Professor Woozle

Just ordered a Retrovibe toaster pickup for the neck, it's splittable so thinking maybe the 500/250 combo for that one and try 330s for the bridge in the first instance. I'm not starting the build properly until next year, the woods can spend the time in the house settling down but here's a sneak preview of the raw materials - the credit card had a hammering today at a local wood supplier, I suspect the same one @Andyjr1515 uses for ebony tops, and I've got an African blackwood fretboard, partly visible in the last shot.

That inlay is going to look fantastic when finished, a guitar you want to hold the wrong way round all the time. It's also got me thinking, a Beardsley drawing rendered in African Blackwood on Maple would be quite something. Stop thinking, you've got too many projects already!

Glad you got it sorted out, I'd add another moral - with blunt tools, you'll waste less time if you take the time to get them properly sharp, and properly sharpened tools are a pleasure to use! I've got my no.5 plane and flat spokehave in pieces right now while I get the blades to a state I'm happy with, and won't be continuing with my mandolin build or the wood for my intended 8-string Rick bass until then!

The last one has an almost fractal look to it - it'll make for a fine top!

Not had a great deal of time to work on this of late, but a little progress - put the wings on the headstock Started planing down the gluing surfaces for the scarf (and managed to plane the top off a fingernail while doing this!) and discovered that the reason the cut wasn't true is that I hadn't squared the block properly before cutting. I'll correct this with the planing, I'll probably also glue the headstock veneer on, cut to shape and drill the tuner holes before gluing up, probably do the tenon dovetail too. Next job will be to redo the back, I've got some bits on rosewood to cut so that this time, the back is sufficiently wide...

Try African Blackwood sometime, that smells of chocolate.

Thanks for the replies everyone, sounds like I need to experiment a bit - maybe put connectors on the pickups, then build a couple of different sets that can be swapped out to compare sounds. The day of starting is drawing closer, I've just got a bit of rock maple for the neck from a local supplier and he also had a couple of slabs of black walnut in the remainder bin - £20 for the two and I'm fairly confident I can work around them to make the side slabs, and possibly the centre strip too with a bit of careful cutting.

I'm edging towards starting my 8-string Rick build and have been looking up details of the electronics. The plans I've got say they use 330K pots but this turned up on a search - http://www.rickenbacker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5047 I'd welcome some opinions from the electronics experts on here about what's been said in that thread - is it worth me spending the extra to get 330k pots, or should I instead just get good quality 250k and 500k as suggested in that thread? I've already got a Retrovibe bridge pickup, and the photos I've got of an 8-string show it's got a toaster in the neck position, though I was wondering about some sort of humbucker there - one of Lemmy's Rickenbackers was modded to have Gibson T-bird pickup in that position.

Imprisoned for all enternity in the front of a classy guitar? That makes me think of an old AC/DC classic...

Looking forward to seeing this one progress!

Spot tack welds around the whole piece holding it in position and stopping it moving when the main weld is done is the way I was taught to do it.I guess that would be easy to do when putting a front or back onto the sides with spots of weld say, every 5cm. Forgot to mention, a guitarist I used to know had a fantastic LP - style resonator guitar (Beltona was the make, IIRC) which was chromed bell brass.

Stainless welding isn't too different from mild steel, slightly different gas mix is needed for MIG or TIG welding IIRC. I've done both in my time and if you've got a steady hand, stainless TIG welds can be pretty neat, especially on a corner. The real issue with welding stainless is cleaning the weld area afterwards so that the oxide coat reforms properly - you can do it by sanding but if bits of grit remain they can interrupt the reformed oxide coat and allow corrosion to start, I've seen this on architectural stainless steel fittings. The recommended way to sort it is by cleaning with phosphoric acid. However, you could leave the welds as they are and treat the oxide colouring around the weld as a feature; lacquer over the black oxide on the weld to stop it going brown as it absorbs water.

One non-guitar project I forgot to mention is recasing one of my amps, a Trace Elliot TA100R which currently has a rather tired looking plywood case. I want to redo it in solid timber (oak, mahogany or yew) but challenge myself and do hidden dovetail joints on the corners.

That purple finish is stunning - looking forward to the video so I can see how you got that shade!

