Prostheta

Primarily, I want to stock up on the usual purpleheart, mahogany, maple, ash, alder, ebony, etc. plus some interesting random veneers for pinstriping. Additionally, the sawmill stocks the following woods (I've removed a few "non-guitar woods" although some may remain) which I'm wanting to bolster my main stock with: ALDER ASH English /European /American / Figured /Olive BLACKWOOD African BOX Castelo/European CEDAR Lebanon CHERRY American /English /European CHESTNUT Sweet CHESTNUT Horse (Burry) COCOBOLO EBONY HICKORY HOLLY HORNBEAM JELUTONG LEADWOOD LEMONWOOD LIGNUM VITAE LIME MAHOGANY Swietenia Macrophylla from Central America (certified sustainable) MAPLE Canadian hard /Birdseye OAK American White / English / European /Brown /Bog /Burry /Quarter sawn/ Rippled /Beams OSAGE Orange PALMIRA Black PEAR Steamed/unsteamed PEQUIA PINK IVORY PLANE Plain/Lacewood PLUM PURPLEHEART ROBINIA (False Acacia) ROSEWOOD Indian /Mexican /Papua New Guinea /Sonokeling SATINWOOD SNAKEWOOD THUYA BURR TULIP North American /English WALNUT American black /English /French /Squares WELLINGTONIA ...now, which other listed woods would work well being incorporated into bass neck, bodies or conversely which ones wouldn't? I primarily want to aim towards making more solidbody basses with neck laminations for overall stability, but I'd like to work with more natural woods as I'm oiling rather than spray finishing. One wood I'd be interested in incorporating is hornbeam for example, given that it is said to have a nice bright hard rock maple sound with huge stiffness. Comparisons between certain woods in certain applications (laminations, fingerboards, bodies etc) would be cool. Lignum Vitae sounds like it would work nicely as a fingerboard wood, being "self-oiling" - any thoughts? I've highlighted the woods I'm really interested in and would love to hear more ideas, feedback and experience regarding their usage. Most of the instruments I'm working on use purpleheart or ebony as neck laminations, although walnut is on the cards for future projects. Any practical differences between English and US walnut in this application? I'm off this Saturday and I'm planning on making a bit of a stockpile :-D I hope this can turn into a good discussion thread on the lesser used woods!

Scorched with a Tru-oil finish perhaps? I loved Slabbefusk's burnt RG, and the Tru-oil I've worked with is awesome for finishes.

One of our guitarists sent me a link to an awesome guitar sculptor. Let me dig out the link....this is very original and spectacular work.... http://www.myspace.com/greyvankuilenburg

Nice work on the carving, shame about some of the cornball subject material though.

In that light, agreed. It seems the stoptail metal I've been working on (and basing my opinion on) is softer as a couple of old wound strings wore through it pretty easily :-D

Personally, if you never play guitars with the same radius as your existing locking nut, I'd suck it and see because you'd be writing it off anyway otherwise. Call it an ideal opportunity to try it! I live to create problems for myself anyway :-D

If the bottoms of the slots aren't flush with the inside floor of the nut then filing will be okay to lower them, although you'll probably have to shim the nut back up slightly anyway to make up for what you've removed. Refer to any veneers you might have hanging around :-D What radius do you have, and what are you aiming for? I produced these templates which should help you get closer to your aim although fine setup tuning is best done by hand: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...c=25269&hl= Is this an existing guitar or one you have in build? Keep us posted!

You won't lose out by trying!

Dude, you ARE completely crazy. So DO IT!! - it'll be awesome to achieve :-D

Umm. Yeah. That would do it. Practical? Nah. You need to buy mechanical gear that *WILL NOT* screw up in the short term. Go Alps!

It's how i'm constructing and also my eight-string. I decided to stick with the design for the eight because i'm doing a purpleheart neck and didn't want the weight imbalance to send the neck floorwards so more weight in the body should help. I can't see the coupling being bad - it seems a case of diminishing returns after a certain point. Bad coupling is bad of course, but good coupling versus very good coupling is much more subjective IMO.

I agree - I wouldn't attempt to build it the way I suggested either in reality although the concept holds. The first set neck joint I made was so tight that the guitar could be lifted easily by the tenon. That said, it wasn't tight to the point of compressing neighbouring wood though! What I was suggesting was a "tight-snug" join with the physical layout and build adding further stability. Admittedly in hindsight, I think the neck bowing in the middle from tension would decrease coupling. Very difficult to maintain a straight tenon and good setup.

