Xanthus

It'll take a while, but sandpaper will probably be your best bet for staying on the cheap side of things. I'd take all the hardware and neck off, go outside, throw a mask and goggles on, and start sanding. The goggles and mask are to scare curious neighbors away If you have access to an electric/power sander, it'd help a ton, too.

What a reminder, eh? :-P Neck looks pretty sweet! And I really like that color red stain on the body, too. How was the carving process? That's what I'm looking forward to the most, when I start cutting mine out in a bit.

Here's a suggestion, sparked by your "two-pickups-in-same-cavity" idea that I've wanted to try for a bit. What about having a single-coil sustainer pickup right up against the bridge of a 22-fret neck, then a regular neck humbucker pushed right up against that, and a normally-placed bridge hum. You'd be able to use the sustainer to get a really warm, mellow, sweet note, and the neck pickup would sound as if it were placed against a 24-fret board. I'd love to do this for a guitar project, and wire the 3 pickups to a 3-way switch. Seriously, how many H/H/S setups have you seen?

I really really really want to be like half of the people on this board and just post a curt, one-sentence reply stating simply: Use the search feature. But I won't. http://public.fotki.com/xanthus/misc/bodymasurements.html Rough dimensions. Don't blame me if it's too small for you. Always buy more wood than you need. Measure twice, cut once. Drink your milk. Stay in school.

1) Purchase pickups, whatever you do. You're going to need them :-P I'd personally go with 2 81's. It's a classic combination. The 85 is too bassy for me. Go to Guitar Center or wherever and pick up a guitar with your specified pickups in them. But don't trust the guys who work there. I played a trick on the GC guys one day, picking up a guitar and fully knowing the model of the pickups. I shopped it around to a couple guys, and I got a TON of different answers :-P It was hilarious. 2) http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Routing_..._Templates.html StewMac solves everything. In fact, the meaning of life is StewMac, not 42. 3) I routed mine at 1", but your measurements might be different, depending on string height, carved top, whatev. For best results, follow steps 1 and 2 first. Once you have your pickups, you can measure their depth and figure out how deep you want to route. Keep in mind, a little wiggle room never hurts. I had to hack my cavities with a chisel when fitting my pickups because I didn't have enough wiggle room. Oh yeah, and I also didn't use a template ::EDIT:: Dammit, Greg, my long-winded answer was FAR more humorous than yours

I like it Kindof a strange neck joint, looks like, but if it floats your boat, then that's cool. I'm diggin' the body shape and wood combos, it reminds me of the MM basses, circular "pickguard" and all.

I agree, nothing wrong with adding extra support. You might want to lean towards carbon fiber as well, since you're doing a 7. I don't think I'm going to do carbon fiber on mine, because it's a 3-piece neck, maple and walnut. I'm betting it'll hold up ok. In semi-related news, has anyone thought about or attempted simply eschewing truss rods and going with, say, 3 pieces of carbon fiber in the neck, instead of two? Or are we getting into Parker territory

Man, haven't seen this build in a while. Love the aluminum, keep up the awesome work, and hurry it up, already :D

Know what? I've been wanting to do this, or at least play a guitar with 48 frets, for a while. If anyone wanted to practice and get really skilled at it, I'd love to watch them play You could accompany a sitarist! It'd be cooler than whatever the Beatles did. ::EDIT:: I think you could get similar results, or at least have an easier time going about it, if you made a fretless guitar and marked all 48 frets. Much easier than trying to cram in a ton of fretwire onto the neck.

At the rate custom Variax guitars are going, I wouldn't be surprised if Line6 just started offering just the hardware. Nobody I know keeps the stock body anymore. "for serious luthiers only"

http://www.ibanez.com/forum/forum_posts.as...D=1842&PN=1 Just thought I'd pass along a fantastic build I stumbled over just a few seconds ago. It still blows my mind looking at a guitar without pickups...

Yeah, I was planning on a volute regardless. It's style And good point, I forgot about sanding the fretboard down, which is going to happen. Speaking of frets, LMII sells SS fretwire for much cheaper (well, actually, smaller quantities) than the other site you sent me As scary as everyone says it is, I'm looking forward to fretting a board.

