hooglebug

bolted the neck on for the first time today. a nice tight fit with no creaks or any movement. which is good. it just needs a bit of tidying up and then it'll be ready for spraying and i can concentrate on getting the body finished. heres a few pics full frontal (hehe) full back

bugger. well, i know for next time anyway. iv got most of it off by wetting and scraping. it still needs more but its working. heres a few pics of the neck, still cant really see the colour properly but o well oh, and the tapes there to stop me scraping too much off pic 2 pic 3 pic 4 pic 5 pic 6

iv stained the neck. it doesnt look so great in this picture - its missing all the subtle yellows greens and reds that are in it, and wet (as it will look when finished) it looks pretty damn sexy the only problem is the clean edge on the wave - a lot of stain has seeped under the tape and its a bugger to get off. any tips?

i rough shaped the neck today. and the pickups came today too, but, instead of being black with chrome/nickel pole pieces, as the bareknuckle website shows them, they're all black. so iv ordered some nickel pole pieces. iv rough shaped the headstock too. it also has a wave to echo the body, with the 3rd string going underneath the wave - acting as a string tree. hopefully this will work. anyway, heres some crappy camera phone pics. body close up (it will have chrome pu surrounds) headstock headstock showing wave 12th fret inlay - this is done with flash pearl and blue pearl mica flakes mixed with glue

heres some better pictures of it

ok, so i know everyone said black but, well...thats boring and i want to do something different. also, as iv never done a stained flame top before, i want to play and do something cool. and to that end, i was messing around with some stains today, and inadvertanly came up with the one im going to do it. its the one on the left, and it looks like a draker version of the prs abalone stain. you cant really see it in this picture, and it doesnt have any top coat on it so it will pop out even more, but there are subtle greens and yellows in there too.

i was 15, had been playing guitar for about 6 months, had little woodwork skills and had only ever picked up one electric when i made my first guitar. yeah its not the best, but its playable, it sounds ok and with some work it could be quite a good little guitar. but i dont want to work on it, cos its my first, and i like it like that. just go for it

im way ahead of you with the bridge! and i was also looking at q-parts knobs. and yes, they are expensive. though they are cheaper here - link

hehe im a trend setter!! woo! oh and i dont think i put this on my thread, but i changed the pickups a while ago - a kent armstrong p100 and a fender enforcer in the bridge. they sound soooooooo much better. the acoustic sound is fantastic now too. in short, i want its babies

ok, so i won a pair of bare knuckle miracle man pickups on ebay for this guitar, and they have a black cover with chrome pole pieces, so iv decided to do a prs chrome/gold type thing, but with black/chrome hardware. so now the question is, what colour to stain the top that will go well with the hardware? and also, natural flame maple neck, or coloured to match the top? opinions? suggestions?

cleaned up the top today. its gonna be a bugger sanding the inside edge of the wave, but o well. tomorrow im gonna start concentrating on the neck for a while. heres some pics of the damp top cleaned up. pic 1 pic 2

so i stole it from a thief? hehe. well, nothings really totally original anymore is it. i had thoughts about a single cutaway version of this guitar last night too. maybe that'll be the next one. it is a wood sanding disk, its just a bit worn out. today i installed the truss rod and graphite rods and glued the fretboard on, and also did the belly contour. lots of sanding tomorrow me thinks. oh, and having already almost cut my finger tip off, i know have very little flesh left on the knuckle of my left hand having gotten a little too close to the grinder. o dear. i'll have nothing left by the time i've finished!

i have no idea what it was. but i think it was pretty well used. o well, it did the trick. it'll come out easily enough with sanding

its cos i cheated and used an angle grinder to do it. shhh dont tell anyone theres a few little bits i'll have to finish off with chisels tho, and lots of sanding

rough carved the top today. i started off using chisels, then a few hours in having not got very far, suddenly remembered reading about people using small angle grinders to do top carves. so i did that instead. hehe. i'll have to finish it off with chisels tomorrow, then lots of sanding. but its coming along. top carve 1 top carve 2

heres the beginnings of the top carve. ok, so iv only routed the wave and the edges, but hey its a start

i got the wood for the neck and fingerboard - and got a great deal! i got it from david dyke like the last one. they usually send out rough cut strat or tele shapes, depending what you want. but i asked if there was anyway i could have a wider blank as i was doing a 3-a-side. he said it would cost the same so i paid up and what i got was a piece of wood wide enough (with some careful cutting) for two necks. bargain! the ebony for the fingerboard is very stripey, but it still looks pretty cool. i may keep it like it is or i may stain it black. i'll just have to see. after this post im going out to route for the neck, pickups and control cavity, then i can start thinking about the top carving. anyway, heres some pics to show how thick the top is the dark bit on the lower bout is the edge of the maple (it just wasnt quite wide enough), but i think i can get away with doing a mini strat type arm contour EDIT: todays work full length

yeah, it looks that way. i guess i'll just have to experiment. also, has anyone ever used mica flakes to colour epoxy for inlays?

does anyone know (or hazard a guess) at how this is done? i might do this on my current build, if i knew how. any ideas? abalone prs colour

cut out the body base and rough cut the maple top. tomorrow im going to take 6 or 7mm from the base and route out some chambers so it doesnt weigh quite so much! heres a piccy anyway

haha it does! yeah im going for the first one.

got the maple top today. im just having a break from cutting out the body. i'll post some pics when i've cleaned it up a bit. anyway, heres the top (camera phone so not great quality)

well, today iv bought the maple top from ebay, so its going to get started soon. can anyone recommend any good stains? and would i need to protect the stained top with sanding sealer or something else before spraying it? i'll probably use acrylic to finish it EDIT: heres a couple of logos. im liking the one on the left better. this would be the twelth fret inlay, with the 'af' in white pearl and the background swirl a bit darker. the headstock logo would be the same but smaller and (maybe) without the background swirl

i was thinking about how expensive it would be to do a 4+2 headstock, as id have to buy two sets of tuners. so i was fiddling about with a 3 a-side and came up with this. the wave mirrors the body and i kinda like this one

ooo good idea. if ihadnt stolen it off someone else and if you hadnt suggested it id patent it! hehe