Prostheta

People have made purpleheart neck-through guitars before today and not regretted it. The weight will be an issue but perhaps not a problem as long as it's not a gigging instrument!

Sorry to continue the logo debate as this is a topic on why threads get locked, but people can make personal instrument with logos all they want but showing them on here and mentioning they are on or have been on sale endangers this board. As for debate - legal teams wouldn't care if we debated the legality of people's instruments using trademarked logos, they would just care about the logos. The debate would just serve to bring attention to this activity and possibly make the board look complicit by association. I agree with admin for taking a cut and dry standpoint on this issue for the sake of the boards legal position. Oh Jalien - the dinosaur thing was a reference to a webcomic which quite cleverly demonstrated that a copy is always going to be a copy no matter how well it's made, and will never be the real thing. http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=883

Oh pshaw! I can never win. I go to all these debate forums and get booted for talking guitars all the time. Maaaaaaaaaan!

Yeah, it's when I started educating everyone using dinosaurs that things got out of control. Seriously though - it's a topic that will always be controversial, and all debating it endlessly to no real gain will result in is well...no gain... There's only one Brent Spiner, man.

hahahaha i love it have u look at the other ones they use the exact same pictures (but not exacly as the others are not orginal)hahahaha.............fun and educational I read it daily Rob (being daily of course!). It's true - very edumacational! As an aside (to mention, not to threadjack) i've contaced Woodycustom as I love your _RS-style instrument. Very nice.

Perry, this is the most metal thing i've heard all week. My hat goes off to you! I'm on the side of "no commercial logos" because it's only a Jackson/Ibanez/whatever design - not a Jackson/Ibanez/whatever. I sure as hell wouldn't put a Fender logo on my Koa/Ash Tele as much as I wouldn't put a Gibson, Gretsch or Taylor logo on it! It's a Fender-designed shape sure, but it's not a Fender (or a Larrivee, Godin, Myka)!! Knock yourself out if it's for personal cosmetic reasons, but if you're trying to sell it - despite acknowledging fully it's not a Jackson - you're still selling an item with trademarked logos and designs! As much as I used to have my teenage desires to own a big name label instrument with ThatName on the headstock, it is equally as cool if not much cooler to own an instrument of the same quality with MyOwn™ name on the headstock. Pride in your work man! It's a fine instrument for sure, but it would look a lot better with your own name or logo on it. To sum up: http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=883 So unless you can duplicate Brent Spiner, I call baloney.

Blend/split the output signal between the effects and an external two-channel mixer. You would have to make your output jack stereo, and use stereo leads for this however. That said - very do-able! Basically, take your "normal" mono output and add a linear pot to your output which sweeps the signal between the two signal lines on a stereo jack (tip, ring) in which case, all you then need is a simple summing mixer and a splitter at the end of your stereo cable which feeds one signal line to the effects, and the other into the mixer. [font="Courier New"] ---> | > ==> EFFECTS ==>| GUITAR SIGNAL --->POT | STEREO JACK |>SUMMING MIXER===> AMP ---> | > ==============>| [/font][/codebox]

Try the rear of the bottom point (back of the guitar using a Strat-style recess plate and socket) or my preferred placement of the back of the top horn about three or four inches from the crotch of the "V" if that is where you pop your rear strap button. Perfect to loop around for security!

There isn't really a huge amount of originality in the design, but it should be a nice (albeit slow) build with the woods etc. Do burled woods sound similar to the "normal" woods? Camphor seems fairly resin-y and I have no idea what it will sound like as a cap. Resin-y makes me think "dark" for some reason.

Update (as much as I can without pics!): I've removed all of the binding and resanded the edges, and hand-sanded them so there will be no more "shaping" work to do from hereonin. I've also cleaned up the binding channels of glue etc. Nice and clean wood. The next step is to wait for this cocobolo binding to come through....the dark look when it's polished up should suit the camphor burl nicely with judicious use of black purfling top and bottom!

