David Ivy

So a friend of mine who plays Ukulele, wanted an electric ukulele in the shape of a telecaster. So I obliged by building him exactly what he wanted. One piece Mahogany body and a One piece poplar neck. A 4 pole single coil pickup with one volume and one tone knob. A top loaded 4four string bridge and some economy tuners. I made the neck plate and the control cavity plate out of 1/8 inch aluminum. The side dots and fret marker dots are also mahogany. I finished it with a can of shellac.

Well this guitar has nothing to do with my Simi Hollow body But just wanting to show it off. This is my Original design from the body shape to the stencils work on the paint job. This is a build for a custumer.

@ZekeB Thank you Man, I appreciate it. I wanted to come up wth an original design of my own.

I also made an electric solid body with the same style.

@Bizman62 Thank you for your kind words. I do appreciate it. I am going for a bit of a vintage look. I'm thinking about finishing it with some true oil or maybe some while on polyurethane.

I have glued the body together and Glued a flamed maple veneer on the front and used dyes on it.   Built the neck, shaped it and radioused the fretboard, then installed the frets.

Poplar wood glued and routed to shape. I chose to route 2 sides and glue them together rather than just gluing a top on.  

@Bizman62 ThaThank you sir, appreciate your comments.  I am trying to figure it out.

I decided to try and build a hollow body guitar with my original design.I got the templates cut out so far.  The body blanks cut and glued.           The hardest part was drilling out the  f-hole and filling it to get the shape I wanted.

I with the help of my friend Jody (who builds iron fiences) made the frame work for my harbor freight mighty mite saw for cutting fret slots. We flipped the saw upside down So the blades runs over the fretboard and not dragging the fretboard across the saw blade. I got some ideas from people on YouTube on how to make your own fret slotting jigs. Using a nail as a locating pin and sheet metal with holes drilled on the edge as the fret  slotting jig.

@ADFinlayson I am thinking it is pushing the wood across the blade. I have a friend who is going to try to help me rig a way to use the saw like a radial saw or a mitter saw. To pull the saw across the wood rather than the wood across the blade. Maybe that will keep it from bogging down the blade.

Thanks for your helpful comments.

I am looking to replace a motor in my mini table saw. It is a 4 inch harbor freight mighty mite. I want to use it to cut fret slots faster, but I Boggs down cutting hard wood. I am using a jewelers blade. When I did use it to cut fret slots I had to go back with a hand fret saw to cut them in deeper. Can any one help??? 

Thanks in advance, David Ivy

Nice!

I use stencils on paint jobs on some builds. I have a cricut explore air 2 machine. It plots and cuts images that I design or find on free internet sites.

On 5/28/2021 at 5:17 AM, nakedzen said:

Didn't like the nitro I had previously from a new supplier, gave me tons of spatter. Had to sand back some of it, went back to Boston rattle cans. Worked perfectly.

 

10 coats later. Now to wait two weeks before wet sanding. Can anyone recommend good buff&polish compounds for nitro? I'm guessing any car compounds work just as well?

@mistermikev That's a Nice body you've built! I Really like the colors. The binding is a great frame for your art Sir.

On 3/26/2022 at 11:25 AM, nakedzen said:

Inlay done, neck dyed and shellac'd.

 

Awesome inlays!    I haven't tried anyinlay other than dots.

On 1/24/2022 at 9:31 AM, nakedzen said:

Little progress on the tele. Starting to get the top colored where I want it.

Sanded back the first try:

Getting somewhere:

This top seems to really soak in the dye.

That is some beautiful flame maple and I love the color choices.

And all that dealer offers in maple is soft maple.

I get my poplar from a local lumber yard here in Metairie Louisiana.  They sell mostly to cabinet makers.  I also get my walnut and mahogany from the same dealer.  I have to order hard maple from the internet as no maple is grown in this Reagan of the country.

@Andronico thank you very much.

I just decided on 23, there was no particular reason. I appreciate the feedback.

@Bizman62 I like working with poplar.  it just takes a lot more sanding With higher grits of sandpaper. 400, 500, 600 grit.  One of the new tools I invested in was an angle Grinder , that helps carve countries very quickly. However if you're not careful you can remove too much material. That has not happened to me yet. I take several light passes until I reach the desired curves.

@nakedzen No I used a stencil to get that pattern.

@ScottR.    Thank you so much!  I've been working on trying to build better and faster without making as many mistakes. I have also invested in some new router bits and tools that help with the repetitive parts.

Another friend loved my design and asked if I could build him one.  Of course I can. So another build in the works. A 2 piece poplar body with a hard maple neck with a walnut fretboard. He will be ordering his parts and having them shipped to me as he lives a state away from me.

Once I made my prototype guitar,  I had several friend that said that they wanted one.  I didn't think that I would sell any guitars. One friend wanted a short scale bass but also wanted me to build a guitar for his girlfriend as well. He said can you build your guitar design & make them match. I said, yes I can and did.

They were very excited to get them when they were finished.

I have been busy building my own original design. I built a prototype and some musician friends of mine really liked the look and playability of it. I took thing that I liked from guitars that I play and combined them to make something a little different than I could buy. I used 2 pieces of  poplar for the body blank with a strip of red oak down the middle. The neck was made from mahogany with a piece of walnut for the fretboard. It has a 12 inch radious with 24 & 3/4 scale With medium nickel frets.  A hardtail bridge a set of Grover tuners and a soundfondry humbucker pickup. 1 volume & 1 tone control.