GGW

Thanks for the tips. I did a search for the article your were refering to soapbarstrat and found one here:

http://www.lespaulforum.com/dano/packing.html

This seems to cover it but I am surprised at using newspaper; I would have thought it would pack down right away. It looks better in the pictures though.

I'm really enjoying the guitars I've made but they're starting to pile up here. I need to free up space and so I'm wanting to eBay off my last guitar with a brand name on it. If I do, how do people pack a solid body guitar for mail/courier? It's in a case, but I would think you would want to pad it within the case itself and then box the case or something. I may be overthinking this, but I have no experience with this and would want it to travel without worry. Any tips are appreciated.

I like using this stuff just because the setup is slow. I found that it stays very workable for a one to two hours. I put it on each surface and leave it for an hour, checking as it goes. Then when you mate the two pieces, you've got good absorption. I wouldn't worry about how prorous a wood may or not be. If you leave it the hour, the wood will absorb any epoxy it can and if not, it's still good. The danger of applying the clamp too soon is that there may be squeeze out and not enough glue. Try not to clamp overly tight as well.

Should work fine to use the DPDT for a SPST. The terminals will look like this on the back:

1. 2.

3. 4.

5. 6.

Terminal 3 switches between 1 and 5 while terminal 4 switches between 2 and 6. All you have to do is wire to #3 and either 1 or 5.

I read somewhere about a "65" rule. Don't spray under 65 degF or over 65% humidity. As I did my own spraying, I found that as the weather got to these limits, problems developed. The humidity one seemed worse. The lacquer developes a white look that may come out but maybe not completely.

Did you make the body? If so, the best way to proceed is to experiement on some of the cutoff pieces. I agree with the other posters; some sort of clear finish like shellac or oil. I've tried staining wood and you never get what you invision. I'm now in the "leave the wood be" side. Don't overlook clear,blond shellac as well, I found the amber stuff to be a bit blochy and hide the grain. That wood looks very nice and you will be surprised how a clear finish will bring it alive.

Slightly off topic, I was in the local guitar shop a while back and the guy was running through the latest stuff, etc. I forget how we got onto it, but at one point he takes a new Les Paul off the rack and shakes it and says "hear that?". I could hear a rattle sound but I said that it must be hardware, I was thinking the pickups in the rings or something. He said that it was actually debris inside the chambers. I thought this was pretty hard to believe, but he said that there had been an info note from Gibson on it. He shook several and they all did it. He said the tops went on without blowing out the wood chips. Does this make any sense?

I used this one from Stew Mac:

Rod Anchor

It is a similar effect and was very easy to get a good fit. You may be able to get it in horizontal but I put it in up and down. I drilled a hole with a forenser bit and put in some epoxy before fit up. Thread the end of the rod, turn the anchor on and peen the end of the rod so it cannot come back out.

If you're trying this on the blank as shown, before the neck carve, it will probably not move at all. I say this because I'm new to this and just did a fillet type and tried a test adjustment as well before the carve and it would not move. I tried again after the carve and it bends very nice. If you have carved, then maybe the glue has adhered to the rod too much. I coated my rod in vaseline and then sheathed it in heatshrink tubing, shrunk with heat to fit tight.

Deft here too. Fortunately, I read this before it got real bad and I've just finished getting it out with rubbing compound.

That laquer was so tempermental in many ways. I'm currently doing one with shellac.

Time for a new stand.

Wow! That's the first I'm hearing of this. I imediately ran over to my less-than-one-year old nito finished guitar sitting on my old stand. Sure enough, it has yellow rubber and when I examine the finish on the bottom of the guitar body, it is marred in two places over the supports. Time for a new stand I guess.

Thanks for bringing that one up!

As a bit of a side bar, is there some sort of contraversy with hangers? I've also got a hanger with black foam which seems to be good, but I read some off comment in another thread which suggested this may have been a flame out in the past or something.

I had a Gibson guitar with an ebony fretboard. It's quite dry up here in the winter, and unless I was very careful with a humidifier and oiling, the fretboard would check; small cracks would open up. I took it in for some routine maintenance to a new tech and he said that the edge of the fret board was not finished and doing so would help to keep the wood from drying out so readily. He finished the edges for me and it was fine after that. I can't vouch for this being the whole solution, but when I started to build, I finish the edges just for this reason.

