jowilmei

Here is both the neck and body. Both spanish cedar (quartersawn for the neck). I plan on a simple shellac finish with truoil on the neck. 

I am just starting a les paul double cut inspired guitar. It should be noted that the shape is basically the only inspiration, past that it should be a wild ride. I plan on a single pickup set neck with 24 frets. Hopefully it will turn out the way I imagine. I'll be trying some new techniques so I thank you in advance for any help or advice. 

Here are the templates I made so far. I still need to figure out the control cavity template.

The headstock is only a short 4.5 inches, so I'm hoping that means my break angle can be as small as possible because I do not plan on a scarf joint. Rather a graphite reinforcement and generous volute. 

Hello,

I am currently crafting a rather boring S style guitar out of a beautifully grained piece of spanish cedar. I would really like to achieve a sort of trans-gray finish like the one on the Suhr in the picture.

I do not have spray equipment, so I am looking to see if my idea sounds crazy. I want to try to tint Britetone or similar and apply that over an untinted britetone layer, followed by another britetone clear top coat. 

Is this, or something similar possible?

Thank you for the information! I will check around

I am looking to have a strat style guitar finished. Up to this point I have only used "easy" finishes like Truoil and such. I have no interest in buying the equipment required and would rather just pay someone local to do it if possible. 

I'm looking to buy a gift for a friend. He is in need of a gig bag, so I am looking for a high quality, USA made, preferably leather gig bag. Any ideas?

So I've got the neck made with truss rod channel cut. The spoke wheel hole is not the prettiest but it looks clean, unlike my first attempt using a Dremel. 

4 hours ago, ScottR said:

I presume there is going to be a giant pick guard to cover that big ol control cavity....

SR

Yes! haha Although, I haven't yet decided between white or black.

3 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

basswood and sycamore... so pretty and light.  right on.  that's a sick piece of sicamore (see what i did there).  I'm not sure how the mustang part applies here?  

going for it on the neck - noice.  good for you.  you go!

And yes, very light indeed. I actually went super easy on the comfort carves because I am afraid of neck dive.

Just now, mistermikev said:

I'm not sure how the mustang part applies here? 

Oh yeah, I guess I should have mentioned that this will have Mustang electronics. Right down to the funky toggles and out-of-phase combinations. 

Here is the body. I found some old sycamore drawers with awesome figuring on Facebook for $10. Decided to use this drawer bottom as this guitars top. Having tested a piece with India Ink, the grain shows through in a really interesting way that is way cooler than the simple black I had in mind.

On 7/17/2021 at 2:52 PM, jowilmei said:

Having stole this neck off a free plywood s-style from craigslist. I had previously bought a piece of basswood that went unused, so this will be a great use for it. Not really sure what the story is with the drill through on the neck, but I think some extra fret markers will cover it up and give it a unique look.

After giving it some thought, I ditched the idea of reusing this neck. I just know I will never be satisfied with the results. So, I am making my own. Nothing special though, QS maple with birdseye fretboard. 

Is the entire thing rosewood? (neck, body & fretboard)

On 9/9/2021 at 3:35 AM, Bizman62 said:

Slot cutting gear can cost enormous sums unless you go the razor-saw-and-ruler route so if you're only going to build a few guitars in your lifetime they would be a waste of money.

Sometimes it's also easier to inlay the fret markers before radiusing, sometimes after.

I made the mistake of carving the neck before frets and side dots. Definitely will not be repeating that mistake. 

When it come to fret slots, the special tools were what turned me away. Since then, however, I have seen people cut slots with a harbor freight flush cut saw and a squared up block of wood. I guess that gives me some confidence.

11 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

That's an impressive first build!

How much did you build from scratch?

The round bottom looks comfortable!

Thank you! The only thing I didn't do was slot and radius the fretboard. I think my next fretboard will be my own. I wanted the carve to be super comfortable so I went pretty hard with a saw rasp. 

Ash neck with ziricote fretboard

Alder w/ maple top.

BLO and Poly finish.

Having stole this neck off a free plywood s-style from craigslist. I had previously bought a piece of basswood that went unused, so this will be a great use for it. Not really sure what the story is with the drill through on the neck, but I think some extra fret markers will cover it up and give it a unique look.