+1 for the electronics/preamp. Also consider pickup placement. I'm a guitar guy, so I don't know the standard length from the bridge bass pickups go, but it's worth a measurement/comparison, at least.

The second pic is more of a departure from the tele design than the first. If you were going the second route, you might want to consider altering the body shape a bit to fit the two horns better. You've already got the sharper lower horn (a bit too sharp, IMO), why not try rounding the butt more to match, like an RG or soloist. I think the rounded upper horn might actually work better with a butt like the Satch model. A little rounded, the top/arm rest area tilted towards the right a bit, kinda like a Fender jazz bass.

Jee-zus, that's pretty thin. I've played JEMs, and it never came off as THAT thin. So we've got 3/4" from the top of the fretboard, minus 1/4" for the fretboard. The actual neck is 1/2" thick. Were I to get a StewMac truss rod, it needs a channel .437" deep. That leaves .063" behind the truss rod?? That's some mighty tight tolerances.....

I came across the same measurements in my web perusal, and was wondering if those measurements are from the top of the fretboard, or just the neck itself? In good ol' American maths, we're looking at .74" and .82" for 19 and 21mm, respectively, which is pretty much the size of the Warmoth "wizard" neck profile. So they match up, I was just wondering if anyone could confirm it for me.

I gotta say, that's a cute smiley face

It's Atlas, he's clearly holding the world on his back. Or a hell-goat. Either/or. Why not both? Emblem of the Devil, the entire world. Incarnation of evil, human life. I'm seeing some parallels. Congrats on the wood, though, and the color on the body looks awesome, even though it's just orange oil. The stain works well with all of the woods you chose.

My explorer is based off the ESP style, so I'm pretty sure it's smaller than a Gibson. http://public.fotki.com/xanthus/misc/bodymasurements.html From the lower horn to the upper fin, I've got 28" At the thinnest width, just under 8" At the most wide, 15.5" Thickness is the standard 1 3/4". Hope it helps

Huzzah! Got the maple and walnut, paid more than I thought I would, but got a ton more than I'll ever need! I see an excuse to make another guitar in the future....... Boards measure: Maple: 1 3/4 x 11 x 44 Walnut: 3/4 x 4 x 80 There's a few imperfections in both of them, but they'll be worked around, with plenty of usable wood to spare. Total cost was $49. The boards should be sanded, cut, and glued tomorrow. One question, though, if anyone has time. Which version of Titebond do most people here prefer? I know there are a lot of incarnations of the brand, and some are better than others. I believe the bottle I have is Titebond II: Son of Titebond. My grandpa builds furniture, so I'm pretty sure what is good enough for him is good enough for me, heh. Also, I've been thinking of keeping as much of the core/neck as possible, when it goes into the body. Meaning, giving the dimensions of the boards, the final neck blank will be around 3 1/4" wide. Significantly wider than the fretboard, but at least I'll be able to get the whole headstock and not have to glue wings on it, hahaha. I'm debating on leaving the wide core since it's heavier, denser wood than the alder body, and will give the build some body weight. So something similar to the Firebird design that Gibson used. Any opinions?

Eastern MA, eh? I just went to Boulter today and picked up stuff for my neck, maple and walnut. http://boulterplywood.com/ I dunno where you live, Eastern MA/RI is kind of a general search area, but if Somerville isn't too far, they'd be worth checking out. ::EDIT:: And yes, my pieces were for a neckthrough, 44" long, on a 20% discount *dance dance*

That's quite a nice shade of blue, the finish is coming out awesome! On a different note, what exactly is "the Rusty Cooley mod?" It's hard to tell from your pictures what exactly was done to the lower cutaway.

Ooooh, sorry I didn't catch that when I read your post. In either case, mango looks so cool! From just a visual standpoint, the product is quite an achievement.

I wouldn't want to fool around with using yourself as part of the guitar circuit... it kinda makes me a bit disconcerted. Why not get a momentary/temporary switch?

I agree, I love the mango, especially with that finish! How was it to work with, can you compare the tone of the guitar to any other woods?