willliam_q

I’m about to start work on my guitar body In the next few days and am considering slightly recessed control pots, even though it won’t be a carved top. I have a 6mm thick heavily flamed maple top, is there likely to be issues of tear out? Any tips? I will be using a floor standing drill press if that make a difference. Thanks

Thanks for the encouragement, I really like the Kemp Guitars style of super Strat and your build quality is something I’d aspire to someday.

I think my entire build is about how well I can fix mistakes! it’s definitely a good way to learn

Got the Truss rod on eBay, can’t really comment on how reliable it is although I’m pretty sure I’ve another of the same without the spike wheel and it works fine. Turns easy enough both ways so I think it will do the job. Spoke wheel Dual Type guitar Truss Rod 440mm 460mm and 630mm TR13 Diameter is approx 15mm

Disaster Strikes! I was propping up the neck to drill the veneer for the machine heads and the neck fell off the bench! It caught the corner of the neck at the last fret damaging the binding. Only thing for it was to cut the binding back and re-laminate and glue a small piece of maple and walnut. I’m quite happy with the repair but obviously wish it wasn’t there in the first place and then finished off shaping headstock and drilling. All that’s left on the neck is to fit the locking nut and final sand.

I was going to start my own topic on this very subject but you beat me to it! I have the ZAKK WYLDE set (81/85) in a prs se and really like them. In a JCM800 they are definitely not a one trick pony. I can get really good ac/dc tones with a little eq tweaks on the amp. My current build is based on a Jackson Dinky but don’t want to go the 81/85 route again. I’ve been looking at the 57/66 after seeing them on YouTube on the Richie Faulkner Epiphone guitar. I reckon they could give great Classic rock/metal tones. I’m also seriously considering a pair of EMG 89’s for the versatility of the additional single coil and a bit of a thicker sound. The JCM800 is a bit bright and the 89’s could work well with it. The next dilemma I have is whether to get them in black chrome or the basic EMG black plastic finish. I like both!

Like the laminations, this is definitely my style of guitar...

Love that blue and white!

Not my style of guitar personally but I really like the workmanship, particularly the carved logo in the volute!

Thanks all, agreed I really like the walnut fillet myself. Frets pressed in and bevelled. my first time using a fret press, I hammered them in previously. The press (Elmer style drill press attachment) seats the frets much better and with less chance for something to go wrong. So much better then anything I did previously. So much so I have little to no levelling to do. i also added a maple quilt veneer to the headstock but it’s been fighting me a bit. Keeps chipping out at the sharp corners, even with sanding by hand. So I’ve had to patch the chip outs, and will paint a black burst to mask it. Lesson learned, veneers are best applied before any shaping work takes place. I’m a little nervous about re- drilling the tuner holes through the veneer given the issues I’ve had with it. I also received a 1 3/4 plank of limba for the body. Cut to size, hand jointed and glued. Will need to be thicknessed to take the top, which is also glued. I had thought of binding the body but I don’t think I’ll be doing that, think I like the faux scraped binding look.

Yea that’s pretty much what I did, except I use a guide rail and had to measure and allow for the width of the saw each time. What I should have done was take a 1/2” MDF straight cut the width if the saw with a stop guide and clamp it straight at the cut line. Things would have been a fair bit quicker had I done that. That would remove the need for additional measuring and calculations.

Couple of reasons. I’m intending on building more guitars (for myself) but mostly they are the jigs I need to do the job right. The previous jigs I built weren’t good enough or had been thrown out in the house move so had to remake them...or make them better. i haven’t really built a lot of jigs but it feels like I’ve spent a lot of time on them since I only get a few hours per week to work on the project. since I don’t have a table saw the ones I have built have been time consuming. E.g a planer sled for the router and a truss rod routing jig. Also making the guitar templates takes me a bit of time.

Thanks, yes kinda thinking on this style of guitar the stringers won’t look great from the front. I have a curly/quilt maple veneer that I could use but, since the body is relatively heavily flamed straight tiger maple, the quilt might make it look too busy and not match. Also, I have no experience with veneer, if I decide to use it would I have to install binding? the fretboard is already on so binding the headstock might be difficult. ill think about it but I might just go opaque on this one, maybe paint a black headstock face. I want to put my own personalisation on the front so will have to think about how any lettering might work.

