installed, headstock roughly cut and drilled, fingerboard glued on and a last minute decision to rip some binding from the curly maple top and use it to bind the fingerboard. Cheers!