<humour:on> I'll reserve judgement on this thread as I believe in using the force and winging it, instead of measuring anything using those "number" things you kids of today are into. :-) Seriously. I love Stewmac and I agree that you pay for the premium service and product convenience. Apart from DHL guaranteeing me an import duty bill, but that's another matter. Certain items from Stewmac get peoples goat I guess, such as the fretwire bender etc. You know it'll work. If you run a guitar repair business, you'll probably save yourself LOTS of time on refret jobs if you do them regularly. The item will therefore pay for itself as the Stewmac site says. I don't think the materials justify the tag, but to some individuals the convenience WOULD justify it. Hell, I never caught Stewmac putting their hand into my wallet whilst I wasn't looking. I think it's my fault I keep buying from them for some reason. Like spendalepsy. Anyway. If Stewmac started to bone small businesses into the ground then I would take umbrage to them, but they offer an honest set of products which do what they say on the tin at prices which keep the company reliable and predictable (and happy to help). Well done to the people who can bent all their frets in under a minute. Well done to those people who can make their own tools to do similar. Hooray! </cynicism> </sarcasm>

So - as we all know - the debate about set-neck, through-neck and bolt-on is always a moot point amongst luthiers, tone nazis and flame trolls. Here's a concept I'd like discussed based on a project of mine. The idea started when I decided to do more in the way of my "set-neck-through" idea of the back half of the neck going through the body, but the top going over full on hence the set idea, and the through idea. Now, imagine that you are not gluing anything and you've put your neck in like so: This is a view from the back of the proposed design showing the tenon half exposed and an arrow I which I can't remember why I drew. Anyhoo. Also imagine you are using a string-through bridge (string tension pulls back of tenon to the body). Points I'd like to raise in comparison to other build designs such as pure neck-throughs, etc: - The tone looks like it would involve the "body wood" much more than the way a neck-through ignores it. Coupling tension from the strings would be added at the saddle point. - By not glueing it, you have wood-to-wood contact at all points (theoretically neck bowing on tension and manufacture tolerance would detract I guess). I hope this raises some intelligent thought and idea throwing.

I agree. Luthiers and most "creative artisans" in general tend to be creative thinkers. Anything from radius routing jigs to bits of masking tape on drill bits as depth stops. Once the free-thought ban comes into place however, we'll all be forced to play Telecasters. People will line up at the rallies to throw their bells and whistles on the fire. :-D Back on topic, here's an idea: If you fashion a piece of wood say, 1/4" thick which the pot screws onto and that the knob can hide, you could possibly secure that wood to the body using small countersunk screws at 45° "fanning outwards" into the guitar body. Even sillier, how about routing a recess for the pot into the body and epoxying a rare earth magnet into the bottom which keeps the pot from falling out? I'm sure pots have a much bigger body footprint than most knobs though.

Let's hope your first lock looks like that Cowboy :-)

I modified it because copying just wouldn't be right. I am actually considering purchasing a real Vampyre but Futon purchasing put pay to that one :-( Anyway - the basic point is there! The top carve is pretty close apart from the horns and the tails near the bridge, and the rear carving is made to my preference :-D

Easy - just cheat. Rout a cavity for a battery box (I use a lot of EMGs) at the bottom of the side of the guitar but rout it a bit deeper and fan it outwards into the body. Drill your pot mounting into this "side cavity" and wire up as normal. Insert battery box and get ready to confuse people. Either that or rout your cavity into the side of a two-piece or three-piece blank bringing the pup wires out roughly where the cavities will go (remembering to mark it out on top) and wire up your electronics before you glue up. You'll never get to service the electronics, but at least you won't get dust ingress if you seal up the wiring holes. Or as Perry says, build a hollowbody :-D

I take a pencil and use a craft knife to remove all the wood from one half of the pencil which means you can run it at 90 degrees to the body with the pencil lead (well, not lead really) tracing the outline on paper underneath as close to the outline as possible. You might gain a mm or so on the outline, but this is much better than losing one after all :-) Another one would be to stand your guitar against a sheet of MDF - both vertical against the ground - and detonating a small nuclear device a few miles away. Bandsawing around the resultant shadow witll get you excellent results. This may - however - affect the finish in the donor guitar. You mileage may vary, natch :-D

Aaaaaaghhh!! Make the photo stop!! It gives me the fear!! I've not done a scarf yet either. Mine are all one-pieces too, especially the five-string project I have on the go. I really have to explore Setch's tutorial further on say, the Dinky build.

Dude, tell me that isn't your headstock glued on, end grain to end grain? It's deceiving in the second pic.

Hammer 'em off :-) Ka-CHUNK!

I would be tempted to use swamp ash or mahogany, but i'd consider something more solid in the neck, like ebony or purpleheart laminates. That said, the laminates would be even more likely to send that headstock of yours floorwards :-D

At a guess I would say RG7631 if it's a trem, RG7630 if not. If it's a JEM I presume it will be marked so on the headstock as these were more premium models. I suspect that if you can't tell what model it is then it'll be one of the "common" RG763x models. How old are we talking here?

Pearloid looks pretty awesome for the price. Vinny, would these cutters/engavers cut out from solid materials or do they just scratch the surface, so to speak?