willliam_q

I’m not usually a fan of custom designs but those both look great! I do t think I have a preference out the two of them.

True, but on this guitar I don’t want full float, I want dive only. In fact I will likely fit a D Tuna which requires that a floyd can’t float to work properly. I don’t doubt it, in the US the specials are a lot cheaper Stew Mac currently have them for £65 I think this has got me where I need to be. Seems it might be reasonable steel however there is an awful lot of force on knife edges and only hours of use will tell. I have worn knife edges out before on an Ibanez S470 with a licensed Floyd style trem. The experience was awful, and being licensed replacing parts With same fitment would have been Difficult. I sold that guitar for next to nothing on ebay, was a great guitar other than the trem.

I’m not against using a high quality clone, however finding one is difficult. I would have to buy several from several manufacturers and select the best by doing testing. Doing that could make it more cost effective to buy a real Floyd. At least with the Floyd brand name I have a bit of an idea, although obviously not enough to stop me asking the question the key point of my question is really, are the knife edges really important on a top mounted trem that sits flush against the top of the body? i do use the trem a lot, I like 80’s music and play a lot of van halen, who also uses a top mounted trem.

As some of you might be aware I have a penchant for 80’s music and like my super strats. I’m going to make a replica of the Kramer Richie Sambora at some stage (but with 2 humbuckers not 3) and looking at Floyd roses again. So far I have two guitars both with Original Floyd Rose but obviously that comes at a price! I feel like the one on my evh replica was too expensive for a dive only setup. so, my question is, if anyone has any experience with the Floyd Rose Special? It will be top mounted and setup for dive only so I’m kind of thinking I don’t need an expensive Floyd for that. any opinions? I could go Gotoh or Schaller but I like the interchangeable nature of Floyds and the various upgrades available if I wanted to add anything in the future.

I hate it when that happens . It’s my most impatient part of the build but also the most important. The finishing phase is not about hiding your sins, it usually reveals them. It will particularly reveal where you have sanded different grits of paper if you aren’t thorough enough. I’ve also found in the past that if I didn’t seal it well enough before sanding back, wet sanding would seep around join lines and make them visible through opaque paint. Some people might say that to finish a guitar properly takes the same amount of time as it took to actually build it. Puts it into perspective.

Might try that Biz, thanks

I’ve never done a glue on neck before but now that I’ve seen this I know what needs to be considered. I had never thought of that. I just thought position the neck and clamp at the top

Thanks all, I can’t believe I won, I was convinced the green guitar would get it cause it was lovely too. I’m really chuffed with this guitar, haven’t put it down since. I did a 6 hour marathon practice session yesterday and now my hands hurt!! I know I should stop whingeing like a baby. I did an A/B against the EVH 5150 replica and there was no comparison. The SD Custom Custom pickup in the 5150 sounds so weak in comparison to the EMG. Must be the choice of woods but the resonance feels much better, When it’s sitting on my knee I can feel the strings vibrating. Very cool. Whereas the 5150 feels dead...could be the multiple layers of paint and lacquer on that.

@komodo so...advertising does work then you are fortunate that your school would get the materials. When I was at school we had to buy our project materials for technology class. My parents didn’t have any spare cash until their later years so, although I wanted to, I was never able to afford guitar building until a few years later. Some guys made very expensive equipment such as a grass topper for a tractor.

I did a Kramer 5150 hockey stick replica guitar a few years ago. Masking off the stripes naturally creates bumps at the paint lines. I made the mistake of using acrylic lacquer to try to build over the top. It didn’t build too well (Because i thinned it...another mistake) but I think I applied layers too quick and got terrible checking all over the guitar. im considering redoing the guitar, although it looks like a beaten up relic at the moment which has a cool vibe too. Does anyone have a similar experience and or advice as to which lacquer builds best for this purpose? The idea is to sand back with 800 grit to get a perfectly level surface without sanding back to the paint. Heres a pic of it finished but before I went too far and relic’d it it’s worth mentioning that I did achieve a flat sandback but it did fade some of the black stripes a little( top layer of paint)...and then it checked on me

I was looking for this also but didn’t find any videos on the process, I didn’t look too hard though. The Eerie Dess finish looks class

Golden ratio? Please enlighten me.

Arm carve looks good but I agree a sharp edge would look better. how did you make the contour? In my experience hand planes are great at doing contours whether soft or hard and flat.

I’ve used tagboardfx before and find it great. Built 3 pedals with another two in the works.

I agree with you on the arm contour, it would change the look of the guitar. It’s the endless battle of looks vs ergonomics!

Guitar looks great. Do you use tag board or pcb for your pedals? i have a self made aluminium pedal board, but the diy alu pedal boxes ground out on it. I need to put rubber padding on the back of those pedals.

Where do you get your timber@ADFinlayson? Do you order online?

I hate snow, we only get a few days per year but it drags wet into the house and because nobody puts on winter tyres, it only takes one car to get stuck to create a 3 hour tail back.

I wish I had a local hardwood source, I don’t think Northern Ireland has much int the way of hardwood suppliers.

