Prostheta

It's not too obvious that you are a big VH fan then, what with riding the vol and tweakables.

Actually, a Tormek counts as a shop tool upgrade too. Having tool sharpening of that quality available makes using chisels a safe and pleasurable experience to use.

Like the Green Monster that I am being denied access to? Phooey.

Hmmm. Let me think that one over....yes, I guess you could term it sexy without sounding like some demented perv. That is, as long as you don't use the "demented perv" emoticon.

It does, however nothing says "boring" like one of these: http://www.vitap.it/...fa-classic.html I use this occasionally. I don't see much use for it in a guitar workshop however. Perhaps for flute makers...hahahaha.... "Quit talking to me! I am boring!"

I normally import these images into CAD and scale them based on the distance from the 12th fret to the nut if the fingerboard is of a known scale and is not compensated. It usually leaves me within a few mm of the actual size which is about 1% accuracy tolerance. Many product shots that appear to be completely "front on" possess a significant degree of distortion so I only use this method to determine the body size roughly and checking accuracy by other knowns such as the width of an EMG or string spacing at the bridge. It is doubtful you will find the exact dimensions of this design unless somebody physically has one in addition to the time to measure it. I would take a (usually less than) 1% tolerance as being better for immediate results so unless you are after a perfect perfect perfect copy, scale away in CAD or Photoshop as mentioned.

Sorry to post so late into this, but you asked very early on about Ebony splintering on a bandsaw. Usually it is fine as RAD pointed out, however if the collar underneath the cut where the blade passes through has a larger than necessary aperture it can sometimes blow out the back of the cut if cutting across the grain. It is easy to solve this by putting a sacrificial backing board under the piece being cut.

Wood stores quite well for many years if you cut it down into guitar shaped pieces and hang your stock on the walls or keep them in cases. Every once in a while remember to take them to bars and clean them. If you have roof rafters that can take the weight, that is a good stopgap place to leave wood and surprise yourself later down the line. ;-) I would just make sure the wood have good airflow around it so DC Ross says, sticking and stacking is best practice.

Now that looks like a fun instrument!

Thing is, since most burls require some kind of filling it is unlikely that the top will be in any state to be stained. Superglue will prevent stain penetrating so unless other stain-friendly fillers are used then staining is right out. Looking good.

Yeah, mismatched or generally "construction material"-looking growth rings are best either being bleached or covered.

I totally agree. Today I resawed a flamed Birch top, thickness sanded them to 8mm jointed and made a perfect bookmatch. I have probably never made such a perfectly aligned and prepped top before in my life. Seriously. Just that one minor step in the grand arc of making an entire instrument really made me want to punch the air and shout "flip yeah!" (or similar...cough) into the air. I just realised that I would probably look like fat Power Ranger if I did that.

Agreed, but therein the difference lies and difficult or not it is a different skills set in many respects or at least it is from my viewpoint of not having built and acoustic....yet....

The motion of fingers on bass produces all kinds of weird attacks and thumps so mounting is important. I anchor on the pickups too...

Nice story. No, my personal issue in this instance (it obviously will vary from instrument to instrument, pickup to pickup) is that I pick so hard that I got a gronk gronk gronk overtone. That's just fingerstyle too, sawing away.

That 12 looks great fun. Never really seen one with a trem before myself though but glad it has been done. I know Brian May had Andrew Guyton make him a double neck Red Special and the 12 on that appears to have a trem although whether it is functional or not I am unsure. Always love seeing Explorers on here. I am helping a fellow student build an Explorer himself soon so I might do one at the same time. Maybe "plain vanilla", maybe something a little crazier.... What's the build remit on this one? Copy of original, however you want to build it or has he made more of a specification?

If I use cheap tuners, I always ensure they are patterned on "standard" tuners like common Gotohs or Schallers. No experience with GFS, etc. however I assume they are relatively standard also.

The perils of Poplar. I presume that you are putting a comparatively hard finish on there to protect the wood after this is finished? I can't easily backtrack through the thread to find this out because my mouse batteries are on charge leaving me having to tab through the page....bleh...

Although late in the process, I would have advised scraping rather than carving. A gooseneck scraper is the ideal tool for working within the concave areas of a carve such as this to cut down high areas. Bondo or equivalent products are good products if used sparingly and for good reason rather than as a rule. Primer coats are also very useful and cheap ways of checking your substrate's curves or flatness. One trick is to lay down a thin mist coat of black primer or even colour coat over the raw wood (hold the can further away than you would usually do) to show low and high spots as you sand the carve. A hard flat sanding block carries this out on the flat areas (of course) whilst a bendier material (such as a school eraser or a cork block) works within the carve as it conforms to the shape. After this you need to lay down a consistent and solid primer coat. Primer is an essential intermediary coat between the substrate and the colour coats. Primer grips to wood and paint grips to primer. Paint does not grip wood well. I would not regard it as optional in any way, shape or form. At the very least, it provides an opaque basecoat to work from. Most importantly it ensures top coat adhesion and makes the final finish durable. Primer provides a barrier between relatively solvent-heavy colour coats and the wood, which would otherwise absorb the solvents instead of letting them dissipate outwards into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, your badly cured paint falls off. I would stop with the paintwork and go back to ensuring that your wood is perfectly even. You can't fix that in the mix later and this is what will cause you to kick yourself more than anything when the build is complete.

Awesome. Although 19mm is pretty wide I might be tempted by that myself. Keep us in the loop on this one!!

One thing I am doing quite specifically with my current build is fitting cheap Wilkinson tuners for the time being, however I know that the mounting pattern is identical to a set I would prefer to fit on there so the option still exists. Might worth bearing in mind should you want to upgrade, or possibly even downgrade if you put good tuners on from the start.

** presses strap button repeatedly ** Gah. Us bassists aren't stupid you know!!

** hunts for warning button ** Sassan frassan rassan...

That shape shouts for a completely round profile like a Warwick Thumb. It will look clubby and awkward else. Beautiful wood choice! Slicing off about 10mm of the top and hollowing the bottom before glueing back up sounds like a good option. Cutting losses will likely make the re-glue obvious so going with this and accenting the line with veneer would add interest. I did this with a build which I messed up years back (the neck was too rubbery). The body was routed hollow within the planned outer radius:

Yes. Hendrix and Clapton are spelt with leading capitals due to them being proper names, Page doesn't have an "i" in it whilst Pete Townsend doesn't have question marks after his surname. You must be thinking of "Therapy?".