willliam_q

Thanks. I'm pleased with how the string ferrules have come out. The repair currently shows through and plays optical illusions so it's quite hard to know how good it really is. When I paint with a solid colour I should know more.

Last night I did a couple more hours. Got the control cavity routed out. I used my Dremel which I bought over a year ago for the first time. My dad has a cheap dremel copy and it had no torque and was rubbish but the actual Dremel is so much better. I was very surprisd by the power in the wee Dremel. It feels well built and did quite a bit of work without any bother. I needed to use the Dremel to cut the 5 way selector slot.

I had a 38mm steel cutting disc for it but it was too big to cut the 5 way selector switch slot. I ground it down on metal until it was approx 25mm in size. I then used it to cut the slot which has come out brilliantly. Everything fits in the control cavity exactly how I wanted it. I didn't take any pictures this time. I will be carving the contours this evening so might take a few pictures then.

I would say the most frustrating thing about this build is that I can't work on it as much as I would like. I have very little free time in the week and it's really starting to piss me off that I can't work on this more often lol.

On my jackson thread you can see that I fluffed on the string ferrule holes. I filled the holes with scraps of ash and dowels and took another attempt using ReatorationAD's method. There was a Marked improvement!

Ok so on Sunday evening I managed to get an hour or so put into the guitar. I routed the pickup routes and overall I am happy. Unfortunately the router jumped and bit into the side of the humbucker route. Fortunately it won't be seen.

This time I used an old strat trem block to guide a 3mm drill bit to get pretty much perfect front ferrule holes. Problem was my ferrules require 4mm holes. So I flipped the body and used a 3mm guide pin inserted into each front ferrule hole. I used that to guide the drill press with a 4mm bit into the rear of the guitar.

I then flipped the guitar again! and used a 4mm guide pin to drill the 4mm holes in the front body. Once that was done I flipped it again and using the 4mm guide pin I was able to drill using the 8mm bit to fit the ferrules.

I think all this "flipping" may have lead to inaccuracies as on the rear ferrules one or two are slightly wider apart. They are all still on a straight line so I can live with that.

Results below:

I'm very pleased with how it's come out, miles better than before!

Unfortunately when the ferrules are in it really shows up the imperfections. Maybe not so much on the front, more so on the back so i'lllet it slide on this guitar. For future guitars I'll have to invest in some good drill bits.

Looks really good. Now that you've had to go to 6 string will you have to narrow the neck somehow for playability?

I usually layer up the socks in the shed when the weather is cold. Nothing worse than when cold concrete saps the heat through your trainers.

Ok so I finally got over my head cold and did a little bit of work this evening. I've started work on the body at last!

I drilled the post holes for the bridge which came out great! No so happy with the string ferrule holes. The bit I was using had a twist in it which I didn't find out until I'd drilled my 2nd ferrule hole, this meant the hole was slightly off centre . See pics! That's what I get for using cheap drill bits. I'll have to learn to follow advice more often - see Prostheta's advice earlier in this thread!

To be honest I probably need to invest in an amp more suitable for my needs. I play through a 100w laney supergroup all tube amp in a home made 4x12 cab. It's a bit overkill for a bedroom guitarist methinks!

I'm rarely getting the volume past 1 so I'm not even pushing the speakers or the amp. I'm using distortion effects to make the 80s sound that I want.

So I've just admitted that pickups don't really matter too much. Having said that when I connect my emg powered guitar and compare it against my rio grande equipped strat the sound is miles apart on the same amp settings.

I've actually come to prefer my strat with bridge single coil for the 80s sound for some reason. I get a killer Metallica tone for enter sandman from it!

I've been looking at a lot of guitar making videos on youtube recently and came across Crimson Guitars youtube channel. I believe this guy is a luthier genius! He machines his own control knobs and bridges from time to time. He has a Bubinga heavily carved superstrat type guitar on his website at the moment which just looks fantastic.