Well, to stay off topic for a bit with you jmrentis, I was actually a bit surprised at the amount that got me the tag. My sentimental speach would be about my being very grateful for the advice and help I get here. You can see by my post count that I mostly lurk, but I try to give back something relevant when I can. I take a lot of pride in showng people my last guitar build and making it clear that I learned everything off the web. I felt I had gotten something of real value, that I would have been happy to pay for in book form. So I made a donation equal to about the price of two books. I'd encourage everyone else to consider donating the price of a book or two. Better yet, take my tag!

Have a look at the June issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. On page 78 is an article on making an antique furniture finish. The guy uses ........

latex paint and lacquer. The result looks real interesting in the pictures. The relic people may want to see this.

Basically, he brushes on a coat of latex paint and then a coat of lacquer. Next, it get heated with a heat gun until it bubbles. When cooled, he scrapes the bubbles down. Then it gets coated with another complimentary color of latex, more lacquer, heat and scraping. He then wipes on a glaze to get an aged look and then lacqers over it all. As I said, the results are pretty nice and he claims that antique dealers have had a hard time beleiving that it is new. I'd like to see this on a guitar.

On page 84 of the same magazine is an article about a songwriter in Nashville who makes flaminco style guitars.

FYI: cans are only cheaper in the short run. A second-hand compressor and a cheapie Harbour Freight HVLP will save you money after only 4 or 5 guitars, if not sooner, depending on finish. The finish itself is the expensive thing.

To me this is the main decider. I don't do much of this so I've used the cans and they've worked fine for me. The plastic gun pictured above is a good thing to get because it does change the feel of using the cans. They are at most homecentres and I got mine at Walmart. To leave part of a can, turn it upside down and spray until it runs clear. This is one of the advantages of cans; it is quick to setup and stop. No equipment clean up. Either way, be careful of the vapours. if you don't have a ventilated booth, be outside when it is calm. Paint is one thing but if you are using laquer, definately get a filtered mask, even when outside.

This one, in essence was a learning tool.

You're teasing us, right?

Very nice job.

What ever you do, test the glue you get on the binding and wood you're using. I had a plastic binding and it did not adhere to my wood with superglue. Ducco appears to be a brand name and I could not find it here as well. From web sites I found, Ducco seems to be some sort of modelling cement. I looked around and bought a generic type of "household cement" at Walmart (in a blue package). I bought this stuff because down in the caution statements, it listed "acetone" as an ingredient. Apparently you can make a plastic glue by disolving your plastic in acetone, so I reasoned that acetone is good to stick plastic by slightly disolving it. This glue worked great for me, but as I said, do a test first.

Thanks for the all the comments everyone!

"Jamm <I'd call it Teles Paul>"

That's about what I had in mind all right. I combined the things like best about the different styles. That's one of the things that I like about this place; no one thinks it's blasphamy to show a tilt-back headstock on a bolt on neck.

"erikbojerik<How do you like the 89 in the bridge position?>"

The pickup is great but there are issues with output levels. I tend to think of it as having three pickups: neck single, bridge humbucker and bridge single. All three sound great and have totally different characters. The loudest is the bridge humbucker position, the next is the neck, followed by the bridge single. I strictly made this to play at home making recordings so I can easily compensate, but if it was live, I'd always have to be on the volume control. There may be a bit of room for height adjustment but the 89 is both the quietest and loudest so you'd be going in circles. I only put on one volume control so maybe a setup with more than one would sort it out. I've got the switch as a push-pull on the tone control.

"Telenator<Love the headstock inlay!>"

Going by the lore of the old bluesmen from which comes the spirit of all things rock and/or roll, you need to name your guitar after a woman (reverse all for alternate genders). My two young daughters are very acomplished dancers so my logo is a tribute to them. The best gig I've had for a couple of seasons now is composing and recording music for their modern dance shows.

"Desopolis<That lacewood looks very different then the "lacewood" I'm used to seeing.>"

I know what you mean; now. I started getting the parts together a while back and was learning about wood at the same time. I'm in a smaller town in Canada and we have one building supply place that stocks a bit of "exotic wood" on display. I chose between what they had in stock against what I had read. Lacewood had come up as a good guitar wood and they had a nice block of it and cut me off a piece. After I started work, I started to notice other examples of lacewood and they all looked different with the large rays within a more random look that most people would be familiar with. When I looked closer at my piece, I realized that this pattern was there, but it was on the edges. Basically, I appear to have gotten a cut that does not go the more common way. I still like the pattern for what it is though.

