Gogzs

That looks pretty damn sweet. 

By the size of the core, I'd say you have plenty of room for error, left/right and up/down. So the bent shouldn't be a problem, one you get it out of the clamps, flatten it again. As far as the headstock joint goes, looks good to me. I personally prefer when the headstock is glued on top, like:

So, method 1, but both work equally good. Just make sure you have all the room you need on the headstock, once it's cut, that's it  

Yeah, one of the reasons why I'm blending in the edges marked with red on the bridge recess is to have it a little bit easier when replacing strings (the string holes are on the bottom) and it will for sure help reaching intonation screws as well

As far as software goes, paint haha

What is this thread... am I Beetlejuice? Say my nickname three times and I get summoned?  Jokes aside, that second body shape that you're committing to, looks really good, godspeed! 

Let's see if anything I'll post here will make sense, it worked for me and if it helps you, then it's even better. My first build wasn't really normal shaped when looked from the sides. The core of my first build came at a bit less than 1.5" (around 38mm if I remember correctly, might have been 36mm even) and then the idea was to get everything not needed, thinned down (that means basically everything where the pickups aren't).

I ran into the same issue like you, my fretboard was around 6.5 mm tall, with frets and everything, I needed the bridge a tiny bit more than 2 mm lower. So here is how my guitar looks from the side:

And now one more pic from top and then I'll explain the thought process behind getting it right how I like it...

Soooo somewhere around the green line, he body starts to get thinner towards the bridge, it's not really a "break angle" but more of a slope towards the bridge (smooth and slow, blends in really nice with all the other curves that are flowing from the core towards the edges, so it's really hard to take a decent picture). Then from the red line I started a much steeper slope towards the edges to get the body thin and ergonomic in that area, specially where the arm is resting. 

What the exact angle is, I have no idea. I knew I had to get 2mm down, so what I did was clamp the body down onto the table edge. The table edge was around the green line, and I stuck a 2mm thick shim I made out of wood under the bridge. When it was clamped down, the area where the bridge is was raised 2mm higher compared to the rails that are parallel with the table, the rails I used to ride the router on to get this done. I didn't take off all 2mm with the router, maybe 1.5-1.6 with the router, rest with the oscillating sander, so I can smoothen out the slope and not have an "edge" around the green line. 

So that's what I did with build nr. one, here is my plan for build nr. 2... 

I plan to recess the bridge into the body, since this one won't be as curvy as the first build, so I can't "hide" the slope towards the bridge within the other curves. And the fretboard on this one is thinner than on the first build, around 5.5mm. So I need to get the bridge around 3.5mm into the body. I don't plan to route out a perfect fitting hole for the bridge, but instead the hole will be a bit longer towards the red lines and I will blend those edges in, while the green edges will stay "sharp" and flush with the bridge.

If you cut the finished guitar into half length wise, this is how it would looks roughly.

Grey is the bridge, black are the "edges" you would see, red is the red marks at the same spot where they are in the picture.

So yeah, that's how I did it in my first build, and what I plan for the second. I'm not really sure this will help you, since in both of my builds I'm doing things the way I'd like to see em done, and the way I feel like suits me the best (both in what I can do tool wise in the building part, and what aesthetically and ergonomically pleases me). 

So much text, and most of it doesn't fit into your 1-2-3-4 choices haha. If I was you I'd go either with 2 or 4, both should be easy to pull off even with basic tools. And if you go with break angle approach, don't calculate the angle, just look at from where you want to start the angle, and where you want it to finish. Mark how much you need to get off where the bridge is, connect all 3 of those markings, and you have a line that tells you what you need to take off. It's a rather low tech no calculus approach, and I like those the most  

Also, welcome to the forums, and best'o'luck  

I was wondering what happened with this. Looks awesome, love the way you do the volute + emblem/medallion/whateveritis embedded into it. 

We're getting somewhere. Just realized I started this thread back in december. Good thing I don't do this for a living  

Really satisfied with how this turned out, a little sanding to get out the "burn" marks around the ends out, but otherwise looks good. Thanks both of you for the advices, in the end I just used a ruler with the router, held it firmly so it doesn't wobble, no jigs otherwise. 