I've been watching the tutorial videos and find them excellent, worth a look if any of you haven't already seen his stuff. Just be warned, he tends to go off topic quite a bit and has an 'eccentric' way about him so you can quite easily tune out.

Thanks for the suggestions. Had a look last night on dimarzio website. Am thinking dimarzio fast track in neck position, cruiser in middle and tone zone in bridge. I Really like the sound from the tone zone when I listened to the clips and YouTube.

I only really get the chance to work 3 nights a week on this, weekends are out even though I'd love to spend more time on it.

Am now tucked up with a hot whiskey trying to shake off a cold. I am officially the worlds worst patient! I Was gonna go out and do some work on the guitar but I am too tired and ws afraid of making any big mistakes. I'll hope to get at it again tomorrow night.

I'm not at all experienced and have never installed a Floyd nut but I would probably cut it to depth with a fret cutting saw and then chisel the remaining block out, leaving it high as stated and then gradually bring it down to size. With a sharp chisel it should be easy enough. In my mind It would be easier than having to setup a jig for the router and you avoid the risk of the router slipping off balance.

Frets in - Tuners On!

I installed the frets on Monday night, they are now levelled and awaiting crowning. I also took the liberty of smoothing over the fretboard edge for the played in feel and it's worked out pretty good.

The tuners are installed, I used a metal straight rule to align them and screwed them down, I'm very impressed with how straight they've come out.

So far in this build I've made a few minor mistakes most of which I've been able to correct without been seen, I'm very happy with progress and how it's turning out.

That's me finished with the neck for a while. On to the body for the remainder of the week. I'm hoping this bad boy will be ready in time to give as a Christmas pressie to me! My girlfriend is buying me the pickups for Christmas to I need to start my research. I'm definitely going for HSS configuration and will be looking passive pickups. I already have Zakk Wylde set of EMGs in a PRS SE and the sound is ok but I prefer my passive single coils on my Strat at the moment.

Any ideas for a pickup set for an 80's hair metal style guitar? Would like to get a full set for around £150.

Yea I know 6 hours is a bit on the long side, but I enjoyed seeing it come together. I think an angle grinder is a bit extreme considering this was my first real proper neck.

I had a wood rasp but it's cheap and nasty. It left the wood way too rough. It was also very hard to control as it kept jumping off the sharp edges of the as yet unshaped neck.

I could have done more work with the spokeshave. The mistake I made was cutting length ways with it first instead of carving out the neck profile at the headstock and the heel first. Had I done that I would have been able to just join it up from end to end. Instead the spokeshave bottoms out at each end so I wasn't getting a profile to my satisfaction.

I was too impatient to wait for the rasp to arrive in the post as I had set myself a target as to what I was going to get done that day.

The important thing is that I am still enjoying the process and am learning a lot! :-)

I only got working on this Tuesday and Today as on Monday I discovered my car had two cracked alloys at the rear! It's a common fault but the car is 6 years old so no manufacturer will replace them. They are currently getting welded as I don't fancy dropping £700 a wheel on new alloys!

So on Tuesday evening I started carving the neck using a spokeshave and sandpaper. I ordered a round surform online but it didn't arrive on time so I used 120 grit aluminium oxide paper wrapped around a half round file for the curvy bits.

Shaping a neck with 120 grit paper takes a fair bit of time.....about 6 hours total went into this. That was just shaping the back neck profile and shape sanding the volute and final shaping the headstock. I'm very pleased with how this turned out, it'll be a fairly fat neck which I prefer. I have an Ibanez with a wizard 2 neck and it is too thin, no support for chords etc.

Anyway pics below.

Thanks. I have a drill press but the fretboard was slightly pre radiused so I think that may have caused it to wander. I do have brad point drill bits but the 4mm one for fret markers made the holes too small and the 5mm one was way too big. That's why the tuner holes came out perfectly aligned and the fret markers didn't.