For the first guitar kit I made, I bought an Earvana nut and it made a big difference. Open chords have always had a "sour" sound to me and this cleared that up. I can check up the neck and everything is fairly in tune. I say "fairly" because as pointed out, there are still variations in how a note is fretted. Next, I built a guitar from scratch and I carved the nut using a combination of the Earvana nut shape, the http://mimf.com/nutcomp/ site, and my own experiments using a wedged shaped piece of wood. It took a long time, but I carved a nut that gets me in tune all the way along.

I've reasoned it out like this:

First you tune the open string with the tuner; it is in tune. When you fret note 12, it is probably a bit out due to the fact that the string had to stretch a bit to be pushed down to the fret. Next you compensate at the bridge to adjust for the 12th note fretting effect. Now the open note and the 12th fretted note are in tune. The 12th note, however is in the middle of the neck, so it is the one played with the least amount of stretching. The most out of tune note at this point is fret #1, followed by #2 with the effect diminishing rapidly after that. When you play fret #1, you bend the string down to the fret at the sharpest angle and so stretch the string the most. We don't play up to the bridge so that end doen't count. To compensate for this, you move the nut closer to fret #1 to lower the pitch by the amount that fretting the note sharps the pitch. This in turn causes a slight adjustment in the tuning and bridge compensation that averages out the first few frets.

Does this make sense?

Maple is very hard to get to take stain. Try india ink and see if that looks good enough. That's the blackest I've found. I did it to hard ash and it worked but I think Maple is even harder to stain.

Very nice job. I also like the sound hole inlay; is that maple as well? How did you do that?

It appears that you have two missmatched shapes. I thought that the squared off neck pocket was for a tele and the rounded one was for Strat. Your neck has a squared off end but has a Strat headstock. You may have to reshape either the neck end or the pocket, but either will mess up the finish. You may want to consult the luthier.

Three piece laminated maple neck with ebony headplate and MOP inlay

Sperzel tuners

Compensated nut carved from Trem-Nut material

Lacewood top over a chambered white ash back

String through body, ebony bridge with bone saddles

EMG-S and EMG-89 pickups

The ash is colored black with india ink

The lacewood is stained with homemade artist oil colors stain

Lacquer finish from Deft rattle cans

I’ve finally finished my guitar and wanted to show it off. I first did one build of a USACG parts project and learned so much that I thought I may as well do another one from scratch. It may not be up to the standards of some of the builds I see here, but I’m very happy with the guitar. It plays very well and sounds great. The body has four main chambers. I can really hear the chambers acoustically, but less so when plugged in. The sound is bright and clear but woody and fat as well. Just what I wanted, and the sound is still improving.

I had the opportunity to do this because in my town we have an arts center with studios for rent. One studio is a fully equipped wood shop. I enrolled in an open shop class which meant I could do any project and had the instructor there as advisor on wood issues. Most people are making furniture and this was the first time anyone had done this.

I also wanted to especially thank everyone on the Project Guitar discussion forum. I’ve mostly been lurking, using the search function ;-) and enjoying the discussions. I want to thank one member from quite a while back on the subject of neck carving; I don’t remember the name or post title. His point was that to do the whole thing meant carving the neck as well. Get a piece of 2X4 and practice. I was going to get a premade neck, but took his advice and got a cutoff at Home Depot for 99 cents and went out in my backyard with a rasp. A while later I had a bad neck, but the next one was quite good so I got some maple and made the neck as well.

The next one will be even better….., I have some bubinga!

Body Glue Up

Chamber Template

Body Unfinished

Trussrod

Headstock Inlay

Fretting

Body 1

Body 2

Two eagles colliding head on.

Drak is right on this. Use the right ones for the application you want. I can say this from experience.

I bought the flanged ones and thought they'd look nicer recessed. I got the string holes to line up real nice and countersunk for the main part of the ferrules. When I drilled for the flanges, things were just a bit off visually. Maybe they were off to start with but couldn't be seen when appart or maybe the last hole drifted just a bit. I was using new bits in a very good drill press. You have basically no clearance between the flanges at this stage. I bevelled the holes a bit to help visually and did the finish. I masked out the holes, but I found that any finish was now blocking them out. I carved away the finish with an Exacto knife. I put in the ferrules, and when I gave the end one a tap through a piece of dowell, it caught the edge and burst out a piece of finish the size of a quarter. I did a fairly good repair and learned a lot. There may have been a better way to stage the process, but I won't try it that way again.

Your drilling looks very nice and accurate like it is.