Sounds like that's the way for me to go when I get round the build. I was also considering using carbon fibre rather than steel for the neck reinforcement on my mandolin build, so I probably will.

That's something I have been turning over in my mind. I watched a vid on Youtube of someone who owns a 4008 playing and talking about it and he said it tended to flex around the heel, which got me wondering if the standard Rick twin truss rods weren't giving enough stiffening. If so, maybe I should go for a single truss rod with two CF reinforcements either side going all the way to the neck pickup cavity.

I've got a whole load of things I'd like to build myself, when I've got some of the current pile of projects finished! First up, I've got designs on building myself an 8-string Rickenbacker (already got a lot of the hardware for it) and a LP-style, but through-neck (again, got some of the hardware and wood). For the former, I'm probably going to have to machine myself a bridge but I do have a good MT2 pillar drill with cross-slide vice to do this Swirling around in the list of other possibles are, in no particular order: A strat - got an interesting figured bit of ash for a body and a nice birdseye maple fingerboard that would do for this A 12-string baritone acoustic - I already have one of these but it has some issues I'm still trying to correct, and in the wood stash there's a back and sides of Amazon rosewood and a soundboard blank of red cedar set aside for this. A tele with a stone body - yes, you heard that right, like any good mad professor I get the urge to do crazy experiments... I have a slab of the fine-grained limestone known as Ashford black marble in the garage and a set of diamond core-cutters, I expect some serious weight relief would be necessary on this one. A twin-neck guitar/cittern - I got given a gnarly yew stump several years back and the bits I've cut off the outside have been very pretty. Taking a slab across the widest point would give a single-piece body, hopefully with some really great figure. Hoping to get round to cutting later this year and finding out!

Yes, the pun was intended! At this point, for the benefit of non-Brits on here I should mention that half-cut is a slang term for drunk...

Yes, "Father Ted" was an absolute classic comedy, and such a shame Dermot Morgan's untimely death made sure there never would be any more. It's my intention to turn into Father Jack in my old age, spend my days propped up in a chair with a plentiful supply of whisky, swearing loudly at inappropriate times!

How about a half-cut?

Sometimes, you just want to channel your inner Father Jack and shout rude words very loudly... I've just realised I put the wrong strip of rosewood in the centre of the back and it's too narrow! Guess I'll have to take it apart again and redo with the correct, slightly wider strip but at least I know the string and wedge approach gives a decent joint. I have however dealt with the wormholes, a little filing dust and glue has gone in and hopefully won't be too obvious.

Brazilian Rosewood is pretty scarce these days, having been on the CITES list for a long time, so the prices being asked reflect that. How about using another member of the Dalbergia family that's less pricey, like Cocobolo?

Progress report on this one... first off, in making the laminate neck I found that the tabletop I'd been sold as rosewood wasn't after all, on sawing into it I found it was mahogany. Oh well, I can still make use of it. I also over-thinned it in places when planing down, but fortunately the most obvious edge gap will end up under the headstock veneer: I made a simple guide for cutting the scarf to 15 degrees, some blocks glued to a bit of ply. Sharpened up the tenon saw, which is probably twice as old as I am but a good quality Sheffield-made one. On with the cut... Not a perfect result, looks like it didn't stay completely vertical and there's a little tear-out on the bottom edge but planing will fettle the first one and I think the torn bit will be coming off in shaping, so OK for a novice I reckon! I've also glued the back pieces together, and gone for a low-tech approach. I'll take the string off tomorrow and see how well the glue's stuck but hopefully the wedges have upped the tension to a sufficient level. The blocks holding the backpieces level have had waxed paper sellotaped on to them to stop them sticking to the rosewood. Finally, here's one I did earlier - the headstock veneer glued up with the central strip and marked out, pilot holes for the tuners drilled by hand with a pin vice. Unfortuately, I found there were a couple of worm holes, I think one will likely be under a tuner bushing but I'll sand a little off one of the edges and mix it with glue for a filler.

My practice amp is an Orange Micro Terror, and I have the same problem with my beloved Shadow P2 - the active EQ5 pickup in the old girl has so much punch, it's difficult to get the tube not to overdrive!

I guess that'll be hard to see once the fret's in place, if it's visible at all?