So going on this suggestion that time is not free...because I spent so much of it building then a lot of other stuff didn’t get done. i didn’t cut the grass over winter and am dreading the first seasonal cut now in March because it’s so long i didn’t lift the autumn leaves so now I’m hoping they haven’t stained the tarmac and concrete when I go to lift them on the next dry day available. some necessary DIY hasn’t gotten done and because I spent £800 in total on this, that’s money that didn’t go towards a new bathroom for the house, or paying off credit cards, or replacing the oil boiler that is 35 years old. The garden will now have to wait another year to plant autumn bulbs for spring flowering, something I’ve been meaning to do in the 4 years I’ve lived here! so yes, I get and understand both points. I can’t work overtime as I’m on a salary, any second part time job wouldn’t come close to hourly rate I’m on in my day job so that’s not worth the time, so any time and money spent on this is time and money I can’t work extra to earn...if that makes sense. i do want to track time building though, whilst I don’t want to become professional, I’d like make more and maybe sell one or two For marginal profit as a means of justifying the number of guitars I want to build!

Actually that’s a good point. I forgot to include those. £15 worth of stain from Crimson guitars and danish oil and black paint that I had lying around anyway. yes bling definitely adds up! The next one hopefully won’t be as bad, thinking plain old straight up Strat style.

Yep, costs add up quickly without realising it on consumables. In terms of sources, this was practically an eBay build. I tried to get UK suppliers but some things that wasn’t possible. The inlays are on eBay: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F382536897930 the pickups came from Andertons and the Gotoh hardware from Axesrus. Some tools like files and The MDF board were local from Homebase. i tried tracking my hours but lost count after 50, I reckon that was half way through so could easily be 80 to 100 hrs on this one

The hardware and wood cost ~£616 in total Abalone acrylic backed shark fin inlays £10 walnut and maple Binding strips, with lots to spare £10 2nd hand Original Floyd Rose £85 - more on this one later Flame maple neck blank £32 walnut off cut for accent strips, loads left over for another 2 guitars approx - £12.50 Truss rod £12.30 Stewmac Fret Wire £14.50 5A Flamed Maple top 6mm £40 Gotoh locking nut £23 Gotoh tuners £37.50 side dots £2.50 Limba body wood £60.70 Neck Ferrules £3.75 Neck bolts, selection of different lengths £6 Strap locks £3.90 Battery box £2.05 Pickup Toggle switch £6.50 input jack £4 3 x black metal knobs £9.45 Pickguard screws £2 Fat Brass Trem Block £19.50 Saddle Blocks £5 Floyd turbo trem arm £23 Brass trem claw £11.50 EMG Het Set pickups £179 Whilst the Original Floyd Rose probably worked out a bit cheaper buying it second hand, I do believe it was a false economy. I had bartered the seller down from £150 to £85 and thought I had got a bargain. However, when it arrived the saddle blocks were all broken, with some of the brass saddle retainers missing on the saddles. Being 2nd hand the black saddles had wear and tear scratches through use. The trem arm had a load of paint flaked off and the 2x locking nuts provided were cheap Chinese stuff. Also the steel block was thin and I wanted to change it out. Had I bought new I probably wouldn't have changed anything, but as it was 2nd hand I eventually spent another £80 0dd quid on getting it to where I'm reasonably happy. Total cost £160 with the risk that it was a bad trem and also knowing that to get it perfect another £50-60 would be required to purchase replacement saddles. So, I hope this information is useful. Whilst it seems like an expensive guitar, particularly for DIY, I don't think I would get the same quality buying new unless I went to custom shop prices. Guitars can definitely be made cheaper, one of my previous guitars I think only cost £250 but that particular one could probably have been bettered buying off-the-shelf instead.

I tracked the costs of buying the parts and tools needed for my latest guitar build. Now that I'm finished I thought I'd share it to give anyone thinking about this for the first time a realistic idea of how much it actually costs to build. I'll caveat this a bit as I did already have quite a few tools and supplies, I already had: Drill Press Triton Bobbin Sander Cheap Hand Plane 8" table top band saw Sanding Block Router and selection of 1/4" bits Straight edge Fretting tools such as crowning file Some sandpaper from 800-2000 grit On to the costs. I'll cover the additional tools and supplies first which cost in total ~£185: 6mm Chisel - £5 Random Orbital Sander - £15 Lidl Fret Press attachment and 14" caul (used with drill press) £12.50 18mm MDF for templates £45 Fret bender £27 - ebay 5 sheets each of multiple sandpaper grits from 120 - 400 - £11.50 Fret Rocker - £4 Mini triangular needle files (for frets) £1 Half round and straight cut bastard files and additional Mdf £34 22mm Forstner bit £3.60 long 3mm drill bit (for trem claw screws) £4.85 4 sets of Filters for 3m Mask (I now have loads to spare)- £13 Countersink bits £4.50 Notched Straight Edge £10.15 Hardware and wood costs in the next post

I love the polished fretboard, ebony just shines up so nice