Got the headstock done as well, otherwise not much time this weekend for this build. Hope I get the pickup cavities done this week. Then glue on the fretboard and do the final body contouring.

Following this one, original looks awesome. Godspeed man! 

Damn, absolutely stunning. Love how it looks in the pic with no glare, makes me wonder how it would be if it was satin and not glossy. As for hardware, I'd go gold as well, should look awesome when it's done!

Electronics/battery cavity is done and 1/3 of the olive boards on the backside is now clamped up and I'm waiting for the glue to dry. One of the more tricky build steps is now also completed. Last time I spend 5+ hours on this, I learned my lesson so I made a proper jig for drilling, With rough hand sanding, it took me roughly 50 minutes this time, but insanely happy with the result.

Only thing I'm now missing is the blade switch slot, and I have no damn idea how to get that clean and straight. Will try to figure out tomorrow on some test pieces. Got some ideas but not sure what will work and what won't. If someone knows a fool proof way to get it nice, clean and straight, let me know and I'll let you know if it's really fool proof  

Eh, if we argue in the same direction, one could say that the differences in tone you say to hear between different types of wood could be negated with the EQ knobs on a good amp. And we can get to the conclusion that you can build a guitar out of whatever, and make it sound/sustain as awesome and as long as you want, given the right equipment to plug the guitar in. 

But that's not the point of this whole thread IMHO, and I take what @curtisa is giving us as it arrives. Tonally, I couldn't tell differences between wood types so this gives me confidence in the bamboo build. Sustain wise, interesting results for top load vs. trough body mounting, but not significant enough to make me revisit my first build, nor to change my plans with the second one I'm building now (got plenty of sustain on the first one).

Valuable thread, looking forward for the rest of tests if there will be any (there are some good ideas still in this thread, and we love and appreciate that you basically committed to doing all of them  )

On 5/15/2021 at 4:49 AM, Drak said:

Better you than me,

I'm starting to see what you mean haha... the combination of tricky wood, an overengineered laminated design and lack of time are resulting in this build just not wanting to be built. But I made progress this weekend finally... topside horns are shaped, all olive boards are glued on and trimmed. Next step will be routing the pickup holes (I wanna do that before gluing on the fretboard). I have to thin the body a bit (roughly 2 mm) and then get on with gluing the backside olive. 

But when I see it like this now, I really can't wait for all this to be put together. 

When I do the final contouring, some more purpleheart should surface. Specially where the arm is resting, and a little around the bottom edges. Still thinking if I should do gloss or satin on the top. Did some test pieces, booth look good, gloss maybe a tad better, but satin just feels so nice. 

I think this is the 4th time I'm opening this thread even tho there are no new posts. Hypnotizing quilt, great job so far, can't wait to see it put together.

Now this is interesting, thanks for that, shame it came around the time my top loading bridge for the next build arrived haha. But it's something to keep in mind for future builds!

So if I remember my audio transmission classes well, let's say open E2 frequency is 82.41 Hz. That means we also have the following harmonics: 164.82 Hz, 247.23 Hz, 324.64 Hz etc..

So if I place the pickup exactly at the 24th fret, I will get (if I do a spectral analysis) high peeks at 82.41 and 164.82 Hz, a good bunch of 247.23 Hz and almost none of the 324.64 Hz harmonic (in theory it would be none, but in that theory the pickup would be a dot in space and not an actual pickup). So with me moving away from the 24th fret spot towards the bridge, the more I go towards the bridge the more of the 324.64 Hz harmonic I'll start picking up and less of the fat low frequencies (hence the sharper and not "bluessy" sounds).

So that's the theory, my question was more aimed towards... did someone actually try it in a HSS configuration, how did they like it, and sound comparisons of similar builds (preferably same pickups just 22 vs 24 frets). But yeah, with all the input from this thread, I'm going 24 frets. When it's all done I might make a jig so I'm able to mount the pickup on the top side of the strings and move around, so we can get some audio samples when it's placed above the 24th fret compared to where its final resting place will be  

4 hours ago, Crusader said:

Interesting build, a lot of effort going into this and you seem to have a good attitude!