Who can change their mind so drastically in a few days. I think your customer doesn't really know what he wants. Either that or he wants a guitar that sounds like every single guitar on the planet incorporated into one! Maybe some coil splitting humbuckers would do the trick?

Thanks for the support so far! I wish I felt like I was in control

Tonight I glued the inlay dots and finished radius sanding the fret board. I think I went overkill polishing to 2000 grit but I enjoyed it and that's the main thing! The fretboard is so smooth now I just wanna string it up and play it!

See if you can spot which inlay dots are off line. There are at least two but they aren't 'that' noticeable, hopefully once the frets are in it shouldn't be too bad.

I really like it. Painting it looks like it could be a project in itself!

I don't think I'd have the patience for painting that, I just stick to solid colours cause I'm lazy! Someday I may just stretch to doing a burst lol.

The headstock is spliced at the head not the neck, and then the wings are glued on so it's made up of three pieces. It will be painted black so I'm not that bothered about it. It's invisible at the back as the headstock is spliced as it joins the neck so there is no unsightly glue line at the back of the neck.

I'm not sure I have this under control at all. I'm just in from the garage. I've drilled the inlay holes but try as hard as I could they didn't work out straight! There's one in particular is very noticeable . The bit I was using didn't have a centre point as such so it was hard to line it up accurately. It didn't help that where my drill press is, it is in poor light. Anyway nothing I can do about it now will just have to work on at it.

I was planning to glue the dots in tonight but only just realised my superglue had dried up as it was so old! Will have to wait for another day. I lost a couple of the MOP dots I had, they rolled onto the floor and were almost invisible against the concrete and wood dust (they're only 4mm). Try as I might I couldn't find one of them. Hence the reason I haven't yet drilled the double dots for the octave markers.

On a positive note I did get the transition done from the headstock to the fretboard. I'm quite pleased with how it's turn out . I've yet to finish radiusing the fretboard so it will come into line when that is done. I've left a little bump so that I can put a truss rod cover up against it.

I have posted a couple of guitar builds in the past. the first one was dire, I freehand routed everything and made a hash of it. It was just about playable.

The second one I posted I made my own templates, got most of the shaping work done, neck built etc but I got a throat infection and forgot about it. When I went back to work on it again I found the cheap mahogany body blank I had shaped to my own design had split right down the middle! It was a one piece body blank and I think the difference in temp / humidity caused the split. Obviously there must have been a weakness in it somewhere.

All of those threads have now been lost in the forum crash so I've decided to start up a new thread for a new project!

I've always liked the look of the Jackson Dinky and I love 80's hair metal bands. Being a bolt on I thought a nice easy project to ease me back in to this guitar building malarky!

This is being done on the cheap being built from guitar spares I’ve had lying around. The only thing I’ve bought is the wood.

Intended guitar specs (although may change over the course of the build):

Alder Body

Maple Neck

Ebony Fretboard

24 frets

HSS pickup configuration

Tune-o-matic bridge

Reverse headstock

My intended finished product should look something like this (I know this is a Jackson Soloist but it’s the closest I could find on Kisekae):

I only really use D'Addario 10's. I haven't really experimented with any other strings, it's just a habit I suppose. I like the D'addarios and as the old saying goes if it's not broke don't fix it! They last forever as well. I had Ernie Ball's at one stage years ago but found they'd break too easy.

I like that inlay, I think it look s pretty funky!

I'm not into Bass guitar in anyway but I really like the figure in that chunk of wood, gorgeous!

Personally it's not my taste, although a black burst might look alright, you might have to stain the mahogany though, maybe go for a tobacco burst type of thing...if thats possible.

I got a bandsaw in Gumtree belfast for £60! bargain. Local ads really can be the best to get decent kit. There is very little specialist guitar making tools that you actually need. The first guitar I built was built using a jigsaw, cheap router, surform and sand paper. I cut the fret slots with a hacksaw. Admittedly it wasn't a very good guitar, but it was playable and only cost me very little to build.

Love the swirl, looks class! Excellent work so far.