I haven’t been on this site, or built a guitar, in years. I’ve finally made the journey back and I’m building a Dinky style guitar and am a few months in to the project by now. I only get to work on this for 2 evening per week (for 1.5 hours each) and the occasions Saturday or Sunday morning. ive gone for something that I think is complicated (to me anyway) as I didn’t want to build a standard strat style guitar to only want to make something fancier later. So whilst it’s difficult it should be something I’m happy and proud of. specs will be: Jackson style Dinky bolt on flamed maple neck with walnut stringers. ebony fretboard, with maple and walnut laminate binding and abalone shark fin inlays flamed maple top and blank limba body floyd rose original in black gotoh tuners emg 56/67 i started by hand planing, and bandsawing out flamed maple blank and gluing up the stringers. I don’t have mechanical planers and jointers so it was all done on a £20 hand plane that is very well setup. I’m very proud of this as I’m not an experienced wood worker. i prepared the fretboard in terms of cut to size, inlays in, binding on. A lot of firsts, I’ve never done inlays or binding before but I'm very happy with the results. Scarf joint cut and joined, another impressive feat, can’t see the join line until the stringers Made a boo boo when cutting truss rod, the router bit fell out gouging a huge chunk deeper than do wanted to go. Time to make a jig. jig built, routed almost all the way through the blank and installed a walnut fillet strip. Rerouted truss rod slot and much happier this time. fretboard on, neck carved and fretboard radiused. Need to install frets and a bit of final sanding to finish the neck Need some help deciding whether to keep the headstock bare or to stain it the same colour that the body will be... a vivid purple stain. progress is slow but so far I’m happy with the results and how I’ve overcome mistakes.

I’ve only built 3 guitars in the last 10 years, only two of which are still in existence. After getting married, buying a house etc I’m finally getting around to my 4th guitar. So far I’m loving every minute. Even when I screw up, I stop work, think about it overnight in bed (all the best inventors used their subconscious to resolve problems) and usually know how to deal with it the next day. I love: having something productive to do in the evenings and weekends after work. working with hand tools, I have a dirt cheap hand plane that I have so much satisfaction using as I spent so long tuning it up. When you get the straight full length curl of maple as it shaves off the blank...no better feeling contrary to others here, I don’t mind sanding but I do change the paper a lot which makes it easier. Costs a bit though. I love seeing everything come together i love screwing up... well not screwing up but using the opportunity to learn how to fix that screwup. e.g. my router bit fell out when routing truss rod slot! I could have cried at the time as it was a lovely curly maple neck blank. I routed it out deeper, put in a fillet of walnut and when carved out at the back of the neck looks like the Fender walnut trussrod strip. Whilst it wasn’t planned I have no regrets, it looks like it was meant to be there. I also love dreaming up new ideas, jigs, thinking of an order of work- making a work plan. I don’t like: very little I don’t like, I’ve only ever painted guitars but finishing with paint can be frustrating. This time I’m going to try Hand staining flamed maple top and finish with oil so hopefully it will work out. I don’t like using power tools too much. Especially routers and circular saws, they are too noisy which breaks the peaceful work when using hand tools. Also they can remove wood way too quick. Anytime I’ve made a mistake, it’s Been with a power tool and it takes 3 times as long to fix it. Any time I make a mistake with a hand tool it’s easy to fix. The power tools I don’t mind using are the Triton bobbin sander and band saw. every new task I come too I think there has to be a better way. Sometimes i feel I spend more time making jigs than actually building. The satisfaction comes when the jugs I’ve built work as designed and give clean and repeatable results. i think there’s a member on this forum has a tag line something along the lines of “building guitars is constantly making mistakes and fixing them until you have a finished product”. As a “newbie” i find that so true!!

Thanks guys. Yea my playing was pants but the sound the guitar makes is great! I love playing it, it feels really natural. The only thing I wish I'd done differently is install a floyd rose instead of the TOM. With pickups like this in the guitar I keep reaching for an imaginary trem arm to go for the obligatory dive bombs only to realise there is none! The next guitar will be of similar spec, I will stick with solid colours as I want to perfect the technique. I need to get a proper gravity fed spray gun with a 14 or smaller nozzle as the paint gun I used is more suited to primer with 18 nozzle. I will also paint in the summer when the paint can harden up properly! Next guitar will hopefully feature Floyd rose and I will attempt binding a fingerboard.

It's Finished!! Finally the journey is complete! I have to say it plays far better than any other guitar I own! the sound is amazing and so versatile. Specs are: standard rock maple neck ebony fret board alder body neck pickup: Dimarzio Fast Track middle pickup: Dimarzio Chopper Bridge pickup: Dimarzio Tone zone Features a coil split push/pull tone control and volume control approx. cost including paint and supplies was around £300 all in so I'm pretty happy. I did make mistakes on this build but I repaired the vast majority of them. The finish is good but could be better, mostly my impatience as the paint is still soft. All in all I love it and will play it for years to come (well until I build the next one) I would like to say a big thanks to all who contribute on this forum, even if you didn't contribute to my thread I've been able to use advice posted in just about every current thread going. Without the advice given here I wouldn't have made half a job of it. I've created a short video to show the different sounds I've gotten from this. My playing is Poo so please look past it! Admin - I'm trying to embed this video but no matter what I do it won't work. Can you help? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXEOyjskVOM

Do you oil your necks or clear coat? The only reason I ask is I can see the grain texture in it.