I noticed earlier you were contemplating whether to have 22, 23 or 24 frets. One of my builds has 23 frets and I find it very confusing while playing, so I'd recommend 22 or 24. In regard to the pickup being on the 2nd octave node I experimented with it extensively and found it does make a difference, but its one of those things that you hear a great difference one day and another you don't. And it seems to have more effect on some guitars than others

I've heard some people get wound up about a neck pickup not being on the node with a 24 fret guitar. My experience is it does make a bit of difference but if you want 24 frets just go with it. Having the pu on the node makes a bit of difference at the open string and the 12th fret, but for the rest of the fretboard its neither here nor there. A few of the guitars I've made have great long channels due to the experiments I did and now I wish I had just left them alone

I have never been able to find a way to explain the 2nd octave node thing in a nutshell but consider this. As you play up the fretboard (regardless of position) the pickup becomes closer to the antinode of the fundamental

Yeah, was looking into 23, but dismissed that idea rather fast. It was between 22 and 24 frets. In the end it'll be 24 frets, neck pickup as close as possible to the fretboard, everything else will be either attributed or blamed on the core made from tonegrass, we will see what direction it goes tone wise  

@Bizman62 yeah, the physics behind strings vibrating is rather fun, here's a good one on that topic: 

Strobe Lights and String - Standing Waves - YouTube

We did something similar in high school, good times.

So I had this idea I'll make the horns wedge shaped before gluing on the top/backside. So then, when it's all glued up and I do the final shape, I get small boomerang like shapes at the tips. So this is how I made the horn:

The side where the red arrow is pointing is obviously slimmer than the side where the blue arrow is pointing... so after gluing on the olive boards and getting it to final shape, it looks roughly like this:

This was rasp + grit 80 sanding... I'll do the final shape with finer grit sanding paper so the "boomerang" part where the purpleheart is coming through should get 10% bigger. So far super happy with how it's coming along, but steaming/bending olive is not fun, even tho it's just 5.5mm thick. Never doing this again, and I still have one more board on the front to do, and all three on the backside. Fun times.

This is the third board for the front side that has to be cut in shape, bent and glued on. Will probably do that today and then from thursday on the backside. Hope by sunday I have everything glued up, trimmed, so I can do final body shape and start putting this thing together the week after.

Still super excited for this, but also exhausted haha.

Found the seymour duncan forum post while researching this, thanks for the other two. Conclusion is, should be good.  

Damn man, looks amazing. Love the subtle burst, didn't even notice at first. Great job!

Some progress. So I managed to plain both sides flat, had some mishaps with the router so it left burnmarks, but that's not an issue since front and back will be plastered in 5mm thick olive.

Drew the outlines and went in, first with the jig saw then router... so the rough shape is now done.

Next steps: get some of the contours in (just lightly, that I can still bend the olive around them), glue the olive boards on top and bottom, get into final shape body wise, glue on fretboard, shape neck etc... happy I'm finally finding time for this build, I'm really excited about this build.

Low e sounds pretty much the same for me, but the high e does get less "trebly" or however you might call that... I need to pull this trough some spectral analysis when I get home, this is rather interesting  I thought it would get more "sharp" the less the scale length is... 

Dope beats, can't wait for the full mixtape. Jokes aside, this is as consistent as it gets, much better than for example Olas' test with the ruler and gravity. Godspeed man!

Gold > Black > no pickups > Cream... that would be my order of preference  another clean smooth build, and I totally agree about keeping it fully natural. 

Turned out so pretty. That fretboard really is something else, awesome job!

One thing that would be interesting to test with this is sustain with different setups eg. string trees behind the nut vs. no string trees, more/less string after the nut (inverted headstock vs. normal) and definitely string stuck to the bridge vs. strings going through body/wood.

Awesome setup, this is as scientific as it gets, looking forward to some results