Well, great to see you passed the finishing post with a design *you* are happy with as opposed to going with accepted norms or whatever. Fruit for future builds perhaps?

Not to take it off, to spread it in the same direction as the grain - the CA does a good job of wicking itself into the pores and filling em up!

Never tried the Stewmac fillers. CA can be used stabilise soft or punky woods as far as I understand, but the beauty is that it is thin whereas the grainfillers I do have are more like a medium coarse paste and can pull out of the grain during application if you don't time it right. Perhaps this is my technique more than anything. CA goes on thin and can be spread across a wide area using something like (in my case) a Stanley blade or a filler applicator. I believe Wes should be chiming in anytime now.

Tone is subjective, immediacy and convenience in getting that lick out of your head, onto your fingers and into your recording setup however, is not! I appreciate the values of the old Tascam four tracks for getting it done there and then, and the beauty of a plug and play setup. Tone comes later when you record it properly :-D

Most grainfillers, I hate but i've really taken to CA as a filler. Much easier to apply than I expected and fumes aside it's speedy and does the job.

Yes. Let's end the debate now before one of us gets hurt. j/k - never tried one so I have no basis for comparison.

I think that considering the POD as being "obsolete" in a few years is a matter of subjective opinion. Better things might appear, but the POD will still do what it does and if that's what you want it to do then cool! The only thing that irks ME is that in a few years it will have gone down in price radically, and the GAS will try and make me buy the "newer" thingamadoodle that supposedly is the best thing on the cutting edge of modelling tech :-D Similarly to DFH, a POD can create great results for scratch tracks, but you can quickly re-record these in a studio using real amps and getting a better and more workable sound!

I had good results with the flamed Koa after I grainfilled it black Drak (heh). Once i'd sanded it flat again and wire wooled it up, the Koa shone and took an oil coat nicely. I think it looks nice as a contrast between the cream binding and black sides now it's darkened up a little. I'll post a thread on the Tele once i've finished it. I agree that Koa is stupidly easy to work with - very soft and easy to dent though! This is pretty much why I decided to stabilise it a little with a CA grainfill.

That's what I was thinking of trying. Did you rethickness the binding first?

Wow. Good choice. Don't let your friends rip the pee out of you for buying a space alien router though! I can't stress enough how much making thicker templates from thin templates is a good move in the long run. Those masonite template gouge reeeeeal easy once a bit of dust or heat causes your bearing to bind up, and that pretty wood is difficult to put back!

I think i'll go the way of a lot of people, and invest in a couple of Line6 units for guitar and bass, The immediacy of plug and play does help grease the spontaneity somewhat. I hate having to build and configure stuff when i'm itching to thrash one out. But anyway....! I think adding either a couple of desktop PODs or perhaps if i'm feeling flush a couple of POD XT rackmounts would remove the need for lugging my Trace stack to the recording setup every time. Does anyone else use Drumkit From Hell/EZ-Drummer in any way shape or form? They're so much cooler when you start routing the virtual mic outputs via individual channel processing....

A good flat oilstone would work nicely as long as you use a straightedge to see where the high/low points are before attacking the entire board! I prefer my trusty 1" x 2" steel box section with some 320 grit sandpaper taped on. Remember to put some marker pen on your frets to show your progress!

Oh, for templates - if you make a Masonite template, use that as a "master template" to make a thicker 1/2" to 3/4" template which you will actually use. This makes it a lot easier to take off a few mm at a time from the body (don't go hell for leather and take 1" at time unless you want to injure yourself or your work!) plus you can pop on a second bearing to the router bit just in case it binds up and tries to eat your template and workpiece :-D

It will need grain filling. I did my Koa Telecaster with black CA, wire wooled and finally Tru-oiled it. Once it's settled down, I might protect it with some Rustin's plastic coating. I think just a grainfill and you'll be good to go. For what it's worth, Koa seems to like being sanded up to high grits and wooled to a shine.

Well, you didn't *not* build it so ergo - you built it! Just because some of the initial steps were outsourced doesn't come into it.