If I do go the hardtail route, what bridges do you guys recommend? It is hard to navigate these waters because it seems like the cheap knockoff stuff will do just as well as the expensive stuff, because its a simple hardtail bridge.

4 minutes ago, JayT said:

Where does one find that??

I scoured Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp and Craigslist looking for guys who basically made a hobby of milling trees. I was fortunate enough to find a person close by who was liquidating his collection of slabs for very cheap because of an upcoming move. He didn't have exotic stuff, mostly ash, maple and oak, but I as able to get a 23"x60x3" ash slab for ~$40. I was very fortunate to get three neck blanks and a body out of it so far.

6 hours ago, curtisa said:

The more common solutions are to either loosen the trem springs to allow the bridge to tilt forward slightly, or to raise the studs so that the baseplate of the bridge remains parallel to the body top but with some clearance underneath.

I know this is probably the smart solution, but I just don't like the look of it. 

6 hours ago, curtisa said:

Have a look at this article I wrote a number of years ago. It's regarding a recessed Floyd Rose routing template system, but the principles are similar to your requirements for a fully floating non-locking bridge.

I would point out that it's fairly advanced work to create these kinds of templates from scratch; not particularly out of reach for a first time builder, but certainly requiring a good chunk of patience, care and attention. As @Bizman62 suggests, practice on scrap should be considered mandatory.

Most people probably wouldn't go to the extra work of recessing a two-stud bridge to allow for up-pull. The more common solutions are to either loosen the trem springs to allow the bridge to tilt forward slightly, or to raise the studs so that the baseplate of the bridge remains parallel to the body top but with some clearance underneath.

Thank you for the link. That is incredible detail you put into the article. I don't really understand why anything needs to be precisely routed and drilled except for the actual mounting studs, though. Can't all of the cavities be made to fit well without precision templates? I was honestly thinking of using chisels, rasps, and patience to get the work done. 

I am currently attempting my first complete guitar build. It is a EBMM axis style, which I love because of its relatively small size and unique shape. I am currently torn between making it a hardtail or vibrato bridge.

I am thinking that I could create my own routing templates to allow a "flush" mounted bridge that can pull up and down like a Floyd, but with a standard two post nonlocking saddles. Sort of like the VegaTrem but without the $269 price tag. Do you think its worth my time as an amateur?

I don't actually use trems that much, but it would kill me to not have the option. I will definitely be installing a tremel-no if I go the vibrato route.

Thanks, for all the help. I'll be sure to post an update so you all can see the fruits of your input. 

17 minutes ago, Drak said:

Absolutely practice on scrap, I do, to this very day. And I have made hundreds of mistakes I've had to go back and fix, and I hate it as much now as I ever did in the early years. So from those experiences, there is good news for a fallback strategy doing it this way. If you do the method of clearcoating the body, then level-sanding, then applying a shader coat (even if its just an edgeburst) You can always sand back to your clearcoat start point for recovery, you don't have to sand everything back to raw wood. As long as you know how to gently sand back a finish, and shader coats are generally very thin and very light anyway. So its really not that hard to sand it all off and go right back to your clearcoat recovery point. W/o all the work of having to go back to dead-stop zero raw wood again. The basecoat clearcoats are a 'hold space', or a 'page marker', if you follow.

Also, another lesson I've learned the hard way...Once you touch that wood with a cloth dipped in dye, there is rarely an easy recovery point. Sanding a guitar back to raw, clean wood after you've dyed it is never fun or easy, if you get it clean again at all. That is why I still practice on scrap first, I've learned the hard way once I touch that pretty raw wood with dye, there's no 100% recovery, or usually not an easy one.

I certainly do a lot of straight-to-raw-wood dye finishes, I actually prefer them for the right job.

I'm just sure before I touch it with dye that its what I want, no guessing at it, its too much time spent in recovery.

I hate doing that, and I'm super-picky, I never settle for 'just OK'. If it doesn't blow my mind, it gets the axe or it gets fixed.

And I really detest time wasted fixing mistakes.

The goal is to spend more time moving and advancing forward and enjoying the build than time spent in recovery going backwards to fix mistakes. So you take care of that as much as you possibly can on the Front End, by testing on scrap and having fallback points, its all strategy and strategic thinking.

I like the idea of a base clear coat to fall back on. What do you recommend as a clear coat? I was thinking of BLO or tru-oil that I have laying around.